with Mourning, but what? Filmore had been home when Olivia arrived and
hadn’t gone anywhere since then, except to return Beauty to Emery Meyers. So
what had he needed the horse for? Then she remembered. That first day – was it
only two days ago? – she’d been unconscious for Lord knows how long. That
was when he’d done it – waited until she was safely captive and then gone to do
whatever he did to Mourning. Made sure Mourning wouldn’t come looking for
her. Yes, that was the only explanation. Mourning had been fine that day,
working out in the farm. She imagined him hearing a rider approaching, looking
up and seeing it was Filmore, taking off his hat and coming to greet him with a
smile. Then what?
Iola looked exhausted when she brought Olivia’s books with her supper. “I
need something for my feet,” Olivia said, the only words either of them spoke.
“At least a pair of socks.”
When Iola came back for the tray and to empty the chamber pot she
wordlessly placed some woolen socks on the bed and a pair of house slippers on
the floor.
When they came the next morning, Iola said to Filmore, “I don’t think we
need to bother with the ropes today.”
She was right. Olivia lay lifeless while he violated her, though she did
whisper in his ear, “You know you’ll burn in hell for this.”
“It’s God’s will,” he slurred.
“You’re sick. Both of you. You’ll go to prison.”
“No, we won’t,” he said. “No one will believe you. We go to church and you
don’t.”
It was like talking to a child who wasn’t right in the head and she gave up.
Iola kept her nose in the Bible, pretending not to hear. When it was over, she brought Olivia another clean dress and laid it on the bed.
Every time they came into the barn he seemed to smell worse. Olivia stopped
thinking of him as a human being. He was a wild animal. While he was on her,
she turned her face to the wall and counted. Once it took only up to ten; once as
high as eighty-four.
“What did you do to Mourning?” she asked every day.
The response was always the same: “What makes you fret so much over that
ignorant nigger?”
Every day, after they left, Olivia cleaned up and then sat by the door reading.
When she lost control of her thoughts and they threatened to destroy her resolve, she repeated over and over: They are wild beasts. This will not last forever. I will survive. This is not my fault. I will make them pay. The thought that helped most to keep her strong was: Mourning needs my help.
Filmore began to whisper things in her ear while he was raping her: “You like
this, don’t you? Not like Iola.” Or “Ain’t doing God’s will fun?” On the seventh
day, he rose up off her, leaned back, and howled: “Woman is the gate of the devil
– the path of wickedness – the sting of the serpent.” Then he half-fell off the bed
and staggered out.
