Gods Go Begging by Alfredo Vea Page B

pantyhose to cover the panties. Then one of the sisters would remove a limp, lacy bra from a brown bag and lovingly relate the tale of Persephone’s adolescent fear that her breasts would never grow. Laughter would rise up from the mortuary at midnight as they recounted Persephone’s subsequent, anguished prayers that her swelling breasts not grow any larger.
    “Mon Dieu, she was so all-fired worried about her titties, about becoming as top-heavy as Mama! Remember back when I had my breast removed? Remember what she did? ”
    All three sisters laughed the only laughter of the night that was not pierced by poignancy.
    “She read somewhere about some crazy doctor over in Baton Rouge who did a mastectomy on a lady and removed the wrong breast. Well, Persephone got so fired up about it that she ran into my hospital room that evening before my operation, pulled down my gown in front of God and company, and with a felt-tipped pen wrote a sentence on my good breast!”
    “Leave this one alone!” screamed the three sisters in unison.
    As the laughter diminished, the oldest sister opened a brown bag, then stood to let the cloth and thread in her hands fall down to its full length.
    “She bought this dear dress when she found out she was pregnant. I had never seen her so happy.”
    Together, they lifted her arms and upper body and pulled the maternity dress down until the fit was perfect. A small pillow was then placed on her abdomen beneath the pantyhose. She would lie for eternity in her second trimester. One sister saw to the matching shoes and handbag while the other three worked on the makeup. She would have her favorite French perfume and her favorite lipstick and rouge. Her lips would be as red as pomegranate.
    “I am applying thick, colored putty to her chin,” the sister would tearfully chant, “so that her poor pores will have absolutely no way to breathe. I’m daubing on slashes of rouge here and here to add emphasis to the high cheekbones she never had.”
    Her precious earrings, bought by her husband while on leave in Thailand, would be hung from her lobes. One sister would lovingly brush dark mascara onto Persephone’s lashes while another squeezed a lash curler over each closed, unmoving eye. A pair of small, pink toe shoes was placed in her hand to further hide the cuts. Persephone had broken her mother’s heart by quitting ballet. As they washed and combed her hair, none of them would ever mention the dark bullet hole hidden beneath her locks.
    When Persephone was ready, they would move on to Mai, a sister they had never met. The three had gone to the Amazon Luncheonette and collected Persephone’s belongings. One of the sisters had found the beautiful red aó daì hanging in the closet along with silk slippers and panties. They would lift Mai’s body and dress her in the aó daì .
    “Have you ever seen such beautiful skin?”
    “Have you ever seen such hair?”
    “Do you think that she and Persephone… well, you know?” asked one sister sheepishly.
    “I sure as hell hope they did,” spat out another sister. “Men ain’t nothing but grief and trouble.”
    In soft, dancing candlelight they would pass the earliest morning in tale after tale of childhood and youth and courtship. None would feel the chill or the dark or the orange warmth of a waking sun.
    “Wasn’t Persephone’s husband so handsome! Si beau! That Creole boy had such a smile. Now, there was a real ladies’ man. I didn’t think she would ever trap that boy. Didn’t they make such a beautiful couple?”
    “He should have come back from Vietnam after that first tour, and stayed home with her, where he belonged. What on earth was it about that godforsaken war that made him keep going back? Why do men keep going off to fight?”
    “It was that war that took them both. It was that war that took Mai and her man. As I live and breathe, it was that war.”
    Each sister would alternately giggle, then sob, then sigh. At daybreak the