Skip to Main Content

Summer/Fall 2015

Serving Tea to God

 

by Marina Favila

1

            Martha knew early on that she’d never get to heaven, not a dead man’s chance in hell. So she began inviting God to tea on Tuesday, a standing invitation on a low-trespass day—after the terrible angst of Monday, with its quick fall from Sabbath grace but before the rousing intent of a Thursday or Friday, when weekend plans for sin and riot began to rise in earnest.

            Martha timed her invitation to the minute. Too early, and God might think her presumptuous, though he probably didn’t sleep much, being God and all. Too late, and she might look insincere. After all, she would want his full attention, and who could compete with vesper prayers at the local St. Mike’s, not to mention the fervid anxiety rising like smoke at the Baptist Singles Barbecue? Martha settled on 2:00pm.

            But let’s be clear: Martha did not expect God to show up. Her careful planning was a gesture of respect, a way to pay homage to the god who made her but would not invite her into His heaven. No hard feelings, really. Martha believed in the substance of style, and being, now, not one of the elect, why, style was all she had. A way, she thought, to stand on her own as she trod the many bridges she’d built away from the Almighty. A comfort she neither understood nor questioned.

            Style is inherited. Martha knew that, for she had been carefully taught by her mother, her grandmother, her great aunt Sis, how to set a table, craft a menu, design a place card, arrange flowers and fruit bowls and favors, and create that general sense of ease and comfort found in the best of homes. Nothing to do with money, just the proper care taken by a good hostess happy to wed function and beauty. Look at her table: Indian teak, polished to a fault and pulled up close to the window seat. The afternoon light set the gold of the grain on fire, and the open window let in pleasing hints of mint and sage from Martha’s garden. A usable fireplace, lit in the parlor, banished the chill from the lingering winter, and the warmth added cheer to the room.

            But the aesthetic of a high tea was also important, and Martha took pains there as well: a sheer white scarf lay draped over pearl-gray lace, and a vase of bluebells decorated the center. Her china was plain, exceedingly so, but blinding white in the light of the sun, and edged in thin-lined silver. If you leaned in close, you could see a minuscule star poised on the lip of each delicate cup, and three tiny stars on the platter. Antique pewter spoons and forks were wrapped in linen napkins and tied with a single twist of silk. And in the background, barely discernible, Cole Porter ballads played so low the melodies seemed to hang in the air like a whiff of perfume or some vivid, happy memory its listeners couldn’t place.

            And the tea? Lest God doubt her earnestness, Martha set out a spread for a king. In the first year, she favored China Black, piped up hot in a copper kettle, humming on the stove and ready to pour, always, it seemed, on the verge of whistling, but never quite reaching that piercing wail. By the second year, she was more adventurous: raspberry-honey or passion fruit chai, with little dishes of lemon and peach slices, placed on the sideboard for taste and for scent. Regardless of her chosen tea, served hot or cold, with milk or sugar, Martha always added a platter of homemade baked goods, its quality and variety such to make any baker blush with envy. Cookies, muffins, Bundt cakes, tea cakes, cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, and iced macaroons came out of her kitchen at record speed; and no season passed without at least one serving of her great aunt Teenie’s Scottish shortbread, slathered with caramel and dark chocolate bits. She even toyed with offering sandwiches, diagonally cut with the crusts removed—cucumber and cream cheese on white, chicken salad with pickle on rye—but she feared God would think she presumed too much. Tea was one thing; brunch quite another. Martha wouldn’t get to heaven, but she was anything but rude.

            Besides, Martha liked God, appreciated the many gifts he shared on a regular basis, the quiet dignities and second chances offered on holidays, birthdays, and funerals. She thanked him for her health, for a good head on her shoulders, and even for the cups of tea she’d serve him, if ever he decided to come. But most of all, she praised his morning, the pale yellow of it, with the sun stealing up over the mountain, lighting the meadows in her backyard, and her neighbor’s backyard, and his neighbor’s backyard, all the way to the riverbed, dry now, yes, but in spring the Shenandoah would roar down the mountain and overwhelm that sandy pit with a rush of icy-cold importance. And Martha loved that too, for she could hear the waters ushering in April from her back porch swing.

            So you see, she really did want God to enjoy his time with her, even if he wasn’t coming and even if he didn’t want her in his heaven. An invitation to tea was all there was between them. She would make the most of it.

            And after 2,184 high tea preparations, at the age of eighty-two, gray-streaked and wrinkled, though beautifully coiffed and dressed in a new linen jumper, with a white collar and a simple pearl broach, Martha answered the front door of her little white bungalow on the last Tuesday in March, in the Year of Our Lord, 2015, at 2:00pm.

            “Welcome, uh, welcome . . .” Martha wasn’t sure what to call God, but she recognized him immediately, in the way you recognize the natural leader in a group of boys on the playground, or the president, out and about shaking hands, kissing babies, or the prince of some Mediterranean principality, greeting his subjects in a long-line parade. Not by how they look, no, never by how they look, not their height or their hair or even how they dress: that’s not how you know who’s in charge, not how she knew who stood before her. It’s how they move through their world, how He moved, now, right through her open door: a marked fluidity; quiet, light-lit assurance; grace. But Martha, in all her many daydreams of having tea with God, had not expected the large German shepherd that quietly padded into her kitchen that afternoon.

 

2

            “Would you . . . would you like to sit down?” Martha gestured feebly towards her dining room chairs, delicate and straight-back, with embroidered green satin seats and cutout violin backings. They weren’t real antiques, but Louis XIV copies from Pier One, beautiful all the same, and Martha had saved the good part of two months’ salary for them.

            The shepherd looked around, taking in the room with a knowing glance: the beautifully set table, the low, flickering fire, the soft Persian rug in gold and rose set before an ivory-white couch, overstuffed and inviting, a cashmere pashmina with plum-colored tassels draped over one arm. He circled the room once, carefully, slowly, then circled it again, then circled the rug in the middle of the room, once, twice, three times, as if to catch his own glorious upraised tail before settling down on the carpet’s plush center of yellow roses.

            “Tea?”

            The shepherd’s head lifted, just a bit, then a quiet, almost imperceptible bob. His eyes were chocolate brown, gold and green-flecked, and there was an intelligence there, shining, and perhaps a touch of melancholy. Martha, usually afraid of dogs, felt a calmness and awe sweep over her. God was here. Her hostess mode clicked in.

            “Of course, of course, you want tea; what am I thinking? Or perhaps something more refreshing?” She scurried to the refrigerator, where she kept a pitcher of water with slices of lime and cherry. Reaching for a teacup she realized how ridiculous that seemed. Her eyes lighted on a deep-red, cut-glass punch bowl, a retirement present from colleagues at the Tarryville Library—well-happy to be rid of her, she knew, all of them, even her boss. Her fastidiousness, her insistence on detail and procedure, had irritated them to no end. But she had not hated them, had even admitted she no longer fit into their generation of eBooks and book nooks and kindles and shared computer files, but she hated that bowl, its gilt edge and eighteen matching goblets mocked the fact that she never had occasion to use it. And they knew that, they knew when they chose it, for it was well known at work she was a fabulous hostess without any guests.

            But now how perfect, the proper chalice for a lord! It was heavy too, and would not easily overturn. She happily rushed to fill it with the citrus-touched water and a handful of shaved ice. Martha carefully placed the bowl at the shepherd’s feet. She was still a bit afraid of him, but his eyes were kind and, she thought, grateful, as he thirstily lapped up what she had to offer.

            When he was finished, the shepherd stretched out on the rug, his body massive, muscular, his coat thick and well cared for, and more velvety than the carpet he lay on. When he yawned, Martha could see the triangular snap of his powerful jaws, with teeth as sharp as a saw, Martha thought, as sharp as his tongue was soft and wet. He drooled a bit, stretched again, then settled into a half-sitting, half-laying position. God looked tired, but he stared back at his hostess with alert attention. He seemed to be waiting for her to begin.

 

3

            “My name is Martha . . . oh, I guess you know that already.”

            “I’ve invited you here—I’ve been inviting you here for a long time now. I’m not complaining. I know you have many things to tend to. I didn’t really think you’d come. But I’m glad you did. I’m honored that you’re here.”

            “I guess I just thought it would be nice to meet and talk, you know, given our situation?”

            Martha waited to see if God had anything to add. He did not.

            “I wanted to say that I’ve appreciated everything you gave me. My parents were supportive. My sister, kind; she shared all of her dolls and all of her books. My education was certainly good enough, and the master’s degree too, really, more than enough. I’ve always been able to support myself, and to buy, with a bit of saving, everything I wanted.” She gestured proudly around her living room and kitchen, which sparkled with care and color. “But, as you well know, I’m missing something, some . . . gene of empathy, some ability to care for other people.”

            Again, she waited. The dog was silent, like a sphinx.

            “I do the right things. Believe me, I do. I follow all the rules, obey laws, fulfill society’s expectations, my family’s expectations, like a champ. I chose a profession where order is imperative. In that sense, I’m like you. I brought order to the chaos of hundreds of mindless people, just sauntering into the library as if they had nowhere to go. Browsing, they called it, picking up books they had no intention to read, laying them down, here, there. I twice found a book in a restroom stall! Or worse: they put them back on the shelf in the wrong order, or on the wrong shelf, or in the wrong room. But I dutifully picked them up, all of them, every single one of them, and put them away, and I never said a mean word to anyone.”

            “And when I wasn’t doing that, I was cataloguing new books, so they never could be lost, or repairing old books, books torn by thoughtless patrons, ear-marked and spine-bent, or erasing silly comments made in pencil and pen, or cleaning the grime of sweat and years of dust that settled on their covers and smeared their pages, the imprint of dirty hands and sticky fingers, children’s sticky fingers!—their pudgy little digits smudging up gorgeous picture books with Tootsie Roll Pop and Nestlé Crunch stains. Of course, homeless people were the worse; they stink, for one, and the lounge chairs always needed vacuumed after they left. And when a blind person came in, oh my god, with their service dogs panting and slobbering, brushing up against chair legs and pushing their wet noses into magazine racks, well, I might as well have left the vacuum running all day.”

            Martha paused, recognizing her faux pas. She cleared her throat. Do I try to explain, apologize, cover up, or rush on? What would Dear Abby do, what would Martha Stewart advise?

            “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you’ve made imperfect creatures.” Good, Martha, good, generalize the mistake; that’ll cover it up. “Cleanliness is next to godliness?” Martha sighed. “I only meant that I did try to care for the world you gave me. I just don’t seem to care for the people in it.”

            “Yes, yes, I get that that is the problem, the unforgivable sin. I’m not a stupid woman. I understand that people are worth more than the things around them. But I can’t seem to change. I don’t desire it.” Martha shifted her glance. “Isn’t there some part of heaven where a person can live quietly alone, say, on the edge of Elysium, one street over, in a little condo with a private bath and a view of the mountains or meadows in the distance?”

            The German shepherd popped up on the balls of his feet, stretched and yawned, then padded through her door with more grace and dignity than one might imagine from a large-bodied dog. Martha took that as an unqualified “no.” The screen door swung quietly shut behind him, and Martha got up, went to her closet, and pulled out her Hoover WindTunnel self-propelled upright vacuum cleaner. But there were no hairs to remove from the expensive plush Persian, not even from the raised patch of roses in the middle. God apparently did not shed.

 

4

            Martha’s second visit from God was even stranger, perhaps because she wasn’t expecting his return. They had left things unsettled. She had made a request, surprising even herself, for she hadn’t a clue such a query would rush from her mouth, and as soon as she met him, for god’s sake. Nor did she expect his quick and obvious rebuff. But oh, how embarrassing and such an un-hostess-like thing to do. And it didn’t make sense. She had come to terms with the idea of not going to heaven years ago.

            So when God returned the following day, she wasn’t sure whether to let him in or not. What more was there to say?

            The soft repeated thud on the front door from the German shepherd’s tail did not seem to herald a godlike entrance. Surely a choir of angels was in order, or a trumpet or harp or at least some bell-ringing. Martha opened the door halfway and was awed again by his majestic stance. His ears up and pointed, his black and gold muzzle reaching well above her waist. The shepherd’s eyes held hers with serious intent.

            “I’m afraid I haven’t prepared anything, God. It’s Wednesday.”

            The shepherd nosed past her—not a bullying move, though he was a big dog, just pushing past in a way that made it clear he wanted to come in. He was panting a bit, too, perhaps due to the heat of the day, for the end of March in this part of the country could be terribly humid, and spring was well on its way.

            Circling the living room, the shepherd stopped once to sniff the oven, where Martha had blueberry tarts crisping, three quarters of the way done. Then he returned to his favorite spot on the Persian roses, as if he had lived there all of his life.

            “I suppose I could get you more water,” Martha said with a sigh, though she knew, she just knew, by his longing glance, he was hoping for a tart, maybe two. And she’d only put three in the oven.

            The two stared at one another, a long stare. God could stare down anyone, Martha thought.

 

5

            “Two, no more!” Martha pulled out the hot steaming tarts with a quilted mitt, fat blueberries bulging through the interlaced crust, crunchy with Crisco and liberally brushed with melted butter. “No one ever cooks with both,” Martha murmured to herself.

            The smell was overwhelming and filled the room with a vanilla sweetness as powerful as the Eucharist. Martha blushed at the thought, hoping God wasn’t listening to such blasphemy. She looked furtively behind her, where the shepherd paced back and forth, crowding her in the kitchen, as she placed the tarts, one by one, on the cooling rack above. No, no, his mind was only for the tarts; she was sure of it. Martha searched the cupboards for some appropriate dish.

            Five minutes later, both were seated in Martha’s living room: she, on her white sofa, with a blueberry tart on a Wedgewood plate, the two startling colors, berry and thistle, deepened by mounds of glistening whipped cream; and he, on his roses, lapping up chunks of blueberry mush in a make-do aluminum mixing bowl. Sugar crystals dusted his handsome black beard. Martha felt, rather than heard, the companionable hum of his heavy breathing as the shepherd slurped up the afternoon treat. Seconds later he looked up, and Martha felt that too. The German shepherd seemed startled to have finished before his hostess.

            “Forgive me for saying this, God, but I believe you were hungry!”

            Without thinking, Martha broke off a chunk of her tart and offered it to her guest. The dog popped up with a great bounding hop to gobble the tart from her hand. Martha laughed as he licked her fingers to get every last drizzle of berry juice and cream, and Martha patted his head, and then patted him down . . . to the floor, that is. Really, it wouldn’t pay to have even God slobber on her ivory couch. So she was doubly pleased when he made no protest, but contentedly settled in a heap on the floor, his large black head resting on both of her feet.

            Martha finished her tart without talking or thinking. Nat King Cole’s “From This Moment On” played softly on her antique turntable, or was that a memory? Her head fell backwards on the embroidered pillows of her overstuffed couch, and she slipped into a peaceful nap. When she awoke, God was gone.

 

6

            Martha marveled at the thought of these heavenly visits each and every day. The pattern had been set, and the shepherd never deviated. At some point—morning, noon, or night—he would arrive, his wagging tail or friendly nose knocking at her door. And Martha would open it wide for God to bound in.

            And it didn’t take long before she started to plan different types of “teas.” Teas that required a whole new slew of ingredients. Even her shopping patterns changed. Baking tins and rolling pins were pushed back in the cupboard. Frying pans, soup pots, and large casserole dishes were purchased, along with a new set of knives. Martha negotiated special cuts of meat at the gourmet butcher shop on Edgerly and Vine. She read cookbooks, watched cooking shows, and cut out recipes from women’s magazines. She even did research on the dreaded Internet to find out what German shepherds liked or needed or required, for surely God could not live by blueberry tarts alone. And she bought hamburger meat and holiday hams and whole chickens, which she deboned herself, and fresh sausages, locally stuffed, and now and again a huge T-bone steak to give God a bone to gnaw on. And at T.J.Maxx she found an enormous porcelain platter with hand-painted angels swirling around the edges—made in Italy, too, home of the Pope!—on which she served old-fashioned meatloaf and chicken Francaise and pork roast with plum sauce and steak tartare. And now, always, the beloved cut-glass punch bowl was set by the fireplace, filled to the brim with lime or lemon-laced water, ice cubes added for a last minute chill. And God devoured it all, everything she cooked, licking up the plates, lapping up the citrus water, and never spilling a drop, or not a drop that Martha noticed. God, it turned out, was the consummate guest, and if he ever did leave a morsel dribble from his sharp-toothed mouth, why, he must have licked it up in a flash, or swept it up in his powerful tail to carry it off when he left. Martha’s house was always as clean after God’s visits as it was before.

            And soon the two were not just sharing meals, but taking long walks. In the morning, they would stay close to home, wandering the streets of the neighborhood as the sun came up over the mountain and lit her valley with a warm yellow glow. And Martha would gather ideas on how to redo her patio or plant her spring garden or shingle her roof, and God would follow the scents of various squirrels and rabbits, splash in and out of rain puddles and lawn sprinklers, and chomp, then spit out, dandelion weeds and rose thorns, which always made Martha laugh.

            And on late afternoons, God would hurry Martha down to the park, through the playground and around the dog trails, and over the old wooden bridge. And the two would carefully cross those haphazard logs over the rushing Shenandoah, always stopping midway, where God would jump into the river with a swanlike dive and chase fishes and frogs, while Martha sunned herself or read until dusk. Once they went walking at night, up a rarely used trail on the Blue Ridge Line, where a meadow of unsurpassed beauty was hidden in a circle of pines. It’s a cloister, Martha gasped, of giant raggedy spears, and only the light of the stars can penetrate such darkness. Their brilliance was almost painful on that moonless night, and Martha’s eyes watered considerably.

            It wasn’t long before Martha began to long for these visits, to depend on them, plan for them, and she liked to think God did too. And why wouldn’t he? It must be so tiring to be God, she thought, people always making a mess of the world and expecting Him to clean it up, to tidy up the chaos of their mindless wanderings and bring some meaning or order, or illusion of order, to their curiously vapid lives, and demanding things, always praying and pleading for them, bargaining, begging for them. Knock and the door will be opened, ask and you shall receive—that’s the verse they hold on to. Asking, asking, all of the time, for things to make their life better or brighter or easier, as if God didn’t have things of his own to attend to. “Even I,” Martha stammered, “even I had to ask for a place on the edge of heaven, with a private bath and a view of the mountains, where I didn’t have to care for anyone but myself.” Maybe God wanted that too.

            Then one day the visits stopped. God no longer came to her little white bungalow, to eat in her kitchen or rest on her Persian roses. Martha grieved for years.

 

7

            Before Martha died she dreamt that God came to her one evening. As always his coat was thick and shiny, his ears pointed and alert, and he motioned with his head for her to get up and follow him. And in her dream, Martha tried to tell him, patiently, but clearly, that she could not go because she was much older now, and dying. And Martha knew then, too, even in her dream, that she would not enter heaven, and she refused to ask, after all these years, from her dear, dear friend, this boon of a place on the side of his home, with a private bath and a view of the world, where she could live by herself alone.

            But the shepherd refused to take no for an answer, and he pulled at the sash of her robe with his teeth, and Martha found, in her dream, that she could get up, and she could walk, and her arthritis was gone, and the cramps in her legs were gone, even her breathing was easier, in and out, in and out, as even as the wind stealing in through her bedroom blinds. And Martha dreamt that she followed God outside, down her neighborhood streets and into the park, up and over the old log bridge, with sure steps now, not even a stumble, skipping over the Shenandoah River that rushed and thrashed beneath them, the sound of its furious water a great whoosh in her ears.

            And then Martha dreamed they were back in the meadow, fir-scented and freshened by rain. The night was so black in that circle of pines, and the stars so bright, pulsing on high, that the contrast of night and the light, and the distance between them, seemed to blind her. Martha stumbled to her knees, and to steady herself reached out for God, and buried her face in his soft thick fur.

Georgia Southern University  |  University Libraries  |  Contact Us