That night, Edna Poppy and Mrs. Virgie Parsons, two elderly neighbors, come to Lou Ann’s house for dinner and to watch Mattie, who is scheduled to appear on TV. Esperanza and Estevan also come over. On television, Mattie talks about human rights, the United Nations, the concept of asylum, and the violence visited upon immigrants who are forced to return to their countries of origin. Edna and Virgie do not understand Mattie’s remarks, and neither does Taylor.
Mrs. Parsons assumes that Turtle is Esperanza and Estevan’s child, and calls her a naked wild Indian. Estevan, who works washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant, has brought chopsticks to eat dinner with, but Mrs. Parsons turns up her nose at them. She goes on to remark that immigrants should “stay put in their own dirt” and not take American jobs. Turtle tries to put a piece of pineapple in her mouth with her chopsticks, but cannot. To make her feel better and to chasten Mrs. Parsons, Estevan tells a story.
“This is a South American, wild Indian story about heaven and hell.” […]
“If you go to visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a
pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering,” he looked extra hard at Mrs. Parsons, “but they cannot get a bite of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?”
[…] They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said, looking again at Virgie. He was enjoying this.
“Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all […] perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?”
He pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird.
[The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver]
