Fire in beulah, p.30
Fire in Beulah, page 30
Graceful walked fast in the cold moonlight, almost running, except that her gait was too controlled. The night was frosty and she wore neither sweater nor jacket, but the heat inside her and the swiftness of her stride allowed that she was sweating by the time she reached South Carson, and still she didn’t know what she would do. She’d be fired, of course, for walking off without permission from the job the Dedmeyers had hired her out to do. No matter. She was not going to stay in this place anyway, where that white devil would come around. If it had taken a moment for Althea to recognize her own blood-kin, Graceful had known him instantly. Her body had known, in fact, before her mind fully owned it: hatred swept her at sight of him, a hot, wretched, flaming surge, like a flashfire in her chest, searing her instantly from cheek to groin. She’d whirled away, not in fear, but to give vent to the horrific might of her own hate, her scalding rage, her helplessness before all that she felt, seeing that painted, choked, harlequinesque mask.
When she turned off the rustling, oak-canopied street, she fancied she saw him lurking in the dark on a neighbor’s side porch. She hurried over the flagstones at the side of the garden, her breath pinched tight, and she was gasping by the time she slammed the bolt shut inside the house; she moved through the dark house and slipped into the tiny maid’s room, where, without reaching up to pull the light cord, she sat down on the bed, panting, and tried to think.
Again and again her mind returned to the painted corpse with the noose around its neck, as one revisits in horror and fascination an old nightmare. It was now, for the first time, that she thought clearly of T.J., and she understood finally what the workers in the kitchen had known at once. Whites had lynched a whiteman in this town, they would a hundred times rather lynch a Negro, as they’d lynched Everett Candler, as they would lynch T.J. if they could ever get hold of him. She had to try to send word to T.J., she ought to warn T.J.!
Although she was already sweating, Graceful went warmer, flushed with an old, familiar shame. She had abandoned her brother in the filth and dark inside the army tent. Hedgemon Jackson, too, had left him, had followed Graceful to Tulsa, and so that was also her fault. Half the evenings of the world Hedgemon Jackson would be standing in the alley behind the Dedmeyers’ house, waiting to talk to her, and sometimes she’d go meet him, just to have someone to talk with, someone to tell her how things were in Greenwood. Didn’t Hedgemon say T.J. was going to come back to Greenwood? And if Graceful asked, When? Hedgemon would say, I don’t know, soon as that lynch talk die down. But the lynch talk would not die down. Hadn’t the white devil declared that to the world? And anyhow, what would T.J. do in Greenwood? He couldn’t go home to Mama’s. He’d better not go to Mama’s. I’ll go up to Greenwood in the morning, tell Mama to tell Delroy to tell T.J.: don’t come home. At once she was ripped with longing for the yellow house on North Elgin, for her sisters’ complaining voices and Willie’s broad grin, and for her Mama, just to see Mama, to be with Mama, just to go home. Her hand touched her belly. The old feeling of powerlessness came on her, caught by the forces inside and outside herself that had so little to do with her own will. In the morning, she said, but she knew she would not go.
A muted sound, the scrape of chair wood on tile in the kitchen, stopped her round of thoughts, stopped her heart. She sat breathless, listening for the intruder, but then she heard another sound: human, wounded, like whimpering, although it was not quite that. She got up and went to see.
The woman sat at the little wooden table in the dim light of the kitchen, the tulle-and-lace ballgown foaming around her as she pressed her face into her open hands. If the whimpering sound had been coming from her, she was quiet now, though her back and shoulders shuddered with spasms. Graceful didn’t speak, for she was sure to receive the long spew of complaint and blame, and she knew she would not bear it, not one more time, not another ugly word; she turned to go back to her room, but the woman jumped up, crying out, “Oh, there you are! Thank God!”
Graceful turned to stare down the expected tirade, but what she found was an expression as mystifying as Mr. Dedmeyer’s face through the hotel window: a look of gladness on the woman’s face, of gratitude almost, and the look stopped Graceful completely, turned her still and cold with suspicion.
Althea rushed on as if nothing had happened, no lynched man, no rebellion on Graceful’s part by having walked off the job; as if it were perfectly normal for the two of them to be standing facing one another at midnight in the lightless kitchen. “I was looking all over, my God, I looked everywhere, how’d you get here so fast? I practically ran. Well? Come, come, come upstairs and help me get out of these things, Lord, what a time I had getting into this garb, it takes a strong hand to cinch a corset properly, naturally a lady can’t do it by herself, that’s why in the old days they had— Oh, well …” And she began laughing. “You should have seen Mr. Dedmeyer, God, he’s no help, the man is all thumbs, completely, just a nincompoop when it comes to ladies’ unmentionables, as any man is, or should be, but I lost something, I dropped my— God, I was so mad at Nona Murphy. At myself, really, I never should have let her have you.” She paused, breathing hard, staring at Graceful in the wan light reflecting off the white floor, so that Graceful understood that the look on the woman’s face wasn’t because she was glad to see her, but because she was wrought up, crazy, madwoman crazy, and for Graceful the whole complexity of her feelings about the woman gave way to pity and fear.
“Maybe you better go on to bed, ma’am.”
“I need you to help me.”
Graceful returned her stare, silent. If Mrs. Dedmeyer could get herself dressed for the party while she, Graceful, waxed banisters and lugged goblets and food trays and polished tile floors on her hands and knees at the Murphy mansion, the woman could get her own self undressed. “I’m not no lady’s maid, ma’am,” she said. She looked steadily at Althea. “I’m a domestic who work in the kitchen and keep the house clean. I’m not no slave to loan out to the neighbors. I was going to tell you in the morning, but I might’s well say it now. I’m giving my notice. I’ll stay till Mr. Sutphen send you somebody if you want, but this here is my notice.”
“No,” Althea said. Her voice was as controlled as Graceful’s, as firm. They looked at each other a moment, and then Graceful turned to go. Althea followed her to the maid’s room, stood in the doorway while Graceful sat on the bed in the dark.
“You can’t leave.” It was a simple declaration. “I forbid it.”
“I’m not no slave.”
“No, no, I don’t mean that … I’m sorry. It’s— Graceful, I can’t—”
Althea looked at the figure sitting on the bed in the small square of moonlight from the high, small window. The girl’s cheekbones were distinct; her narrowed eyes were almost closed. Althea’s memory arrived fully born: the afternoon she’d come home from Little Africa, when she’d collapsed in the foyer and wept till she could weep no longer, and then slept on the hall floor, only to waken hours later, alone, with the street light streaming through the stained-glass window, too frightened to cry, or to cry out; the memory of how she’d crawled up the stairs on her hands and knees, grunting, panting, clawed her way up onto the bed, under the covers, to stay there for days, not eating, not bathing, lying curled beneath the sour sheet while her feet wept bloody water, and she’d dared not sleep, for when she slept she was tormented with nightmares, and it was on the last night that the old memory came, the first memory, the ancient one, and after that it wouldn’t leave her, nor could she wall it off, make a curtain, because she could not cut away the image of herself, her own real self, the Whiteside girl, holding the small ivory legs, the tiny white feet in her hands to better swing the misshapen sloe-colored head, the blueblack mass attached to the scrawny, pale buttocks.… Who was it who’d stopped her? Who knew of her murder and her sin? And who would absolve her? The one who witnessed. Only the one who bore witness had the power to release her. Althea had no words for what she’d understood then: that it was the girl who knew the truth in her, the girl who would somehow save her, or judge her— or, no, not judge her. Forgive her. Know her and forgive.
“No. Please listen. I need you,” she whispered.
Graceful’s narrowed eyes became slits in the darkness. “What for?”
“I … can’t … explain. Did you know … you know something?” Althea voice lilted into a peculiar, hollow friendliness. She took a step into the room, and then stopped. It was such a tiny space. It was so dark there, so airless. “My name when I was a girl growing up—my family name is Whiteside. Isn’t that funny?”
Graceful was silent.
“I mean, I thought it was odd when the little boy came with that note—”
Willie! Graceful thought, and her heart twisted.
“—had that name on it, I thought, why, there must be some mistake. But you, well, it didn’t surprise you, so I thought, well, my stars, what an odd coincidence. I mean, I thought it was odd. It’s not so common a name, really. I mean, I … it just sort of seemed … Not that I think we’re …” Althea’s voice drifted into silence, and the silence grew long in the cramped room. The grandfather clock ticked in the front hall. Outside, a balmy southwind had blown up, and the ground leaves skittered at the basement window and the oak leaves yet on the trees rustled along the drive. Inside the room, there was only the sound of their breathing. When Althea’s voice came again, there was simple truth in it. “Graceful, I’m asking you. Please stay.” Still the girl didn’t answer. After a while a thought occurred to Althea. “Is it because I sent you to the Murphys’? I won’t again. That was a mistake. That was stupid, really, I don’t even know why I let Nona talk me into it, she is such a sly fox. I don’t know what I was thinking. That won’t happen again.” She waited for Graceful to say something; she expected a sullen acquiescence, for Graceful to say, All right, ma’am, that’ll be fine, ma’am, in her soft, infuriatingly slow voice, but the girl remained silent, and despite herself Althea’s voice rose in desperation. “Whyyy?”
The silence went on a beat longer, and then: “I’m not going to stay and work anywhere that man come around.”
“What man?” Althea was mystified. “Not Mr. Dedmeyer?” Graceful’s head moved in a barely perceptible shake, a faint no. “What are you talking about?” And the girl looked up at her, and in the slanted eyes and hard face was pure revulsion.
“Him,” Graceful said. “Your brother.”
“Oh.” There began to rise in Althea a kind of strange, satisfied hope. Why, yes, the girl loathed Japheth as she loathed him, and Althea didn’t question why such a thing should be so, she thought only that here at last was both explanation and answer, something concrete she could control. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about him. He won’t be here. I promise you. He’ll never darken my door again.”
“He’s your brother.” The meaning in the flat voice was, He will have to.
“He is not. He isn’t. Not really. He’s just … some person.…” Althea’s voice faded. There were no words to explain such things, not this mystery, this trouble, this old, hard past. She changed the subject. “Mr. Dedmeyer’s going to be gone a lot for the next couple of months. Won’t you just stay until he comes home? Just that long. I’ll see if we can afford a bonus or something.” Desperately she reached for the old concerns, a kind of vacant normalcy. “I mean, I’m not promising anything, but I’ll ask him. You’re already making a very good salary, I mean, it’s not the money, surely? No. No. Of course not. How about this: how about you’ll stay until after the first of the year? Just through Christmas, and then if you still want to go, well, that will be fine. It’ll be too hard to find somebody here right before the holidays. Won’t it?” She reached up to smooth her hair.
“How you know he won’t come?”
“He won’t, that’s all.” The odor of pomade, familiar, medicinal, infused the room with its oily scent of petrolatum masked with spice. “I promise you,” Althea said. “He won’t.” There was silence. “Just two months.” It was not a question but a statement.
Graceful stared straight ahead. “I can’t stay two months and then go.”
“Why? What is it? For God’s sake, what more can I do?”
“Nothing, ma’am. You’re fine. Y’all been fine.” Which was not true. Oh, the man had been fine, Mr. Dedmeyer, he’d treated Graceful with nothing but the nicest condescension, whenever he was around. And the woman had spewed out only two tirades since Graceful had come back, though she followed her everywhere, sneaking into rooms behind her back; she was worse now than in the beginning, last summer, when Graceful had first come to work here and realized Mrs. Dedmeyer was following her around room to room, spying on her. Graceful looked up at the white face in the doorway, and the image struck, as it had struck on Mr. Berry’s jitney when she’d fled this very house, this very room, where that white devil laid down on her, and Graceful made a jerky move to rise, to escape the nightmarish vision of the mouth opening, and the hawk’s hunt-cry shrieking out from the blackness, but the woman stood in the doorway, blocking her, too close, choking her back, and she couldn’t touch the lady, make her move. “Please, ma’am!” she whispered.
“Hssssht!” Althea grabbed Graceful’s arm, held it tight, digging her fingers in, listening as the front door snicked shut. There was the muted click of a man’s shoe on the tile, one cautious step. They listened, their breaths stopped, hearts pounding. Neither of them thought then how they were joined together, but in those few seconds the gulf receded the tiniest increment, shrunk by the force of what they mutually dreaded. The footsteps left the hall and started up the stairs, and Althea recognized the tread and weight of her husband’s step, and the knowledge passed silently to Graceful, without word or signal, so that the two breathed again, in union. Althea eased her clutch on Graceful’s arm, and in the small room they stepped away from each other, even before Franklin’s muffled voice wafted down the stairwell, calling out softly, fearfully, hopefully his wife’s name.
“The fools,” Nona hissed into Japheth’s ear, though there was no need to whisper. They were far from the buff mansion, far from champagne, lights, harp, voices, far from hungry eyes and attentive ears. She’d found him at the end of the lawn, where the men had thrown him, the white half of his face glistening with black swells where the dark blood streamed. Carefully she’d pulled the buckskin skirt above her knees to keep it pure of grass stains and knelt beside him. With a small, delicate hand, avoiding the blood, she’d shaken his shoulder, again, yet again. It had taken some ten minutes to rouse him.
He blinked at her. The moon’s light turned night to blue day on the sweep of lawn above them, but for a very long time he seemed not to see her. “I never dreamed for a minute they’d act like that!” Nona pouted. The white half of his face grimaced as he twisted to sit up; she couldn’t make out the black half at all. “You’d think most of them wasn’t right out there on the Red Fork road with us. Now they’re gonna act like butter won’t melt in their mouths.” He struggled to his feet, began to walk away. “Where are you going? Wait!” Nona jumped up and ran after him
She tried to keep up with him as he left the damp lawn, walking fast, making his way down the hill toward the Arkansas River. In the moonlight, in the distance, she saw him plunge into the undergrowth near the bank, and she hurried after him, but the ground was harsh beneath her naked feet, and she had to cull her way through the scrub like a berry-picker. By the time she reached him he’d already washed the blood away, washed most of the black cork and white clay from his face and hands. He crouched on the bank, staring intently, slit-eyed, at the glowing refineries across the river.
“You all right?” He didn’t answer. Nona stood preening a moment, smoothing her hair, brushing imagined dirt off the buckskin. “D’ja ever see such a bunch of hypocrites?” Her laugh trilled, and then her voice dropped an octave. “‘Dedmeyer! Did you bring this abomination?’” she imitated her husband’s bombast, then her voice silvered into oily tenderness: “‘Now, listen here, friend, let’s just calm down a minute.’” She laughed again. “Tell you what, this town’s going to talk of nothing else for a month! Nothing!” She was so taken with her triumph that she didn’t notice the silence of the one crouched beside her. “We sure stirred up a little storm for the old sanctimonious frauds, didn’t we? Like Cletus Floyd-Jones wasn’t out there in the big middle of it, shouting orders like an old army sergeant, ‘Y’all fetch that rope over here!’ And now he’s gonna act so shocked. Did you see his face? ‘My word, Sheriff!’” she tsked. “‘What’re we going to do about this fellow barging in here reminding us of our nasty little selves? Why, we better beat the hell out of him like we done Roy Belton!’”
She caught herself, reached down and caressed Japheth’s shoulder, a little breathless, aroused by the scent of violence, though the evidence had been washed clean, all but that which could not be bathed away: the cut above his left eye, the bruised swelling along the bridge of his nose, which she could see even in the cold moonlight. “Well, you know good and well why the sheriff got so mad,” she cooed. “He’s fixing to lose the ’lection over that lynching and he knows it! Don’t tell anybody, but he’d’ve lost if he hadn’t let them take that scamp out his jail. He’s bound to lose either way.” She laughed again, looking up at the swollen moon.
Nona was too excited to perceive the force rising from the sand earth. Her mind was filled with images of the last Saturday night in August, a sultry night so different from this one, hot, dank, the sky thick with storm scud and the bass rumble of distant thunder, black clouds racing across the moon’s half-face so that it had appeared to be the moon itself running madly across the dark heavens. They’d brushed against each other by accident at first, or perhaps it was accident, but she hadn’t moved away. L.O. was over with Cletus Floyd-Jones and some reporter interrogating the prisoner, and Nona stayed just exactly where her husband put her, gazing straight ahead at Roy Belton smoking a cigarette and mumbling answers to their questions, while the side of a strange man’s thigh pressed against hers. She knew he was a roughneck, or she believed he was, though she didn’t look at him, and she’d have been content with just that, would have liked it, in fact, preferred it: to stand side by side with a stranger, touching the side of a man’s thigh with her hip for half an hour, and then walk off and never see his face, never look at him. But just before they put the noose around Belton’s neck, the stranger leaned toward her, breathing scentless breath on her cheek, said, “He’s doped.”
