Strange Fruit, page 24
“Marriage,” Henry said ponderously, “hit ain nothin folks kin butt into widdout …” Difficult going with Dessie’s big solemn eyes following every word. “Folks oughta study hit out fust.”
Dessie nodded in soft agreement. “Marriage is a sacred institution,” she said helpfully.
“Huh?” Henry’s hand faltered. He felt kind of tired and worn out “Us kin have fun widdout—us kin—”
He gave up words and pulled her into his lap.
She slipped out and sat again in her chair. “Hit ain right,” she said softly.
“Ef you loved me you’d make me feel good,” said Henry feebly.
“Tain’t holy love tell us gits a marriage license.”
“Who been givin yo dat stuff?”
“Miz Harris. She a good woman.”
“You ain’t Miz Harris.”
“I tryin to favor her.”
“Jesus Christ, how come?”
“She my ideal.” Dessie spoke with sudden sweet seriousness. And as she spoke, shed her wiles like last year’s snakeskin and sat erect, gracious, hands folded in her lap.
Henry stared, unbelieving.
“Miz Harris,” Dessie continued, “reads to me from the Bible. She ain’t—arn’t”—Dessie corrected herself quickly—“she arn’t so happy but—”
“Gawd knows why—got plenty what it take.”
“Whut?”
“Dough, sistah, dough.”
“—but she mighty good. She reads to me from the Bible and learns me religious verses. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart fo dey shall see Gawd … Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you and revile you an say all—’”
“Good Gawd a-mighty, Dessie, what’s come over you?”
“She say, ‘Add to yo faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temp—’”
“Potracted meetin wukkin on you sho—”
“Miz Harris say the sperrit of the Holy Ghost is sho powerful. Wash away our sins in the blood of the Lamb.” Dessie half crooned the words. “She reads me about the ten virgins. Five was wise and five,” with sudden bright animation, “was the foolishest virgins I …”
Henry watched her. His big wet mouth hung open. His big black hands hung dejectedly between spraddled legs. His eyes moved over her face, to her little pointed breasts, down her body, lingered long over the curve of her little belly. “I’m hongry sho,” he said abruptly and heard his words with surprise. Now that he had said them, they were true and importunate.
Dessie looked at him startled. She was hongry too.
She fixed up a mess of food, which they ate contentedly. When they finished he pulled out a bottle, took a deep swig, handed it to her. Mrs. Harris’s warning, “Look not upon the wine … at the last it biteth like a serpent,” sang through her mind like yesterday’s song and was gone. She looked at Henry, smiling at her now in full-bellied contentment. Her little greasy lips pouted in doubt. He whispered, “Do it fo yo big boy.”
She lifted the bottle, drank deeply, choked, coughed, batted her eyes, sneezed.
He laughed, drank of it again, reached out a big lazy hand, pulled her to him. He drew her between his legs as he sprawled in the chair and locked her within them like a vise.
She trembled. A sweet sensation of warmth crept over her.
He drew her closer.
“Us can’t—here,” she whispered.
“Us is gwine find a big palmetto bush, honey,” and, laughing, Henry picked her up and went out of the door. She wiggled down, pulled down her dress primly, walked sedately by his side.
A car passed. Dessie said, “Dr. Perry’s out late.”
They went out by the A.M.E. Church, past the white graveyard, arms around each other, walking more slowly now, Dessie hesitating, dragged back by a conscience never long at ease. Under the cedars in front of Miss Ada’s she paused. “Henry,” she whispered, “us is bad to do dis!”
“Bad,” laughed Henry and picked her up in his arms. “Gawd yes. Us is bad!” With his kicking, giggling armful Henry crossed the road into the palmettos.
After he had had his satisfaction Henry stretched out on the warm sand, gave one deep body-resting sigh and was almost at once sound asleep.
Not so, Dessie. Dessie sat bolt upright, hands clasped together tightly, and stared out across the dark clumps of palmetto and pines. “I hadn’t ought to’ve did it,” she whispered. “We’ll git married tomorry sho,” she whispered again as if in conversation with someone. “Be sho to,” she whispered. Now and then her head fell forward, heavy with sleep, only to be jerked back in place by this firm, vigil-keeping visitor.
As moonlight turned slowly into a clear sharp dawn, Dessie dozed but the first ray of early sun on her body was like a hand shaking her.
“Come,” she said, and turned Henry over, “hit’s late! Better be goin.”
They sleepily stumbled through damp grass, saying few words. Dessie said as they walked past Miss Ada’s, “Henry, I reckon us’ll git married now?”
Henry said, “Sho. Us will.” They walked on, now under the cedars. “Some time,” he added.
“But, Henry—” She stopped. She had seen it. Her hand pointed slowly toward the edge of the bushes, beyond the big cedar.
Henry followed the gesture, stumbled forward. “Hit’s my boy!” he cried; “Gawd Jesus!” and hushed abruptly. He knelt beside the body. Stared now at the bloodied shirt, big mouth hanging loose and open, eyes unable to leave the spot they had fastened upon. Stared as his grief was slowly soaked up by the age-old capillary pull of nigger facts, knowing now only one desolating thing. And, staring into the stiff eyes of his dead playmate, he began to feel a thousand cold eyes on him, a thousand fingers pointing, a thousand bloodhounds baying down centuries, smelling him out, him. Big Henry, from the other millions of black men … and they’d git him sho. Sho.
He turned, retched miserably. They’d git him sho.
“I ain done it,” he whispered.
“Cose you ain’t,” Dessie whispered, and hunted for something to wipe his mouth with.
“No,” he whispered.
“No,” Dessie whispered, and began to tremble.
SEVENTEEN
Laura turned over in bed and ran her fingers softly across the screen of the window. From where she lay she could see the narrow stretch of their side lawn and the street adjoining. The big pecan tree at the corner of the house had grown limbs that stretched across her window and beyond. Lying so near, she could look up through the dark branches at the sky. Now, if she wished, she could step easily from her window to a big limb, when as a child you had to cling to the ledge until your feet obtained a safe hold on the gutter and from thence climb to the roof of the sun porch and over to the small tree. It had grown imperceptibly, steadily, sap pushing up, up, with stubborn rightness, obeying all the intricacies of an inner pattern, in its good fortune so little cramped by this house, or other trees, or Maxwell. Growing old, maturing as it grew, putting out leaves and clusters of green nuts, dropping them one by one as they ripened, taking the winter in its bare strength. She wondered if human beings could grow and mature. All the people she knew seemed not to grow through life, but merely to move from year to year, as a small child plays on a stairway, taking all its playthings with it as it goes up from step to step, not knowing what to leave behind. If you knew what to leave behind …
Laura moved restlessly. Lying awake, like this, did your feelings no good. It was childish to be so upset. To keep putting your finger on a sore place does the hurt no good! You opened the drawer to get the clay. It was gone. Such a little thing. You could get more clay.
She hates what I like! she had thought as she stood there looking at the empty drawer. It seemed now that she had been knowing this for a long time without telling it to herself. That her mother had destroyed the little clay figure, Laura took for granted. It was one of those things you take for granted. But asking herself why was like going through old trunks for something lost. She had not found the answer, though she had found other answers.
You can get more clay. But there are some things you cannot get more of. She had wanted to say something, to make a scene as Tracy sometimes did. But she had no words that could safely be used. Words that, unspoken, seem so harmless would, once said aloud, become dangerous explosives containing hidden feelings that would flame into something you dared not set free. They would begin with the little chunk of clay. They would not end there. No. That little piece of clay would merely be a lighted fuse which would lead, circuitously perhaps, but inevitably, to everything in your life that you cherished. That the clay was going to be discussed soon, Laura knew. When her mother walked in Friday night after Tracy had had words with her, it was on her face. She had sat down on Laura’s bed and Laura had slowly laid her book aside, dreading the look in her mother’s eyes.
“We have so little time these days to talk, Laura.”
“Yes, Mother. I know.”
“I miss the little Laura.” Her mother had smiled, but the muscles in her throat had trembled.
“You’d want me to grow up, wouldn’t you?” She’d see if she could turn it into more casual directions.
“Of course. But somehow I have an idea that you still think, and feel, even if you are grown. We used to talk about—those things.”
“Yes, I know. I suppose college makes a difference. If I ever have an important thought, Mumsie, I’ll tell you.” That sounded so glib.
“All you think is important to me.”
They sat there for a moment, neither speaking.
“Laura”—Mother had looked around the room—”do you think it wise—to go around with older women so much? After all, Jane Hardy is so much older than you. Why do you like—that type of woman? Don’t you like your old friends? Don’t you like Harriet and the others?”
“Yes, Mother. I like them. Very much.” She’d hesitated. “Jane’s fun, Mumsie. She’s interesting.”
“But what do you talk about? You always seem to have so much to talk to her about.”
Laura tried to smile easily. “Oh. I don’t know. Books, I suppose. All kinds of things.”
“There’re—women, Laura, who aren’t safe for young girls to be with. Of course you are young and inexperienced—” Mother was finding this hard going.
For heaven’s sake, what do you say now! “I’ve been to college, Mumsie, and things are talked about there. I think I know what you are trying to say.”
“Laura, it would kill me … if anything—happened to you.”
Her mother sat there looking at her, and Laura felt naked under the gaze.
Laura said, “It’s nice that Dottie is going to marry Tracy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” Now Mother lowered her voice: “There’re women who are—unnatural. They’re like vultures—women like that.” Mother’s face had grown stony. “They do terrible things to young girls.”
“Oh, Mother!”
“I don’t believe a woman is the right kind of woman who talks about the naked body as Jane does.” How did she know that? What did she mean? Laura did not try to answer her.
“Good night, Laura,” Mother said, and stood up to leave the room.
“Good night, Mumsie.”
After her mother left, Laura slipped out of bed and went over to her desk. What did Mother mean? Slowly she pulled the letter drawer open, picked up Jane’s letters. Yes, they did write to each other even though they lived in the same town. They had so much to say. There was so much you could say to Jane that you had never before been able to say to anyone. Laura’s heart was beating heavily—she did not know why. She picked up the top letter. No, it wasn’t the last she had had from Jane. Then Mother had been in her letters. Mother had read them. Mother knew Jane had posed for the figure. Jane had talked about it in that letter. The letter was gone. Mother had it. Mother had this friendship in her hands now, like the little chunk of clay.
Laura had gone back to bed, but not to sleep.
And now again tonight she could not sleep. You waited. You knew Mother was biding her time. Waiting for what she called the “psychological moment.”
That her mother had discarded her own life, as you throw away a dress you don’t like, and had chosen to live hers instead, Laura knew. It was as if, having once nourished Laura within her body, she now claimed an equal right to feed upon her whom she had brought to life. And maybe she had the right. She had done so much for her, more than most girls have done for them.
Laura turned until the moonlight was bright on her watch. Three o’clock. Tracy had not come in. She could not have failed to hear those steps. Eighteen steps from her door at the top of the stairs to his door. Eighteen stealthy slow steps, every other one dragging a little, a little slur against the hall carpet; then a door would open and close softly. She had been hearing it almost since she could remember. It was late tonight, even for him. Yesterday he joined the church, gave Dorothy a ring; tonight he had not come in.
She sighed. He didn’t have it in him to go straight. Always he would be doing things—like this. It was as if he had to fail—as she had to succeed. Or was she succeeding? And now he would fail with Dorothy. Poor Dottie. She would never understand him. Who did? Always she would worry over him and try to reform him, pushing him further from her with each reformation, for he’d hate her for it. And as the years passed she would give up, and her lips would wrinkle up tight over her teeth like her mother’s, and she would spend more and more of her time in church work.
Once when Tracy had come in late—she had left her door open and was reading in bed—he had stopped in the doorway and looked at her. She’d never forget that night although nothing happened. “What you doing?” he’d said, and smiled, and for the first time in her life she noticed how deeply blue his eyes were and somehow how sad, and his quick amused smile. His thin face had relaxed and in relaxing had grown assured.
“I’m afraid, just another book.” She had closed the book and laid it aside and had smiled back at him, wanting to ask him in, feeling that maybe, this once, they could talk.
“There’re other things in the world, Sis,” he’d said gently, “but maybe you don’t want them.”
“Maybe I would want them—if I knew what they are.” She knew, yes she knew. He was hinting that she should go with men, maybe get married. Men didn’t like her. Thought her too smart, folks said. But maybe it was because she was a little gawky. That was the real reason, she’d always known it—a little gawky and shy.
“You aren’t asking me to tell you, are you?” And he had thrown back his head and laughed softly, and his teeth had flashed in the lamplight. She realized this was the Tracy that Negro girl knew. He had come so quickly from her that he had not had time to take on the protective coloring he wore in the Deen family. “Well … good night,” he had said, and had limped quietly down the hall to his room, leaving her feeling deprived and restless. This was the Tracy Nonnie Anderson knew. The Tracy women loved. She had often wondered why women liked Tracy—all the Miss Belles, the old maids, and the young married women, and the very old ladies. She saw it now. His gentle, affectionate manner, unhappy eyes, enough tension in his voice to make women want to soothe him. They called it his beautiful manners …
Why had he always failed and she succeeded? It made you, lying here like this tonight, feel that you had climbed to success by standing on his failures. It made you want to throw it all away, throw your whole life away and begin over again, and let him begin over again. Far away from Mother and Jane.
Jane was an orphan who lived on in Maxwell teaching school, living with the Harrises, but living always alone with herself. For no one knew Jane. Folks always said, “Fine woman, Jane. But she won’t let anybody know her. Fine girl, though,” and had been awed by Jane’s learning and Jane’s book-lined walls. And then one day they had been playing tennis and suddenly had begun to talk. And you knew you could talk to Jane, you could tell her about your sculpture and your verses, about your fears and your feelings. And soon you were feeling with her a security that you had not felt since you were a little girl with your Mother. And you loved her. Yes, you loved her and wanted to be with her. And now Mother was labeling it with those names that the dean of women at college had warned you about. Yes, you knew. You knew and you did not know. Your mother knew and did not know. The dean of women knew and did not know. But you also knew if Mother made an issue, if she labeled this feeling for Jane with those names, there’d be no more feeling …
The moonlight picked out the roofs of the houses across the street, showing little crannies and angles one never saw in the daytime. How often she had lain there and looked out on that small segment of her town. You’d hear people drive slowly down the street; sometimes someone walking would whistle a measure of brash sound against the street’s quiet breathing; sometimes across town you’d hear the colored folks singing, and the slow rise and fall of it would be as sweet to your ears as Mamie’s slow deep breathing used to be when you lay against her soft breast. It would be nice to see Mamie again. Eenie had never been like Mamie to either of them. Mamie so gentle and anxious to soothe her white folks. And how Tracy had hated Laura for taking his nurse away from him! She remembered little of it, of course, save what Mamie had told her later. But they said that for a long time he would eat nothing that Mamie did not give him out of her own fingers. And once he had run away and hidden behind a big pecan tree in the back yard and refused to come in and go to bed until Mamie went out and wheedled him in and put him to bed herself. Mother had let Mamie go back to nursing Tracy, and she herself had looked after Laura. Yes, the colored nurse you’ve loved so passionately goes away—to another job maybe or to another child. And you’re supposed to forget all about her.
