Strange Fruit, page 8
But this summer at home … it had been a mistake. They should have made the effort to keep Laura at the university for the summer. She should not have listened to Tut’s talk of wanting his daughter at home. Laura said she didn’t want any more degrees. But of course she did! Anyone who had as much sense as Laura would want a Ph.D. They would have a little talk about it. They would establish the old nightly exchange of confidences. It was foolish of her to let herself get so upset over a little lump of clay.
Mrs. Deen’s eyes traced the curve of breasts, of rounded belly; moved inexorably downward, lingered, seeing the figure dimly now through the opaque film of confident motherhood. She had met every exigency of Laura’s life. This, too, she could take care of.
She stood. Her face was calm, her jaws squared. Only the nostrils of her high nose quivered as she drew a deep quiet breath. Then, taking the figure more securely between her plump white hands, she kneaded and pressed and pounded it with slow deliberateness until it was reduced to a shapeless wad; and, walking swiftly through the hall, past Eenie in the kitchen, to the back porch, she dropped it in the garbage can. It lay there among com shucks, okra stems, tomato skins—no more than the mud pies Laura used to make years ago; just another of the little messes Alma had cleaned up after her young daughter.
She lingered, looking out upon her back yard, blinded by the glare, feeling nothing, as if physical processes had stopped, blocked by some obstacle to which their pattern could not bend. Words moved through her mind, stripped of feeling. Laura must go back … she hasn’t enough to do … he can’t do this to her … I won’t permit it.
“Miz Deen,” Eenie called from the kitchen, modulating her voice to a bland mixture of subserviency and reproof, “hit’s way atter ‘leven by the clock and dey’s singin deh heads off over at dat tabernacle.”
Mrs. Deen turned to enter the kitchen. As she passed the garbage can, like a shadow come and gone Laura’s face trembled before her eyes.
“I want you to make Miss Laura some fig ice cream,” she said, her eyes focused now on nothing; “and get my hat, please, I’m late.”
In the dim hall before the old pier glass that had belonged to her mother, Mrs. Deen carefully adjusted her broad-brimmed white hat, carefully powdered her nose, smoothed her heavy black eyebrows while gray eyes looked steadily back at her from the mirror, picked up her white pocketbook and linen handkerchief, took her hymnal from the console. At the front door she called to Eenie to tell Laura, should she come in, that she was at church.
The night was long, a weary stretch of time for Alma Deen as she lay beside her sleeping husband, thinking about her two children. Tut was snoring. She touched his shoulder. “Tut,” she said, “you’re snoring.”
Tut turned toward her, hands fumbling sleepily, found her breast.
She pushed him away, moved to the edge of the bed. Tut turned on his back, breathed heavily.
“Turn over on your side, Tut!”
Tut mumbled, spread his legs wide, flung his foot across Alma’s hip. It lay there like a log.
Alma pushed his leg away from her. Her smooth face twisted with distaste.
Sometimes all she could remember of hers and Tut’s nights together was the lifting of his leg off her body. There was something almost dissipated about the way Tut slept, letting himself go, so, so uncontrolled, you might say. Alma had thought of twin beds but had never done anything about it, for she doubted in her heart that husbands and wives should sleep separately. It was all a little vague to her, but sleeping together, cold weather or hot, seemed a necessary thread in the fabric of marriage, which, once broken, might cause the whole thing to unravel.
Just how, she was not certain. She was convinced, however, that her own mother’s custom of sleeping in a room separate from Father’s had caused their family life to be not as successful as it should have been. “I can endure your sermons on Sunday,” Mother used to say, throwing back her head and laughing gaily as she said it, “but to listen to you talk in your sleep is beyond my strength.” And Father would laugh with her as if she had said something funny. He’d seemed to enjoy her in spite of her having done nothing to deserve it. Father would have been one of the big men in Southern Methodism, had it not been for Mother’s frivolous ways. With her money and her family influence she could have helped Father but she had not seemed to care whether Father became a bishop or not! “Your father isn’t bishop material, my dear. Don’t make the poor man dissatisfied. He’s a good man, God-loving and just right for the pastorate of a small town like Maxwell. As for me, I’d loathe being a bishop’s wife.” And she had laughed.
Alma could see her now: dark, blue-eyed, with curly brown hair, tall and thin. She’d always worn little narrow collars and earrings and used violet toilet water, and always dropped her handkerchief, saying “Oh how careless of me!” whenever she grew interested in a conversation—which was frequent, as any conversation, no matter how foolish, interested Rosa.
“My daughter has never approved of me,” Rosa Mathews used to say to her old Macon friends—and often before Alma. “No,” she’d say, and pat Alma’s smooth hair, “she doesn’t quite approve of her mother. Oh dear,” she’d laugh, throw back her head and her earrings would sparkle like two little giggles, “where did the child get her ideas, do you suppose?” Sometimes Alma, listening, would hate her mother, but later she learned to say, “Poor Mother,” and to feel sorry for her, in a way, when she could forget how much sorrier she felt for Father. Mother had sent her to college for one year. After that, she insisted on her visiting relatives in Macon. “No intellectual for me! All I ask of you, my dear, is to be a normal girl and have a good time.” And she’d pat Alma’s ash-blonde hair. “I want you to know my friends’ boys; something might come of it,” she’d say, “although of course on the other hand … Remember, Alma, a little indiscretion is often very—successful!” And when Alma flushed. Mother would laugh gaily and fan herself briskly with her ridiculous Japanese fan.
So when young Tut Deen, just out of medical school, with the ink hardly dry on his state license, asked her to marry him, it was for Alma as if someone had opened a gate which led down a faraway road.
“I might as well let her marry him,” Rosa told her Macon friends, but not before Alma this time. She had left Alma at Maxwell and had come up to the family house on Hardaman Avenue for a few days just after Alma’s engagement had been announced. “He’s from a good south Georgia family and while he’ll never set the world on fire he’ll always have a comfortable practice. After all, Alma will never set the world on fire, either, with her plain face and her father’s figure, bless him.” She threw back her head and laughed cheerfully. “One has to take the children the Lord sends, I suppose. It’s amazing, though, what He can send you sometimes.” She turned brightly to her best friend, Ellen Williston, who was having the sewing circle over to see her. “You know, Nell, Alma is an amazing child for me to have brought into this world. I can explain it only by conceding to the male a great potency … This chicken salad is delicious.”
The ladies giggled.
“Alma is much better than you deserve. She’s a fine girl.”
“She is, indeed! Every time I look at Alma I feel as if I’ve just read a chapter in the Bible and said my prayers.”
“Rosa! I’m ashamed of you.”
“But”—Rosa’s deep blue eyes twinkled—”I want her to have a wonderful wedding. Something she’ll always remember with pleasure.” She set aside her plate. “Now let’s get down to business and decide what kind of wedding dress would be becoming to my child.” The ladies had planned the wedding, delighting in every detail; and young plain-faced heavy-set Alma Mathews had become the bride of Dr. Tutwiler Deen amidst white tulle and satin and lilies of the valley, wedding cake and reception, magnificent presents from Macon’s old families and more modest ones from Maxwell parishioners, while her tall thin impresario of a mother alertly maneuvered each detail, vastly amused by all of it. And Alma, standing there at the altar with young red-haired, freckled-faced Tut Deen, had felt a lump come in her throat at the thought of leaving Father alone with Mother. And, making her marriage vows, she made another that she would be a real wife to Tut, helping him with his career, helping him in every way in which he needed help; she would be everything to her children that Rosa had never been to her.
She had been a good wife to Tut, submitting to his embraces quietly, without protest—though that part of marriage seemed to Alma a little unclean and definitely uncomfortable; helping him with his practice; collecting the fees which Tut would never have collected; saving, investing; running a smooth home; carefully taking his calls; keeping Tut from going fishing too much and neglecting a practice that had grown large through the years. Always remembering Mother, Alma had urged Tut on.
But now as she lay beside her sleeping husband she was not thinking of him, but of their children. All day, she had been thinking about her two children. Strange … you do everything for them, you train them so carefully; they grow up and are people that you seem not to know.
She had been happy when her first baby came. At first the knowledge of her pregnancy filled her with a quick fear, which slowly changed into pride. She started the baby off carefully, fed him regularly, never picked him up when he cried, and even Tut noticed and complimented her on her efficient ways. Then Mother came.
Mother tripped in one day, eyes dancing. “All the way from Hawkinsville,” where her husband had been transferred, “I’ve been reveling in being a grandma. Yes, my dear, I’m over my attack. Perfectly! Don’t pamper me! I’ve never felt better in my life! Never! Now, let me see the little fellow.” And proudly Alma had led her mother into her bedroom where young Tracy lay in his crib. “You’ve gained some, Alma. Don’t give in to your appetite, my dear! Are you nursing him? You’re not? Good. It’s better for your figure and your disposition not to. I remember I nursed you for one long week. Terrible week! Then I called in Mammy and told her to work it out the best way she could, I was through.” Alma would remember all her life how Mother’s skirts swished and the odor of crushed violets that filled the room with her every movement. Alma would always see her earrings gleaming. Mother sparkling.
Rosa took off her glasses, bent over the crib. “So this is the child.” She stood there, looking down at the little creature. “He’ll be full of spirit.” Her bright, alert face softened. “He could be my very own,” she whispered, and picked him up, and he smiled as she touched him. “Well,” Rosa looked at her daughter brightly, “I must admit that you’ve done a much better job on your first-born than I did!”
And Alma, knowing that her mother always said whatever came into her mind, tried to laugh at the tactlessness, tried to laugh away the old hurt, but cried instead. She stood there, looking at the baby in her mother’s arms, and cried. “I don’t want it,” she said in her bitterness, and turned away. “I don’t want him,” she cried, and knew that she meant her words.
“Of course not!” Mother said cheerfully. “A lot of people don’t want their first baby. You’ll get used to it, my dear.”
Tracy never seemed quite hers, after that. He belonged to Mother. And Mother stayed for a visit that stretched from weeks into months, going back only occasionally to Hawkinsville. Mother stayed and played with the baby, telling her how to raise him, picking him up when he cried, feeding him whenever he whimpered, giving him a sugar tit, ruining his good habits, until you almost believed she was deliberately trying to keep you from being a good mother. Until sometimes it was difficult not to tell her to leave your house forever!
When Alma became pregnant again and her mother wanted to take the young Tracy back with her, it was easier to let her take him than to fight it out. But though Alma knew that in a test with her mother she seemed unable to win, deep within her she knew that she need never give in to anyone else. Never! And she had felt herself grow strong and firm and certain in the knowledge.
Mother never interfered with the training of Alma’s second child. When Laura came, Mother said, “She looks like a fine healthy child, Alma,” and showed no further interest.
Then one day, while telling one of her jokes, Mother had laughed so heartily that she dropped dead. She lay there, they say, crumpled up on the rug, still smiling. And after a moment, one of her ear pendants loosened and rolled slowly across the floor … the last little sound that Rosa Mathews ever made.
It had been a long, hot, weary day and night for Alma Deen. But, as she lay in the dark beside her sleeping husband she felt strength returning to her. As she faced her task she knew that she was equal to it. God had always given Alma strength for her duties to her family.
She had done the right thing to make that appointment for Tracy with Brother Dunwoodie. She knew he would not like it. She had dreaded to tell him. Yet she knew that unless she took matters into her own hands Tracy would never see the preacher. Tracy would evade him—as he evaded everyone who wanted to help him. Yes, he had his father’s gift for evading an issue.
She listened to Tut’s steady breathing. Sleeping like a child.
She had dreaded it, but she had done what seemed right to her. Brother Dunwoodie had a tremendous influence over young men. Everyone had heard of the hundreds of young men throughout the South whose lives had been miraculously changed after a talk with him. He understood them, knew how to get at them. She had expected Tracy’s displeasure when she told him what she had done but she had not been prepared for the terrible rudeness he showed her. Never in his life had he spoken to her as he did today. And how it hurt—hurt like the old things Mother used to say. Standing there, facing her son, fighting to hold her composure, Alma had wanted suddenly to give up and cry.
A tear rolled down her face as she lay there in the dark, thinking over the day. It’s so hard to give your life to your children and have them be ungrateful for everything you try to do.
Alma was crying quietly now in her pillow. Crying as she had not cried in years. It would be so easy to give up … so terribly easy when you aren’t feeling well anyway, to use menopause as an excuse, and give up.
Tut moved restlessly, flung his legs wide.
“Move over, Tut.”
Tut turned over, fumbled around, touched her back, touched her stomach. Sighed.
Alma quickly blew her nose. The sudden weakness had passed and once more she felt her strength returning. Change of life brings on strange spells. She must not let herself give in to her feelings.
Tut flung his leg across her.
Alma lifted Tut’s leg off her hip, eased over to the far side of the bed.
SIX
Tracy turned the switch, started the car. He had eaten breakfast late to avoid his mother. He had eaten just in time to keep his appointment with Brother Dunwoodie at nine o’clock. Even at nine it was hot. What a day it would be! He drove slowly up College Street toward the Harris home, past house after house, each set back in its small or large lawn. Here, there, a colored maid swept a porch or the walk in front of a home, moving slowly along, brushing away moss and sand and small crisp oak leaves, singing low, talking to herself. A child ran across the grass, stopped, pulled a sandspur from his foot, hobbled on, whimpering, suddenly forgot, began to run again. Across the wide street divided so exactly by the railroad was the honeysuckled Pusey home. Someone was in the swing. He would not look. He would not see who was in that swing, or in any swing, this morning.
He was on his way to talk to the preacher. If Gus or any of the boys had bet him, yesterday, that he would be seeing the preacher this morning, he would have laughed and told them he’d see them in hell first. Yet here he was, going to talk to the preacher, like a nice little boy, about his soul. If you thought you had a soul, or anybody had a soul, there’d be a little sense to it!
It’ll be damned embarrassing. After all, you don’t have to do it. Drive around the block, go on home. Like hell you would—there he is … waiting at the gate, lounging against it, a big hard-muscled man, at ease. You wonder why a man like that—how a man like that ever happened to be a preacher. Didn’t seem to fit. A ball player … football, maybe, but not preaching. You think of a preacher as soft-fleshed, short-winded except in the pulpit. Grandfather was pudgy, irritable in his old age when he wasn’t praying or preaching. You’d always remember him, pink face, blue eyes, heavy snow-white hair brushed back in a high pompadour, looking down at his cereal as if he were going to cry in it. A funny way to remember your grandfather, but that was your memory of him. But people said when Grandfather prayed men’s hearts filled with the peace of God. Maybe it was Grandma. Grandma was pretty leathery. Maybe stropping against her day after day put an edge on Grandpa’s nerves. You’d never felt that way about her, though everyone else seemed to. With you she had been different. Gentle …
The preacher had seen you, was turning slowly. In a moment he’d say something. Lifting his arm now, vaulting the fence, easy, light. Good balance. What you reckon made him waste that body in a pulpit? What you reckon got hold of the man? Once you’d seen him, years ago when he was here, illustrate his text by climbing the pole of the big tent. Yes, he’d done that and you’d laughed at his fanatic craziness and all the other boys sitting on the back pew had laughed too, but you had sort of liked him for it—anybody think it easy to climb a thirty-foot pole had better try it sometime—and five of the boys sitting there with you laughing had joined the church before the meeting was over.
The preacher said, and shook his heavy black hair off his face as he spoke, “Well, you’re on the dot.”
Tracy smiled, stopped the car.
Brother Dunwoodie got in.
“Be cooler to ride around, don’t you think?”
“Suits me all right.”
“How about a coke first?”
“Be fine,” said the preacher, shifting his wide shoulders to a more comfortable angle against the back of the seat.
