Five Smooth Stones (119 page)

"That they are instruments—"

"Oh. That." David looked at Murfree directly. "Yes. I'll even go you one better. I'll concede the red-neck Ku Kluxer is an instrument. My grandfather used to say, 'Reckon God has to have something to work on and He sure got Hisself a mouthful in the whites. One of these days He's going to start giving 'em fits. You'll see.'

***

Haskin, Brad, and Winters took over direction of the committee while David sat quietly, his chair against the wall, fighting off waves of sick fatigue. He spoke only to add emphasis to the repeated reminders to committee members that a deliberate violation of law was involved, that the young people could not be expected to be let off scot free, and that the main objective was to prevent them from being sent to what Haskin had called the "human cattle pen" of the emergency—and probably jerry-built—juvenile detention home. It seemed a hundred years ago to David, the days when he and Brad had taken for granted such things as immediate hearings, the rights of prisoners to be brought before a judge, taken as a matter of course the simple rights of citizens living in a country governed by consent of the people.

Mrs. Haskin gave no warning of her entrance, but suddenly was standing before him, hands on hips. "Mr. Champlin, you going to bed."

David's eyes widened in surprise. "In a—"

"Now. Dr. Anderson called, said you wasn't in the bed in half an hour I was to see to it you was. And I'm seeing to it."

There was a soft laugh behind her, and he turned and saw Gracie standing in the kitchen doorway, tall, straight, her face that was so darkly handsome when she was not smiling, softly pretty now that she was.

"You ask Dad Haskin what happens if you don't pay attention to Ma," she said.

Chuck and Winters had left their seats at the table and were standing beside him.

"Going quietly, Stoopid?" asked Chuck.

"Oh, go to hell," said David, but he was smiling when he crossed the kitchen with Mrs. Haskin.

They went out to the back porch and Mrs. Haskin opened the door to a room on their right. "I give you this room here by yourse'f so's you could get a good rest, get them aches and pains to bed where it's quiet,"

***

For a long time after Mrs. Haskin left he sat on the edge of the three-quarter bed in the center of the little room. Now that the opportunity for sleep and rest was here, he was too keyed up to take advantage of it. The bed linen smelled fresh and sweet, as though it had been dried in sun and air before ironing. Only an occasional penetrating voice—he recognized one as Mrs. Peter's—came to him from the front of the house; then there was the unmistakable sound of a group of people breaking up, then footsteps within the house as people sought their rooms, then only the sound of the rain, lighter now, the storm subsiding reluctantly.

Listening, he wondered whether he would ever, this side of eternity, shake the feeling of disembodiment that had dogged him intermittently for so long; the standing outside himself, feeling pain and tiredness in another body, watching himself, and so damned tired of watching himself, wanting to merge the two bodies, the one that was tired and full of a pain that had no relation to the physical, and the one that watched it; and then to run, run like hell until, exhausted, he could fall down in some dim place that would be cool, silent as the sky is silent, or the grave.

The sleeping pill that Anderson had given him was in his shirt pocket and he took it out now and laid the little white envelope on the peeling varnish of the table beside the bed. That wouldn't do it, that wouldn't bring the peace he sought; it would only make the coming day a more formidable foe. With only a few hours left in which to sleep, if that sleep was artificial the awakening would be slow, leaden; his body would awaken, but his inner weapons of defense would be dulled and heavy and he would be without the strength to wield them.

He wondered if the stockade was quiet, or if the boys stirred and talked under their tarpaulin. "Them chilren," Hummer had said hoarsely. "Them chilren—" Mrs. Peters had said the girls had been taken into the jail building before she came to the meeting. When the rain stopped, as it would, for now it scarcely could be heard, would the singing start again? That would do it, he thought; that would really do it, the kids awake and singing in the gray and dreary hours before day broke. God, let them be asleep, he prayed, and bent his body forward, hands rubbing, fingers kneading, the tired, aching muscles of his neck and shoulders.

Gracie was standing in front of him before he realized she was in the room. He raised his head slowly, seeing first the straight, strong legs, then the hem of the fresh starched print, the fullness of the rounded thighs, the surprise of the slender waist and the soft heaviness of her breasts above it, their dark abundance spilling over the square neck of her dress. The skin of her face glowed in the weak rays of the table lamp as though the light were behind instead of in front of it. The dark smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes had not been there earlier, but the eyes were clear, moist and gleaming.

"I seen your light," she said softly. "Me'n the baby's sleeping in the room across the porch tonight. You ain't getting your rest like the doctor says you should."

He said, "Hi, Gracie—" not smiling, holding her eyes with his own. He knew what the glowing skin of her face would feel like against his cheek, knew the softness of breast and thighs would be warm velvet to his touch.

She came closer, the skirt of her dress brushing his arm and the cloth of his trousers. "You all nerved up." Her hand was on the back of his neck, replacing his; her firm warm fingers and palm kneaded the muscles of neck and shoulder, gently stroked the upper part of his spine. He had never felt strength like this in a woman's hand. "I does this all the time for Dad Haskin," she said. "Nights when he comes in all nerved up, people fussing at him all day." He could feel the blood coming into his neck, feel tenseness he had not realized was there giving way under her fingers. "All this trouble," she whispered. "All this trouble. Them muscles're like boards. Ain't no wonder you can't sleep."

She did not draw away when his arm encircled her waist, yet did not yield or come forward until his insistent strength drew her body against his. With his free hand he grasped the hand stroking his neck, drew it down and under his chin so that her body seemed to enfold his, laid his cheek against her breast, then turned and buried in his face in its softness.

"Gracie... Gracie... You don't mind.... Tell me you don't mind... Gracie..."

"I did... I did... I swear I did... but Lawd, I don't now.... Good Gawd, man! Turn me loose so's I can lock that door.... Give me time so's I can get out of these things..."

"No... No, Gracie, no... Gracie, Gracie... you'll run away...."

"I swear I won't.... Lawd, man! But you strong... I ain't running away.... Oh, Gawd!... Minute I seen you I says there's a man needs some lovin'... there's a man needs lovin'.... There ain't no harm... there ain't no harm in it...."

Grade's embrace was more than adequate for his physical need; deeply adequate for his spirit's need. There, in that small room for that small moment in time with Gracie, he was one person again, no longer two; at home, at peace even in the vortex of his passion, and when at last the vortex passed, gave way to an exhausted calm, he kept her body close to his, holding its warm softness gently, his face against her shoulder, plummeting into sleep at last with his hand cupping her breast.

CHAPTER 75

Sara Kent told herself that it wasn't any hotter in Düsseldorf's Bahnhof than it would be in Grand Central in mid-August, nowhere nearly as hot as any one of Chicago's stations. She wiped the perspiration film from her face and throat, and wished that she could extend the operation to the rest of her clammy, moist body.

The train she had come to meet was in; she could tell by the increase in the number of hurrying individuals in the central lobby. Maybe Chris hadn't been able to make it, and that would be fine, would almost be a relief because it would give her another day to stiffen her resolves. The feeling of loneliness that swept over her at the thought that he might not have made it warned her of how badly those resolves needed stiffening.

Then there was Chris, coming toward her but not seeing her yet, covering ground rapidly, yet managing to seem unhurried, even deliberate. For God's sake, Sara, she told herself, for God's sake, smile; the man is tired and hot and has been under pressure and he'll need a smile and then some coffee or a drink.

"Sara! I hoped and it happened—"

She looked up at him, and the smile had been no effort. It was never any effort, when the time actually came, to smile at Chris, laugh with him. And that was why it was so hard, so damnably hard to face what she must do.

"What did you hope that happened?"

"You. Here. Meeting me." He stooped and kissed her lightly, quickly, on the forehead. "That was just for now," he said.

"It's hellishly hot, Chris. You'll wish you'd stayed in Switzerland."

"Don't be silly, Sara. You were here."

He shifted his attache case and typewriter to one hand, slipped an arm around her shoulders, and spoke in near perfect German to the porter who was carrying his heavier bag.

"The gift of tongues!" said Sara as they walked toward the entrance of the station. "I was born without it. When I talk the Italians are amused, the Germans are patronizing, and the French sneer. Openly."

"Concentrate on accent and forget grammar, pet. The equivalent of 'I done it' in French is nowhere near the linguistic crime of saying 'Roo' for 'rue.'"

"Roo," said Sara. "Roo, roo, roo. I said it and I'm glad, glad, glad."

He drew her closer as they walked to the cab. "Sara, dear heart, I've missed you. My God, how I've missed you!"

"Only eight days."

"Only eight centuries, my beloved dope."

Did it have to hurt like this, she wondered; did the knowledge of another's imminent pain have to hurt like this? And knew the answer was "yes"; if you're Sara Kent it hurts like this, because you, Sara Kent, were cursed at birth with the dubious gift of empathy, and the only person who ever really understood its disadvantages in a world where everyone was hurting almost all the time in one way or another had been David. Yet David—she realized with a start that Chris had been speaking to her, there in the cab, that he was repeating a question she had not answered.

"Have you moved yet?"

"Moved?" It was the wrong answer; it was a stupid and childlike temporization, and she would have given much to be able to call it back.

"Yes, my dear: 'moved.' From the-hotel-where-you-are-staying to the-hotel-where-I-am-staying. We talked about it, remember? Rather at length, if I recall."

"I—I—no."

"Why?" His voice, which had been warm and close, was remote.

"It's—I—oh, it's been too damned hot for packing, Chris. And I'm a lazy baggage. You said so yourself."

"So I did." After a moment he continued: "Shall we go to my place first? I'll take a quick look at my mail, a quick wash; then we'll have a drink and dinner. Right?"

"Of course, Chris."

At the hotel desk he turned to her, key in hand. "Coming up?"

"It's cooler here in the lobby, but if you—"

She watched him cross the lobby to the elevators, a lean man, not above average height, with a lean head and face, the dark hair a smooth cap—"piped with gray" she had told him when she had first known him—the eyes startlingly blue. There was humor in the long upper lip; passion and sensitivity were in the fullness of the lower, and behind the high forehead a grave and penetrating intelligence. They had celebrated his forty-first birthday together in Rome; otherwise she would have thought him older.

She sat in a high-backed chair against the wall in the lobby, shunning the deep comfort of the lounge chairs because of the heat. She sat very straight, toes just touching the floor, her head resting against the red brocade of its back, her eyes closed. Chris will be all right, she told herself, and felt that she was pleading with herself to be convinced. He'll be all right; he has to be, he must be. Because he's wise and civilized, Christopher Barkeley will know that eventually it wouldn't work out, that a mind as keen as his, as fine honed and analytical, would eventually tire of her own uncomplicated thinking, her emotionalism. All emotion, Sara, that's you, all emotion and intensity and a certain crazy loyalty—and still all another man's woman. And you're thinking rot, plain unadulterated rot and rationalization, because he won't know any such damned thing. She felt her throat tighten. Chris, Chris, you're so fine and wonderful, and millions of people hear your voice, see your face, every day, and read your words, and I wish to God I could love you and not hurt you; I do wish it, Chris, I do.

They had met prosaically enough, at an art gallery in London when Hunter Travis brought him in to see one of her exhibits. She recognized Barkeley immediately, and knew that when she heard his voice it would be as familiar to her as the voice of an old friend. "This is Christopher Barkeley, Republic Broadcasting System, saying 'good night' from Rome—" or London or Bonn or Paris or Moscow. His book
Hours of Decision
had absorbed her because there had been no pontificating, and here and there he had mocked his own objectivity with sardonic humor, softened it by a wide, all-embracing compassion.

The next morning Chris called her, and the next afternoon they met in the lounge of her hotel and drank tea and ate buttered toast, and later had dinner at Simpson's. "I know it's touristy," Chris said. "And it's not the beef or mutton that draws me back either. It's the creamed tripe."

A month later she flew to Denmark with him. The hotel in Copenhagen gave them adjoining rooms, and she remembered the porter unlocking the connecting door, apparently as a matter of course, without asking. When Chris stood in the doorway she felt uncomfortable and more than a little resentful.

"They seem to know you well here," she said. "Your habits and customs."

His eyes clouded and his mouth set in a straight line, unsmiling. "You are mistaken, Sara Kent. This is neither habit nor custom with me—as Management will tell you. I merely asked for rooms on the same floor. A Dane, I'm afraid, takes it from there. I am a loner." The lips relaxed slightly. "Or have been," he added. He stood quietly, not coming into her room; then the smile returned. "Are you going to starve in lonely solitude, or shall we do something about lunch? Rather quickly, I'd suggest. I'
m
damned hungry."