Five Smooth Stones (60 page)

It would be unkind to call Gramp in the middle of the night, unkind and maybe dangerous. Nothing the doctor said about his heart being in good shape, all things considered, would erase from David's mind the memory of the pain-racked little body, the agonized clutch of thin fingers over his hand, the night of Gramp's attack.

Sara. Sara would understand, yet Sara's position was as dissimilar as Sudsy's. But Sara would know how he felt, would catch the glow that was warming him, the "My God it can't be true" feeling. And that, he supposed—hell, he knew—was because she loved him.

He sat there, very quietly, the beer forgotten, only an occasional street sound heard dimly through the fog of loneliness that now, slowly, inexorably, dimmed the glow that had warmed him. Lately on the streets, in the restaurants, in classes, he forgot that he was Negro except when an occasional rude stare from a passerby, a withdrawal in a fellow student reminded him. Now, alone, he knew it in every fiber of his being, knew it, damned it, and raged at himself for damning it.

Was what he had done about Sara just a damfool mistake? Would it be better to be like some, jump at the chance to marry a white woman whether you gave a damn about her or not, just to show you could; jump at the chance to take whatever she offered, using her as balm for old and aching wounds? How many kinds of a fool had he been to listen to the voice of Gramp, and what would have been the voice of

Gram if she were alive? How stupid had he been to make his first consideration that of what marriage to him would mean for Sara, the trouble, the humiliation, the almost inevitable estrangements, knowing in honest moments that most of this consideration was selfish, because he could not face a future where he would be the instrument that would bring these things about, could not face a future that might change what was in her eyes now to something so different it chilled his blood to think of it.

Man pays for his luck.
Was this it? Was this the payment? He shook his shoulders in a violent shrug. Logic. Philosophy. He had done well in them. Was what he had learned going to degenerate in a matter of months to the simple myths of a small brown man in New Orleans, whose goodness was greater than he had ever known in any other man but whose life was governed by superstitions passed from generation to generation by an oppressed, untaught people?

He knew that when he told Gramp what had happened tonight the old man would say: "That's fine, son. That's fine! Been praying for you. Ain't it like I been telling you ever since you was a chile? Jesus always hears." Whenever Gramp said something like that, David always wanted to point out that Tant' Irene must have prayed, too, for the young husband who died in flames, wanted to say, "Where was Jesus then? Out for coffee?" But he never voiced the questions; it would have hurt Gramp, and Gramp would have had an answer, damned if he wouldn't. Li'l Joe Champlin would have an answer if God himself was on trial and Bradford Willis was the prosecutor.

Now, sitting alone and chill with loneliness, he closed his eyes, tired at last, and rested his head against the back of his chair.
Man pays for his luck.
Li'l Joe Champlin gave credit to God and Jesus in one breath and warned against "luck" in the next, and right now in the darkness of early morning David could not reason. He knew he had been fortunate, probably more fortunate than any other member of his first-year class; and, lonely for Sara though he might be, aching unbearably from the loss of her, he must acknowledge this good fortune. Crutch for a lame ego or not, faith was what had been placed in his hand before he could walk, and he could not discard it now, could not take for granted the opportunity that, unsought, lay ahead of him, accept it as his due, and he murmured, because he could not help himself, "Thanks, God." It might make the payment less.

CHAPTER 40

Bradford Willis sat across from his wife in one of the deep armchairs that flanked their living-room fireplace. Peg was knitting with dizzying speed, a means, he knew, of working off the tensions built up during a week of sobriety. He sometimes wondered whether these weeks—if the spells of sobriety stretched into weeks—were any harder on her than they were on him. His own tensions seemed to build vicariously; he had the feeling during these periods that her surface equilibrium was a fragile, brittle fabric stretched over a framework of nerves equally fragile and brittle, a framework that vibrated at the slightest impact and could shiver suddenly and then splinter into sharp fragments whose sharp pain knew only the one anodyne. He also wondered at times whether it was harder to come home knowing what he would find, or to come home during one of Peg's dry spells and feel the sickening dismay, the inner lurching of his stomach when the evidence was plain that the drought was over.

Yet in spite of the knowledge of their mirage-like quality, he treasured these oases of companionship and understanding, stored up for the future the memories of evenings like this one, when they could sit and talk, when the depth of understanding that was so vital a part of Peg could encompass his ideas and strengthen them; when, by God, even a discussion, such as they were having now, of tree roots clogging their house's sewer pipe could be enjoyable because it was intelligible. One drink, he thought, just one, and she would be a million miles away, untouchable, her mind a centrifuge whirling, whirling, yet never succeeding in its purpose of precipitating the self that was Peg into a definable substance. The ache of wanting to help her at times was unbearable, the knowledge that he could not, at least in any way known to him, more than unbearable. Because he loved her, it never occurred to him to leave her.

She disposed of the sewer-line problem with a simple:

"The hell with the roots. I won't part with that tree, Brad. We'll just have to figure de-rooting into our expenses."

"It's all right with me, my dear, if you like it that much."

"Such a lovely tree, Brad. And it's peaceful. There's a certain permanent peacefulness about it."

"The tree stays. We de-root."

She was quiet, counting stitches; then she asked, "Young Champlin, hon. How's he doing?"

"Fine. Really fine, Peg. Naturally, he's doing what I knew he would, going at it too hot and heavy. I bawled him out the other day, but he just grinned and said, 'Yes, sir.' I doubt it did any good. I called him a brat and told him to go home and relax."

"I'm not talking about his work. I'm asking about him as an individual. His possibilities."

Brad leaned forward, fussed with the fire. "It's early to say. Two months. One could be wrong."

"One seldom is. When it's you."

"Nonsense. I've been wrong a number of times. But—I don't think I am in this instance. Right now he's a bit of an enigma. Very damned quiet. Shy. Naive to a certain extent. And wary. I don't know that I'd use the word 'brilliant' yet, but he has a fine, searching mind. And sense enough to know that the law has been around a long time, longer than he has, and he's willing to take a step at a time. And that, my love, makes for a good lawyer."

"I know. How does he stack up against Baker?"

"Hell, they don't talk the same language." He was silent for a moment, thinking of the slender, acidulous young Negro, Baker, a final-year law student who might conceivably take his first year's practice with Abernathy, Willis and Shea after Culbertson left in the summer. Brad was not looking forward to the possibility. He supposed one could apply to Baker the adjective he had temporarily withheld from Champlin—brilliant. But he was also bitter, frustrated, and so racially oriented that the attaining of any objectivity in the conduct of a case seemed, at this point, an impossibility. Brad had discussed it with Peg often, had said before what he said now: "There are cases, you know, that go through our office involving Negroes in which the Negro is in the wrong. I can think of a number where we represented the plaintiff and the defendant was a Negro. That he was in the wrong because of character flaws brought into being through psychic trauma suffered as a Negro is not, I'm afraid, something a New England jury swallows too easily. True though it so often is."

"And Champlin?"

"David would understand son-of-a-bitchery in one of his own race, just as Baker does. But I don't see him letting it cloud his judgment. For a youngster he has what I can only call great compassion, which is something else again. He brought in a resume of a case the other day that he'd typed, and said if his pay was coming out of the client he'd be glad to pass it up and do more work on it in his 'spare time.'" Brad smile. "That's what he said—'spare time.' He also said, That poor guy's had a rough time, Mr. Willis.' "

"Was the client a Negro?"

"Yes. Baker might have been as generous. But not out of compassion or a sense of outrage at injustice as such. It would have been out of a desire for revenge. He would have seen himself in the client, would have seen in the case every wrong our race has ever suffered. David would probably win the case before a jury; Baker would lose it before it ever got to a jury."

"You walk on eggs, don't you?"

"That's an odd remark. Yes, I suppose I do. Most of the time."

"I didn't mean it to be an 'odd remark.'" Her husky voice was beginning to show tension. "You've traveled a fur piece on eggs. And objectivity."

"That's hardly fair. If I had more, had even enough objectivity, you'd be wearing mink."

"I don't want mink." Her tone warned him, and he sought frantically for a change of subject. He did not know what she wanted of him; not mink, that was certain. Her material wants were few and moderate. There was doubt in his mind that she herself knew exactly what she sought for in him— and apparently could not find. When he had tried to question her, there had been bitter, illogical quarrels; he would not try again. He knew only this much: that she would be happy to see him tackle the problems of their people on a full-time basis —yet she had followed with tense interest his defense of a young Polish boy accused of rape, had gone to court the final day and wept real tears of joy at the acquittal. And that night had started a month-long drinking bout.

All of his work as a consultant to ALEC's Boston-located national headquarters he gave unstintingly and without fee.

But he would not, he told her once, become in his private practice what he called a "professional Negro." There had been no quarrel, although he had feared one the moment the words were out. There had been only the familiar journey into unreality, culminating on that occasion in a wrecked car and a broken ankle.

She was rolling up her knitting now, preparing to stand, and he felt the muscles of his belly tighten with dread, but she said only, "Coffee?"

When she brought the coffee back he said, "I'm inclined to think some of young Champlin's emotional maturity stems from an incident in college. More than an incident, really."

"What incident? You didn't tell me."

Peg, he said silently; Peg, Peg. You hadn't been sober for three weeks, and if I'd told you then, you probably wouldn't even have remembered. Aloud he said: "Dr. Sutherland told me about it. David's best friend his first year and a half at Pengard was Dr. Sutherland's son, Clifton. 'Suds' he's called —God knows why. I think they are still close friends. David is at their house a lot, and they seem very fond of him. Anyhow, the boy had a damned nasty time for a while—"

He told her the story, as Sutherland had told it to him, finishing with, "The dean resigned."

"God!" said Peg. Her eyes were wide and so dark they seemed pure black. "Oh, God! The poor kid. The poor damned kid—"

"He weathered it, Peg. He weathered it and stayed seaworthy. And didn't become—let's say—Bakerized."

"What makes people react, Brad? Why does one man become a Baker and another a Champlin? This damned generalizing—this 'they, they, they—' This 'The Negro is this—
they
are that—' "

"Our own people are guilty of it, too, Peg. I swear every Negro who gets his opinions in print becomes immediately the spokesman for the race. 'We Negroes hate whites—we Negroes love everyone—we this—we that.' They moan because they have no identity, yet they destroy their individual identities by burying them alive in a race identity of their own invention." Thank God, she was in agreement with him, the tensions of a half hour ago lessening. "In David's case I think the credit goes to his grandfather. And a Danish professor named Bjarne Knudsen who lives and teaches in New Orleans. From what I've heard, Knudsen is a big wheel in the academic world, and he took David under his wing when the kid was only about seven or eight. But I would say his grandfather did the most."

"I envy him."

"Who? The grandfather? Or David?"

"His grandfather. It must be pretty damned great to grow old and watch a boy like David growing up and know you had a part in what he is."

"As I said before—it's early yet, Peg. Things can happen. He's still nothing but a brat."

"A nice brat."

"A nice brat."

"I wish—if we'd had a son—"

"Peg, my dear, to have a son David's age you would have had to marry in kindergarten."

"I know. I—I guess it doesn't do any good thinking about it—" She stood up and began gathering ashtrays and glasses.

Brad walked over to her, put an arm around her shoulders, and drew her closer so he could rest his cheek against the glow of her hair. "Thinking never did a damned thing in the field of procreation. You know that, don't you?"

She laughed, then turned her head so that it rested on his shoulder, the long strong fingers of one hand digging into his arm. "I know. Brad, I'm a bitch. And you've been so damned, so Goddamned good. But Brad, if I'm a bitch it's not because I don't love you. Not ever. I do love you, Brad—"

"Of course, Peg." And wished he did not feel as though she had left a phrase unsaid, a phrase that would have begun, "in spite of—"

***

On the same night that Brad and Peg Willis were discussing him, two months after he entered Harvard Law, David sat with Suds Sutherland in a dim and ancient Boston fish house surveying a mound of empty clamshells. He sighed deeply and said "Whew!" and Sudsy said, "Courage. There's more coming. Mackerel."