Five Smooth Stones (86 page)

"David—a new country—a growing country—to be able to watch it and help it grow—all that you studied about constitutional law and government—David, they need you—"

"Sara, you're jumping all the guns. I—well—I didn't pick Harvard because it's the best in constitutional law so that I could make what I learned operative in Africa. That wasn't why—"

"You don't think people sometimes have opportunities to go where they are needed just because they
are
needed? That maybe—"

"Sara, I'm not needed all that much. Solomon Abikawai is a brilliant man. And a wise one, well named. So is Jedediah. Good God, there are plenty of people they could get if I don't go. Better men than I am, with more experience. For that matter, they could get along fine without anyone."

"David—"

"I know that Africa's future is going to affect the entire world. And I know it would be the most damned interesting job any guy could be lucky enough to get. But—"

"But? But what, David?"

"I don't think I can explain. I don't even know exactly what I mean, myself. Commitments, and—well, a sort of debt—"

"What commitments? What debt?"

He stopped pacing and looked down at her and saw a woman waiting for a mortal blow—the blade of the guillotine, the drop from the gallows. What could Sara be expected to know of the deep inner commitment of a black man to his people, or of a debt owed a generous fate?
Homo vitae commodatus non donatus est.
The Prof had written that on the flyleaf of the book he had given him the day he left New Orleans for college: Man is lent, not given, life. Those words would have a different meaning for Sara Kent, to whom the good things of life had come as a matter of natural course, not as a kind of wide-ranging miracle. Sara, who loved him without reservation; Sara, whose life had been his since that first meeting; little Sara, who could not take her eyes from his face now, and into whose eyes he could no longer look; Sara, whom he felt he had loved since the day he was born, waiting now for words that would sustain her spirit—or destroy it.

At last she half whispered: "This is it, David. This is it— the whole thing—life—everything. Listen to me, David, because I won't say it again. If you accept this appointment it's us—you and I—David and Sara—living whole, getting married. It's me, perhaps in Lisbon while you're there, but together just the same. Maybe it's me there with you after a while. It's peace, David, peace—you won't have to worry about our marriage over here. Do you see? Do you understand?"

He dared not say he had not thought that far ahead, felt guilty that such a statement would be true. Now the look in her eyes was made clear, and what she was trying to say to

him was clear, too: "This is it—life—everything—" And if he turned away now, he would be striking the mortal blow she feared—not only to her but to David Champlin as well, who would never in his lifetime know Sara Kent again. The chill certainty of this was in every taut line of Sara's body, in her eyes and face. This was not even the Sara Kent who had left him in Boston only to meet him in Paddington; this was a Sara Kent who would not return again.

"David." If he had not known it was Sara speaking, he would not have recognized her voice. "I'm not going to beg. Or try to persuade. I understand; I've always understood so much more than you've given me credit for. Not everything, but more than that. Who's to say you won't be fulfilling a commitment—paying a debt, helping your people—just because they are in Africa? What strengthens them anywhere strengthens them everywhere." She turned away from him, so that he could not see her face. "David, David. It's not that. I'm being a hypocrite. It's that I thought you'd want it—as I did—because of us. Not that you wouldn't know, couldn't decide. And I thought you'd know—the way I did, instantly— that it would mean—us, everything. And without some move like this there's only a future like the past, empty and lonely and awful—"

He walked slowly over to her and took her face between his hands, turning it toward him, the long dark strength of his fingers hiding all her tense paleness, only the forehead and the wide dark eyes and the straightly tiny nose and soft mouth and chin visible. He moved his index fingers so that they closed the lids over the stricken eyes. "Don't, baby; don't look like that." He bent and kissed her lips and felt her body go limp and he drew her toward him, his arms around her now, her face against him.

"David, don't ever frighten me like that again. Oh, my God, sweetheart, don't—"

CHAPTER 54

Li'l Joe Champlin moved a small end table the better to sweep under it, and clucked disapprovingly as he picked up a crumpled, empty cigarette package from the floor. "You done that, Chop-bone. You stole that outa the wastebasket. You ain't been paying attention to what I been saying to you. David's coming home. It ain't right, me fussing at him about keeping things neat, an' you messing things up."

There had been times in the past year when the chores of housecleaning had seemed almost too much for him. Today, though, there was no tiredness or temptation to let things go until tomorrow, and hadn't been since David had called the day before, from Washington. He had expected the call from New York, not Washington, but starting with David's announcement that he was going over the water to go to college some more, Li'l Joe's capacity for surprise had lessened. He still couldn't figure out why the boy had to go so damned far away for more education; the Lord knew, he'd wanted the boy to get all the education he could, but it seemed like there were plenty good colleges in the United States where he could have gone. "Got a suspicion," he told himself, "got a mighty big suspicion that li'l bit of a white girl's mixed up in it somewheres." But even if he was right there wasn't much, at this point, that he could do about it. All he could do was pray that the Lord would show the boy what was right and then give him the strength to do it.

As he worked he thought about the visit the evening before of one of David's young white friends, his third visit since David had gone over the water. One of the nicest white boys he'd ever met, and a preacher at that. He remembered the first time he'd met the boy at Pengard he'd been thrown off by the accent. Took him a time to stop shying away from it, in spite of David's grinning, "Don't pay it no mind, Gramp. He doesn't think the way he talks." He still looked like a big overgrown country boy now, button-in-back collar and all. A nice, polite boy, a fine boy. Didn't always matter about color, as long as it was a man and not a woman.

He had driven up unexpectedly late in the afternoon the day before in a beat-up old car and grinned all over himself when he saw that Li'l Joe was at home. It was raining hard, and Li'l Joe stood in the doorway and called, "You-all better hurry. You going to get wet—" and when the greetings were over—"Sure glad you come, sure glad. I got news. David's back. He'll be coming home pretty soon."

"Gee, that's great! When?"

"Two, three days. He's in Washington now."

"Washington? What's he doing there?"

"He didn't say. Sit down, Reverend. Here—lemme res' your coat. Supper's coming up soon."

"I'm not about to share your supper if you call me 'reverend'."

Li'l Joe smiled. "It's them clothes. What David used to call 'threads' when he was a young un. Still does, I guess, now and then."

Later, when they were seated at the kitchen table, eating supper, Chuck said, "I'm going to be around these parts a lot more in the next few years, Li'l Joe."

"Sure glad to hear that, Chuck. What you going to be doing? Preaching?"

"No, not preaching. Oh, maybe some, here and there. The presiding bishop of my church has named six of us to go out into the field on a sort of double mission. Fact-finding, and an effort to consolidate the churches, all denominations, behind the civil rights movement. I'm the straw boss—I guess because I know the South. I get to do the most roaming around."

"Lawd!"

"You don't think it will work?"

"Ain't saying it won't. Coupla hundred years from now, mebbe. You just said it your ownself. You're from the South. You knows. It ain't going to be easy."

"Neither was Christianity, Li'l Joe. It didn't just happen. I haven't any high hopes of getting far fast. The others in the group have, but they're mostly Northerners. Still, here a church—there a church—here a minister—there a minister —like old MacDonald's farm. Things are stirring down here, Li'l Joe. If the churches aren't ready for it—"

"They won't be," said Li'l Joe grimly. "I ain't trying to discourage you, son, but you got rough going ahead. We fixin' for a mess of trouble right here come next fall if they tries this school integration like they say they going to. Real trouble."

"I suppose you are. I always thought of New Orleans, somehow, as being just a little further advanced, broader-minded. It ought to be, the mixture of races you've got here."

"Don't no one really know a place till they lives in it. Like you don't know a woman till you marries her. I was born here and so was my folks, and I figure to be buried here. And I'm saying it—we fixin' to have trouble."

"I believe you."

"You better believe it. Anyhow, David's going to be mighty happy about what you doing. He can give you some help, mebbe. He works real close with the ALEC people up there at headquarters in Boston, and down here, too. Here, push that cup outa the way so's I can give you a plate—rice now, beans—Lawd, boy! you wants more beans than that—David, he'd call them few just a teaser. Help yo'se'f now, to that cold chicken and the ham—"

"Lawd 'a' mercy! how you stay so thin, Gramp Champlin?" '

Li'l Joe was already in bed when David's call came at eleven o'clock.

"Hi, Gramp! It's me again. Did I wake you up?" ."You knows I don't get to sleep till twelve, one o'clock. How come you calling again so soon, son? Something wrong?"

"No. Gosh, no, Gramp. When you going to stop worrying? I wanted to tell you I'll be home tomorrow about suppertime. I'm flying, not driving. You got red beans?"

"Always has. I'll fix us a gumbo and some crab."

"I have to be back here in Washington on Monday, but I'll be there for the weekend. Got a present for you."

"You has? What you got?"

"You'll see. You'll flip, Gramp."

"Don't let nothing hold you up now. Chop-bone, he's in your room, laying on the bed, keeping it warm for you—"

For a long time after he talked with his grandson, Li'l Joe sat up in bed, a light burning beside him, trying without success to concentrate on a magazine. He supposed he'd always start worrying, about this time of night, because most of his life, even when he was a kid, he'd gone to bed worrying about something or other. Now that there wasn't much to worry about he couldn't break the habit. Seemed almost like he felt guilty if he didn't worry. A man couldn't have the bad times he'd had when he was a kid, been all that poor, then forget about it when he was old, just because he knew where his next dollar was coming from. Man couldn't forget how hard his mother had worked, trying to take care of him; they'd been chicken-back, fishbone, peppergrass poor. Now, looking back, he didn't see how he'd made it, and sometimes he'd shake his head, thinking about it, wondering, remembering. Hadn't been till after him and Geneva took David things had begun to get better. First the job at Zeke Jones's, helping lay out corpses; and then a li'l job here and a li'l job there, putting up every penny they could; and then there was enough for a down payment on a house that wasn't nothing but framework, and then an inside toilet and then a bathtub and all—and right now there wasn't a nicer little house anywhere around, improving it like he'd done, every year, right up till now.

With everything going so good he was a damned fool to worry about something that hadn't happened, and looked like maybe it wouldn't happen after all this time fooling around —David maybe getting married with a white woman. It said in the Bible, didn't it, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"? He'd better start thinking about the "good thereof." Wasn't right, worrying about something that hadn't happened yet, just when God was being so good to him.

Lawd! it would be good to hear the boy laugh again, and the sound of his uneven steps through the rooms. Sometimes Li'l Joe grew cold all over, thinking how he'd tried to persuade Geneva to give the baby up, send the child to its mother's folks in Mississippi. He wished now Geneva was with him, wished he could turn to her now, find her beside him, fussing at him about keeping the light on, talk to her about David and how fine he'd turned out, and how he hadn't ever forgotten his grandfather no matter what he was doing or how far away he went. All that he believed and had been taught to believe told him that she knew, but it would be nice to be sure.

He knew what would happen this weekend; David would stay home most of the time, wouldn't go traipsing off over the river; he'd stay home and tell his grandfather about all— or almost all—the things that had happened to him over the water, and when they both got talked out there were the piano and his banjo. Almost never was a time David wouldn't make a little music with him; he'd show the boy Li'l Joe Champlin wasn't so old he couldn't give a big grandson fits, playing that banjo; he'd make him sweat, trying to keep up.

***

On the plane back to Washington from his weekend in New Orleans, David startled the woman in the seat next to him by a sudden, involuntary chuckle. The woman was a white woman, and a tag on her tote bag gave a home address in a town in southern Louisiana; she gave him a startled sideways look as though the chuckle were the standard prelude to rape. It had been the only seat left in the plane, and David knew she thought he ought to be standing in the rear. What in hell these dumpy, pasty-faced women thought they had any Negro would want—and, for David's money, any white man—he couldn't figure out, never had been able. He chuckled again, this time on purpose, enjoying her uneasiness. The first chuckle had been at his memory of Gramp in the native costume Jedediah had sent. It hadn't been funny at the time and it wasn't funny now, in one sense. Behind the laugh then, when Gramp had put the costume on, and the chuckle now, there was a sort of ache, because Gramp's eyes had shone so brightly you could plug 'em in for lights, and when he had donned the robe there had come from somewhere inside that small, arrow-straight frame, a dignity and regality that made David remember Solomon of Zambana. He determined then that, come hell, highwater, or active warfare, Gramp was going to Zambana unless something went wrong with the appointment. The chance of this happening had prevented him from even hinting at it to Gramp; the whole thing would have to be a dead certainty before he'd risk disappointing him.