Five Smooth Stones (88 page)

There had never been many outward demonstrations of affection between the two men but today David threw a long arm around the little man's shoulder, tightened it in a quick gesture of affectionate reassurance. "It's all right, Gramp. I wanted to tell you first, but some big-mouth got ahead of me, eh? Everything's going to be fine."

"You saying it, son, not me."

The memory of a night completely without sleep, of tossing restlessly in bed, then roaming uneasily through the house, of watching the little living room turn first gray, then light, in the early-morning hours was too vivid right now for Li'l Joe's mood to be lightened by his grandson's words. He was acquainted with grief and loneliness and sorrow, and had known all three in those dark night hours.

He knew the answer to sorrow; his mother had taught him that. Keep busy. Keep working. But when a man was getting on in years, the work wasn't always there. And even a young man gave way to it sometimes, had to let it carry him. He knew men, young men, who'd let pain and disappointment carry them too far, so far from life they couldn't get back to living it, wrapped themselves up in a cocoon of disappointment and defeat like fuzzy caterpillars, not caring if anyone called them shiftless and lazy. Better if they did call them that, so's nothing would be expected of them. Figured on coming out of that cocoon after they were in their graves, flying around on their wings after they were buried. He'd done that, after Geneva was taken, but, Lord! a man couldn't stay in a cocoon like that when there was a little chile to took after and an old lady who'd near killed herself to bring a son up, no matter how bad the grief was, how deep the darkness. And it had been dark, didn't anybody but God know how dark it had been after Geneva passed.

"And it ain't exactly light now," he said to himself, watching the thin grayness of dawn creep beneath the window shades.

Don't do no good, he told himself, don't do no good thinking how the boy's marrying up with a white woman. Lord's got to take care of that; He's sure got to take care of that because it ain't right, it's trouble, and Lord, if You can take his trouble away without hurting him too bad I sure wish You'd do it. The trouble would come more than likely when they had children, or when something come up that she'd see white and David would see colored, and there wouldn't be any way to bring them together so's they'd see it alike, never could be a way to bring two persons together, living as man and wife, when one of them was white and the other colored, when neither of them could remember one thing, scarce one thing, common from when they were children. "Jesus he'p him," Li'l Joe had murmured, half aloud. "Jesus he'p him. He's going to need it."

Those night hours had been too long for David's smile, his presence, his reassuring arm and words, to chase their memory away. And there were longer, lonelier ones ahead, and these were in his heart when he said, "You saying it, son, not me."

***

"Gramp, let's have a beer and then you let me talk and tell you about it. Don't start feeling bad until I've finished, because then you won't feel bad—"

Li'l Joe wanted to say he'd already started, that feeling bad was part of him now. Instead he said, "Sure, son. There's plenty beer in the icebox."

It took almost an hour for David to tell the story, leaving nothing out, retracing his meeting and friendship with Jedediah and his later meeting with Solomon of Zambana; then the new story of Lawrence Travis and his efforts on his behalf, his meeting with Chittock of State—"That's why I was in Washington, Gramp—" and then hesitantly, defensively, the decision he and Sara had reached about their marriage now that they could live elsewhere and know peace. He had just started to tell Gramp of the plan to bring him to Africa when there was a familiar, thudding footstep on the porch, followed by a familiar knock.

" 'Saiah," said Gramp.

"Hell!" said David. "I was just getting—"

Then Isaiah was inside and there was more beer and more talk—Lord, thought David, how my people talk; You ought to do something about it—and he went over the story again, this time briefly and only in outline, mentioning his marriage only casually, in passing. He didn't mention the plan to have Gramp come to Africa because he wanted to be alone with Gramp when he told him.

The talk stopped all at once, and the sudden pause had an uncanny something about it. Isaiah took what was left of a well-smoked cigar from his mouth and laid it carefully in an ashtray. He looked stern and reproving, and when he cleared his throat the sternness and reproof became more marked. "You'd ought to be mighty proud, David," he said. "That's a big honor."

"Can't say that I see it exactly as an honor. It was more a case of meeting the right guy in the right place at the right time. I didn't go after it."

"Sure. Sure. And you ain't going to be there forever, don't suppose." He pulled another cigar from his pocket and studied it carefully, not looking at David. "After you get through helping the black man down there in Africa, maybe you can come back and help him here. Days of trouble coming. We could sure use an extra hand."

He stood up without waiting for an answer, said loudly, "Gotta go, Li'l Joe! Gotta go, David! Got a meeting at headquarters on this school mess that's coming up—"

After he had left, Gramp looked at David's back, as the boy stood in the doorway looking out, silent since Isaiah's barbed remark. "Don't take it hard, son. He's all wound up in this school trouble, people getting threats and all, and all the trouble stirring everywhere, can't think of nothing else. He's just what you calls 'needling.' A man goes where he's needed. I ain't happy about it, God knows I ain't, but a man goes where he's needed. Man's got something to give, God sends him where he can give it. Better there, where you're going, son, where you can get yourself a little peace inside. You got a woman you love, and you don't want no other. Don't guess you ever will, and I ain't even saying anything about that."

As Li'l Joe walked toward David, his grandson opened the door and the two men walked out on the front porch together and stood silently, leaning on the rail, watching Miz Timmins's grandchild playing in the yard across the road. At last Li'l Joe could keep silent no longer, and at the same time could not keep the pain from his voice.

"Don't look like you'll be coming back this way much again, David."

David turned so quickly that the little man gave a half-jump back. "What are you saying, Gramp?"

"You about finished here, son. Man has to go on. I said a long time ago, before you went away to collidge, that you'd be going away from here. I been lucky it ain't come sooner."

"Look, Gramp, is that what you've been thinking? Is that why you've been so brought down? Don't kid me, Gramp. I can tell. Now, listen to me—"

"That's what I been doing—"

"Just
listen,
will you! Anytime you need me, I can get here. I'm not exactly my own boss, but I know I can say that and back it up. Anytime you need me—twenty-four hours and I'm here. You haven't heard of airplanes?"

"What you saying! I been
on
'em, ain't I?"

"Didn't waste any time, did they? Pretty soon they'll all be jets, too. Come on back inside and let's have another beer and sit down and I'll tell you what I've got in my mind—"

"Thought you had some damned thing in your head—" said Gramp as they sat down, beers at hand.

"Yup. Listen, Gramp—how'd you like to come to Africa, too, for a while? For as long as you want, as far as that's concerned. And no cracks about money. We can make it."

He thought Gramp would never answer. The mantel clock

Sara had sent Gramp on Christmas ticked more times than a man would want to count; the cat entrance-exit in the kitchen door squeaked softy as Chop-bone came in to check up on things; there was a soft plop-plop from the faucet in the kitchen Gramp said was acting up, and at last David said, "Well, Gramp?" The little man opposite was not looking at him now, and David knew he did not dare. Someday, David told himself for the millionth time since he'd been grown, he'd take time out and try to analyze what it was about Gramp, what in hell it was about Gramp that never left a guy.

Again David said, "Well, Gramp?" and Li'l Joe's silence finally gave way.

"Lawd! Africa!"

"And Europe, too. Sara can take over there. But Africa first, if you want it that way."

It was clear that Gramp was only half believing. "Look, son," he said. "You going to be on a honeymoon, sort of. You'll don't want an old man trailing along—"

"Oh, for God's sake! Here we go again. Worrying. We'll have a honeymoon for a little while. It isn't as though we'd just met. Then, until I get my bearings in Zambana, Sara's going to stake out in southern Europe. By the time I send for you and you get there, I'll know plenty of people in Africa who'll welcome you with open arms."

"Lawd!" said Gramp again. "Lawd, Lawd, an old man—"

"You're not old. Shut up about being old."

"I ain't young. All my life, seems like, ever since I was a chile and used to listen to my grandma tell about what all she remembered about it, I been reading about where my people come from. Used to teach you—"

"To be proud of it, not run it down as most colored did in those days—"

"That's right. Been reading and studying. Lawd, don't know's I could stand it. I feels funny just thinking about it."

"You'll get over that."

"Reckon—reckon maybe we'd get to Senegal?"

"Senegal? I don't know. Why Senegal?"

"I done told you, Gawd knows how many times, that's where your Tant'Irene's mamma come from. Brought over on a slave ship when she was just a chile, eight year old—"

"I remember—"

"But it don't make no difference. If I get to Africa don't make no difference about getting there. S'pose we'll see any lions, tigers?"

"My God, I hope not! No, I don't. Maybe you can get to one of those big-game preserves where the lions come up to the car to get their ears scratched."

"Lawd!" said Gramp. He was silent again for a long time. Then, "I got to have a passport?"

"We'll start the wheels rolling tomorrow. And don't you let me hear you say again I won't be coming back this way. If you're here—and you need me—I'll be back so quick it'll make you dizzy."

"Guess I should have knowed that. Knowed you'd come back did I need you."

"I'll be back anyhow, whether you need me or not."

"Mebbe so. But I knows you'll come if I need you—" He got up, picked up their empty beer cans, and started for the kitchen. When he reached the dining room he stopped and did a quick shuffle dance step, looking back at David. "But I ain't going to be needing you. Feels like a young buck right now, a-snortin' and a-whuffin'—" He sighed what was for him a gusty sigh. "Lawd, I ain't gonna believe it till I sees the passport. Ain't gonna believe it then, not till I sets my feets— both of 'em—down on Africa."

CHAPTER 56

Li'l Joe was restless. Seemed as though a man had a right to be, he thought; couldn't expect a man seventy years old to sit back and fold his hands when he had a passport to Africa in his pocket. David had warned him over and over: "Watch that passport, Gramp. Don't you go carrying it around with you. Ambrose's got a safe in his taxi office. Keep it in there." But he couldn't do that. How was a man going to convince folks he was really doing something like go to Africa unless he had something to show? He knew his people. "That's what Li'l Joe say—that's what he say—that he's going to Africa." They'd ought to have some of the needles the doctor at the health department had stuck into him, last week or two. Sick as a dog, a couple of them had made him. Man who hated needles bad as he did wasn't going through all that for nothing.

Li'l Joe thought that when he went to New York to take the plane, just before Christmas, he'd go by train. Get himself a roomette and take it easy, nothing to worry about; the Timminses were going to take care of Chop-bone, see that he stayed in the house at night, let him out in the morning, see he got fed and all. Maybe he'd even spend the money to put Chop-bone in one of these fancy cat kennels while he was gone. He didn't know just yet where he'd be landing over the water. David was taking care of that—David and Sara. He found he wasn't minding so much thinking about Sara. He wouldn't be able to bring her to his home, and that was bad, or their children. Li'l Joe wouldn't be seeing any great-grandchildren round the house; he supposed he'd have to go where they were. "There won't be any children," David had said. "That's me talking, and I mean it. If it was a hundred years from now—maybe. But not now. Sara doesn't feel that way about it, but she doesn't know the kind of hell we'd be letting them in for. After all, could be we might have to come back over to the United States and settle down—"

Li'l Joe grinned at Chop-bone, curled in one of his favorite places, beside the clock on the mantel. "David sure talks big," he said to the cat. "Boy sure talks big. I knows that girl. Does she want chilren—chilren's what they gonna have—"

Shucks, he couldn't stay home; even though he'd be leaving in a little bit more'n a month it was still an uneasy thing, knowing David was going so far away again tomorrow. He changed his clothes, gave his shoes a brisk polish, and put on a soft tan cashmere pullover that David had brought him, under his coat. Couldn't risk catching a fresh cold, not now. Might go into complications, just when he had to be feeling good for the trip.

He knew there was a lot of talk, a lot of worry, about the school trouble and the bad things that were happening, but he hadn't realized how much tension there would be everywhere he went; he could feel it even on the streets, where there seemed to be less people than usual. He listened to stories from his friends of some of the things that were happening because a little Negro girl was trying to enter a white school, and he knew the truth of them. He knew, too, that few, if any, of them would ever see print, and that was a damned shame. World ought to know, he thought, the whole world ought to know how some of these folks can treat a li'l chile just because she's black.