Harlem Redux (52 page)

“It wasn’t just the evil of those supposedly God-fearing people that got me. It was what I saw in myself. God, I’ll never forget the moment when I realized what I’d done.”

The visitor’s room had taken on the air of a confessional. A contemplative silence had settled over it. The rainfall quieted. Even the rumble of thunder seemed to come from far away. Annie looked at David’s wretched face.

“Son, what do you think life is? Don’t you know that in many ways, it ain’t nothing but a battle with yourself?”

“But I saw something in myself that horrified me.”

“You think you the first one that’s happened to? What about all them people out there drinking and cussing and carrying on? Who d’you think they running from? People start out with all kinds of high-faluting ideas. And then things happen, bad things, to test a man’s grit. And don’t nobody know how they gonna react till their time comes.”

“I was so sure of myself when I set out, so sure of what I was capable of—”

“When you left here, you didn’t have the faintest idea where you was going. Or what you’d do when you got there.”

David remembered how he’d responded with confidence when Jonah and Miss Mae expressed their fear. They must’ve thought him a fool. He gave a rueful smile. “Maybe you’re right. Being knocked down can clear a man’s head of a lot of nonsense.”

“You had a choice: to lay down and die or get back on your feet. And you chose to get up. Some folks might not agree with how you did it, but you did it and I’m proud that you did.”

His eyes shone. He blinked rapidly. “I love you, Annie.”

“And I love you.” Her eyes dwelled on him for a bit, then she said, “I got a present here for you.” Reaching into her purse, she pulled out his worn childhood Bible. “Take it and read it. The Lord’ll stand by you if you stand by Him.”

He looked at it, knowing that his faith was long gone. “Thank you. You’ll have to give it to the guard. He’ll pass it to me.”

Annie leaned toward him. “I know you feel alone, but trust in the Lord. You got friends, son. Not just me. Powerful people. Some of them in the strangest places.”

David thought about Snyder and what he’d said.
I know what it’s like to be an outsider among outsiders.
And what about Nella? Despite her manipulative ambition, she had sincerely tried to help him. And he sensed that he could always count on her for eccentric but oddly dependable support. A West Indian rackets king and a wealthy white socialite: The prejudices of his time rigidly classified them as his enemies, but they had shown themselves to be his allies. He, of all people, had been forced to learn once more that in life so little is as it seems.

“You done traveled a long hard way, and you got a ways to go. But I b’lieve you’ll be all right. I do b’lieve you’ll be just fine. Just remember: Everybody gets tested. And sooner or later everybody fails. Discovers something about themselves they don’t wanna know. Everybody’s got secrets, young man. Everybody.”

His eyes dwelled on her and his expression saddened. He had a heavy feeling in his chest. For once, it had nothing to do with his own guilt. “Even you, Annie?”

There was a long silence and then the edges of her smile began to tremble. She sighed. “How long you been knowing?”

“I found a copy of Lilian’s manuscript. It was all there.” He paused. “Why didn’t you tell me? After Daddy died, you could’ve said something.”

She didn’t answer for a long, long time. “I wanted to. All these years, I wanted to. But I made a promise—”

“You made a pact with the Devil.”

“I knew he’d give my son the best.”

“But to make you a servant—”

“Hush. It was the only way. He’d married my best friend. It was over. It was done. You was on the way. And you was all I had. I didn’t wanna give you up. And I didn’t wanna have to raise you alone. When Lila found out, she had the idea. And I agreed.”

It’s a hard thing for a man to realize that the people he has most loved and trusted have lied to him all his life. It takes strength to resist the temptation to be bitter. He thought of all the times he’d seen her and his father together.

“And did you still love him? Did you two keep on loving each other through all those years?”

“No.” She shook her head. “When he married my friend, that was the end of anything that coulda been between us. All I cared about was you getting his name.”

Was this how Rachel felt when she was carrying Isabella? He thought of the parallels between Augustus and Annie, and himself and Rachel. Were sons always destined to repeat the sins of their fathers?

“How did Lilian find out?”

“I don’t know. She never said nothing. But there were days I caught her looking at me—and I knew. It was the same way you started looking at me after you went into Mr. Jameson’s office. I didn’t know what you’d found, but I was pretty certain what you’d learned from it.”

David drew a deep breath. “It’s time for the lying and pretending to stop, don’t you think? It’s time for a little honesty––from all of us.”

There were tears in her eyes as she whispered, “Yes ... yes, it is.”

“Remember me?” the old man said when David was shown into the visitors’ room.

“‘Course I do. You’re Roy—”

“That’s right! Roy, Roy, the Shoeshine Boy. How ya doing, soldier boy?”

“Fine,” David said, then thought about it. He gave a sheepish grin and gestured toward his surroundings. “Well, not so fine, actually.”

Roy shook his head. “Ain’t this a mess? When I saw your face in the paper, and read what happened, I just had to come. How can they treat a fine soldier boy this way?”

David slid his seat closer. “Listen, I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t sleep last night and I got to thinking about what you said, about the war ... and your son and all.”

Roy’s sunny expression dimmed. “Sorry about that. I was just flapping my lip. Went and put my foot in it.”

“No, I’m glad you said what you said, about your wife thinking your son died for nothing and what that does to you. As you know from the papers, my sister recently died and the hardest part of it all is the notion that she died before her time. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Not directly. You see, I had a time too when I was bitter about having fought in that war, about having risked my life for Mister Charlie.”

“But you’re a hero. You got a medal.”

“I was in the wrong place at the right time—if you can imagine.”

“And you ain’t bitter no more?”

“No. I realized last night that I’m not.” David paused, trying to find words to explain. “I was twenty-seven when I signed up, too old for any romantic notions about the battlefield. Our civil rights leaders were telling us that colored patriotism in the trenches of Europe would mean social equality for us at home. I didn’t believe it. We colored folk fought in the War for Independence and every war since then. Our courage had never been acknowledged or rewarded. I didn’t understand what made DuBois and the others so sure it would work this time. How could they ensure that we wouldn’t just come back to broken promises? And there was nothing going on to make a man feel better.

“There was that mess over in East St. Louis. All those colored folk killed—hundreds dead and thousands more torched out of their homes. That was in July. In August, a riot tore through Houston. The colored soldiers stationed outside the city got tired of putting up with the white boys’ nonsense. Seventeen white folk died. To avenge them seventeen, Mister Charlie hung thirteen blacks, court-martialed sixty, and jailed scores for life. But you know all this. Kill them or lock them up: That was the way to keep colored men in line. Understanding why the riot happened was the last thing on the white man’s mind. So, things couldn’t have been much worse.”

“But you and my boy, y’all signed up anyway.”

“I believed we couldn’t let a chance go by without at least trying. The army had set up this training camp for colored officers at Des Moines. DuBois was urging educated colored men to go there. But once I was there, it didn’t take long to see that those white folk were giving the higher commissions to the fellows with little or no education. They viewed educated colored men with suspicion and treated us with contempt.

“That fixed it for me. My dying over there wouldn’t mean a damn thing over here. I’d be just one less nigger to deal with. As for civil rights, white mobs would go on lynching, killing, burning with impunity; the ballot box would remain off-limits; southern university doors would remain closed, and good jobs would be a luxury for a lucky few. Me and the other fellows at the camp, we used to ask ourselves why we should go overseas and risk our lives for a democracy we were denied at home. We never found a good answer. But we went anyway.

“Army life confirmed my worst fears. They confined us colored men to camp. Made us go through hourly checks. We were a threat to white women, they said. We were lazy, stupid brutes, they said. But we were strong and they worked us like dogs. Sometimes fourteen hours a day. We were poorly fed, physically abused, mocked, and humiliated. They forbid us to consort with French civilians and they told the French to have nothing to do with us. We were sexually depraved, they said, cowardly, incompetent. And the French, they didn’t know any better, so they listened.

“I remember that first French village my company entered. The village folk were scared to death. But we won them over. We worked hard at it, doing all we could to help. And it worked. We won their trust. We won their friendship. Best of all, we won their respect. They invited us into their homes. They shared their food, their stories, their losses, and their luck with us. And they appreciated what we did for them. It was so different from here in the U.S., where the white man says nothing we do is good enough.

“France was an eye-opener. I’d never dreamed that black and white could coexist like that. Some of those French folk were even willing to fight Mister Charlie to defend being friends with us. I remember one time when a riot broke out in a club. A white American officer had insulted a colored Frenchman for talking to a white girl. The girl’s brother understood some English and caught what was said. Those French people took off after those soldiers. Nearly tore up the place. Don’t get me wrong. I knew that France wasn’t perfect. They gave the Senegalese something to complain about. But there was no sign of the endemic, systematic, and deadly contempt that the white folk here got for us.

“When it was over, the white boys left us all the clean-up work. My last memories were of the military cemetery at Romagne, near Verdun. It was the eve of General Pershing’s visit. Those white boys refused to help bury their own men, the guys who’d died in the battle at Meuse-Argonne. We colored had to do it. We’d rise at dawn and go back to the battlefield, collecting the dead. We bent our backs from dawn till dusk. From Romagne, we went on to Beaumont, Belleau Wood, Fay-en-Tardenois, and Soissons. God, those names I’ll never forget. Twenty-two thousand white crosses we planted. The white boys got to go home. We were left to do what they refused to do. We were the last to go.

“Of course, by then, lots of the fellows didn’t even want to come back. They’d had enough of this country. They were going to stay in France. Study. Open clubs. They wanted me to stay with them, but I had other ideas. I had a promise to my father to keep. But it wasn’t just that. I really thought I could make a difference. I’d seen the way it was in France. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to make changes here in the States, but I thought it was worth a try. I was naive. I know that now. But what I wanted to tell you, Roy—what I want you to tell your missus—is this: Before he died, those French villagers gave your son, gave all of us Negro soldiers, a gift. And it was this: a vision, a taste, of what it’s like to be viewed with respect and treated like a man. Something most of us would’ve never had if we’d stayed here. Now, I don’t know how your son died ... but I know he didn’t die for nothing.”

There was a silence. Roy’s lips began to tremble. He pressed them together, then put his hand over his mouth. He closed his eyes and his chest heaved. Tears leaked out from under his eyelids. He produced a torn but clean handkerchief and swiped his damp face with it. He looked at David with grateful eyes. “I came here to comfort you. Now you’s the one comforting me. Thank you.” He smiled through his tears.