Indigo (23 page)

“Bramwell wants us to visit his grandmother,” Pamela said. “When he sees her at her house she is calmer. She's usually kinder too.”

Jerry didn't want to see the old lady again but Bramwell walked away so quickly that there wasn't any choice but to follow him. The path was wide enough for Pamela and Jerry to walk on together, but Pamela nevertheless stepped in front of him, calling after Bramwell once in a while, but never catching up. When she turned at intersecting paths, Jerry followed her, and though he had the feeling that the path wound down, when he glanced back he did not have the corresponding feeling of looking up.

Around one bend, though he expected nothing of the kind, Jerry found Pamela and Bramwell waiting for him beside a fast-moving stream. There were women washing in the stream and Jerry somehow felt his spirits lift. He walked past Bramwell and Pamela and down to the edge of the water, where one of the women was filling a jug with stream water.

“How much do you want for that jug?” Jerry asked the woman. He'd had no idea he was going to ask such a question but he was suddenly able to see the jug so clearly, an artifact standing in the corner of his living room, next to the rest of his art.

The woman looked up at him. Her skin was as black as andirons and crinkled around her eyes. She said something that he didn't understand.

“That jug,” Jerry said. He remembered as he spoke that his clothing was filthy and his pockets were empty of cash, but the woman suddenly stood up and nodded, holding the jug out to him. “Drink,” she said.

Jerry was about to say that he wasn't telling her he was thirsty, but suddenly he was. He took the jug and tipped it back and drank deeply from it, for an instant seeing himself reflected as the sun flashed over the water in front of his eyes.

The woman took the jug back and dipped it into the stream, replacing the bit of water that he had drunk. She then laughed a little and walked down to a series of rocks in the stream, crossing over to the other side and moving out into the fields.

Jerry felt his forehead with the back of his hand, then looked at the calamine lotion on his arm. Down where the woman had crossed it the stream was a silver ribbon, and even in the shadows the water was phosphorescent. He thought of nighttime smelt fishing on the Oregon coast, the way the sides of the fishes flashed in the light of the moon. Suddenly Jerry took his shirt off and, kneeling in the stream, washed himself in the clean water. He washed his face and under his arms and he let the water fall nicely across his chest, wetting his pants but feeling wonderful just the same.

Jerry thought to take his hat off and wash his hair, but when he turned back toward Pamela and Bramwell, to see how they would react to such an event, it was now Nurudeen who stood by his mother's side. Directly behind them was a small house, its front toward the path they had come on, its back up against the stream. How in the world had he missed seeing the house before? Jerry wondered. The old woman came out of it with Bramwell and stood behind Pamela and Nurudeen.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

“Hi,” said Jerry Neal.

Nurudeen looked small and young now that he stood next to his brother. It seemed impossible that this was the boy who had stolen the copy-machine toner, more impossible still that any father would misuse his son so. Jerry asked Nurudeen how long he had been staying in the little house.

“Several days, sir,” said the boy. “I often come here during school holidays.”

Jerry suddenly thought to embarrass the old woman by holding his arm in front of Nurudeen and actually asking the boy to tell him what color he saw. But when he looked at the old woman she too appeared to be changed. Where before she had been aggressive, now she seemed only grandmotherly, her odd-looking face joining its components in a smile. When she spoke, however, though her voice was gentle, her words weren't connected to that smile.

“You don' believe anyting,” she said, “dat's de problem here. Soon as somebody mention a thing you take de position of ‘I don' believe it.' Is that a common problem where you come from?”

The old woman had come forward as she spoke, letting Jerry see that she was carrying a low-cut three-legged stool. Amazingly, the others had stools too, and soon they all sat in a circle, in the shade of the house and next to the stream. Someone had carried an extra stool for Jerry and he felt his body drying quickly as he sat down.

When they were settled, though he was beginning to feel like an acolyte in a monastery, Jerry spoke first. He had been oddly hurt by the grandmother's opening remark and he said, “I believe a great many things. Where I come from most people do.”

“No you don',” said the grandmother. “You don' believe dat every person see you difieren' now, you don' believe anyting 'bout dat.”

She was right, but Jerry said, “I thought you were talking about serious beliefs, the ones that form your character, that make up the kind of person you are.”

The old woman waved her hand and asked, “If people don' see you difieren' now, den why you don' get special attention dis day in our village? What for de children don' come roun' you anymore calling little names?”

It was true that he'd been walking around easily, but the day was hot and the village, he remembered, had been nearly empty.

“I
was
singled out by one man,” Jerry said. “A guy trying to sell medicine.”

The grandmother hadn't understood so Pamela said it again and she laughed. “Dat proves my point,” she said. “De travelin' medicine man don' never talk to de white man. De travelin' medicine man know de white man gone be de firs' to laugh at 'im, so he stick to 'is own kind, sell where de selling is good.”

The grandmother's house provided such good shade and the spot where they sat was so cool and peaceful that Jerry had felt little tension, but the woman had said exactly what he'd been thinking before, namely, why would the Power 99 man expose himself to the ridicule that he'd surely get from most white men? If he looked, though, Jerry could see that his skin was white, so the whole thing was ridiculous. He considered for a moment simply asking Pamela or one of the boys again, to make them tell the old lady what they saw, but he didn't do that. Whatever power the old woman held in the family might not hold up under direct questioning, and he needed to bide his time. The old woman, however, seemed to understand it all and said, “Das fine. Pamela, tell de man how 'e look today.”

Pamela shifted a little but quietly said, “Today he looks like everybody else I've seen. Not African, really, but like everyone else just the same.”

The grandmother looked at her grandsons until they nodded, all three of them easy with their lies, their eyes clear and their bodies relaxed in their postures on the stools. Jerry too was feeling so fine that he thought he'd let it drop. If Pamela's semantics had allowed her to speak truthfully without upsetting Beany's mom, then so much the better for Pamela. But something made him hold his hand out one more time. “Then why is it that when I look at myself I see only what I've always seen?” he asked. “Why do I look the same to me?”

“I tol' you,” the old woman patiently said. “Is because you got de ‘I-don'-believe-it' disease, and dat disease make its home in de eyes. Don' dat make sense? If de eyes is sick den how can you trust 'em?”

“My eyes would see black if there was black to see,” said Jerry, “just like they see the house behind us and the river to our side.”

“If dat is true den de eyes is de boss,” said the grandmother, “an' das bad because de eyes don' have a brain and de eyes don' have a heart. De eyes, de ears, de nose, and de mouth. Dem tings are servants but you give 'em de job as boss. You got to control dem tings wit discipline, jus' like Beany says. Beany wants it for de country but you got to have it for de eyes an' ears firs' of all.”

Jerry was quiet after that, calm and with little inclination to continue talking. When Pamela smiled at him he felt so good and settled that he was happy just to watch the river for a while, never mind what the grandmother said. He had been too tired over the last days and he liked it here. It was peaceful and the itch was gone from his arm, and he had found a way to keep his long legs out of the way while he sat upon the stool.

It was, however, getting late. The sun was casting a weaker shadow across the ground, its angle turning the river ordinary again. And though something in Jerry wanted togather enough energy for him to speak again, that something wasn't gathering its energy well. They just stayed there, quiet and calm, only Nurudeen standing once to go back into the house to bring his grandmother a shawl.

At seven o'clock they were as still as they had been at five, and at eight, when Pamela stood, helping Jerry unfold his legs from around the bottom of the stool, it was not the hour that moved her but the fact that someone had come down the trail and was standing behind them, just at the edge of the path.

It was LeRoY and he said, “There is a message at the house. Someone has driven in from Lagos.”

Jerry looked at Pamela and then at the old woman who had stood up too.

“What kin' car day drive?” she gruffly asked.

“It is a Mercedes-Benz,” said LeRoY, “a black one.”

“Dat would be Beany's car,” said the grandmother. “Les go. That car belongs to Beany who is my son.”

For reasons of his own, LeRoY chose not to say that though Beany's car had arrived, Beany wasn't on board. Smart and Louis had brought the car, with Elwood at the wheel and with news that though things were moving smoothly toward Jerry's trial, the senior military officers were now worried about the junior men staging a coup of their own. Beany, in fact, felt that the senior officers' promise to stay out of the coup might be a promise they could not now keep. And if the military took over, one of the first things they might do would be to find Jerry and spirit him out of the country, thus canceling the trial and destroying the entire civilian plan.

“We should therefore keep him moving,” Smart said, “make him harder to find.”

Smart's news was bad news for everyone but Jerry, who understood that if the senior military men took over the government then his ordeal would surely end. He didn't think they'd be interested in making him leave the country; he thought, in fact, that they'd just give him the proper visas and let him stay. The deflated looks of the others, however, made him hold his tongue.

With the exception of Sondra, they all ate at the People's Canteen again that night, but the mood wasn't celebratory. Again the place was dimly lit and again no one paid much attention to Jerry. People at the other tables didn't look at him, and his companions seemed content to eat and then go home, the old woman back to the village—this time with both her grandsons—the rest of them back to the house. When they got home, however, though Pamela and the others went into LeRoY's room to make plans, Jerry headed back toward the sleeping quarters. He had just opened the screen door, had nearly passed through it and was looking forward to hearing it slam, when Sondra called him from the doorway of her studio. “Hello, Snapdragon,” she softly said.

“Ah,” said Jerry. He reached up and touched the edge of the cap that he wore. “Tell me,” he asked. “When you look at me what colors do you see?”

Sondra laid a long index finger up under her eye. “Well, you are green with envy and I might say that you are white with fear, but that would be the same thing as calling you yellow. I believe that you are really quite blue about everything that has happened but that means that your mood is primarily indigo. I also think that if I keep this up you'll be seeing red. So I would say that you are the presence of all color and that makes you black, your greatest fear realized, I'm afraid.”

Jerry was shocked by her reply. He had been through too much, the rash on his arm had no doubt been caused by the grandmother, he'd let that snake-oil man touch him, the grandmother had lectured him all afternoon by the stream, and now Sondra, though in a charming and flirtatious way, was telling him that she saw him as black too. He only asked, however, “Where have you been all day?”

“I've been working, of course,” Sondra said. “Since I gave away my snapdragon I had to replace it with something really extraordinary. Would you like to see?”

Jerry said that he would and when he entered her studio, there was his snapdragon, unmoved from its place on the wall, its mouth wide, the sides of its inner channel calling him. He wanted to stay by it, to walk up closer with his hand out, but Sondra drew him past the cooked-cabbage smell and deeper into the room, making him look up at a fresh frame on the wall above her workbench. This new project was smaller than anything else in her studio, perhaps only one foot square. It was an African Chagall, the stylized depiction of a man, his face cubist, his body trailing after it as a string follows a balloon.

“It's Beany Abubakar,” Jerry said.

“It is and it is not,” Sondra told him. “Look again.”

It was startling, but as Sondra spoke Jerry was able to see himself in a part of the abstract face that beveled away from Beany, in the backward slant behind Beany's ear, in the inner rectangle of his forehead. It was as if slices of himself had been placed there, as if he were a thought, an idea born out of Beany's mind. And all of this was done with dyes. “How did you do that?” he asked.

“I really don't know,” Sondra said. “It came out in the wash, you might say. I never try to put living people in my work, but Beany has appeared before. It's really quite magical, and who would have guessed that you and Beany would be tied up in such a way.”

Jerry could see that it was magical; it was a Mobius strip with him and Beany turning into each other, like deep purple Siamese twins. “Why do you insist on such darkness?” he asked. “What is it about all these shades of blue?”