Knee-Deep in Wonder (24 page)

Lafayette County was a labyrinth straddling a sloping hill and surrounded by water. With nothing but wayward footpaths to keep the trees apart, they crowded every structure except the sawmill. So Lafayette County people were forever destined to step out of shadows, spring out of bushes. Every action took on the taste of fear. Thus no one was prepared for the appearance of Liberty and Queen Ester. They just emerged, Queen Ester's hand supporting Liberty by the elbow and both of them sullen. Queen Ester looked like the poor cousin in khakis and a too-tight shirt with the first three buttons open. But it was the red dress that shook them. Or, rather, the dress and Liberty in it. “Couldn't she do no better?” the crowd whispered. Harlots, both of them. High-heeled shoes and painted faces, but the crowd saw the dress before they saw anything else, cinched at the waist with a matching belt: nipples pressing like pebbles against the thin cotton, Liberty looked like a whore. The humble congregation seethed that anyone would come to a funeral dressed that way. Never mind that the church's flock were frayed at the elbows, patches rubbed thin—at least they tried.

“What you-all waiting on?” Liberty asked.

“You, girl,” said Mable, stepping out of the crowd. “Just you.”

“And me too,” Queen Ester said. The crowd swallowed them, surrounding both women.

“You too,” said Mable. Queen Ester and Liberty stood just an arm's length away from the church doors. Coolness and the casket, along with the Reverend Mackervay, waited for them.

“Well, now. We all here.” Liberty took a deep breath. “Let's go.”

Sly and quick, Queen Ester let go of Liberty, her face pushed out and stern, and with the sudden withdrawal of support, Liberty staggered. A free hand followed by a worn white cuff emerged from the press of people, but it wasn't fast enough to catch her and Liberty fell to her knees, scraping her palms in the fall. A bowl dropped to the ground and cold gravy spilled into the dirt. The whole crowd heaved to come in closer, to see the look on Liberty's face; Bibles slipped, tossed out of sweaty hands, feet were stepped on. Soft shoving rocked the congregation.

“Good Lord, girl. Look what you done to your mama.”

“Ain't done nothing,” Queen Ester said, wishing she could button up her shirt.

“Ain't that the truth.” They all turned to her, leaving Liberty folded on the ground.

“Somebody need to slap that face.”

“Knock you over the way you done your mama.”

“I got a hand for it,” said the blue dress with black pumps and gloves but no stockings. Morning. The crowd sighed, because at least she looked the way the grieving should. Wearing a hat pulled down over her left eye, Morning said to Queen Ester, “You want to knock somebody else down?”

No one was quite sure who landed the first punch. What was certain was that Queen Ester took a step toward Morning and that's how the fight began. They circled each other like men, no nails or spitting. Elbows tucked in close to the ribs, forearms locked, knees bent, fists raised to the middle of the chest, Morning and Queen Ester exchanged sharp blows. Queenie got in the most punches because she had dressed in pants. Not a word from the crowd either, no catcalls or rooting, just hands on their hips and a fast sidestep when the two moved too close. For safety's sake, mothers moved their children to the grass beyond the semicircle of people. In the end, Queen Ester lost. The quick movement of a shoulder jostled a breast free, and in the moment she took to look down and arrange herself, Morning brought up a fist that tapped Queen Ester's left temple, lifting her off her feet. Queen Ester lay sprawled against the church doors, legs wide, the heel of her shoe broken off. Both women took in gulps of air, heaving, their precious clothes torn. Three men stepped away from the crowd, hands dangling at their sides, waiting. Then Morning got a second wind; she stepped forward, pulling off her gloves. But the men who stood beside her knew her thoughts—Crack open the skull, I want to see the bloom of blood—before Morning could throw a final punch. Two of them grabbed her elbows, while the third wound his arms around Queen Ester's waist and yanked her to her feet.

“You done now?” Mable said to Queen Ester, and then she remembered Liberty, still crumpled like cloth on the ground, her face turned away from the fight and the church. “Somebody get Liberty,” she called out, not trusting herself to kneel and hold her broken friend in her arms without weeping.

“Got her.” Buttermilk and Carol Lee pulled Liberty to her knees. They gasped. Prepared for a face torn by tears, grief, and anger, they found nothing of the kind. Instead, the woman whose red dress had slipped up to her underwear wore the glow of a child in deep sleep. Disgusted, the women unhooked their hands and let her fall back to the ground. She came to then, pushing herself up on her elbows.

“What?” said Liberty. “What happened?” From the church steps came Queen Ester's rich deep laughter. Hands on hips, head thrown back. A couple of people spat in the dirt and waited for her to finish. But the laughter went on, resounding against the wood of the church. Liberty picked herself off the ground, shouting, “That's enough, now!” But Queen Ester ignored her mother. Reverend Mackervay heard her from inside the church. The sound pulled him down the aisle. He opened the door and the laughter stopped.

“What's all this?” he said, looking at Queen Ester, her eyes still merry though her mouth was closed. Mable stood at the bottom of the stairs and behind her two women hovered a little way from Liberty; he noticed the dress immediately, one strap slipped down over her shoulder, stray grass and dirt clinging to the cloth, her face starved and confused. Finally, his eyes came to rest on his congregation. Arms were folded, every face was clouded, and except for Morning, who strained against the two men holding her by the arms, no one looked particularly grief-stricken. “What's all this?” he asked again.

Queenie smiled and said, “A funeral.”

“That's right,” he said, looking past her to Mable for help.

“Well, now. We better get on with it,” Mable said, and reached up and took the reverend by the hand. “Everybody, come on.”

Reverend Mackervay pulled open both doors, and he and Mable walked in first.

“Six children got left behind cause you know the wife got dead,” she said in a low voice, her feet shuffling on the carpeted aisle, the entire congregation following behind.

“Don't say it.” Mackervay lifted his brows in surprise. The new information disturbed him. Ten minutes of his sermon, written solely with the pained widow in mind, were now lost.

“I'm saying it. Wife name Halle.”

“Ain't heard nigh word.”

“I know you ain't.”

“But I thought the wife was…” He hoped Mable would finish his thought.

“Seem like it. But she ain't.”

“What of? The wife, I mean.” They now stood at the pulpit together. Behind them the pews groaned with the weight of the assembly. Queen Ester crept farther and farther along the aisle, elbowing parishioners out of her way. Mable grabbed Mackervay by the shoulder and pulled his face close to her mouth.

“Broken heart,” she said, her voice serious. “And another something you ought to know—”

But then Queen Ester caught Mable by the hand, jerking it from Reverend Mackervay's shoulder. “Come sit by me, fore all the sitting gone.”

Mable turned, looking helpless and scared, and sat down on the pew in front. The reverend walked around the pulpit to face his congregation. He coughed loudly, and began.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to give witness to Chester Hubbert, father and beloved. Yes, Lord, I want to talk today about a passing. A good man. But fore that, Jesus, fore that, my brothers and sisters, let me tell you what I heard today.” He stopped and waited for the shifting in the pews to cease, wondering, What word, Lord, what word? He thought of the word
laughing,
its sin uncertain, but then he settled on
grumble.
Common and mean, the word gave him room to bend inside of it.

“I heard grumbling outside the Lord's house today.” He looked down, expecting to see guilt creep into their faces. Nothing happened. More than a dozen people were bent over with sleep. “Yes, beloved, I heard grumbling outside the Lord's house, and it knocked me down. You see, not today. Not when we laying down our own. Evil done saw that grief is on all sides and slide up in our fold fore we know it. On the very day we lay down a father to somebody, a brother, a husband.” He concentrated on the very old, knowing that if he could get an
amen
it would come from them. “Should of known. Look in them pages. Stories of evil following grief everywhere. Lord didn't say it was gone be easy. Raising six children, and a wife that fell down fore he did. Chess knew it wasn't gone be easy. Halle knew, fore she passed away, that it wasn't gone be easy. Don't bring grumbling inside the Lord's house. Don't take it in your houses. Cause therein lies evil. Somebody say Sweet Jesus.” Grief poked through his sermon, the advice the seminary taught him fell in on itself.

“We all are here today to mourn the loss of a friend, of a friend who loved us all. Nobody can say that Chess Hubbert didn't love.” A row of women's lips spread wide. “Can you say Hallelujah? Praise the Lord. Somebody give the Lord his glory!”

Weak and scattered confirmation sounded in the hall. Frightened, the reverend watched his congregants restlessly fold their hands in their laps. The smiling women closed their mouths and fixed their hats; men stole glances at their watches.

“Chess looking down from the gates of Heaven and he saying to me right now, ‘Take care of these children that I done left behind.' We are forsaken and not forsaken. But we got to look for the path, beloved. Just cause the Lord is with us don't mean He gone hold a hand. Take the grumbling out your lives and find a way, beloved. You better hear this.” He paused, sweat dampening his collar. His temples glistened, the white handkerchief inside of his jacket pocket waiting to be pulled out, so he tried again, his voice licking at the crescendo to come. “You better hear this, beloved. Glory is the place you make. It is a dwelling spot made with your own hands, and there the Lord is.” What had happened outside? he wondered. By now they should have been swaying. He wanted to reach in his pocket for his handkerchief; the sweat was now standing on his brow and he couldn't wipe it away. His next words, unprepared on the tongue, held his wrath.

“Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher, vanity of vanities.” Midday and summer, the church burned in the heat. Reverend Mackervay coughed. “Right outside the Lord's door—vanity. I'm telling you, brothers, and bow your heads underneath the Lord's power, one generation pass away and another generation come—but the earth abide forever. And still you grumble outside the Lord's door. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. The eye is not satisfied with seeing; nor the ear filled with hearing.

“And the Lord as my witness, I stepped out here, one foot out the train, Jesus, and lo, I heard what you-all done done to this man and his water. And I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time for every purpose and for every work. You done found evil in God's work. Don't you know, beloved? There is a river, and God is in her, and she will not be moved. And that there is where Chess went for refuge. Beloved, hear me! All!—” his hand lifted from the pulpit, the palm upturned—“all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are confused, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”

A man, sixth pew back, sat open-mouthed, his eyes rolling up white as laundry. There was not a word from anyone, no hum raised to the sky, but the reverend knew he had them. His stomach cramped in excitement, his words, the sermon, rolled out of his mouth. “Jesus, Jesus, bless it now, not tomorrow but now.”

Contagious, the spirit caught a woman two pews down; she yanked a songbook from her purse and fanned herself, her light dress lifting and falling in response. The spirit jumped up three rows, where a lady in a green skirt shot her hand in the air, the action repeating, flaring up all over the church. Psalms flew out of the reverend's mouth. “It is not the place for man to know the works of God. Beloved, hear me. For our light affliction, which is for but a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are in time; but the things which are not seen are forever. That's right, beloved. Forever.” Three entire pews—hum, haw, hum—full of tight anguish; Mackervay sank his sermon into their chorus, not even coherent now. A harsh sigh taking up most of his voice, Mackervay stretched out the word
forever,
a dangerous term among Negroes, and mistook their grief for affirmation.

Mable and Morning fixed their eyes on the reverend, the handkerchief out of his jacket pocket now flailing at his face like a washcloth, dabbing here and there, while Queen Ester swayed back and forth in her pew.

“Chess is up in the sky, looking at us all and saying, ‘This is forever.' Still water and holy Jesus. Always and forever, amen, Jesus. The blessing of Jesus, now and forever. One word—” but the Reverend Robert Mackervay didn't finish, Queen Ester shot up before his sentence was through, the sermon tangled on his tongue coming to a close, while Queen Ester felt a primal naked fear build in her chest.
Forever
and
now
—their meaning was clear to her: to be doomed to wait with the dead in a church that smelled of a tomb, and the blessing of the Lord was cast aside.

Liberty watched her daughter. Not now with my leg half asleep, she thought, too tired to get up and stop her. Queen Ester raced down the aisle, stopping halfway. “I knew him!” she shouted. “Me! Me!” It took a moment for the congregation to find their outrage. “I knew him!” Queenie's loud voice mingled with their own. Most thought she couldn't take the mixture of heat and grief anymore and was heading outside for fresh air.