Lie Down in Darkness (60 page)

“It sho’ is pretty,” said Sister Adelphia. With an air of careful insouciance she thrust her arms out, to display her rattling beads.

“It sho’ is,” said Ella. “It’s de prime sanctua’y, de alpha and de omega, where all mysteries are revealed.”

“Amen!” said Brother Andrew, with a nervous skip on the sand. “Dat’s what he say.”

La Ruth belched. “Stonewall,” she said, “come on in here outa dat water! Put on dem sandals, boy. You gonna snag yo’ feet on a oyshter.”

Stonewall complied, scuffing meekly back up the beach, dragging his robe in the water. He had found a playmate, a little girl of about four, who had jam smeared around her mouth and who, when Ella bent down and said, “What’s yo’ name, child?” told her in a tiny faint voice, “Doris.”

“Where’s yo’ mama? You lost?”

She giggled, stuck the hem of her robe in her mouth and refused to answer.

“Well den,” Ella said, “you jus’ stick wid Stonewall. He take good keer of you. We find yo’ mama directly.” They all looked up again at the raft. Something seemed to be about to happen; a dark hand poked itself out of the curtain, beckoned to one of the wading elders: he climbed up on the raft and disappeared into the sanctuary. There was a murmur up and down the beach; the crowd pressed closer, buzzing, speculating.

“He gonna make de ‘Pearance any time now.”

“He sho’ is. I kin always tell.”

“How come
you
know?”

“I kin always tell. When de elder goes in, it’s almos’ time.”

“De band gotta come yet.”

“Dat’s right. Wonder where dey is?”

Then, as if it had been given a key, a trumpet sounded in the marsh behind the crowd, one loud clear note, massive and prolonged. The people turned, gave way in the center, and the band, twenty or thirty male musicians in bright scarlet robes, strode down the beach, made a precise military turn, and waded out into the water. A gasp went up from the crowd; everybody applauded, some people cheered.

“Gret day, don’t dey look swell!”

“Mmm-
hh
. Talk about a band!”

Sandaled and robed, the musicians struggled toward the raft in hip-deep water, balancing themselves with outthrust trombones and cornets: these glinted in the twilight, sending muted gold reflections across the water. Then the band turned and slowly arrayed itself in two groups beside the raft. An immense quiet fell over the throng; there was not the faintest whisper, except among the children, who got their ears wrung, or were poked, by their parents. It was a moment of supreme expectancy. Down the shore a ferryboat pulled out of the slip, tooted, and the sound drifted across the water, lingered, then faded. Small wavelets lapped against the shore; someone groaned with excitement, was hushed, and an airplane buzzed unheard across the sky: above, the air grew pink and then darkened to a deep crimson, flooding the bay with a sudden burst of fire. Out behind the raft a croaker leaped up with a silver splash of fins; La Ruth began to rock and moan. “Oh, Jesus, po’ people. What dey gonna do? Po’ Peyton. Gone! Gone!” Ella jabbed her in the ribs. “Hush up now!” La Ruth sobbed quietly, clutching Stonewall by the arm, but Ella gazed at the raft, again, with the look of peace and mystery. There was a flutter behind the curtain, a quiet gasp from the crowd, and a man appeared at the edge of the raft. It was not Daddy Faith. It was his major domo, announcer, Gabriel, chief lieutenant: a personage with a stern, muscular face, and glassy, bulging eyes. He seemed to come from finer, rarer stock, with his aquiline profile, both views of which he displayed without modesty, almost contemptuously, and with his thin, straight-lipped mouth. None of the crowd had seen this man before; they stood watching in wonder and in humility. His robe was blue, caught tight at the neck like a vestment; above his heart, embroidered on the robe against his hard, visibly muscular chest, was a silver escutcheon of obscure design. He stood for perhaps a minute, stock-still except for his arrogant, turning head, on astonishing display; a small breeze came up, flicking the hem of his robe. The raft rocked gently. Then he raised his arms slowly from his sides.

“Lift up your heads, O … ye …
gates!”
he cried.

There was a pause. The voice was like no voice ever heard before—orotund, massive, absolute, like the sound of thunder, or the voice from the whirlwind; it possessed a quality of roundness that was the roundness of the infinite—terrible, majestic and beautiful. He still paused, his arms outstretched, glowing like sun-scorched ebony in the dusk. Then he spoke again. “Lift up your heads, O … ye …
gates
.” Another pause. “And be ye lifted up, ye
everlasting doors!”

A murmur ran through the throng once more; people turned to one another in a flurry of whispers. “My, listen to dat man!“

“Don’t he talk right?”

“Hush, man. Listen at him.”

He spoke once more. “And de King of Glory shall come in!” Then he lowered his arms slowly to his sides, so slowly that they seemed to descend upon invisible cords. Water rocked the raft, but he stood stern and erect and unperturbed, his robe a blue splash against the red shields and green prophetic talismans and crawling dragons. Then something seemed to change within him; it was not that he appeared any the less regal or stern: he still wore the bulging, hot look of arrogance and contempt. Rather, it seemed that this first majestic, almost unbearably imperious tone which he conveyed through his voice, dissolved; now tempered, even with a touch of gentleness, the voice spoke again.

“Who
is
dis King of Glory?”

It was a question. No one replied. The crowd remained still, quietly stupefied, and with a shaky reverence. Ella stood with her sandals sinking into the beach, bemused and peaceful in her rapt look of mystery, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. Her lips moved over her gums, but she said nothing. The voice came again across the water, majestic and beautiful: “Who
is
dis King of Glory?”

Then Ella said it—the first—shrieked it aloud, her arms flung up to the dusk, her eyes rolling toward heaven. “Daddy Faith!” she yelled. “Daddy Faith! Oh yes, Jesus, He de King of glowry! Daddy Faith! Yes, Jesus, oh yes!” It was like the first firecracker on a string, and it set off an explosion of yells: everyone took up the cry. It was as if Ella’s shriek had been all they needed, and they began to shout too. “Daddy Faith! Daddy Faith, He de King of glowry! Come on out now, Daddy, come on, Daddy!” Then a hush gradually settled over the throng, for the man had motioned for silence; Ella was one of the last to quiet down: she kept crying it over and over again until her voice was a squeak—“Yes, Daddy Faith, he de King of glowry, yes, Jesus!”—and until Sister Adelphia, herself almost hysterical, calmed her somewhat, saying, “Hush now, sister, we gotta lot mo’ to go!” So she became quiet, her breast heaving, plucking at her robe, her turban askew, and with tears still coursing down her cheeks.

Then the man’s voice came across the water once more: “He
is
de King of Glory!” He gave a short nod of his head, a furious, quick gesture; and with a flourish of his robe he stepped down the ladder and into the water. For him it seemed a token of abject and complete humility, to descend in this fashion; had he at that moment sprouted wings and soared up into the sky, no one would have been startled, so utterly possessed he had seemed of the absolute and the miraculous. But, in spite of his majestic voice and bearing, he was only the prelude to the coming wonder; thus his sudden descent seemed not humble, but only proper. And the ensuing wait, which felt like hours but was actually only a minute or so, was even more dramatic in its effect than the appearance of the man in blue. They all stood around for a moment, whispering. “Man, dat was some show!”

“De way he talked!”

“Look at him standin’ dere!”

But gradually it occurred to them that Daddy Faith had still not made his entrance. “Why don’t Daddy come?” They quieted down, fidgeted; the time passed. Gulls circled overhead and a crab scuttled toward the shore, stuck out one glistening blue claw, and retreated toward the shallows. Ella gazed steadily at the raft, at the elegant dragons, the crosses and cruciform-embroidered trees and bizarre crouching lions; she said nothing: her eyes, yellow with rheum, reflected a perfect peace, a transcendent understanding. Stonewall ran his empty crab shell through Doris’ hair, and she whimpered; silently La Ruth took the shell away. “Where’s Daddy?” someone said.

Then it happened, with the sound of a trumpet. A robed, scarlet arm went up, and a single note rang across the water. The arm descended, the curtains parted, and Daddy Faith appeared. The crowd stirred and grinned among themselves, but remained respectfully quiet. There he was: a round tub of a man, as black as black ever could get, dressed, like all the rest, in a simple white robe. He stood at the edge of the raft, smiling, benign, avuncular; had he been white he might have been mistaken for a senator, with his quizzical, shy yet friendly eyes, and his benevolent smile. He had no turban, his head was as devoid of hair, and as shiny, as a bullet; his hands were small, not much bigger than a child’s: he put these out in front of him, gently, more in entreaty than command. Then he spoke. The words were hoarsely spoken, but sweet and soothing, and they poured over the crowd—touching them, palpably, so that one could almost hear the people shudder—like some liquid from paradise, caressing and divine.

“Comfort ye.” Softly.

He paused, gazing at them with a smile, and with benign, twinkling eyes. “Comfort ye,” he said again, in the raw rasping voice, but the words were gentle, borne across the water with infinite tenderness. He paused once more, raised his arms outward and toward the sky.

“Comfort ye, my people!”

Then he struck himself on the breast with the flat of his hand. This too seemed a gesture not so much lordly or pompous as merely fitting, self-evident and in perfect harmony with his benevolent grin. The thump echoed across the water, and he spoke again.

“Saith your God.”

He dropped his arms to his sides for another moment silent and contemplative, with gentle, twinkling eyes. The people stood rigidly still and expectant, waiting for his next words. The band stirred uncomfortably in the water; the elder in blue, hip-deep beneath Daddy Faith, surveyed the crowd with flashing, scornful eyes. Then Daddy Faith spoke again. They knew what he was going to say, watched him stand there relaxed and benign, and his words, a question, were hardly out of his mouth before they were crying the answer.

“Who loves you, my people?”

“You, Daddy! Daddy Faith! You loves us! You, Daddy!” Ella joined in with the rest, her arms outstretched and with blissful weeping eyes, as if she could gather him by pure force of will, and across that stretch of water, into her arms. “You, Daddy! Yes, Jesus, you loves us!” But Daddy Faith motioned politely for quiet, with a sweep of his hand. He was chuckling out loud; they could hear him, watched him put his hand slyly to his chin and chuckle happily, all the time regarding them with his friendly, humorous eyes.

“Dat’s right,” he said.

He paused, still chuckling.

“
My
, dat’s right.”

He ceased his laughing, but a smile lingered on his face, and he shook his head, in amusement and with a certain wonder.

“Dat
sho’
is right!” he said. And everybody laughed again. Far off the horn of a freighter blew; darkness would be coming soon. The red fires had disappeared from the water, now it had only the green of dusk in it, and the palest pink from the vanished setting sun. Daddy Faith straightened himself up. His approach at first was direct but friendly, almost like that of an uncle or a raconteur engaged in conversation with children. Once or twice he paused to look at his wrist watch, and only gradually did his voice lose its soothing, intimate tone and work up to its true grandeur, its native triumph. The crowd listened, stood shuffling in the sand, and while he spoke some old women, including Ella, closed their eyes and prayed. “We seen a tough time, my people,” he said, “all dese years. We done had de wars and de pestilenches and de exiles. We had de plagues and de bondages and de people in chains. Isr’el has suffered in de land of de pharaohs and de land of Nebucherezzar. And de people have laid down in de wildiness and cried out loud: Woe is us fo’ our hurt, our wound is grievous, and where is now our hope? Dey shall go down to de bars of de pit, when our rest together is in the dust. And de people have wept out loud, My Lawd, my Lawd, why hast Thou fo’saken me? De people have been sore hurt and dey say, our inheritance is turned to strangers, our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have bo’n their iniquities. And de people have wished to see de pure river of de water of life, clear as crystal, proceedin’ outen de throne of God and of de Lamb. Dey stand in de streets of desolation and dey say, Lawd, show me dat revelation where dere shall be no night and no need fo’ candle, neither light of de sun. Show me dat, Lawd, for our hurt is grievous and our way is fenced up so we can’t pass, and dere is darkness in our paths.

“Now de people of Isr’el done gone off to war,” he went on, propping himself against one of the golden rods. Above him the lamp flickered LOVE in the dusk; Ella, rapt and with her eyes closed, moaned a quavering, “Amen!” Somewhere in the crowd a woman echoed, “War. Amen! Yes, Jesus!” and the words drifted shrilly across the darkening marsh. “Now de people done gone off to war and dey sent down de atom bomb on de Land of de Risin’ Sun and de sojers come home wid glory in dey th’oats and wid timbrels and de clashin’ of bells.” He paused again; his eyes grew sad, caressing the throng. “Well, my people, it do seem to me dat we got a long way yet. De hand of de Lawd is against de sinful and de unjust, and de candle of de wicked is put out. But mo’ time to pass yet and de eyes of de people shall see His destruction and dey shall drink of de wrath of d’Almighty. And dey shall see a time of hate and a time of war, like de preacher said, and dey shall hear de sound of battle in de land and de great destruction. ‘Oh, Lawd,’ dey’ll go on and cry still, ‘Oh, Lawd, I am oppressed, undertake fo’ me! I mou’n as a dove, my eyes fail wid lookin’ upward! Hear my prayer, Lawd, and let my prayer come unto Thee! Don’t take away my freedom again, Lawd, don’t take away dat!’