No Crystal Stair (26 page)

T
he only thing we have to fear is fear itself. When those words had come humming over the radio to a frightened nation, Ann Elizabeth had been a young girl.

Now, as they approached Maggie's school, she remembered and repeated the words. But she couldn't stifle the fear pulsing through her veins. They walked slowly to accommodate Mrs. Levin's arthritic knees. Children passed them, laughing, calling to one another, seemingly as oblivious as Maggie to this momentous occurrence. A few parents stared curiously and gave them a wide berth as they passed.

Ann Elizabeth saw that a noisy crowd had gathered outside the school, spilling into the street. Her heart pounded, and she glanced anxiously around for the promised police protection. They were there, but in plain clothes. Inconspicuous. Now she wished they were more in evidence, a controlling influence. The faces around them were belligerent. One husky man stepped in front of them as if to block their way. Mrs. Levin lifted her spectacles and surveyed him. He backed off, looking confused. There were a few catcalls and jeers, of which Maggie seemed blessedly unaware.

But no violence.

Something restrained them. Held them back. Was it the frail bent form of the gray-haired white woman who held tightly to Maggie's hand and glared defiantly at the crowd? Was it the presence of newspeople and the flashing bulbs of their cameras?
Bigots who attacked in the night would not expose themselves in broad daylight, would not be photographed assaulting one defenseless white woman, one tiny colored girl.

As they entered the school, Ann Elizabeth thought she heard someone shout, “Atta girl, Maggie Metcalf?” She couldn't be sure, but it heartened her, anyway.

The principal, who looked as anxious as she did, was unsmiling but solicitous. The school clerk was openly curious but friendly. She quietly registered Maggie and gave directions to her classroom. At the door of the room, they almost bumped into a buxom woman who was going out. She looked at Maggie and smiled. “My, my! Such a pretty little girl. Are you going into first grade?”

Maggie nodded shyly.

“That's nice. But watch out for my Troy. He's the redhead over there. Don't let him pull your pigtails.” She gave one of the braids a little tug and Maggie grinned. Ann Elizabeth could have hugged this stranger who'd spoken to her child in ... such on ordinary way.

So Maggie was quietly registered in Lansberg Elementary and entrusted to the care of the friendly Miss Agnew. Maybe Ann Elizabeth thought, as she walked home with Mrs. Levin, Roosevelt was right. Certainly the fear that had traumatized them for weeks, struck a discordant note in their home, torn them apart, had been so much worse than the feared event itself.

But... Her heart pounded. Rob was in the hospital. There had been, still was, cause for fear.

Each morning Ann Elizabeth walked Maggie to school and called for her every afternoon. Each time, making no excuse, Mrs. Levin walked with her. The crowd outside the school diminished, finally disappeared altogether. Maggie Metcalf had quietly integrated Lansberg Elementary, and could now make the two-block walk alone.

“I'm glad I was the only one hurt,” Rob said, still mulling it over on the day he was dressing to go back to work. “If anything had happened to you or Maggie, I could never forgive myself. I kept pushing you.”

“Hush.” Ann Elizabeth put a finger to his lips. “You made the right choice.”

“Easy to say now. But that night, when those men came after me ... Otis said they just wanted to scare me, and let me tell you, they did. Men I didn't even know hated my guts and were beating the hell out of me.” He sat on the edge of the bed, put on his loafers, looked up at her. “Funny how you tend to forget what it's like. The hate.”

She shuddered, remembering what she'd seen as a child when she'd gone with her parents to view the abandoned Williams farm. Crude boxlike cells, rusty chains banging, the Yellow River flowing swiftly by.

“You get used to prejudice,” he said. “You know it's there and you try to deal with it rationally.” He paused. “It's something you have to maneuver around. And I don't know why you forget about the hate, the pure unadulterated hate that breaks out every now and then in brutal violence or lynchings. Why do you forget about that kind of hate?”

“Because you have to,” she said, sitting beside him. “You have to, or you can't get through your life.” She paused. “Personally I think the hate is outweighed by love, by people like Marcia and Mrs. Levin.”

“Mrs. Levin. Isn't she the greatest? Do you think she liked the flowers?”

“Yes.” Ann Elizabeth laughed. “She liked the flowers. And the candy.”

“Okay laugh. But I could never repay her for what she did.”

“Nor I. You don't know how much it meant when she came out and took Maggie's hand.”

“And you. God! I would've stopped you if I hadn't been so out of it.”

“I just took up where you left off. You got the beating and I got the glory. Okay?” she was smiling, but his face was sober.

“It took guts. After what happened to me it took a lot of guts. You're some kind of woman, Ann Elizabeth.”

The same thing he'd said the night he asked her to marry him. Did he remember? She caught the hand that held her chin. It was so good to have his respect, his love, again. At the hospital there had been other people. But at home just the two of them.

“I hate to see you go back to work, Rob.”

He grinned. “I need the rest. Can't get any around here. You're wearing me out, honey.”

Blushing, she brushed his hand away. “Robert Metcalf, if you—”

“Let me get back to work and revive. Tonight I promise—”

She threw a pillow at him. He laughed and seized her. “Come here, my lady in the parlor. Oh, what you do to me in bed. Ann Elizabeth, it's so good to have you back. I went a little crazy without you. Don't ever shut me out again.”

“Shut myself out, too,” she whispered against his chest. “I'm glad this nightmare is over. If it is.”

He tilted her face up. “Of course it's over. What do you mean? Maggie's been in school for two weeks now and there's been no disturbance.”

“Yes, I know. Guess I'm just edgy.”He'd been though enough. She wouldn't plague him with her doubts. It was never their hate she'd feared as much as their tolerance. Or rather, tolerance without acceptance.

As the days passed she grew more anxious.

Each morning as she wrapped the sandwich, placed the apple in the tin box, she prayed Maggie would share them with someone. Each afternoon she watched children hurrying home
from school, laughing and playing together. Watched Maggie walking alone.

Then one day, one glorious happy day, Maggie came up the walk holding the hand of another little girl. The child's socks were falling down, one shoe was untied, the hand that kept pushing the hair from her freckled face was grubby, and her broad smile exposed a gap where two front teeth were missing. She was the most beautiful child Ann Elizabeth had ever seen. “Hello,” she said. “What's your name?”

“Lisa. Lisa Aiken.”The child stood on one foot and rubbed the back of her leg with the other. “Can Maggie come over to my house to play?”

Beautiful words, but... “Hadn't you better check with your mother?”

“My mom don't care.”

“You'd better ask. Where do you live?”

She lived across the street, three doors down, and her mother really didn't care. Too ill to care much about anything. Ann Elizabeth decided when she was admitted by a uniformed nurse into a spotless house heavy with the odors of medicine and illness.

Her heart went out to the wasted woman on the bed, who gave her a feeble smile. “Lisa needs a playmate.”

“Maggie, too,” Ann Elizabeth said. “But perhaps they should play at my house.”

“No,” Lisa said, glancing first at her and then at her mother. “We'll be quiet. I want to show Maggie my dollhouse.”

Her mother nodded. “Let her stay,” she whispered. “Lisa has so few friends.”

Ann Elizabeth stayed, too. To be sure the children kept quiet, but also compelled by a need she sensed in the other woman.

“Cancer,” Clara Aiken told her. “They say I have only a few months to live.” It all spilled out as if the two women had been friends for years. She related it in a matter-of-fact voice—her
husband's job transfer from Florida, the happy move to the new house, the surgery that had come with no warning and much too late. “And now this,” she finished, with a small gesture Ann Elizabeth read all too well. This. The painful helpless waiting... to leave a loving husband, a child she would never see grow up.

Tears burned in Ann Elizabeth's eyes, but she held them back. This woman, who hadn't had time to make friends before illness struck, needed a friend. Compassion filled Ann Elizabeth's heart and she decided to be that friend, to do all she could for Clara. A book, a flower, a cup of soup or just a visit to talk, to listen, to share.

Perhaps she did more for Lisa, substituting for a mother who was ill and a harassed father who worked a full shift and spent the rest of his time maintaining a household and caring for his wife. During the following weeks Lisa spent most of her after-school time at the Metcalfs', playing with Maggie, staying for milk and cookies and often dinner, going over her school work. Ann Elizabeth tied the laces of the scuffed shoes, brushed the tousled hair, washed the freckled face and loved her.

But all was not well. Despite her daughter's friendship with Lisa, she noted a wariness in Maggie that had not been there before. Her once outgoing six-year-old was hesitant to make friends. It came to a head one Saturday afternoon when Rob was out playing golf. Maggie came home early from Lisa's and ran to her bedroom. Ann Elizabeth followed and found her sobbing. “What's the matter sweetheart?” she asked, really alarmed, as she gathered Maggie into her arms.

“Karin didn't invite me,” Maggie gulped between sobs, tears streaming down her face. The story spilled out. Lisa couldn't play because she was going to Karin's birthday party. Karin had invited everyone in the class but not Maggie. “It's because I'm colored, isn't it Mommy?” Stunned, Ann Elizabeth fumbled for an honest answer that would not heap more hurt on her little
girl. But before she could speak, Maggie rushed on. “Oh, I wish I wasn't colored.”

“ Maggie! Don't, don't ever say that. ”

“But I do. I do. No one wants to play with me or sit with me in the lunch room, Mommy, because I'm colored.”

“That's not true. Lisa plays with you everyday. She's your best friend.”

“But when she was sick last week, I had to eat alone and no one played tether ball with me,” Maggie wailed.

There was no way to contradict that stark truth. Ann Elizabeth did the best she could to calm Maggie, stayed with her until she was all cried out, exhausted and fell asleep.

Determined to help Maggie adjust to school, Ann Elizabeth began attending PTA meetings religiously and volunteered as a classroom “mother” two days a week. As she had with Rob's white colleagues at work, she steeled herself for the expected rebuffs, swallowed her pride and extended herself for the sake of her daughter's happiness. And as she opened up to them, gradually Ann Elizabeth began to see her neighbors opening up to her. She began to see them not simply as white, belligerent or friendly or indifferent, but as people like herself, with problems of their own.

Troy's mother was getting a divorce and worked full-time, so he had to remain at school for after-hours care. Once when she had to work late, she asked Ann Elizabeth to pick him up, promising to reciprocate any evening by baby-sitting Maggie. Another child, Todd, was a little slow with reading , and his mother really appreciated the extra help Ann Elizabeth gave him, and in exchange here were a couple of books she'd bought for Maggie. Some doors were still closed. Karin's mother pointedly ignored her. And some still looked the other way when the Metcalfs approached. But Ann Elizabeth began to feel that most people were too busy dealing with the vicissitudes of their
own lives to spend their time hating. And as she became more friendly with the mothers, Maggie's circle of friends began to expand. She was not the most popular but she was no longer a lone figure on the playground or in the lunch room.

About the middle of the year, a few Negro children from the Innsfield area entered the Lansberg school, quietly, as Marcia Wheeling had predicted, with no fanfare. Yes, Ann Elizabeth thought, with a touch of pride, Maggie had taken a big step for many others. Here, too, she determined to do her part. She found herself mothering them, taking a special interest. “What? No lunch today? Here, I have an extra sandwich.” Or, “Now that's no way to talk. Of course you can do it. Like this.” She was glad she was there. There were no Negro teachers and most of the Negro mothers worked.

“Why are white girls the prettiest?” Maggie asked one day.

“What? No, they're not. You're very pretty and so is Sara and ...” Ann Elizabeth faltered. Her daughter's question had come out of left field and she didn't know how to respond. “Anyway, it's not what people look like. It's what's inside that counts.” “I bet Karin will be fairy queen,” Maggie said.

“Fairy queen?”

“'Cause she's the prettiest and she's got yellow hair and blue eyes. Just like the real fairy queen.”The story of the spring play came out then. Most of the children were to be flowers, sleeping and the fairy queen had to go around with her magic wand and wake them up.

The next day there was another question out of left field.

“Mommy, are there any black fairies?”

“Of course. Just as many black as white ones.” So there!

“Troy said there wasn't. And he made Lillith cry.”

“Oh?”

“Cause Miss Agnew picked her to be the fairy queen.”