Catherine Carmier

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “And we can finish it out tomorrow?” Catherine said to Della.

  “In a couple hours,” Della said. “Got no more than three or four rows. I can do it myself before twelve.”

  “That’s the last piece, huh?” Catherine asked Raoul.

  “That’s it,” Raoul said, without raising his head.

  “Well, I’m glad of that,” Catherine said. “That cotton’ll be ready in a few weeks.”

  “Afraid we still got a while, yet,” Della said. “A month at the least.”

  She looked across the table at Lillian. Lillian picked a small piece of chicken off the plate and put it in her mouth. Della watched her chew it slowly.

  “I guess y’all don’t get too much fresh chicken in New Orleans?” Della asked, trying to start a conversation.

  “No, ma’am,” Lillian said, without looking at her.

  “Well, we got plenty of ’em ’round here,” Della said. “Any time you want one, just let somebody know.”

  Lillian chewed her food slowly and did not say any more. When she was through eating, she nodded her head—to no one in particular, but to everyone at the same time—and went out of the kitchen.

  “What I ever done to deserve this?” Della said. “What?”

  “You sent her there,” Raoul said. “What you expect?”

  “I didn’t send her,” Della said, looking at Raoul. “Eighteen years—but I’ll never forget that. I didn’t send her. Your people, they took her. But I didn’t send her. I don’t believe in sending children from home like they little dogs or something.”

  “Well, no use crying over spilt milk,” Raoul said.

  “And what I’m supposed to do?” Della said. “My own child won’t speak to me—you tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

  Raoul went to the stove to pour a cup of coffee, and did not sit at the table again. When he had finished drinking his coffee, he unhooked the lantern from against the wall and went out into the yard.

  “Don’t cry over spilt milk,” Della said. “We haven’t spent an hour together all the time she been coming back here, but I’m not supposed to cry over spilt milk. God—what I’m supposed to do? What? Just forget her?”

  Catherine started to say something, but she did not know what to say. She turned from the table and looked out of the door.

  “Why’d they have to do it? Didn’t they hate me enough themself? Why did they have to make her hate me, too?”

  “She doesn’t hate you, Mama.”

  “She doesn’t? When she won’t look at me—you don’t call that hate?”

  Catherine was silent. Then she turned to Della. “Mama, let me tell her. Let me tell her and get this over with.”

  “And what then?” Della said. She was crying. “What then?”

  “That’s the chance we’ll have to take,” Catherine said.

  “The chance? Suppose she hate me more? What will she think of him? She hate him enough now. What will she think of him then?”

  “We have to do something, Mama. You and Lily can’t go on like this the rest of your life.”

  “I rather it be this way than worse.”

  “How can it be worse than it is now?”

  Della was silent. She looked down at the table, crying softly to herself.

  “I don’t ever want you to tell her. No. Because if you told her about him, then you’ll have to tell her how he died.” She looked at Catherine a moment. “How you going to do that?”

  “I’ll tell her it was an accident. It was an accident.”

  “Will she believe it? Will the world let her believe it?”

  “Mama, Lily is grown up enough now to understand.”

  “Is she, Catherine? How, when they never gave her the chance?”

  “I still think that’s the best thing to do.”

  “No,” Della said, shaking her head. “I don’t ever want you to tell her that.”

  “This can clear up everything, Mama, don’t you understand? It can make her see what they’ve been doing to her. This might change Lillian’s entire life.”

  “It might,” Della said. “It might not.” She looked at Catherine again. “If I didn’t love your father, Catherine, I couldn’t ’a’ put up with this all my life. He don’t know it, and if I told him, he wouldn’t believe me. But I love him, I love him. And I wouldn’t do anything in the world to hurt him—nothing. I’d blame myself if Lillian didn’t see it the way we do—if she looked at it the way the people in the quarters do. Don’t you see it’s for him? It’s for him.”

  Catherine did not say anything, and she turned to look out of the door. Raoul went past the door with the lantern. Catherine saw the shadows of the fence post and water barrel move jerkingly in the direction opposite to Raoul’s. After a while she stood up and began clearing the dishes off the table. She carried them to the big dishpan on the shelf in the window. She was nearly through with the dishes when she thought about Jackson again. She looked over her shoulder at Della.

  “Guess who came back today?” she said.

  Della raised her head and looked at her. Her face showed that she had no idea.

  “Jackson,” Catherine said.

  At first the name did not ring a bell with Della. Then she recognized it, remembered him, and Catherine could see the smile coming on her face.

  “Our little Jackson?”

  “He’s not so little any more,” Catherine said. “He has a mustache now.”

  “Well, done Jesus,” Della said. “Ain’t that’s something? I bet you Charlotte’s tickled to death up there.”

  “I suppose so,” Catherine said. She could see how happy Della was to hear about it.

  “Yes, indeed,” Della said. “I’m so glad for her.” (And for a moment, she thought how she would feel if her son could come back to her. But that moment passed away like a puff of smoke.) “Did he bring a wife with him? He ought to be old enough?”

  “No. He didn’t bring anybody.”

  The smile began to leave just as it had approached—slowly. Catherine saw it and saw the meaning of it and turned away.

  “Catherine?” Della said.

  “Yes?”

  Della waited for her to turn around; she did not.

  “Turn around,” Della said.

  Catherine did, but she would not look at Della.

  “I see,” Della said. “I see.” Catherine turned away again. “Don’t you be the one now,” Della said. “Don’t you be the one to hurt him.”

  And as Della said this, Catherine saw Raoul go across the yard with the lantern again.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The people started coming up to the house around sundown, and by eight o’clock the house, the porch, and the yard were filled.

  Brother, who was in charge of seeing that everything went all right, was all over the place. First you saw him in the kitchen, then the living room, then out on the porch, and finally in the yard. Then back on the porch, the living room, and the kitchen again. Whenever he came into the kitchen, he got himself a bottle of beer out of the washtub near the door, uncapped the bottle on an opener on the wall, and stood there a moment drinking and looking around. Standing there now, he watched Charlotte and Mary Louise dish up food for an old man called Dude Claiborne. Charlotte dished up the rice and passed the plate to Mary Louise. After pouring a cupful of gumbo over the rice, Mary Louise passed the plate on to Dude.

  “Ahhh,” he said; “looked good, now it smells good. Aiii, but it’s hot.”

  “Better sit down, Dude,” Charlotte said.

  “Yes,” he said, going to the table. “Aiii, but it’s hot.”

  “Something to go with that, Mr. Dude?” Brother said.

  “One of them oranges if you got one,” Dude said.

  Two tubs were on the floor by the door. The one on the left had soft drinks, the other one had beer. Brother got an orange drink out of the tub on the left, uncapped the bottle, and set it on the table.

  “Thanks,” Dude said, bowing his gray head se
veral times. It was obvious that he did not get this kind of attention often. He dipped up a spoonful of gumbo arid rice and ate it noisily. “This good, Charl,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said.

  “Yes,” Dude said.

  Brother moved back to the door and looked at Charlotte and Mary Louise again. Charlotte and Mary Louise had begun serving two other people. Brother thought everything looked all right in the kitchen, and he went back into the living room. He did not care for the living room; the living room was too noisy. Babies were crying, children were chasing one another around chairs and under the bed, and the women were too busy talking to pay attention to either. But Brother felt that since Charlotte had given him the job of keeping order that night, he had to spend as much time in the living room as in any other place. After standing in the room only a minute or two and reprimanding one little boy for jumping on the bed, he went out on the porch. Here, the boys and girls were sitting in the swing and along the railing of the porch. Brother did not want to eavesdrop on whatever they were talking about, and he went out into the yard. The men were out there, both old and young alike.

  “Thinking ’bout Baton Rouge,” a young man was saying.

  “You been thinking ’bout Baton Rouge ever since y’all quit farming,” an older man said.

  “I’m thinking ’bout it se’ious now, though,” the young man said.

  “And what you go’n do in Baton Rouge?” the old one said.

  “Do something,” the younger one said. “Ain’t doing nothing but starving here.”

  The men were silent a moment. Everyone seemed to be reflecting on what the young man had just said.

  “Wouldn’t ’a’ thought ten years ago the Cajuns would ’a’ been running things now,” another, short, stocky, fellow said after a while.

  “It been coming,” someone else said.

  “It ain’t just coming. It here now,” the young man said. “The only thing you can do is get away.”

  “Easy to say. But where you go? What you do? Where can a man go with a houseful of children?”

  “Should ’a’ kept your dick in your pants,” someone else said. The men laughed a moment, then they were silent—reflecting the fate the Cajuns and their machines had bestowed upon them and their children.

  Brother moved away from the crowd, and after looking over the rest of the yard and the porch, he went back inside the house. Charlotte saw him come into the kitchen to get another bottle of beer.

  “You better eat something,” she said. “That beer on a empty stomach go’n make you sick.”

  “Eat when Jackson get up,” Brother said.

  “Jackson ain’t up yet?” Charlotte asked.

  “No’m.”

  “Go ’round there and get him up, Brother,” Charlotte said.

  Brother left the kitchen; he was halfway across the room when Charlotte called him back. She took the bottle of beer away from him and gave him a pan of water with soap and towel.

  “And be careful how you wake him up,” she said. “Don’t go in there with a pile of noise.”

  “Yes’m,” Brother said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Brother set the pan of water on the washstand and turned on the light. Jackson raised his head and looked at him.

  “Just getting ready to wake you up,” Brother said.

  Jackson looked toward the door that Brother had left partially opened. He could hear the people talking and moving around in the other room. The house was so full of cracks that the voices came through the wall as clearly as if the people were on this side.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “The party,” Brother said, going to the door to shut it.

  Jackson sat up on the bed and passed his hands over his face. He had gone to sleep in his shorts and undershirt. The rest of his clothes were thrown over the back of a chair beside the bed.

  “I was tired,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “All right.”

  He looked at Brother and smiled. He and Brother had been best of friends before he left here—they had been inseparable. He did not feel that way about Brother now, and he wondered if he ever could again.

  “What time is it getting to be?”

  “ ’Bout eight thirty.”

  “How long has it been going on?”

  “ ’Round sundown.”

  “Is that water on the washstand?”

  “Yeah. Miss Charlotte sunt it for you to wash your face.”

  Jackson passed his hands over his face again. He was still very tired. Instead of helping him, the three or four hours of sleep seemed to have made him feel worse. He felt groggy. He wished there was no party at all. What would they say when he told them he was going back? Would there be a party for him then?

  He got up from the bed and went to the washstand. The warm water felt good on his face and made him feel much better. After throwing the water out through the window, he came back to the chair to get his clothes.

  “Sounds like a big crowd,” he said.

  “Pretty good size.”

  He sat on the bed to put on his shoes, then went to the chifforobe mirror to comb his hair. In the mirror, he could see Brother watching him.

  “Well, I guess this is it,” he said, turning away from the mirror. “Listen, I might not recognize some of the people in there,” he said to Brother. “How about standing close by, huh?”

  Brother nodded his head. Jackson continued to look at him. He started to put his hand on Brother’s shoulder, but he changed his mind. He could not make himself feel about Brother as he did before.

  When they came into the other room, a woman standing by the door, threw her arms around Jackson and kissed him fully on the mouth.

  “Been waiting right here just for that one thing,” Olive Jarreau said. “ ’Clared to the rest of ’em, I was go’n be the first one. But, my God, Jackson, you done growed up there some. Just look at you there. Just look at you. Lean here, let me kiss you again. Let me kiss you again.” She kissed him on the mouth. “You see this boy trying to be bashful ’round here,” she said to the rest of the people. “You see that—much bread he done ate in my kitchen. But, my God, Charlotte got herself a man here. Ain’t that little old skinny boy that left. Well, how you been, Jackson? How you been?”

  “All right, Mrs. Olive.”

  “Yes, sir, he done growed,” she said, not hearing what he had said. “And you already to start your teaching, hanh?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and did not answer. Aunt Charlotte had really spread the news, hadn’t she?

  “I guess you have to look ’round some first,” she said. “I guess that’s the best. But I hope it’s somewhere close so you can teach some of my great-grandchildren. You didn’t know I had great-grandchildren, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes—Lord—Toni done married and got children going to school. And when you left here she wasn’t nothing but a child herself. Yes, indeed. But, Jackson, you look some nice. Ain’t married yet?”

  “No.”

  “Come back to get one of your home girls, huh? Well, that’s nice. Never forget the home people. No, sir, don’t ever forget them. Ain’t no place like home. No, sir.”

  “Jackson,” another woman said, “your aunt busy in the kitchen, and she told me to car’ you ’round to meet the people. I’m Mrs. Viney. You ’member me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I ’member when you got baptized. You sure was a great little Christian. I hope you still keeping up the good work.”

  Jackson did not answer her. He could not remember the last time he went into a church. But whether or not Viney expected an answer, Jackson could not tell, because as soon as she had asked him about the church, she was introducing him to people standing close by.

  Some of the people—the older ones in particular—were like Olive Jarreau; but the majority of them were not. They did not know what to do around him. He had to make the first
move. If he held out his hand, they took his hand. If he spoke to them, they spoke in return. If he smiled, they did also. But when he had shaken their hands, spoken to them, smiled with them, he could not think of another thing to say or to do, and neither could they.

  After Viney had introduced him to everyone in the living room, including the small children who were in school or might be starting school the next semester, and assuring them that they had better be nice because Mr. Jackson might be their teacher, she led Jackson out on the porch. The boys and girls sitting in the swing and along the railing of the porch were too interested in each other to pay Viney and Jackson any attention, and Viney led Jackson out into the yard where she hoped, as she said, the men folks would show a little more respect for someone with his learning. The men were arguing about something before they came into the yard, but as soon as Viney and Jackson came up to where they were, the conversation came to an abrupt end. The men shook Jackson’s hand and spoke to him, but they did this just as the others had done. They waited for him to make the first move. He had been educated, not they. They did not know how to meet and talk to educated people. They did not know what to talk about. So let him start the conversation, and if possible they would follow. But once Jackson had spoken to them and had shaken their hands, he was as lost for words as they were. Viney noticed how uncomfortable everyone was, and she tried to start a conversation by saying that Jackson had come back here to teach. The men looked at Jackson and said, “Yes?” “Unhun.” “That’s good.” And that was as far as the conversation went. A long period of silence again. Everyone was waiting for someone else to do what should be done. Viney said, “Well, I guess that’s all you ain’t met, yet; let’s go back in.”

  The men watched them go back up the steps, and their conversation was resumed only moments later.