Catherine Carmier

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “You can go throw that out,” Selina said. Mary Louise did not move. She stood by the bed looking at Charlotte as though she were in a trance. “Mary Louise?” the woman said, looking over her shoulder at her.

  Mary Louise turned with the pan of water and went back into the kitchen. Jackson heard the water hit the ground, and heard Mary Louise hanging the pan against the wall again.

  “You can go out,” Selina said to Mary Louise when she came back into the bedroom. “And take him out of here.”

  “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Jackson said to the woman.

  “Mary Louise, would you please get that boy out of here?” the woman said.

  Mary Louise touched Jackson timidly on the arm and nodded toward the door. He did not move. She pulled on his arm this time, but as timidly as she had touched him. “Come on,” she said. Still he hesitated a moment before following her outside. The woman on the bed had not taken her eyes off him all the time he was standing there—looking at him as though she was ready to throw him out bodily if Mary Louise could not do it by talking to him.

  “I don’t know why the hell I came back here in the first damn place,” he said. “I swear to God I don’t.”

  “Miss Charlotte, Jackson,” Mary Louise whispered, so he would keep his voice down.

  “She saw us?” he asked Mary Louise when they were on the porch. “Was that it?”

  “She saw y’all,” Mary Louise said.

  He looked at her. How could she see him, when she had left for church a full half hour before he left the house.

  “We was out there talking to Miss Jane Burke when Miss Jane Burke seen you go in the yard. She told Miss Charlotte, and Miss Charlotte came on back to the house. I came back with her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Brother came up to the house about an hour later and asked Jackson if he wanted to go as far as Bayonne. Jackson told him that Charlotte was ill, but that was all Jackson said. Brother went inside the house, returned a few minutes later, and sat on the railing of the porch. Mary Louise had to explain everything else about Charlotte to him.

  When Selina got ready to leave, she told them that the only thing troubling Charlotte was that she needed rest. Mary Louise said that she would stay there the remainder of the night. Selina said it was not necessary since Charlotte was already asleep. Mary Louise insisted that she would stay. Selina said that she would be back tomorrow morning and she told everyone good night. Brother and Mary Louise told her good night, and Mary Louise went inside to sit by the bed. Brother and Jackson remained on the porch talking. Around two o’clock Brother went home, leaving Jackson alone on the porch.

  “You ought to go to bed,” Mary Louise said at the door.

  “I’m not sleepy; I’ll probably be up all night anyhow. Why don’t you go?”

  Mary Louise came outside and sat in the swing beside him.

  “How is she?”

  “Resting.”

  Jackson looked at Mary Louise sitting beside him. Her hands were clasped together and she was looking down at the floor. It seemed that it had been a long, long time since they had been alone together.

  “I’m sorry, Mary Louise.”

  “You had to tell her one day,” she said. “What’s the matter? You and Catherine had a fight?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You look mad when you came home.”

  “I guess we did.”

  “I guess that’s how it is when you in love.”

  “She loves Raoul, not me.”

  “She love you,” Mary Louise said. “And you love her.” He looked at her. “Yeah, you love her, Jackson. You love her.”

  They were together about an hour, then she went inside to sit beside the bed. He was alone again.

  Why had he made such a fool of himself these last few days? He knew in the beginning it would not work out. What could she do for him? Get in his way, slow him down, stop him from searching, and that was all. He was glad that it was over with. Mary Louise had said he still loved Catherine, but he would show her that she was wrong.

  Jackson got up and went inside. Mary Louise sat beside the bed asleep. He looked at his aunt and looked at Mary Louise again. Both of them were snoring.

  He went into his room and came back with his coat and spread it over Mary Louise’s shoulders. Mary Louise did not know anything about it. He looked at his aunt again, and for a moment, he had the feeling that she was dead. He became so frightened that he was unable to move. He checked himself quickly and went out of the room. He told himself again that he had to get out of this place or he would go insane.

  The next day Jackson tried every way he knew to be helpful around the house, but the woman who had helped Charlotte to bed the night before ignored every effort he made. After bathing and feeding her patient—two things Charlotte would much rather have done herself—Selina went to the store to get something for dinner. Then, while her dinner was cooking on the stove, she swept and scrubbed the entire house—including the front and back porches. Jackson asked several times if he could be of any help to her, but each time he asked, Selina pretended that she had not heard. Around noon she told him that his food was ready if he cared to eat, but he had better mind how he went across the floor. Charlotte was asleep and she did not want her disturbed. Jackson did as he was told, wishing to get on the better side of the woman, but the woman had no more to say to him the rest of the day. When Mary Louise came from work that afternoon, she and Mary Louise talked a few minutes, then she left the house.

  “Reckoned y’all didn’t get along too killing good today?” Mary Louise said.

  “Not too killing good,” Jackson agreed.

  Mary Louise smiled and looked at him as though she understood him quite well now and wondered why the others did not. After looking in at Charlotte, who was asleep, Mary Louise said that she would have to go home, but she would return in a few minutes. Jackson followed her out to the front porch.

  “See you been reading?” she said, nodding toward the yellow paperback book in the swing.

  “Tried to,” Jackson said. “Didn’t get too much of it done.”

  “What is it? A story?”

  “Greek poetry,” he said.

  She looked at the book a long time, as though she were trying to figure out the words. She had no idea what any word meant, and she looked at him and smiled. He smiled back, assuring her that it really did not matter. She left the house.

  “Selina?” he heard Charlotte calling from the room. He went in to see what she wanted.

  “She’s gone,” Jackson said. “Can I help you, Aunt Charlotte?”

  Charlotte looked at him sympathetically. She did not like the way both she and the other woman were treating him, but, still, she was not ready to forgive him for going back. She shook her head.

  “Mary Louise was at the house,” he said. “She’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Mary Louise done—” but she did not say any more. It would have given him a reason to say something else, and she wanted him to believe that she still felt the same way as she did the day before.

  Charlotte did and she did not. She did not think for a moment that he had the right to go back. She had sacrificed too much of herself for him. She had hoped, prayed, waited too long for him to come back just to see him turn around and leave her like this. What was she going to do after he was gone? What would her life be like after he was gone? All of her dreams, her hopes were wrapped up in the day that he would come back to her.

  Even so, she did not approve of what she and the other woman were doing to him. This was his home and he should be treated as though it was his home. Yet, didn’t she have the right to show how she felt? Not only did she have the right, but what else could she do? Her life for the future was total darkness now—what else could she do?

  Charlotte had been thinking about this all morning, and the harder she tried to reach an answer, the more confused and frustrated she became.

  Jackso
n could tell by Charlotte’s face that he could not be of any help, and he nodded and went out on the porch again.

  Two women came up to the house and asked about Miss Charlotte. Jackson nodded toward the door, and the women went inside. People had been coming up to the house like that all day, but Selina had turned most of them back. Charlotte needed rest, she told them, and the only way she could get her proper rest was to be left alone. Most everyone agreed that Selina was right and left the house immediately. But as soon as one group had gone, another group would show up.

  Each person who came there blamed Jackson for Charlotte’s illness. They either accused him by the way they looked at him, or by the way they spoke a few words to each other about him—which he could not help overhearing. Jackson became angry at first and tried to stare at whoever looked toward him in the swing, but he gave it up after telling himself that he was too intelligent a person to play games like these. He knew he was innocent, he would let them stare all they wanted, he would get a book to read.

  A little old woman—somewhere between eighty and ninety—in a long gingham dress, carrying a walking cane, and smoking a corncob pipe that was so old it had nearly become the same color she was, changed his attitude completely. After threatening to beat Selina with her walking cane when Selina told her she could not see Charlotte because Charlotte was asleep, the old woman tore into the bedroom and remained beside the bed almost two hours. When she got ready to leave, she walked up to Jackson in the swing and told him if anything happened to Charlotte he would have no one but himself to blame. He tried to ignore the old woman just as he had done the others, but she stood before him (she was so close that he could almost feel the pipe in his face) until he raised his head.

  “Yes,” she said, “you. Yes, you.”

  They continued to stare at each other, but he knew if he stared at her until Doomsday he would never be able to stare her down. Neither would he be able to explain to her if he tried. They were like trees, like rocks, like the ocean, these old people. Never understanding, never giving.

  He looked down at the floor, and a moment later, though he did not hear her leaving, he felt that she had gone. He raised his head to watch her go down the quarters.

  “I am guilty,” he thought. “Yes, yes, I am. I was born guilty. But guilty or no guilty, I’m going back. And with time I will forget every bit of it. The whole lot …”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  When Mary Louise came back to the house, Jackson told her he was going for a walk. He did not want to be near her, because she would remind him of everything. She did not mean any harm—he knew that—but just being near her would remind him of the fool he had made of himself with Catherine. He would be conscious every moment of the sorrow he had caused his aunt. Before leaving the house, he asked Mary Louise if she needed anything. She shook her head.

  Once Jackson was in the road, he did not know which way to turn. He would have liked to go for a walk across the field, but then he would have had to pass that damned house to get back there. And then after he had passed the house he would be stared at by everyone else in the quarters. No, he had better not go that way. It was too hot to be bothered, and he might have said something to someone. He started toward the highway.

  I have to get the hell out of this place, he was thinking. I have to get out of here as soon as possible. I’ll wait until she’s up, I’ll make up to her in some kind of way, and then I’m going to get the hell out of here.

  But where to? Back to San Francisco? Then what? What then? I came here because I had to get away from there a while. Am I going back to the same thing? But if not to San Francisco, then where to?

  He was on the highway. He stood there awhile, not knowing which way to turn. He looked at the old cypress tree down the riverbank. Gray-black Spanish moss hung from every limb like long, ugly curtains. Jackson felt as though these curtains hung over his heart.

  He turned away, looking up the highway, then down. Hot gray asphalt stretched in either direction as far as the eyes could see. He thought he saw Brother’s car parked in front of the store, and he took a better look. It was Brother’s car and he started over there.

  Jackson could see Brother standing on the porch, talking with several other people. Brother was facing the other way, but someone must have mentioned Jackson’s name, and Brother looked around just as he was coming up the steps.

  “Taking a stroll?” Brother asked.

  “Thought I would. Just getting in from Bayonne?”

  “Few minutes,” Brother said.

  Jackson looked at the people whom Brother had been talking to, but did not say anything to them. No one spoke to him, either.

  “Getting a Coke,” he said to Brother. “Can I get you one?”

  “How about a beer?” Brother said. “On me.”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  He wanted a beer. He needed one badly. But he would have to go to a sideroom to get it. The storekeeper sold beer to whites inside the store, but not to Negroes. Negroes could buy and drink theirs in a small room to the side. Jackson had not gone to the sideroom since coming there.

  He went into the store and came out a minute later with two bottles of Coca-Cola. He gave Brother one of the bottles, and he leaned against a post, drinking from the other one. The Negroes who had been talking to Brother had become silent. Two Cajuns at the far end of the porch were also silent and were looking at him.

  Jackson drank from his Coca-Cola bottle and looked out at the river. A sailboat halfway out was drifting leisurely toward Bayonne. Jackson could see that the people on the boat were white. They were diving off the boat, swimming away from it, then back to the boat again. Jackson watched them a while, and looked away. What a place to be in. Nothing to do and nowhere to go—unless you wanted to go to a sideroom for a bottle of beer.

  He knew that the people on the porch were looking at him. But what did he care? It gave him a sense of importance to know they were concerned about him. He turned his head to the side. The Cajuns quickly looked away. He almost laughed. What fools. Just because he did not clown in front of them and drink in the sideroom with the other Negroes, they were suspicious of him. Already he had heard that they were asking whether or not he was a Freedom Rider. What a joke. He a Freedom Rider? And what would he try to integrate, this stupid grocery store? He felt like laughing in their stupid faces.

  He drank from the bottle. The Negroes were also looking at him. He could tell without turning around. No, they were no better than the Cajuns. Just as bad. Behind his back they called him “Mr. Stuck-up.” He was not “Mr. Stuck-up”; he could not think of anything to talk with them about, and drinking in that sideroom was out of the question. He would never go in there. Let them call him what they wanted.

  He drank the last of his Coca-Cola and took the empty bottle back inside. He had just come out on the porch again when he saw Catherine driving up in front of the store. Raoul was in the car with her. Catherine stopped at the gas pump, and Raoul got out of the car and looked toward the store.

  “Gas?” Claude asked him.

  “Yes,” Raoul said.

  While Claude put gas in the car, Raoul got the air hose and began checking each tire.

  For a while Jackson would not look at Catherine. He knew if he had, he would have gone out there, jerked her out of the car, and knocked her to the ground. He felt like calling her all the dirty names he ever heard anyone call a woman. He wanted to tell everyone out there that she was Raoul’s lover.

  But when he did look at her, he felt none of this. It was like dropping a piece of ice on a hot stove. All hatred toward her melted—he loved her more now than ever. She was also looking at him, but he could not believe what she was saying to him with her eyes. How could he believe her after what had happened last night? What are you trying to do, make me jump on Raoul? he asked her. Is that what you want? Is that what you’re asking me to do? No, she said; that isn’t what I want. Can’t you understand? Look around you—look at thos
e around you; can’t you understand? They continued to look at each other a while, then she looked away a moment, then at him again.

  Jackson looked at Raoul. Raoul was squatting down beside the tire with his back toward the store. Jackson looked at Raoul’s strong, hard back. He could see the shoulder muscles bulge out under the thin blue shirt that Raoul wore. This was the nearest that Jackson had been to Raoul, but he found himself not hating him. He knew he should—he had been brought up to hate the man—but seeing him this close for the first time, he found himself unable to do so. But why? Was it because of the others who hated him, and he could not possibly agree with them on anything? Was that it? What other reason could it be? After all, Raoul stood beween him and what he wanted most. He had all the reasons in the world to hate him.

  But he did not hate Raoul. Instead, he admired him. There was something about the man, different from all the others around there. What was it? Yes, he knew. He was still trying to stand when all the odds were against him. That was it, that was the only thing. He liked that in people, he liked that in anyone. So that’s why she went back to him. Was that it? Was that it? That must have been it. Raoul couldn’t possibly love her as much as he, Jackson, did. It must have been that. It must have been the odds against him that brought her back to him. He looked at her again. Is that why you went back to him—because he’s alone? What about me? Am I not as alone as he? She looked away a moment, then at him again. Say it’s over between us, he said. Say it’s over with. But she looked away again.

  Raoul finished checking the tires at about the same time that the storekeeper finished putting gas in the car. The two men went inside the store. Raoul did not say anything to anyone when he went in or when he came back out. Jackson watched him get into the car beside Catherine and pass her a small package that looked like a bar of candy. Catherine smiled, glanced quickly at Jackson, and backed the car away from the store.