by John Grisham
But there was always another upcoming revival. The Methodists had two each year, the Baptists three, and the Pentecostals seemed to be in a constant state of frenzied renewal. At least twice a year some itinerant street preacher threw up a big top beside the feed store near the square and raged every night through his loudspeakers. It was not at all uncommon for one church to “visit” another church when a hotshot preacher was in town. Every denomination worshipped for at least two hours on Sunday morning. Others came back for more on Sunday evening. (These were the white churches; the black ones kept it going all day and into the night.) Wednesday night prayer meetings were common. Add in all the revivals, religious holiday services, vacation Bible schools in the summer, funerals, weddings, anniversaries, and baptisms, and at times Liza felt exhausted from her church work.
She insisted that they get out of town occasionally. If Florry agreed to keep the kids, they headed for the Peabody and a long weekend of partying. Occasionally, Florry went with them, along with Joel and Stella, and the whole family enjoyed the big city, especially the lights. On two occasions, and with Florry’s insistence, the entire family loaded onto a train and went to New Orleans for a week’s vacation.
In 1936, there was a stark contrast in electrical service in the South. Ninety percent of urban areas had power, while only 10 percent of the small towns and countryside had electricity. Downtown Clanton was wired in 1937, but the rest of the county was still dark. Shopping in Memphis and Tupelo, Liza and the other ladies from the farms were awed by the fancy electrical appliances and gadgets that were flooding the market—radios, phonographs, stoves, refrigerators, toasters, mixers, even vacuum cleaners—and they were untouchable. The country folks dreamed of electricity.
Liza wanted to spend as much time as possible in Memphis and Tupelo, but Pete resisted. He was a farmer now, and as such grew more tightfisted each year. So she settled into the quiet life and kept her complaints to herself.
* * *
—
Nineva and Amos came with the house and the farm. Their parents had been born into slavery and had worked the same land Pete now farmed. Nineva claimed to be “around sixty” but there was no clear record of her birth date. Amos didn’t care when he was born, but to irritate his wife he often said he was born after her. Their oldest son had a birth certificate proving that he was forty-eight. It was unlikely Nineva gave birth when she was twelve. Amos said she was at least twenty. The Bannings knew she was actually “around seventy,” though this subject was off-limits. She and Amos had three other children and a yard full of grandchildren, but by 1935 most had migrated north.
Nineva worked her entire life in the Banning home as the sole domestic servant. Cook, dishwasher, maid, laundress, nanny, babysitter, midwife. She helped the doctor deliver Florry in 1898 and her little brother, Pete, in 1903, and practically raised both of them. To Pete’s mother, she was a friend, therapist, sounding board, confidante, and adviser.
To Pete’s wife, though, she was more of a rival. The only white people Nineva trusted were Bannings, and Liza was not a Banning. She was a Sweeney, a city girl who knew nothing about the ways of country blacks and whites. Nineva had just said good-bye to her dearest friend, “Miz Banning,” and she was not ready to welcome a new madam to the home.
At first, Nineva resented the beautiful young wife with a considerable personality. She was warm and pleasant and gave every indication of wanting to fit in, but all Nineva saw was more work. She had spent the past four years taking care of Miz Banning, who asked for little, and Nineva could admit to herself that she had grown a bit lazy. Who cared if the house wasn’t spotless? Miz Banning noticed virtually nothing in her declining years. Suddenly, with this new woman around, Nineva’s lethargic routines were about to change. It was immediately obvious that Pete’s wife loved clothes, all of which of course had to be washed, occasionally starched, and always ironed. And Joel and Stella, as precious as they were, would require meals and clean clothes, towels, bedsheets. Instead of tending to Miz Banning’s birdlike appetite, Nineva suddenly faced the reality of cooking three meals each day for an entire family.
At first, Liza was uncomfortable with the presence of another woman in her home throughout the day, and a strong and established woman at that. She had not been raised with maids and servants. Her mother had been able to take care of the home, with the help of her husband and two daughters. However, it took only a few days to realize that properly maintaining such a large home was more work than she could handle. Without igniting a turf battle or hurting Nineva’s feelings, Liza quickly acquiesced.
Both women were smart enough to realize that neither was leaving. They had no choice but to get along, at least superficially. The house was big enough to provide space for each. The first weeks were strained, but as they felt each other out the tension subsided. Pete was of no help. He was in the fields, where he was happy and unconcerned. Let the women work things out.
Amos, on the other hand, adored Liza from day one. Each spring, he planted a large vegetable garden that fed the Bannings and many of their dependents, and Liza was drawn to it. As a city girl, she had grown nothing but a few daisies in a small flower bed. Amos’s garden was half an acre of perfect rows of squash, corn, lettuce, beans, carrots, yams, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, okra, strawberries, onions, and at least four varieties of tomatoes. Next to the garden was a small orchard with trees of apples, peaches, plums, and pears. Amos was also in charge of the chickens, pigs, and milk cows. Fortunately, someone else took care of the livestock.
His new assistant was more than welcome. After breakfast each morning, Liza was in the garden watering the plants, pulling weeds, picking off insects, harvesting the ripe produce, and either humming merrily along or asking him a dozen questions about gardening. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat to ward off the sun, and chinos rolled up to her knees and gloves to her elbows. She didn’t mind the dirt and mud but she somehow managed to keep it off her clothing. Amos thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and developed a crush, though he went through his routine of appearing frustrated with her intrusions. She wanted to learn everything about vegetable gardening, and when she ran out of questions they went to the dairy barn, where he taught her to milk cows, churn butter, and make cheese.
They were often assisted by Jupe, the teenage grandson of Amos and Nineva. Jupe’s mother had named him Jupiter, which he couldn’t stand, so he shortened it. She was in Chicago, never to return, but Jupe preferred life on the farm and lived with his grandparents. At fifteen, he was a strapping, muscular boy who was fascinated by Liza but terribly shy around her.
At first, Amos suspected her enthusiasm was driven by a desire to get out of the house and away from Nineva, and this was partly true. But a friendship developed, much to the surprise of both. Liza wanted to know about his family and his background, his parents and grandparents and their harsh lives on the farm. Her father was from the North. Her mother was raised in Memphis. Liza had never been around Negroes and showed sympathy for their plight. Using his words carefully and always choosing less instead of more, he explained that he and Nineva and their children were the luckier ones. They had a nice little house, one built for them by Pete’s father when he tore down the old family place. They had plenty of food and clothing. No one went hungry on the Banning land, but the field hands were quite poor. Their little shacks were barely livable. The children, and there were plenty of them, were always barefoot.
Liza knew that Amos was being cautious. He could not be accused of criticizing his boss. And, he was always quick to point out that there were plenty of poor whites around them who were just as desperate as the field hands.
On horseback and alone, Liza covered the Banning property, about two-thirds of which was farmland. The rest was heavily forested. She found tiny settlements of shacks tucked away in the woods, cut off from the world. The children on their porches were dirty and wide-ey
ed and refused to speak when she spoke to them. The mothers nodded and smiled as they herded the children back inside. In a village of sorts she found a store and a church with a cemetery behind it. Clusters of shanties lined the dusty streets.
Liza was stunned by the poverty and living conditions, and she vowed to one day find ways to make improvements. Initially, though, she kept her thoughts to herself. She did not tell Pete about her rides through the woods, though he soon knew. One of the field hands reported the sighting of an unknown white woman on a horse. Liza said of course it was her, and what was the problem? She had not been told that some places were off-limits, had she?
No, nothing was off-limits. There was nothing to hide. What were you looking for?
I was riding my horse. How many Negroes live on our land?
Pete wasn’t sure, because the families were always growing. About a hundred, but not all worked for them. Some had other jobs. Some moved away; some came back. A few of the men had multiple families. Why do you want to know?
Just curious. Liza knew the project would take years, and now was not the time to start trouble. Pete still owed the banks. The country was still in a depression. There was little spare money. Even their trips to Memphis were budgeted.
* * *
—
In late March of 1938, as Liza and Amos were taking advantage of a warm, sunny day and planting peas and butter beans, she began to feel dizzy. She stood to catch her breath and then fainted. Amos scooped her up and ran with her to the back porch, where Nineva met them. Nineva, who was the resident nurse, doctor, and midwife, wiped her face with a cold towel and coaxed her back to life. After a few minutes, Liza felt fine and said, “I feel like I’m pregnant.”
No surprise there, Nineva thought but didn’t utter a word. That afternoon, Pete drove Liza to the doctor in Clanton, and he confirmed that she was two months along. Joel and Stella were too young for such news and nothing was said around the house. Privately, Pete and Liza were thrilled. After two miscarriages, and a lot of effort, they had finally succeeded. Pete demanded that she leave the gardening to Amos and take it easy for a spell.
A month later, Liza miscarried again. It was a crushing loss and she fell into a dark depression. She closed the curtains and, for a month, rarely left her bedroom. Nineva, as always, stepped up and waited on her as often as she would allow. Pete spent as much time as possible with her, but nothing seemed to revive her spirits, not even Joel and Stella. Finally, Pete drove her to Memphis to see a specialist. They stayed two nights with her parents, but that did nothing to lighten her mood. Early one morning over coffee, he confided in Nineva that he was terribly worried. It was almost frightening to watch someone as vivacious as Liza fall into such a morbid state.
Nineva had experience with depressed white women. Miz Banning didn’t smile the last four years of her life, and Nineva had held her hand every day. She began sitting with Liza for long periods of time and trying to engage her. At first Liza said almost nothing and cried a lot. So Nineva talked and talked, and told stories of her mother and grandmother and life as a slave. She brought tea and chocolate cookies, and slowly pulled back the curtains. Day after day they sat and talked, and gradually Liza began to realize that her life was not nearly as harsh as others’. She was privileged, and lucky. She was thirty years old, and healthy, with her best days in front of her. She was already a mother, and if she had no more children she would always have a beautiful family.
Nine weeks after the miscarriage, Liza awoke one morning, waited until Pete was out of the house, dressed in her chinos, found her gloves and straw hat, and announced to Nineva that she was needed in the garden. Nineva followed her there and whispered to Amos. He watched her carefully, and when the sun was up and she began to sweat, he insisted they take a break. Nineva arrived with iced tea and lemon, and the three of them sat under a shade tree and had a laugh.
Before long she and Pete were back to their old ways, and while they enjoyed themselves immensely, there was no pregnancy. Two years passed with no news. By her thirty-third birthday, in November of 1940, Liza was convinced beyond any doubt that she was barren.
Chapter 23
The cotton looked especially promising by late summer of 1941. The seeds were in the ground by mid-April. The stalks were waist high by July 4, chest high by Labor Day. The weather was cooperating nicely with hot days, cooler nights, and a heavy rain every other week. After a long winter of clearing land, Pete had managed to plant an additional eighty acres. His bank loans had been extinguished and he was privately vowing to never borrow against his land. As a farmer, though, he knew such vows were not binding. There was so much he could not control.
The encouraging outlook in the fields, though, was tempered by events around the world. In Europe, Germany invaded Poland two years earlier to start the war. The following year it began bombing London, and in June of 1941 Hitler attacked Russia with the largest invasion force in history. In Asia, Japan had been fighting in China for ten years. Its success there prompted it to invade the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the South Pacific. Japan’s goal of the complete domination of East Asia appeared unstoppable. In August of 1941, the United States supplied Japan with 80 percent of its oil. When President Roosevelt announced a complete oil embargo, Japan’s economic and military strength was imperiled.
War seemed imminent on both fronts, and the great debate was how long the U.S. could sit on the sidelines. Pete had many friends who were still active in the army, and not a single one believed the country could remain neutral.
Eight years earlier, he had left the military life behind, and with regret. Now, though, he had no misgivings about his future. He had grown accustomed to the life of a farmer. He adored his wife and children and found happiness in the flow of the seasons, the rhythm of the plantings and harvests. He was in the fields every day, often on horseback and often with Liza at his side, watching his crops and pondering ways to acquire more land. Joel was now fifteen and when he wasn’t in school or doing his numerous chores on the farm, he was in the woods with Pete stalking white-tailed deer and wild turkeys. Stella was thirteen and breezing through school with perfect grades. The family had dinner together every night promptly at seven, and they talked about everything. Increasingly, the conversations were about war.
As a reservist, Pete was certain that he would soon be activated, and the thought of leaving home was painful. He scoffed at his old dreams of military glory. He was a farmer now, too old to be a soldier, at least in his opinion. He knew, though, that the army would not be concerned with his age. Almost weekly he received another letter from a West Point pal who had been activated. All of them vowed to keep in touch.
His orders came on September 15, 1941. He was to report to Fort Riley, Kansas, the home of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry, his old regiment that was already in the Philippines. He requested a thirty-day delay to oversee the fall harvest, but it was denied.
On October 3, Liza invited a small group of friends to the house to say farewell. In spite of Pete’s efforts to allay all fears, it was not a happy occasion. There were smiles and hugs and offers of good luck and so on, but the fear and tension were palpable. Pete thanked everyone for their thoughts and prayers, and reminded them that across the country scores of young men were being called into duty. The world was on the verge of another great conflict, and in trying times sacrifices were required.
The new preacher, Dexter Bell, was present, along with his wife, Jackie. They had moved to town a month earlier and had been well received. Dexter was young and enthusiastic and a real presence in the pulpit. Jackie had a beautiful voice and had wowed the church with two solos. Their three children were well mannered and polite.
Long after the guests were gone, the Bannings, with Florry, sat in the den and tried to delay the inevitable. Stella clung to her father and fought back tears. Joel, like his father, tried to appear stoic, as if all would be well. He
added logs to the fire as they warmed in its glow, each subdued and frightened about the uncertainties before them. The fire eventually died and it was time for bed. Tomorrow was a Saturday and the kids would sleep in.
A few hours later, at sunrise, Pete tossed his duffel into the rear seat of his car and kissed Liza good-bye. He drove away with Jupe, who was now twenty years old and a handsome young man. Pete had known him since the day he was born, and for years Jupe had been one of Pete’s favorites. He had taught the kid how to drive, got him licensed and insured, and he, Liza, and Nineva used Jupe to run errands in town. He was even allowed to drive Pete’s pickup truck to Tupelo for feed and supplies.
Pete drove to Memphis and parked at the train station. He told Jupe to take care of things on the farm and watched him drive away. Two hours later, Pete boarded the train and headed for Fort Riley in Kansas. It was packed with servicemen headed to bases all over the country.
He had left the army with the rank of lieutenant, and reentered as the same. He was reassigned to his old unit, the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment, and spent a month in training at Fort Riley before being hurriedly shipped out on November 10. He was on the deck of the troop carrier when it sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and he wondered how long it would be before he returned. On board, he wrote two or three letters a day to Liza and his children and mailed them in port. The troop carrier stopped for supplies at Pearl Harbor, and a week later arrived in the Philippines.
Pete’s timing could not have been worse. His assignment could not have been more unfortunate.
Chapter 24