Any Known Blood

by Lawrence Hill

  “I’m not one for destroying historical documents, although I’m tempted,” Langston said. “So I am speaking now as reverend to sexton. And I will ask you, sexton, to seal these pages, and to put them in a place where they will neither be damaged nor found — preferably a safety deposit vault at the bank. I will sign across the seal.”

  And sign he did. He wrote, “These Documents Are to Remain Sealed for at Least Fifty Years. Dated May 7, 1924. Signed, Langston Cane, African Methodist Episcopal Minister, Oakville.”

  “I will ask you to speak of this to no one,” Langston told Ab. “Nor shall I speak to anyone of this. Not even to my wife.”

  Ab shook the Reverend’s hand. “I will take care to do what you said. And I am pleased that you have chosen not to destroy history.”

  Langston winced, and bade the man good night.

  Rose swamped Ab with work to get his mind off that African nonsense. She had him build cupboards, put in a new garden, prune the pear trees, and install shelving in Mill’s room. Neighbors noticed Ab’s work and started buying his services. For the first time in his life, Ab starting making money. He dropped the books for a spell, and earned good money — always leaving time to care for Mill and little Langston — for the better part of three years.

  Rose Cane would never forget the month of October 1929. It was the month that the stock markets crashed, and that her bank savings evaporated. It was also the month that her voice gave out on her. At first, she thought she had a cold. A sore throat that would go away. But her voice became increasingly scratchy, with no sign of improvement.

  After the stock markets crashed, the people of Oakville lined up to get their money out of the banks. But there was no getting any money out. Aberdeen Williams was among those in line. Miraculously, he had hidden all his savings in the Canes’ basement. So it was safe. But the sealed A.M.E. papers on Langston Cane the First were in a safety deposit box, and Ab wanted them back in case the bank closed permanently.

  The bank manager spent hours talking to people in the line, sending them home one by one. People waited anyway. They waited to talk, to be consoled, and to be turned away. When Ab’s turn finally came, the manager looked at him suspiciously.

  “You have a safety deposit box with us?”

  “Here’s the key,” Ab said. “It’s box number 139. Can I get my papers?”

  “Come this way.”

  Aberdeen hid the papers with his substantial wad of savings in the Canes’ basement.

  Three months later, Ab walked over to Evelyn’s home late one evening and knocked on the door. This violated a cardinal rule. He was not to do anything that would tip off Evelyn’s mother to the fact that they were still seeing each other. She had thought the relationship was over, and had warned her daughter that she would call the Ku Klux Klan if Evelyn started seeing Aberdeen again.

  “My daughter is in bed. What is wrong with you, knocking on the door at this hour?” “May I see her?” “No, you may not.”

  Evelyn came up behind her mother. She put on her coat, slipped on her boots, put on her mitts and earmuffs, and stormed out into the night without a word to either her mother or Aberdeen.

  Ab had to run to catch her.

  “I told you not to knock on our door,” she said. “Do you realize what trouble you may have caused?” “Come down to the lake with me.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a full moon tonight. I have something to give to you.” Aberdeen proposed to Evelyn that night. “Ab, I never thought you’d do it. Mother will cause trouble, though.”

  Ab tried to kiss her. She pushed him away. “Someone might see us.”

  “They’re going to see us, Ev. People are going to have to get used to it. We’re going to be man and wife. Out in the open.

  Married. Right?”

  “Right.” She let him kiss her.

  Aberdeen and Evelyn asked Langston if he would marry them.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Langston asked.

  Evelyn nodded. In Langston’s view, nodding didn’t signal a strong commitment. Ab said that he did, indeed, want to go ahead with it.

  “What does your mother say?” Langston asked Evelyn.

  “I haven’t told her yet. But she has already said that she would call the Ku Klux Klan if I saw Ab again. She thinks I broke off with him a year ago.”

  “The Klan?” Rose said. “In Oakville?” “She has said more than once that she might call them.”

  “She’ll settle down after we’re married,” Ab said.

  “Even if she does,” Rose said, “the whole thing won’t be easy.” She coughed. She put her hand up to her throat.

  Ab asked if she had been to a doctor yet to have her throat examined.

  “Why should I?” Rose said. “All the doctor will say is that I have a sore throat, which I already know. But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you two. And I’m saying, you have no idea how hard it will be for you, as a couple. Even here in Canada.”

  “If people can’t handle it, we’ll just make new friends,” Evelyn said. “Or we’ll stick with colored folks.”

  Ab laughed nervously. “I know some colored folks who won’t be too happy, either.”

  Langston told Evelyn to talk to her mother. “Invite her to your wedding. Let her decide if she wants to attend. And yes, my friends, I’ll marry you.”

  “Do you mind if I spend the night?” Evelyn said. “I’ll tell my mother in the morning.”

  Rose stared at the woman. “No. It’s not all right. You’re not married yet, and we have children in this house. If you’re serious about this, you should go talk to your mother tonight.”

  “All right. I’m sorry.”

  Ab offered to walk Evelyn home. The two stepped outside. Rose watched them through the study window. Aberdeen wrapped his arms around her and put his lips into hers. She crushed her body against his and roamed all over his shoulders and back with her hands. Rose looked on, astonished, excited, and disgusted. She didn’t think much of Evelyn. Rose would urge Aberdeen to set a wedding date way down the road, and she would hope that he would break it off before the big day. In bed that night, Rose curled up against Langston. He moaned in pleasure. Rose rubbed his neck, his back. She rubbed his butt. She ran her hands down to the back of his calves, and up again. She reached around the side of his face and planted a kiss on his lips.

  “Did all that wedding talk heat you up?” Langston said.

  “That will be for you to judge,” she said.

  He rolled over onto his back. She straddled him. While he fondled her, she guided him inside her. He let out a long, slow breath. She gave out an odd sound. A sound he’d never heard from her before. She sounded as if she was gagging. She fell forward. He fell out of her. She covered her mouth and ran to the bathroom.

  Rose was sick all night. She was sick all morning. Her fever hit 103. Langston asked Ab to look after the kids, and he drove her to the hospital. A colored nurse admitted Rose. Oakville had come a long way, Langston thought, since he’d brought Ken Coombs to the hospital years earlier. The nurse put in a call to Wendy Evans.

  They took Rose’s blood. They X-rayed her chest. They bathed her to bring down the fever. Rose stayed in the hospital overnight. The next day, Langston met with the doctor.

  “We’d like to run some more tests,” Wendy Evans said.

  “Why?”

  “Let’s talk when I have some clear lab results.” “Out with it, Wendy,” Langston said.

  “The fever and the vomiting were probably due to the flu. Nothing serious at all. But I’m worried about Rose’s throat. She’s got a high white blood cell count. It could be cancer. I want to keep her here overnight, and then have her examined at the Toronto General Hospital.”

  Langston’s arms dropped by his side. He couldn’t say a word.

  Ab offered to look after the kids.

  “You’re a good man,” Langston told him. “You’re probably the only handyman in Oakville who kn
ows how to make meals and take care of children. I may be away for a couple of days.”

  “Don’t worry about how long you’re away. Reverend, you’re walking around in circles. Sit down. I say, sit down, Reverend. There. Better. Sit right there and drink this milk slowly. I’m going upstairs to pack your bags.”

  Ab ached with desire to see Rose before she left for the hospital in Toronto. To touch her cheek, to stroke her hand. I have always loved you, Rose, he thought. Always have, always will. You’re the best woman I’ve ever met. No disrespect toward my intended, but you’re number one. Ab fought off the urge to ask for a moment alone with Rose. He wanted to take her hand and hold it and listen to her scold him for being so silly. He wanted to tell her something outrageous, perhaps that Africans had not only discovered America, but had been the true founders of Rome as well, just to hear her cluck in disapproval. But Ab didn’t ask to see Rose. The Reverend needed time alone with her. They came first. Man and wife. Ab would die for either of them. He would die to keep them together.

  Langston rode with his wife in the back of the ambulance.

  “Get better soon, Rose. If you don’t, the Good Lord may dispatch your mother back to Oakville.”

  Rose’s brown eyes danced, but she couldn’t laugh. It hurt too much. She asked Langston not to tell any jokes. Laughing hurt her too much. She said she felt the pain most acutely in her throat.

  Surgeons removed a minor growth from Rose’s left vocal cord. She underwent three days of needles and X-rays. Langston spent some nights in her room, sleeping in a chair beside her bed. He spent other nights at home. He took the children to see her on the weekend. He made a day of it, took them to the zoo, bought them hamburgers and ice-cream cones, and took them back home — on the train. And then he left them and took the train right back into the city.

  Langston met with a team of doctors a week after Rose had been admitted. They told him that the vocal cord growth was malignant. Rose had throat cancer.

  “To be honest with you,” the sarcoma expert said, “it does not look good. Dr. Evans told me to be straightforward with you, so I will. You should start making plans. Your wife will be lucky if she lives another six months.”

  Langston hadn’t even caught the sarcoma expert’s name. He stared at the man. He had been a minister for ten years, but he’d never found it so hard to say something meaningful. He remembered meeting Rose on the Howard University campus. He remembered the first time they kissed. He remembered the first time they fell onto a bed, pressed together. The words came to him one by one as he spoke.

  “I’m afraid I just can’t accept that answer.” Langston blinked three times. Saliva bubbled at his lips. Mucus dripped from his nose. He turned. Wendy Evans put her arm around him, and began to lead him from the room. He stopped her. He blew his nose. He turned to the other doctors. “I must step outside to compose myself. But you should know that I reject your prognosis. My wife will live. We will dig to the very bottom of this disease and beat it. You can tell her she has cancer. I, in fact, will tell her momentarily. But don’t say a word again about how long Rose has to live. She has her life, still, and it’s not over yet. Not by a long shot. Gentlemen. Wendy.” Langston left the room.

  Langston had completed a master’s in theology at the University of Toronto several months earlier — as a part-time student, it had taken him close to seven years — but now it seemed all for naught. The congregation was dwindling. Jobs were so scarce that hoboes were knocking on his door for food. Langston never refused any man food. If there was nothing else in the kitchen, Langston would prepare a peanut butter sandwich for a man at the door.

  Langston sent a telegram to Rose’s parents. He let them know about the cancer, and about the treatment. At his insistence, Rose had been diagnosed by another team of throat and cancer specialists at the Mount Sinai Hospital. The initial diagnosis was confirmed. But this team of doctors suggested a treatment called radical X-ray therapy. Essentially, it would involve a month of regular X-ray treatments to burn the cancer out of her throat. The doctors warned that it would be exhausting and painful, and that it would scar her throat. They warned her that there was no guarantee that the treatment would work. But they felt it was the best they could do, and they wanted to begin immediately. Rose and Langston agreed.

  In the letter to her parents, Langston said that Rose was in “the best medical hands in Toronto.” Rose’s parents would be welcome to visit. Hazel wired a message back the next morning. Dr. Bridges was ill, but Hazel would come up the next day.

  From her hospital bed, Rose had asked Langston how Evelyn’s mother had reacted to the news of the engagement. Langston’s mouth dropped open. “You forgot to ask, you silly ass,” Rose said. “Bring me news tomorrow.” She rubbed the back of his hand. “Husband, are you eating well?”

  Ab took the train to Toronto to visit Rose. He told her that Evelyn’s mother had pulled out all the stops. She had cried. She had raged. She had claimed it would be the most unhappy day of her life. She had threatened to kill herself if her daughter went ahead with it.

  “No mention of the Klan?” Rose asked.

  “No mention of that,” Ab said. “I’m just hoping she makes good on her promise to kill herself.”

  “Aberdeen Williams,” Rose croaked, slapping his hand. Her hand remained on his. He left it there. She fell asleep. He kissed her and left.

  Hazel arrived a week before the first X-ray treatment. She and Langston got along civilly. Hazel had aged, it seemed. When Langston picked her up at Union Station, she said: “No mother can tolerate the notion that her child could die first.” She sobbed on Langston’s shoulder.

  He put his arm around her. “She’s not going to die, Hazel. She’s got a will of iron. Like someone I know.” Hazel brushed her tears away and, for the first time, kissed her son-in-law.

  Hazel, at first, chose to stay in a hotel in Toronto. She wanted to be near her daughter. She wanted to be there morning, afternoon, and night. But after two days of that, Rose prevailed on her to go to Oakville. “Go see your grandchildren. Go see Langston. He needs your help.” Privately, Rose told Langston that she was sick of having her mother at her bedside. Cancer or no cancer, Rose could only take the woman in moderate doses. Hazel came to Oakville. There were no sparks. Mill allowed Hazel to read to her. Langston junior climbed all over her. One evening, he suckered her into reading him five books before turning out the light.

  “He’s only supposed to get one book,” Langston said gently from the door.

  “It won’t kill him,” Hazel shot back. “The worst thing it’ll do is make him want to read and write half his life, like someone else I know in this house.”

  Hazel and Langston compared notes on the Depression. At her home on Linden Street in D.C., people were also knocking on the door, asking for food.

  “And what do you do?” Langston asked.

  “What anybody but a pagan buzzard would do,” she said. “I give him a sandwich. One day last week, I made eight sandwiches.” “So that’s where Rose got that expression.” “Pagan buzzard?”

  “Yeah. She’s been calling me that since we married.”

  Hazel gave out a laugh. “That’s how I used to refer to you, when I was trying to talk that wife of yours out of marrying you. Good thing for you she has such a thick head.”

  Hazel visited Rose two days before the first X-ray treatment, and explained that she would be back on February 2 for the big day.

  The X-ray treatment was to take place at four on Saturday afternoon. Langston made all the necessary arrangements. He canceled the Sunday service, which he didn’t want to have to think about. Ab reassured him that he would take care of everything. Feed the kids, play with them, get them off to school if Langston decided to spend a couple of days in Toronto. By the way, he hoped Langston didn’t object, but Evelyn was getting an awful lot of heat from her mother, it was terrible, it was beyond description. Could she spend a few days with Ab in the Canes’ house, until things cool
ed down? Sure, Langston said.

  The plan was for Langston and Hazel to take the two o’clock train to Toronto. Hazel had wanted to leave earlier in the morning. In fact, she had wanted to leave the night before. But Langston had convinced her that Rose would be better rested and more relaxed if she didn’t see their two faces peering at her constantly for hours and hours before the operation.

  Mill and Langston junior attended a birthday party that morning. It was a costume party. All the kids were to dress up as clowns. Ab helped them put on pajamas and hats and silly necklaces, and trundled them off to the party. Langston was thankful to have them out of his hands. But he did go to pick them up at noon. He wanted to talk to them as they walked back home.

  Langston junior, at the age of six, already knew more about cars than his father. But he had never before seen four cars coming his way with hooded men on the running boards.

  “Look, Daddy. Lookit all those men on those Model Ts. Wow,

  Daddy.”

  Mill clapped her hands. “Oh, Daddy, is this a surprise party? Did you plan a surprise party for us? Look, Daddy. White ghost costumes! Torches! Fire! I love fire! Neat!”

  Langston’s arms reached out in front of his children and pulled them, in one quick breast-stroke movement, hard against his ribs.

  “Ow, Daddy! That hurts!” “Hush!”

  Five cars. Down a block, at Allan Street. Heading west on Sumner. West toward them. The cars were moving slowly. They made no sound. Two or three men were perched on each running board, holding torches. They made no sound, either. Covered in those devilish hoods. White hoods. Eyes like slits. Five cars, and twenty men, in all.

  Langston’s first thought was his gun. In his dresser drawer. He was on the corner of Sumner and Reynolds. His house was three doors away. Too far. Too far, with his children exposed. He imagined Rose screaming at him. My babies! Get my babies away from there! He pushed them between two houses. They splashed across soggy grass. “Daddy, my shoes,” Mill cried out. “Where are we going?”

  “Shhh,” Langston said. He picked up his kids and dropped them over a fence. He climbed up and over and down and made them run again. They dashed between two more houses and turned left on Randall. No sign of the Klansmen. They crossed the street and ran another fifty yards. Langston looked back, ahead, to the sides. No Klansmen in sight. He ran up to the house of Presbyterian Church minister Eric Small. The door was unlocked. Thank God. He slammed it behind them. “Eric,” he called.