Place Called Estherville

by Erskine Caldwell

“Bring my breakfast right away,” she called back to him.

  Ganus nodded, even though she had already passed out of sight, and went to the table and picked up the bowl of eggs. He looked in the direction she had gone until he could no longer hear the sound of her footsteps.

  He could still feel the painful sting of her hand on his face as he sliced the tomatoes and he rubbed his burning cheek against the cool white cloth of his sleeve. For the first time he felt resentful, although the resentment lasted only as long as the pain itself; but during that time he wanted to leave and find a job where he would not be treated like this. As soon as the pain went away, though, he was sorry he had even thought of leaving the Singfields. He wanted to stay where Stephena was.

  When the eggs and toast were ready, he carefully arranged the silverware and china on the tray and went through the house and up the stairway to the second floor. As he walked down the carpeted hall toward Stephena’s room, he made up his mind to work harder than ever before so the Singfields would let him stay there all his life. However, when he saw the door before him, he felt a familiar twinge rising in his throat. He wanted to go into the room where she was, but now he realized more than ever before how easily she could get him into trouble. While he stood at the door delaying as long as he could the moment when he would have to enter, he made up his mind not to let anything keep him from leaving the room as quickly as possible. He knocked, opened the door, and went in. He could feel his hands beginning to shake when he started across the room.

  Carefully averting his eyes, he walked toward the small bedside table and because of that he almost dropped the breakfast tray; she had thrown the yellow silk pajamas on the floor, and it was then that he almost dropped the tray in jumping aside in time to keep from stepping on them. With dishes rattling noisily, he managed to place the tray on the table before anything was spilled. He could hear Stephena’s giggling laughter while he uncovered the dish of scrambled eggs and tomatoes and poured coffee with trembling hands. Then as quickly as possible, still not having looked at her in bed, he started toward the door.

  “Why are you running away like that, Ganus?” she called to him in a drawling voice. “You’re shaking all over, too. What’s the matter, Ganus?”

  He stopped, clearly remembering his firm determination to leave the room right away, but nevertheless, turning slowly around with helpless disregard, he looked at her for the first time since she had left the kitchen. She had combed her hair and was sitting upright in bed laughingly hugging a pillow in her arms.

  “Nothing much’s the matter, Miss Stephena,” he answered her weakly, trying his best to make his voice sound calm. He backed slowly toward the door. “It’s just that I’ve got to hurry back downstairs and finish up my work in the kitchen before Miss Stella and Mr. Charley come home from church. I wouldn’t want your mama to find the kitchen untidy. No, ma’am! That’s one thing Miss Stella always raises a big rumpus about. She won’t put up with an untidy kitchen. No ma’m!”

  “Come back here, Ganus,” she ordered him in a commanding manner.

  Reluctantly, he moved several steps in her direction. She was hugging the pillow excitedly.

  “What—what—do you want, Miss Stephena?”

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “Yes, ma’m, Miss Stephena,” he murmured, his whole being fearful of what she might say.

  Stephena leaned forward and the pillow sagged carelessly in her arms. “Ganus, tell me the honest truth. What would you do now if you could do anything you wanted to and be sure nobody ever knew about it?”

  “I’d—I’d go right straight back down to the kitchen, Miss Stephena,” he told her, shoving his hands behind his back and gripping them damply together.

  “No, you wouldn’t, Ganus,” she said tensely. “Go on and tell me the honest truth. I want to know.”

  “Know what?” he asked evasively, glancing behind him at the door.

  “If you could do anything you wanted to.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in desperation. “I wish you’d eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

  “Ganus,” she spoke as though patiently prompting him.

  He shook his head determinedly. “That’s something I don’t want to know, neither.”

  “Yes, you do, too. You know just as well as I do.”

  “Please don’t make me say what you said you wanted me to say, Miss Stephena. I’ll do anything in the world you want me to as long as I live—if you’ll only let me go now like I ought to. That’s all the favor I’d ever ask, Miss Stephena.” She moved across the bed and the pillow fell to the floor. He could think of nothing else but the time she walked into the kitchen hugging a pillow in her arms, and he prayed fervently for somebody to come this time, too. The realization that somebody might come and find him there almost made his heart stand still. “Miss Stephena, they’d murder me alive if they found me here now,” he pleaded with desperate urgency. “Nothing would stop it. You know that. They’d kill me sure if they saw me now. I know what I’m talking about. That’s the Good Man’s own truth, Miss Stephena.”

  “You promised me a little while ago that you were going to do everything I told you. Didn’t you, Ganus?”

  “Yes, ma’m, and I’ll promise it again, if you’ll only let me go now.”

  “Aren’t you going to keep your promise, Ganus?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know you meant anything at all like this, though, Miss Stephena. I thought you only meant like standing on my head and skinning-the-cat and things like that. I’d sure be tickled to stand on my head for you right now and stay on it as long as you say, if you’ll only let me go like I ought to. Could I please stand on my head right away, Miss Stephena? Please, ma’m, let me stand on my head.”

  “Don’t be silly, Ganus,” she said.

  There was the sound of an automobile in the street below. Ganus ran to the window and looked out. He was momentarily relieved when he saw that it was a strange car that soon passed out of sight without stopping. He turned from the window and came back to the center of the room.

  “Miss Stella and Mr. Charley might be coming home early any minute now, Miss Stephena.” He gazed longingly over his shoulder at the bright sunshine out of doors. “Something terrible’s liable to happen, Miss Stephena,” he began again. He was looking down at the floor when he found himself staring at the yellow silk pajamas. Snatching them up, he went cautiously toward the bed, shyly holding the garment at arm’s length. “Please put these things on, Miss Stephena, please. Put them on quick! Something awful’s going to happen. I just know it is. Please put them on like they belong and don’t stay out of them any longer.” Stephena threw the pajamas aside. Tears came to his eyes. “Please don’t do this to me, Miss Stephena. It’s awful to be teased like you’re doing. I don’t have a bit of business being in here when you’re sprang out of all your clothes like that. It’s the worst thing a colored boy could be caught at. They’d murder me alive for sure, just like Mr. Charley said they would if he ever caught me doing something a colored boy oughtn’t. Won’t you please put those clothes on right away, Miss Stephena, like you ought to? I don’t want them to kill me. I want to stay alive. I don’t want to die.”

  “If you don’t do what I want you to, I’ll scream,” she warned him, unmoved. Ganus stared at her, his mouth falling open. He was thoroughly frightened. He could feel his knees coming together with a jar that shook his whole body. “And if I scream, somebody’ll hear me, and they’ll come in the house. When they found you in here, you know what’d happen, don’t you, Ganus?”

  “I sure do, Miss Stephena!” he cried out in an agonized voice. “Please don’t do that! Have mercy on me, Miss Stephena! Please don’t stay out of your clothes! I don’t want to die!”

  She sprang to the floor and ran to him. Ganus closed his eyes, but in another moment he could smell the familiar aroma of her body.

  “Nobody’ll ever know, Ganus,” he heard her pleadi
ng in a voice that sounded far away. “I promise never to tell a soul as long as I live. That’s the honest truth. Cross my heart!” He opened his eyes at last. “Don’t you believe me, Ganus?”

  “I believe you, Miss Stephena, if you tell me to,” he said through trembling lips. “I mean, I want to believe you, Miss Stephena. But I can’t!”

  When he realized what he had said, he shut his eyes tightly, fearing that at any moment he would feel the stinging blow of her hand on his face. While he stood there with his eyes closed, he tried to imagine what it would be like to be somewhere far away in the country running from the Singfield house as fast as he could. When he finally opened his eyes, Stephena was still standing in front of him. She was smiling up at him with wild-eyed excitement.

  “Ganus—” she said slowly.

  “No, ma’m, Miss Stephena—” he told her, shaking his head.

  “Just this once, Ganus.”

  He tried to say something, but his mouth was so dry that he was unable to make the sound of words. He could only stare at her while he wet his parched lips.

  “Only this once, Ganus.”

  “Miss Stephena—”

  “Please, Ganus.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked weakly.

  She was standing so close to him that her body was almost touching his. He waited, unable to move. He could feel numbness creeping through the muscles of his legs. His arms dangled limply at his sides.

  They stood there moment after moment facing each other. Then suddenly she grasped his arm and clamped her teeth into his wrist. When she first bit him, he felt no pain whatsoever, but gradually he became conscious of a tingling sensation running up and down his arm, and then all at once the savage bite of her teeth in his flesh made him cry out in agony. He begged and pleaded for her to stop hurting him, but her teeth sank deeper and more painfully into his flesh.

  When he could bear it no longer, he made a desperate lunge to get away from her. Instead of freeing himself, however, he stumbled and fell heavily on the floor. An instant later the weight of her body falling on his chest and stomach left him gasping for breath. As the pain increased, his only thought was to do something to make her stop hurting him, and he put his other arm around her neck and drew it as tight as he could. He could feel the tension in her body relax almost immediately, and after a while she released his wrist from the biting grip of her teeth. A watery smear of blood covered his arm, and when he wiped it away, he could see the deep marks of her teeth in the broken skin.

  They were still on the floor facing one another and breathing through parted lips when Ganus began sliding cautiously away from her.

  “Nothing else’s going to happen,” she said breathlessly as a convulsive tremble shook her body.

  Ganus continued to move away from her.

  “That’s all I wanted,” she said, shaking her head. “I wanted to know how it would feel to have you put your arm around me. I made you do it. I knew I could if I tried. But that was all I wanted. Now, get away from me—quick!”

  Ganus slid backward across the floor until he was almost at the door. Then he hastily got to his feet. He looked back at her only once after that. She had put both hands over her face and she was crying hysterically.

  “I made you do it—I knew I could!” she sobbed.

  He opened the door and ran from the room, holding his left hand clenched tightly around his throbbing wrist.

  Chapter 2

  IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON. A cold spring drizzle had been falling since early morning and few people wanted to come to town on such a dreary day. The red clay county roads were muddy and slippery and most of the farmers and their families, who usually came to Estherville on Saturday to buy staple groceries and shop for piece goods and medicine, had put off the trip until next week or later when the roads would be dry. Down at the barber shop, where four barbers worked on Saturdays and where there were usually eight or ten men waiting to get into a chair, only three customers had come in since noon. Standing in doorways or under dripping awnings, sad-faced merchants gazed forlornly at the deserted, rain-soaked streets. Many of them had advertised special Saturday sales for the country people, in anticipation of a profitable quick turnover of spring merchandise, and now they were left with costly seasonal stock on their hands that probably would be difficult to move when the weather turned warm.

  At three o’clock George Swayne set the time-lock on the vault for Monday morning and locked up the bank, where he had been vice president and cashier for twelve years, and got ready to go home. The damp spring weather had made his feet hurt more than ever, but he was feeling good over the prospect of going home and taking off his shoes. His wife, Norma, who did not hesitate to tell George what he could and could not do, since it was her money that had made it possible for George to get into banking in the first place, he having been a clerk in one of the grocery stores when she married him—anyway, his wife would never let him take off his shoes in the house until bedtime; but Norma had gone to Savannah to visit her sister for the weekend, and George was planning to take off his shoes the minute he got home, and to keep them off until he had to open the bank Monday morning. He was looking forward to the most comfortable and carefree weekend of his life.

  George backed the car out of the parking lot at the rear of the Estherville State Bank, racing the engine with such loud spurts that the pigeons roosting in the loft behind the drug store were so scared that they flew out into the drizzling rain. After that he drove up Magnolia Street, every once in a while pushing in the clutch and racing the engine of his wife’s green sedan until the vibration made the doorhandles rattle. There often were times when George resented his wife’s stubborn refusal to let him come home in the afternoon after banking hours and sit in his easy chair and listen to the radio in his sock-feet, but after all those years he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He sometimes wondered how different his life would be if Norma had not inherited her father’s wealth and put him in charge of the bank; even now there were times when he yearned to be back in the grocery store selling canned goods and weighing five-pound sacks of rice for customers. Many afternoons after being on his feet in the bank most of the day he would slip off his shoes in the garage and sit there in complete comfort for half an hour or longer before having to put his shoes back on and go into the house. He had always had trouble with his feet, even when he was clerking in the grocery store, and he had to wear specially made shoes that Dr. Lew Broadus had designed for him. However, the only lasting relief he could find was when he could take off his shoes and sit in his sock-feet.

  When he reached the red brick house on Holly Street, he turned into the driveway, put the sedan into the garage and, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes, raced the engine until he could feel the vibration tingling in his cheeks. After that he felt a lot better. It was only a few steps from the garage to the side door and for the first time in more than a year he found himself walking into the house with eager anticipation. He hoped Norma would not wait another whole year to visit her sister in Savannah again.

  First turning on the radio as loudly as he pleased, he untied the laces, kicked his shoes with all his might across the room, and then leaned back happily, to listen to the music and wiggle his toes. He chuckled to himself when he tried to imagine what Norma would say and do if she should come home unexpectedly and see him now. He almost wished she would come home just so he could see the expression on her face. The more he thought about it, the happier he became, and he laughed out loud.

  He had been sprawled comfortably in the easy chair wondering if there were many other men in the world living in fear of their wives, when, looking up, he saw Kathyanne come into the room. He had forgotten all about the maid until the moment he saw her, but then he remembered hearing Norma say that Kathyanne would take care of the house and cook all his meals for him while she was away. Kathyanne had worked for the Swaynes for the past six or seven months, but George rarely saw her except for a few
minutes at breakfast and again when she served supper in the evening. He was surprised to see how eyesome she was, and he wondered why he had not noticed her in that way before. He leaned back and, with an unaccustomed boldness, eyed her closely in her freshly ironed white dress. Norma was a large-boned woman with heavy pendulous buttocks twice the size of his. She always kept herself tightly corseted right up to the last second before she put out the lights and went to bed, and in the mornings she was always up and corseted for the day before he was awake. Kathyanne was a small slender girl with light, golden skin and straight blue-black hair. Without her coloring few would have known, by looking casually at her, that she was a mulatto.

  “I heard you come home a little while ago, Mr. George,” she said pleasantly, looking directly at him without embarrassment as he continued to scrutinize her adventurously. It had been so long since he had had an opportunity frankly to ogle another woman that he was astonished to see how alluring a good-looking girl could be. “I just wanted to let you know you could have your supper anytime you wanted it. Just let me know, Mr. George. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  She did not talk like most Negroes he was accustomed to hearing. Her speech was casual and friendly, but not presumptuously so, and it had been a long time since he had heard a Negro, even a mulatto, speak to a white person without hesitating lapses and cautious inflections. He recalled hearing his wife say that Kathyanne and her brother, Ganus, had moved to town the previous summer from the lower part of the county, near Blackburn’s Mill, where they had grown up on a farm and had attended a Negro grade school for several years. For a moment he wondered how much longer she and her brother would be able to continue talking in such a normal manner before some white person, possibly resentful because he had never learned to read and write, or merely because he had been raised in an environment that encouraged hatred of the race, used force or intimidation to cower them into assuming a servile attitude. Every once in a while he heard of a Negro being run out of Tallulah County or beaten for failing to stay in his place and show proper respect for a white man. Many men boasted of being hard on blacks, and said that was the reason the town had so little race trouble.