The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  When Uncle Root drove Belle back to campus, she told her roommate that she’d experienced a loss in the family, and she didn’t really want to talk about it. She repeated this every time Marie brought up the subject. She was numb, but when Geoff met her on the steps the next morning, Belle found that she had missed him. He looked very frazzled but relieved, and on the walk to the library, she looked around, making sure no one was close. Then Belle told Geoff what had happened to her brother. That she wasn’t ashamed of him, but she knew what the campus gossips would make of Roscoe’s life, if they discovered that he’d died on the chain gang.

  And her brother had been more than a criminal. He’d been a nice young man, respectful of his mother and (mostly) helpful to his father in the fields. He’d been the best big brother ever, too, so protective and sweet. Nobody ever messed with Belle, because they knew Roscoe didn’t play about his baby sister. Seven girls had shown up to his funeral—two of them married with children—and cried as if their hearts were broken, but that wouldn’t matter to these snobs on campus, if they found out Roscoe had been on the chain gang.

  “So please don’t tell anybody,” she said.

  “I would never do that. You can always trust me,” Geoff said, and the earnestness in his large brown eyes moved her. She asked, could they go for a drive somewhere that night? She’d meet him at his car. Throughout the day, she didn’t make any plans. She only wanted to feel something other than sadness. That’s what she knew, as she watched for the sun to give way to darkness, and she walked over to the male students’ parking lot. Geoff was waiting for her, and when he paid the blackmail fee to the guard at the gate, she wasn’t embarrassed.

  Geoff drove his Seville to the same field where Stanley had tried to take advantage of her, but he was tender as a baby when he kissed her. After seconds, he tried to stop, but she told him, keep on. Please don’t stop, and she leaned against the baby-blue front seat, took Geoff’s hand, and placed it underneath her sweater, and inside her bra. His hand was so warm. So lovely as it found her skin and touched it to fire. She pushed the hand away, but only for a moment, because she found that she wanted him to put it someplace else. She really wanted that, and she told him again, don’t stop, so he didn’t.

  * * *

  Belle’s dream told her that she was pregnant before her body did. She was rocking the most gorgeous brown baby she ever had seen. A little girl whose arms, thighs, and belly were ringed with fat. The little girl looked so much like her own mother that Belle was sure that she belonged to Miss Rose, who appeared in the dream. But when Belle tried to give the baby back to her mother, the little girl screamed until Belle put her to the breast that was instantly exposed. When she awoke, she was confused. She’d never been a dreamer, like her grandmother Pearl, who was known for the visions that either predicted or indicted.

  It took time for Belle to catch on that the dream-baby was inside her. Miss Rose always had tracked her cycle, asking every month, had she seen the moon? There was no morning sickness, either, no weight gain, only full breasts. By that time, she’d received her letter that she had been accepted into Columbia’s Master of Arts program. Uncle Root had told her he already had the money saved for her tuition, and he’d located a lady in Harlem who kept a respectable boardinghouse.

  Belle had plans for her life, and so she was angry. Not at Geoff but with her brother. If Roscoe hadn’t killed that man, he wouldn’t have been sent away to the chain gang. If he’d only not sassed that guard and been shot. If he hadn’t been dead and lying stiff and powdered in his coffin, Belle wouldn’t have been at the mercy of her grief and she wouldn’t have given in to Geoff.

  Or rather, Belle had given in to herself, for Geoff had kept asking her until the moment he had slipped inside her, was she absolutely sure? Was he being a gentleman? And though there had been pain that first time and a bit of blood in her panties that evening when he returned her to her dorm after she had smoothed her hair and clothing—the second and third and fourth times had been free of everything except a glorious, wet heat. She’d calmed down enough after those few days to tell Geoff they should stop, and though he was disappointed—anybody could see that—he quickly agreed. He told her he hadn’t meant to take advantage.

  Belle was not only angry at her dead brother, she was angry at herself. Another, braver girl would be trying to collect money, the five hundred dollars that the gossips whispered it would take for a girl to pay a certain Negro doctor in Atlanta who could get rid of a baby. According to those gossips, the doctor was sage and clear, but Belle kept remembering the girl at her high school who had bled to death from a botched abortion. It had been the year that Miss Rose had pulled Belle close, trying to protect her daughter; as cranky as Miss Rose had been, she was a kind woman at her core. More than that, a godly woman who did not believe in speaking ill of the dead. She told Belle, that girl should have tried a different home remedy before the pregnancy took hold. Like drinking a tea made from wild carrot seeds, right after you lay with a man. Or ginger root tea, or even the more dangerous pokeberry wine, which only the truly desperate employed. The girl hadn’t even consulted one of the euphemistic elixirs sold at the dime store that “helped to unblock menses” or “eased women’s complaints.” Instead, Belle’s high school classmate had stuck a crochet needle inside her, which had caused her to bleed but didn’t get rid of the pregnancy. And the girl had died from an infection.

  Miss Rose would not attend the girl’s funeral, because she was too upset thinking about that girl’s mama crying over her child. She told Belle it was important to keep her wits about her, sure enough, but if Belle ever slipped up with a boy, don’t be sticking nothing up her. And if the home remedies didn’t work, Belle had people. She could come home, and Miss Rose would help her raise her baby. Anything was better than what that poor dead girl had suffered.

  * * *

  The night Belle told Geoff she was pregnant, she asked if they could drive to their spot. She felt badly for him. He’d be receiving sober tidings, instead of the loving she knew he was expecting. In the field, he reached for her eagerly, but she pushed at his chest.

  “I’ve got some bad news, Geoff.”

  He leaned back. “Please don’t tell me you don’t want me anymore, Belle.”

  She touched his face. “It’s not that. You’re a nice guy. Real nice—”

  “This sounds like you’re about to break up with me—”

  “Will you let me say what I need to, honey? Just wait. Just hold on.”

  When Belle told him that she was pregnant and he began to weep, she knew that she was on her own. She hadn’t expected chivalry, but at least some offer of support. A monthly stipend for the baby. Something. She was nauseated by the odor of his Old Spice, which only a few weeks ago had driven her crazy with lust, so that she’d wanted to rub herself all over him. While Geoff had been inside her, he’d told her that he loved her. But along with the package of wild carrot seeds and the dried ginger that Miss Rose had given her—her daughter was too forgetful about one and too frightened of the other to use—Miss Rose had told Belle, men would say anything to get underneath somebody’s dress. And God had made men that way, in order to keep the world full.

  Geoff wiped his face and told her he was sorry. He hadn’t meant to break down. But he was just so happy. They were going to have a baby, and then he asked her to marry him. She thought it was a joke, but he grabbed her, kissing her and rubbing her stomach. They should get married right away, he said. Tomorrow, even, and Belle lay against the seat. She should have felt relieved, but she was frightened. It was one thing to hug up and kiss with a boy you didn’t know, but marriage was a lifelong pact. Her family didn’t play, when it came to matrimony. Once she and Geoff married, something seriously bad would have to happen for them to accept Belle leaving him.

  In a few days, she walked to the faculty building to see her great-uncle. She shut the office door but didn’t sit down.

  “Uncle Root, I’m going to tell yo
u something. Please don’t be mad.”

  In the roller chair, he twisted his knees back and forth. “Beloved, I could never be angry with you.”

  “I’m expecting a baby, and I won’t be going to Columbia. I’m so sorry.”

  “All right, but who might be responsible? And is this situation voluntary?” He extended a surprisingly strong hand. His manner was refined, but his relatives knew the truth. If pushed, he could be a very dangerous man: Roscoe hadn’t been the only one with a temper.

  “The boy I went to the formal with, and no, sir, he didn’t force me.”

  “That is very good, Maybelle Lee. Anything else?”

  “Can you go with us to tell the folks? Geoff wants to get married.”

  “At least he’s honorable. I’m sure you’re happy about that.”

  “No, I’m not, but I made my bed.”

  He snorted. “I guess you did, but I won’t ask where you made it.”

  “Uncle Root!”

  He told her, don’t be shocked. He’d once been young. He’d enjoyed that time thoroughly, and she should do the same. Old age was coming faster than she knew, and that weekend, he drove the young couple to Chicasetta and stood beside them in her parents’ front room. At the house, Belle told her brother Norman, go somewhere. Leave, because she didn’t want any trouble. It would be bad enough with their parents and the grandmother.

  She had made sure her fiancé had gone to the bathroom before they left—twice—and she forbade him to drink anything before the drive. She didn’t want him to have to visit her parents’ outhouse, not before they got married, because he might change his mind. She had counseled her fiancé not to beat around the blackberry bush, either. Just come on out with the news. Belle made like it was a tradition, a man asking for her hand, but she was scared of her parents, grandmother, and even Pauline, though she was the same age as Belle. If need be, Belle would put the blame on her fiancé, that he had cajoled her to leave her morality aside. She wasn’t above saving herself.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Driskell, I’m so pleased to meet you,” Geoff said. “And I’m equally happy to meet you as well, Mrs. Collins.”

  Dear Pearl looked at him, then made a farting sound with her mouth.

  The young man soldiered on. “Belle is expecting our first child, so we’re getting married Thursday morning at the Chicasetta courthouse.”

  At those words, Miss Rose gave a cry, and Dear Pearl stood. She looked with disgust at her granddaughter and the boy who was standing on the rug she’d braided. When she left, her steps were heavy on the wood floor. Pauline followed to the room she shared with her mother, after shaking her head dramatically; she was saving her body for the Lord.

  “Say you is?” Belle’s father asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Boy, what you say your name is?”

  “It’s Geoffrey Garfield, sir.”

  “A’ight, then. But I got me a shotgun to clean, in case you change your mind. ’Cause I’m not fooling with you ’bout my baby girl.”

  Uncle Root put out a hand: come on now, give the young man a chance. The damage was done, but Geoff was trying to do the right thing. Then Uncle Root suggested that the three males in the living room take a walk. See the property and chat a spell. So they did, and they stayed gone for over an hour. When they returned, Geoff looked very pleased with himself. Puffed up in some way, but Miss Rose said nothing, other than to ask, had he eaten?

  While the men sat on the porch, Belle fetched the bacon grease can, then the skillet to fry the chicken her mother had been marinating in garlic, salt, and onions overnight in the new refrigerator she was so proud of. Some white flour. A spoon and some meal for corn bread. The bowl of fresh-gathered eggs. Baking powder. Sweet milk. A bit of sugar. Butter sliced and melted, because her mother didn’t make her corn bread with lard.

  Miss Rose issued instructions and not much else. It was her way when she was furious, keeping her words to a minimum. Her blows were rare, but dangerous when they arrived, and defense was never an option. Stay silent until the storm passed. Her children had learned that was best. The corn bread was out of the oven and cooling on the kitchen table before Miss Rose had her say.

  “I was so proud. My child was gone be a schoolteacher. That was something I could finally talk about after church, ’cause I had one boy on the chain gang, and another always running after some fast-tailed gal. But I guess the Bible was right. Pride go before a fall, ’cause here you come with a big belly. Girl, don’t you know anybody can get married and shoot babies out they ass?”

  Belle reached for a clean cloth to wipe down the already clean table. Nothing she could say would make her mother feel better, and Belle had her own problems. A baby coming and a boy she hadn’t planned to marry, but she knew one thing: soon as this baby came, she’d figure things out, and she still was going to be a college professor. Her life would be larger than this kitchen, that front porch, and even the field out front. She intended more for herself.

  “I ain’t never knowed you to be color-struck, though,” Miss Rose said. “That why you change your name? The name I give you ain’t good enough?”

  “No, ma’am, that’s not it—”

  “That’s why you gotta call yourself something else? So you could get you a high-yellow boy from the City and walk around thinking you better than me? Let me tell you, Maybelle Lee Driskell, yellow don’t mean a thing. Yellow and some change will get you a orange drink down to the dime store. But the white peoples ain’t gone let you sit at the counter, ’cause somebody yellow is still colored. And now you gone take my grandbaby up north, you and this boy. Lord have mercy.”

  Miss Rose sat down at the table and sighed, and then stuck the knife into the corn bread. As she cut generous, even slices, she told her daughter, go get her daddy and them. Food was ready, but be sure to tell Geoff, wash his hands at the pump outside. Just ’cause he was in the country didn’t mean he could act any kind of way.

  That Thursday, Geoff wore a black suit to the courthouse. Belle was dressed in a pink silk chemise purchased by her great-uncle, who had brought her a bouquet of white roses, and her father was the first to shake the hand of the groom, who couldn’t stop smiling.

  The ceremony had been a short event, a few words pronounced by a white judge, but there was a picnic back at the house. It was a big, noisy affair that included six chickens fried by Miss Rose, a hog barbecued by Belle’s daddy, many bowls of potato salad and greens, homemade light bread, various cakes and pies provided by the other relatives and the sisters of Red Mound Church, and unnumbered quart jars of moonshine. The celebration lasted well into the evening, as if this weren’t a shotgun wedding in the middle of the week, but a joyful something planned well in advance.

  After a couple inches of moonshine, Geoff announced that it was the best wedding reception he’d ever been to, and he sure was glad it was his. Everybody laughed and talked their country talk with him, and he talked it right on back, in a cadence that was familiar, but that Belle hadn’t known he possessed. Halfway through the evening, she saw him go around back to the outhouse, but she decided not to worry about his getting disgusted at the smell; they were legally man and wife.

  Geoff even won her mother over, telling Miss Rose that she definitely knew how to fry some chicken, that it couldn’t be beat by any restaurant, not even Paschal’s in Atlanta. Miss Rose turned to her daughter and said it looked like Belle had herself a good husband. Make sure she did right by the man.

  Don’t Let Me Lose This Dream

  After their hasty marriage, Belle and Geoff returned to campus as if nothing had happened, though he smiled broadly when he showed up to the dormitory to walk her to meals in the refectory. He drove her to their spot out in the field three to four times a week, and they made love with abandon. The worst had happened; why not take their pleasure?

  There was graduation in May, and Belle walked across the stage as salutatorian, grateful that she still wasn’t showing. Then they moved in with her
parents at the farm. She spent two weeks sleeping with her new husband in her single bed at night, and during the day, listening to him showering her mother with compliments about her cooking, her kindness, her beauty, his gratitude to be part of this wonderful family. Miss Rose forgot her suspicion of proper-talking yellow boys; for fourteen days, she beamed and killed many chickens.

  Then it was time for the newlyweds to leave for the City. Before he allowed Geoff to take his great-niece on their northbound journey, Uncle Root gave him a copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book, so they could find diners, hotels, and boardinghouses that would serve them, once they traveled out of family territory. Cut the journey into two or even three days, and only drive during daylight, Uncle Root ordered. Stay well under the speed limit, and Belle should sit in the back of Geoff’s Seville. Mixed marriages were illegal below the Mason-Dixon line. If stopped by police, Belle should pretend to be a maid, because her husband looked white, and, well, obviously she did not.

  When they arrived in the City, the young couple moved into a furnished two-bedroom in a neighborhood with one short tree per block. No trash in the streets, but there was a gritty, unclean feel to the area. No matter how hard Belle scrubbed the windows of the apartment, they stayed dingy. The glass made a vague outline of the sun, which already seemed fainter. Geoff’s father had mailed him the address and key and paid six months’ rent, but the young man didn’t seem eager to see his own folks. It took three weeks to visit the elder Garfields, on a Saturday morning when the sun shined through rain. An omen of the Devil beating his wife.