Stephen L. Carter

by New England White

  IN THE MORNING, they drove up to Montech to look at the water slope, which was as so often under repair, the powerful tractors sitting idle. The tractors pulled a wedge, the wedge made a huge wave of water climb the slope, the wave carried small boats, or a barge in which you could ride, seeming to defy gravity and common experience. Mona liked to tell the story of the day the rubber tires had slipped the tracks because of an oil leak, tilting the tourists on their way up the slope, and maybe spilling a few into the filthy water, but Julia, who had ridden the slide in the eighties, when Mona brought her and the baby Preston to France just after the construction was done—and just after Jay died—did not know whether to believe her mother or not. So many of her memories, especially of Toulouse, were happy ones, and for some reason Mona took unadorned pleasure in spoiling them. The slope was called by the French La Pente d’Eau, a name Julia loved for the way it rolled on the tongue. The whole thing remained one of the technological wonders of the world: where else could you watch water flow uphill?

  If only Julia knew how to climb her mountains so easily: twenty-four hours in Plaisance-du-Touch and she had yet to get to the point.

  Mona had yet to encourage her.

  Hap had packed a picnic lunch, and the two women walked the forest for a while, choosing the paths on which they were marginally less likely to be crushed by onrushing cyclists. Whenever Julia visited, she expected to find that Mona had suddenly aged; only it never happened. Mona, well past seventy, possessed the same skinny energy Julia remembered from her childhood, when, in search of the right chapter of the right group of the children of the Clan, she had driven Julia and Jay all over New England: Providence for a Christmas party, Boston for a cotillion, Springfield for a junior prom. Although Granny Vee had been a serious clubwoman, and the Veazies had been in on the founding of a Greek-letter group or two, Mona had always been more a hanger-on, clinging by her thoroughly nibbled fingertips to every possible solution to the problem of raising her children in Hanover while living out her dictum that her children’s friends must be drawn mostly from the darker nation; and, despite her egalitarian pretensions, she meant what Granny Vee would have called the better half of the nation.

  It was just past noon, and the tall trees stood amid tiny circular shadows like dark puddles. Julia remembered vaguely that Montech lay in a floodplain, and most of the trees were scattered in smaller copses, but here the woods were thick. The smell in the air was water and reeds. After half an hour of their nearly silent ramble through the chilly afternoon sunshine, Mona pointed to a small clearing near a still pond.

  “There.”

  Julia grinned, working at it. “That’s the same place we always stop.”

  Her mother grinned back. “You know what a conservative I am.”

  So they sat on handy stumps and ate their sandwiches and listened to hidden animals, some of them human, scurrying through the under-growth. In the distance a motor hummed, men shouted, a horn honked.

  Mona said, “Something’s on your mind.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it your Lemaster? Is he mistreating you again?”

  Julia made a swatting motion, even though there was no fly. “Lemmie’s an angel, Mona. I keep telling you that. He would never do anything to hurt me.”

  “I read the papers, dear. The Herald Tribune says that he’s on the short list for Attorney General.”

  “I can’t talk about—”

  “For these people. He’d actually work for these people. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people like him.”

  Black people like him, she meant, echoing Astrid.

  Julia leaned back, hands on the wood, tipped her face upward to feel the sun, wondering if God was up there, or out there, watching, listening, already knowing how it turns out in the end. She found Mona easier to bear when she did not have to gaze into those tiny, dark, loving, pleading, righteous, crazy, hurtfully helpful eyes. “I won’t discuss Lemmie with you, okay? I won’t.” Firm, but careful not to raise her voice to her mother, on the off chance that the Ten Commandments might be true. “That’s not why I’m here, Mona.”

  “Then why are you here?” Plaintive. “What do you want? You always want something.”

  “Mona—”

  “It’s true, dear. There just always turns out to be an agenda. I know, I know. You just want advice. You’d think you didn’t have any friends to talk to.”

  A breeze plucked at the sleeve of her heavy jacket. Julia tried not to bristle. Mona did not actually believe any of this; she simply wanted her daughter to reassure her: Yes, yes, I value your advice specially. But Julia had tired years ago of flattering her mother. If her presence in France, as her confused family suffered back home, was not proof enough of Julia’s devotion, she had none to offer.

  “I just want to talk, Mona,” she said, all but strangling on the intemperate words held forcibly in her throat. She found herself still unable to come to the point. “Can we do that? Just talk?”

  “We are talking,” said Mona, touching her daughter’s knee. “Isn’t this talking?”

  “No, Mona. No. You’re doing what you always do. You’re talking. I’m supposed to sit still and listen.”

  “Well, excuse me.” Wounded, putting a hand to her throat. “There’s no need to shout at your mother.”

  “I’m not shouting.” But she had been, for Mona had intentionally provoked her. Every conversation with the great Mona Veazie was a minefield of righteousness through which you crawled at your own peril. Usually you could survive if you just did not touch American politics. If you stepped on that particular trigger, the world exploded.

  “Raising your voice, then.”

  Julia rushed on, to forestall the likely litany of complaints, all the little ways Julia, who still mailed her two thousand of their precious dollars every month, had hurt her over the years. “Mona, please. Listen. I need to ask you some questions.” The next words came hard, but she knew what peace with her mother demanded. “I need…I need your help. It’s about Vanessa.”

  Mona’s smile was brilliant, and satisfied. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  (III)

  “I’VE TOLD YOU and told you, you’re too hard on that girl,” Mona interrupted once she had, or thought she did, the gist of her daughter’s inquiry. “You shouldn’t be raising her out there with all those white kids to begin with. I’ve told you, if the race is going to survive, each of us will have to have—”

  “More black friends than white friends. I know, Mona. I know.”

  “But you’re not doing anything about it, are you? Vanessa’s friends are all white, aren’t they?”

  “Not all—”

  Mona’s eyes glittered with satisfaction. “I know. I know. She does Jack and Jill, she used to do Littlebugs, there’s some black kids in that church of yours. She told me, dear.” Raising a small hand to ward off the objection. “But they don’t count. They’re not her good friends. Her good friends are white kids from the high school.”

  “It’s the same way you raised me,” Julia snapped, hot and, as her mother probably intended, distracted.

  “And you shouldn’t be repeating my mistakes,” Mona counseled, very pleased.

  For a moment they fought without speaking. Julia prodded the picnic basket with her toe. Twin cyclists zipped past—male and female, she thought, but the glimpse was brief, mostly of dark hair flying beneath bright helmets. Down near the canal, children were laughing. The day had started clear and fine but was beginning to cloud over; or perhaps it was only her mood that was changing.

  “Mona, listen to me, please,” said Julia at last, not looking at her mother. “Yes, I’ve made mistakes with Vanessa. With the others, too. But I don’t want to talk about my mistakes. Not today. I want to talk about history.”

  “History?”

  “I ran into your friend Aurelia Treene last month at the Grand Cotillion. And do you know what she told me? That my husband was Bubba of the Empyreals, and she said he w
as carrying on the family tradition. But Lemaster’s a first-generation immigrant. So she must have meant the Veazie side of the family.” She paused. “Tell me, Mona. Was Grandpa Vee an Empyreal? Was Preston Veazie maybe even, ah, the Bubba of the Empyreals?”

  Her mother laughed. “Why, yes, dear. He was.”

  “And when were you going to tell me?”

  “I’m not sure it’s ever come up in daily conversation. I wasn’t hiding it from you,” Mona hastened to add. “There just was never a reason to discuss it.”

  “Well, then, discuss this. When I married Lemmie, and you were upset about him being an Empyreal, it wasn’t because they’re small and unimportant, was it?”

  Silence.

  “Come on, Mona. I’m not letting you out of this.” At last she lifted her gaze, but Mona was an old hand and kept a poker face. “This Gina Joule business that Vanessa’s obsessed with? The Empyreals were involved somehow in the aftermath. I want to know how. And why. I want to know what your old boyfriend Bay Dennison was doing there.” Still her mother waited. “I’m only asking because I have this mess at home, and I think Aurie was trying to tell me that they’re related. Come on. You know something about them that I don’t. I think it’s about time you told me.”

  “Told you what, dear?”

  “Who the Empyreals really are.”

  CHAPTER 52

  THE EMPYREALS

  (I)

  “YOU HAVE TO PICTURE what it was like, dear, back in the day. When we truly lived as two nations. The darker nation. The paler nation. The Empyreals invented those terms, dear. Or popularized them, anyway. They were such a big deal, the Empyreals. Back in the day.” They were walking again, along the path as it meandered through the trees. Water gurgled just out of sight. A fresh chill had settled, and Julia supposed they might get more snow. “Back when all these groups were being founded. So few of our people had education, but those who did, well, they’d study physics or Greek or Confucius, and the only job they could get would be on a loading dock in some big city, or maybe, if they were lucky, they could be undertakers or schoolteachers. All these brilliant, professional, educated men—some women, but mostly men—and the white world shut them out. So, naturally, they wanted to associate with others of their own kind. A lot of these clubs came out of that background, dear.”

  “Looking down their noses at the rest of their people.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe so. Let’s not judge them, dear. Not yet. The point is, they had difficulties. Lots and lots of difficulties. The clubs were a place to forget all that, to try to create a space where you could have intellectual talk, or at least talk to people who had seen as much as you had.”

  Julia was too tired for this. “Mona, please. I didn’t come all this way for a history lesson. I don’t want to know how these groups got started. I want to know about the Empyreals.”

  “Because of your Lemaster. Because he’s the Bubba.”

  “That’s not the only reason.”

  “What else, dear?”

  “Ever since I talked to Aurelia, there’s been this story from my childhood I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. This was in Hanover. November 1972. I remember because Nixon had just been re-elected. Granny Vee was living with us then. You had some people over to watch the election returns that night. I was a kid, but I remember how the rest of you sat there, watching one state after another fall to Nixon, and you all had the same look on your faces, like you’d been kicked in the—well, kicked pretty hard. Remember that night?”

  “Of course I do, dear. We were a family in those days. I still had you both. You and Jay, dear.” She smiled and brushed her fingers over Julia’s slim shoulder as if trying to decide whether to give her a hug. “And, my goodness, I’m surprised you remember. We had a regular party. There weren’t but a few of us on the faculty in those days. Black people, I mean. We were depressed. We were mad. We all got together and got drunk.” Her wide mouth turned down in disapproving memory. “And you remember that? How old were you, dear? Four? Five?”

  “Twelve.” One child in the world, and Mona could not remember her age. Julia fought the urge to bristle. “The thing is, Granny Vee got tired. You made me take her up to bed. On the way out of the room, she said the strangest thing. Now, I know, Granny Vee wasn’t all there in those days, and I haven’t thought about it in years, but lately I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. She said it just goes to show you that the Clan should stay out of the election business. She said the Clan should have learned its lesson in ’56. What were they talking about, Mona? What happened in ’56? What happened in ’72?”

  “The Republicans won by a landslide both times. That’s what happened.”

  “No. That’s not what she meant. She said, ‘They backed the wrong horse, as usual.’ You told her to hush, but Granny Vee wasn’t so easy to quiet down. I got her out into the hallway, but she was still yelling. She said they kept trying and kept messing up. And she said, ‘The Paramount is such an idiot.’”

  The path split, and Mona selected the more overgrown fork. The forest closed tightly around them, blotting out what little warmth the day offered. As the old woman danced on ahead, Julia found herself hurrying to keep up. “You heard wrong, dear,” she called over her shoulder. “Granny must have been talking about Perry Mount. He was a Harlem boy—you met him, but you were little, you wouldn’t remember—but poor Perry wanted so badly to have influence. He was involved in one of the other campaigns, not even McGovern’s. His man didn’t even get nominated. Poor Perry backed the wrong horse. That’s our history, dear. The Negroes are always backing losers. That explains why we’re where we are.”

  “She didn’t say ‘Perry Mount.’ She said ‘the Paramount.’”

  “I’m sure she didn’t.”

  “She did. That’s exactly what she said.” Julia had caught up with her mother on the path. “And then she said—she said, ‘They should have listened to Preston.’ I wondered for years what she meant. Then, the other week, Lemmie told me that the head of the Empyreals is called the Paramount, and it was all clear. She was saying the Empyreals backed the wrong horse because their leader was an idiot. They were involved in the election, weren’t they?”

  “Oh, well, electoral coalitions are complicated—”

  “Mona, stop it. Stop. No more games. No more hiding. Tell me.” Mona’s cocky hazel eyes never shifted, but they did now. Julia pounced. “Come on, Mona. Granny wasn’t making general statements about the race. She was being too crafty. She was teasing. She thought she was telling secrets.” A frown. “And she said one more thing, Mona. I don’t think you heard it. I walked her up to her bedroom, the way I did every night. When I got her in bed and all tucked in, she said they needed either a new author or a new plan. I didn’t know what she was talking about. But it wasn’t the darker nation. She said ‘they,’ not ‘we.’ And the head of the Empyreals isn’t just known as the Paramount, is he? He’s also known as the Author. I think Granny Vee was talking about the Empyreals. I think they were trying to do something about the election, and it didn’t work.” Her mother reacted. Definitely. Squirming as she hurried on ahead. “What was it, Mona? What did they do?”

  “Nothing that concerns you.”

  “I’m not a child, Mona.”

  “You are, in some respects.” Holding up a slim hand to forestall any protest. She was making one of her speeches. “Maybe you’re right, dear. No knowledge is ever sinful, is it? Secrets are the only thing that keep us apart in this world. The not knowing. That’s the danger. We’re reasoning creatures, dear. We’re designed to breathe the truth. We need it to live. When the truth we crave is hidden away, we’ll breathe the lies to keep from smothering.” The pale eyes grew somber. “All right, dear. Never mind. You want to hear the story, I’ll tell you the story. But, believe me, Julia Anne, you’ll be sorry you ever heard it.”

  (II)

  THEY HAD REACHED ANOTHER FORK. Mona blinked owlishly, peering in both directions, a fist at h
er mouth, and it occurred to Julia that her mother was not sure which path to take. A part of her was prepared to wait and force Mona to ask for help, but before daughter could decide how long to make mother suffer, she had stepped past the hesitating old woman, laid a hand on the shrunken shoulder, and selected the left, which led slightly uphill, toward a clearing. As they climbed, Mona seemed to relax, and the words flowed easily again.

  “It was 1956, just as you said. I was living at home while I did some graduate work at Columbia. Now, the thing you have to understand, dear, is that in those days the most powerful black man in the country—Negro, we said back then—the most powerful Negro in the country, and maybe the most famous, was Adam Clayton Powell. You met him. You were a baby. You wouldn’t remember. You used to see his first wife on the Vineyard. Never mind. The thing is, Adam, well, he had so much influence, he got Eisenhower to desegregate military bases and movie theaters, all of this back before the Supreme Court decided Brown. An amazing man. He was the pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138th Street, same as his father had been. He was also a member of Congress for years and years. A Democrat, of course, although in those days, dear, there wasn’t anything wrong with being a Republican. I think most of the Clan probably voted Republican. Not most Negroes. But most of the Clan. Well, things were different. But Adam was a Democrat. And then, in 1956, he stunned the whole world by endorsing Eisenhower for President. The Democrat was dear Adlai Stevenson. A sweet, sweet man. Didn’t have much of a chance, you understand, but you never knew. Especially if he could line up the whole Negro vote. It wasn’t like now. In those days, the Democrats didn’t have the Negro vote locked up. They couldn’t take us for granted and give us nothing in return, the way they do today. Our leaders were smart enough to do deals with the Republicans sometimes, instead of just calling them names and guaranteeing they’d never listen to us. Never mind. The point is, Adlai was trying to get the whole Negro leadership behind him. And then Adam said he was going to endorse Eisenhower. Took the poor Democrats completely by surprise. Naturally, Stevenson wanted to meet with Powell. They had a secret meeting. Guess where?”