Mudbound

by Hillary Jordan

  Jamie cocked his head. “So, he hasn’t told you yet,” he said.

  “I didn’t think he had.”

  “Told me what?”

  “He kicked me out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He asked me to leave yesterday. I’m going as soon as we’re done planting. Next week, most likely.”

  I felt a sharp pain somewhere near the center of my body, followed by a draining sensation that made me a little dizzy. It reminded me of how I’d felt when I used to give blood for the war effort. Only now it was all going, all the life and color in me, seeping out into the dirt at my feet. When Jamie left and I was emptied, I would be invisible again, just like I’d been before he came. I couldn’t go back to being that dutiful unseen woman, the one who played her roles without really inhabiting them. I wouldn’t go back. No.

  I realized I’d spoken the word out loud when Jamie said, “I have to, Laura. Henry’s right about one thing, I need to make a new start. And I sure as hell can’t do it here.” He waved his hand to take it all in—the shabby house and outbuildings, the ugly brown fields. And me, of course, I was part of that dreary landscape too. Henry’s landscape. Fury gathered in my belly, rising up, scalding my throat. I truly hated my husband at that moment.

  “I’d better get busy on those chores,” Jamie said.

  I watched him walk to the barn. At the door, he stopped and looked back at me. “I never thought my brother would turn against me like this,” he said. “I never thought he was capable of it.”

  I could think of nothing to say in answer. Nothing that would comfort him. Nothing that would keep him here.

  I LISTENED TO HIM move the tractor, hammer the shutter, climb up on the ladder to check the roof. Mundane sounds, but they filled me with sadness. All I could think of was the silence to come.

  When he was finished he popped his head in the front window. “The roof looks fine,” he said. “I’ve taken care of the rest.”

  “You want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll take a nap.”

  He’d been asleep for maybe twenty minutes when I heard him moaning and shouting. I hurried out to the lean-to, but at the door I found myself hesitating. I looked at my hand on the latch and thought of all the things it had proven capable of since I’d been at Mudbound, things that would have frightened or shocked me once. I looked at the ragged nails, the swollen red knuckles, the slender strip of gold across the fourth finger. I watched my hand lift the latch.

  Jamie was sprawled on his back, his arms flung wide. He was still dressed, except for his shoes and socks. His feet were long, pale and slender, with a blue tracery of veins in the arches. I had the urge to press my mouth to them. He cried out and one arm flailed upward, as if he were warding something off. I sat on the edge of the bed and took hold of his arm, pushing it down against the sheet. With my other hand I smoothed his hair back from his damp forehead. “Jamie, wake up,” I said.

  He tore his arm from my grasp and grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging into my skin. I said his name again and his eyes opened, darting around wildly before settling on my face. I watched sense come into them, then awareness of who I was, and where we were.

  “Laura,” he said.

  I could have looked away then, but I didn’t. I held myself very still, knowing he could see everything I felt and letting him see it. It was the most intimate act of my life, more intimate even than the acts that followed. Jamie didn’t move, but I felt the change in the way his hands gripped me. His eyes dropped to my mouth and my heart lurched, slamming against the bone. I waited for him to pull me down to him, but he didn’t, and I realized finally that he wouldn’t; that it was up to me. I remembered the first time Henry had kissed me, how he’d taken my face in his hands as though it were something he had a right to. That was the difference between men and women, I thought: Men take for themselves the things they want, while women wait to be given them. I would not wait any longer. I bent down and touched my lips to Jamie’s, tasting whiskey and cigarettes, anger and longing that I knew was not just for me. I didn’t care. I took it all, no questions asked, either of him or myself. His hands pulled me on top of him, undid the buttons of my blouse, unsnapped my garters. Urgent, impatient, speeding us past whether and why. I went willingly, following the path of his desire.

  And then, suddenly, he stopped. He rolled me to one side and got up out of the bed, and I thought, He’s changed his mind. Of course he has. He took my hand and drew me up to stand in front of him. Mortified, I looked down and started to button my blouse back up. His hand reached out, raised my chin. “Look at me,” he said.

  I made myself look. His gaze was steady and fierce. He ran his thumb across my mouth, stroking the bottom lip open, then his hand dropped lower. He brushed the backs of his fingers across my breast, once, and then again in the opposite direction. My nipples stiffened and my legs trembled. My body felt dense and heavy, an unwieldy liquid mass. I would have fallen but his eyes held me up. There was a demand in them, and a gravity I’d never seen before. I understood then: We wouldn’t be swept away by passion, as I’d always imagined. Jamie wouldn’t let us be. This would be a deliberate act. A choosing.

  Without looking away from him, I reached out with my hand, found his belt buckle and pulled the leather from it. When I released the catch he let out a long breath. His arms went around me and his mouth came down on mine.

  When he was poised above me I didn’t think of Henry or my children, of words like adultery, sin, consequences. I thought only of Jamie and myself. And when I drew him into me I thought of nothing at all.

  HE FELL ASLEEP on top of me, as Henry sometimes did when he was tired, but I felt none of my usual irritation or restiveness. Jamie’s weight on me was sweet. I closed my eyes, wanting to shut out every other sensation, wanting his weight to imprint the shape of him into my flesh.

  It was the thought of Pappy that got me to move. By the golden tint of the light coming in the window, it was late afternoon; he’d be home any time now. Carefully, trying not to wake Jamie, I extricated myself from beneath him. He stirred and moaned but his eyes stayed closed. I picked up my clothes from the floor, dusted them off and got dressed. I went to the mirror. My hair was disheveled, but apart from that I looked like myself: Laura McAllan on a normal Saturday afternoon. Everything had changed; nothing had changed. Astonishing.

  I heard the cot springs creak slightly behind me and knew that Jamie was awake and watching me. I should turn around and face him, I thought, but my body refused to do it. I left the room quickly, without looking at him or speaking. Afraid I would find shame in his eyes, or hear regret in his voice.

  About half an hour later I heard the truck start up and pull away.

  HAP

  THAT MONDAY AFTERNOON I was out by the shed hitching the mule to the guano cart when Ronsel finally come back from town. By that point I was mighty vexed with him. He’d went in to run an errand for his mama but he was gone way too long for that. Mooning around again, I reckoned, thinking bout going off to New York or Chicago or one a them other faraway places he was always talking bout, meantime here I was trying to get the fields fertilized and needing every bit of help I could get.

  “Where you been?” I said. “Half the day’s gone.”

  He didn’t answer, it was like he didn’t hear me or even see me. He was just staring off with this funny look on his face, like he’d had the stuffing knocked out of him.

  “Ronsel!” I hollered. “What’s the matter with you?”

  He jumped and looked at me. “Sorry, Daddy. I guess I was off somewhere else.”

  “Come help me load this fertilizer.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  He went in the house. Bout a minute later he come charging out onto the porch, looking all around like he’d lost something. “You seen a piece of paper anywhere?” he said.

  “What kind of paper?”

  “An envelope, with writing on th
e front.”

  “No, I ain’t seen nothing like that,” I said.

  He looked all around the yard, getting more and more worked up every second. “It must a fell out of my pocket on the road from town. Goddamnit!”

  “Ronsel! What’s in this envelope?”

  But he didn’t answer me. His eyes lit on the road. “I bet it fell out in that ditch,” he said. “I got to go fetch it.”

  “I thought you were gone help me with this fertilizer.”

  “This can’t wait, Daddy,” he said. He took off running down the road. That was the last time I ever heard my son’s voice.

  RONSEL

  THE ENVELOPE HAD a German stamp in the corner of it. It was dirty and beat up from traveling so many miles and passing through so many hands. The writing was a woman’s, fancy and slanted. Soon as I seen it I knew it had to been from Resl. The censors had opened it and taped it back up again. I hated the thought of them knowing what she’d wrote me before I did.

  When I pulled out the letter a photograph fell out, right onto the floor of the post office. I picked it up and looked at it. Amazing, how a little piece of shiny paper can change your whole life forever. My mouth went dry and my heart sped up. I opened the letter, hoping the censors hadn’t blacked anything out, but for once it was all there.

  Lieber Ronsel,

  This Letter I am writing with the Help of my Friend Berta on who you may remember. I do not know if it is arriving to you but I am hoping that it will. May be you are surprised to hearing from me. At first I am thinking I am not writing to you but then I have decided that I must do it, because it is not right that a Mann does not know he is having a Son. That is what I want to say you—you have a Son. I name him after my Father und his Father, Franz Ronsel. He is born in the Nacht of the 14 November at 22:00, in the Hospital of Teisendorf. I ask myself what you is doing at that Moment. I am trying to imagine you in your flat Missippi but I can not make such a Picture in my Mind, only of your Face which I see everyday when I look at the little Franz. I am sending you a Foto so that you can see him. He have your Eyes und your Smile.

  At your Leaving I did not know that I am carrying your Child in me and when I learned to know it my Proud did not let me write you. But now I have this beautiful Son and I am thinking on the Day on which he know he has no Father and his smiling will die. Compared to that my Proud is not important. For Franzl I ask you please, will you come back and stay with us hier, with me und Maria und your Son. I know it is not being easy but I have this Haus und I believe that together we are making a gut Life. Please answer quick and say me that you are coming back to us.

  In Love,

  Your Resl

  The letter was dated 2 February 1947, more than two months ago. My heart was sore thinking of her waiting all that time for an answer and not getting one. I lifted the paper to my nose but if her scent had ever been on it, it was long gone. I looked at the photo again. There was Resl, looking as sweet and pretty as ever, with the baby bundled up in her arms. In the picture his skin was a medium gray, lighter than mine would’ve been, so I guessed he was gingercake-colored like my daddy. She was holding up one of his little hands and waving it at the camera.

  My Resl. My son.

  A SON, I HAVE A SON. That was the only thought in my head, walking back from town with that letter in my pocket. Knowing I was a father made the world sharper edged to my eye. The sky looked bluer and the shacks that squatted underneath it looked shabbier. The newly planted fields on either side of me seemed to stretch on and on like a brown ocean between me and him. But how in the hell could I get to Germany? And what would I do once I got there? I didn’t speak the language, had no way to support a family there. But I couldn’t just abandon them. Maybe I could bring the three of them back, not to Mississippi but someplace else where they wouldn’t care that she was white and I was colored. Had to be a place like that somewhere, maybe in California or up north. I could ask Jimmy, he might know. Too damn many mights and maybes, that was the problem. I needed to think it through and make a plan. In the meantime I’d help them however I could. I didn’t have much money left, maybe a few hundred dollars stuffed into the toes of my boots at the bottom of my duffel bag. I’d write to Captain Scott at Camp Hood, he’d know how to get it to Resl. But first I’d write and tell her I still loved her and was working on a plan, so she could whisper it to my son.

  I was so busy thinking I didn’t even hear the truck till it was almost on top of me. Turned around and there it was, coming straight at me. Soldier’s instincts is all that saved me. I dived into the ditch on the side of the road and landed in mud. The truck passed so close to my head it like to gave me a crew cut, then it went off into the ditch right in front of me. I recognized it then, it was the McAllans’ truck. For a minute I thought Old Man McAllan had tried to run me over but when the door opened Jamie got out. Well, fell out is more like it, he was drunker than I’d ever seen him, and that was saying something. He had a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He staggered over to where I was.

  “That you, Ronshel?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “You all right?”

  “I’m as muddy as a pig in a wallow, but other than that I’m fine.”

  “Shouldn’t be walking in the middle of the road like that, you’re liable to get yourself killed.”

  “It’ll take more than a drunk white flyboy to kill me,” I said.

  He laughed and plopped down on the edge of the ditch, and I got up and sat beside him. He looked terrible sickly. Red-eyed, unshaven, skin all sweaty. He took a swig from the bottle and offered it to me. It was more than three-quarters empty already.

  “No thanks, I better not,” I said. “Maybe you better not either.”

  Jamie wagged his finger at me. “Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk.” He raised his left hand and said, “This is my ancient, this is my right hand.” Then he raised the hand holding the bottle. A little whiskey sloshed out onto his pants leg but he didn’t seem to notice. “And this is my left. Oh God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasure, revel and . . . revel and . . . what’s the fourth thing, damnit?”

  He looked at me like I was supposed to know. I just shrugged.

  “With joy, pleasure, revel and . . . applause—that’s it, applause!—transform ourselves into beasts!” He twirled his left hand in the air and bowed from the waist. He would’ve fell over into the ditch if I hadn’t grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him back up.

  “Hey,” I said, “is something the matter?”

  He shook his head and stared at the bottle, picking at the label with his fingernail. He was quiet a good long while, then he said, “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

  “Killing Hollis, I guess.” I’d told him about it one night at the sawmill: how I’d shot my buddy Hollis in the head after his legs got blown off by a grenade and he begged me to do it.

  “No, I mean something that hurt somebody bad. Something you never forgave yourself for. You ever do anything like that?”

  Yeah, I thought, leaving Resl. I was that close to telling him about her. I wanted to say the words out loud: I’m a father, I have a son. I’d already told him plenty of things, like about shooting Hollis and refusing to let the crackers in our tanks and the time me and Jimmy went to a cabaret in Paris where the dancing girls were all stark naked. But there was a mighty big difference between that and me having a child by a white woman. Jamie McAllan was born and bred in Mississippi. If he got fired up and decided to turn me in, I could get ten years in Parchman—that’s if I didn’t get lynched on the way there.

  “No,” I said, “nothing I can think of.”

  “Well I have. I’ve belied a lady, the princess of this country.”

  “What you talking bout? What princess?”

  “And she, sweet lady, dotes, devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry upon this spotted and inconstant man. Idolatry, idultery—ha!”


  So that’s what was troubling him. Thinking of Josie, I said, “Ain’t good to mess with the married gals, you just looking for heartache there. Best thing to do is put it behind you, never see her again.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m leaving here next week.”

  “Where you going?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe California. I always wanted to see it.”

  “I’ve got a buddy lives in Los Angeles. According to Jimmy, it never gets too hot or too cold there and it hardly ever rains. Course he could’ve been pulling my leg.”

  Jamie looked at me, a hard clear look like you get sometimes from somebody who’s drunk, it’s like they sober up just long enough to really see you. “You ought to leave here too, Ronsel,” he said. “Hap can manage without you now.”

  “I am leaving, just as soon as the crop’s laid by.”

  “Good. This is no place for you.”

  He finished the whiskey and tossed the bottle into the ditch. When he tried to stand up his legs gave out. I got up and helped him to his feet. “Reckon you better let me drive you home,” I said.

  “Reckon I better.”

  Somehow we managed to push the truck out of the ditch, then I drove him as far as the bridge and got out. I figured he could make it from there, and I didn’t want Henry McAllan or that old man seeing us.

  “You drive careful the rest of the way,” I told him. “Try not to run any more colored people off the road.”

  He smiled and held out his hand. We shook. “Doubt I’ll see you again before I go,” he said. “You take care of yourself, hear?”

  “You too.”

  “You’ve been a friend. I want you to know that.”

  He didn’t wait for me to say anything back, just waved and drove off. I followed the truck down the road toward home, watching it weave back and forth, thinking of how surprising a place the world could be sometimes.

  MUST’VE BEEN HALF an hour later that I found the letter gone. The first thing I thought was it fell out in that ditch. Ran all the way back there and looked but all I found was Jamie’s whiskey bottle. I kept on going all the way to town and still didn’t find it. The post office was closed but I was sure I hadn’t left it in there. Only two places it could be: in somebody’s pocket who’d picked it up or in the McAllans’ truck. I made myself keep calm. If I’d left it in the truck Jamie might’ve found it. He wouldn’t show it to nobody, he’d keep it for me. Maybe he was over at my house right now looking to give it back to me. And if not and it was still in the truck, I could sneak over there after dark and get it before anybody saw it.