In Search of Satisfaction

by J. California Cooper

  Mr. Befoe smiled what he thought was a warm smile at Bessel. “If this keeps up, I shall have to buy your church and go pray there myself.”

  Bessel tried to laugh, but she was scared. “Yes, suh.”

  “Ahem,” Mr. Befoe cleared his throat. “There is so much work involved in doing this … thing for you, I am only able to give you one hundred dollars for the gold coins and ten dollars for all the silver ones. I have it here for you.” He opened a desk drawer. “Bring me any others you may … find … and I will see what I can do.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  When Bessel got home that day, they all sat down, the newlyweds and mama, and decided they had to find a different way to change the coins. It was finally decided Bessel would have to go north to one of her sisters or brothers and change it where it was really possible to find out the truth about the worth of them and maybe get more money for them.

  In no time at all, Bessel got sick and took leave from her job, which put Mr. and Mrs. Befoe on alert. They argued about running her off while they were still making profit. This, when they already had millions. Bessel went east, found her brother who was worrying about her living off of him and “he a poor preacher,” he said. All he had was a broke-down church, some rental shanties, a home and wife with one child, two women on the side. Satan “loved” him, he was a good worker. Yes, her brother cheated Bessel, but he was cheated by his friend, the banker. Still, he gave her a bit more than the Befoes had. She took the money home to her daughter. Less a bit for herself, of course.

  Bessel quit her job, “too sick,” she said, and the Befoes sat up straight. They bought, or rather took, the grounds the church was on, tore it down, dug up the grounds and found nothing, then sold the site back to the bewildered preacher who began to poke around in the dirt himself. Joel watched all this and sold no more gold in Yoville.

  chapter

  5

  time had passed quickly for Yin the last few years. Miss Will was very good to her. Yin had asked for only one thing she really wanted: it was to learn something special. Miss Will allowed that to be harmless to any plan of her own, it might even prove to be a help because she had not decided what she would finally do with Yin when the end of her passion came. Miss Will wanted to speak better French, did not like to cook, and if Yin could sew she might be useful at the salon. So Yin had teachers in French, cooking and sewing. She could already read and write, but her studies much improved these things, too.

  God gradually faded from Yin’s mind, He won’t live just anywhere. Lacking any self-motivation, Yin remained with Miss Will. It seemed to take bad luck, or tragedy, to make Yin think enough to remove herself from unhappiness or degradation. She seemed easily led. Closer to the truth was that she took the line of least resistance. If she wanted something, she made decisions without thought of the consequences. She didn’t really care, or not care, about others but would treat them nice and try to make them happy as long as they did something she wanted. She seldom took thought; instead, she took things. Even false love.

  But, she was learning. French, cooking and sewing. And she was learning about envy; she wanted everything material. She had pride in abundance, too. Of what, she couldn’t have told you. Just “myself,” she might say.

  Around this time, the old priest who had sent Yin to Miss Will had a young priest he wished to corrupt or control, so he began to invite the young man to accompany him on his visits to Miss Will. He thought the proximity to such a lovely woman as Yin who was submissive to Miss Will might seduce the faithful young priest, Paul. He needed Paul to owe him his loyalty or a favor for secrets kept. Paul did indeed like Yin and, after they were set up to have a tryst, Yin liked Paul. But for quite different reasons.

  Paul, fully dressed, lay across the bed and spoke to Yin of God. The things he said went over and around her head, making her mind whirl in confusion.

  She clasped her hands to her cheeks in exasperation. “But why does He leave me here if He thinks this is all wrong, all sin?!”

  Paul smiled gently. “Does He leave you here, Yin, or do you stay? What is stopping you from leaving here? Did He send you here? Or did you decide to come here?”

  Yin shook her head. “I didn’t decide to come, I just … oh, I don’t know what happened! I had no place to go! That awful man …”

  “What awful man?”

  But Yin didn’t want to tell that part of her life. “Just … someone who caused me grief, did me wrong. Taught me things I didn’t … need never … Oh, never mind. You are a priest, you would never understand.”

  Paul shook his head. “Yin, I study the word of the creator of life. He knows it better than anyone. He tells us how to live it, what to avoid. I may not ‘understand,’ as you may think of it, but I would know if it were a wise choice or a good person.” He smiled. “And I knew enough not to take that path myself.”

  Yin threw herself back on the bed. “But I didn’t choose any way, it just came to me. What could I do?”

  “You could have refused it.”

  “But why should I?”

  “Are you happy? If you are, you chose right for yourself.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly ‘happy,’ but who is?”

  “Those who own themselves. Those who respect themselves.”

  “I do respect myself! I have furs, clothes, a carriage for my use. I have …”

  “Nothing. Nothing that cannot be taken from you in an instant!”

  Yin thought seriously a moment. Looking into his eyes, she knew he spoke the truth. “But I have no money, no way. Nowhere to go, even now.”

  Paul smiled again, gently. “No, Yin, I will not accept that, and neither will God. There is always somewhere to go. And I’ll wager you have some money somewhere. You are not a stupid woman. You are not a child. Do you like what you do? Do you want to stay with Willie (that is what he called Miss Will) forever? You can’t, you know. She will not want you that long, I don’t think. Has she ever asked you to make love with anyone else before?”

  “Nooooo, not like this. Not a man. Once or twice her friends from her social club or whatever she calls it. I refused, though.”

  Paul’s smile disappeared. “Ahhh, you will not be able to say no much longer. She is now offering you to men.”

  “No, a man. Only you.”

  “Yin, you are old enough and smart enough to know when a thing is beginning and where it might lead. In any event, do you like what you do with her? Is this how you want to live your life?”

  Yin fingered her gown, rubbed her hands down the silky pillows. Paul caught her thoughts. “Yin, Satan always makes his dirtiest deeds look good and feel good, until you are beyond help, then things will change.”

  “Might change.”

  “Will change. Read your history, watch people. Everyone at the bottom, in the gutters, diseased, sick, misused, abused and bereft, poor and friendless, did not start there. Many of them started where you did, as you do, or even better. Satan gives no reward beyond your time of use to him. He does not love you, or even think of you beyond what you may do for him.”

  “What does God give you?”

  “The greatest things on earth.”

  “You mean the sun, the moon, stars, maybe the ocean or the rain? The air?” She looked at him with derision. “He never gave me nothing!”

  “I should think breath is the most important thing to all of us. Life. But, no, there is much more.”

  “What?”

  “Love.” Yin stopped smiling. Paul went on. “He gives us love. Satan never, never does. Satan deals in lust and infatuation. God gives us Love, that which goes out from us and which comes in to us. Living His way gives us respect. And without respect, respect … there will never be true love, any love. Think. Think and tell me who you have loved whom you did not first respect? He gives us kindness, kindness that does not depend on a return favor. He gives us …”

  Yin interrupted him. “I have really respected and loved only one person. My father.” Sh
e thought a moment. “Maybe my mother. But I never thought of going home.”

  Paul sat up. “Then you have someplace to go! Leave here!”

  “And God made me lose him. Josephus. He died. He told me my mother died.”

  Paul flung his arm up. “I am so tired of people blaming God for death! God did not bring death to man, Satan did. Satan told the first lie! ‘You shall not surely die.’ He fooled Eve and death came to be! Do you ever hear Satan offer life everlasting?! No! Only God!”

  “I never thought of it in that way. I never knew all of that.”

  “Then go! Go where you will have time to learn, to think! Time to live, to seek your own soul, to find your peace.”

  “Willie says I am too young to speak of peace.”

  “What else would Satan tell you?”

  Yin thought of her life as she looked into the eyes of the young priest. She knew he was right about Miss Will. More and more lately, she had asked Yin to be kind to one of her friends. Implicit in the request was the reminder that all Yin had was put there by Miss Will, at her will. Yin always complied because she held her mind in abeyance. She didn’t want to think about her life, she just wanted to live it as softly and gently as possible. Just wear things, go places. Not to have to worry. She sighed. “One last question, Paul.”

  “Anything.”

  “Isn’t your life boring? I mean, doing everything right? You don’t have any fun!”

  Paul laughed as if Yin was a child. “The ‘fun,’ the joy I get from life, is in not being caught up in all that nasty, sticky, stinky doo-doo that people like you get caught up in. You see, this is not the end if you don’t leave and find something to do with yourself. You can stay right here and go down, down, down. You are already well on your way. Looks don’t last forever.”

  He shook his head, sadly. “Are you bored when someone is kind to you? When someone does not lie to you. Loves you truly? Are you bored by me?” Yin shook her head slowly. He continued, “How can you be bored when your head is filled with beauty, love and truth? When all the arrows of life that try to pierce your hungry, hungry heart cannot reach you because of your knowledge of what makes these arrows? And what makes your heart hungry? Ahhhh, my little friend, wake up before someone decides it’s time to let you slide further down. Don’t wait for the end to come first.”

  Yin was not naturally dumb, probably more lazy. She looked at Paul and said thoughtfully, perhaps testing him, “I don’t know if I can trust God again. He has never been as good to me as the devil, if what you say is true and the devil led me here.”

  Paul shook his head sadly again. “You play. I will not play with God, nor you.”

  “Well, what shall we do for the next few hours we are left alone here?”

  Paul smiled and sat up. Looking at the lovely woman before him all dressed for bed and love, he thought, “Get behind me, Satan, you are far too lovely to be in front of me right now.” To Yin he said, “Get a Bible, let’s reason together for this little while.” Yin hesitated. Paul laughed, “C’mon, let’s do something Willie and the old priest won’t like!”

  That did it, Yin jumped up to get a Bible. It took Yin quite a time to find a Bible among all the unread books on Miss Will’s shelves. Finally, way at the bottom in a corner, dusty and unused, the gold lettering flickered through the grit—HOLY BIBLE. She laughed, grabbed the book and, thinking of Miss Will, danced all the way back to her room. Handing the book to Paul, she fell back on the bed, ran her hand down her voluptuous length, threw her head back and laughed, laughed, laughed.

  • • •

  when Miss Will and the old priest returned, Paul and Yin were sitting in the parlor. Each held a glass of wine, each looked pleased and satisfied. This was much to the old priest’s delight, while Miss Will did not know whether to be pleased or not. She decided she would be pleased for her old useful friend’s sake; she would not be pleased with Yinyang though. She would soon replace this woman who could be so pleased with a man.

  On their way home, the old priest put his arm affectionately around Paul’s shoulders and said, “Well, now. I suppose you have had a very good and … fulfilling afternoon?”

  Paul moved away slightly. “It was a good afternoon, after all.”

  The old priest patted him on the back. “Well, that was what I planned for you to have!” He laughed and rolled his eyes gaily.

  “I have never had a bad time yet, doing the will of my God.”

  “The will of your God?! My Lord, boy, that was not …”

  Paul interrupted, “Yes, the will of my God. I was able to speak to her about Him and what He means to us.”

  The old priest was annoyed, his voice lowered, “At such a time, you felt that was necessary?”

  “It is what I live to do. Am committed to do. Teach.”

  The old priest turned to Paul, “It is not what I intended you to do. I did not tell you to convert her! It … it … wasn’t … the right time!”

  Paul turned to him. “I do not take my instruction in these matters from you. I take them from the Bible.”

  The old priest turned red with chagrin. “You presume to know more about these matters than I? I have been a priest for forty years! You do not know, can never know, as much as I about the ways of God!”

  Paul smiled slightly. “It is not the number of years a man knows of God that gives him wisdom and understanding. It is his brain. His soul and his heart. Sincerity. Love for God. Faith.”

  “Careful, young man, careful. You do not know what you are doing.”

  Before he walked away, Paul nodded and said, “I am afraid I do. Yes, I am afraid so. But I believe my care need only be that I do the will of God. Then I need not worry about man. At all.” Of course Satan heard all this and began to think of troubles to lay upon the young man to take his mind away from God. Satan also cast a glance at Yinyang. “Hell,” he thought, “There is so much to do in this world!”

  yinyang was a bit more quiet and thoughtful through the next few months. She watched Miss Will for signs of fading affection but instead she was more abrupt and demanding. So Yin began to think about and try to plan, as had her father, as have millions of people, for a way out, for a better life for herself. She believed her mother was dead and did not want to go back to Yoville. But as time passed, Yoville began to look better to her in her mind. “After all, Yoville is my home. I must have some property there. Anyway, where else is there for me? I am a woman, alone.” Her plans took firmer shape.

  chapter

  6

  in Yoville, Joel and Ruth were trying to raise their family and working hard to improve their life and home. The gold was a huge help but posed problems in trusting others to help them fairly. They had to trust Bessel. Bessel chose to trust her brother in the East.

  After a year or so with a few trips east to change money for Joel and Ruth, Bessel had a powerful, new wardrobe and had rented her own apartment in Philadelphia. She’d met a man and was trying to get him to marry her, which he really planned to do since Bessel kept coming up with gold money from somewhere. I mean, times were hard, very hard. And money was money. These were some of Satan’s favorite times. People could be made to do things so easily. (People needed a place to live, needed liquor, needed drugs, needed food, needed everything.) It was a very good time for him. And Bessel.

  Joel and Ruth had had two babies. Ma Lal and, now, Ma Mae had attended Ruth. One child had died, they didn’t know of what. Ruth was a good mother and Joel a loving father. They had gotten most of what they wanted. The house was built. It was lovely and dear to Ruth, and Joel was proud of his family and what he had been able to do for them. Still, even with the money, there was work, babies and death. They loved each other though, oh, how they loved each other. The gold coins were being changed and spent too fast, however. They now only had about fifteen left and several silver ones. Bessel had been cheated and in turn had cheated Joel and Ruth out of so much.

  Joel gave Ruth five gold coins and told her to
hide them for herself if the need should ever come. He kept five for himself and sent five to Bessel in a box of pecans for her to cash in. She seldom came home to Yoville now. She didn’t send any money. They waited and waited. Another child had come. They had a boy, Luke, and a girl, Lettie. Joel wanted to build another bedroom, so when the new babies came, he could have a room for the boys and a room for the girls. They waited and waited for what seemed like forever. No money came.

  When, finally, Bessel came back, she brought no money with her. She was broke. And broken. Her man hadn’t married her. Hadn’t worked to help her. Had left when the money was gone. Ole good, slick Bessel. Not really slick though, just hadn’t ever had anything before in her life and didn’t know what to do with it when she did have it. And didn’t know much about love either. Now she took to just sitting on the porch all day in the spring and summer and sitting at her window in her old room in the cold, wet, snowy winters. She didn’t smile much and often found much to complain about to Ruth about Joel. To Joel about Ruth.

  In a house in the country, things are always needing to be fixed, repaired, replaced. Animals continue to eat and need all they need. Money just goes and goes and goes. It does not always come in. Ruth had buried her gold coins in the dirt in the chicken house. Joel spent his last doing things that needed to be done on his farm. He finally turned to a white man he had worked for and with, whom he thought could be trusted, Mr. Kindle. The Kindle family was once quite well-off and had fallen on hard times gradually since Emancipation. Mr. and Mrs. Kindie’s children were grown; one had left, the other had married but stayed in the area. Kindle was not a greedy man. He sold the gold coins and even almost refused to accept any pay for doing it. He gave the right money to Joel. Mr. Creed, Joel’s Negro friend, helped Joel build the new room at almost no cost because he had gone through the same thing while raising his own family. He had money hidden away, but he would not bring it out and give it away. He kept in his mind the thought, “That money gonna send my son Lincoln to school, to college!” But he worked hard helping Joel at whatever he could.