“I’m hungry for you.”
They got on the elevator and he pushed 12, his grandmother’s floor.
As far as Elwyn knew, his grandmother was the only black person who lived in this Miami Beach condo. She resided there as a favor to Miss Fritz-Lev, who couldn’t bear to part with her even after she had become too sickly with tired spells and diabetes to be much good as a maid. They had become friends, and Miss Fritz-Lev called Sister Cooper “Gran’ma,” just like Elwyn did, and Sister Cooper called her “Miss Fritz” and referred to her as her “old lady”—even though technically this made no sense. Sister Cooper was actually five years older than Miss Fritz.
In the elevator, Elwyn prayed again, silently. He made sure that his lips weren’t moving: Stand by me, Lord. Stand by me. He wanted to be strong for Sister Morrisohn, who was holding his hand. He didn’t want her to know how it terrified him to face his grandmother.
The elevator stopped on 4. A well-groomed elderly couple got on. The woman wore a wine-colored dress that was tassel-tailed and stopped above the knees. The man wore a jacket of the same hue as the woman’s dress with a white flower in his lapel. His slacks were sharply creased and his brown shoes shone from a recent polish. The man smiled stiffly. The woman said to Elwyn: “Nice jacket.”
“Thank you.” Well, it was a double-breasted, athletic cut after all.
“You going to the party on 10?” the woman asked Elwyn.
He debated answering her before he said, “Twelve.”
“There’s a party on 12?” She turned to her husband. “I don’t know a party on 12. How many parties do they have in this place every night? This is a party condo now?” She turned again to Elwyn.
“Miss Fritz-Lev,” he offered as explanation.
“Fritz-Lev?”
“Miriam Fritz-Lev,” the husband said to his wife.
“Fritz-Lev’s throwing a party too?”
The husband said to his wife, “No party. Don’t you recognize him? This boy’s the preacher lady’s grandson.”
The woman’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t recognize him. He’s so big these days. How is the mother? How is the grandmother? Remember you would help your mother when you were small?” She measured how small with her hand to her waist. “He carried that vacuum by himself. This is the same boy, I can’t believe it.”
“A fine boy,” said the husband, inspecting Sister Morrisohn unabashedly. He smiled at her—she returned it politely. Elwyn saw it and smiled too. My woman does look good, doesn’t she?
The wife went on yammering: “Remember you cleaned for us when our lady was sick? It was the holidays. What was the year, Arny?”
“I don’t remember the year,” Arny said.
“It was a bad holiday that year. All the girls were sick.” The elevator stopped on 10 and the door opened, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. “Everybody sick. Nobody to clean. But your mother and your grandmother—”
“Here’s the floor. Let’s go.” Arny took her arm, but she shrugged free. He threw his hands up and got off and she stood in the way to keep the door from closing.
“Your mother and your grandmother kept this place going. They worked for everyone who was sick. And they prayed. You could feel the caring in their hands. They put their hands on you and they prayed. People got better. And you trying to carry that vacuum. Ha-ha. I remember you. You were maybe three years old. How precious. You were this big.”
She measured with her hand to show him how big he had been. “And now,” she continued, smiling warmly as she backed out of the elevator, “you’re all grown up.” She nodded her approval at Sister Morrisohn. “All grown up,” she repeated, with a sly wink, as the elevator doors closed.
It opened again on 12. They slowly walked down the brightly lit hallway to unit 12-G, holding hands. He could still feel her reluctance.
She had not supported the idea. Her plan was to go to Las Vegas and do it, then tell everyone they had done it. This visit to the condo was his idea—be up front about it and get Gran’ma’s approval.
If Gran’ma approves, no one will oppose us. It was crazy but exciting, and certainly more Christian than sneaking off to a city of sin to pledge their holy vows.
He knocked, and after a few minutes his grandmother opened the door. She was wearing a kerchief on her head and a gray housecoat. Her eyes grew large when she saw Sister Morrisohn with him, and she pushed up from her walker and seemed to stand up straighter.
“Gran’ma—” he began, but she cut him off.
“I see that ring on her finger.” His grandmother shook her head sadly. “You all better come in and get this over with.”
She moved aside and let them enter. They didn’t go far. They stood a few feet from the door. He still held Sister Morrisohn’s hand. The apartment was lit by fluorescent lights. Miss Fritz-Lev, a plump woman in a loose white blouse and old-lady shorts, sat on the couch in front of the TV with the phone pressed to her ear. One of the nighttime soap operas was on. Dallas or Dynasty, Elwyn wasn’t sure which. Miss Fritz-Lev saw them and raised her fingers in greeting. They returned the wave and she went back to whoever it was she was talking to on the phone. Elwyn heard his grandmother say, “We’d better go in my bedroom. More private.”
Elwyn led the way, still clutching Sister Morrisohn’s hand. He knew this apartment well. He had practically grown up here in this condo, these rooms, where his grandmother had worked most of his life and now lived. Not much had changed over the years. There were the same crucifixes on the north and south walls. The furniture was still upholstered in royal-blue velvet. All around were the same pictures of Miss Fritz-Lev’s boys as they were growing up, and now photos of her grandsons too. For years, Elwyn had worn the hand-me-down underwear of Billy, the youngest grandson, who was a sophomore at Berkeley now. Billy was a year older than Elwyn and had always been a few steps ahead of him. Elwyn doubted, however, that Billy had a serious lover he was about to marry. He had caught up to and surpassed Billy.
He led Sister Morrisohn into his grandmother’s bedroom, which was tidy and clean with a large bed with a lacy cover and three wall shelves full of religious books and pamphlets. They sat down on the edge of the bed. They heard his grandmother huffing and her walker clacking and then her bulk appeared in the doorway. She came inside and closed the door behind her. There was a large wooden chair in the room, an antique-looking thing, with lion’s paw legs and a velvet back. Elwyn’s grandmother sat herself down in this chair, pushed her walker out of the way, and clasped her hands in her lap. She focused her attention on Sister Morrisohn, though her face did not seem angry this time, just very tired, like a woman who had been carrying a great burden.
She said, her dentures clicking, “Elaine Morrisohn, why are you doing this to me? You know I love this child. You know I would give my life for this child. Why did you have to go and pick him of all the handsome young boys at the church? Are you trying to kill me before my time, harlot?”
“Gran’ma,” Elwyn warned.
But Sister Cooper would not acknowledge him. She kept her eyes on Sister Morrisohn. “I see that ring on your finger. Is that engagement or marriage? Please tell me that it’s engagement. Please tell me there’s still a chance to end this abomination.”
Elwyn balled his fists and made as if to rise. “Gran’ma!”
But Sister Morrisohn put a hand on Elwyn’s arm. “Don’t be afraid of her. There’s nothing that she can say.”
Elwyn looked at Sister Morrisohn with love. Sister Morrisohn looked at Elwyn with love. Sister Cooper mumbled with disgust, “My God, she’s got you whipped.”
Sister Morrisohn put her hand on his face. She would not allow him to turn away. She would not allow him to be hurt by his grandmother’s cruelty. And Elwyn looked at her. She was beautiful. He had made the right decision. He had never been so happy. He no longer feared his grandmother, whose dentures clucked forlornly in the background.
Sister Morrisohn said, “There is nothing that she can say. You kno
w who I am. You know what I am. You know what I was. I’ve already told you everything I’ve done. I’ve held nothing back.”
“Elaine.”
“Kiss me.”
He glanced at his grandmother nervously before kissing Sister Morrisohn on the lips. His grandmother closed her eyes and shook her head. But Sister Morrisohn was hungry. It surprised him, but he was still hungry too—even as he kissed her in front of his grandmother. He heard his grandmother beating her breasts. He heard his grandmother shout, “Stop it! Stop it now or get out of my house!”
If that’s the way it must be, then that is the way it must be, but nothing was going to come between their love. Elwyn and Sister Morrisohn got up to leave.
As Elwyn passed her chair, his grandmother reached out and grabbed a handful of pants leg. “Please don’t marry her.”
Elwyn pulled away, and she was sobbing now and it touched him because he loved his grandmother. She clutched his hand desperately. He leaned down and caressed her face. “Really, I’m going to do it regardless, Gran’ma. Please try to be happy for us. All we want is your blessing.”
“You will never get my blessing.” She held him tight. “Gran’ma, release me.”
She closed her eyes and said, “Buford is your grandfather.”
A Packet of Old Letters Bound by Red Ribbon
She told them to look under her bed for a lemon-colored sewing box. They looked until they found it. She told them to open the sewing box and search under the first shelf of needles and thimbles and colored patches of cloth and spools of thread for a packet of old letters bound by red ribbon. They found the packet of old letters under the first shelf and gave them to her. She frowned at them and said, “These are not for me. These are for her.”
She passed the letters to Sister Morrisohn.
“Take them outside and read them.” Elwyn’s grandmother, her eyes still watery, pointed to the door. “Go outside. Read your letters, woman.
I need to talk with my grandson in private. We won’t be long. You all can do whatever you want after that. I promise you I won’t interfere.” Elwyn and Sister Morrisohn touched hands. He told her, “Go, beloved. I’ll be all right.”
When Sister Morrisohn was outside and the door was closed, Elwyn’s grandmother told him, “See, you think I’m just an old busybody getting all up in your business, but I’m not. I understand the feelings that a woman has for a man. I understand the feelings that a woman has for a man, because I had these same feelings once upon a time. Twice upon a time. I loved Private Cooper with all my heart, you know that, don’t you? But long before Cooper, I loved Brother Morrisohn first and best.”
He stood with his arms folded across his chest watching his grandmother go through all of the motions of pain and anguish as she relayed her narrative.
“This is hard for me to tell you, child. I feel I can’t keep back the tears. Private Cooper, now he was a good man. A real Christian. But he was not your real, blood grandfather. I was pregnant when I met him, but he was a good man. He loved me just as I was. He thought he was strong enough to bear it and he married me. But I lied to him about who Isa’s daddy was. It destroyed him when he found out it was Buford. He loved Buford. He had trusted him. So he walked off and joined the war. What’s worse was he knew I could never love him like I loved Buford. I know he still cared for me, he was such a good man. A finer young man I never met. That’s why I kept his ring.”
She took the ring out of her bosom and held it in her open palm. “He sent me his picture from the war.”
She looked with longing at the portrait of Private Cooper in his drab olive uniform that she kept in a standup gold frame on her desk. “He sent me money. Despite all I had done, he was still trying to protect me from the shame. I didn’t deserve a man like him. When he died, I got his army money and all the money he had from some property he had down in Jamaica. Such a good man. You see me crying? Old Gran’ma’s crying hard for you, child. I know what it’s like to love somebody who’s wrong for you. Buford tried to take care of it the best way he could. He provided for Isa and me good enough, until I stopped being with him. I was trying to serve the Lord then with all my heart. He cut us off cold when I stopped being with him. I was a widow of this good man who had loved me despite my ways and had left me so much.
I was touched by how he was still protecting and providing even from the grave. He didn’t have to do any of that, but he was a Christian.
And what was I? I became ashamed to still be taking up with a married man. I should have confessed it all out loud, that would have taught Buford a lesson. But I was scared to lose my good name and position in the church. I tell you, Buford punished me and Isa because I stopped being with him. Is that Christian, to abandon your own child? But then later on when you were born, he had a change of heart. He was always sweet on you because you looked so much like him and he never had a son. He took care of you in his will, see? What do you think all that scholarship money is about?”
Elwyn’s eyes were clouded with tears. “Brother Morrisohn was really my grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“And Beverly is my aunt.”
“Your mother’s sister. Your blood aunti.”
“You never told her?”
“I never told her nor your mother. I’m the only one alive today that knows. And now you and that one out there.” She indicated the door, beyond which Sister Morrisohn awaited.
Elwyn brushed back the tears. He found strength in his anger and he used it. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe one word of it. You’re a liar.”
Her mouth fell open in shock to hear him talk to her this way. She said, “It’s true. It’s all true. I can’t lie anymore. I got his love letters. He wrote me love letters long after your momma was born, while he was still being with me on the side. Talking about how he loved me and would always take care of his child Isadore. He wrote it all down, and I kept ’em. Elwyn, why are you crying?”
Elwyn was indeed crying now, and also from beyond the closed door there came a loud wail. The sharpness of Sister Morrisohn’s cry made them both jump. Elwyn’s grandmother turned her ear to the door from whence the mournful wail had come, and there was a look on her face that was almost a smile.
She said to Elwyn, “That sound, I think, means that she has opened her letters.”
“Her letters?”
“My letters. The ones Buford wrote to me. The ones I kept.” He said weakly, “Gran’ma, you are an evil person.”
His grandmother shook her old, gray head. “No, I’m not. I’m only human. Just like you. Just like her. Truth be told, I really like Elaine. I don’t hate her. But the Bible says a man’s not supposed to see his father’s wife’s nakedness.” The look that was almost a smile became almost a smirk. “It’s the word of God, and God’s word cannot be challenged.”
Elwyn closed his eyes and balled his fists in a gesture of hopelessness and futility and he said over and over, “Gran’ma, you’re evil, you’re evil. Gran’ma …”
She grunted. “We were meant to be together. It was the Lord’s will. He promised that when Glovine died we would be together, but then that one out there came and took him from me.”
“You are evil, Gran’ma, don’t you see?”
She clucked her dentures and there was yet that half smile on her face. “I’m not evil, child. It’s not me. It’s Buford. He promised to marry me. He was supposed to be with me. But then when Glovine died, he broke his promise, he said I was too old, and he married that one out there. That skinny, little nothing. That high-yellow tramp. She’s the devil. She’s the evil one. But now she knows how it is. Ha-ha. Now she’s learning her lesson. The Lord says you can’t do wrong and get by. Listen to her out there. She’s learning it now.”
Elwyn wept as his grandmother turned her clucking dentures and her broad evil smile toward the closed door, beyond which they could still hear Sister Morrisohn’s wailing.
In Their Tryst Room
Naked and weep
ing in their tryst room upstairs, she sat on the edge of the bed reading his letters.
“He was my husband.”
She looked old to him. For the first time, she looked old to him. He had never seen her look like that before. It scared him.
He put a hand on her. She glanced up at him, holding the letters crushed to her chest.
She sobbed. “It’s him. It’s his handwriting. There’s poetry in some of them. He wrote the same damned poems to me. Oh Buford. Oh Buford.”
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” he told her, taking the letters away, throwing them on the floor. “Nothing is going to keep us apart.”
“I am your father’s nakedness … your grandfather’s … Leviticus 20:11 … the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
“He is not my father. He is my grandfather. And nothing can keep us apart.”
She said to him, “Nothing?”
With courage, he confirmed it. “Nothing. Brother Morrisohn’s dead and buried and we are alive.”
“Oh Elwyn.”
Then he fell upon her, and she upon him, and they made love again, desperately, in their tryst room upstairs, when he was still only eighteen and she was still only forty-four.
They were both so young and so innocent that they believed their own vows.
They believed them as powerfully and wholeheartedly as they believed the King James Version of the Bible, in which everything spoken was literally and perfectly true, and nothing was open for interpretation or debate.
HERE ENDETH THE TESTAMENT OF EXILE
VI. TESTAMENT OF SONG
Book of Psalms 137
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
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