by Dorothy West
He had fallen asleep presently to dream that Minnie had died, and his mother had laid her out, in her old kitchen dress, on the new plush sofa in the parlor. And he had taken Essie by the hand, and they had run out and away; but always, no matter how far they ran, they had found themselves back in that dreadful room. And then there was Essie, with her head neatly bandaged, sitting on old Marse’s wide verandah, recklessly turning the leaves of a ponderous volume. While it seemed to him, helplessly watching her, the incessant rustling of the pages would drive him mad.
And last, he had stood in a courtroom, with a sheaf of papers in his hand, trying to prove to Parker, stern and unbelieving in the judge’s seat, that he was a dicty. And in a swift moment it wasn’t Parker sitting there but Wanda, with the little yellow dog they had buried long ago. And Wanda was crying because it was dead, though it lay on her lap joyously licking her hand. And suddenly it seemed to him that there were a million steps between them. And no matter how many he mounted, she forever remained inaccessible.
He heard Essie’s sharp rap on the door. “Papa, you wake? Can I come in? You got a letter this mornin’.”
“Stick it under the door,” he commanded. “I ain’t dressed.”
He got out of bed and shambled across the floor, a bit grotesquely comic in his shuffle toward fate.
As he bent to pick up the letter, he had the thought, “This may be a kinda sign like I wanted.”
He opened it with fingers that trembled.
The words leaped out at him and burned upon his brain. “Bar Committee … Dear Sir … regret to inform you … fraud discovered … all of the innocent with the guilty one … examinations must be retaken … unfortunate …” (“Oh, my God!”)
He was never to remember how long he stood there, staring down at the open letter. He suffered every torture of the damned. Later he would have sworn he did not even breathe. He thought that he had died and gone to hell.
And it might have been a minute later, or an hour, that he found himself by the window, and presently heard his own horrified whisper, “No, no, I can’t. Oh, my God, I can’t. Colored people don’t do such things.”
He went and sat down on the edge of the bed and buried his stricken face in his hands.
He thought calmly, “I better look like getting to work. You can’t fool with these white folks.”
But rage swept down upon him. His throat was choked with hatred of himself.
“You fool!” he cried. “You G——d——cook! You failure!”
He shook with the terrible fury of self-revilement.
Slowly, then, his eyes filled with tears. He was horribly wracked by violent sobs that presently left him washed clean of despair, knowing a certain, sad peace.
Thus he thought, absolutely without reproach, “That was the sign I wanted.”
He understood now. He had been shocked to self-revealment. He must save Essie from the terrible fate that had all but crushed his spirit. And if she fought bitterly for release, God give him strength to hold her. She was too much like him, too much the idle dreamer. And he had wrongly encouraged her. It had taken this brutal adventure to show him. Well, he would spare Essie this moment. Suppose—oh, dear God!—suppose that Essie had flung herself out of that window. All the loveliness of Esther in a crumpled, blood-soaked heap.
Essie was fond of him. Essie trusted him. He would straightly guide her toward the goal of independence his mother had vainly desired for him. After all, she had really no definite ambition. Except being something beautiful. Well, there was beauty in everything, and in nothing unless you found it.
He was proud of his child. She was so brilliant. Why, she was already a grade beyond her age, and leading her class. It would be, of course, an unpardonable sin to indulge her childish whim and neglect that glorious brain of hers that could sweep her to the stars.
Essie owed it to herself. Essie owed it to her mother. Above all, Essie owed it to her race. That was it. He saw it now: the inevitable truth that Essie must face and brand upon her heart.
The race was too young, its achievements too few, for whimsical indulgence. It must not matter whom you loved; it must not matter what you desired; it must not matter that it broke your heart, if sacrifice meant a forward step toward the freedom of our people.
He went down on his knees by the side of the bed. “Oh, dear God,” he prayed, “keep me well and strong, to work for my child and send her to college. Guide Essie’s footsteps. Show her the truth. Help me teach her to love her face above ev’rything.”
TO MARKET, TO MARKET
Mrs. Carmody opened the oven door cautiously and stole a look at her cake. In ten minutes she could take it out. There was this and that last-minute thing to do, and dinner would be ready. Jim was the sort of man who wanted dinner served promptly at six. Five minutes later was saying perversely that he wasn’t hungry, and no amount of coaxing would persuade him to do more than nibble. Otherwise he was an altogether enviable husband. Mrs. Carmody didn’t mind indulging him to the extent of having dinner on the stroke of six.
Suddenly Mrs. Carmody looked stricken, and stared around wildly at the clock. It was a quarter to six, and there wasn’t a slice of bread in the house. Seven-year-old Jimmy had come home from school with his customary request for a sandwich. There were three buddies outside waiting to play ball with him. She had made peanut butter sandwiches for the lot of them, and sternly reminded Jimmy that he would have to go to the store. He had straggled in at half past five with the sleeve of his new sweater raveled halfway up his arm. In the process of scolding and exhorting she hadn’t remembered to remind him that he had an errand to do. Now he was earnestly being a good boy by practicing on the piano without having been told to do so.
Mrs. Carmody called him and got some change out of her apron pocket. Jimmy came in slowly, for he had just struck a sour note. He wondered if his mother wanted to tell him about it. She looked at him reproachfully, and he shifted his eyes and stared at his feet.
“Jimmy,” said Mrs. Carmody sadly, “you forgot.”
“I know,” said Jimmy coldly. “That’s why I was practicing, to get it right.”
“I’m not talking about your practicing,” said Mrs. Carmody impatiently.
Jimmy looked hurt. Most of the time his mother acted as if learning to play the piano was the most important thing in life. Now she was talking as if he had been wasting his time in the parlor.
“What did I forget?” he said wearily.
“The bread,” said Mrs. Carmody triumphantly.
“Oh!” said Jimmy. “I’ll get it now.”
“And you be back here in ten minutes,” his mother threatened darkly. “You know how your father wants dinner at six. You’d better be back before he comes in, or you’ll catch it.”
Jimmy took the money and scooted out of the house. But on the front porch he paused and slowly and carefully walked the cracks. He started down the stairs, then stopped, and took all the steps in one splendid leap that sent him sprawling in a slightly bruised heap on his mother’s pansy bed. He got up and limped toward the gate, and then he remembered he had money in his pocket. He took it out and counted it. A penny was missing. Guiltily he tiptoed back and dug around in the pansy bed. After a long time, he found it.
He went down the walk at a gallop. In the distance he could see the courthouse clock. He stared at it open-mouthed. Five minutes had fled. Full of remorse, he kept up his steady trot.
In the neighboring empty lot, a bobwhite called him to come and see. Once he had found a baby bobwhite and carried it back to its nest. Maybe this was a mother bird calling for help. Maybe another baby bobwhite was somewhere in distress. It wouldn’t be right to just walk past when the neighborhood was full of cats.
He veered left and climbed a low fence. No forlorn fledgling peeped up at him. And his earnest approach sent the caroling bird careening toward heaven in graceful flight. He stared after it until it was out of sight, zooming his arms and shooting down airplanes with sputte
ring sounds from his mouth. Then he jumped the fence, and sternly admonished himself not to stop again.
Bandy Carver was coming up the street. He was coming straight at Jimmy. Jimmy shouted warningly, “I ain’t got time to fight today, Bandy Carver. I gotta do an errand.”
Bandy didn’t swerve. Instead he looked very menacing and doubled his fists. Jimmy had told a perfidious friend that Bandy had curly hair like a girl’s. Bandy had sworn to fight Jimmy Carmody the first time he saw him.
“I’ll fight you tomorrow,” Jimmy promised. “Back of the school-house. Cross my heart.” Bandy Carver just came on.
Jimmy stole a quick look at the courthouse clock. Its minute hand was moving inexorably to five minutes of six. If he fought Bandy, he’d get home late. His father would whale the daylights out of him. He knew that Bandy would call him a coward, but he crossed to the other side of the street.
“Yah, yah, yah, fraidy-cat!” jeered Bandy and crossed to the other side, too. Stolidly Jimmy crossed back, with Bandy right behind him. They repeated this process a half dozen times, with Bandy hurling harsh imprecations and Jimmy repeating his promise to beat him to a pulp tomorrow.
Johnny Ames came around the corner and hailed them. They rushed to him and explained the situation. Johnny offered a solution. He would tell all the other kids about the fight tomorrow, and Jimmy would have to show up or be branded a coward.
This was quite agreeable to the parties concerned, and their parting was amiable. Jimmy continued on his way, with Johnny beside him advising him on prize-ring tactics. The store was in sight, but the town clock struck the hour of six, and Jimmy’s heart pounded. Daddy was opening the door. He, Jimmy, was in for it.
And in that moment of bleak despair, Jimmy saw the shining marble, a big one, a beauty, anybody’s property. But a split second later Johnny saw it, too, and both boys pounced upon it. Johnny emerged from the scramble with the marble in his hand.
“I’ll fight you for it,” said Jimmy hotly.
“You can’t,” Johnny said tauntingly. “You gotta do an errand.”
Jimmy glanced at the clock again. He might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. “Put up your dukes,” he said.
The two boys danced about the street, weaving and ducking, and hedging for the opportune moment to strike the knockout blow. A large, strange dog trotted up to inspect them. He sniffed the animosity in the air, and growled his disapproval.
“Go ’way, you,” Jimmy urged. The dog’s growls deepened.
“He won’t go ’way,” Jimmy quavered.
“Here, boy,” said Johnny, and flung the marble far and wide. The dog raced after it.
“Whew,” said Jimmy. “You saved our lives.”
“Aw,” said Johnny deprecatingly. “Well, I gotta go this way. See you back of the schoolhouse tomorrow.”
Jimmy made a flying leap into the store, snatched up a loaf of bread, dropped the money on the counter, turned on his heels in one swift motion, and covered the distance back home in four fleet minutes. His father was standing on the porch, looking like a thundercloud. Jimmy skidded to a stop.
“I guess I’m late,” he said.
“Your mother says you left this house at quarter to six. She expected you back in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said.
“What kept you?” his father asked sternly.
Jimmy stared up at the unyielding face. “Well,” he began, and recounted the many adventures of the brief journey. When he had finished, he drew a long breath. “I guess,” he said timidly, “you’re too mad to eat.”
Jimmy saw a funny thing. He saw his father blush. Then his father said a funny thing. He said, “I guess I was seven once.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy politely.
“Let’s go in,” said his father. “I’m hungry as a bear. I hope you win tomorrow.”
SKETCHES AND
REMINISCENCES
RACHEL
When my mother died, we who had sparred with her over the years of our growth and maturity said with relief, “Well, we won’t have her intruding herself in our lives again.” Our saying it may have been a kind of swaggering, or maybe we were in shock, trying to hide what was really inside us.
My mother had often made the declaration that she was never going to die. She knew what was here, she would say with a laugh, but she didn’t know what was there. Heaven was a long way from home. She was staying right here.
So we just accepted it as fact that she would be the death of us instead. When her own death came first, we didn’t know what to make of it. There was a thinness in the air. There was silence where there had been sound and fury. There was no longer that beautiful and compelling voice bending us to her will against our own.
The house that I grew up in was four-storied, but we were an extended family, continually adding new members, and the perpetual joke was, if we lived in the Boston Museum, we’d still need one more room. Surrounded by all these different personalities, each one wanting to be first among equals, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Living with them was like living inside a story.
My mother was the dominant figure by the force of her vitality, and by the indisputable fact that she had the right to rule the roof that my father provided. She was a beautiful woman, and there was that day when I was grown, eighteen or so, ready to go off on my own, sure that I knew everything, that I said to her, “Well, your beauty was certainly wasted on you. All you did with it was raise children and run your sisters’ lives.”
My mother had done what she felt she had to do, knowing the risks, knowing there would be no rewards, but determined to build a foundation for the generations unborn. She had gathered us together so that the weakness of one would be balanced by her strength, and the loneliness of another eased by her laughter, and someone else’s fears tempered by her fierce bravado, and the children treated alike, no matter what their degree of lovability, and her eye riveting mine if I tried to draw a distinction between myself and them.
We who had been the children under her command, and then the adults, still subject to her meddling in our intimate affairs, were finally bereaved, free of the departed, and in a rush to divorce ourselves from any resemblance to her influence.
When one of us said something that my mother might have said, and an outraged chorus shouted, “You sound just like her,” the speaker, stung with shame and close to tears, shouted back, “I do not!”
Then time passed. Whoever forgot to watch her language and echoed some sentiment culled from my mother responded to the catcalls with a cool “So what?”
As time increased its pace, although there were diehards who would never relent, there were more of us shifting positions, examining our ambivalent feelings, wondering if the life force that had so overwhelmed our exercise of free will, and now no longer had to be reckoned with, was a greater loss than a relief.
When a newborn disciple recited my mother’s sayings as if they were gospel, the chiding came from a scattered chorus of uninspired voices.
Then there was the day when someone said with wonder, “Have you noticed that those of us who sound just like her are the ones who laugh a lot, love children a lot, don’t have any hang-ups about race or color, and never give up without trying?”
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” one of us answered, with the rest of us adding softly, “Me too.”
I suppose that was the day and the hour of our acknowledgment that some part of her was forever embedded in our psyches, and we were not the worse for it.
But I still cannot put my finger on the why of her. What had she wanted, this beautiful woman? Did she get it? I would look at her face when it was shut away, and I would long to offer her a penny for her thoughts. But I knew she would laugh and say, “I was just thinking it’s time to start dinner,” or something equally far from her yearning heart.
I don’t think she ever realized how often she made the remark, “Speech was given man to hide his thoughts.” At such times I would say to myself, “
She will die with her secrets.” I had guessed a few, but they had been only surface deep, easy to flush out. I know that the rest went with her on her flight to heaven.
FOND MEMORIES OF A
BLACK CHILDHOOD
We were always stared at. Whenever we went outside the neighborhood that knew us, we were inspected like specimens under glass. My mother prepared us. As she marched us down our front stairs, she would say what our smiles were on tiptoe to hear, “Come on, children, let’s go out and drive the white folks crazy.”
She said it without rancor, and she said it in that outrageous way to make us laugh. She was easing our entry into a world that outranked us and outnumbered us. If she could not help us see ourselves with the humor, however wry, that gives the heart its grace, she would never have forgiven herself for letting our spirits be crushed before we had learned to sheathe them with pride.
When the Ipswich Street trolley screeched to a halt at our car stop, we scrambled aboard and sat in a row on the long seat at one end of the trolley that must have been designed for mothers with broods to keep together. We were thereby in full view. For the rest of that trolley ride into town, we were, in our infinite variety, a total divertissement.
Even my mother on occasion called our family a motley crew. We did not have pointed heads. We were simply a family that ranged in color from the blond child to me, a whim of God’s that had gone on over so many generations that we had long since grown accustomed to accepting whatever gift we got. In a world where order is preferred, we were not uniform.
That my mother appeared to highlight the differences by dressing the blond child and me alike did not seem odd to me then, and is now too long ago to seem any odder than anything else that happened in my family. Whether she did it to further confound outsiders or because she was genuinely charmed by pairing the fairest and darkest was no more a cosmic prank on her part than on his.