Go Tell It on the Mountain (30 page)

“God sees the heart,” he repeated, “He sees the heart.”

“Well, He ought to see it,” she cried, “He made it! But don’t nobody else see it, not even your own self!
Let
God see it—He sees it all right, and He don’t say nothing.”

“He speaks,” he said, “He speaks. All you got to do is listen.”

“I been listening many a nighttime long,” said Florence, then, “and He ain’t never spoke to me.”

“He ain’t never spoke,” said Gabriel, “because you ain’t never wanted to hear. You just wanted Him to tell you your way was right. And that ain’t no way to wait on God.”

“Then tell me,” said Florence, “what He done said to you—that you didn’t want to hear?”

And there was silence again. Now they both watched John and Elisha.

“I going to tell you something, Gabriel,” she said. “I know you thinking at the bottom of your heart that if you just make
her
, her and her bastard boy, pay enough for her sin,
your
son won’t have to pay for yours. But I ain’t going to let you do that. You done made enough folks pay for sin, it’s time you started paying.”

“What you think,” he asked, “you going to be able to do—against me?”

“Maybe,” she said, “I ain’t long for this world, but I got this letter, and I’m sure going to give it to Elizabeth before I go, and if she don’t want it, I’m going to find
some
way—some way, I don’t know how—to rise up and tell it, tell
everybody
, about the blood the Lord’s anointed is got on his hands.”

“I done told you,” he said, “that’s all done and finished; the Lord done give me a sign to make me know I been forgiven. What good you think it’s going to do to start talking about it now?”

“It’ll make Elizabeth to know,” she said, “that she ain’t the only sinner … in your holy house. And little Johnny, there—he’ll know he ain’t the only bastard.”

Then he turned again, and looked at her with hatred in his eyes.

“You ain’t never changed,” he said. “You still waiting to see my downfall. You just as wicked now as you was when you was young.”

She put the letter in her bag again.

“No,” she said, “I ain’t changed. You ain’t changed neither. You still promising the Lord you going to do better—and you think whatever you done already, whatever you doing right at that
minute
, don’t count. Of all the men I
ever
knew, you’s the man who ought to
be hoping the Bible’s all a lie—’cause if that trumpet ever sounds, you going to spend eternity talking.”

They had reached her corner. She stopped, and he stopped with her, and she stared into his haggard, burning face.

“I got to take my subway,” she said. “You got anything you want to say to me?”

“I been living a long time,” he said, “and I ain’t never seen nothing but evil overtake the enemies of the Lord. You think you going to use that letter to hurt me—but the Lord ain’t going to let it come to pass. You going to be cut down.”

The praying women approached them, Elizabeth in the middle.

“Deborah,” Florence said, “was cut down—but she left word. She weren’t no enemy of
nobody
—and she didn’t see nothing but evil. When I go, brother, you better tremble, ’cause I ain’t going to go in silence.”

And, while they stared at each other, saying nothing more, the praying women were upon them.

Now the long, the silent avenue stretched before them like some gray country of the dead. It scarcely seemed that he had walked this avenue only (as time was reckoned up by men) some few hours ago; that he had known this avenue since his eyes had opened on the dangerous world; that he had played here, wept here, fled, fallen down, and been bruised here—in that time, so far behind him, of his innocence and anger.

Yes, on the evening of the seventh day, when, raging, he had walked out of his father’s house, this avenue had been filled with shouting people. The light of the day had begun to fail—the wind was high, and the tall lights, one by one, and then all together, had lifted up their heads against the darkness—while he hurried to the temple. Had he been mocked, had anyone spoken, or laughed, or called? He could not remember. He had been walking in a storm.

Now the storm was over. And the avenue, like any landscape that
has endured a storm, lay changed under Heaven, exhausted and clean, and new. Not again, forever, could it return to the avenue it once had been. Fire, or lightning, or the latter rain, coming down from these skies which moved with such pale secrecy above him now, had laid yesterday’s avenue waste, had changed it in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, as all would be changed on the last day, when the skies would open up once more to gather up the saints.

Yet the houses were there, as they had been; the windows, like a thousand, blinded eyes, stared outward at the morning—at the morning that was the same for them as the mornings of John’s innocence, and the mornings before his birth. The water ran in the gutters with a small, discontented sound; on the water traveled paper, burnt matches, sodden cigarette-ends; gobs of spittle, green-yellow, brown, and pearly; the leavings of a dog, the vomit of a drunken man, the dead sperm, trapped in rubber, of one abandoned to his lust. All moved slowly to the black grating where down it rushed, to be carried to the river, which would hurl it into the sea.

Where houses were, where windows stared, where gutters ran, were people—sleeping now, invisible, private, in the heavy darknesses of these houses, while the Lord’s day broke outside. When John should walk these streets again, they would be shouting here again; the roar of children’s roller skates would bear down on him from behind; little girls in pigtails, skipping rope, would establish on the sidewalk a barricade through which he must stumble as best he might. Boys would be throwing ball in these streets again—they would look at him, and call:

“Hey, Frog-eyes!”

Men would be standing on corners again, watching him pass, girls would be sitting on stoops again, mocking his walk. Grandmothers would stare out of windows, saying:

“That sure is a sorry little boy.”

He would weep again, his heart insisted, for now his weeping had begun; he would rage again, said the shifting air, for the lions of rage had been unloosed; he would be in darkness again, in fire again, now
that he had seen the fire and the darkness. He was free—
whom the Son sets free is free indeed
—he had only to stand fast in his liberty. He was in battle no longer, this unfolding Lord’s day, with this avenue, these houses, the sleeping, staring, shouting people, but had entered into battle with Jacob’s angel,
with the princes and the powers of the air
. And he was filled with a joy, a joy unspeakable, whose roots, though he would not trace them on this new day of his life, were nourished by the wellspring of a despair not yet discovered.
The joy of the Lord is the strength of His people
. Where joy was, there strength followed; where strength was, sorrow came—forever? Forever and forever, said the arm of Elisha, heavy on his shoulder. And John tried to see through the morning wall, to stare past the bitter houses, to tear the thousand gray veils of the sky away, and look into the heart—that monstrous heart which beat forever, turning the astounded universe, commanding the stars to flee away before the sun’s red sandal, bidding the moon to wax and wane, and disappear, and come again; with a silver net holding back the sea, and, out of mysteries abysmal, re-creating, each day, the earth. That heart, that breath, without which
was not anything made which was made
. Tears came into his eyes again, making the avenue shiver, causing the houses to shake—his heart swelled, lifted up, faltered, and was dumb. Out of joy strength came, strength that was fashioned to bear sorrow: sorrow brought forth joy. Forever? This was Ezekiel’s wheel, in the middle of the burning air forever—and the little wheel ran by faith, and the big wheel ran by the grace of God.

“Elisha?” he said.

“If you ask Him to bear you up,” said Elisha, as though he had read his thoughts, “He won’t never let you fall.”

“It was you,” he said, “wasn’t it, who prayed me through?”

“We was all praying, little brother,” said Elisha, with a smile, “but yes, I was right over you the whole time. Look like the Lord had put you like a burden on my soul.”

“Was I praying long?” he asked.

Elisha laughed. “Well, you started praying when it was night and
you ain’t stopped praying till it was morning. That’s a right smart time, it seems to me.”

John smiled, too, observing with some wonder that a saint of God could laugh.

“Was you glad,” he asked, “to see me at the altar?”

Then he wondered why he had asked this, and hoped Elisha would not think him foolish.

“I was mighty glad,” said Elisha soberly, “to see little Johnny lay his sins on the altar, lay his
life
on the altar and rise up, praising God.”

Something shivered in him as the word
sin
was spoken. Tears sprang to his eyes again. “Oh,” he said, “I pray God, I
pray
the Lord … to make me strong … to sanctify me wholly … and keep me saved!”

“Yes,” said Elisha, “you keep that spirit, and I know the Lord’s going to see to it that you get home all right.”

“It’s a long way,” John said slowly, “ain’t it? It’s a hard way. It’s uphill all the way.”

“You remember Jesus,” Elisha said. “You keep your mind on Jesus.
He
went that way—up the steep side of the mountain—and He was carrying the cross, and didn’t nobody help Him. He went that way for us. He carried that cross for us.”

“But He was the Son of God,” said John, “and He knew it.”

“He knew it,” said Elisha, “because He was willing to pay the price. Don’t you know it, Johnny? Ain’t you willing to pay the price?”

“That song they sing,” said John, finally, “
if it costs my life
—is that the price?”

“Yes,” said Elisha, “that’s the price.”

Then John was silent, wanting to put the question another way. And the silence was cracked, suddenly, by an ambulance siren, and a crying bell. And they both looked up as the ambulance raced past them on the avenue on which no creature moved, save for the saints of God behind them.

“But that’s the Devil’s price, too,” said Elisha, as silence came again. “The Devil, he don’t ask for nothing less than your life. And he take it, too, and it’s lost forever. Forever, Johnny. You in darkness while you living and you in darkness when you dead. Ain’t nothing but the love of God can make the darkness light.”

“Yes,” said John, “I remember. I remember.”

“Yes,” said Elisha, “but you got to remember when the evil day comes, when the flood rises, boy, and look like your soul is going under. You got to remember when the Devil’s doing all he can to make you forget.”

“The Devil,” he said, frowning and staring, “the Devil. How many faces is the Devil got?”

“He got as many faces,” Elisha said, “as you going to see between now and the time you lay your burden down. And he got a lot more than that, but ain’t nobody seen them all.”

“Except Jesus,” John said then. “Only Jesus.”

“Yes,” said Elisha, with a grave, sweet smile, “that’s the Man you got to call on. That’s the Man who knows.”

They were approaching his house—his father’s house. In a moment he must leave Elisha, step out from under his protecting arm, and walk alone into the house—alone with his mother and his father. And he was afraid. He wanted to stop and turn to Elisha, and tell him … something for which he found no words.

“Elisha—” he began, and looked into Elisha’s face. Then: “You pray for me? Please pray for me?”

“I been praying, little brother,” Elisha said, “and I sure ain’t going to stop praying now.”

“For me,” persisted John, his tears falling, “for
me
.”

“You know right well,” said Elisha, looking at him, “I ain’t going to stop praying for the brother what the Lord done give me.”

Then they reached the house, and paused, looking at each other, waiting. John saw that the sun was beginning to stir, somewhere in the sky; the silence of the dawn would soon give way to the trumpets of the morning. Elisha took his arm from John’s shoulder and stood
beside him, looking backward. And John looked back, seeing the saints approach.

“Service is going to be mighty late
this
morning,” Elisha said, and suddenly grinned and yawned.

And John laughed. “But you be there,” he asked, “won’t you? This morning?”

“Yes, little brother,” Elisha laughed, “I’m going to be there. I see I’m going to have to do some running to keep up with
you
.”

And they watched the saints. Now they all stood on the corner, where his Aunt Florence had stopped to say good-bye. All the women talked together, while his father stood a little apart. His aunt and his mother kissed each other, as he had seen them do a hundred times, and then his aunt turned to look for them, and waved.

They waved back, and she started slowly across the street, moving, he thought with wonder, like an old woman.

“Well,
she
ain’t going to be out to service this morning, I tell you that,” said Elisha, and yawned again.

“And look like
you
going to be half asleep,” John said.

“Now don’t you
mess
with me this morning,” Elisha said, “because you ain’t
got
so holy I can’t turn you over my knee. I’s your
big
brother in the Lord—you just remember
that
.”

Now they were on the near corner. His father and mother were saying good-bye to Praying Mother Washington, and Sister McCandless, and Sister Price. The praying women waved to them, and they waved back. Then his mother and his father were alone, coming toward them.

“Elisha,” said John, “Elisha.”

“Yes,” said Elisha, “what you want now?”

John, staring at Elisha, struggled to tell him something more—struggled to say—all that could never be said. Yet: “I was down in the valley,” he dared, “I was by myself down there. I won’t never forget. May God forget me if I forget.”

Then his mother and his father were before them. His mother smiled, and took Elisha’s outstretched hand.