Of Love and Dust (28 page)

“Oh, Margaret,” Louise said. “You ought to be happy for me. Here, give me your hand. Feel that.”

Aunt Margaret jerked her hand back before Louise could lay it on her breast.

“Margaret, me and Judy got to look like niggers,” Louise said.

Aunt Margaret acted like she hadn’t heard her.

“Where is that child?” she asked.

“At the table.”

They were standing in the front room. Now they went back in the kitchen. Tite was sitting at the table eating cush-cush and milk out of a little white pan. She was eating the food with a tablespoon, and she had wasted so much on her dress, she was wet to the skin.

“Master—just look at that,” Aunt Margaret said.

“Judy can eat better than that,” Louise said.

“Can she?” Aunt Margaret said.

She snatched a dishtowel from a nail against the wall and wiped Tite’s face and her dress. Then she sat down at the table to feed Tite the right way.

“Soot good?” Louise said.

Aunt Margaret looked at Louise. She didn’t know what Louise was talking about.

“Soot good?” she said. “Now who that suppose to be?”

Louise laughed. “Soot good ain’t nobody, Margaret. Soot come out the chimley. Is it good to put on your face?”

“Miss Louise, y’all ain’t going nowhere,” Aunt Margaret said. She had started to put a spoonful of cush-cush and milk in Tite’s mouth, but she stopped to look at Louise. Tite kept her mouth open a second, then she closed it.

“I told you already, Margaret, the trial is Monday,” Louise said. “He’s going to be innocent. We’ll get the car Monday night and leave. Didn’t I tell you all that when you walked in the door?”

“Miss Louise, y’all ain’t going nowhere,” Aunt Margaret said again. She still hadn’t put the spoon in Tite’s mouth—just holding it there, level-full of cush-cush and milk.

“You don’t want us to go, Margaret, do you?” Louise said. She had changed from being happy; she was mad and suspicious of Aunt Margaret, now. “He was right,” she said.
“You and your kind don’t want us to go. It’s the end for you and your kind if we get away.”

“Miss Louise, I don’t know what you talking ’bout,” Aunt Margaret said, still holding the food away from Tite.

“I know what I’m talking ’bout,” Louise said. “It’s all right for Sidney and that—that Pauline down there. But it’s not all right for me and Marcus. Well, I say we go, and we will go.”

“I just hope this child wasn’t in it,” Aunt Margaret said, feeding Tite again.

“Well, she is in it,” Louise said. “And I don’t want you putting any foolishness in her head, either.”

“Like what, Miss Louise?”

“You know like what,” Louise said. “You in it, too, remember.”

She went out of the kitchen. Tite looked over her shoulder at Louise, then she looked at Aunt Margaret. Tite didn’t know what was going on, but she knew Aunt Margaret didn’t like it. Aunt Margaret said Tite looked at her so sadly, she wanted to squeeze Tite to her bosom.

Louise came back a few minutes later with a little green powder box and a polka-dotted kerchief. She sat across the table from Aunt Margaret and opened the box. Aunt Margaret saw a powder muff inside the box. The top of the powder muff was pink, but as Louise started dipping it in the box, Aunt Margaret saw the bottom part of the muff was black.

“That’s soot in that box?” she said.

“That’s soot,” Louise said. “Come, Judy.”

“You know that stuff go’n itch that child?” Aunt Margaret said.

“I’m warning you, don’t put foolishness in her head,” Louise said. “Come, Judy.”

Aunt Margaret wiped Tite’s face with the dishtowel, and Tite went to Louise. Louise started patting Tite’s face with the powder muff. Aunt Margaret wasn’t looking at Tite; she was looking at Louise. She said Louise’s face was set the way a woman’s face is set when she’s cleaning out her child’s ear. But Louise didn’t look like a woman, she looked like a child playing with a doll.

“Turn the other way,” Louise said.

Tite did what she said. Aunt Margaret was still watching Louise, not Tite. Louise dipped the muff inside the box and patted Tite under the chin and around the neck. Then Aunt Margaret, watching Louise all the time, could tell Louise was rubbing the soot into Tite’s skin. When she was through, she put the powder muff inside the box, and she tied the kerchief around Tite’s head.

“Well?” she said to Aunt Margaret.

Aunt Margaret and Tite looked at each other at the same time. Aunt Margaret felt like somebody had hit her in the chest with his fist. She said Tite looked more like a little nigger than Jobbo’s little girl Edna ever did.

“That child still white,” she said.

“Where?” Louise said. “You can’t see her hair. “I’ll put gloves on her hands.”

“She still white,” Aunt Margaret said.

“Nobody can tell at night.”

“And the day?”

“We sleep in the day.”

“Sleep where?”

“They have rooms for people.”

“A black man, a white woman and a white child leaving the South?”

“We’ll sleep,” Louise said. “They have good people somewhere.”

“Yes, you’ll sleep,” Aunt Margaret said. “Y’all go’n sleep.”

“Shut up,” Louise said. “Shut up. If you can’t help me, just shut up.”

Tite started crying. Aunt Margaret reached out her hands, and Tite went to her. The water started running down Tite’s face, leaving a white trail from her eyes to her mouth. Aunt Margaret picked Tite up and held her in her lap.

“You can wash that off her face when you get up from there,” Louise said. “I’ll try it one more time before we leave. If it worry her, I’ll try something else.”

“Y’all ain’t going nowhere, Miss Louise,” Aunt Margaret said.

Louise had started in the other room, but now she stopped by Aunt Margaret’s chair. Aunt Margaret looked up at her standing there with her hand raised. Louise was so mad she had turned red in the face.

“Go on and hit me, Miss Louise,” Aunt Margaret said. “Go on and hit me if that make you feel better.”

“Margaret, just shut up,” Louise said, trembling and crying. “Just shut up. Just shut up, Margaret.”

She went out of the room crying. Tite was crying, too. Aunt Margaret rocked Tite in her arms, saying, “Shhh, shhh, shhh.”

When Louise first went in her bedroom she laid down on the bed and cried. But after a while she got up and sat before the dresser. Aunt Margaret had started cleaning up the house, and going back and forth by the door, she could see Louise sitting before the looking glass powdering her face.

Aunt Margaret was on the back gallery washing clothes when she heard Louise coming through the house.

“How do I look, Margaret?” Louise said.

Aunt Margaret was rubbing one of Tite’s dresses on the washboard. She said she rubbed the dress couple more times
before she turned and look at Louise in the door. She said you couldn’t tell Louise wasn’t colored. She had blacked up her face just the right amount. She had put on a hat with a veil. You couldn’t see her yellow hair at all, and you had to raise the veil to see her eyes or her mouth.

“You can pass,” Aunt Margaret said.

Louise smiled. “Just like a child,” Aunt Margaret thought. “Just like a five-year-old child playing out there in the yard.”

“Oh, Margaret,” Louise said. “Why don’t you understand?”

“I think I understand too much already,” Aunt Margaret said.

“I mean us.”

“I understand y’all, Miss Louise,” Aunt Margaret said, and went back to washing.

Louise came closer and put her hand on Aunt Margaret’s shoulder.

“Margaret, I wasn’t going to hit you in the kitchen,” she said.

Aunt Margaret rubbed Tite’s dress on the washboard and didn’t answer.

“You forgive me, Margaret?”

“Yes’m, I forgive you,” Aunt Margaret said.

“Oh, Margaret,” Louise said. “We just want to be happy. That’s all. That’s all, Margaret.”

Aunt Margaret turned to look at her. She didn’t straighten up, she didn’t even take her hands off the washboard.

“Some people can’t be happy together, Miss Louise.” she said. “It’s not made for them to be happy.”

“We can,” Louise said. “I’m always happy with Marcus.”

“It’s wrong, Miss Louise,” Aunt Margaret said. She said she was talking to her the same way you talk to a child. Louise couldn’t understand anything else.

“It’s not wrong round Yankees,” Louise said. “Yankees don’t care.”

Aunt Margaret said she straightened up now to look at her better.

“Y’all ain’t round Yankees, Miss Louise,” she said.

“We’ll get round them,” Louise said. “We won’t mix with them, but we’ll live there. Judy’ll have to go to school with the little Yankees, but I’ll tell her not to get too close.”

Aunt Margaret said she just stood there looking at Louise’s black face through the veil. Even talking to Louise the way you talk to a child wasn’t doing any good.

“You not mad at me, Margaret?”

“No, I’m not mad,” Aunt Margaret said.

“Oh, Margaret,” Louise said, and kissed her on the jaw through the veil. “Margaret, we won’t send for you—I was just playing; but I’ll write to you, and I’ll send you a present. And if you ever want to come there, we’ll send you something on your ticket. ’cause he likes you, too, Margaret. He’s always telling me how much he likes you. Just last night he was saying, ‘I like that maid you got there.’ I said, ‘Who? Margaret?’ He said, ‘Uh-huh, her; I like her.’ See?”

“Yes’m, I see,” Aunt Margaret said.

Louise smiled.

“Now, you go’n help me?”

Aunt Margaret nodded. “Yes’m, I’ll help.”

“We have couple more days, but we might ’s well start now,” Louise said. “After you get through washing, we’ll figure out what we need from the store. We’ll have to buy something to make sandwiches with. Don’t worry ’bout the money. I got little bit saved up. Didn’t know I had saved, did you?”

“No’m.”

“I got little saved up.”

“Don’t you think we ought to wait till Monday to make the sandwiches?” Aunt Margaret said.

“Monday? Why?”

“This hot weather, they might spoil.”

“Oh, yes, yes, you’re right, Margaret. Margaret, you’re always so right. Well, what we can do today is wash clothes.”

“I’m doing that now, Miss Louise.”

“And iron and sew on buttons,” Louise said. “We might need a little patching here and there. Oh, my heart is singing, Margaret, I want to fly away.”

She held out her arms and started dancing. Aunt Margaret was looking at her all the time, and she soon quit. She grinned at Aunt Margaret—a long, slow, shame-face grin—then she went back inside.

For the rest of that day and all day Monday, Aunt Margaret was helping Louise get ready to leave. But she knew that Louise and Marcus weren’t going anywhere.

49
 

Marcus started getting his things together that Sunday a little after twelve. When I came to the door he was sitting on the gallery polishing his shoes. He had six or seven pairs. He had brown and white shoes, black and white shoes, oxblood shoes; he had plain brown shoes, plain black shoes; he had a pair of yellow, pointed-toed shoes, and he had a pair of gray cloth shoes. He had a bottle of polish and a can of polish for all but the gray shoes. He had two shoe brushes and a couple of shoeshine rags laying on the steps. When I came to the door, he was polishing the oxblood shoes.

“How’s it going?” I said.

“Trying to get things together,” he said.

He didn’t have on a shirt or an undershirt—he wore a pair of brown pants. He had been to the barber the day before; I could see the neat razor line on the back of his neck. Hanging on the clothesline over his head was a bunch of shirts, pants and suits. The shirts were all colors—blue, pink, white, green. He had about a half dozen suits and sports jackets there, too. He had even brought out his suitcases. He had them opened, airing out against the wall.

Marcus called to a little boy going by the gate. The boy came in the yard—no shirt, no shoes, just a pair of overalls
that had been torn off at the knees. His face and his body was shining with sweat. His hair looked like grains of black pepper on his head.

“Yes sir?” he said to Marcus.

“Want make a dime?” Marcus said.

“Yes sir.”

“Go in the house and get that money off the bed. Then go down to Josie and tell her send me two chicken dinners and some beer. Four bottles of beer. You can remember all that?”

“Yes sir.”

“Say it.”

The little boy said it.

“All right, get the money and go on,” Marcus said.

The little boy ran inside to get the money, then he ran out of the yard and down the quarter. He was spanking his behind the way you spank a horse to make him run faster.

“Want have dinner with me?” Marcus said over his shoulder.

“Don’t mind at all.”

I went over where he was and sat on the end of the gallery, looking at him.

“Fixing things up,” he said.

“Yeah, I see.”

He spit on the tip of the oxblood shoe and brushed it down. Then he put the shoe between his knees and started rubbing it with the shoe rag. He rubbed it hard and fast, popping the rag a couple times. When he was through, the gloss on the tip hurt your eyes.