Raintree County (68 page)

—I'm not picking on you, dear. I just want to be able to say that those girls are not slaves.

—You
are
picking on me, Susanna said. I wish we could go away from here.

—We can't do that, Johnny said. Not now.

—Sure we could, honey, Susanna said pertly. I have plenty of money. We could take a trip. To Europe—or somewhere.

Johnny bowed his head. Yes, Susanna had plenty of money.
The house was hers, and the Negro girls were hers. With what he made, he couldn't even buy her clothes.

—I can't go now, he said. I'm in a crusade for something I believe in. Don't you understand, Susanna?

—I don't see why you're so stubborn about it, Susanna said. What did anybody South ever do to hurt you? Why, you know how sweet and nice they all were to you, and you know you
loved
it. And now——

—That's not the point, dear. Those are personal matters. This is a contest of ideals.

—But it
isn't,
Susanna said, triumphantly. That's just where you're wrong, Johnny. What the Republicans really want is to take our slaves away from us and try to make us live in a different way. But we don't
want
to live in a different way. We want to live in our
own
way. Besides, Johnny, I just don't see how you can go out and electioneer for a man like Lincoln. If it was somebody else—why, all right, but
Lincoln!

She made a sound of disgust. She hunched her shoulders and shook her head. Something colubrine seemed to flow up and down under the velvet robe.

—What's the matter with Lincoln?

—No selfrespecting person could vote for him, Susanna said, beginning to lose her petulant tone for one of strident conviction. Now surely you know that, Johnny.

—Why? Johnny said, grimly watching the gap widen in the thin walls that they had maintained so long against the great boiling river of their sectional difference.

Susanna stood up and began to walk lithely back and forth, thrusting her shoulders, shaking her hair, and stroking her neck.

—I mean—well, it's a wellknown fact, and you must have heard about it too.

—What?

She turned defiantly, standing at bay.

—I mean the fact that Lincoln has Nigro blood in him!

It was one of the notorious undercover smears of the campaign, growing out of the obscurity of Lincoln's maternal background. But coming in all seriousness from Susanna, the statement somehow struck him as funny. He began to laugh.

—He does too have Nigro blood in him! Susanna said, her eyes blazing. You don't have to laugh. It's so! I know it!

Johnny laughed harder.

—Lincoln's mother was—was the issue of an illegitimate birth, Susanna said. Some Southern planter and a Nigro girl. Just ask Uncle Garwood.

This really was too funny in a dreadful sort of way, and Johnny laughed helplessly with tears in his eyes.

—What's so funny about it? Susanna said, her voice getting higher. If you want a Nigro for President, go ahead and elect him. Anyway, anybody that'd vote for Lincoln and abolition the same as says I'm no better than a nigger girl.

—Don't be ridiculous, Susanna. All I ask is that you get rid of these poor colored girls or pay them wages or something, and we'll keep our political views to ourselves.

—I know you don't love me! Susanna shrieked. You never did! You've been asking questions about me! And you hate me! I know you do! Your mother and father hate me because I'm Southern!

—Take it easy, Johnny said, his desire to laugh suddenly gone. All I——

But the levees were gone, and the angry waters poured through. For the next few minutes he watched whitefaced while Susanna pointed her finger at him and shouted wild, incoherent things. At last he got up.

—Look, he said, do what you please about the girls, but if they're not free by tonight, I'm not coming back to this house.

He walked out and down the long steps to the street and over to the
Enquirer
office.

He was covered up with work all day. Several times, he went to a back window of the office and looked out toward the house, which was just hidden by a shed built close to the newspaper building.

It was after dark before the special issue on which he and Niles were working was ready for press. With cold misgivings, he left the office and walked to the alley from which it was possible to look up a long, slanting shaft between buildings to Susanna's house on its high lawn.

What he saw shocked him.

The house was ablaze with lights. All the windows, front, side,
and rear, were streaming light into the quiet September evening. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't say what. He ran down the slope of the alley and crossed a street and began to climb the gentle grade that led up to the house. Just as he set foot on the steps, there was a shattering sound like the bursting of a thousand wire strings. He realized then that his nerves were overwrought. What he had heard was someone letting both hands fall on piano keys. He ran up the steps and opened the door.

—Surprise! Surprise!

The house was full of people. Most of them were friends, but some were people Johnny had never seen. Someone was pounding the piano in the parlor while couples sat on the stair and sang or danced in the hall. Johnny could even hear sounds of merriment from upstairs. He walked into the parlor.

—Well, I'll be hornswoggled! Look who's here! jocundly boomed a familiar voice.

Garwood Jones was in the front room by the piano, a drink in his hand and one arm lovingly embracing Susanna, who giggled shyly.

Johnny stood blinking, trying to keep from looking like a man who had just come home late at night to find more people than he expected in his bed.

Susanna ran over to him and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She was in a dark winecolored gown he hadn't seen before. Her eyes shone, and her cheeks had a hectic flush. Her mouth made little pouts and smiles.

—It's a party for you, honey, she said. Uncle Garwood helped me do it.

—I'm sorry you ever came, chum, Garwood said. We were having fun till now.

Someone swatted Johnny on the back, and someone shoved a glass into his hand.

—I mixed the punch myself, John, Garwood said. An old Indian recipe. Pure corn and just the least lettle bit of pure lye.

Johnny put his worries at the back of his mind and became the life of the party. He danced with all the girls and executed some new Southern steps with Susanna. He had never seen her so innocently lovely. She laughed and danced and drank and prattled at a rate that would have exhausted ten ordinary women. The climax of the party came when she threw her hands up in the air and began to shriek,

—Hush! Hush! Everybody hush! I have an announcement to make.

Everybody hushed. Susanna went over to Johnny and took his hand.

—I want you all to know, she said, that I don't keep any slaves in this house. That was a wicked article, and, Uncle Garwood, I'm ashamed of you!

—Don't mention it, honey, Garwood said, looking surprised but quickly rising to the occasion. I'd slander my own grandma if it'd beat the Republicans at the polls.

—I have freed both of those girls, Susanna said, and they work for me on wages.

Bessie and Soona, the two colored girls, standing in the door and obviously a party to this charade, nodded their heads and grinned widely.

—Hurrah! someone said weakly.

There was even a little applause. Horribly embarrassed, Johnny tried to get the party started again, but the life had died in it. Pretty soon, people were bowing out of the door. When they were all gone, Susanna held out her arms.

—Now, she said, you see how much I love you, Johnny.

—My dear child! he said, putting his arms around her. Susanna, I——

She had not yet completed her elaborate gesture of conciliation, but slipping out of his arms ran up the steps.

—Come and find me in our room, she said. I'll be waiting for you.

When he went up later to the front room on the second floor where the bed with the scarlet drapes was still enthroned in lonely splendor, he didn't know what to expect. Opening the door, he looked apprehensively in. It was even better—or worse—than he had expected.

In the light of a candle, a naked woman was on her knees beside the bed, with head, arms, and hair flung forward in an attitude of slavish surrender. The flickering candlelight made dusky shadows in the hollows of her back. She had somehow twisted a scarf around her wrists and pinioned them loosely to the bedpost. There was a leather whip lying on the floor beside her.

—My God! Johnny said involuntarily.

The figure on the floor sighed and said mournfully,

—Whip
me, honey. I deserve it.

Johnny picked up the whip and tossed it into a corner of the room.

—Get up, you crazy little thing, he said.

—Go on and
lash
me, she said with savage intensity. You're too
good
to me, Johnny, and I don't
deserve
it. I wish you'd
beat
me good and hard.

Johnny leaned over and pulled her to her feet. She was crying and kissing him at the same time.

—I'll do anything for you, honey, she said. I love you so.

Johnny looked around.

—There
is
one thing——

He jerked the scarlet draperies aside and picking Susanna up, put her not very gently on the bed. He found himself talking between clenched teeth.

—Let's start by getting rid of these damned dolls!

He picked them up one at a time from their precarious perches around the bed, and one at a time he threw them.

—Take that! he said. And that! And that!

Their little waxy heads and stuffed bodies smashed against the walls of the room. Each time he threw one, Susanna gave a shriek of laughter and clapped her hands.

He started picking them up by the armful. They fell around the bed. He kicked them. He plucked the big fat one from the base of the bed and holding him by one leg threw him the length of the room. Finally, he grabbed the burnt doll.

—You, too, he said, you hideous little devil.

Susanna gave a particularly loud shriek of excitement as the doll Jeemie rebounded from the wall.

—Now, Johnny said, at last we can have a little privacy in this bed.

That was a wild, sweet night, but there never was another that good in the tall house south of the Square. In a way, it seemed to be a turning point. The following morning Susanna was very sick. She moped in bed for several days, and the dolls all had to be collected and put back in place, and Johnny, Bessie, and Soona waited on her hand and foot. But she refused to have a doctor.

—Maybe you're going to have a child, Susanna, Johnny said at last.

—No! she said bitterly. I'd rather die.

That night, he awoke vaguely alarmed. He sat up suddenly.

A woman was standing before the single great window of the bedroom. Dressed in a long white vaporous robe, she turned her head from side to side, eyes shut, as if rejecting something. Then her lips parted, her eyes opened and stared in terror at the pale square of the window, she thrust her arms out several times with the palms forward, writhing her body fantastically backward in attitudes of loathing and rejection. She was breathing hoarsely like a person in the grip of strong passion—love or terror.

Johnny got out of bed and started toward her.

—Susanna!

Instantly she put her hands clawlike to the sides of her face and screamed. He caught her wrists, intending to awaken her and lead her back to bed. She fought frantically. She spit and snarled beastlike. Her nails raked his face and chest. He hugged her, pinioned her arms to her sides. She went on twisting and screaming. He shook her violently, and at last she went limp. He carried her to the bed where she lay silent, refusing to say anything, turning her head away as if ashamed.

—What was the matter? he said, lamely. Bad dreams?

Instead of answering, she gave a long, shuddering sigh and began to cry. She cried helplessly and loudly like a child. He tried to quiet her, and at last she stopped.

—Tell me what's the matter, Susanna. Please.

—O, she said, it's—it's that I've been having such awful dreams. I've been so afraid. I think—I think maybe it's because I'm going to have a child, Johnny.

—Well, why in the world didn't you tell me? It's nothing to be ashamed of. When do you think it happened?

—In August just before we came back, I guess. I've known it for quite a while.

—No use to be alarmed, honey. Having a baby's the most natural thing in the world.

It was something he had often heard T. D. say.

—I suppose so, she said.

They talked for a while and finally she said,

—I remember now what I dreamed if you'd like to hear it.

—Sure. Go ahead.

—I thought I was back in our old home—you know, before it was burnt. Everything was just the way it used to be, except that the house was all covered with dust as if it had been closed up for a long time. And it was all silent like a tomb, nobody else in it but me. There was some kind of mystery about it, and I was trying to find out what it was. I went up the main stair to the second floor and walked over to the window and looked out. There was the garden just the way it used to be, but it was getting dark. Then I could see a steamboat on the river coming up to the landing. It was all lit up, and there were hundreds of people on board singing and waving their hands. There were men and women and children, and about half of them Nigroes. They were all happy and excited, and then the steamboat blew two blasts of the whistle and all the little Nigro and white children came running down the gangplank to the levee. I was walking across the garden then toward the river. It was dark, and there was a celebration of some kind, slaves singing and dancing by the river. I turned and went down a lane and through the trees till I reached the little cabin where Henrietta used to stay and where I played doll. I thought I'd left something there that I must be sure to get. I went in the door, and everything was dark. I had a lamp in my hand, and I went over and climbed the ladder to the loft and went over to the window and looked out. Big red fires were burning by the river. Then I thought I was in the bed there or somewhere else, and it was pitchdark, and suddenly I realized that it was a plot to kill me. Somebody was trying to get in at the window and I tried to move, but I couldn't, and a big black thing covered my face and throat and was trying to strangle me. That was when I woke up.