Read A Lesson Before Dying Online

Authors: Ernest J. Gaines

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Adult, #Classics

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BOOK: A Lesson Before Dying
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15

VIVIAN STOOD
with her back to me while I brushed off her blazer and her skirt. A few small blades of yellow grass clung to her hair. I removed them and picked up her purse, and I could see how clean the ground was where we had lain, and I could see where she had dug her heels into the ground. We left the field and started for the main road, to return to the quarter. It had become colder, and we walked faster than we had when we came out into the field.

“We start our Christmas program next week,” Vivian said.

“It's about that time, huh?”

“You're having a program, aren't you?”

“I don't know.” I hadn't given it much thought.

“You only have about a month.”

“I guess I'll mention it to the children tomorrow. I'll see what they want. That stuff in Bayonne's been keeping me so busy I've just about forgotten everything else.”

“When are you going to see him again?”

“I don't know. His nannan, my aunt, and their pastor are going up there tomorrow. I'll probably go Friday. I don't know.”

“You have any idea?” she said, not looking at me directly.

I thought I knew what she was talking about.

“It's up to the big boss in Baton Rouge,” I said.

Vivian was quiet.

We crossed the railroad tracks and entered the quarter. People were leaving church and coming out into the road.

“You think your aunt has made it home?” Vivian asked.

“She is usually the last one to leave.”

“You want me to go before she gets home?”

“I want you to stay.”

“You think it'll be all right?”

“She'll have to get used to it.”

“I don't want to cause any trouble.”

“There won't be any trouble,” I said. “We went over all that last Friday.”

“What happened?”

“She wanted to know what had kept me in Bayonne so long. I told her I had been with you. That's all.”

“That's all.”

“That's all.”

“I want her to like me.”

“She will when she gets to know you.”

“I wish I could say the same for them in Free LaCove.”

Vivian had met and married a dark-skinned boy while attending Xavier University in New Orleans. She had not told her people about the wedding, because she knew that they would be opposed to it. After she and the boy were married, she took him back to Free LaCove. Everything turned out just as she had feared. Her family had nothing to say to her husband and hardly anything to say to her. He never went back. When her first child was born, she took the baby to visit. No one held the child or gave it a present or any attention. That was three years ago, and she had not been home since, not even when the second child was born, nor when she separated from her husband. One of her sisters visited her sometimes, and occasionally a male cousin would see her in Bayonne. Her mother and aunts wrote letters; there was no other communication.

Vivian and I stood on the porch and watched my aunt, Miss Emma, Miss Eloise, and Inez come down the quarter. I saw my aunt looking at Vivian's little blue Chevrolet parked in front of the house, then looking toward the house. The women around her went on talking, but she was much more concerned with Vivian and me than with their conversation.

They stopped before the house, and I saw Miss Eloise talking to my aunt. I am sure she was asking her whether they should come in or not. My aunt said yes, because they all proceeded into the yard, walking Indian file, my aunt in front. I introduced her to Vivian as soon as she came up the steps.

“Miss,” my aunt said, and gave a slight nod. She didn't look at me.

I introduced Vivian to the other women.

“Howdy do,” Miss Eloise said. “How you?” Miss Emma said. “Glad to know you,” Inez said.

But they were not glad to know her. They didn't feel comfortable at all. They were at my aunt's house, and they were not about to show much more enthusiasm than she had shown.

They went inside in single file. You could smell their sweet powder all over the place.

“You think I ought to go?” Vivian said.

“No. Come on inside.”

We had to pass through my aunt's room to go back into the kitchen. Tante Lou and the other women had taken off their hats and coats and laid them, along with their pocketbooks, on the bed. They were in the kitchen, sitting at the table. My aunt had brought them here for coffee and cake.

“I'll have to make some more coffee,” I said.

“I'll make my own coffee,” my aunt said.

“I'll make it,” I said.

“Not here.”

“Vivian and I drank the coffee, and I'll make more. That's all there is to it.”

“You go'n walk over me?” she asked.

“No, ma'am, I'm going around you,” I said. “But I'm going to make the coffee.”

I filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. My aunt was watching me. Her friends, sitting at the table, were quiet.

“Grant?” Vivian said. “I think—”

“Just be quiet.”

“You taking over my house?” my aunt said.

“No, ma'am,” I said. “But we drank the coffee. And this is the woman I'm going to marry one day. So you might as well start getting along right now.”

The women at the table did not look at us and were afraid to look at one another. My aunt was like a boulder in the road, unmovable, so I had to go around her. She could see that I was not going to change my mind. And she had three choices. She could stop me physically, she could leave the room, or she could sit down at the table with her friends. She was afraid to approach me physically, because I might leave and not come back. If she left the kitchen, then her friends would leave. If she sat at the table, only her pride would be hurt. She thought that was best.

“How was service today, Miss Eloise?” I asked.

“Oh, fine.”

She said it so fast that it sounded like only one word. I grinned to myself.

“You find anything funny in that, mister?” my aunt asked, looking at me again.

“No, ma'am,” I said. She stared at me long enough to let me know that it was not over between her and me, not yet. She turned to Vivian, not saying anything, just contemplating her. The other women were quiet, looking either down at the table or out the back door, but never at one another.

“I hear you from Free LaCove,” my aunt said to Vivian.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I hear they don't like dark-skin people back there.”

“Some of them don't,” Vivian said.

“Not all of them?” my aunt questioned her.

“No, ma'am.”

“How about your own folks?”

“I don't visit back there,” Vivian said.

“You don't love your mama? You don't love your daddy?”

“I love both of them,” Vivian said, and looked at me. “But I have to live my own life.”

“You go to church?”

“I'm Catholic.”

My aunt looked at Vivian and nodded her head, as if she was thinking, What else could you possibly be?

“You went to church today?”

“I went to nine o'clock mass,” Vivian said.

“You going next Sunday?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Sunday after that?”

“I hope so.”

“This one,” my aunt said, nodding toward me but still looking at Vivian, “he don't have a church. What y'all go'n do then?”

“We'll work it out,” Vivian said.

“You go'n leave your church?”

“I hope I don't have to,” Vivian said. “But if I had to, then I suppose I would.”

“You'll leave your church and just become—nothing?”

“We'll work it out,” Vivian said.

My aunt nodded her head. “I hope you know what you doing, young lady.”

“I think that water is hot,” I said.

I poured water over the fresh coffee grounds and watched the container fill up, and when the level went down, I poured in more water. Now the aroma of the coffee had taken over from the ladies' powder, or maybe it was because I was closer to the coffeepot than I was to the table.

“Get some dishes out of that safe,” I said to Vivian. “Cups and saucers, and four plates for cake.”

“Grant?”

“Just do what I said,” I told her.

She brought the four cups and saucers to the stove on a tray, and I poured hot water into one of the cups. Vivian rinsed out all the other cups and poured the water into the dishpan on the window shelf. She set the tray of cups on the shelf and went back to the safe and began to cut slices of cake and put them on plates. By the time she had finished, enough coffee had dripped and I was pouring it into the cups. Vivian put a fork on each plate and placed cake before the women. They said thanks, but they said it quietly. Vivian came back to the window for the coffee. Everyone said thanks again.

“Thank you, ma'am,” my aunt said politely.

My aunt knew how to make you feel that she was of a lower caste and you were being too kind to her. That was the picture she presented, but not nearly how she felt.

Vivian and I went out onto the porch.

“I'm glad to get out of there,” Vivian said.

“She's pulled that jazz on others,” I said. “It's not going to work this time, though.”

“Well, I see that mine are not the only ones,” Vivian said.

“It's not the same thing,” I said. “Far from being the same thing.”

Vivian became very quiet. Then: “Well, I better be going.”

“Something I said?”

“No. It's getting late, that's all. I have to get my purse and tell them goodbye.”

She went back inside, and she must have stood a good distance away from the table, because I could hear them clearly from the porch.

“I come to say I'm leaving,” Vivian said. “It was good meeting you all.”

There was silence awhile, then I heard my aunt saying, “You're a lady of quality. Quality ain't cheap.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“Don't give up God,” my aunt said. “No matter what, don't ever do that.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You're a lady of quality,” my aunt repeated.

“And a pretty young lady too,” Miss Eloise said.

“That's for sure,” Inez chipped in. “A pretty young lady. Good manners. Quality is what you have. Quality.”

They were quiet again. Maybe they didn't have any more to say. Vivian came back outside, and we went out to the car.

“Well, what do you think of the place?” I asked her. “Still think it's pastoral?”

“It is pastoral,” she said, looking around.

One of the Washington boys and a Hebert girl came from up the quarter, holding hands. They had just left church, the boy wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a tie. The girl wore a light-blue coat over her dress. Both of them spoke to me at the same time, saying, “How you, Mr. Wiggins?” And they nodded to Vivian as they went by us, still holding hands. Good luck, I thought to myself.

Vivian was watching them too, as they continued down the quarter. “I'm glad I met your aunt and her friends,” she said.

“They'll have a lot to talk about,” I said.

“You think I did okay?”

“With all that quality, how could you fail?”

Vivian smiled without opening her mouth. I kissed her on the tip of her nose.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “Not in public. I have too much quality for that.”

16

I WAS WALKING
around the schoolyard with my ruler when I saw my aunt, Reverend Ambrose, and Miss Emma come back down the quarter after seeing Jefferson. The car stopped in front of Miss Emma's house, and the three of them got out and went into the yard. Reverend Ambrose looked over his shoulder toward the church, but the picket fence kept him from seeing me. After they had gone inside the house, I continued around the schoolyard, slapping my leg with the ruler. It was a quarter to three, nearly time to dismiss the children for the day.

I reentered the church through the front door. Irene Cole and another girl and a boy stood at one of the blackboards. We had discussed our Christmas program, and now they were writing down names of the students who would bring the Christmas tree as well as those who would decorate it. I went to my desk and tapped my ruler for attention.

“It's about time to go home. Any questions before we dismiss? Irene?”

“No, sir,” she said, from the blackboard. “Marshall and Clarence and Aleck are getting the tree. Shirley, Odessa, and I will see that it's decorated. Mr. Joseph's got some lint cotton in his crib. And we can get some crepe paper from Miss Eloise. She said she had a lot left over from making the Mardi Gras hats.”

“What about the tree, Clarence?”

“Guess we'll just go back in the pasture and get one like we did last year.” He grinned.

“Do you think you might be able to find a little pine tree this time?”

“We'll try,” he said, and laughed to himself.

The year before, the boys had brought in a small oak tree. They had dragged it through the mud all the way from the pasture, and by the time it got to the school, it had lost many of its leaves. The girls who were to decorate the tree had to wash it clean before putting on the lint cotton and crepe paper. It turned out to be a beautiful Christmas tree.

“One other thing before we dismiss class. I want you all to remember one person during this Christmas season. I'm sure I don't have to remind you who I'm thinking about. If there are no other questions, you may collect your things and leave. And I don't want to hear any noise out there in the quarter. Class dismissed.”

After they had gone, I sat down at the table, looking over the test I had given the sixth graders in geography. The assignment was to draw a map of Louisiana and write in the names of the parishes in their appropriate places. After about five minutes, I heard footsteps entering the church, then saw that one of the boys had stopped halfway down the aisle. I knew what he was going to tell me.

“Miss Emma say on your way home, stop by.”

I nodded my head, and he left, walking slowly until he got to the door, then he burst out running. I gathered up all my papers, and after closing and locking the back door, I went out through the front. Miss Emma's house was only a short distance down the quarter. They were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when I came in.

“Some coffee?” Miss Emma asked me.

“No, ma'am. Thomas said you wanted to see me.”

“Sit down, Grant,” she said.

I could tell by the way she said it and by the silence of my aunt and Reverend Ambrose that things had not gone well at the jail. I pulled out a chair and sat down, facing Miss Emma. My aunt and Reverend Ambrose sat opposite each other.

“You didn't tell me the truth the other day, did you?” Miss Emma said.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Miss Emma.”

“When you come back from seeing him.”

“Sure, I told you the truth,” I said.

“No.” She shook her head, pressing her lips tight as she looked across the table at me. “He didn't like the food. He didn't ask about me.”

“He did last Friday.”

“No,” she said, and shook her head again. “'Cause I had to hit him today.”

She stared at me, her lips pressed tight, and she lowered her head. Reverend Ambrose reached out and touched one of her arms as he said, “Sister Emma, Sister Emma.” My aunt put her hand on the other arm and looked at me.

A couple of days later, Miss Eloise came up to the house, and from my room I could hear my aunt telling her what had happened.

Jefferson was asleep or pretended to be asleep when they got to the cell. The deputy rattled the big keys against the bars and called Jefferson's name before opening the door. After they had gone inside, the deputy locked the door and told them that he would be back within the hour. They could call if they wanted to leave earlier.

Jefferson lay on the bunk with his back to them, and there was no place for them to sit. Miss Emma managed to get a small place to sit by pushing him gently closer to the wall. She passed her hand over his head and his shoulder while she whispered his name.

“Ain't you go'n speak to me?” she said. “Ain't you go'n speak to your company?”

Finally, he turned, looking in their direction. He wasn't seeing them, my aunt told Miss Eloise. He acted as though they were not even in the room. His eyes were a total blank, my aunt said. “Just blank, blank,” was how she said it.

“I brought you some food,” Miss Emma told him. “I bought you a shirt too, a pretty shirt. You want to see it?”

She took a polo shirt from the paper bag and spread it out with both hands. But he showed no sign of seeing the shirt, or even of hearing Miss Emma. Reverend Ambrose went up to the bunk and said to him, “Young man, I pray for you every night, and I know the Lord is hearing my prayers. Put all your faith in Him, and He'll bring you through.”

That touched something in him. He looked up at the reverend, and for a moment it seemed that he would say something, something cruel, mean, my aunt said. She said that standing back, looking at him, she could see his hate for Reverend Ambrose.

Miss Emma put the shirt back into the bag and opened the basket with the food.

“Come on, eat something for me,” she said. “I brought all the best things you like.”

“You brought corn?” his voice said. Not him, my aunt said, just the voice. He didn't show a thing in his face. His eyes were blank, blank, my aunt said.

“Corn?” Miss Emma asked.

He didn't answer her.

“Roast nyers?”

He looked at her, but he didn't answer. And his eyes were just blank—blank, blank, my aunt said. He could have been looking at the wall or the floor, for all the recognition he showed her.

“This ain't roast nyers season, Jefferson,” Miss Emma told him. “That's in the spring. This November. Roast nyers all over now.”

He didn't look at her with hate, as he had the reverend, but there was no pity either, my aunt said. He didn't show any feeling at all.

“Corn for a hog,” he said.

“Corn for a hog? A hog, Jefferson? You ain't no hog, Jefferson. You ain't no hog.”

“Th'ow something,” he said.

“I'll never th'ow you nothing, Jefferson,” Miss Emma said. “You th'ow a bone to a dog. Slop to a hog. You ain't no hog.”

“That's all I'm is,” he said. He turned away from her. “I didn't ask to be born.”

“Jefferson?” Miss Emma said. “Jefferson?”

He wouldn't answer her. And she used all her great bulk to pull him over.

“You ain't no hog, you hear me? You ain't no hog.”

“That's all I'm is,” he said. “Fattening up to—”

She slapped him.

Then she fell upon him and cried, my aunt told Miss Eloise. My aunt and Reverend Ambrose went to the bunk and tried to pull her away, but she was still slumped over him when the deputy came back to let them go.

At her kitchen table now, as I sat there, Miss Emma looked at my aunt.

“What I done done, Lou?” she asked. “What I done done? What I done done my Master to deserve this?”

My aunt saw that she was going to cry, and she stood up and put her arm around her shoulders. “Em-ma,” she said. “Em-ma. The Lord is merciful.”

“What I done done?” She was shaking her head and crying now. “What I done done my Master?”

“Have patience,” my aunt said, patting her on the shoulder. “The Lord is merciful.”

“What I done done,” she cried, “to make my Master hate me so?”

“The Lord don't hate you, Sister Emma,” Reverend Ambrose said, touching her on the arm. “The Lord is with you this moment. He is only testing you.”

Miss Emma looked up at me. The tears were still rolling down her face.

“Go back,” she said.

“Why, Miss Emma?”

“'Cause somebody go'n do something for me 'fore I die.”

“Why me?”

“'Cause you the teacher,” my aunt said.

I got up from the table.

“And where you think you going?” Tante Lou asked me.

“I don't know,” I said. “But I'll go crazy if I stay here, that's for sure.”

“You going back up there, Grant.”

“What for?” I said. “What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I'm not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn't put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He's not going to make me feel guilty.”

“You going back,” she said. “You ain't going to run away from this, Grant.”

“Tante Lou,” I said. I wanted to take her face in my hands. I wanted to hold her gently, gently, because anger and screaming were not working. Maybe gentleness would work better. Maybe feeling my hands on her face would make her understand what I was trying to say to her. But as I moved toward her, I could see in her eyes that nothing I said was going to change anything. I left them at the table and went back home to my room.

BOOK: A Lesson Before Dying
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