Catfish Alley (28 page)

"That's right. And we lost
Gerry when he was shot down over France. But apparently before he died, he
dictated a letter to a French nurse. That letter is what I found folded into
your grandmother's will. My father must have known about it, but neither Ruth
nor I had ever seen it before. It is a little difficult to read, but I've read
it over several times and I would like to read it to you now, if that's all right."

I nod, still wondering what this
could possibly have to do with me.

Late-afternoon rain clouds have
rolled in and occasional streaks of lightning spark the sky, followed by a
distant rumble of thunder. Mr. Calhoun switches on the lamp beside the wicker chair
he's sitting in and begins to read....

August
11, 1918

Dear Mother and Father,

I fear that I might not see your
faces again in dear old Mississippi and I have persuaded a nice nurse who has
been taking care of me to write a letter for me. Don't worry, they are able to
keep the pain under control with morphine, although I must admit, it makes me a
little foggy at times, so please forgive me if this letter seems disorganized.

I have on my conscience a terrible
thing that I did before I left to join the French air force and I must tell
you. I've heard so many of these Catholic boys around me calling for priests to
confess their sins before they die. I know that we Baptists don't believe that
we need priests and such, but I cannot die knowing that the truth has not been
told about what happened five years ago between myself and Monroe Clark.

The truth is I slept with Monroe's
wife. Mama, I'm ashamed to have to admit this to you. I know that you raised me
to be a good Christian, but I confess I was tempted and gave in to temptation.
The bigger shame is that she was not willing. I came on her alone one day up at
the big house doing some of her chores and I forced her into one of the
upstairs bedrooms and took her. I didn't hurt her, I swear. Nevertheless, I know
what I did was wrong and I have asked God to forgive me for it. I'm sorry to
say that I will never have the opportunity to ask Mary herself for forgiveness.

I didn't realize that Mary was
pregnant because by then I had left for North Carolina to learn to fly
airplanes. I came home for a short time later that year, and when I saw Mary
with her big belly, I made myself believe the baby was Monroe's. And Mary, of
course, would have nothing to do with me.

Monroe, as you know, always hunted
with us boys to help carry the guns and manage the dogs. One night, while I was
home visiting, we were getting ready to go coon hunting and I noticed Monroe
hadn't shown up yet. One of the boys said his wife was having her baby. After
the hunt I had started back out of the woods, and just when I got to the road,
Monroe drove up in the wagon. He was carrying a gun and he pointed it straight
at me. He said his wife just had a healthy eight-pound baby girl. When I tried
to congratulate him, he said that the midwife told him that there wasn't any
way a baby could come out looking that white and be his child. I reckon Mary
finally told him what happened between her and me.

I tried to talk him down, honest I
did. I told him it was all going to be all right, that I would help them out
best I could. He said he didn't want to look at his daughter every day and
think about a white man raping his wife. He just kept pointing that gun and
coming closer and I got scared and shot. He fell down and didn't move. I just
stood there scared to death. I've killed a lot of men in this war, but it never
felt like it did that night when I shot Monroe Clark.

The boys heard the shot and came out
of the woods behind me. I was still shaking when they knelt down beside him and
felt his pulse and told me he was dead. I made up a story about him being mad
at me about a hunting dog and pulling a gun on me. What was crazy is that they
believed me. Not one of them questioned me a bit. We loaded Monroe in his wagon
and took him to the colored hospital and told the doctor it was a hunting
accident.

I'm telling you all of this now
because I don't think I'll survive this injury, and I left Mississippi right
after all of this happened, so I never got a chance to make any arrangements
for that little girl. I don't even know what her name is. But I can't go to my
grave knowing that I have a child in this world and not let you know. She's
probably about five years old now and I want to be sure that you take care of
her. I realize that what I've done has caused shame for our family, but please
don't make the wrong I've done even worse by refusing to acknowledge my
daughter.

I'm forever in your debt. I beg your
forgiveness as I do God's.

Your loving son, Gerald

Roxanne

"Lord have mercy, Grace! What did you do?

How did you feel?" I'd been listening with rapt
attention as she read the letter.

"Looking back on that day after all of these
years, I think what I felt was shame. I didn't know it then. Right then, at
that moment, all I could feel was anger. I sat there just stunned, and Mr.
Calhoun put that letter down and said, 'Grace, we think my father was
embarrassed by all of this business and hid this letter. We never knew it
existed until now.' I just looked at him. I didn't know what to say. After all,
these were the bosses. These were the people my family had been working for
more than eighty years. We were friendly, but we weren't in the habit of
revealing our personal feelings to them.

"Mrs. Calhoun chimed in then. She started to tell
me how they had talked and that they wanted to make it right somehow. At that
point, I couldn't listen anymore. My head was spinning. The man I thought was
my daddy wasn't. My mother had this happen to her and I never knew. And worst
of all, I was now just another illegitimate colored girl with a white daddy who
wouldn't claim her. I'm telling you, Roxanne, all I could think to do was run.
I ran out of that house and back to my grandmother's little house and just sat
there all night crying my eyes out and trying to make sense of it all.

"By the time the sun started to come up the next
morning, I had made a plan. I packed what few clothes I had in my grandmother's
old suitcase and I walked to the bus station in Clarksville. I bought a ticket
to Jackson."

"Why Jackson?" I ask.

"Because Tougaloo College is only ten miles north
of Jackson. I had decided, by hook or by crook, I was going to get out of
Clarksville and, even if I had to beg them to take me, I was going to go to
Tougaloo and become a teacher."

"Did you know anyone there?"

"No, and I had never been that far away from home
in my life, either. It was quite an adventure for a young girl."

Grace stops telling her story and sits rocking quietly.
It's so quiet out here all I can hear is the rustle of the wind through the red
and gold leaves of the sweet gum trees outside the porch and the occasional
soft thud of pecans hitting the ground near the driveway. I look at Grace,
trying to determine if she's dozed off, but her eyes are open and she starts to
fold the letter she has just finished telling me about and put it carefully
back in its yellowed envelope. I'm holding my breath, hoping she's not finished.
There's so much more I want to know.

It's shocking to me to find out she's half white. She
doesn't look it. As far as I can tell her features are like most black people
I've seen. Her skin is certainly not any lighter. I study her features
surreptitiously. I've never really noticed, but maybe she has some resemblance
to the Calhouns I've seen in the photographs. I remind myself to examine that family
photo more closely next time I'm in the parlor. I remember that day I first met
Grace, several weeks ago now. I was studying the family pictures that day. Who
could believe then that I would end up feeling so close to this small, fragile
woman who's taught me so much?

Grace looks up as I gently pose another question.
"What was it like?"

She raises her eyebrows. "What's that?"

"What was Tougaloo College like?"

She sits up straighter in her chair and her eyes
sparkle. "It was the best and the worst time of my life," she says.

September
1931

Grace

It's so hot and dry today, the wagon
wheels leave a cloud of dust behind as the kind colored farmer who gave me a
ride from the

Jackson bus station drives his mules
on down the winding dirt road. I set Grandma's old suitcase down and brush the
dust off my dress, wishing I'd just stayed on the back of that wagon. Maybe I
could go home with that farmer, find a new family and new life. I'm a hard
worker. I could pick cotton. No one would know me. No one would know this
terrible secret I carry about myself.

As the dust clears, I can see a
brick arch and the words "Tougaloo College" displayed in the curve of
the arch. Once again, I wonder how I'm going to make this work. I don't have
much money and I haven't even applied for the fall semester. All I could think
about when I got on that bus this morning was getting away from the Calhouns
and Clarksville. I still can't take in the idea that my father was Gerald
Calhoun. I've never known a father, colored or white, but Mama and Grandma
always told me my daddy died when I was a baby. They always said it was a
hunting accident.

Now I find out the man who fathered
me died in a hospital somewhere in France. A white man. And not only that, I
find out that I looked so white the day I was born that Monroe Clark lost his
life over it.

I look down at my arms and hands as
I stand there on that dirt road in the hot Mississippi sun. My skin is as black
as Mama's was, as black as Zero's or Grandma's. There's never been any reason
for me to suspect I might have any white blood. Then it strikes me. It's my
nose. Grandma and Mama always said I had such a pretty nose. But they never
said why my nose is long and sharp and not wide and flat like theirs. I always
thought it was just a twist of nature, a fluke. I reach up to touch my nose and
run my fingers along the bridge of it. I silently curse my nose and Gerald
Calhoun for forcing himself on my mama the way he did.

Mama and Monroe Clark probably had
big dreams for our little family. But Gerald Calhoun took that away from them.
I spit in the dust, feeling contempt for the man who ruined my mother's life,
and right then I decide I will not let him ruin mine. If only I could talk to
Junior. I miss him every day and he knows nothing about all of this. But I
don't even know where he is right now. I feel hot tears stinging my cheeks.

But I've felt sorry for myself long
enough. So I wipe my face with the handkerchief from my pocket, pick up my
little suitcase, square my shoulders, and strike out down the long driveway and
through the arch to Tougaloo College. I stop to look overhead as I pass through
the arch. A mockingbird flies over my head and lands on top of the arch,
looking down at me with quizzical eyes. I stare at the bird and think of Mama,
rocking me to sleep at night when I was a little bitty girl, singing,
"Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird
..." I'm flooded with the memory of my mother, her smell, her kind eyes,
and I feel those tears coming again.

I remember asking her, "When
are you gonna buy me a mockingbird, Mama?"

"Hush, child," Mama would
say. "It's just a song." And she would keep singing, "If that
mockingbird won't sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring. If that diamond
ring turns to brass, Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass ..."

Once again I brush away those tears
with the back of my hand. I don't have time for sadness now. I came here to get
an education. I can't let Mama and Grandma down. In the distance I see a large
white house with columns and a generous front porch. This must be the Tougaloo
mansion I read about in the pamphlet my teacher in Clarksville, Miss Wilson,
showed me. As I get closer to the building, I can see that the entire second
floor of the mansion has a series of multipaned windows across the front. I
think how beautiful it is.

A quiver of excitement runs through
my body and I smile with pride to think that this is a college, a real college,
just for colored people. The mansion reminds me of the white people's homes
I've seen in Clarksville. As a matter of fact, a white cotton planter built
this mansion back before the War. The closest I've come to seeing the inside of
any of the Clarksville houses, other than Pecan Cottage, was to go in their
back doors for some errand I might be running for the Calhouns. I realize then
that I've worked for the Calhouns all my life and I've never been in the front
door of Pecan Cottage.

I resist the instinct now to go
around to the back door of this grand old house. I set my jaw and march up the
wide front steps. I'm busy admiring the arched window over the door when the
door opens and I find myself face-to-face with a colored woman different from
anyone I've ever seen before. She's dressed in a dark well-fitted suit. I know
that her shoes and clothes are the latest fashion because Adelle and I have
seen clothes like this in the
Good
Housekeeping
magazines that Mrs. Calhoun lets us have when she's finished. Her shoes are
good leather, polished and shining, with pointed toes and a smart little heel.
Her hair is combed in a straight bob with short bangs and she's wearing red
lipstick. I notice that her skin is lighter than mine and very smooth. Her
smile is immediate. She looks so young that I assume she's one of the students.