Mudbound (25 page)

RONSEL

T
HE ENVELOPE HAD
a German stamp in the corner of it. It was dirty and beat up from traveling so many miles and passing through so many hands. The writing was a woman’s, fancy and slanted. Soon as I seen it I knew it had to been from Resl. The censors had opened it and taped it back up again. I hated the thought of them knowing what she’d wrote me before I did.

When I pulled out the letter a photograph fell out, right onto the floor of the post office. I picked it up and looked at it. Amazing, how a little piece of shiny paper can change your whole life forever. My mouth went dry and my heart sped up. I opened the letter, hoping the censors hadn’t blacked anything out, but for once it was all there.

Lieber Ronsel,

This Letter I am writing with the Help of my Friend Berta on who you may remember. I do not know if it is arriving to you but I am hoping that it will. May be you are surprised to hearing from me. At first I am thinking I am not writing to you but then I have decided that I must do it, because it is
not right that a Mann does not know he is having a Son. That is what I want to say you—you have a Son. I name him after my Father und his Father, Franz Ronsel. He is born in the Nacht of the 14 November at 22:00, in the Hospital of Teisendorf. I ask myself what you is doing at that Moment. I am trying to imagine you in your flat Missippi but I can not make such a Picture in my Mind, only of your Face which I see everyday when I look at the little Franz. I am sending you a Foto so that you can see him. He have your Eyes und your Smile.

At your Leaving I did not know that I am carrying your Child in me and when I learned to know it my Proud did not let me write you. But now I have this beautiful Son and I am thinking on the Day on which he know he has no Father and his smiling will die. Compared to that my Proud is not important. For Franzl I ask you please, will you come back and stay with us hier, with me und Maria und your Son. I know it is not being easy but I have this Haus und I believe that together we are making a gut Life. Please answer quick and say me that you are coming back to us.

In Love,

Your Resl

The letter was dated 2 February 1947, more than two months ago. My heart was sore thinking of her waiting all that time for an answer and not getting one. I lifted the paper to my nose but if her scent had ever been on it, it was long gone. I looked at the photo again. There was Resl, looking as sweet and pretty as ever, with the baby bundled up in her arms. In
the picture his skin was a medium gray, lighter than mine would’ve been, so I guessed he was gingercake-colored like my daddy. She was holding up one of his little hands and waving it at the camera.

My Resl. My son.

A
SON
, I
HAVE A SON
.
That was the only thought in my head, walking back from town with that letter in my pocket. Knowing I was a father made the world sharper edged to my eye. The sky looked bluer and the shacks that squatted underneath it looked shabbier. The newly planted fields on either side of me seemed to stretch on and on like a brown ocean between me and him. But how in the hell could I get to Germany? And what would I do once I got there? I didn’t speak the language, had no way to support a family there. But I couldn’t just abandon them. Maybe I could bring the three of them back, not to Mississippi but someplace else where they wouldn’t care that she was white and I was colored. Had to be a place like that somewhere, maybe in California or up north. I could ask Jimmy, he might know. Too damn many mights and maybes, that was the problem. I needed to think it through and make a plan. In the meantime I’d help them however I could. I didn’t have much money left, maybe a few hundred dollars stuffed into the toes of my boots at the bottom of my duffel bag. I’d write to Captain Scott at Camp Hood, he’d know how to get it to Resl. But first I’d write and tell her I still loved her and was working on a plan, so she could whisper it to my son.

I was so busy thinking I didn’t even hear the truck till it was almost on top of me. Turned around and there it was, coming straight at me. Soldier’s instincts is all that saved me. I dived into the ditch on the side of the road and landed in mud. The truck passed so close to my head it like to gave me a crew cut, then it went off into the ditch right in front of me. I recognized it then, it was the McAllans’ truck. For a minute I thought Old Man McAllan had tried to run me over but when the door opened Jamie got out. Well, fell out is more like it, he was drunker than I’d ever seen him, and that was saying something. He had a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He staggered over to where I was.

“That you, Ronshel?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“You all right?”

“I’m as muddy as a pig in a wallow, but other than that I’m fine.”

“Shouldn’t be walking in the middle of the road like that, you’re liable to get yourself killed.”

“It’ll take more than a drunk white flyboy to kill me,” I said.

He laughed and plopped down on the edge of the ditch, and I got up and sat beside him. He looked terrible sickly. Red-eyed, unshaven, skin all sweaty. He took a swig from the bottle and offered it to me. It was more than three-quarters empty already.

“No thanks, I better not,” I said. “Maybe you better not either.”

Jamie wagged his finger at me. “Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk.” He raised his left hand and said, “This is my ancient,
this is my right hand.” Then he raised the hand holding the bottle. A little whiskey sloshed out onto his pants leg but he didn’t seem to notice. “And this is my left. Oh God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasure, revel and . . . revel and . . . what’s the fourth thing, damnit?”

He looked at me like I was supposed to know. I just shrugged.

“With joy, pleasure, revel and . . . applause—that’s it, applause!—transform ourselves into beasts!” He twirled his left hand in the air and bowed from the waist. He would’ve fell over into the ditch if I hadn’t grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him back up.

“Hey,” I said, “is something the matter?”

He shook his head and stared at the bottle, picking at the label with his fingernail. He was quiet a good long while, then he said, “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

“Killing Hollis, I guess.” I’d told him about it one night at the sawmill: how I’d shot my buddy Hollis in the head after his legs got blown off by a grenade and he begged me to do it.

“No, I mean something that hurt somebody bad. Something you never forgave yourself for. You ever do anything like that?”

Yeah
, I thought,
leaving Resl.
I was that close to telling him about her. I wanted to say the words out loud:
I’m a father, I have a son.
I’d already told him plenty of things, like about shooting Hollis and refusing to let the crackers in our tanks and the time me and Jimmy went to a cabaret in Paris where
the dancing girls were all stark naked. But there was a mighty big difference between that and me having a child by a white woman. Jamie McAllan was born and bred in Mississippi. If he got fired up and decided to turn me in, I could get ten years in Parchman—that’s if I didn’t get lynched on the way there.

“No,” I said, “nothing I can think of.”

“Well I have. I’ve belied a lady, the princess of this country.”

“What you talking bout? What princess?”

“And she, sweet lady, dotes, devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry upon this spotted and inconstant man. Idolatry, idultery—ha!”

So that’s what was troubling him. Thinking of Josie, I said, “Ain’t good to mess with the married gals, you just looking for heartache there. Best thing to do is put it behind you, never see her again.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m leaving here next week.”

“Where you going?”

“I don’t know. Maybe California. I always wanted to see it.”

“I’ve got a buddy lives in Los Angeles. According to Jimmy, it never gets too hot or too cold there and it hardly ever rains. Course he could’ve been pulling my leg.”

Jamie looked at me, a hard clear look like you get sometimes from somebody who’s drunk, it’s like they sober up just long enough to really see you. “You ought to leave here too, Ronsel,” he said. “Hap can manage without you now.”

“I am leaving, just as soon as the crop’s laid by.”

“Good. This is no place for you.”

He finished the whiskey and tossed the bottle into the ditch.
When he tried to stand up his legs gave out. I got up and helped him to his feet. “Reckon you better let me drive you home,” I said.

“Reckon I better.”

Somehow we managed to push the truck out of the ditch, then I drove him as far as the bridge and got out. I figured he could make it from there, and I didn’t want Henry McAllan or that old man seeing us.

“You drive careful the rest of the way,” I told him. “Try not to run any more colored people off the road.”

He smiled and held out his hand. We shook. “Doubt I’ll see you again before I go,” he said. “You take care of yourself, hear?”

“You too.”

“You’ve been a friend. I want you to know that.”

He didn’t wait for me to say anything back, just waved and drove off. I followed the truck down the road toward home, watching it weave back and forth, thinking of how surprising a place the world could be sometimes.

M
UST
’
VE BEEN HALF
an hour later that I found the letter gone. The first thing I thought was it fell out in that ditch. Ran all the way back there and looked but all I found was Jamie’s whiskey bottle. I kept on going all the way to town and still didn’t find it. The post office was closed but I was sure I hadn’t left it in there. Only two places it could be: in somebody’s pocket who’d picked it up or in the McAllans’ truck. I
made myself keep calm. If I’d left it in the truck Jamie might’ve found it. He wouldn’t show it to nobody, he’d keep it for me. Maybe he was over at my house right now looking to give it back to me. And if not and it was still in the truck, I could sneak over there after dark and get it before anybody saw it.

By the time I headed back home it was coming on to dark and raining hard. I’d left without my hat so I was soaking wet. I was about halfway there when I heard the sound of a vehicle bearing down on me for the second time that day. I turned around and seen two sets of headlights. I jumped down into the ditch but instead of passing me they stopped right beside me. I didn’t recognize the car in front but I knew the truck behind it. There were white figures inside, four in the car and maybe another three in the truck. Seemed like they practically glowed in the dark. When they got out I seen why.

LAURA

J
AMIE DIDN
’
T COME
back on Saturday, or on Sunday. When Rose brought the girls home Sunday morning I asked if she’d seen him in town, and she said no. It was a long couple of days, waiting. The sweet ache between my legs was a constant reminder of what Jamie and I had done. I had a few pricks of conscience—seeing Henry’s pajama bottoms hanging forlornly from a peg in our bedroom, his comb on the dresser, a stray white hair on his pillow—but real shame and regret were absent. In their place was a riotous sense of wonder. I’d never imagined myself capable of either great boldness or great passion, and the discovery that I had reservoirs of both astounded me. I couldn’t stop picturing myself with Jamie. I burned the grits, forgot to feed the animals, scalded my arm on the stove.

Pappy was in a fouler mood than usual. He was low on cigarettes and furious at Jamie for leaving us with no transportation. He smoked his last one early Monday morning and spent the entire day punishing me for it. My biscuits were too dry, was I trying to choke him to death? My floors were so dirty
they weren’t fit for a nigger to walk on. My brats were making too much racket. My coffee was too weak, how many times had he told me he liked it strong?

Short of walking, there was no way to get to town until Henry or Jamie got home.

“Goddamnit, where is he?” Pappy called out for the tenth time.

“Mind your language,” I said. “The children are right here.”

He was out on the porch watching the road, which was preferable to having him in the house with us. Florence had gone home for the day. I was sewing new dresses for the girls, and they were making paper dolls. We could hear Pappy’s boots clomping back and forth outside the window.

“It’s just like him,” said the old man, “pulling a stunt like this. Thinking only of himself, the hell with everybody else.”

The irony of Pappy complaining about Jamie or any other person being selfish was too much, and I laughed out loud. The shutters banged open, revealing Pappy’s scowling face at the window. I was reminded of a malevolent cuckoo clock.

“What are you snickering at?” he demanded.

“Something Bella just did.”

“You think it’s funny, an old man being without his cigarettes. Just you wait and see how you feel when you get old, and you have to do without your comforts because nobody cares enough to look after you.”

“You could always ride one of the mules to town,” I suggested, deadpan.

Pappy couldn’t stand animals, especially large ones. I think
he was afraid of them, though he never admitted as much. It was the reason we didn’t have any pets on the farm; he wouldn’t tolerate them.

“I ain’t doing any such thing,” he said. “Why don’t you go ask that nigger gal if she’ll go? Tell her I’ll pay her two bits.”

“I’m sure Florence has better things to do than fetch your cigarettes for you.”

His face retreated as abruptly as it had appeared. “Never mind,” he said. “I see the truck coming.”

The girls ran out to the porch to wait for their uncle. I took a deep breath and followed them. I would need to be very careful around Jamie to avoid raising Pappy’s suspicions.

“Drunk again,” Pappy said scornfully.