The Swan House (42 page)

I couldn't help smiling at that. Good thing, because it made Rachel smile a little too. “You're right, Rachel. Hypocritical.”

“Worse than hypocritical.” She sniffed, and an angry hand brushed away the tears staining her face. “Most of these people are too dumb to know how to be hypocritical. Nothing sly or cunning about them. Just stupidly believing and repeating that you're better than someone else simply because of your religion or skin color or job status.”

I didn't dare say a thing.

“I hate this. Can you imagine how much it hurts? I was counting on inviting Will. He knows I'm Jewish and doesn't mind dating me.”

“You've never had a problem getting dates, Rach,” I ventured.

“Oh, who cares! It doesn't matter now. It's not so much the dance,” she reasoned. Then she smiled sadly. “Well, of course it is. It's everything. It's being labeled. It's being different. It's being judged without ever having a fair chance.” Her eyes were liquid looking again.

“I won't go to the dance either, Rach, if that'll help.”

“Oh, Swan. No. Of course you'll go.” She smiled wryly. “You'll go and tell me what everyone wears and how those snooty old ladies take to having Carl and his band playing at the venerable Piedmont Driving Club. What a scream!”

“That will be funny,” I said without emotion.

She ignored me completely, in rare form. “And you know what is just great? I mean really idiotic? No Jewish girls will be there, because we didn't get an invitation. But you can bet your little bohunckus that Millie Garrett will invite Harold Wein and Julie Jacobs will invite Mark Goldberg. And no one will be able to say a thing because the girls can choose whomever they want. It's crazy! No Jewish girls at the PDC, but Jewish boys galore. Now does that make one bit of sense to you? Does it?”

I shook my head, not bothering to try to answer.

“And can you please tell me how nametags can really show what a person is like inside? Can you please explain that to me? Because I'll tell you one thing for sure. Those families may go to a Protestant church, those girls may put on their hats and gloves and Florence Eisman dresses, but it doesn't mean one thing in their life. It's just the title. Doesn't anyone care what's inside?

“I mean, for goodness' sake, I don't even go to temple. I'm a lousy Jew! Maybe I should go to Mrs. Appleby and declare I'm an atheist! If it was really religion that mattered, that should work. But it won't. Because it's not really religion. That's the pretext. It's race.” She was rubbing her forehead, massaging her temples as if it hurt to reason. She wiped her hand down the right side of her face, her eyes swollen into little red slits.

“Do you understand what I mean, Swan? Can you possibly understand how this feels?” She regarded me with such sincerity that it hurt. “No, of course not. You can't. It's not your fault, though. But I'll tell you someone who could understand. Carl Matthews. Disqualified from society because his skin is black. Not a chance to prove what kind of mind he has.” She shut her eyes tight. “But even he gets to go to the dance!”

She started sobbing again, and I had no idea what to do. I thought maybe Rachel was losing her mind. But she just kept talking.

“You know, why does society have to run by this religion thing? I mean, get with it. Sure, some people are great Christians and do lots of nice things. And maybe they put into practice what they believe. Like Miss Abigail. But for the most part, everybody's just the same. Wanting the best for themselves and their families. Making a bundle of money. Impressing the neighbors. Giving the kids a good education. Doesn't matter if you're a Baptist or an Episcopalian or a Methodist or a Catholic or a Jew or a Buddhist, for that matter. I'm just saying they shouldn't make religion the standard to judge by, when it really has nothing to do with it. The bottom line is this place is racist and anti-Semitic, and it's never gonna change.

“I've read the New Testament! Had to for good ole Welly. And it doesn't say, ‘Cast people out because they don't have the same bloodlines as others.' It says, ‘Love one another.' That's what your Jesus said. Love, forgive, don't judge, go the extra mile, care. Who would ever believe people around here ever even read their Bibles?”

The bell rang for our next class.

Rachel swore. “I can't go to math looking like this.” She stuck her face in the sink again and splashed cold water over it, then dabbed it dry with two rough paper towels. She quickly applied a little blush and lipstick, pinched her cheeks, powdered her nose, and took a deep breath. “How do I look?”

“Great, Rach. You always look great. You know it.” I hugged her tight and whispered, “I'm sorry.”

We walked back out into the hall, and she took off down the long corridor to her math class. I watched her go, thick blond hair flapping gently on the gray jumper. I had never seen Rachel cry like that before. As I gathered my books to my chest and hurried down the hall, I could almost hear Carl saying the exact same words that Rachel had just pronounced.

“It's being labeled. It's being different. It's being judged without ever
having a fair chance to prove who you are.”
I didn't understand it. But I wanted to. Suddenly I wanted very much to understand.

I guess Rachel's outburst became the straw that broke the camel's back. Her words haunted me all day long, so that when I got home from school, I ran up the stairs to my room and took my white leather Bible off the shelf. I flipped toward the back of the holy book, looking for the gospel of John. The pages were onionskin thin and gold lined, and I liked the feel of them between my fingers. When I got to chapter eight of the gospel of John, I searched for the verse that Miss Abigail had talked about, the verse that had prodded me on in my research of the Raven Dare and of all my other discoveries.

I ended up reading the whole chapter, but I didn't understand much. First there was an incident where the Pharisees tried to stone an adulterous woman, and Jesus caught them in their own game. Then He got into a long argument with these same Jews about who was His father and who was their father. He called the religious leaders all kinds of names like liars and sons of the devil and told them they were going to die in their sins. As I read, I remembered some discussions we'd had in Bible class at Welly about the Pharisees and Jesus' dealings with them.

Sandwiched in between the arguments, Jesus told them that the truth would make them free. I scribbled down the verses in the spiral notebook that Rachel had dubbed “Poems Corrupted by Mary Swan.”
As he spake these words, many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to those
Jews which believed on Him, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my
disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you
free.”

It didn't really sound as though the Jews understood what Jesus was talking about, and I can't say I did either, but I liked the verse, as well as one that followed soon after.
“If the Son therefore shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed.”
I wrote it in the spiral notebook too.

I kept repeating the two verses in my mind, over and over,
“Ye
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. If the Son therefore
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
I liked the notion of freedom. I liked it for Carl and all the other blacks in America, and I liked it for Rachel and the other Jews. And I even liked it for dear Robbie, who was trapped in a completely different prison of his father's expectations. But mostly I liked it for me.

I surprised myself by asking out loud, “What do you want to free me from, Jesus?”

Immediately Carl's words flashed into my mind.
“You need to solve
it for yourself, more than anything. So you won't keep persecuting yourself
about the past. Gotta let it go, Mary Swan.”

Maybe that was it. Maybe God wanted to free me from my past.

For some reason, I started writing a poem, free verse, as ideas tumbled into my mind. It definitely was not my style. I was used to corrupting the poet laureates' works, not inventing one of my own. But it seemed to write itself, and so I let the ink flow.

Everyone wants to know truth,
Everyone wants to be treated fair,
Everyone searches for meaning,
Everyone searches for someone to care.
One brave man, long ago,
Said that truth will make you free,
Then died to prove His point,
But I didn't get it, God, not me,
I didn't understand,
Nor do I now
How
A dead and risen Savior
Who sits somewhere up high beside His dad
Can somehow make me free,
Can somehow make sense of all that's bad,
And so here I am, still searching,
Still holding a paintbrush in my hand,
Still watching the colors blend on my palette
And wondering, if Jesus were here,
What words He would write in the sand.

The poem finished, I closed the spiral notebook and placed the Bible back on the shelf. None of this really helped me solve Rachel's dilemma about the PDC Christmas Dance. I still felt edgy and angry. But somehow I also felt reassured, knowing that the white leather book might someday lead me to a God who made Miss Abigail's eyes sparkle.

I went down to Mama's
atelier
. I thought about painting, but instead all I did was sit cross-legged on the floor and flip through the sketchbooks from Resthaven. Henry Becker's crooked smile greeted me, and for a fleeting instant I wanted to jump into the blue Cadillac and drive into the mountains to Resthaven. Maybe I could meet Leslie Leschamps and ask her the questions I longed to find answers to. But I was pretty sure that wouldn't make the hurt go away.

I suddenly felt exhausted. The things I was dealing with, depression and prejudice and cruelty, were abstract beasts that couldn't be tamed by a visit to Resthaven or the Swan House. They wandered out of control around this city and devoured hope. That's what it felt like as I sat in Mama's
atelier
—some strange beast had gnawed through every cell of hope in my body and was sitting in the pit of my stomach, growling. Could the God Miss Abigail served extract the wild beast and replace it with something that made life matter?

Chapter 20

F
ortunately, the next day was Saturday, the first of December, so I figured I'd have a chance to ask Miss Abigail a few questions. That gave me the courage to step inside the basement of Mt. Carmel and face Carl Matthews again. I was embarrassed about the hug in the
atelier
and all my daydreaming. I was afraid he'd just look straight through me and my silly ideas. But of course, he didn't.

“Hi there, Mary Swan. Good to see ya.” His arm was in a sling. The stitches had been taken out of the wound above his eye, and all that was left was an ugly scar cutting through his left eyebrow.

I had an incredible urge to grab his hands and say, “I'm so thankful you're okay. I've been trying to pray for you and Larry.” Instead, I smiled at him and said, “It's good to see you too, Carl.”

“I heard you and a friend of yours came down to church a couple of Sunday nights ago.”

“Yeah, yeah, we did.”

“Drove the young'uns around in a fancy convertible.”

“Well, having the top down wasn't exactly my idea.”

“Thanks for doin' that, Mary Swan. They're still talkin' about it with their friends.”

“It wasn't much.”

“Doesn't take much to make them happy, Mary Swan.”

Robbie had said to start small, and Carl had just confirmed the idea.

“How's Larry?”

“Good. Doin' fine, thank the good Lord. He's gonna be just fine.” Carl got a big smile on his face. “Even lost about fifteen pounds in the hospital. You'll barely recognize him.”

“So do you think y'all can still play for the Christmas dance? I told Mrs. Appleby—she's the lady in charge—that y'all had been in an accident, so she understood why you couldn't audition before now. But she'd still like to hear you play before the dance. She wondered if y'all could come out to the club on Wednesday afternoon.”

“I 'spect that there's not much that would keep Larry and the others from goin' to see a fancy white man's club.” He smiled. “You tell us where to go, and we'll meet ya there.”

I found a pen and piece of paper and scribbled down the address of the Piedmont Driving Club. “Meet you there at five, okay?” Then I added, “You sure you can play, with your arm in a sling like that?”

“Girl, I'm sure.” He winked at me.

“And you'll get paid! Two hundred dollars to split among you!”

He whistled low. “Ya don't say. Thanks, Mary Swan. Thanks for working that out for us. You're all right, ya know it?”

I felt the chemistry between us again, but Cassandra and Puddin' came into the kitchen at that moment, so we didn't say anything else.

After the dishes had been washed, I ran upstairs and marched into Miss Abigail's cluttered office on the first floor around the corner from the sanctuary. “I've been reading this book”—I indicated a Bible on her desk—“just like you said, and I have questions. Lots of questions.”

Miss Abigail set down a letter she was holding in her hand and leaned back in her chair, an amused expression on her face. “Fire away, Mary Swan.”

“Well, first of all, I don't think the truth is going to make me free. The truth is just confusing me.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the things I'm finding out about my mother. It's the truth, but it's awful. And ugly things about my school, my side of town, like how much prejudice there is not only toward the blacks, but toward Jews too.”

“And what have you read about this in the Bible?”

“Well, I read chapter eight of John's Gospel, like you said.”