Catherine Carmier

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “It’s you, ain’t it, Jackson? Ain’t it? I ain’t seeing things, is um?”

  He smiled his thin smile. “It’s me, Aunt Charlotte.”

  “I been praying so much, hoping so much I might see you and you ain’t even here.”

  She took his hand and rubbed it, then she touched the side of his face and his chin. She had to touch him, to feel him, to make sure that this all was not a dream. She nodded her head.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. It’s you. He wouldn’t fool a old servant—not that bad.”

  Jackson let her hold his hand, but he would have felt better if she did not. He loved her—he probably loved her more than he did anyone or anything else, but scenes like this one embarrassed him.

  “How did you leave your mon?”

  “She was well.”

  “Still got that one bad boy?”

  “Only one. Yes,” he said.

  “Ain’t talking ’bout coming out here?”

  “No,” he said.

  “I guess when they leave, they forget the old place. Just like they forget the old people.”

  Jackson did not say anything, and Charlotte continued holding his hand and looking at him. Every few moments she would give the hand several little pats on the knuckles. This hand that she remembered so well assured her that he was there.

  “But you never?”

  “No. I never forgot,” he said.

  “No, you couldn’t,” she said. “Not you. Not you. Now you finished?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And you can go right on to teaching?”

  He made a frown and started not to answer this, but he thought better of it and agreed with her.

  “Y’all hear that?” Charlotte said. “Y’all hear? Now he can teach.”

  She was talking to Brother and Mary Louise, but she was looking at Jackson all the time.

  “That’s learning for you,” she said. “That’s learning for you. That’s going—keeping going. Yes, that’s what that is.”

  She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. She did not know whether she liked that little beard and that little mustache that was trying to break out in his face. She had never thought of him as having a beard or a mustache. She had thought he would look the same as he did when he left her. Maybe a little taller, but that would be all. But in spite of these things—even the way that his voice had changed—she had never felt so proud as she did at that moment.

  “The same place,” he said.

  “Up here,” Charlotte said. “But if you go farther down there, lot of the houses done been tored down. All where they was, now you got crop. Cajuns cropping all the land now.”

  “The Cajuns?” Jackson said, looking at her.

  “Yes. They done just about taken over this old plantation now. When Mr. Mack died, that was it for the colored people. Mr. Bud there, all he do is drink. Ain’t worth a penny.”

  “Aren’t there any colored farmers at all?” Jackson said, pulling his hand free. He did it so casually that Charlotte did not notice him. Or if she did, she must have felt that he preferred it being free.

  “Raoul the only colored one now,” she said. “All the others done gived up. Spec’ the only reason he ain’t, he just so stubborn. But they won’t be contented till they taken his just like they did all the rest.”

  “How do they take the land when it’s not theirs?” Jackson asked.

  “They got they way,” Charlotte said. “A white man’ll find a way to take something, that’s for sure.”

  “What are the people doing now?”

  “Plenty of ’em done moved away,” Charlotte said. “Some of ’em work for the Cajuns. Some of ’em just work out. Brother there, he working for Three Star now.”

  Jackson looked over his shoulder at Brother sitting in the swing. Brother nodded his head and smiled.

  “Yeah; waiting on tables,” he said.

  “And Mary Louise taken my place when I quit the Yard,” Charlotte said. “Her and her pa live over there now.”

  The house Charlotte mentioned was a small cottage that had turned a dust gray from so much rough weather. A cow cropped at the short grass in the yard. A white-faced calf was trying to suck from the cow, but each time he got set, the cow moved up again. On the other side of the house, a sugar-cane field came all the way up to the yard. Jackson remembered when this was not a field at all, but a place where he used to play baseball.

  “They took our ballpark, too?”

  “They got it all,” Charlotte said. “All but what Raoul got.”

  Jackson looked across the road and farther down the quarters at the big, old unpainted house where the Carmiers lived. He could hardly see the house for the trees in the yard, but the house looked no different from the way he left it ten years ago. Regardless of how bright the sun was shining, the big trees in the yard always kept the yard and the house in semidarkness.

  There have been some changes, Jackson thought, and there haven’t been any. The Cajuns have taken over the land and some of the people have gone away, but the ones who are left are the same as they ever were. Just as that house and those trees were and will always be.

  “Jackson?” Mary Louise said. She was standing beside the chair with a pitcher of lemonade and three glasses. Jackson took one of the glasses and she filled it for him.

  “Thanks very much.”

  “Miss Charlotte?”

  “That’s not for me,” Charlotte said.

  Mary Louise went to the swing and poured a glassful of lemonade for Brother, then took the pitcher back into the kitchen.

  “Having a little supper for you tonight,” Charlotte said. “Nothing big. Just something, though. People down the quarters probably show up.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble, Aunt Charlotte.”

  “Wasn’t no trouble on my part,” Charlotte said. “They the ones wanted you to have it.”

  “No trouble on mine, neither,” Brother said. “All I done was got the stuff and brought it here. Miss Charlotte and Mary Louise done the work.”

  Jackson nodded his head and drank from the glass again. When he was through, Mary Louise took the empty glass back into the kitchen.

  “You look a little tired,” Charlotte said to Jackson.

  “I am,” he said. “Traveling almost three days.”

  “Maybe you ought to get yourself little rest ’fore the supper tonight.”

  “That might not be a bad idea,” Jackson said. He excused himself and went inside the house.

  “And I better get to getting myself,” Brother said; “and take the rest of these people they checks. Don’t need nothing else right now, huh, Miss Charlotte?”

  “No, not now,” Charlotte said. “But remember, you s’pose to come up here early tonight.”

  “Don’t have a thing in the world to do,” Brother said, “but take this here mail down the quarters. That won’t take me mo’ ’an a minute or two.”

  “Anytime ’fore dark,” Charlotte said. “Tell ’em all down there I say howdy.”

  “Yes’m,” Brother said. “Check you later, Miss Charlotte.”

  “What was that?” Charlotte said.

  “I mean I’ll see you after while,” Brother said.

  “I done told you ’bout that ‘checking me,’ ” Charlotte said. “One of these days you go’n find something bouncing off that little steeple head of yours there.”

  Brother laughed and went down the steps. After getting into the car, he blew the horn at Charlotte and drove off.

  “You see, that boy still playing with me there,” Charlotte said. “You watch, I’m go’n surprise him yet.” But as she watched the car go down the road spreading dust across the field, she shook her head and smiled to herself. “Eh, Lord, children, children, children,” she said. “It take all kind to make this world go ’round.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Mary Louise came out on the porch again, she stood by the door fanning herself with her straw hat.

&n
bsp; “Jackson went in?”

  “Yes. To rest up a while.”

  “Ought to be getting on back to the Yard, myself,” Mary Louise said. Mary Louise naturally talked slowly—dragging out each word as though it took effort on her part to do so—and with the heat as intense as it was today, she seemed to be talking even more slowly than usual.

  “You don’t have much more to do, huh?” Charlotte asked.

  “Take in the clothes; iron ’em tomorrow.”

  “Maybe I can give you a hand sometime tomorrow.”

  “No, thanks, Miss Charlotte,” she said, waving the straw hat before her face. “I can do that little work.”

  She heard the car leaving the highway, and she turned her head to the left to watch it come down the quarters. Catherine was driving slowly, and as she came up even with the house she blew the horn and waved at Charlotte and Mary Louise on the porch. Both of them waved back at her. Lillian, sitting in the front seat with Catherine, did not turn her head.

  “How them two can be sisters, I don’t know,” Charlotte said.

  “Hear she going up North,” Mary Louise said, dragging out the words as slowly as she moved the straw hat before her face. “Reckoned it’s to pass.”

  “Wouldn’t doubt it a bit,” Charlotte said.

  They were silent a minute, both watching the car go down the quarters and then turning into the gate.

  “Well, I better be getting on back over there,” Mary Louise said, but still not moving.

  “Can’t spare another couple minutes, huh?” Charlotte asked her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mary Louise said. “Something you want me do for you, Miss Charlotte?”

  “Just sit here with me a minute.”

  Mary Louise sat in the chair that Jackson had been sitting in earlier. Charlotte did not say anything to her. Instead, she looked at the little mulberry tree at the end of the porch. The tree was covered with dust from the roots up to the leaves.

  Mary Louise sat fanning herself very slowly. She realized that she should be getting back to her work, since she had promised them that she would only be gone a couple of minutes. But Miss Charlotte had something to say, and she would not leave until Miss Charlotte had spoken. She just would have to make up a good excuse for them when she got back.

  “What you think of him?” Charlotte said. “He the same to you?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Charlotte.”

  Charlotte looked at her now. The eyes that were happy only a moment ago were now thoughtful, questioning.

  “The truth. I want the truth,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Mary Louise said. “He just getting here.”

  “But he don’t act like the same person?”

  “He been gone a long time.”

  “You still love him?” Charlotte asked.

  Mary Louise nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And Catherine?”

  Mary Louise looked toward the big, old house farther down the quarters. She did not answer Charlotte.

  “You think he still love you?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary Louise said.

  Charlotte looked at the girl who was like a daughter to her. When she was sick in the winter and could not get out of bed, it was Mary Louise who spent as much time at the house waiting on her as she did at her own house.

  But like a daughter, and only like a daughter, did she love the girl. She had never thought of her as being her daughter-in-law. She had sacrificed too much of her life to educate him to let anyone take him from her. Now that he was back, there would be no one but the two of them.

  But she wanted to know if Mary Louise had seen something in Jackson that she might have missed. How did Jackson feel about her? about the place? Most of the young men and women his age were leaving the country for the city. Did Jackson feel the same way? Would he prefer teaching in Baton Rouge or New Orleans to Bayonne? Baton Rouge would have been all right; he could come home every weekend. But New Orleans was too far away to see him as much as she wanted to. Charlotte searched Mary Louise’s face for the answer. Mary Louise fanned very slowly with her straw hat, apparently deep in thought.

  “Well,” Charlotte said, “we’ll talk about it some more.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I better get on back over there,” Mary Louise said, as though it took all of her strength to bring out the words. She tied the big yellow straw hat on her head and stood up. “I’ll see you after while, Miss Charlotte.”

  “All right,” Charlotte said.

  Mary Louise went back inside to pass through the kitchen, leaving Charlotte sitting out on the porch alone. Charlotte looked up and down the road, then at the swing, and at the chair beside her. No one was anywhere in sight; no birds sang in any of the trees; no dogs barked anywhere in the quarters.… The grave is something like this, Charlotte thought; something just like this. Just ’while ago, they was all there, and now they all gone. The grave is something like this.… But do me, Lord, here I’m thinking ’bout graves and all that and he just getting back here. Eh, Lord, they beg and beg for You to send they children back, and soon as You does, instead of they getting down on they knees and thanking You, they start thinking ’bout graves. Let me get on in this house and kneel myself down on that floor, yeah.

  And while she knelt beside her bed with her hands clasped together, he lay across his bed in the other room wondering when he would tell her that he had come here only for a visit and would be leaving within the next few weeks.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When Brother drove away, Catherine and Lillian got into the other car.

  “Want to go up the road?” Catherine asked.

  “Don’t we have to go for the mail?” Lillian said sarcastically.

  Catherine did not answer her and drove out onto the highway. Lillian sat back in the seat, looking at her sister.

  “How well do you know him?” she asked Catherine.

  “Fairly well,” Catherine said.

  “I never saw him before,” Lillian said.

  “He left before you started coming back—ten, eleven years ago.”

  “I can tell by the way he talks he’s not from around here—from the way he acts, too. Did he ever come to the house?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You mean when Daddy wasn’t there?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said.

  “Didn’t Mama mind?”

  “Mama loved him like he was her own.”

  Lillian continued looking at Catherine.

  “Did you ever go over to their place?”

  “No,” Catherine said wearily.

  “I don’t suppose I have to ask why.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to,” Catherine said.

  “He wasn’t supposed to come there either, but he came.”

  Catherine smiled and nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, and paid for it when he got back home.”

  Lillian looked at Catherine, waiting for her to go on.

  “Miss Charlotte used to almost kill him any time she found out,” Catherine said.

  “I didn’t know she was like that, too.”

  “She’s like that, all right,” Catherine said.

  “You all seem to get along so well—you and her. You’re always speaking to each other.”

  “That’s different,” Catherine said. “Speaking across the fence is different from being at each other’s house.”

  “Then she’s no better than Daddy?”

  “I never compare them, Lily,” Catherine said. “I never judge them. They’re the way they are.”

  “I suppose he had forgotten all about that when he asked us to go over there,” Lillian said, looking at Catherine. Catherine remained silent. “And maybe he didn’t think it was still going on. I’m afraid he has a lot to learn—an awful lot to learn about home.”

  Lillian looked out at the river which ran along the highway. The river, blue, serene, level as a mirror one moment, was suddenly disturbed by two motorboats racing toward Bayonne. In each boat was a boy
and a girl waving and shouting at those in the other boat. Lillian watched the boats cut through the water as they went behind a clump of willows that grew along the riverbank.

  “The idle rich,” she said. “The idle white rich. Do they still fish out there?”

  “Some,” Catherine said. “But they use it mostly now for racing—stuff like that.”

  “They won’t even let the poor fish in peace,” Lillian said.

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “That’s right,” Lillian said. “We must always remember it’s theirs to do what they want with it.”

  After the car had passed the trees, Lillian could see the boats again. She stared grimly at them as they went farther away from Catherine and her in the car. One moment she wished she was there in the boat, the next moment she hated the mere sight of them on the water.

  “How are they?” she asked after a while.

  “All right.”

  “In the field, I suppose?” she said, still looking out at the river.

  “Yes.”

  Lillian turned to Catherine, and already her face had become red with anger.

  “What are they doing out there, Catherine?”

  “They have weeds out there, Lily.”

  “Weeds?” Lillian said.

  “Lily, please don’t come back acting like that this time,” Catherine said. “Please. Please don’t.”

  “How should I act, Catherine?”

  “I don’t know, Lillian. If you don’t know, I don’t know, either. But you only come home twice a year, and every time you do, you’re acting the same way.”

  “I should be jolly—jumping up and down—is that how I should be?”

  “That might be better for everybody. I’m sure Mama would rather see you like that than moping ’round the place all the time.”

  “Catherine,” Lillian said, leaning toward her, “Catherine, listen to me. Daddy’s world is over with. That farming out there—one man trying to buck against that whole family of Cajuns—is outdated. Can’t you see that? Can’t you understand that? It’s the same thing his sisters are trying to prove in the city. Can’t you see that?”

  “You’ll never understand, Lillian.”

  “I understand, all right,” Lillian said, and sat back in the seat. “Only I admit it. I admit it and you won’t.”