Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga

by Michael McDowell

  Oscar shrugged and replied only, “Mama, James eats dinner with us over here every day and you don’t charge him a penny. He can afford to have me for supper once in a while.”

  “Every night!”

  “He asks you and Sister to come too.”

  “It would drive poor Roxie into the ground if all of us went over there all the time.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. Roxie doesn’t have to cook during the day. And she told me she didn’t see why you and Sister ate cold food when you could have hot.”

  Mary-Love wouldn’t reply, for she wouldn’t bring herself to admit that she refused to sit at the same table with Elinor Dammert. War, it should be understood, remained officially undeclared. Sister wasn’t allowed to go next door either, and at home she just picked at her cold plate and wished she knew what they were talking about over at James’s.

  No mother and daughter in Perdido were closer than Mary-Love Caskey and Sister, but it was not to be supposed that either told the other everything she thought or knew. In fact, each of them liked to keep little secrets from the other, secrets which could be sprung at some opportune moment to produce a grand effect—rather in the manner of a little boy tossing lighted firecrackers beneath his sister’s bed while she napped on a hot summer afternoon.

  What Sister was holding back just now was not exactly a secret so much as it was an opinion, and that opinion had to do with Elinor Dammert. It was Sister’s belief that Elinor was a powerful young woman, and that the power she wielded was exactly the sort to which Mary-Love herself had become accustomed. Elinor Dammert put things in place. She set things up. She set things right. She picked up people and she put them down again where she wanted them as a child might arrange the figures in a wooden Noah’s ark. Sister even had a mental image of James Caskey as a wooden figure. In her mind he was on a round base and a single stem represented his legs. Grace was a much smaller such figure. Zaddie was painted black and Oscar had the biggest smile. And Elinor Dammert, in Sister’s imaginings, threw her arms about the waists of those figures and lifted them up and carried them where she wanted them to be and put them down again. The figures wobbled a little, but they stayed in place.

  Mary-Love, by contrast, wheedled. She set up psychological stratagems by which her will was accomplished. Elinor was more powerful of the two, Sister suspected. Mary-Love only sometimes seemed so, because Elinor was holding back. While it was perfectly within Elinor’s power to pick Oscar up and put him where she wanted him, she wanted Oscar to come to her of his own accord. But it was well within Elinor’s capacity to knock over the wooden figure that was Mary-Love Caskey and roll her in tight circles until Mary-Love grew nauseated. Elinor was toying with Mary-Love, perpetuating Mary-Love’s blindness to her own inferiority, perhaps wishing to test whether Oscar were capable of overcoming his mother without assistance. This opinion is what Sister was keeping from her mother, only waiting for the right moment to spring it.

  . . .

  One evening, a few days before Thanksgiving, Sister had a headache. Mary-Love had been carrying on about Miss Elinor all afternoon long, and that was a subject Sister thought she had heard enough of, especially as she considered that her mother’s every pronouncement on that subject was jaundiced and inaccurate. As they sat together at the kitchen table eating leftover pork chops and corn, Mary-Love picked up where she had left off.

  “I don’t know what we are gone do about Thanksgiving.”

  “What do you mean, Mama?” said Sister wearily, slicing some fat off the chop.

  “Well, we’ll have it here, of course, and James and Grace are gone come, but what, I want to know, is James gone do about that woman?” Mary-Love Caskey couldn’t be brought to say “Miss Elinor” aloud, but always called her “that woman”; this was sometimes confusing since she had always used that epithet for Genevieve Caskey as well.

  Sister didn’t answer, but she was so in the habit of responding to every remark her mother made that her very silence said something.

  “Well, Sister?”

  “Have you talked to James?” asked Sister. “Have you invited him directly?”

  “Of course not! Why should I? Where else would they go for Thanksgiving?”

  “James expects for you to invite Miss Elinor.”

  “I won’t do it! Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes,” replied Sister. “He said he expects you to walk across the yard and extend a personal invitation to Miss Elinor to have Thanksgiving dinner over here.”

  “I won’t do it! That woman has not stepped foot one in this house, and I don’t intend to open the door for her now!”

  “Then James says that he and Grace and Miss Elinor will have Thanksgiving dinner over there, and they’ll invite you and if you don’t want to come that’s your business.”

  “Sister, why are you delivering this ultimatum? Is there another word for it?” she demanded rhetorically. Then, as if perhaps Sister had not taken the question as it was meant, Mary-Love answered it herself. “No,” she said firmly, “there is not. It is an ultimatum.”

  “James told me to say that. He told me this afternoon.”

  “Sister,” cried Mary-Love in an extremity of annoyance, “do you believe this?” She ran to the kitchen window and looked out. The dining room of James’s house was lighted and she could see Miss Elinor through the window serving something onto Grace’s plate.

  “Mama,” said Sister, whose headache was worse, “everybody in town thinks you are crazy out of your mind for not taking Miss Elinor to your heart. Everybody in town thinks the world of her.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Everybody but you, Mama.”

  “Bray doesn’t!”

  “Mama, I’m gone tell you something—”

  “What?”

  “Mama, I think you better start liking Miss Elinor.”

  “Why is that, Sister?”

  “Because Oscar is gone end up married to her.”

  Mary-Love drew back from the window with a deep breath.

  “I would be surprised,” continued Sister unmercifully, “if he has not already asked her.”

  . . .

  In fact, Oscar was circuitously asking that question at the very moment that Miss Elinor was spooning out English peas onto Grace’s plate. He said, “Miss Elinor, you know what?”

  “What?” said Miss Elinor.

  “I’ve been thinking about Zaddie.”

  “You are running that girl to death!” said James at the head of the table, laughing. With Elinor there every night, and Oscar there most, James felt a little of what he imagined it might feel like to have a real family.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Oscar.

  “Zaddie has got more money than any other little girl in Perdido, white or colored.” Miss Elinor sat up straight, and cut into her ham. “Every time you see her coming, Oscar, you give her a quarter. And I do, too.”

  “But her legs are tired,” said Oscar.

  “What do you expect Elinor to do about Zaddie’s poor old legs?” asked James.

  Zaddie, who had been listening to this conversation from the kitchen, appeared in the doorway and lifted her skirt to show that her legs were not worn down at all.

  “Miz Digman will not let me put a telephone in my classroom, Oscar. If you continue to send me notes, then you have to have someone to deliver them.”

  “My legs are fine,” began Zaddie, but Roxie grabbed her by the skirt and dragged her back into the kitchen.

  “White folks don’t like to look at a little colored girl when they are eating,” said Roxie sententiously, “unless she is bringing in a plate of something hot.” The door of the kitchen was pushed shut and Zaddie, for a time, heard no more.

  “But what if we were married?” said Oscar. “Then I wouldn’t have to send you notes.”

  Elinor looked up. Then she looked at James Caskey. “Mr. James,” said Elinor, “I think Oscar is making a proposal of marriage.”

  “Are you gone ac
cept him?” said James, with every indication of pleasure in his face.

  “What do you think, Grace? Should I get married to your cousin Oscar?”

  “No!” cried Grace, with distress written all over her countenance.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want you to leave!”

  “Well, where would I go?” She looked up at Oscar. “Oscar, if I married you, would you take me away?”

  “I’m not ever gone leave Perdido, Miss Elinor!”

  “I mean out of this house, Oscar. Where do you propose that we would live?”

  “I don’t know,” said Oscar after a moment. “It only just occurred to me this minute—while James was talking about not getting a letter from Genevieve—that I ought to be married myself. And I looked up and there you were, just sitting there not married. I really haven’t had time to consider everything. I have not yet bought a ring, Miss Elinor, so you needn’t ask me to produce one. I couldn’t do it even if you held a knife to my throat and demanded it.”

  Grace picked up her knife and waved it in the air as if to tempt Elinor to put it to just such a use. Her father spoke Grace’s thoughts.

  “Oscar,” said his uncle, “I don’t hardly think it would be right for you to take Miss Elinor away from Grace and me.”

  Oscar turned in his chair and peered out across the yard at the lighted kitchen of his own home. He could see his mother standing in the window, looking out at them.

  “I don’t think Mama’s gone be any too pleased either, when it comes down to it.”

  “Oscar,” said Elinor, “Miss Mary-Love is not pleased when you have anything to do with me. She will certainly not be looking forward to your walking me up a church aisle.”

  “Elinor,” cried James Caskey, “haven’t you ever been to a wedding? In a wedding, the groom is standing at the front, and the bride and her father come down the aisle. You say your daddy is dead, I guess I’ll have to take his place.”

  “Mr. James, please remember I have not said yes to Oscar!”

  “Don’t say yes!” cried Grace. “I want to marry you!”

  “Darling,” said Elinor with a smile to the child, “if girls married girls, then I’d marry you. But girls have to marry boys.”

  Oscar grinned and waved to his mother. Mary-Love disappeared from the window.

  “Oscar,” said Elinor, “I guess you and I will have to have a wedding, since I’m not allowed to marry Grace. But I want you to know right now, I’d rather have Grace.”

  Grace lowered her head poutingly onto her fists and wouldn’t look higher than the edge of her plate.

  . . .

  Later that night Oscar told Sister of his engagement and Sister told Mary-Love. Mary-Love shut the door of her room and didn’t come out again for three days. She feigned a nebulous indisposition of her bowels. Sister had to make all the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner, and that included inviting James and Grace and Miss Elinor to join them.

  . . .

  On the holiday morning Mary-Love looked wan and sad, as if she had just heard not only that her favorite cousin had died, but that he hadn’t left her any money. She opened the door for James and Grace and Miss Elinor. It was the first time Elinor Dammert had entered the house. “Sister tells me you and Oscar are going to be married,” Mary-Love said.

  “Oscar didn’t tell you?” asked James.

  “Sister told me,” said Mary-Love.

  “Sister was right,” said Elinor, unabashed. “Oscar and I are getting married. He was afraid that he was going to wear down Zaddie’s legs sending me so many notes. Married people don’t have to send notes.”

  “Zaddie,” said Mary-Love, “might have better things to do than traipse around town delivering notes. Zaddie might do a little something or other around the house. I wonder why we pay her at all. I wonder whether Zaddie wouldn’t appear to better advantage on the back of Creola Sapp’s old mule.” When she was distressed, Mary-Love’s speech tended toward the emphatic.

  There was no triumph in Miss Elinor’s demeanor at Thanksgiving dinner. Neither did she quail beneath Mary-Love’s baleful eye. She seemed perfectly at her ease, and actually laughed aloud at a joke that James told Sister.

  For dessert there were two cakes, one chocolate and one coconut, and three pies: Boston cream, pecan, and mincemeat. Sister and Miss Elinor cut them up and served out slices.

  Mary-Love got hers and said, “Sister says no date has been set for the wedding.”

  “That’s right,” said James. “Of course, everybody wanted to talk over the plans with you, Mary-Love.”

  “Elinor’s family should make all the decisions,” said Mary-Love.

  “All my family are dead,” said Elinor. Everyone at the table looked at Elinor in great surprise. No one but James had heard this before, and he had forgotten it. Everyone had supposed that she had many relatives still in and around Wade.

  “All of them?” asked Sister.

  “I’m the last one.”

  “Then, Mama,” said Oscar, “you’re gone have to help us.”

  “First thing to do,” said Mary-Love quickly, “is to set the date.”

  “All right, Mama,” said Oscar eagerly. During the course of the meal, Mary-Love had addressed several remarks to Miss Elinor, but none to her own son. Once when Oscar asked his mother a question she pretended not to have heard him and didn’t answer.

  “One year from today,” said Mary-Love.

  Miss Elinor stopped directly behind Mary-Love, holding a plate of pie intended for Grace who was vainly reaching for it. Elinor looked steadily at Oscar but said nothing.

  “Mama,” cried Oscar, “that’s a long time away! Elinor and I were thinking more like maybe February. You’re talking—”

  “Miss Elinor, you and Oscar don’t have anyplace to live, do you?”

  Elinor finally came around with the pie and set it before Grace. “No, ma’am,” she said, “not yet. But I think it will be easy enough to find something.”

  “Not something suitable,” said Mary-Love, staring straight in front of her. “Not something that would really do. If you got married in February, you’d have to live here with Sister and me.”

  “No!” cried Grace. “Miss Elinor said—”

  “Hush, child!” cried Sister in a low voice.

  “I’ve invited them to live with me, Mary-Love,” said James.

  “James, you have less room than I have. And it’s not right for newlyweds to share. Newlyweds need time to be alone together.”

  There was an iciness in Mary-Love’s voice that contradicted the benignity of her words.

  “Well, Mama, waiting a year doesn’t solve any of those problems,” said Oscar. “We’d still have to go out looking for a place to live.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” said Mary-Love quickly, looking at her son for the first time since the meal had begun. Oscar blushed and glanced away. Elinor had resumed her place at the table and regarded her future husband in silence.

  “I’ve already decided what to give you as a wedding gift.”

  “What?” said Oscar, looking up.

  “I’m building you a house,” said Mary-Love, “right here next door to us, between this house and the town line.” She went on quickly, before anyone had the opportunity to express surprise in words. “But even if they start tomorrow—and they won’t because I haven’t mentioned this to anybody—it won’t be done before April or May, and then we have to get it furnished. Sister and I will take care of that—Miss Elinor, you won’t have to do a thing.”

  Miss Elinor made no reply.

  “And when the house is done we can plan the wedding. That’ll take another couple of months. Oscar is my only boy, and I’m going to see that this thing is done right. Oscar?” she said, demanding his approval of the plan without objection.

  Oscar turned and looked at Elinor Dammert. She said nothing at all, made no motion of her eyes, did not alter her expression. He received no clue as to what she thought his answer ought
to be—and it was his masculine opacity that prevented him from understanding that no clue was a very large clue indeed.

  “Mama, does it have to be a whole year?” he asked at last.

  “Yes,” said Mary-Love.

  He then nodded acquiescence.

  “Miss Elinor?” said Mary-Love.

  “Whatever Oscar wants,” said Miss Elinor, putting a bite of coconut cake into her mouth.

  Chapter 6

  Oscar’s Retaliation

  Winters were mild in Perdido, but there was almost always a cold snap that lasted about a week late in January. Invariably some old colored woman in the country whose ramshackle house had walls made mostly of layers of newspaper would succumb and be found dead by her great-grandchildren who had come to gather her last pecans. The wives and daughters of the millowners would have a few days in which to show off their fur coats. Pipes burst everywhere, and everyone would sit in the kitchen by the stove. But with this single week as an exception, it was possible to sit out on the front porch all year long. And the weather was never so cold that Miss Elinor did not row Bray’s little green boat to school. It was a common remark that Miss Elinor didn’t feel the cold of that river anymore than did the fish that swam in it.

  During that winter of 1920, Elinor’s first in Perdido, the pact between Mary-Love and Oscar became known all over town; and it was a bargain that was seen in its true light. In exchange for Oscar’s postponing the wedding for a year (during which time Mary-Love doubtless hoped that the engagement would be severed), she would build her son a fine house next door to her own. Supposing she got her wish and Miss Elinor went back to wherever it was that Miss Elinor came from, Mary-Love would retain her unmarried son, and her only problem would be what to do with the house. But perhaps, it was conjectured by those who liked to think about contingencies, she would move into it herself.

  What Miss Elinor thought of the agreement no one ever learned. Elinor did not complain, though Christmas passed, and the new year came on, and nothing whatever had been done. There were no plans to be looked at. There wasn’t a post in the ground or a building permit to tack upon that nonexistent post or contractors’ agreements or strings pegged into the sandy earth. Mary-Love dallied throughout the winter, and whenever Oscar brought the subject up, she would cry, “Oh, Oscar, it’s gone be the prettiest house in town!” and then in the next breath propound some excuse that took her out of the room.