Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga

by Michael McDowell

  All the Caskey cooks working for weeks together wouldn’t have been able to prepare food for the crowd of people that was anticipated, and the caterers began arriving soon after dawn on Saturday morning.

  The day was overcast and dim, though warm. The caterers worried about rain, but the Caskeys had no fear. Elinor had declared, succinctly but with absolute authority, “No rain today.”

  At nine o’clock, Elinor and Queenie, already in their finery, converged on Miriam’s house and went upstairs to help Miriam into her dress. They found her struggling into it without ceremony or sentiment. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” she cried. “Don’t people know enough to take the damned pins out?”

  She was ready in another quarter-hour, and there was nothing to do but sit and wait until ten o’clock. Miriam sat impatiently by the window, beating her bouquet in the palm of her hand and occasionally calling out greetings to one of the workmen passing by below. Queenie went home to make certain that Malcolm got his tie on straight. Lucille and Grace came by, kissed Miriam, and said, “You are making a great mistake getting married to a man. We hope you’re gone be the happiest woman in the world.”

  A few minutes before it was time to go next door, Elinor got up and shut the door, then strode back across the room and stood before her daughter. She and Miriam were alone.

  “Well?” said Miriam impatiently. “Am I unzipped?”

  “You look beautiful,” said Elinor quietly. “I just wanted to ask you what you and Malcolm are doing about a ring?”

  Miriam laughed, and pointed at the dresser in the corner of the room. “Go ask Lilah if I don’t have a whole damned case full of rings in the bottom drawer over there—and that’s not to mention my safety-deposit boxes. I reached in there and pulled one out and gave it to Malcolm. No reason in putting out good money when I’ve got so many already.”

  “Miriam,” said Elinor, “you know I haven’t given you anything yet.”

  “Well, you’ve arranged all this,” said Miriam, waving her hand inclusively toward the window. Below were the striped tents, a dozen servants and hired men; the sound of rattling bottles and a murmur of directives floated up. “I couldn’t have done all that.”

  “I have something else for you though.”

  “What?” asked Miriam suspiciously.

  “This,” said Elinor, reaching into her purse and drawing out a simple diamond ring. The solitaire was cloudy but large, nearly three karats; the setting a four-pronged gold band. Miriam took it from her mother slowly, fingered the facets of the jewel, and then glanced back up at Elinor.

  “This was Grandmama’s,” said Miriam slowly. “You took it off her when she was lying in the coffin. Before I got there.”

  “That’s right,” said Elinor.

  “I have never forgiven you for that.”

  “I know,” said Elinor.

  “It didn’t matter that you were the one who told me where the oil was down below Gavin Pond Farm, it didn’t matter that you never tried to interfere with me in the running of the mill, it didn’t matter that you kept this family together and made everybody pretty much happy—I have never forgiven you for taking this ring.”

  Elinor said nothing.

  “I suppose,” said Miriam, “that you want me to forgive you now.”

  “I don’t expect that,” said Elinor. “But it was right that you should have the ring, now that you’re getting married.”

  Miriam glanced out of the window. “It’s getting time,” she said. “I’m going to have to go speak to Sister.” She slipped the ring on her finger, rose and went out of the room, leaving her mother alone.

  . . .

  Miriam stood at the side of Sister’s bed, holding her bouquet in her hands before her. It was the fragrance of those fresh flowers, so pervasive in the room that for so many years had smelled of only dead blossoms, that caused Sister’s eyes to open.

  “Sister,” said Miriam, “I’m going over to Elinor’s now, and Malcolm and I are gone get married.”

  Sister tried to turn away her head, but hadn’t the strength. Her eyes fell shut again.

  “We’ll spend the afternoon getting ready for the reception this evening, and then after that Malcolm and I are taking off for New Orleans for our honeymoon. We were gone go to New York, but there’s some business I need to get done in New Orleans, so we changed our plans. Malcolm says we’ll go anywhere I want to go, and if I don’t want to go anywhere we can stay right here. Queenie’s gone stay with you while I’m gone, the way she always does. And when we get back, I’m moving Malcolm in over here. I haven’t decided yet whether he’s gone stay in my room, or whether I’m gone put him across the hall. But that doesn’t matter to you, I guess, since you never get out of this room anyway. You don’t have to worry about Malcolm, because I’ve already told him to leave you alone, and not come near you unless you call him. And he’s already bought three new pairs of shoes with soft soles, so he won’t be stomping through the house the way he usually does.”

  By no movement or other sign did Sister indicate she had heard a thing Miriam had said to her.

  “Elinor just gave me Mama’s ring, Sister. I thought that ring was gone forever. It’s bigger than I remembered it, but the stone is flawed.”

  Sister still did not move. Her hands lay lifeless atop the coverlet.

  Miriam suddenly turned and dragged a chair up to the bed. She tossed her bouquet aside. She sat in the chair, reached forward, and grasped both Sister’s hands and squeezed them.

  “Your blessing!” she hissed. “Give me your blessing, Sister!”

  Sister slowly opened her eyes, and even more slowly, she shook her head no.

  . . .

  The wedding ceremony was quiet and hurried. Ruthie Driver officiated. Ruthie, as everyone had predicted, had grown up to be just like her mother, Annie Bell. When Annie Bell Driver died, Ruthie took over the pastorship for the Zion Grace Baptist Church. Now she was married herself, but most people were hard put to remember her husband’s name. Neither Miriam nor Malcolm attended Ruthie’s church, but Miriam said she felt more comfortable being married by a woman. Billy Bronze was Malcolm’s best man, and Lilah was the single bridesmaid. Oscar and Elinor held hands, as did Grace and Lucille. Tommy Lee put his arm around Queenie’s heaving shoulders. The only music was that of a carpenter’s last-minute hammering outside.

  “All right,” said Miriam, as soon as Ruthie had cried Amen to her prayer, “let’s get this show on the road.”

  Everyone ran home and changed out of their stiff clothes, and reappeared a few minutes later, ready to help with the final preparations for the reception that evening. Oscar took himself up to Sister’s room, and listened to a football game on the radio. Elinor and Queenie seemed to be everywhere at once, and there was so much to do and see to, that for the first time in more than ten years Ivey and Zaddie found themselves speaking to each other. Grace and Lucille systematically set tasks for themselves, and calmly carried them out one by one; they set up the punch tables, found the right tablecloths, unwrapped and washed all of James’s hundreds and hundreds of cut-glass punch cups. Even Lilah was busy, ordering about men who were three times her age, and feeling very important about it all. Miriam roamed about with Malcolm more or less in tow, saying a word here and there to the caterers, the servants, and the mill workers, not bothering to help with anything herself, but evidently enjoying herself greatly. “It just feels so good to be out of that damned dress,” she said several times. She wore Mary-Love’s diamond ring on her finger, but she avoided speaking to her mother.

  By four o’clock, everything was ready. Lilah ran upstairs at Sister’s and said to Oscar, “Granddaddy, Grandmama says it’s time to go home and get dressed. People are gone be coming up any time now.”

  Oscar rose, went to Sister’s side, and said, “Sister, is all this gone bother you? Are you gone be disturbed having so many people about?”

  Sister didn’t respond, but Oscar felt the slightest pressure of her fingers against
the palm of his hand. He hadn’t any idea how to interpret that.

  The first guests arrived half an hour early, which was only to be expected. It was impossible for those coming from long distances to time arrivals exactly. Queenie’s entire house had been set up as a kind of retiring room for gentlemen, while Miriam’s was given over to the ladies. Elinor and Oscar and Queenie, as parents of the wedded couple, received in the formal rooms of Elinor’s house. Miriam was dressed in green silk, and wore no other jewelry than Mary-Love’s solitaire, her simple wedding-band, and a single bracelet of emeralds. Malcolm, who had grown accustomed to wearing a suit, appeared serene in his new character as husband of the heiress. The guests agreed that Malcolm wasn’t the brightest man in the world, that he wasn’t the husband for every woman, and that he doubtless would be led a merry dance by his wife, but they also agreed that, on the whole, he was exactly suited to the position to which Miriam had raised him. No one was surprised when she sent him off to refill her punch cup, to get her three petit fours of the type she liked best, to ask Elinor if the man from Texas National Oil had arrived yet. This was exactly her treatment of him before their marriage, and everyone had assumed that this was the way things would continue.

  Dinner was served outside. The striped canvas tents billowed and peaked in the breeze and underneath, the trunks of the water oaks were like slim, grotesquely curved columns. Sand got into everyone’s shoes, but the hundreds of yellow lights provided warm, flattering illumination, and for once the smell of the Perdido, flowing closely at hand behind the levee, was sweet, as if specially perfumed for the occasion.

  Perdido was beside itself with pleasure at this grand party. Miriam had not made many demands concerning the preparations, but she had decreed that every mill worker receive an invitation. And so every mill worker—and every mill worker’s wife—was there; most had bought new clothes for the occasion. There wasn’t a one of them that Miriam didn’t know by name. Oscar, in the receiving line, was shocked by the number he either had forgotten or had never known at all. Guests came from all over south Alabama and western Florida, arriving in caravans of cars from Mobile, Montgomery, and Pensacola. Oil and lumber men flew in from New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Houston. There was even an auxiliary tent set up behind Queenie’s house for the black population of Perdido.

  After the dinner was served, the mill workers took off their jackets, and quickly cleared away all the tables and chairs. The orchestra meanwhile tuned its instruments and began to play. Sammy Sapp and an army of black girls and boys raked the sand once again in preparation for the dancing. That was at nine o’clock, and Miriam declared that the music would play until the last couple dropped on their feet.

  Miriam and Malcolm had the first dance, and were applauded and cheered for their expertise. Elinor and Queenie exchanged proud but slightly puzzled glances—neither of them had imagined that those two would have performed so creditably.

  Oscar cut in, and danced off with Miriam. Malcolm bowed to Elinor, and brought her out onto the sand. Shortly thereafter, the dancing was general, and more than a thousand people waltzed in the sand among the water oaks.

  Those who had lived in Perdido a long time marveled not at the splendor of the proceedings, for the Caskeys were very rich indeed, and could well afford this and much more besides, but rather that there was any party at all. No one could remember when any Caskey had been married off with any celebration whatsoever. Caskey weddings had always been simple if somewhat hugger-mugger affairs, and that Miriam of all people should have wanted—or even allowed—such an outlay as this was as astonishing a thing as Perdido was likely to see in a long while.

  . . .

  Because Miriam’s house had been set aside for the ladies, there was throughout the evening a constant traipsing in and out the front door, in and out the back door, up and down the stairs, into and out of Miriam’s room, the two guest rooms, and the two bathrooms. Before the party really got under way, Queenie had gone up and sat with Sister for a few minutes, thinking that she was paler and less responsive than ever. Queenie had also installed Luvadia’s ten-year-old daughter, Versie, as a sort of guard for Sister, giving the child strict instructions to keep the door closed against all visitors. But Versie was a little country colored girl and no match for the ladies of Perdido, who knew Sister’s room to be at the end of the hall. The ladies of Perdido were not slow in taking advantage of this unprecedented opportunity of peeking in and speaking to Sister Haskew, who hadn’t been seen on the streets of Perdido in over ten years. They came singly at first, brushing aside Versie and sitting at the side of the bed for a few moments, speaking volubly to Sister, lamenting her ill health, and finally growing constrained when it became apparent that Sister was not going to respond in any way. Soon it seemed impossible to shut the door, and the ladies of Perdido swarmed into the room and surrounded Sister’s bed. That room, visited so rarely in the past decade, became a welter of silks and wools, powders, and perfumes, gabble and laughter. Sister lay immobile, propped up against her wall of goose-down pillows, her hands upturned and curled on the neatly turned coverlet.

  Versie grew so demoralized by her inability to keep out these women that at last she gave up the fight altogether, and sneaked away, down the stairs, out the back door, and into the tent reserved for the colored people. She hid in a shadowed corner, drank punch, and ate chicken until she couldn’t eat or drink any more. She wasn’t discovered until an hour later, by Oscar, whose dimming eyesight caused him to trip over her on his way to the bathroom in Queenie’s house.

  “Who is that?” he asked.

  “It’s Versie, Mr. Oscar,” the child replied, frightened.

  “Is that Luvadia’s Versie?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What are you doing here? Queenie told me she had put you upstairs with Sister.”

  “She did, Mr. Oscar,” Versie replied, terrified at being discovered in the neglect of her duty, “but they was so many ladies in there, they ’bout drove me out!”

  “What!” exclaimed Oscar. “You mean to say you let people get into that room?”

  “I couldn’t keep ’em out!”

  “Versie, you go find Queenie and you get her up there and you get those women out of there, you hear me? Right now!”

  Oscar went on to the bathroom, but when he was finished he went next door to Miriam’s and went inside. The ladies screamed and laughed at a man in their midst, but Oscar paid no attention to them. He marched up the stairs and down the hall to Sister’s room. Versie evidently hadn’t found Queenie yet—or perhaps Versie was so afraid of Queenie’s finding out what she had done that she had not sought her at all—for the room was still crowded with women. They sat in the chairs, they leaned against the furniture, they perched on the windowsill and the edge of the bed. There in their midst lay Sister, silent and unmoving.

  “Out!” cried Oscar loudly. “Everybody out!”

  There was an excited protest, for Oscar’s tone was rude and peremptory. Yet Oscar said nothing else. He simply took hold of the arm of the woman nearest him—the wife of one of the new doctors in town—and shoved her none too gently out the door.

  “Well!” she cried, and turned around to object, but by then Oscar had grabbed a second woman, the mill accountant’s wife, and shoved both women out into the hallway.

  Now Oscar had his hands on a third; he kept repeating over and over again, “Out! Out! All of you out!” Seeing that he meant business, there was a general retreat to the door, and in only a few seconds more, the room was cleared. Oscar slammed the door shut, whipped the curtains closed, and he and his sister were alone. Oscar pulled a chair up close to the bed.

  “Sister,” he said in a low voice, “have you got your eyes open? It’s so dark in here, I cain’t hardly see.”

  Sister didn’t move that Oscar could tell.

  “I got ’em all out. Queenie had no business leaving Luvadia’s Versie up here. That child is too small to bar a door. But don’t you worry, �
�cause I’m gone sit up here with you. And there’s not one of them that’s gone get past that door, not while I’m in here.”

  So, waiting for Queenie, Oscar sat back in the chair, and told Sister about the reception—how many people were there, and who had said what, and how pretty Miriam was, and how handsome Malcolm looked. He could hear the orchestra playing from its stage at the edge of the woods, and when he knew the words of the songs, he’d sing along for a while and smile at Sister and straighten her covers. After a while, though, he grew serious, and said, “I’m gone say something you don’t want to hear, Sister, but it’s got to be said. And that’s that you have treated Miriam badly about this whole business. Miriam didn’t deserve to be treated badly, she has always been good to you. Miriam is sharp, but I don’t believe that there was ever a human being on the face of this earth more faithful than Miriam. She would do anything for you, and you have treated her badly. You have been acting the way Mama would have acted. There’s no other way to put it. You are getting to be just like Mama, and it has just about killed me to watch it happen. But here you are, and it’s not too late to change, ’cause when Miriam and Malcolm come back from New Orleans, they’re gonna be right down there at the other end of the hall, and you’re gone have twenty opportunities a day to be nice to them. And you could do it, if you put your mind to it. I cain’t speak for Miriam, whether she really loves Malcolm or not, and I cain’t speak for Malcolm, whether he loves Miriam or not. But it looks that way, despite what any of us ever thought about either of them. And they deserve every chance in the world of being happy. I have never said this, Sister, I have never even said this to Elinor, but it hurt me, and it hurt me bad, when you and Mama took Miriam away from Elinor and me. I watched her grow up over here knowing that she was mine, knowing that she had been taken away from me and that she would never ever belong to me again. That hurt me bad, and even Frances couldn’t make up for it. Billy doesn’t make up for it, Lilah doesn’t make up for it. When you took Miriam away from me, that was a loss that I have never gotten over, not to this very day, Sister. So you have an obligation—an obligation to me—to see to it that my little girl, my little girl who was taken away from me so many, many years ago, is happy. Sister,” he said softly, “Sister, are you gone do it?”