Of Love and Dust

by Ernest J. Gaines

  Then she put it to the test. She started sitting on the gallery watching. If she got the right look she was going to make her move. She didn’t care if he could or he couldn’t, she just wanted him to touch her. She wanted a mark on her flesh. She had to have proof, she had to have a mark. You had white women who had just said it and had had a nigger lynched; you had some who had dreamed it and had had a nigger lynched; others had done it themselves and had had a nigger lynched; but Louise needed the mark. Because she wasn’t sure she had anything worthwhile, and she was afraid if she hollered rape everybody might laugh at her. But with a mark, Bonbon would definitely have to kill the nigger. Marshall Hebert would definitely get rid of Bonbon for the stealing that he had been doing—and she would be free to leave.

  Aunt Margaret sat back against the tree with Tite in her arms. Tite was still asleep; Aunt Margaret could feel her breathing.

  Aunt Margaret looked at the house again. The house was quiet. The yard was quiet. Not a bird was singing in any of the trees; not a dog was barking anywhere in the quarter.

  “But now it ain’t rape,” Aunt Margaret was thinking. “Because I was there and I know ’bout the dresser behind the door. But even if it ain’t rape, if she say he touched her, won’t they still kill him? Ain’t he just as dead now as he go’n ever be, even if they don’t kill him till next week or next year? It’s when she get ready for it to happen, it go’n happen.”

  Aunt Margaret saw Louise come out on the gallery and go around the house. She called the dog and held him by the collar. Marcus climbed out the window and the dog growled and tried to break away from Louise. When Marcus crossed the fence, Louise turned the dog loose and went back inside. Tite had woke up, and when she saw Marcus coming across the yard, she jumped out of Aunt Margaret’s lap and ran toward him. Marcus took her by the hand and led her back to the pile of leaves. Aunt Margaret was there now. She didn’t say anything to Marcus, she just stood there a while, looking at him. He picked up his rake and watched her from over his shoulder. Tite picked up her branch.

  “Coo-dee,” she said to Aunt Margaret. “Coo-dee. You in the way.”

  34

  We got back to the quarter just after dark. Bonbon’s yard was red. I didn’t know what it was at first; then I remembered Marcus had to burn the leaves after he raked them up. When we went by the house I saw him standing against the fire. The whole yard and the front part of the house was lit up.

  Bonbon took me and Pauline home and went back up the quarter. Aunt Margaret said when he came into the yard, he stood on the walk looking at Marcus a while before he came up to the house.

  “Still here, Margaret?” he said to her.

  “Yes sir,” she said.

  He went in the kitchen and washed his face and hands and sat down at the table. A minute later Louise and Tite came out of the bedroom. Louise wore a pink dress with a black patent-leather belt round her waist. She wore sandals—not shoes; she never wore shoes. Tite had on a little blue dress with a white collar and white lace on the sleeves.

  “Van-wah,” Bonbon said to Tite.

  Tite went to him and he picked her up and sat her on his knee. He looked at her and passed his hand over the side of her face and her hair. Her hair looked whiter still with his big red hands going through it, Aunt Margaret said. Bonbon and Tite exchanged a few words in Creole, then he kissed her and put her back on the floor. He watched Tite go back to her chair. Aunt Margaret said she never saw a father who loved his child more than Bonbon loved Tite at that moment.

  Bonbon and Louise looked at each other and Bonbon said something under his breath. Louise didn’t say anything; she sat down at the table and waited for Aunt Margaret to serve them. Aunt Margaret put the food on the table and moved back near the stove.

  They ate quietly. Aunt Margaret was looking at Louise all the time. She wasn’t worried about Louise telling—she knew Louise wasn’t going to tell from the moment Louise came out in the yard to hold the dog back; she was looking at Louise to see what change this had made, if it had made any change at all.

  Louise raised her head and looked at Bonbon. After a while Bonbon looked back at her. He said something about New Orleans. Louise didn’t say anything; her face was as plain as a piece of blank paper. Bonbon glanced at his little girl and looked down at his food again. Louise looked at Bonbon a moment longer, then she looked at Aunt Margaret. Her face showed no more expression than it did when she was looking at Bonbon.

  “Wait now,” Aunt Margaret thought. “Wait now, wait. Maybe he can’t see anything. Maybe you need one of them loud-speakers to make him know you been bouncing on that bed all evening, but I heard you, remember?”

  Louise chewed her food slowly and looked at Aunt Margaret. Her expression didn’t change.

  “Wait now,” Aunt Margaret thought. “Wait now. You trying to tell me you don’t know what you did?”

  Louise turned to Bonbon.

  “Hot in New Orleans?” she said. But she looked down at her plate before Bonbon could answer her.

  Bonbon glanced up at her and grunted. Louise looked up at him again after he had lowered his head. She was chewing her food slowly; her face hadn’t changed.

  “Wait now,” Aunt Margaret thought. “Wait now—now wait. You got that much control, you, to pretend that nothing happened? Wait now.” Then she thought: “Yes, yes, I see, something did happen. You nothing but a girl, and a boy come to play with you. You got tired painting your toenails and looking through that old magazine; you wanted a boy to come play with you. He come, he jumped through that window and he run’d you all over that room, and when he caught you he took you to that bed, and he made you forget everything because that was the first time a boy had ever did that to you. Oh, another one had got on you (Tite there to prove that) but he hadn’t jumped through the window to get on you, he hadn’t run’d you all over the room to get on you, he hadn’t teared your clothes off, called them two little titties sweet little pears. But this one did, and because he did, did you forget the plan you had in mind? Is that all you wanted was for somebody—black or white—to tear your clothes off and say your titties looked like sweet pears? Or is that it until you get tired of him—because children do get tired. Or is that it until they catch y’all together or until you remember all the hurt you done suffered? What is it? What is it? Don’t tell me that that fool out there can wipe away everything that easy—things you been planning ever since you been here. And how long you think this can go on before your husband find out? Do you know what you doing? Do you know? I done heard the screaming of lynching, and it’s no pleasant sound, I ’sure you.”

  Without changing expression at all, Louise looked down at her plate again. Aunt Margaret looked at Bonbon.

  “When you leave, Margaret, tell him to go,” Bonbon said.

  “Yes sir,” Aunt Margaret said.

  “Can I see the fire, Papa?” Tite asked in Creole.

  “Go with Margaret,” he said.

  Tite slid away from her chair. Aunt Margaret took her by the hand and led her in the front room. After putting on her big yellow straw hat that she had worn up the quarter that morning, she led Tite out in the yard. The fire had died down, but still there was enough left to light up a part of the yard. Aunt Margaret could see Marcus leaning on the rake, gazing down at the fire. Tite broke away from her and ran toward Marcus. Marcus looked down at Tite and smiled at her, then he started watching Aunt Margaret from over his shoulder.

  “I ain’t the one to watch,” Aunt Margaret said. “I ain’t go’n do you a thing. He say you can go home. That’s if you don’t feel like jumping through that window again.”

  “I’m ready to leave.”

  “You quite sure?” Aunt Margaret said. “He look tired and sleepy, you won’t have to worry ’bout him. Just another nickel for Tite.”

  “Kess-coo-sey?” Tite said.

  Nobody answered Tite. Aunt Margaret and Marcus were still looking at each other. Aunt Margaret wanted to hit him, but she knew it wouldn’
t have been any use.

  Marcus raked up the few leaves that laid round the edge of the fire. When the fire had burned down again, he leaned the rake and broom against one of the trees and went out of the yard. As Aunt Margaret started toward the house with Tite, she saw Louise standing in the door. Louise was watching Marcus go out of the yard.

  Aunt Margaret told me all this later that night while we sat in the kitchen at the table. The longer she talked, the madder I got. I already saw myself walking into that room and busting Marcus in his mouth. And I wanted him to swing back so I could really beat the hell out of him.

  “And the ones in Baton Rouge?” Aunt Margaret said. She sat close to the table, leaning on it with her hands clasped together.

  I told her about Pauline and Bonbon in Baton Rouge.

  “Look like you went to that saloon much as I went to that door?” she said.

  I nodded. Then I thought, “Hit Marcus for what? Why hit Marcus? Didn’t I play the pimp? Didn’t I drink with them? Didn’t I find the place so he could go in and lay with her? Why hit Marcus?

  “Hit him because you know what can happen, that’s why,” I thought. “Because you know they have no pity when they come for one, that’s why. Hit him because if they found out about him, every man, woman and child’s life would be in danger, that’s why.”

  I stood up to leave.

  “You ate supper?” Aunt Margaret asked me.

  “I’m not hungry, Aunt Margaret. Thanks.”

  I thought about one thing when I left Aunt Margaret’s house: going home and busting Marcus in his mouth. But before I got halfway there I had changed my mind again. Because I knew that this wouldn’t stop Marcus. Nothing was going to stop him. Nothing could stop him unless you killed him or locked him up in prison. I was hoping that when his trial came up they would lock him in prison, but after thinking about it I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not after Miss Julie Rand had given Marshall Hebert’s people forty years of her life.

  When I came to the house, instead of going to Marcus’s room I went to my own room. I opened up a bottle of beer and drank half of it, then I threw the bottle out of the door. I went back on the gallery, grinding my fist in the palm of my hand. I don’t know how many times I went from one end of the gallery to the other before I went in the room where he was. He was laying on the bed in the dark. I went to the bed and stood right over him. He didn’t move, he didn’t even look at me.

  “When they come after you, Marcus, don’t come to me,” I said, calmly as I could. “Don’t come to me, because I won’t hide you.”

  He didn’t even look at me. My fist was clenched, but I knew I wasn’t going to hit him. I only hit people to protect myself or to protect somebody else. But to hit Marcus was just a waste of time.

  35

  We didn’t have any more to say to each other after that. He stayed on his side of the house, I stayed on mine. He stayed on his side of the gallery, I stayed on mine. There wasn’t any dividing line on the gallery—no wall, no fence or anything like that—but there was a board on the floor neither one of us was crossing. When he got hungry he went up to Mrs. Laura Mae to eat. Whether he washed his hands and face up there I can’t tell, but he wasn’t using my washpan and tub any more. I didn’t tell him not to use it, I didn’t care if he did or not; but since we weren’t speaking to each other, he took it for granted I didn’t want him using any of my things.

  Monday, in the field, I didn’t have any pity on him. I drove the tractor just like I was supposed to drive it when three people were working back there. When he fell back I threw him a sack that I had brought from the yard. When Freddie, John and I got to the end we rested. When Marcus caught up, I drove off again. John and Freddie didn’t know what to make of it. They could tell that Marcus and I had had a run-in, but they couldn’t tell what it was about.

  But working Marcus like a mule no more changed him than Murphy’s one punch or Bonbon’s riding that horse six inches behind his back. He went up the quarter with me at twelve, laying flat on that corn and looking for her just like he had done all the other times. And she was there, too. She was sitting in that chair with one leg tucked under her (like a child ten or eleven), waving a piece of white rag over her shoulders like she was shooing away flies. I didn’t know until later that this signal was to let him know what days he could come there and what days he couldn’t.

  Tuesday at one, when Aunt Margaret knocked off, Louise told her to come back the next evening. Aunt Margaret said since she worked Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, she couldn’t imagine why she had to go back Wednesday. She didn’t say anything then, but Wednesday around four thirty she went back up there and asked Louise what she had to do.

  “Take care Judy,” Louise said.

  Aunt Margaret still didn’t know why all of a sudden on Wednesday (and in the evening, too) she had to look after Tite. She and Tite sat on the gallery a while, then they walked across the yard under the big trees. They even went out to the store and bought cold drinks and stood on the gallery watching the sailboats on the river.

  But inside the store, just before they went out on the gallery, old Godeau, the clubfoot Cajun storekeeper, had given Tite a penny stick of peppermint candy. He always gave Tite a penny candy or a penny gum when she came to the store because he knew she had a bad heart. After handing her the candy, he looked at Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was shaking her head sadly.

  “Maybe he give his wife little bit more, that black one down there little bit less, this one don’t come like that,” old Godeau said.

  “I don’t know nothing ’bout that,” Aunt Margaret said, and led Tite out on the gallery.

  When they finished drinking their cold drinks, they took the empty bottles back inside and told old Godeau good day. But as they went back on the gallery, Aunt Margaret stopped Tite and asked her if she had told old Godeau thanks for the peppermint candy.

  “No,” Tite said.

  “Go back in there and say, ‘Maa-cee boo-coo, Monshoo Godeau’; then come on back out here.”

  Tite went back into the store. “If I don’t tell the poor little thing how to act, she’ll never know,” Aunt Margaret thought. “God knows them two down the quarter don’t ever teach her nothing.” Tite came back.

  “You told him?” Aunt Margaret asked her.

  “Wee,” Tite said.

  They went back down the quarter and sat on the gallery. While Bonbon, Louise and Tite were eating supper that night, Bonbon told Louise he had to go somewhere later on. Louise glanced up at him but didn’t say anything. What could she say? Bonbon had been going somewhere after supper two and three times a week for the past ten years. After he left, Aunt Margaret and Tite went out on the gallery to sit down. They hadn’t been out there five minutes when they heard the dog growling on the left side of the house. Aunt Margaret looked toward the road, but she didn’t see anybody passing by. The dog growled again. “Something in this yard,” Aunt Margaret thought. She got up and went to the end of the gallery, still holding Tite by the hand. She said she had expected to see another dog or a cat outside the fence—but who did she see?

  Marcus was standing outside the fence, looking up at Louise’s bedroom window. Aunt Margaret made a loud groan and nearly fell down on the gallery. But she managed to get Tite back before Tite could see him. She led Tite back to the chair and sat down.

  Louise went out the back door to lead the dog away. The dog growled and growled, Louise pulled and pulled. Aunt Margaret couldn’t see them, but she could tell from the dog’s growling that he was straining to get to Marcus, and Louise was straining to get him away from the fence. Louise won out. A moment later Aunt Margaret heard the fence sagging and saw it shaking as Marcus climbed over into the yard. Then Louise came back inside—and the same noise from last Saturday started all over again. Looked like they kept picking up that same chair and slamming it against the wall, Aunt Margaret said. Then looked like they pulled out a dresser drawer and slammed that on the floor, then looke
d like they both jumped on the bed at the same time (feet first), then jumped down at the same time. Then one of them, or maybe both of them, picked up that chair and slammed it against the wall again. “Like she was trying to make up for all the playing she had never had,” Aunt Margaret said.

  “Mama kill rat?” Tite said.

  “Yes.”

  “I want see rat.”

  “He might bite you, honey. He’s a big old rat,” Aunt Margaret said.

  Then the slamming and falling and jumping stopped. It was quiet now. But not quiet either—because now the spring on the bed started, Aunt Margaret said.

  A half hour later, Louise came out the room and went out in the yard again. Aunt Margaret said no sooner Marcus hit the ground, the dog started growling. And it was a good thing Marcus was still nimble at getting over fences because the dog got away from Louise a couple seconds before he was supposed to.