The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  The dusty square was full of children rolling hoops, tormenting ants, ignoring their mothers’ cries and their nurses’: Marster Jack, you know you cain’t be out here in the hot afternoon! and You all get home fo’ the dogs get you! The children laughed with high, clear voices. Under the trees, country men squatted on their heels and with their clasp knives carved at wedges of cheese, and before each one lay a square of muslin piled with biscuits or bread, and for each a tin of sardines with the top rolled back. Old Dan the Rag Man sat with his china cup rattling coins, while a black woman in a scarlet headrag moved through the shade, a basket on her arm, crying Bla-a-a-ack berries! I got bla-a-a-ack berries! Blackberries! Wagons drew up to the hitching rings, and beneath every tree, and by every watering trough of mossy wood, horses and mules switched their tails.

  Then down the southerly road past Audley Brummett’s livery where, in the feed lot, Audley and Mister Johnny Cross were discussing a mule. Houses now, windows thrown open, dogs lounging in the yards. Houses never seemed more content, more serene and eternal, than at a summer noontime when dinner was laid in the dining room and the doors thrown open to the breeze. At Shipwright’s, two boys wrestled in the dust while a negro woman scowled at them from the gallery. A little farther then, and Frye’s Tavern, swaybacked between its two chimneys, and on its rambling gallery a dozen men with their boots propped on the rail, waiting for Queenolia Divine to announce dinner. Then John Walker’s, where a pair of colts stood tethered, and young Dauncy combing their tails, and a green parrot swinging from its perch on the gallery screeching Damn the Whigs! Damn the Whigs!

  Through all these things Old Hundred-and-Eleven moved, following the boy, still clinging to his small, damp hand. He didn’t bother to speak, for he knew somehow that his voice would not be heard, any more than he could feel the dust under his soles.

  Then they left the southerly road and made their way up a sunken lane, once an Indian trail, now rutted by carts and wagons and bordered by worm fences. The heat was palpable here, and the air still and murmurous with insects. On either side, the corn grew tall, tasseling, and redwings perched on the stalks. The boy passed over a thick rattlesnake sunning in the lane, and Old Hundred-and-Eleven followed unafraid. In a little while they left even the sunken lane, and here was new ground dotted with stumps, then a pine thicket, then the slope of Carter’s hill rising. The old man bent to the slope, following the boy.

  At last, Old Hundred-and-Eleven found himself on the cleared knob of the hill, in a grassy place strewn with yellow, black-eyed flowers and clumps of blackberry vine. The old man was surprised to find the boy suddenly gone; he searched and found him sitting with his arms wrapped about his knees, his face toward the town and the hills beyond. I thought I’d lost ye, said the old man, but this time the lad gave no notice that he’d heard.

  Old Hundred-and-Eleven stood quietly then, a little behind the boy, watching the wind ruffle his hair—and seeing all below just as the boy saw it, knowing it was for the last time. He looked over the canopy of trees, the cleared places where cabins and houses stood, the spires of churches and the cupola of the courthouse where the bright flag waved, and he somehow understood that he’d been given this moment to say goodbye. Not to life, not yet, though the old man would not have been afraid, nor very sorry, to give it up; but to the world down yonder that was gone, and to the boy who was gone, whose name he no longer knew. Old Hundred-and-Eleven did not know why he was chosen. Certainly it was not to judge, not to weigh the decency and kindness against the cruelty, the greed, the niggers with welts on their backs. Old Hundred-and-Eleven would not judge, even if it had been offered him, but he was glad to see it all spread out below him one last time, falling toward the afternoon, the twilight, the darkness that must come. He put his hand on the boy’s head, though he knew he wouldn’t feel it, and spoke, though he knew the boy couldn’t hear him now. I thank ye, he said. He turned to go then, went a little way down the hill toward where the pines were green and dark, then stopped and turned again. The boy still sat there with his knees drawn up, the sun high so that he made no shadow. Don’t grieve yourself, said Old Hundred-and-Eleven. It’ll always be there, somewheres. This time the boy looked up, but if he heard the old man, or saw him against the trees, he gave no sign.

  A different light then, for the sun had long since passed over the house, and Morgan’s voice, and the touch of her cool hand on his forehead. “You gon’ sleep all the day?” she said. “It’s suppertime, and—here now, what you got to be cryin about?”

  THEY HAD SUPPER in the yard, fireflies rising all around them, on a table spread with Irish linen. The cloth was yellow from years in a cedar chest, and the silver tarnished to the color of eggplant, and most of the china chipped around the edges as if mice had chewed it. But the candles burned bright, dancing their flames in the little breeze, never minding the twilight that lay golden on the grass.

  “A waste of good tapers, you ask me,” said old Frank Harper. He picked noisily at his teeth with the bone of a chicken Uncle Priam had stumbled upon in the road. The solitary bird had not gone far among so many, but the greens had, and the early peas.

  “Nobody asked you, sir,” said Aunt Vassar to the old man, and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief that had come from France.

  Old Mister Carter regarded the table as if it were a lost city come to light again. He had not had the china and silver out of the sideboard, nor even seen the linen, in the twenty years he had been a widower. But now he remembered each piece, where it came from, what the weather was like and what his wife was wearing, and on and on, spinning hours and days from a teaspoon, a plate, a cruet etched with irises. All these things he told to Professor Brown and Uncle Priam as they sat under a leaning scuppernong arbor after supper. Uncle Priam, who had never been out of Cumberland County, tried to imagine the scenes the old man described. Professor Brown, who rarely spoke at any time, was a good and patient listener; he drowsed in his chair while the old man went on, nodding his head from time to time to the sound of carriage wheels on the Champs-Elysées.

  The cavalry mount Gault had ridden was tied now in the shade of a hackberry tree, swishing his tail at the flies. Beowulf, having gleaned all he could from beneath the table, lay under the horse’s feet. Young Alex Rhea was currying the horse for the third time that afternoon, running his hand along the shiny flanks and legs where not a speck of mud or dust remained.

  “I swear, son,” said Ida Rhea, “you are goin to wear that horse out combin him. He won’t be any bigger’n a fyce dog, you keep on.”

  “Don’t let him get behind that beast,” warned Aunt Vassar. “He’ll get knocked in the head, sure.”

  The two women sat at the table, resting, reluctant to clear it away. Mrs. Rhea was wrapped in a shawl despite the heat, while Aunt Vassar fanned herself. “You won’t go to Brazil then?” Aunt Vassar asked.

  “Oh, Lord,” said Ida, “I don’t want to hear mention of that place long as I live. I was always dead set against it, you know, but the Judge—well, he had this notion … oh, never mind. Now that Morgan is to marry again, he’ll have to stay around so he can worry them to death. Talk about Providence!”

  Aunt Vassar lifted her eyebrows at the mention of marriage. Apparently, Ida Rhea was privy to information that she, Vassar Bishop, was not—and her very nephew the groom! Presumably, anyway. Certainly. Now Ida was laying for her, consumed with the desire to press her wrinkled old hand to her breast and say Oh, my dear—you didn’t know? Well, let her be consumed. “You know, I have been thinkin,” said Aunt Vassar. “Have you ever been to the coast?” She was gratified by the slightest hint of pique in her old friend’s eye.

  “To—,” Ida began, and drew her shawl around her. “Well, yes, I suppose I have—a long time ago.”

  “I have an old acquaintance in Pass Christian,” Aunt Vassar said. “A Miz Necaise, a widow upon whom virtue sits lightly, though she has long since passed into the theoretical stage. I have a mind to visit her, as I used to in the
old times. Come along.”

  “Oh, my,” said Ida. “I don’t know.”

  “Nonsense,” said Vassar. “Don’t stop to think about it, just say you will. We’ll make the Judge come too, tedious as he is. A packet to New Orleans, a steamer to the Pass—it’ll be lovely, won’t it, to get the stink of ashes out of your nose?”

  “But the expense! I—”

  “Pah!” snorted Aunt Vassar. She leaned forward and touched her companion on the arm. “Come to think of it, let’s leave the Judge home. Then we can flirt our way to heaven’s gate.”

  “Vassar Marie!” cried Ida. She colored scarlet, and Aunt Vassar fanned her briskly. “I am too old for such foolishness,” said Ida, “or even to think about it.” Then, after a moment, “Do you really think we could?”

  “Hah!” said Aunt Vassar. “Child’s play.”

  Ida looked down and plucked at her shawl. “I always loved the sound the water made. I never forgot it, you know.”

  “One never does,” said Vassar gently. A moment passed, while the old women listened to the sea. Then Vassar sat bolt upright and snapped her fan shut. “Now then,” she said. “Tell me about this marriage.”

  On the back porch, Old Hundred-and-Eleven sat working up a new chaw of tobacco. It was some of the Judge’s stock, and not bad for war times, but a little too sweet for Old Hundred-and-Eleven’s taste. Still, he hadn’t had a chaw in three days and was not about to find fault with this one.

  Beside him sat a crystal goblet full of cool water. He could not remember the last time he’d drunk from a glass, and this particular glass, he’d discovered, rang like a bell when he tapped it. Next to the glass lay his Bible, open to the picture of the angel and the sleeping children. From time to time he would look at the picture, then steal a glance at Morgan where she sat on a garden bench with Gawain Harper. Every time he did so, a sigh would make its way out of his heart. Well, it was all right, as long as it wasn’t that Stribling fellow. He wondered where Stribling had got to. He hadn’t been at supper, and somebody had remarked that his horse was gone from the shed. No doubt he was off stirring up some more trouble for everybody.

  As the twilight deepened, the old man found himself looking at all the people gathered in the yard, and listening to their voices as they talked quietly about this or that. The sight of them made him feel good, in spite of his broken heart, and he knew that what he said to the boy on Carter’s hill was true. Then the thought of that made him sad, so that he felt sad and good at the same time, and he found others walking through his mind: General von Arnim, and Molochi Fish, and poor Dauncy and Jack who, this time yesterday, were playing marbles in the dirt, and now they were under the dirt themselves. He shook his head. “Pandemonium!” he said, and spat a stream of ambure into the yard. “Don’t grieve yourself!” Then he tapped the glass with a horny nail and made it ring.

  So the twilight grew, and the yard was full of fireflies, and chimney swifts twittered overhead, and the bullbats were coming out. The mosquitoes too, and Morgan felt them at her ankles, so she and Gawain rose from the bench and passed around the house to the front yard.

  The oaks were solemn and full of shadows, their crowns brushed with the fire of the setting sun. Along the fence rows, where the good, sweet clover grew, a troop of rabbits inched along, grazing. Across the lane, in the glebe of Holy Cross, the priest swung at the tall weeds with a scythe. He made a mysterious figure there in the golden light, and the sound of the blade was soft and pretty—one of those sounds, Gawain remarked, that give comfort when you, don’t have to make it yourself.

  Morgan laughed at that. She had gotten some better at laughing as the day wore along. She had slept awhile; then, though it was only Monday, she took a bath on the back porch, shielded by blankets hung all around. Now her hair was clean and pinned up, and she wore a soft cotton shift she had made from old sheets, and the violence of the morning seemed far away now, like a dream in chiaroscuro. But it was no dream, and when they came to the place where Gault had lain, Morgan turned and fisted her hand and pressed it to Gawain’s chest. “You tell me somethin, you,” she said.

  “I’d be delighted,” said Gawain, smiling. “Last night in the barn, I found your—”

  “Hush!” she said, reddening. “I don’t mean that. I mean—” She struck Gawain lightly with her fist. “I mean, why did you put that shotgun in my hands this mornin? Why did you do that to me, for God’s sake?”

  “Ah,” he said. He blew out his breath and took her hand. He unfolded the fist and pressed her palm to his cheek.

  “Was it to teach me a lesson?” she persisted.

  “No,” he said. “No, there ain’t any lesson you could get from that, nor any I could teach you.”

  “What then?”

  He thought a moment. His eyes strayed away, and the gesture was not lost on Morgan. “I am sorry for it,” he said at last. “I wanted … I wanted the choice to be yours. I didn’t trust the rest of us, but I trusted you, and I knew that whatever happened would be the right thing because you wouldn’t do the wrong thing.”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “That is a smooth answer,” she said.

  “It’s the only one I got.”

  “And if I’d pulled the trigger?” she asked.

  “But you didn’t,” he said, and when she started to reply, he held up his hand. “You didn’t, and if you want to go on wonderin, you may do so, but you didn’t. That’s all that matters.”

  “You think so,” she said, and pulled her hand away.

  A coolness passed between them then, and for a moment Gawain wished he were home in bed, or under it. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said lamely.

  “The truth,” she said. “Why did you do it?”

  “I told you—”

  “You tell me what you think I want to hear,” she said, and felt the hot tears rising. I will not cry, she thought. I will not!

  “Now, darlin—,” began Gawain.

  “What if I’d blown that man’s brains out!” she cried. “What kind of dreams would that make?”

  “Oh, I could tell you all about that!” snapped Gawain Harper. “Where would you like me to start? How about Perryville? Did I ever tell you—”

  “I’m sorry!” she said, so shrilly that the priest across the lane raised his head. Then, softer now: “I’m sorry. That was not fair. Let’s forget it.”

  “Only you won’t forget it,” he said. “I don’t see how you could.”

  “All right,” she said, her voice pleading now. “Tell me why, then.”

  Gawain took a deep breath, let it out. “You were right the first time,” he said. “I wanted to teach you a lesson.”

  “Damn!” she said. She crossed her arms and turned her back on him.

  A long moment of silence passed, and Morgan began to think that he had gone away. She was about to turn when he spoke again, his voice soft and deeply tired.

  “You were after blood,” he said. “I couldn’t blame you, but I was—am—sick of blood. I knew pretty soon that none of us would kill Gault, not like that—and I knew that you’d never forgive any of us if I didn’t bring you into the circle. Don’t you see? You had to find out for yourself what it means to make that kind of choice.”

  “Choice,” she said.

  “Yes. Your papa would say it was God’s will you didn’t shoot. I say God was holding his breath with the rest of us, hoping you wouldn’t. I had to give you the choice, and you chose right. That’s all I know to tell you.”

  She did not turn right away, though she knew he had told the truth now. Once more she heard the hammer’s click-clack, and she shuddered. Perhaps one day, if he asked, she would tell him her own truth, but not now. The day had been long for Gawain Harper; he did not need to know how close she had come to ruining their lives forever. Then he surprised her. He took her by the shoulders and turned her.

  “You came close, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Old Molochi helped you cho
ose, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I love you, Morgan Rhea,” he said, and kissed her, and took her hand.

  They went along the fence row and tried to see how close they could get to the rabbits without them running. Morgan asked why they didn’t have rabbit for supper tomorrow. Gawain pointed to a big buck. “See that one?” he said. “He’s got a wolf. Look close.”

  She did, and recoiled at the thing growing from the creature’s flank. “Lord,” she said, “what is it?”

  “It’s like a botfly,” said Gawain. “They get em in the summer, and the fever, too. You have to wait ’til winter if you want to eat rabbit for supper.”

  “My God,” she said, and thought about all the rabbits she had eaten, and how she was unlikely to eat one again. A cart rattled by on the cemetery road, and to the north, a locomotive whistled for a crossing. Morgan pressed close to her companion as they walked, glad that he had told the truth, but still not sure what to think of it. If she had pulled the trigger—

  She stopped suddenly and grasped his lapels. “What if I hadn’t chosen right?” she asked. “What then?”

  “I would still love thee,” said Gawain. “And all else would be the same, except you would know yourself better.”

  “But, my God in heaven,” she said, her voice growing loud again. “Gawain, all my life I’d of seen—”