When she let go of her son’s hand, he ran toward his grandmother who was now on her knees beckoning to him. When he reached her, she folded him up. She smelled like bread and candy and the magical waters she brewed in the back to sell to the desperate. He squirmed against her with delight, inhaling all these things, while his mama grunted at them as if they were two despicable idiots. She made her way to the far wall behind the counter, the one with the phone bolted to it. Once there, she coughed, picked up the conical handle of the phone, put it against her ear, and, nearly shouting into the speaking part, asked an operator for the phone of Miss Maple, who taught over to the municipal school house there on Devries Street. Once connected, she ranted and raved a blue streak about the insults her baby boy had endured. This was the very reason she’d kept him at home, thank you very much, because in the schoolhouse you never could tell what trash a child might encounter and what lack of manners might scar him for his entire life.
Then she was still, listening. It seemed to Bernard she listened for a very long time, long enough for Grandmama to get him a stick of sugarcane from a glass case and for him to suck at a portion of the top until it went smooth and round as a stone from the bottom of the riverbed. When at last she hung up the phone, she was much changed, as thoughtful as she’d been enraged previously.
Well, now. Well, now, she said. Mama, you know those other Levys, the ones with the agri business downtown? Did you know they have a boy Bernard’s age, also Bernard?
Grandmama shook her head. I don’t have time to follow what folks in town get up to. I got enough heartache keeping up with the needs of the mouth-breathers ’round here.
Well, they do. And he’s as handsome as the day is long, they say. And he’s always done up in silks and satins and high-button shoes. He never goes out without a blackie or two to be lackey to him. Miss Maple tells me his nose is so high up in the air if it rained he’d drown. Every child in the county that’s come close to him, he’s kicked off with a sneer or a shriek, and him only seven years old, remember, just like our boy here.
So when this one showed up at the school lookin’ as he does and announced that he was Bernard Levy, they all just couldn’t help themselves. But she’s sorry, that Miss Maple is. She’s sorry she couldn’t help her own self, and she swears to me if I let Bernard go back to the school tomorrow, she’ll make it up to him and treat him as if his feet were gold and his eyes pearls.
And that’s exactly what happened. Bernard went back to the schoolhouse the next day and proceeded to live the life of teacher’s pet, which had a happy effect on his classmates who decided, perhaps also out of guilt, to be sweet and kind to him. Things got to a state where school was his favorite place to be, better for sure than being at home with his drug-addled mother and her lovers, and even better than his grandparents’ store. He knew without fully comprehending why that it was all due to this other Bernard Levy. The older he got, the more curious he was about his name-twin. He felt their fates were related, tied together, that one day they would meet, and discover themselves brothers in the soul. All that happened, but not remotely in the way the boy anticipated, not in that sunny skies, balmy breeze sort of way but in a way Bernard could not possibly imagine no matter how much heartache life had doled out to his young soul already.
VI
Guilford, Mississippi, 1962
THANKS TO HIS INVESTIGATION, MICKEY Moe was downstairs late for supper. He’d concentrated so hard, he did not hear the little silver bell his mother rang every five minutes he was late, summoning him. At his appearance, Beadie gave him a dark look.
I’m sorry, Mama, he said. Time just ran away with me.
Well, it’s in the process of running away with the excellence of this meal Sara Kate worked so hard on.
Mickey Moe made to get out of his chair.
I’ll go apologize to her.
No! Don’t you dare interrupt the table any further than you already have. Your sister and I have been sitting here waiting for you for near a quarter hour.
I’m very sorry, m’am.
He turned and nodded to Eudora Jean, the sole sister remaining at home. Poor girl was completely dominated by Mama’s caveats and looked sure to fulfill the spinster’s fate of living cowed and servile to her mother’s needs until Beadie was in the ground. She was quiet and thin and often wore Mama’s cast-off clothes, so it was hard to see Eudora Jean as an individual. She seemed more her mother’s shadow. Mickey Moe felt sorry for her and frustrated that he could not inject her with a little gumption.
I hope you all forgive me.
Beadie sighed in response and rang her bell for service. Sara Kate appeared hauling a huge tureen as nice as the Needlemans’, from which she ladled out a cold potato soup seasoned with dill.
Isn’t it a good thing we decided against a hot soup tonight, Sara Kate? Despite the fact that folks say a steamy broth is just the thing to cool one off on a summer day? Thanks to my boy here, it would’ve curdled before we all sat.
Yes, Miss Beadie. It shows you never lost your instincts.
Mickey Moe’s mama was proud that in the old days she could always arrive at the choicest menu to suit a particular occasion. The compliment pleased her and she relaxed considerably. She turned to her only son to bless him with the restoration of her good humor.
Why don’t you tell us how your trip to Greenville went? I imagine it went quite well, as you were invited the night.
That would be a misperception, Mama.
He told the story of his visit to the Needlemans’ and held nothing back. Mama was shocked, then outraged, then excited, and at last, disapproving of his plans.
I don’t know, son. I don’t know what good would come of finding your daddy’s people. Some rocks are better left unturned.
It never occurred to Mickey Moe that Mama might know more about Bernard Levy than she’d ever let on. He thought she was worried about his welfare. He sat up a little straighter and squared his shoulders. As Sara Kate had just cleared his place setting, he put his forearms on the table, clasped his hands earnestly, and leaned forward.
I’m prepared for whatever comes my way. You don’t have to worry.
He lifted his hands and rested his chin against them with a dreamy look on his handsome face.
I will be a child of mystery no more, no more.
Hmph, Mama said. As long as you don’t remain a boor with his elbows on the table.
That night he lay awake plotting the first campaign of his quest. He planned to drive to Memphis over the old roads his daddy had utilized back when. There was a faint scratch on his door. Eudora Jean entered in her long linen nightgown and sat on the edge of his bed.
Mickey, she whispered. Mickey Moe.
Yes, honey?
I want you to know I think this is the most romantic, wonderful thing you are prepared to do, and I wish you the Lord’s own help, no matter what Mama says.
He sat up and kissed the top of her head. Thank you, girl, he said.
And because of that, I think you should know that on more than one occasion Mama has intimated to me that sometimes in private Daddy didn’t talk at all like an educated man from Tennessee. I think he came from somewhere else altogether. Once she mentioned that the only person she ever knew who used the same turns of phrase was Bald Horace. You should go talk to him, if you can find him. He hasn’t come round for more than ten year, you know. After the uncles opened up Sassaport Milk and Creamery, his little business went dry. I hear he got awfully frail, too. But it shouldn’t be hard to find out where he’s bein’ kept and who looks out for him.
Her brother grabbed her then and held her tight. Oh, you are a very good girl, Eudora Jean. When I marry, I’ll tell my wife you are the most darlin’ woman in Guilford, and she will be the best of friends to you.
The grave tone of his words made his sister giggle, and as her laughter was a bit loud, she disengaged herself from fraternal embrace, clapped her hand over her mouth, and left the room. Mickey Moe stared
at the ceiling. Sure doesn’t take much to amuse a homebody, he thought. He pondered what she’d said. It made sense to seek out Bald Horace and, while he was at it, that sometimes wife of his, Aurora Mae, to boot. Both of them had known something about Daddy no one else did. They each said so, and they hadn’t been lying. He was sure of it.
Later, he let fanciful images of the woman he loved guide him on the road to sleep. It proved a hard road, a rocky road, full of peaks followed by valleys, and then unexpectedly peaks again so that it was early in the morning before he fell sleep. Accordingly, he slept in later than he ought. When he woke up and went downstairs to find Sara Kate and a little breakfast, he was met with a most bittersweet surprise.
The kitchen table was full. Dishes of eggs with sausage and biscuits and gravy were spread all over. Sara Kate stood at the stove top fixing coffee and sitting down enjoying their breakfast were Mama and Eudora Jean and and Laura Anne Needleman.
Sweetheart!
Mickey Moe was too stunned to do more than utter the endearment and stand there like a dope with his arms raised and open. Eager to impress her future mother-in-law, Laura Anne daubed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin, smiled at Beadie and Eudora Jean with her chin drawn in and her eyebrows raised, nodding to each in turn as if to beg leave of the table. To her credit, she did not rise until Beadie nodded back.
The lovers shared a quick, chaste embrace.
What are you doing here? Mickey Moe asked. Because he could think of no explanation, he added, Is your family well?
I imagine they’re upset with me just at the moment, but I could not help myself. I’ve been tortured since you left. So I weighed my loyalty to them against my feelings for you and decided to come to you to help you find your daddy’s people. I left them a letter explaining my thoughts, took the late-night bus from Greenville, and arrived just after dawn this morning. . . .
She continued speaking near breathless of the most difficult part of her journey. She’d had to find someone at first light who knew how to direct her from the bus station to his home. She’d walked all the way in her white high-heeled pumps while carrying her hatbox suitcase.
I thought my feet might fall off, she said. But once I got here, everyone’s been so kind, they feel almost normal now.
Mickey Moe noticed a pair of white high-heels sitting directly under her chair. Her feet were red and a tad puffy. Every bit of the situation was a marvel to him. Mama had welcomed into her home a young woman she’d on any other occasion label a low-life, wild-child vagabond for leaving her parents and showing up at a man’s home uninvited just before she slammed the door in her face. It amazed him that Laura Anne was there at all. She’d announced her scandalous intention to accompany him on his journey in search of his daddy’s origins when the original purpose of his quest was to provide their love affair a mantle of propriety. He was in awe that she loved him enough to defy her parents and that the police had not yet arrived to snatch her back. Looking at her was like looking at the sun, he thought, and who knew brown eyes could carry so much gold in them. There were more wonders before him, but they remained unarticulated and were full of sighs.
With the reunion of lovers accomplished and witnessed, Mama further amazed Mickey Moe by instructing Eudora Jean to take their guest to her bedroom and make sure the poor lamb had a good lie-down now that she had nourishment. Laura Anne thanked her and bent to kiss her cheek. While she did not flinch at the intimacy, Mickey Moe knew his mama well enough to capture the tiny squint of her eyes and infinitesimal wrinkle of her nose. Once the younger women ascended the stairs and their footsteps were heard in the bedroom above the kitchen, he braced himself for Mama’s speech. And what a speech it was.
Delivered in the soft, measured tones of a woman reciting from a book of Christian poetry, Beadie Sassaport Levy summoned up all the lessons of her blood and training to condemn Laura Anne Needleman as either completely wanton or thoroughly insane in language as refined as it was laden with secondary, even tertiary meanings, none of them pleasant.
I suppose they do things differently in Greenville, she began, as that place has been a hubbub of craven commerce and production for as long as Eve’s daughters liked apples. To my knowledge, there has never before been a woman of good family, which is to say character, who would leave her mama and daddy a note—my goodness! a note!—to inform them she’d gone off to wander the countryside in the company of a boy of whom they had already registered their disapproval whether warranted or not. Unless she is the Bard of the Mississippi, is that possible, do you think? Has that young woman prodigious talent in the written word, son? It must be so, since I did not raise my boy to fall for a hussy so vulgar and willful as to leave a note that reads, Mama and Daddy, gone to throw myself on the mercies of man and the river. Love, your baby girl. No, no, no. Imagine, Sara Kate—are you listening?
The maid stood behind them at the sink as she washed the breakfast dishes.
Yes, Miss Beadie. I’m hearin’ it all.
Then imagine, Sara Kate, the divine phrases she must have used to soften the blow! A good girl would have to, wouldn’t she? Or die of shame and guilt along the road. . . .
Mickey Moe did not interrupt. He needed a place for Laura Anne to stay the night while he organized their trip. He thought maybe if Mama had her fill of insults and insinuations, she’d calm down, and he could plead their case. But she went on and on.
. . .There’s other explanations, of course, Mama said when she ran out of ways to imply that Laura Anne was a common slut. She could be a madwoman. What do you think, Sara Kate? She seem hatter mad to you?
Well, now, I don’t know, as . . .
Don’t bother finishing if you aren’t going to agree. I wasn’t really asking a question. I was adding it all up aloud and invoking your name the way I would use chalk on a board. And my tally looks as if two and two are not three as you were about to claim but four. The poor child very definitely has a certain glint in her eye. . . .
At last, as an act of kindness or because her head was starting to hurt from listening to Beadie’s harangue or even because she felt insulted herself, Sara Kate turned around. In full view of Mickey Moe, who was facing her, but not visible to Beadie Sassaport Levy, who was not, she raised a dish of very fine china high in the air and brought it down hard against the countertop in a loud, satisfying smash. The sound of pieces of porcelain hitting the floor effectively ended all speech-making.
Good gracious, girl, Beadie said. Is this why my store of china keeps dwindlin’?
I don’t know how that happened, Miss Beadie. It slipped outta my hand like a haint pushed it from above out of my grasp.
She crouched on the floor gathering shards.
Haints. My, oh my, now I’ve got to listen to haint stories the rest of the day, I suppose. Wait, girl. Don’t you go throwin’ that away, lay those pieces here, and we’ll see if we can’t glue that thing.
Mickey Moe took their preoccupation as an avenue of escape. He tippy-toed upstairs and rapped twice on Eudora Jean’s bedroom door. His sister answered promptly. With a finger held up to her closed lips, she let him in with a wink and a nod, leaving him alone with Laura Anne as she shut the door behind her to stand watch without. The lovers kissed long and hard, then pulled away from each other.
Sweetheart, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, Mickey Moe began, but this was not a wise idea, was it? I mean, the whole purpose of my quest is to find a way to make my family wholesome in your family’s eyes. Even if I can talk Mama into harboring you here—which is doubtful no matter how kindly you thought she treated you this morning—how will your taking off from home to travel with me, unmarried as we are, accomplish that goal? And I don’t know where exactly my daddy’s trail will take me. Might be a host of locales dangerous for you to go. Look. I’m going to call your parents straightaway and tell them you’re on your way home. Tell them I was shocked to find you at my door and that I’m sending you home. Yes, that would do. Make me look the
hero to them, I’m sure.
While he spoke, Laura Anne’s face fell. Her eyes welled up. She looked about to cry when suddenly she knit her brow and raised her chin.
Mickey Moe, do you have any idea what it took for me to follow you here? The struggle I went through, knowing I was closin’ a door on everything I’ve ever been? Mama’s good daughter, the responsible employee, the darlin’ of my daddy’s eye. Well, it was hard. Very hard. But I figured in the end that I would rather be a pariah in Greenville for the rest of my life than spend the same span of years the puppet of people who thought they knew my own heart better than I did myself, people who felt they could tell me where I could go, what I could do, and who I could marry. Haven’t you followed the news at all? Women all over are startin’ to stand up for themselves. Right next to the Negroes and the Chinese. My coming here puts me at the vanguard of a great and powerful movement that will change the world. If I have a pure desire, I ain’t lettin’ anybody else tell me how to satisfy it. Includin’ you. I am not behavin’ on simple romantic impulse, Mickey. This was a decision. Fully thought out and accounted for. I never expected your family to put me up or anything. I’m not a child. I’ve been working, you know, for a salary plus commission. I have my savings. You can boot me out of this house if you want, but I’ll find someplace to stay nearby. I’ll get a job around here if I have to. All I know is, I am at your side for the duration. Don’t you even think of gettin’ rid of me. You just try, and I’ll hound you from one end of the Mississippi to t’other through mud, bramble, concrete, and swamp. I swear this on my very soul.
Her passion rocked Mickey Moe. He felt a surge of desire that started at his toes and went all the way up to his hairline. He groaned and gathered her in his arms again. They petted at each other as much as they dared with his sister just outside. Eudora Jean heard everything, of course. She was duly impressed. On that day at that moment, Eudora Jean Levy began to question her life. Perhaps it was a little late, as the woman was thirty years of age, locked in a culture where youth and beauty determined a girl’s worth until she married, when charm, charitable instinct, and accomplishment at domestic duties confirmed her status. By the time Eudora Jean’s liberation was fulfilled, the least anyone might say about her was that she made up for lost time. With a vengeance. And in a manner not even the boldly loving Laura Anne Needleman would consider. Some people said, that’s her daddy’s blood comin’ out. Of course, by that time, everyone guessed just how common that blood was.
One More River Page 8
