After the war, there were no blood heirs left to the plantation. The former slave wrested a deed to the house and its lands from a court official everyone said she either seduced or ensorcelled. A little later, she married a freed slave named Roman, a farmer one generation removed from Africa. Roman was the powerhouse of a man who provided the genes that made Aurora Mae the marvelous creature she was and bestowed upon Horace a talent for making things grow. He invited a nation of cousins to come and farm the land with them as a community, the way he’d heard Negroes did in Africa, sharing all they reaped together in harmony. That effort was a disaster. What the family’s own feuds and slights didn’t ruin, the animosities of their white abutters did. Yet even though the farming didn’t go too well, the community grew. Over time, more and more black folk put up houses in the fields. They plowed out roads that led from a cluster of one set of cousin’s homes to the next. Eventually, the parents of Horace and Aurora Mae were born, lived their span, and passed, their daddy from too much hard work in the middle of a row of cotton, their mama from the Spanish flu in 1914. Sybil and Roman outlived them, but not by much.
Teenagers at the time, Horace and Aurora Mae stayed on. Though they did not have more in the way of material wealth than any of their neighbor cousins, they lived in the big house and took good care of it. They looked like kings on a hill to all the world below them. That striking residence coupled with Aurora Mae’s stature, her imperious manner, and expertise in herbs, spells, and potions taught her by her grandmama, made the sister and brother leaders of the colony, high priestess and deacon to whom the others appealed for audience or favor.
With Bernard’s arrival, it soon became known that the witch and her brother kept a crazy white man around as a pet. Small children charged a penny to guide others for a look at him through the kitchen window. On the days he wasn’t making a living rendering lye or mucking pigsties, Bernard could be found there working by Aurora Mae’s side helping her boil sweet gum or pickle mandrake root. And because just being near her thrilled him no end, his eyes would sparkle, he did all manner of jigs and pratfalls to make her laugh, and all the children so inclined felt their pennies well spent indeed.
Bernard lived with these two for more than a year. Never was he happier than when Aurora Mae might brush her hand across his head, rubbing him, she said, for good luck. He literally lived in her shadow, sharing in the devotion her brother, Horace, also felt for her. It was natural that Horace and Bernard would become best of friends. He might have lived there forever, high upriver, in obscure happiness had not cruel circumstance intervened to scatter them in urgent flight. He might have remembered his time there with the kind of hallowed reverence men save for their truest love, lost forever, had they not been thrown together again under yet crueler circumstances, and had Bernard not decided to stand up and declare himself in the most dangerous manner.
VIII
Guilford, Mississippi, 1962
THE DAY THE YOUNG LOVERS headed out to the village to interview Bald Horace, the weather appeared fine. Everything sparkled bright and fresh under the sun. Still, Sara Kate tasted lightning in the air. She went to the back porch to see them off, and immediately, her nose wrinkled. She smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth twice.
The bite of gunmetal’s in the air today, she said. You all don’t linger outside too long. You’ll be caught up in a storm for sure.
They promised they’d be careful, but once the car got them out of sight, they snuggled up to laugh together at the perpetual doom and gloom that issued from the mouths of old black women, every one of whom considered herself a seer when it came to weather or illness or babies or death.
Mickey Moe ordinarily took such predictions as gospel, but he knew Laura Anne, from the city of Greenville, was more sophisticated than he, and he didn’t want to look ridiculous to her. Besides, he’d opened his eyes to the world anxious that morning. It helped to share a chuckle at another’s expense. Took a sliver off the edge.
As they drew near the village, his anxiety bloomed. His heart thumped against his ribs, his breath came ragged. It seemed the limbs of trees along the roadway sought to close him in, which gave him the fidgets. Laura Anne disentangled herself from his arm and sat up, spine straight, close to the passenger door.
You ok, honey? she asked.
He thought about it, because the last thing he wanted to do was mislead her. It was of supreme importance to him that this woman know precisely what he was thinking and feeling at all times. He knew from his mama that the worst thing a man could do was lie to a woman. He took a moment to judge his thoughts, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly, precise in his choice of words.
I feel like my whole life has boiled down to just this moment coming up, he said. At last, I will find out the truth about my people. I never appreciated how important that was to me until yours made an issue of it. I decided long ago only women were obsessed with the bloodlines or I didn’t let it matter to me, because in my house questions on the subject led to dead miseries. I took my pride where I was told to—in being half a Sassaport—impressive enough in these parts, but apparently inconsequential in Greenville and the rest of the wide world. I feel that if I find the right words to say to Bald Horace, the gates of heaven will open to me in all their fragrant splendor, but if I fumble, they will slam shut on ten of my fingers and ten of my toes and I guess yours, too. It’s a terrible responsibility. Terrible.
The girl let out a huge, empathetic sigh. He admired the way her bosom heaved during its execution. You’re very brave, Mickey Moe Levy, she said. You remind me of a hero of ancient times.
They were outside Mama Jo Baylin’s house. He stopped the car. She squeezed his hand, and he kissed her mouth. Fortified, they made their way to the dented metal door and knocked. Mama Jo granted them entry with all due politesse but without the excess of the day before. Once they were inside, she tilted her little gray head and made a sweeping gesture. Here, her arm said, is the man you seek, and there in the stuffed chair under the portrait of Jesus Christ crucified sat Bald Horace. He looked old and weak and blank of expression.
Hello there, Bald Horace, Mickey Moe said with hopeful enthusiasm, but the man did not so much as blink. Hello there, Bald Horace, he repeated only louder this time.
Nothing.
What’s wrong with him? he asked Mama Jo Baylin without looking at her, his gaze stuck on the slack lower lip of the ruined man before him, the half-shut eyes surrounded by puffy circles the color of blackberries.
He’s always like this directly after one of his treatments. Knocks him right out. But you keep talkin’ to him. He’ll come ’round in a bit, wait and see.
What kind of treatments are they? Laura Anne asked while her lover knelt down on one knee the better to grasp the man’s hand and shout.
Hello there, Bald Horace, hello!
A drug treatment. Brand new, they say.
Her head tilted sideways again, and she sniffed as if taking a brand-new drug treatment were an honor, one she shared in by proximity.
He’s one of the first humans to take it ever, they say, and it’s got a name long as your right leg. He had the shakes somethin’ awful before in his hand and head. Well, he don’t shake now, but he got feeble. He’s just not right anymore, especially the day after his treatment.
Mickey Moe shouted a couple more times, and Bald Horace seemed to come awake at last. His chin lifted anyway, and his eyes focused, staring directly into Mickey Moe’s own. He muttered something.
Speak up, honey, Mama Jo Baylin said. We can’t hear you. We can’t hear you at all. You gonna have to do better than that.
Bald Horace coughed a little and spoke again. This time, Mickey Moe leaned forward to put his ear close to the man’s mouth.
I know you.
Of course you do, Bald Horace, it’s me. It’s me, Mickey Moe Levy, come to call.
I know you.
Yes, you know me. You knew my daddy, too. ’Member my daddy, Bald Horace? You
’member Bernard Levy? You ’member him?
You growed.
The old man raised an arm. He wiped his red wet mouth on his sleeve. Oh my, thought Mickey Moe. This is going to take some time. His heart sank but he kept poking around in the darkness of Bald Horace’s mind hoping to hit on something that’d bring his daddy to the forefront.
Yes, Bald Horace. I’m a fully grown man now. But when I was a boy, you looked out for me, didn’t you?
Yes.
You taught me a whole lot of things I’ll never forget. You taught me when to plant and when to pick. . . .
Yes.
. . . how to know the day ahead from the color of the moon. Even taught me how to manage ornery goats. . . .
I surely did.
. . . ’Member me and those goats of yours, Bald Horace? What good friends we were?
The old man gave him a big smile showing his teeth. The inside of his mouth looked raw, bumpy. There were angry white spots on his gums. A bad smell came up from his gut.
They messed you up!
He laughed, making a harsh, strident sound that only half made sense. Then out of nowhere a look of pain crossed his features, knitting them up.
’Rora Mae took you home. He looked Mickey Moe straight in the eyes. His voice grew soft. Took you home in the big car.
At that moment, there was a flash of light, then a thunderclap, loud, jolting, right over their heads. Everyone started. Laura Anne and Mama Jo jumped. Bald Horace shrieked. But that was nothing to the bolt of energy that burned through Mickey Moe’s head. Aurora Mae! To think after yesterday’s denial from Mama Jo that Bald Horace ever had a wife, he’d given up on finding her. Even in his compromised state, Bald Horace had brought her up like a divine message from the past, a prod to inquiry straight from the beyond. Oh please, Lord, he thought, please let her still be alive and in her right mind.
He shook her husband’s shoulder as if in the shaking he might rattle some helpful thoughts together. Bald Horace, Bald Horace, where is your wife? he asked, but something had happened inside the man, something coincidental to or because of the thunderclap.
Bald Horace began to keen like a grieving widow, moaning, rocking back and forth, with tears running down his gaunt cheeks. He mumbled, ’Rora Mae, ’Rora Mae, over and over, as if the name were a prayer.
Another clap came, the furniture rattled, and Bald Horace covered his head with his hands and rocked harder, sobbed louder, mumbled faster and faster, ’rormae, ’rormae, ’rormae, like a Buddhist’s chant. Then he broke out in a wail as high pitched as a train whistle.
Mickey Moe was in despair of what to do with him until Mama Jo Baylin clucked and said, He’s plain terrified of thunder. Now the storm’s come, you not going to have anything like sense outta him. Just pitiful, ain’t he. Everything he ever was got bigger after the treatments started. He was always nervous around storms, but nowadays he goes clear out of his mind.
Mickey Moe put an arm around Bald Horace and patted. He tried to take one of his hands and squeeze it for comfort, but the man’s fingers were clamped tight against his own skull, the nails dug into his scalp, while the palms covered his ears. At the next round of thunder, he leapt out of his chair to run behind a chintz curtain where his bed lay, to curl up there, hiding from the sound like a child.
Laura Anne said, Honey, we should go. She said it softly, with a gentle, kindly look cast in Mama Jo Baylin’s direction along with a slight feminine shrug to indicate helplessness in the face of fate, a matter women of all colors understood. Mama Jo returned the shrug with one of her own.
Mickey Moe fought the impulse to reach in and shake Bald Horace back to himself. Confounded by despair, he stared at the curtain. His shoulders slumped.
Laura Anne nearly wept to look at him. She bit her lip. Her skin crawled with a strange irritation and a surge of power rose up from deep in her belly, a power born of a great, yearning need to protect. She turned toward Mama Jo, who was, when all was said and done, a black woman required to obey her. Words flew out of her mouth so rudely, so aggressively that she blushed at her own behavior. Oh, for God’s sake! she demanded. Where is this man’s wife? Tell us now!
The old woman took a step back as if struck in the face. A veil fell over her features, and she retreated within herself. In a flat tone that shouted to them “I knew you’d get like this, Miss Sweetness from Greenville. All you all get like this sooner or later,” she told them that Bald Horace never had no wife, that Aurora Mae was his sister who lived in Memphis these days. Aurora Mae was a very private person and wouldn’t like her telling anyone her business. Aurora Mae paid her to keep Bald Horace clean and fed and keep her mouth shut, which is why she’d misled them before. But since Bald Horace himself mentioned Aurora Mae knew Mickey Moe personally, she’d make an exception and get them her address if they’d just hold on.
Minutes later, they were back in the car, drenched by the storm outside. Carried away by the emotion and adventure they’d experienced, Mickey Moe drove as far as he could before he had to stop and hold on to Laura Anne. The ditches outside filled up with rain made filthy by the dirt washed in from the road. Every once in a while, the lightning flashed and they saw each other stark and white against the blue-gray air of storm and wind. In that harsh intermittent light, Mickey Moe gave his love a troubled look. What was on his mind was hard to express. He said, Honey, I know you were hard-pressed back there and upset for me that nothing was goin’ well, but you needn’t have talked up to Mama Jo that way.
No matter how gentle he’d tried to make his tone, the criticism amounted to a blow. Laura Anne gasped. Her skin went hot. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, but nothing came out.
We just don’t talk to the elderly that way in our house, he continued, digging the pit into which she felt like throwing herself deeper. Even if they’re Negroes. Mama always schooled us to be polite no matter what the circumstances. And not only are we beholden to that woman for what she did takin’ care of your ankle yesterday, we were in her home.
Thoroughly humiliated, Laura Anne burst into tears and blubbered contrition. Mickey Moe felt as badly as she did or at least he thought so. It hurt him to see his warrior love compromised. He took to stroking her back, patting her between the shoulder blades in an effort to comfort. Now, now, he said. It was an unusual situation. I know you aren’t like that every day. Not my darlin’ Laura Anne.
She looked up at him, sniffling. No, no, I’m not. I’m really not.
Just then, the storm let up and there was a break in the clouds. A shaft of sunlight fell directly upon her face. Her eyes shone with tears, her brows were lifted with hope of redemption, her sweet lips trembled. I believe you, he said. Now let’s put this behind us. Look, the weather’s clearin’. We can go on now.
He kissed her forehead. She gave him a weak smile. There remained a shadow between them, which he needed to remove something dreadful. So he started up the car and addressed it.
I guess we’re going to Memphis, he said. It’s good, isn’t it? To know that Aurora Mae lives where my daddy claimed to grow up. She must be the key. She must know somethin’ of his people. She must.
We?
He stroked her thigh.
That’s what I said, girl. We.
Laura Anne beamed.
They didn’t speak the rest of the way, but each was buoyed by the small success of the day. Mickey Moe had a lead, and Laura Anne had won his forgiveness. They were truly a team now, she felt. Partners in every way. They could suffer conflict and go on. Wasn’t that vitally important?
She fell to imagining their future after this quest was over. She felt confident that Mickey Moe came from quality and that his daddy’s identity was kept secret over some convoluted matter of honor that didn’t matter anymore to anyone living or dead. Much as she claimed it was irrelevant to her, she liked to think they’d still marry properly under a chuppah in her mama’s backyard with two hundred of their friends and relatives weeping tears of joy for t
hem. They’d eat filet mignon steak and drink champagne. Her dress would have a train, but not too long, just long enough to carry comfortably after the ceremony, or maybe she’d go for one of those detachable ones. After the wedding, they’d work side by side on that farm Mickey Moe wanted, and he’d teach her everything Bald Horace taught him. She’d become self-sufficient, able to carry on should the world fall apart around their ears. That seemed an important, modern goal. There’d be children, too, when she decided the time was right. What a life. What a life. But first there’d be Memphis, where they’d stay at a hotel together as if they were man and wife already. They’d face down this woman Aurora Mae in whatever mobile home or similar hovel she lived and they’d stand firm until she gave up the information they required.
While Laura Anne mapped out both the immediate and distant future, Mickey Moe planned their departure for Memphis first thing the next day. There were a few loose ends at Uncle Tom-Tom’s office he had to take care of, but Mama had laid down the law that two nights was all she’d house Laura Anne, and Mama always stuck with her decisions, right or wrong, so they’d have to leave in the morning no matter what. He had to tank up the car, check the oil and water, too, go to the bank, and get some travel cash. Maybe he could do that after he dropped Laura Anne back home and save some road time in the morning.
One More River Page 11
