The Living is Easy

by Dorothy West

  He wanted to put a coin in her hand. He had put money in her hand from the time that she was born. And now every morning he emptied his pockets of all his silver except his trolley-car fare and slid the coins under Cleo’s closed door. There was always the bright pool of silver for Judy, which Cleo always borrowed before Judy could put it in her bank. He wanted his daughter never to be without money. But she, who had handled money before she knew its worth, would never treat it with respect. She had been born to a rich man, and he had been born to a slave. Knowing his furious industry, she took it for granted that money was not easily come by. She did not think she would ever care enough about it to want to work that hard for it.

  Gently Bart pressed the palm of her hand, extracting the blessing. She was his luck, or so he saw her. His lucky piece, he called her. Unknown to Cleo, it was his custom to visit at Judy’s bedside when the day’s receipts had been exceptional. Waking her, he would pile the packets of money on her pillow and press her small hand on the stack. He called that the blessing of his money, and believed that would help him to double it. He had the common sense to make the ceremony short, knowing that Cleo would raise Hail Columbia over his piling germs on her child’s pillow.

  He rose, put on his carpet slippers, and padded to the door. He opened it softly. The girls were asleep behind their closed doors, shut against exploring guests. He could hear their peaceful snores. He went to peer over the bannister. There was no sign of movement below. Then faintly he heard the soft sibilance of Cleo’s suffering, the sighs drawn back into the dry well of her sorrow.

  Swiftly he descended the stairs. Something had happened at her party, someone had hurt her. She had worked so hard for this party, talked so much about it. And it had been a failure. He was filled with pity and anger.

  Midway on the last flight of stairs he slowed down, conscious of his nightshirt and bare knees. Maybe that girl, Thea, had stayed to sympathize. No, she had likely walked out with the rest. Cleo thought the world and all of Thea, but women were fickle friends. Thea might have made best friends with her rich sister-in-law right in Cleo’s teeth.

  “Cleo,” he called softly.

  Her shivering stopped. She struggled to her feet and faced the door, feeling a painful eagerness to see her husband’s face, straining toward the comfort of his voice.

  “That you, Mr. Judson? Come on down.”

  He entered the empty room cautiously. “They all gone?”

  Ordinarily she would have called him a fool for such a fool question. Now she said quietly, “Where’s your bathrobe? It’s cold.”

  “This house ain’t been cold one minute today,” he said in an injured voice. “I’ve kept a red-hot fire. Shook the furnace down good just before time for your party and piled on coal like it cost pennies. Reason you feel cold is all those people made more heat.”

  She said in that same quiet voice, “You hungry? There’s plenty to eat.”

  “I reckon not. I ain’t used to eating so late.”

  “I guess I’m keeping you out of bed. Don’t try to sleep careful in Lily’s bed. You sleep how you like.”

  “Cleo,” he said concernedly, “this kind of aimless talk ain’t like you. You holding something back. What went wrong with the party?”

  “Nothing. Everybody said it was wonderful. It’s Pa I got on my mind.” Her eyes met his almost imploringly, urging him not to make her say it, not to make it true by the telling.

  “What you thinking about him?” he said.

  The phrasing of his question gave her a little more time. “Sit down. Pull up that chair by the fire. It’s cold. Don’t take chances just out of a warm bed.”

  He dragged a chair to the fire. “Don’t you worry none. I ain’t going to die till my time comes.”

  She shied away as if he had struck her.

  “Cleo, you skittish as a colt. You had too hard a day, all that fixin’ for those folks, and up all last night playing Santa Claus for the children.”

  She caught the words in her heart. She could feel her breast burning with them, feel the slow trickle beginning in the aridity of her anguish.

  “Pa used to play Santa Claus for us. We were poor, but each and every child had a stocking and a store-bought doll. I never saw Pa in a new suit or a new pair of shoes. But he gave Mama money twice a year to make our clothes out of new cloth. Two weeks before Christmas every year God sent, Pa started saying he wasn’t hungry when we sat down to supper. The less he ate, the less food he had to buy, and the more he could save for those store-bought dolls. When he saw our faces Christmas morning, I guess he thought it was worth it. Wasn’t any happier children in Camden. We figured we had the world.”

  “I reckon he was born a family man,” said Bart.

  “I’ve seen him spend a whole evening patching a doll,” she said, with desperate eagerness. I didn’t take patience after Pa. I never remember him raising his voice to one of his children. He was the one used to listen out in the night. Mama slept sound. Pa’d sit up all night with one of us in his arms when we had an earache or toothache or some such. We wouldn’t take medicine for Mama. We’d always open our mouths for Pa, even me.”

  She turned away from Bart and looked into the fire, her hands again outstretched to it, its warmth pervading her iciness, her body beginning to yield with her heart.

  “He had gray eyes. I guess they were the kindest eyes I ever saw. Wasn’t any green in them like in mine. Wasn’t any meanness in him like in me. I guess Pa had a beautiful face. I never thought about it. I made myself think I hated his mustache. I made myself think there were germs and things in it. And now I don’t want to think of Pa without that mustache. He wouldn’t be Pa. You wouldn’t be you.”

  And she thought, They’re the same kind of men, the same kind of good men. Pa was poor as Job’s turkey, and Mr. Judson could buy him and sell him a dozen times. But Pa was as good a provider. Everything you give a child, if you mix it with love like Pa did, the cup gets filled to running over.

  The bubbling began in her chest, the rise and fall of her breast was faster. The hot rush of tears coursing steadily toward release warmed her cold body at last.

  “I remember the Christmas we went across the river to Grandma’s. Pa was coming Christmas Eve. And Christmas Eve the river rose. Mama told us not to hang up our stockings. She said nobody, not even Santa Claus, could get across that river. We hung up our stockings anyway. Mama cried. She didn’t want to see our faith destroyed. And the next morning our stockings were filled. There were our store-bought dolls. Pa was there, too. He said he’d rowed Santa Claus across. And Mama said it was our love that had kept that boat from capsizing.”

  Her face contorted. Her shoulders shook convulsively. She hid her face in her hands, and the tears spilled through her fingers.

  Bart had seen her cry only once before, the day they had met precipitately in Norumbega Park. But she had been a girl then, crying over a bicycle. Suddenly, after more than ten years, he knew that Cleo would never have cried over a bicycle. She would never cry over anything money could buy. She would put her mind on a way to get it. These were the tears she shed for her dead who were beyond her remorse.

  He rose and seized her roughly by the shoulders, swinging her around to face him. “Cleo, was there a telegram? Was that what woke me? Is it your Pa?”

  Her hands fell away from her ravaged face. “Pa’s dead, drowned in that river. I don’t know when. I don’t even know if they’ve — found him. Pa lived so decent. He died so hard.”

  Gently he forced her into his chair. He kept his voice steady and comforting. “Cleo, I couldn’t be no sorrier. I’ll go wake the girls and send them down to you. I know you want to tell them alone. I’ll be in bed, but I won’t be asleep if you need me. And don’t you all worry about money. One of you can go South and find out about your father. Seems like Serena’s the likely one, and she could search out some clue to Robert.”

  He turned to leave her, and she clutched his arm. She had no time to wonder why
this man of the enemy side could tell her by speaking her name that his strength would sustain them both. She knew, and could not take time to deny it, that in him was a vital power from which she was renewing her own. His presence was calming her turbulence, restoring her courage, and clearing her mind for furious thinking. If he left her alone, some part of herself that had fastened itself to him with tentacles would be torn from her.

  “Mr. Judson, sit down. I’ve got something to say isn’t easy said. I can’t tell my sisters what I’m going to tell you. Serena especially. You still not cold?”

  He was cold now. For the room’s changing temperature, with the last warmth left by the guests now receded into a party that had taken place a long time ago, made his single garment a thin protection against the inescapable drafts of a private dwelling in Boston.

  “With something worrying you, don’t go worrying about me. I’ll put my back to the fire. I’ll be all right.”

  She was silent for a moment, assembling her story, and freeing her mind of emotion. She had wept her tears for the dead. They would not bring Pa back. Now she must think of the children.

  “Robert’s in jail. That’s how Pa drowned, trying to help him escape across the river. Robert killed a white policeman. I don’t say he was right or wrong. That don’t much matter. A white man’s dead, and Robert will hang for it.”

  “Cleo, my God, how you hear all that?”

  “That Dean Galloway who was here tonight. Him and I got to talking about the South. I didn’t let on I was Robert’s in-law.”

  “How Robert come to do such a thing? Serena never talked about him like a man as could have murder in his heart.”

  “He lost his head and killed a dirty cracker for shooting into a crowd of poor defenseless darkies. If we could get hold of some shrewd lawyer, he could change that murder charge to manslaughter, and save Robert from hanging.”

  “Cleo, go slow now. You bucking the South. Seems to me that poor girl should go to her husband while there’s time.”

  Her mind was working so fast and feverishly that she could not have stemmed the rapid flow of her words.

  “Serena would send him to certain death with her tears and her love. Robert won’t talk. That Galloway said he won’t open his mouth about his family’s whereabouts. He’s trying to spare Serena’s knowing. That lawyer can say Robert hated niggers. He can say Robert hated his wife. He can say Robert sent her North to her kin so he could go on his own and live as white. He can say Robert grabbed at the chance to shoot niggers, and a white man got in the way of his gun. He can say it was death by accident.”

  Bart’s voice edged with abhorrence. “Cleo, those lies would swell Robert’s tongue before he could speak them.”

  She made an impatient gesture. “All he has to say is ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to whatever his lawyer asks him. Why, a real smart lawyer could even get next to the judge and jury. They’re afraid of the colored folks rioting if Robert hangs. They’d grab any way out to keep him off the gallows. There’s no reason, as I see it, for any word of that trial ever to reach way up to Boston.”

  Bart said profoundly, “You got any idea how much a lawyer like that would cost you?”

  “Whatever it costs, it’s cheap at the price of my child’s pride.”

  “Cleo,” he said heavily, “here’s something I meant to keep from you, but now’s the time you have to know. I been dipping into my capital to keep my store going. I’m not a rich man. I’ve always tried to tell you that. I’ve had a big business. That’s not the same thing as having stocks and bonds by inheritance. When I can buy, I can sell. When I can’t buy, I’m like a man treading water.”

  She made a harsh sound and strained forward. Perhaps Mr. Judson was really poor. Everything he had ever said to her rushed back to ring in her ears. Why hadn’t she heeded him when he tried to teach her the value of money? Why had she spent ten dollars as if it were ten cents. Suppose he was down to his last few hundred? She never imagined a day would come when he couldn’t get his hands on a thousand dollars.

  “Cleo, what I had has always been between me and my God and my banker. But you’re the mother of my child. You got her future at heart same as me. ’Tain’t like she’s a man-child could inherit my business. I got to leave her money. I never meant to touch my capital. I’m not a young man. I wanted to leave the child fifty thousand dollars, anyway, when it came my time to die. And all I got toward it is fifteen thousand.”

  Her relief was so great that her expelled breath made a small explosion. Mr. Judson had only been talking poor mouth. Fifteen thousand dollars was more money than most niggers saw in a lifetime. He was as rich as she had always supposed.

  She veiled her scorn for his attempted deceit. “You could get any lawyer in Boston for half that amount.”

  He stared at her. “That money’s every cent I have. I’m not talking poor mouth. That’s God’s truth.”

  “You mean you’re telling me ‘No’ with that much money in the palm of your hand?”

  His words lashed out at her. “I’m telling you I won’t wipe out the child’s inheritance. You got a way of making a man seem mean. You got a way of marrying a man to your family. God knows I’m sorry for Serena. God knows I wish there was some other way to save Robert. But you’re the one that took that girl away from her husband. You’re the one kept her away. You got what you wanted. Now ask God’s forgiveness for the sin on your soul.”

  She rose and the blood began to burn in her cheeks. “Talk big, Mister Nigger. You’re the one holding the moneybags. Go on and talk. I’ve got to listen. I can’t tell you to take your money and be damned. All I can do is humble myself. All I can do is beg. How do you want me, down on my knees? I never knelt to a man in my life, but I’ll kneel to a nigger now.”

  As she bent her knees, his hands dug into her shoulders. Tears of love and hate and terrible frustration stood in his eyes. He felt his maleness hard against her and pushed her away.

  “Cleo, my God, your father’s dead, and Robert will die, and you stand there tormenting my soul and my body.” He sat down suddenly, and a spasm shook him, not of desire, but of cold emptiness.

  She saw that his body had thinned in the last few months. Gray was thick in his hair. The destruction by age had started. Worry had done what all of his years had been unable to do. He would not live forever.

  The anger left her. He and her father merged into one image of goodness. “Go to bed, Mr. Judson. I’ve worn you out. There’s nothing more to talk about can’t wait until tomorrow. Serena’ll start South as soon as you want to send her. I’d like to go with her to Pa, while she goes on to Robert.”

  He saw with bitter clarity his position and theirs. Cleo could not go to her dead father nor Serena to her doomed husband unless he gave them a few miserable dollars for train fare. The dependency of women had been the thing he had cherished them for. Yet in this moment he was sharply aware of the brutal weapon dependency wielded.

  Tomorrow in the cold light of reason and day, it would seem a monstrous thing that he had clung to money as if it were a life raft, when a man might be spared a hanging, a woman the double grief of his death and the manner of his dying, and a man-child, who must bear his father’s shame forever, the pointed finger of cruel men.

  Ironically he knew that even half his savings was not an incredible sum. He had made nearly that much in a week and spent nearly that much in a day. That was the thing Cleo never seemed to see. The more he made, the more he spent. Or, perhaps, she did know, after all, that a man in business was a man who had learned to take risks. What greater return than a human life would he ever receive for risking his savings?

  This was winter, the season of his habitual unease, when every setback seemed insupportable. He had been underbid for the Navy Yard contract by that new amalgamated group. Well, the years he had got that contract, other wholesalers hadn’t, and their worlds hadn’t ended. No more should his. That hotel he’d sold to for years, that department-store restaurant, that asylum, the
y hadn’t renewed their agreements with him. But it wasn’t as if he’d lost his whole living. Wasn’t common sense to think he might have to close his doors because they were buying from the combines. He’d been in business before they became his customers.

  And those out-of-town retailers who were giving their trade to that concern that had bought itself those two auto trucks and was making its own deliveries, maybe they were getting goods quicker and cheaper than he could ship them by rail with the new high freight rates and marking time for winter trains, but they weren’t getting the quality. People who had tasted his fruit could tell the difference with the first bite. They’d put those retailers out of business.

  Thing was, with the war, the retailers were afraid to take a chance on the independents. The independents just weren’t getting the goods. There was nowhere really to put the blame. His own broker, Pennywell, liked him fine. But it stood to reason Pennywell wasn’t in business for his health. With goods getting scarcer and scarcer, he was selling where he’d get the most for it. These new groups could pay more for one common pin than an independent could pay for a package. And the worst thing was, people weren’t protesting the increased retail cost. They were snatching and grabbing.

  But spring would come, and summer. The trains would start running on time, the rails would start rolling with Southern produce. The war couldn’t last beyond this winter. England would rule the seas again. He would feel the old resurgence of power. Why, it wasn’t six months ago he had cornered the banana market. The thing was to believe in himself, to hold on to his faith, to trust God. God would shower down blessings. God might even thrice bless him for doing unto others as he would like to be done unto.

  “Cleo, I’ll talk to my own lawyer first thing tomorrow. He’ll know the best man to take Robert’s case. I’ll telephone you to meet me and tell him the whole story. Then you can start South to your father sometime tomorrow afternoon. If it’s too sad a journey to take alone, you take one of the girls along with you.”