The Sleeping Night

by Samuel, Barbara

  Angel often shared Mrs. High’s cushiony bosom with Isaiah, both of them falling asleep as she sang lullabies. Isaiah, two years older, was sometimes her best friend, sometimes her brother. It was Isaiah who listened with her to the stories her daddy read, Isaiah who brought her bluebonnets and wild daisies, Isaiah who colored church pictures with her late at night.

  It seemed to her that a child could not have a better life than she did. She would sit on a corner of the porch on Saturday nights, her legs tucked up under her dress, and listen to the voices swirling around and into her bones, a quick-slow rhythm in the black voices that was unlike the voices of the white folks in church. Sometimes, with the indigo summer sky stretched overhead, she would listen to Jordan High laughing and think of God: God in a good mood, like he never was in church; God like he must have been when he made the sky. It was a luxurious sound, rich with knowledge and awareness and love. She’d close her eyes and let that laughing flow through her, thinking of God with a black face and strong black hands, and all the children of the world gathered into his lap.

  She had enough sense to know that she couldn’t tell her Sunday school teacher that she thought God must be black. The God in church wore long robes and a long beard and he was always mad about the sinners. But in church on Sunday mornings, she never felt God spinning around in her heart and head, so big, like he did on Saturday nights when Jordan High laughed.

  One August night, Angel sat on the front porch of the store in her bare feet, waving away mosquitoes with a cardboard fan. They ate her like she was lunch, and her ankles were already spotted with bites she couldn’t resist scratching.

  A slow stream of customers came in, as they did every Saturday. Laughter spilled out of the screen door behind her, and the radio was playing and, nearby the window, two men swapped friendly insults about something that happened that afternoon in a cotton field. Over all the voices, her daddy’s, deep and full, boomed out greetings to his customers.

  From down the road, on foot, came a pair of travelers, one tall, one small. Angel straightened expectantly and waved. Isaiah dashed ahead of his father and ran to the porch.

  “Hey, Angel,” he said. “Look what I found down by the river.” He held up the papery skin of a snake, almost whole.

  “Can I see it?” Angel asked.

  “You lookin’ at it now, girl,” he said. “You can hold it, too, if you want. Careful though. I ain’t never found one like this before.”

  As Angel held out her hands, palms up so as not to wound it, the boy’s father gained the small pool of yellow light cast through the windows of the store. “Evening, Miss Angel,” he said in his deep voice. “How you doin’ tonight?”

  “Just fine, Mr. High.” She displayed the skin. “You see what Isaiah found?”

  “That’s quite a prize,” he agreed and touched his son’s shoulder before going up the steps to the store.

  Isaiah sank down next to her. Bony knees stuck out from below his cut-off pants. His ankles were streaked, his shoes muddy, and he smelled like sunshine and dust and river water. “How come you don’t get scared like other girls?”

  “What’s to be scared of? I think it’s pretty.”

  “Me, too, but Florence Younger screeched like she seen a ghost when I showed it to her.”

  Angel shrugged and handed it back to him. “You wanna do somethin’?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned, his wide mouth a mix of half-grown teeth and baby teeth and two that had almost reached full size. “Go on and get your daddy’s book. The big one.”

  Angel looked at him for a moment.

  “Go on,” he said, nudging her, a secret in his dancing dark eyes.

  Suspecting a trick, she nevertheless did as he said, finding the book on the table in the living room where it always sat. As she hurried back through the thinning collection of customers in the aisles, her daddy caught her arm. “Where you think you going with that book, gal?”

  “Just to the porch, Daddy. Isaiah said to get it.”

  Parker pursed his lips, then let her go. “Be careful with it, hear?”

  Angel drew herself up to her full height, the heavy book clasped against her chest. “Have you ever known me or Isaiah either one to be uncareful with a book?”

  Behind her, a man chuckled; Parker, meeting the man’s eye, grinned, too. As she hurried on her way, she heard somebody say, “You got your hands full with that ’un. Smart as a whip, she is.”

  But Angel paid it little attention. Grown folks always talked like that about her, and about Isaiah, too. Which was why she imagined they had become friends. Somebody was always shaking their heads about one or the other of them, or making a little sound in their mouths like the food was good, “Mmn-mm-mm.” Only in this case it was a “what are you ever gonna do with that child?” noise.

  Once, some grown-up had looked at Parker and Jordan, talking quietly by themselves and said (like Angel and Isaiah were deaf) “What are you gonna do about those children?” Straight out.

  Parker had looked at the woman through the smoke of his cigarette and said, “I don’t aim to do nothing. They’re children.”

  The woman had made that sound in her throat, then gone on with her shopping. Isaiah and Angel had talked about it and decided the difference they felt in themselves was the fact that both their daddies had gone to France for the war. They came back different, so naturally their children were different, too.

  Parker often read to them on these soft Saturday nights after all the customers went home. He read a lot of books. But this one, both agreed, was the best. Fairy Tales from Around the World.

  Angel carried the book outside to Isaiah.

  “Sit down,” he said, the secret spreading now to his face, where a dimple winked in his cheek. He opened the book with ceremony. “Which one you want?” he said.

  Still puzzled, she shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “Come on, Angel. You always pick one.”

  “Okay. Hansel and Gretel.” She giggled, because he hated it. It scared him.

  But without a single protest, he opened the book to the story and began to read, “Once upon a time . . .”

  Angel listened, her mouth hanging open for a long, long moment, staring at him as he bent his head over the open pages. He didn’t read it as good as her daddy did, but it was a whole lot better than what Angel could have done.

  “You can read?”

  “You hear me, don’t you?” But a grin betrayed his belligerent tone, and he softened. “Pretty good, huh? I been practicin’ all summer. Your daddy gave me a book of my very own.”

  “Oh, you’re doin’ real good.” She tucked her dress over her knees. “Read me some more.”

  And he did.

  Much later, Parker and Jordan came out on the porch, where the children had moved to drawing with pencils on flat sheets of butcher paper. The men’s voices drifted over Angel, making her sleepy, and she laid her head down on her hands to rest for just a minute. Their words were indistinct, only their voices plain, and she waited for the laughing that would come.

  But tonight their voices were serious. Isaiah’s great dark eyes focused on the men, the crayon in his hand forgotten.

  “What’s wrong?” Angel asked him.

  He frowned in a puzzled way, his gaze fixed on his father. “I ain’t too sure,” he said in a soft voice. “Somethin’.”

  Parker glanced at the children. “Little pitchers have big ears,” he said, pursing his lips.

  “Well,” said Jordan, a gentle smile replacing the worry in his face, “so they do. You children done already?”

  Isaiah glanced at Angel quickly. If they said yes, then Jordan would stand up and hold out his hand for Isaiah. The evening would be over. “No, sir,” he said.

  “Whyn’t you come on over here, anyway. Let me tell you a story tonight.” He settled back in the chair to make room on his long legs for both children. They scrambled up and he looped an arm around each, slowly beginning to rock back and forth in the
still night. Parker turned off the porch light, then lit a cigarette, ice clinking in his tea as he lifted the glass to his lips.

  Angel settled her cheek against Jordan’s shirt. Isaiah rested his head on his daddy’s shoulder. The gentle rocking made Angel sleepy and she yawned, closing her eyes as Jordan’s deep voice rumbled through his chest into her ear. “A long, long time ago . . .” he began.

  Long as she could hear that velvety rich voice in her mind as she drifted off to sleep, Angel didn’t even care about the story. Isaiah shifted, his knee bumping hers, and she drew her legs a little closer to give him more room. She heard him take in a shuddery, long breath that turned into a hard yawn. Without opening her eyes, she smiled.

  Much later, she stirred, and found herself in her own bed. Foggily, she turned over. She listened for a minute, and sure enough, the sound of her daddy and Jordan talking came in through her window. She drifted away again.

  The next Saturday was the last of the month. Things had gone pretty much like always all day. Angel ran errands for her daddy, fetching lengths of cloth and keeping tea brewed to cool the lips of the customers. As she worked, she kept looking for Isaiah, who was always first through the door.

  The night grew later; the customers drifted away. Angel’s daddy told her to get the broom and start sweeping up.

  She was angling the old broom under the lip of a set of shelves when Isaiah burst through the screen door, letting it slam hard behind him. His face was dirty, his clothes askew, and his chest heaved like he’d been running a long way.

  An immediate hush fell over the voices of the remaining customers, voices that had, until that minute, been rolling easily about the long front room of the store. All eyes fell on the boy, including Angel’s. They knew, looking at that face, that whatever they heard wasn’t going to be good. Angel felt her stomach fall to her feet and she clenched the handle of the broom with fingers that would be full of splinters the next day. Isaiah’s eyes swiveled around the room, lit on Angel, and passed to her father, who broke the silence.

  “What is it, Isaiah? Speak up, child, speak up.”

  “Mama said come get you.” His voice was thin with horror. “They killed my daddy.” His lip trembled, his eyes wide and shimmering with terror. “They killed him—”

  At the remembered ugliness, Isaiah fell straight to the floor in a dead faint. Later, Angel didn’t remember doing it, but she ran to Isaiah, washed his face with a cloth she had wet with cool water, then helped him out to the porch to get some air when he came around with a jerk. By then there was hardly anybody else around; only a few women with a keening sound to their voices and a worry in their whispers.

  It didn’t make sense to Angel right away, about Jordan High being dead because it was the first time in her life (unless you counted her mama—and she didn’t remember her) anybody she knew died. As she sat holding Isaiah’s hand in the darkness of the porch, she heard the rich sound of Jordan High laughing in her mind. She looked at the stars and Isaiah wept. Angel held his hand in the darkness, feeling something big and sad move inside of her. But instead of tears, she held on to the thought of Jordan High in heaven, laughing with God.

  After a time, there came the flicker of torches and flashlights through the trees, winking in the darkness of thick pines. Isaiah dried his eyes and let go of Angel’s hand. He stared at the silent crowd. A hardness drew up his face as he watched the pinpoints of light weave toward them, and Angel had enough sense to know not to say a word.

  PART THREE: DARK

  How arrives it joy lies slain

  And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?

  —Thomas Hardy “Hap”

  When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as child: but when I became a man I put away childish things.

  —I Corinthians 13:11

  — 3 —

  Mrs. Rachel Pierson

  #2 Old Farm Road

  Gideon, Texas

  June 29, 1945

  Dear Isaiah High,

  I went yesterday to Corey’s store, for Parker is not well. There I saw your mother and, when I asked after your health, she shared the news that you have decided to stay in Europe for a time. She gave me your address when I said I might have a job for you to do, if you are interested.

  It has been a long, difficult war and you must be very tired (I remember well the exhaustion of the soldiers in our last war) so, if you cannot do this thing for me, I will understand.

  My wish is this: that you would see for me if there are any of my sister’s family remaining alive. They were Jews from Holland, and I had hopes I might hear from them when the war ended, but I have not. There was my sister, her husband, and their daughter, who will now be in her middle twenties. I will be happy to pay you what ever you wish. I want only to know if any of them are still alive so that I do not have to spend the rest of my life worrying if one of them is starving. If you find any of them alive, I will take them in here.

  Please let me know at your earliest convenience if this is a task you wish to undertake.

  Sincerely,

  Mrs. Rachel Pierson

  — 4 —

  Gideon, Texas

  May, 1946

  By the time the train reached Texas, Isaiah felt like he’d been traveling a thousand years. He was weary of sitting and wanted a meal that filled him even more than he wanted a night’s sleep. His temper had been boiling for thirty-six hours and, if he’d had any doubts that he could return home for any length of time, riding Jim Crow through the South, where his uniform with its bars meant nothing at all, had disabused him of that notion.

  He had been in Europe for more than four years, first in England, then across France and into Germany. He’d understood that his service had changed him. Until he’d been forced to board the colored car at the Mason Dixon line, he had not realized that it might be impossible to return to the Jim Crow South, to fit himself back into the rigors of a system that now seemed antiquated and peculiar.

  However much he and his fellow soldiers had changed, it was clear the South had not. Companions warned him with stories of the beatings that soldiers received when, after long years away, they forgot themselves and tipped counter girls or filled paper cups with water from white water fountains.

  Some of them, naturally, were young men who wanted to test the walls upon their return, soldiers full of themselves and the guns they’d held and the freedom they’d discovered on foreign shores.

  Most had just forgotten. A grandmother in a blue calico dress warned Isaiah that there were always those willing to remind a colored man of his place.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Thank you kindly.”

  Isaiah worried over Gudren, up front in the white cars—worried about her being alone in her frail state, with her accented English. He’d found her in a refugee camp, half-dead, and it had taken several months before she’d been well enough to travel. Those months had given her some dignity, giving her time to flesh her emaciated frame, grow some hair, lose a little of her refugee look. She would still be plainly a stranger. He didn’t like to think of anyone being rude to her.

  Though, considering all, a little rudeness wouldn’t be anything much to a woman who’d survived the camps.

  At last they made it to Gideon. Isaiah and Gudren were the only passengers to get off the train.

  “This is Texas?” she asked in wonder. “I thought it would be a desert. This is beautiful.”

  “I reckon it can be.” He picked up her bag. “Let’s look for Miz Pierson.”

  The car, a long fat Chrysler, waited near the door of the station. An old white man had evidently driven the car, for he still sat behind the wheel. Standing outside it was blind Mrs. Pierson, her chin jutting out. Only her hands, restlessly wringing themselves, gave her away. Her face had aged thirty years since he had left just before the war. It made him sad.

  “Miz Pierson,” Isaiah said, “I brought you your niece, just like I promised. This here’s Gudre
n Stroo.”

  The two women met with outstretched hands. Each waited a little shyly, until Gudren said quietly, “My mother talked about you so much.”

  Tears, unmistakable in the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the pines around the station, glittered in Mrs. Pierson’s sightless eyes. “I only wish it could have been sooner,” she whispered.

  Gudren bent to hug her aunt and Isaiah stepped back, his throat closed. It was worth coming back to Texas, worth Jim Crow a hundred times, to deliver this single life into the keeping of one who knew and cared.

  As he slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, Mrs. Pierson’s voice halted him. “Isaiah High,” she said.

  He turned. “Come see me in the morning. We have things to settle between us.”

  “No, Miz Pierson. We’re square.”

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “Nonetheless, I wish you would take the time. You must allow me to thank you for this precious work you’ve done.”

  Isaiah hesitated, knowing she would press more money on him. He didn’t aim to accept it, but there was no harm in stopping by anyway. He nodded. “All right, then. I’ll be there.”

  Gudren stepped up to him and held out her hand. “Thank you.”

  Isaiah, conscious of the curious faces of the onlookers, ignored her hand and kept his head angled low. “You’re welcome. You get well, now.”

  He left them, setting out toward home. As he passed through Gideon proper, he kept his gaze fixed firmly on his path so that he wouldn’t be required to speak to anyone, wouldn’t accidently meet the eyes of anyone who’d take offense. It shamed him to do it, after so long walking like a man in the world.