In Search of Satisfaction

by J. California Cooper

  When her time came, Mistress Krupt sent Josephus to the very rich Carlene Befoe to fetch a doctor or a midwife. Carlene did not even come down to speak with Josephus but told her maid to recommend someone. She looked at her husband, Mr. Befoe, whom she knew had admired Mistress Krupt briefly at the same time her father had “made a fool of himself!” about Virginia Krupt. Laughing maliciously, Carlene said, “At her age! Mother drunk, child probably drunk, too! How that ole sot Krupt made a baby at his age …” She laughed. But Richard Befoe’s thoughts were, “She is, obviously, still a passionate woman. Living! While you are a dried up, beautifully attended prig who has hardly allowed me to touch you for years now.” She had “given” Richard one child and then forbade him her body. She had hated him even then, when he had loved her. Now, you see, they hated each other. Sometimes he thought of how wonderful it could be, they had everything else, and he would love her for awhile. But she never cared and made it obvious, so he would begin to hate her again.

  Ahhh, Satan was happy with these people. Hate is so helpful in things he likes to do.

  With the white midwife finally come, bringing Ma Lal to aid her, Mistress Krupt gave birth to a girl-child with hazel eyes and curly, brown hair. “Ahhhh, now …” Mistress Krupt thought, “I have someone. The Negra Josephus and now, the child. Perhaps someone will be around to wait on me as I grow old.” She laughed as she named the child, Yinyang. Then she called for a drink and slept. The child, Yinyang, was handed to Josephus by Ma Lal as she finished cleaning up and reached for her money. She smiled up at Josephus saying, “You sho works hard roun heah!” She laughed—wicked, gleeful laughter—and was gone. It was around 1885.

  Some few people came to see the mother and child, but, espying the tinge of color in the skin of Yinyang, they left, some never to return. Carlene Befoe, the rich and haughty leader of Yoville society, came, lifting her immaculate and costly skirts far above her ankles, careful lest anything touch her. She left laughing. She would tell everybody, her father and husband especially, “This old love-bitch liked black meat! My, my.”

  Fortunately, Josephus took over the care of Yinyang. Unfortunately, Mistress went back to her bottle. She never sought Josephus’ body again.

  Josephus remained there another long thirteen years to see what would happen to the child. His child. Yinyang was his family. He cooked for her, bathed her, made toys for her, played with her, took her out to the fields to work with him. Everything he could do, he did for her. She grew up loving him. Somehow she believed he was her father. He told her, she believed him. She called him Pajo because she knew the white man upstairs was supposed to be her father. Children are like that sometimes. Josephus yearned to leave, get away, live somewhere clean, fresh, small and his own, where he could be with his daughter, away from the shit of this life. He saw no way. He had nothing. Lately, he had begun to pick up coins and bills lying around the house, even selling things “for the Master” and putting the coins by for “someday.” Sometimes he even gave Bessel money for his first daughter, Ruth. She took it with a smile, holding his hand a little longer than necessary. Bessel liked money, but she did like Josephus, too.

  Young as Yinyang was, her world was difficult. Yin knew who her mother was. She wanted to love her, but her mother was always asleep. She knew who her father was, because the old man Krupt, her white father, hated her, struck out at her often, called her “black bastard!” Sometimes Yin (as her black father called her) would crawl into bed with her mother, hold her as she slept. But there was often vomit and, lately, feces on her mother, which Yin would try to clean. She tried to comb her mother’s hair, change her clothes. The old, old, once grand clothes were dusty, molding. They fell apart when Yin tried to put them on her mother or play grown-up lady in them. Yin cried, often, as she moved around her mother’s rooms; the windows closed, the shades drawn, the rooms stank, so gray, so sad, so gloomy. So dead.

  Once when the nightclothes were a bit ragged, Yin proposed to her mother to get some new ones made. Her mother smiled, said, “Yessssss, I think I will.” After a bit of thinking, Mistress Krupt continued smiling and said, “Look in that drawer, look in all my drawers. And look in that closet, the small box, I think, way in the corner in back. Get the money there. And go order some clothing for me. And some sheets. Get me everything I need, my little light slave daughter.” She laughed. “Get Madame Carlene Befoe, the rich bitch, to tell you who sews for her.” Yin was about ten years old.

  Yin took the money to Josephus. “We got to go to that lady, Miz Befoe, to find out who sews for her. Then we got to ride ole Sal and the buggy into town and get some material to make mama some new clothes. Why, Pajo, we got a heap of gold money here to get us some clothes, too! C’mon, let’s go now!”

  Josephus looked down at the box of gold coins in the hands of his daughter and he saw his dreams more clearly.

  “Wher you git that, baby?”

  “From mama. C’mon, let’s go!”

  “She tole you where to git that gold?”

  “Yes, Pajo. Ain’t it a lot?”

  “Where she tole you to git it from?”

  “Her drawers, her closet.”

  “Was … was it any mo? Thar?”

  “I didn’t look everywher, Pajo, cause this was enough, I’m sure on it.”

  “Giv it to me, so it don’t spill everwhere. Let’s wrap it up good and safe.”

  “Sho, Pajo. We goin now?”

  “Let me go hitch Sal, you go get washed up, then we go.” Yin ran off excited to be going somewhere.

  Josephus took the box, took half the gold out and hid it. He hitched the wagon up and, when Yin came running back out, they drove away. Before they returned, he had bought shoes for Yin and even hired a teacher by “errand of the Mistress” for Yin to go to each morning to learn to read and write. He bought nothing for himself. His dreams were his satisfaction.

  He took her to school faithfully. She taught him what she learned each day. They both grew. His plans grew huge. He stole more and sold more of the things he could. He had enough to go away, but he kept staying for more. Satan’s philosophy is like that, enough is not enough.

  Josephus began to keep the Krupts’ liquor right on the kitchen table, with glasses ready. He kept liquor in their rooms; though they had been doing a good job of that, now they didn’t have to think about it at all. It was always just there, like magic. He also began rummaging in their rooms when he knew they were dead drunk and Yin was asleep. In time, he found much. He also began to tell Yin to ask about her birth certificate. There was none, it seemed. So “the Mistress” sent money to the white midwife who sent Ma Lal to the notary with the papers for a birth certificate. Josephus carried all the money and messages. Ma Lal smiled as she handed him the papers. They named Master Krupt as father. His plan stepped up speed.

  Josephus knew the master would not be living much longer, and the mistress didn’t look like she was far behind. Would they have relatives who would take the child, ten years old, away with them? Away from him? Relatives did come from time to time, distant relatives from distant places, to see what they could salvage or take away with them. Her relatives who saw the sunshine tint in the skin of the child didn’t think it was the Mistress’. “It must belong to the Master and one of his Negras he used to have, so it wasn’t anything but a Negra.” Wasn’t nothin to worry bout in the inheritance, was there anything left. Still, some others, among his few relatives, thought she was white. This frightened Josephus. They could take his child away.

  Josephus began stealing more, kept taking more things to sell in the name of the master. Rambled through the dark rooms at night looking for a hiding place where there might be gold or silver, sold all he could for his “master.” Some things he found, he just put away, biding his time. With the white men riding and killing Negroes now freed, Josephus dug holes in places to bury his value. The plan stepped up speed again. Time was getting hard, scary and short.

  Josephus knew that if the money was caug
ht on him when he and Yin left, it would all be taken away; he might even be killed. And, he thought, heaven forbid, Yin could be taken and raped, beaten and whatever them men wanted to do if they didn’t think she was white, and some, even if they thought she was white. Hadn’t the Master in his diseased drunkenness tried to reach out and grab her with his long-fingered, scabby, dirty-fingernailed, gnarled hands? “I would’a kilt him!” Josephus snarled to himself as he tightened his fist.

  One day when he picked up Yin from her teacher, she asked him, “Who is God?” Josephus had heard of God, but he didn’t know anything about Him. He did not know what to tell her. “What yo teacher say he is?” Yin looked up at her father, “She say … said I need to go to church and learn about Him. She said I can go with her since my mama don’t go.” She held up a book to Josephus, “See? This here is His book. It tells us about Him.”

  That night they read in it together. Somehow they came to the verse about “Thou shalt not kill.” Josephus held the book a long time.

  “Turn the page, Pajo.” Yin reached for the book.

  “No, not right now. I got to try to read mo of it. Let me think, baby.” He put a small rock in the place of the book and closed it. “But you can go wit that teacher to church. I will take you on Sundy.” As he did. Soon they spoke again about God. Josephus asked Yin, “What you spose happen to a body if’n they was to do what God said not to do?” Yin answered, looking up at him, “I blive whatever you do to somebody else, it will come right back on you. That’s close as I can make out from what they say in the church.”

  However, later, when he spoke with God, on his knees, Josephus said, “So, this is who you is. Well, you know I don’t know yo, don’t know nothin bout yo. Much. An I done met yo awful late. I blive I could like yo, but I got to do what I got to do. Tha’s my chile. Yo sposed to be done give her to me. Well … sir, I wants to keep her side me. So … sir, I gots to do what I gots to do it. Tha’s all.”

  Time passed, slowly. Old Master Krupt was sick to death, but just didn’t die. Josephus in his gardening had gathered poison mushrooms, put them in a jar of water. He did not want Master Krupt to die before he was prepared to run away with Yin. He wanted to know WHEN Master Krupt was gone for good. He fed Master Krupt a little of the water off the poison mushrooms in his food everyday. He sat things by. He gathered his gold and silver coins and the little paper money, sewing all he could into his clothes, clothes taken from the master, and bought a new-made coat for Yin.

  Josephus did not want to wear worn, ragged clothes away, nor grand, brand-new ones either. He wanted it to look like someone who knew what they were doing had sent him out on the road. He did not want to go barefoot because he did not know how far they would have to walk. He managed to get some shoes. All the things he thought he needed were put by. Master Krupt was dying a little more each day. Alcohol poisoning and, now, mushroom poisoning. No doctor was called.

  Josephus packed as much to take with him as he thought would be safe on him and Yin. But … the money remaining. He thought hard what to do with what they could not safely carry, had to leave behind!

  Remembering when he had worked far out in the field, he thought of an old tool shack seldom gone into by anyone except a slave. Now he had been the only one in it for nigh on twenty years or so. He went there, dug a hole in the ground of the shack, putting half of the remaining gold, silver and jewels from Mistress Krupt into it, buried at the bottom of a tool box and covered with tools. He covered the hole and stomped the ground over it. Then he took a long look at the shack, sighed, said, “I see you again some day.”

  When the master didn’t die from the water covering the mushrooms, which were now rotted, Josephus just mixed the whole jar of spoiled, smelly stuff into the next spicy meal and served it to both Master and Mistress. Then he called Yin.

  “Yin, baby, Pajo is gettin ready to leave here.”

  She was surprised and alarmed. “Oh, Pajo, where you goin? When you leavin me? When you comin back?”

  “I don know, baby. I do want to know, do you want to stay here? I don blive ole Master is long for this world … and yo ma ain’t gettin on too well.” He saw the fear and pain in Yin’s eyes. He hurried on, “She be alright tho. If’n we don be here, people will come in and take care of her like she need to be. She sick.” He hesitated. “She mayhap mighten die.” Yin’s eyes spilled slow, quiet tears. She looked at her father. She loved him. She loved her mother. But she knew him better than anyone in the whole world. He loved her better than anyone in the whole world. ’Cept God.

  “Is … are you gonna take me with you, Pajo?” She sniffed. “Or are you gonna leave me here?” Her face was full of fear. Her heart was in her eyes, mouth, nose and ears, it seemed.

  “I wants to take you.”

  “Will we come back sometime and see bout mama?”

  “I … If’n you wants to. I know we will be back.” He was thinking of the gold.

  Yin sighed so deeply it hurt Josephus. “Then I want to go with you. Pajo.”

  “Good, baby, good.” A weight lifted from his tired shoulders.

  Finally, that night he removed a necklace from Mistress Krupt’s neck as she slept fitfully, dying. A gold chain with a locket having one diamond and two rubies on it, clogged with the mushrooms she had vomited. He thought of the diamond ring he had already taken from her drawer that was now out in the shed with the other gold. He took a picture of the mistress from her bureau top. He took all the papers belonging to Yinyang. He packed all the things they needed that they could carry walking. Packed a little food. Hitched the tired horse, Sal, to the wagon. Then he changed his mind, unhitched her, thinking someone would bring Sal home and thereby find whatever might be wrong there. Then he changed his mind again, hitched her back up. Would drive all night while the child slept, then leave the wagon wherever he was when dawn came and walk till they was far, far away. If someone found the wagon, they would probably keep it, he thought, “wasn’t nothin but a poor man gonna be out where they would leave it noway.”

  That night Josephus cleaned and placed the necklace around Yin’s neck, saying, “From yo mama, a membrance.” He laid her in the wagon, covered up warm, sat his shoes beside him in the wagon, looked around the old, run-down, empty and dead plantation and thought of the golden money that would be there when he came back for it. He heaved a heavy sigh … looked in the direction of where Ruth, his other daughter, was sleeping and, snapping the whip lightly over Sal’s head, drove away.

  The wagon slowly rolled down the drive to the main road. Master Krupt lay upstairs in the dark old weather-beaten house, dead. Mistress Krupt, in pain and anguish, heard the wagon wheels creaking and moved slowly to the window, sick to death. Face distorted with stomach cramps and confusion, she tried to understand the wagon leaving in the night. Was someone else sick? Are they going for a doctor? Was what she had really just a hangover from the liquor? Perspiration broke out over her body, already dripping wet from the labor of her movements. She bent over and vomited again. Brushing her hand at the vomit, she fell back into the bed, vomited again, then drowned in it, clutching the new sheet, never to awaken again. Her life gone, for riches and wine. Satan smiled. And though Josephus did not know it, he was never to see that plantation or his daughter, Ruth, again.

  they traveled first by buggy, then, in the early dawn, Josephus left the buggy and the horse Sal and began to walk. At first Yin thought it was a fun adventure, walking through strange woods and sleeping on the earth at night, always in a new place. But in time she became tired and disgruntled, so Josephus stopped a while, worked for a month or so, helping a man build a barn. He received a mule; thereafter, Yin rode while he walked. There was no real destination, just away. Josephus thought of New Orleans he had heard a lot of, but he really didn’t want to go further down south. They had to be already close to the North. They just traveled on and on, slowly.

  Josephus and Yin grew even closer together during their travel. They talked of many things, new
things they were seeing, old things Josephus thought about. He even told her about his daughter, Ruth, born before her, her half-sister. She was surprised and thrilled to have a sister, any kind. He taught her many things about animals, the woods, the night, the stars. They fished and he hunted for food. They had money to buy things with, but didn’t want to show it. It took them nine months to even reach Southern Virginia.

  In Virginia, Josephus found and worked for a seemingly gracious Negro lady of such years as his. Miz Nattie Lee ran a boarding house. Hers. He wanted a home for Yin, and he fell in love, too. He wanted to stay and marry. The lady liked his work. She had already had most her fun, she thought, as she looked down at her bulging, lack-a-shape body. When he told her about the gold, pouring most of it onto her bed where they had just made a little love, she married him. Josephus had a home at last! Yin had a home, and a mama!

  But the new Miz Josephus turned out to be exceedingly greedy, a nag, a mean-jealous woman. She did not like Yin, though the young girl was sweet and obedient. She complained of Yin all the time, ridiculed her eyes and hair, tried to work her sweet, young body to death. Josephus began to frown all the time. He also began to look at the woman as though she were empty space, his mind off somewhere trying to understand how a Negro, a colored person, could be so cruel. He knew all people could be mean sometime, but cruel? Only the whites were this cruel! He decided to go back for the rest of his money. He had given just about all of it to Nattie Lee by now because she wouldn’t let him rest or make love, such as it was, until he gave her “another one of them shiny pieces of gold.” Plus, he would think, “I’m workin hard raisin all the food her boarders eat, raisin and killin chickens, milkin cows, all of it! Even helpin cook!” Josephus had seen the icing on the cake earlier and had given Yin a number of gold coins wrapped in one of her handkerchiefs. Josephus was mad at himself for giving up his gold and hurt because, of all the women he might have chosen, he chose the wrong one. He cried a hoarse, deep sobbing sometimes, off by himself, he thought, but Yin had seen him. Yin cried often herself as she went to sleep at night or would just cry softly over the sink, washing all those dishes, forever.