by Betty Smith
they walked away together.
Claude stood there in his cap and gown, holding his
diploma and he waited until all the people had gone.
He got a job that fall, :IS English teacher in a small-town
high
[ 473 1
school in South Carolina. He loved the town, and he fell
in love with a girl there. She v; as nineteen and he was
twenty-four.
"I would like to live here all my life. If you will marry
me," he said.
"I will, Claude," she said. "But first you'll have to speak
to Daddy."
"Why? "
"Because that's the VV.Iy we do here."
He sat on the porch with the girl's father. It was a
spring night. There was the smell of mimosa and the smell
of woodsmoke. Claude noticed a broken board of the
porch floor. Tomorrow, he thought, is Saturday. And I will
come and fix that board for them. And in spring va. ation'
1 will come and say, Let me paint the porch for you.
He told the girl's father all he knew about himself. The
father was much moved by Cl.lude's story. But he spoke
of heritage; he spoke of lineage, proud and poor, but
pure. He spoke in firm words of uncontaminated, white
lineage.
"But, sir," said Claude, "I am a man in my own right. I
have my own kind of honor . . ."
"But this is the South, ' said the father. "And we have to
know."
"What was her name?" asked Ma~g~gie-Now.
"Who? "
"The girl."
"Oh, Willie May."
"I guess I don't like her," said Maggie-Now in a miserable
voice.
"Because she wouldn't marry me?"
"Because you once loved her."
"Oh, Margaret," he said patiently, "that was so long ago.
It shouldn't matter now."
He left his town, his job and his girl and started on his
wandering search. He went to Detroit first because there
he had started as an infant. He got a job as hotel clerk
and in his free time he wandered over the city and its raw
suburbs and looked in phone looks, directories, libraries
(to read old newspapers, looking for the name), and
examined the boards in office buildings and looked up
names of professional people and firms. He found a
Bassett or
~ 424 ]
two but they were not the right ones. He tried to
approximate the year of his birth and sent for a birth
certificate. There was no record.
He went to Chicago and stayed there a fall and a winter
and again it vitas the same. Each state he went to, he
wrote and asked for a birth certificate. Some states had
no records prior to 190O, in others, the records had
burned up, and in other states there w as no record.
He got out to the West and he loved it there. lle loved
the mountains and the sky and the great loneliness of it.
Here, he thought, a man could liqe. No one would ask who
he was or where he cane from. A r,'an could start his own
dynasty here, he thought grandly.
It was out there in Idaho that he first felt the chinook
blowing. And he fell in love with it. After that, no matter
where he was, he left the place and set out westward
when he judged the chinook wind was blowing over the
Rockies.
And as the years went by, it was so that the wandering
got to be more important than the searching.
He made his way to Manhattan....
"Then I got over to Brooklyn and found you," he said.
"And I knew you were the one. You were the one. And
you took me without question."
"You could have told me," she said. "And it would have
been all right. I wouldn't have cared. And perhaps you w
ouldn't have needed to go away any more."
In the summer just past, he had gone back to Detroit
again. There he got the idea that perhaps Canada was the
place. He walked over the bridge into Canada and worked
his way north. One night, he registered at a small,
inexpensive hotel in one of the smaller cities. The old
desk clerk read off Claude's name slowly. He adjusted his
spectacles to look at Claude. Claude had a sudden sense
of awareness. "You have people here, Ilr. Bassett?"
"No. I'm from the States."
"I inquired because a gentleman of the same name used
to live here."
Very quietly, Claude asked: "Where does he live now?"
~4-'71
"Oh, he passed on. B ifty years ago. I was a lad of twenty,
then."
"What," asked Claude carefully, "became of his children?"
"He had but the one. A son. I
my age now.
"And this Kenmore Where is he now?"
"That, I do not know." The old man suddenly became
loquacious. "Kenmore never did have children. He was
married, though. He was a professor in one of those big
colleges up in one of the northern provinces. I don't
remember which one, now. Used to know, though. Some
things come back to me. I remember he had a year's
holiday. You call it . . . ? "
"Sabbatical year."
"Thank you, sir. He went to the States for that year."
The aged clerk started counting the coins in the cash
drawer as though the coversation was ended.
"And when he returned . . . ?" asked Claude nudgingly
"Pardon me, sir? "
"When Kenmore Bassett returned . . ."
"Oh, he never did come back from the States. Here's
your key, sir, and we like our guests to pay in advance."
"I would appreciate any information you can give me
about Kenmore Bassett," said Claude earnestly.
"Let me see: His wife didn't go to the States with him,
you know. He wrote her. Yes, I remember now. He wrote
and asked her to divorce him."
"Did she?"
"No, SiI'. You see he wrote that there was a young lady
in the States whom he wished to marry. And that did not
go down well with Mrs. Bassett. Oh, my wife could tell
you everything. You see, sir, she was in service. She
worked for Mrs. Bassett until that lady passed on."
"May I speak to your wife, sir?" asked Claude, feeling
he had come to the end of the trail at last.
The old clerk shook Lois head sadly. "My wife passed
on ten years ago."
"You believe then," said Maggie-Now, "that this
Kenmore vitas your father?"
"I can make myself believe it if I wish."
[ 426 1
She thought: Oh, all the wasted years of life! But she said:
"And now, you'll never need to go away again."
"Never more will I go," he said lightly.
But he had a stab of anguish. Never again to lit e a
while in a sun-baked adobe house of the dreamy
Southwest . . . never again the thrill of seeing for the first
time one of the magnificent big cities of America. Never
again the eternal mountains
against the wide and infinite
sky . . . the miles of golden wheat rippling in the sun . . .
the blinding Lila of the great Pacific Ocean. Never again
. . . never.
"And you're happy now that you know?"
"I don't know, Margarer. If we were younger I'd want
children now. I feel right about becoming a father, now
that I know. But for twenty-five years that has been my
way of life the wandering and the searching. N(,NV that
that's over, I don't know anv other way of life."
No, she thought, he doesn't know any other way of life.
But how, all of a sudden, can he tell himself that he's
through with it? I know! Oh, dear God, his strength is failing
and he knows he can't make it any more.
He said that now that he knows, /'e wants children; would
feel right about having children. Did he mean . . . IVhy
wasn't it right before? Could it be that he, like all men who
never settle dowel. didn't want to be tied down by children?
Or was it that he had to know who his father was first?
She felt oddly ill at ease with him now as though he
were a stranger with whom she had nothing in common.
She felt vaguely inferior as though she were an illiterate
peasant. Then she remembered that, this last time he had
come home, he had asked her nothing about what she had
done in the summer.
He used to need my life, she thought, to fill in his own.
Now he doesn't need that any more. He doesn't need me in
that way any more. Oh, I'm sorry he told me!
She said: "Claude, in a way, I'm sorry you told me."
~ }27 1
'A CHAP]'ER SIXTY-FOUR A
IN TIIE days that followed, Claude sat by the window
and MaggieNTow sat with him and there vitas little to
talk about. From time to time, he'd reach out his hand
and she'd take it and tell him she loved him. Sometimes
he'd ask her if she missed the children. She'd hesitate a
moment before she told him, no, now that she had him .
. .
About a week later, Denny came over in his lunch hour
and ate with them. He brought news. The new store in
Hempstead was ready and they wel e going to move in
March first. They had already given notice to their
landlord.
"Does Tessie feel better now about moving out there?"
asleep .Maggie-Now.
"Well," said Denny, a little evasively, "I made her see
that it was for the best."
Denny spoke excitedly about the new store. He
described the fixtures, the floor plan and some of the
exotic meats and cheese that already had been delivered,
and . . .
While Denny was spa aking, Claude started to moan.
Suddenly his face contorted in severe pain.
"My head!" he gasped. "The pains . . . get . . . something
. . . Margaret . . . please . . . I can't stand . . ."
"Oh, darling . . . deal . . . dear darling!" she said. She
ran into tile bathroom. There was nothing for a headache
in the medicine chest, only a tin of aspirin. She knew that
wouldn't be enough. She ran back to the kitchen. She
spoke to him as though he were a child.
"There, my darling, Margaret will get you something
and Denny will stay with you while I'm gone and I'll be
right bacl.." She kissed him and rushed out.
t4~, 1
Fortunately, the doctor was home. He was having lunch
with his family. "How often dales he get these headaches?"
he asked.
"He never had one before in all the years we've been
married."
"I'll give you a prescription...."
"That will take too long, Doctor. And oh, he seemed to
be suffering so terribly! He c ould hardly talk, and . . ."
"I'd better take a look at him," said the doctor. They
drove over in the doctor's car.
Denny was on the stoop waiting for them. He seemed
terribly distraught and kept putting his hands up to his
head.
"Something terrible happened, Doctor," he said.
"Something awful . . ."
"A stroke," said the doctor succinctly. He gave what
comfort he could: "If he had to go, it was better this way.
A few moments of pain and it was all over."
Maggie-Now was too shocked to comprehend. "But he
said he wouldn't go away," she kept repeating. "He
promised!"
"If you loved him," said the doctor, "you'd rather have
it this way. You wouldn't want him to suffer and die by
inches stroke after stroke."
"But he told me he wouldn't leave me," she said like a
bewildered child.
"I'm going to give you something, Mrs. Bassett," said the
doctor, "to get you over this first shock." He broke an
ampule and filled the hypodermic needle.
When she awakened, Claude was no longer there. The
house seemed full of people. She heard Annie's voice
saying she'd take care of everything.
The talking ceased when Maggie-Now came out of her
room. She went into the kitchen. Annie had the range
going full blast. She was mixing a cake and preparing a
beef rib roast for the oven. Potatoes and vegetables were
on the table waiting to be prepared. Annie knew it was
right to have food ready for the people who would come.
"He's gone, Annie," said Maggie-Now.
"Is better if you cry, Licbchen," said Annie.
"But he promised . . ."
[ 4 79
She went into the front room. "Papa, he said he
wouldn't go . . . he promised."
"Ah, me Maggie-NoNv," said Pat. "lle poor Maggie-Now!"
Denny gave her a glass with some pinkish liquid in it.
"The doctor said you're to take this, Maggie-Now."
"I don't want it," she said.
"You must!" He started to weep. "The doctor said I
must make NTou take it."
"Of course," she said soothingly. "Don't cry. I'll take it."
"Maggie-Now," said Pat, "you must put yourself together,
girl, dear. We got to fix it about the funeral."
"Funeral?" she said vaguely. "But I haven't any money."
"I have a bit put away," said Pat. "I'll pay for it."
"But, man, dear!" For the first time, Maggie-Now
noticed Mrs. O'Crawley was there. "Man, dear, wouldn't
it be hefter for .i~Iaggie to take care of that?"
"I said I'd bury him and I will," said Pat. "Goddamn it!"
he added for no reason at all.
Maggie-Now's innate thoughtfulness broke through her
shock. "It won't cost much, Mrs. O'Crawley," she said.
"We have our own plot and he can be with Mama and
Grandfather. And I'll pay Papa back as soon as I can."
"He ain't going to be put in the ground," said Pat. "He
wants to be ashes and the ashes to be thrown away in the
wind where birds is flying."
"No! " screamed Ma: gie-NoNT. "No! '
'He told me the last time I w as here and I said I would
do that for him."
"I won't
allow it!" she screamed. "It's against our religion."
"Ilaybe it ain't against his," said Pat.
"No, Papa," she said note quietly. "I have the say and I
won't allow it."
"Look, Maggie-Novv~.'' said Denny. "You always gave
Claude everything he wanted. You'd have ways to find out
what he wanted and he could have it. You let him go
when he wanted to and you never said no to anything he
did or wanted. Why don't you give him this one last thing
he wanted? It's nothing I'd want." He shivered. "But he
wanted that."
"Yes, Dennv," said Maggie-Nov.~ quietly. "That's right."
[ 41 ]
"Sure," said Pat. "And I'll take care of everything for
you. Everything."
"Thank you, Papa," she said. Novv she seemed to get
control again. "It was nice of you to come, Mrs.
O'Crawley. I think Annie made coffee. Will you go out in
the kitchen and have a cup ? "
"Thank you, I will," said Pat's wife.
She turned to Pat. "And thank you again, Papa. And
why don't you ask Mick Mack to stop over? I'd like to see
him."
After they had left, she went out to the kitchen. "Ah,
Annie, you're so good," she said.
"Is nothing," said Annic. "Someday, maybe you do the
same for me. Is right people do so for each other."
Maggie-Now put her coat on. "You go out, Maggie?"
"I want to talk to Father Flynn."
"Then you go by the church. Yes?"
"Yes, I will."
Maybe she will cry there, thought Annie.
Maggie-Now didn't go to the cremation. Pat and Denny
went; no one else. Pat brought her the cheap urn that the
crematory provided.
"I thought maybe you v. anted to keep this awhile," said
Pat.
"Papa, it would be all right to bury his ashes with Mama,
wouldn't it?"
"I gave him me word 1 would throw his ashes in the
wind. I'll wait for the right day and then I'll come and get
him and go out on a boat to where birds is flying, and I
will do it."
"All right, Papa," she said, obediently.
It was terrible, terrible, for Maggie-Now to be alone; to
have no one to care for. The house echoed with
emptiness. All, all were gone. No tenants occupied the
rooms upstairs. Denny was gone, her father was gone, the
children had been taken from her. And now Claude.
She walked from one empty room to the other,
moaning, How can I live? How can I live alone? There was
always someone. And now no one.
Denny knew how it was with his sister and he was
anguished
[45i ]
for her. And he was the one to conic to her aid.
"I'm not going to tal:e over the never store in
Hempstead," he said. "Well, Tessie and I tallied it over.
We want to rent the rooms upstairs from you and dive
here."
"Honest, Denny? Honest?" Tears of happiness came to
her eyes.
"Tessie is tickled to death at the idea. She says no one
can handle Rainy like you can. We could all eat
together Tessie doesn't like to cook especially. And we'd
all be safe together and . . ."
How wonderful! How wo17derf7~1, thought
Maggie-Now, to have them here with me! I c07~1d take
care of Rainy and I c07~1d cook again: cook for someone
else besides myself . . . I'd have someone to talk to....
"Are you sure that's what yo7l want, Denny?"
"I would have liked to manage the new place and live
out there. Yes, I would! But in the first place, Tessie
doesn't want to live so far away. In the second place, you
can't stay here alone and starve. And then Tessie says her
mother needs her."
"It's the other way around," said Maggie-Now. "Tessie
needs her mother or thinks she does."
"Oh, well!" Denny shrugged and smiled.
Maggie-Now took a little time to savor this wonderful
idea of Denny's before she gave it up. It Ivould be like a
dream come true. Tessie would let me take care of Rainy
