Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  "Yes. But I never drove in weather like this. Snow and ice, I mean."

  "The snow's not so bad; it's the ice that'll kill you. But you'll learn," he said. "A lot of the students have some kind of beat-up four-wheel vehicle. We have to keep them off campus most of the time. I garage this with a family about half a mile away from the campus." Then, abruptly, "Hear you're a brain."

  The sudden change of subject threw David off for a moment; then he laughed. "Who, me? I'm no brain."

  "You've got to be to be a Quimby. Or any other scholarship student here, as far as that goes. The grapevine has it you're a brain and a half."

  "Shucks," said David. "You know how big things can grow on a grapevine."

  "We heard you buy your cigarettes in Latin, and order Cokes in Greek. According to the grapevine, Einstein was a kindergartner just learning his numbers compared to you."

  "Sweet Jesus!" gasped David. "I've even got trouble with the multiplication table."

  "Then you better start learning, man. Our math professor, old Beanie Benford—" he shuddered.

  'Tough?"

  "Tough like a bullwhip. They say he's the best in the country, but he's rough to get along with if you don't happen to think higher mathematics is the answer to everything from the immaculate conception to the atom bomb."

  David shuddered even more violently than Sudsy had. His shudder was genuine. God knew, he was scared enough without having to face the toughest professor in the college in his weakest subject. And it was required, not elective. He sighed. "And me starting in late."

  "Maybe he'll give you a break on account of that. If he does, you'll be the first Quimby he ever gave a break to. He's rough on 'em. Rougher than on anyone else."

  Like that, is it? thought David. Like that. Sutherland said, "Hey, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. He was the first Quimby, fifteen years ago. Graduated with every honor this academic sweatshop can hand out."

  "You mean he's a Negro?"

  "Compared to Beanie, you're an outstanding example of the true Nordic type. After he was graduated here, he went to Cambridge—Cambridge, England, that is—and got a degree there the way I'd go in and buy a candy bar. Then they got him back here to teach. He's next in line for head of the department. He's about six four, and we've got bets up he wouldn't weigh in at 125 soaking wet. Don't let it worry you too much. After a while you find out he's a hell of a teacher. For some reason light dawns. I don't even have to think now when someone asks me what seven times nine is."

  David was silent. The surprise of learning that one of the key professors was a Negro was lost in the realization that apparently neither the Prof nor his brother had thought it of sufficient importance to tell him of it. Or had deliberately kept quiet about it.

  "This is the town," Sudsy was saying. "You better look quick or you'll miss it."

  "I saw it last spring. It's sure pretty."

  "Say that after a few weekends stuck in it."

  CHAPTER 18

  As they passed through the town and on to the road leading to the college, David became increasingly curious about where he would be housed. He hoped they wouldn't put him with a white roommate. That would be what Gramp called "crowding the mourners." But he also hoped they wouldn't put him with Nehemiah Wilson. Nehemiah was all right, but a steady diet of that nervous drive and intensity would be hard to take.

  Almost at the end of the main quadrangle they turned into a short dead-end street. Sutherland drove to its end, made a U-turn, and returned almost to the corner to park in front of an old-fashioned house that was big and many-gabled, with bay windows and dormers, and a wide, deep porch.

  "This use to be the president's house," said Sudsy. "Old Man Quimby's. Then, when he built himself a place on the lake, he gave the house to the college. No one dares tear it down while he's alive. It's a kick inside. Obviously, it's called Quimby House. But I think you're the first Quimby to live in it."

  Sudsy was unlocking the trunk of the car, and David was beside him, reaching for the suitcase before the other boy had chance to take it. He stood looking up at the house for a moment until the other joined him. It's sure different, he thought. Sure different from 3020 St. Augustine Street.

  When they closed the heavy front door behind them and passed through the small entrance foyer to the main hall, David looked around and whistled. It was not like any house he had been in down home. It seemed huge, the ceilings high and remote. At the left a lounge looked vaguely cluttered and more than vaguely comfortable, with big chairs and old-fashioned divans. Ahead a wide staircase carved upward, its ascent interrupted twice by landings.

  "The architect who planned the place was raised on Tinker-toys," said Sutherland.

  David followed the other up the stairs, almost bumping into him when he stopped on the first landing and turned left. A short flight of steps, recessed and invisible from the main hall, led to another small landing. Sutherland opened the door at its back that faced them.

  "You lucky character," he said.

  "Gee!" said David. His eyes traveled round the room. "Nice."

  "Super," said Sudsy. The room was good-sized, must once have been a study or a library. A small fireplace with coal-burning grate was in the wall opposite the door. It was flanked by two windows. Under one window was a built-in desk, and bookshelves ran between the window and a washbasin set in the wall on the left. A couch of the type called "studio" was beneath a window in the right-hand wall. There were a large, old-fashioned armchair, a smaller occasional chair, and two straight chairs. To their right, as they stood in the doorway, a short flight of steps led to another door.

  David knew that he was grinning like a four-year-old at the sight of the room. "Why me?" he asked. "Just a freshman."

  "Just a lucky break," said Sudsy. "They're tearing down one of the older dormitories. Everyone's crowded. Actually, this used to be the study for the room up there." He gestured toward the door beside him at the top of a short flight of stairs. "Couple of upper classmen in there now. Pretty good guys. You were slated for one of the regular dormitories. Then the guy who had this room had to drop out and here you are. You haven't any study, but by God you've got a fireplace. The only damned fireplace in the only damned student's room on the whole damned campus."

  David walked further into the room. "I suppose I shouldn't ask," he said. "Do you suppose I can keep it? I mean, all the time, next year and all?" He'd envisioned bare, cold-looking dormitories; this room could come to seem like home.

  "Put in a bid when you leave this summer."

  Sutherland was standing in the center of the room, looking at the suitcase David had tossed on the couch. He had not missed the ease with which David had handled a piece of baggage he, Sudsy, was convinced was full of lead ingots. Being small and not possessed of great physical strength, he always felt a faint twinge of envy when he encountered it in others. The envy never lasted long. He had taken off the knit stocking cap, and now he rumpled his hair with a nervous gesture.

  "Look, Champlin," he said. "Look, you want to unpack now?"

  "Guess I'd better. Those clothes've been in there since Thursday night, and I don't suppose I can get 'em pressed anywhere today. What wrinkles won't shake out may hang out by morning."

  "We've got an iron," said Sutherland. "And an ironing board. Actually, they're my roommate's, but he won't care if we use them. Harry's a pretty good guy for an old maid. He's having dinner with some town chick and going in to the city for a symphony or some damned thing later."

  "Well—if it's—"

  "Sure it's O.K." David heard something like appeal in the other's voice, and could not analyze it. "Look, a few of us did the town last night—I mean Cincinnati—and we wound up in Fountain Square buying chicken and French fries at a rotisserie. To eat today. There's enough for a mob, and the other guys seem to have taken off. Whyn't you give me a hand with them? The food at the hall is sudden death on Sundays, slow death on weekdays. You can bring whatever clothes you want to press."
>
  David had opened the suitcase, and he stood now looking down at its neatly folded contents. No, David, no. You don't fold a coat like that. You take it so—tucks the arms in so— His mind was working rapidly. He was sure Dr. Knudsen had asked Sutherland to meet him, make him feel at ease. Whether it was because he was a new Negro student or whether it was actually the custom to meet all new students arriving in midterm he could not tell. If it was because he was a new Negro student, Sutherland had done his duty nobly. There was no need for further coddling. But the guy had sounded sincere, almost anxious, in some queer way. Play in your own courtyard; never mind what the white kids do. Nothing, not one solitary thing, since he had arrived had smelled of Crow. It was the first time he could remember anything like this, except for the foreigners and some of the students from the North who had sought out the bands in the smelly back rooms of the clubs when Gramp had taken him along on a gig. And of course the Prof, who was in a class by himself.

  Perhaps it was all the more reason for wariness. What the hell. What if he was wrong. It wouldn't matter. You'd think he was scared of Crow, and he'd lived with it all his life. And he was as hungry as a bitch wolf with pups. "Well—you sure you got plenty?"

  "Plenty! Man, I tell you, I've got enough for three dinners for each of us! O.K.—you coming?"

  "I've got to get cleaned up. Then I'll come over. You tell me where it is."

  Sudsy drew him to the side window over the couch. "Go back to the main quadrangle, at the corner there. Cross this street, and it's the second dormitory building. Emory Hall. Want me to wait for you?"

  "I'll be along. Thanks."

  He went to the landing after Sutherland left. Somewhere there had to be a shower or a tub. They wouldn't be downstairs. He climbed to the next landing, heard splashing, and located its source. He returned to his room and gave the present occupant of the bath time to finish, then padded down the hall in bathrobe and slippers, feeling like a college man and reveling in it. Twenty minutes later he was pulling on the rubbers he had known damned well Gramp would sneak into the suitcase, grateful for them, remembering the feel of the snow and slush-covered pavement.

  ***

  When he started down the path from Quimby House, he told himself he would have to learn a new technique of walking. He remembered a remark of Pop Jefferson's about a man who wouldn't eat raw oysters because he didn't want to put his teeth into anything he couldn't control.

  He limped gingerly to the corner, and stopped, trying to accustom himself to the sight of the campus. He could see other students going in and out of buildings, some of them running. He decided they must be wearing spikes. A whole gaggle of women students emerged from a dormitory on the other side of the wide quadrangle, and were joined at the corner opposite him by a group of male students. He saw a colored student among the girls, her face dark against a bright green scarf, teeth showing white, wearing glasses that he could tell, even from where he stood, had heavy rims. He wondered if she was a Quimby. Even from this distance she looked awfully damned academic.

  It was when he turned to step from the sidewalk that the icy footing betrayed him, and he crashed down, arms and legs flying, the suit he was carrying landing in the low bank of shoveled snow at the edge of the sidewalk. He sat there a minute, half laughing, amazed at the quickness of the fall, his helplessness to save himself; then he swore briefly and prepared to get up.

  "Did you break any bones? Interesting ones, I mean?"

  He looked up, startled. A solemn young face framed in a red balaclava helmet was looking down at him, a face so young he thought the boy a campus visitor—someone's younger brother or the son of a professor. "I don't think so," he said. He pulled himself upright, and turned to pick up the suit. The boy had the coat in his hands and was shaking it vigorously. "A really good fall could be good for two days in the infirmary,'' he was saying. He put the coat over his arm, started on the trousers. "I've made it twice. There's a knack to it. Actually, you almost have to sustain a head injury. Here's your suit. If you're interested, my name's Evans, Tom Evans."

  "Mine's David Champlin."

  "The brain. The new Quimby. We're classmates." Evans held out a hand as small as a child's, but strong and firm. This must be the Tom Evans who lived near Sara Kent. David thought he had never seen a face so young on a boy old enough to be in college. Evans had the red cheeks and general overall look of a magazine-cover baby. David felt a paternal desire to call him "son."

  "Is it any of my business where you're headed for?" asked Evans.

  "I don't see why it isn't." David smiled down at him. "One of—" (What did they call themselves here? Students? Men? Boys?) He decided on "student," and started again. "One of the students who lives in Emory Hall asked me to come over. He met me at the station. He said his name's Sutherland."

  "If he said it is, it is. Did he by any chance mention anything about fowl—chicken—edible birds?"

  "Well—"

  "He did." Evans took David's elbow in a cupped hand. His head was only a little above David's shoulder. "Onward, friend Champlin. A goodly portion of those chickens are mine. A fact that has no doubt slipped his mind. We'll refresh it."

  Sutherland's room was on the second floor of the new dormitory building. They passed a lounge on the first floor whose modern furnishings did not look nearly so comforta-

  ble, David thought, as the over-stuffed period pieces in the Quimby House lounge. From open doors in the second-floor corridor, as he followed Evans, he heard radios, voices, laughter. Sutherland's room was at the end of the corridor. Evans rapped perfunctorily, then opened the door, standing back for David to enter. Sutherland greeted David loudly. "Man, what happened to you? This isn't white tie and tails—" He caught a sight of Evans behind David. "Cripes! Where'd you pick it up?"

  "He didn't," said Evans. "I picked him up. And I speak literally." He walked into the room, his nose wrinkling, looking more absurdly young than ever. He took off the knit helmet and the mackintosh he was wearing, tossed them on the bed, and roamed the room, sniffing expectantly. Sudsy took David's light coat, said "God, one of these nature boys."

  Evans was still sniffing around the room. "Look, Suds," he said severely. "Chicken?"

  "You said you were going to the city."

  "That's got nothing to do with it. Four chickens. Four lovely brown chickens and two large bags of French fries. Purchased last night in a moment of alcoholic intelligence. One-half of the purchase price being put up by one Evans."

  "Beer?" said Sudsy.

  "Certainly."

  "Stoopid! I'm not asking you to have a beer. I'm asking you have you got beer."

  Sudsy, pudgy young face earnest and intent, was wrestling with a card table. David took it from him, thankful for something to do with his hands. Evidently he would have to wait until after they had all eaten before pressing his coat and trousers. He felt awkward and out of place. He could not follow the quick banter of Sutherland and Evans, could not have joined in if his life had depended on it. Only the shyness he had felt the first day he sat in the Professor's high-ceiling study equaled the shyness he felt now. He could evaluate human relationships in the South; had known no shyness with any white he had known in the South, because, however friendly, there was beneath the friendliness a nonacceptance, an adherence to a double standard, a willingness to wait till Judgment Day, if need be, before putting any concept like the brotherhood of man to any test. Knowing this, he had felt no shyness, only inner contempt.

  Today he felt acceptance, and did not know what to do with it. The talk between the two boys in the room was like a foreign language, different from the humor of his own people. This cross talk was barbed, open, not soft and subtle like that of the Negro with its hundred different meanings left unspoken, yet clearly understood.

  The antennae of his mind searched for Crow, expected it, and did not find it. He was conscious for the first time that there was another side to the gulf that stretched between white and colored. If—and today he f
elt it might be true— there were actually whites who sought and wanted friendship with his people, they must find it difficult because they must not only bridge a gulf but must then climb a wall on the other side of the gulf even higher and more forbidding than the wall that surrounded them.

  He set the table in the center of the room, heard Sudsy call "Catch!" and made a backhanded grab at a tablecloth.

  "No!" Evans groaned. "Not a tablecloth!"

  "Company," said Suds.

  "This guy's just a student, for cripe's sake. Just a li'l ol' student like you and me."

  "Look, my sainted mother sent me this tablecloth. If I don't send it home dirty with the laundry she'll think"—he shuddered—"I eat off bare tabletops. I hope you cats spill something on it."

  They were no longer calling him "Champlin," by the time they sat down, but "David." When they said "Champlin" they used the flat, Anglicized pronunciation, not the French pronunciation of New Orleans. Evidently it was last names by the faculty always, and last names by fellow students until they became better acquainted. It was plain that the "Stoopid" he heard so frequently was a campus catchword, to be repeated ad nauseam until something else was found.

  They ate with their fingers, in spite of the tablecloth, and talked little. Sudsy made instant coffee from water boiled over an electric plate, and a second pan of water was simmering when Sudsy called out in response to a low knock. The knock had been so gentle that David was unprepared for the appearance in the doorway of a mountain of blond student, taller than he by at least two inches, with wide, heavy shoulders, the open and inviting countenance of an old-fashioned kitchen clock, and a shock of tow-colored hair that grew much like Dr. Knudsen's, without let or hindrance or visible signs of discipline.

  "Y'all eating?" The voice came from deep inside the massive chest, and the accent came from Georgia. Or, thought

  David, it might be Alabama, but Georgia was more likely. I'm glad I got that chicken in me first, he thought. Hope to hell I can keep it down.