Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  like Chuck and Tom and even Suds, and now he didn't want it to exist, didn't want the impossible, could content himself with the possible—clear and complete and without need of words, the communication that existed between him and his own people, a heritage from a distant day when such communication was necessary for survival. It was a communication that existed even in a snarly way between him and the Simmonses and Dunbars he'd met in this world he'd entered.

  "David."

  "What?"

  "If I wait for you while you get your eyes examined, will you have a cup of coffee with me afterward? And let me drive you home? My car's in the library lot."

  "Look, Sara, why? Talking's no good. It's happened and that's that. There's nothing we can do about it—"

  "Will you, David? You're going to be blind as a bat when you come out—"

  "I am not. The nurse told me on the phone that they put drops in your eyes afterward to counteract the dilation—"

  "Oh, pooh! Nurses—doctors. They'll tell you anything."

  "Look, Sara, I can't stop you. If you want to wait you're sure as heck going to wait. You're the damnedest dame I ever did know that way. And if you wait you'll be cold and wet and I'll feel like a jerk or something if I don't get you a cup of hot coffee."

  "I'll stand out in the rain and cold and sell matches on the corner until I am all goose-pimply and blue. No, I won't. I'll shop for stockings and paints and crayons and stuff and meet you right here in the doorway. If it's too cold I'll come up to the office. Then I'll lead you up the street—"

  "You better not, Smallest. You better not lead me up any street. We'll go to that fancy bakery place next door and have coffee, and you can eat an eclair while my pupils contract—"

  He'd done it. Damn it, he'd done it, and he almost let the heavy door of the office building slam in an old lady's face. He'd let Sara get through to him, called her "Smallest," given in to the something vital and electric and warm that was Sara Kent, and he wished to God he'd canceled the appointment and not come to town at all. How many weeks till Christmas? Three. Too many.

  Sara was waiting for him when he came down, her face framed by the packages she held. He wasn't blind as a bat, he told her, although he admitted to considerably less than twenty-twenty vision, and also to the fact that he was going to have to get reading glasses. He didn't tell her that in the pleasantly blurred world inhabited by those with dilated pupils she was beautiful; that she was not small and piquant and gaminesque, but soft and lovely and downright beautiful. Her hair, disciplined somewhere while he had been inside, was a misty nimbus around her face, her eyes soft and dark and mysterious, not Sara's eyes at all, which could be soft and dark but were never mysterious. He looked down at her, smiling. "Cold?"

  "Freezing. Are you all right? Can you really see?"

  "Fine. Give me some of those packages. You want that coffee and an eclair?"

  She nodded vigorously. Now, his eyes clearing rapidly, Sara Kent was emerging from the misty outlines of the girl who had been waiting for him. Yet something of that misty beauty remained, and he knew it always would. He knew there would be times when he would remember that beauty, long after he had seen Sara Kent for the last time. Thinking of those times as they entered the bakery-cum-coffee shop, he lost all sense of where he was, the warmth and brightness of the place, the ornate pseudo-Viennese decor, the cases filled with pastries and breads, the smell of it, the sight of the Laurel housewives standing in front of counters pointing to displays with hungry fingers, the students agonizing over gooey choices to take back to dormitories—and he was alone without Sara, with no one but David Champlin projected into a future as bleak and barren as a distant planet. In that future there would be only stabbing thoughts of the sudden beauty that had been waiting for him in a cold doorway.

  He reached and took her arm, holding her back as she started toward a display case. "Wait. Let's go to the drugstore for a quick cup at the counter and then go to Mom's for dinner."

  "David! That's the superest idea you ever had. Sometimes I wonder how you carry that brain around. Dutch."

  "No."

  "Dutch."

  "No!"

  "Yes, sir. O.K., sir." She tucked her hand under his arm as they went into the street. "The car's across from the drugstore. I had time to go get it. You're not the only brain—" He could have sworn she was skipping, but when he looked down he saw that her feet were progressing normally, first one, then the other in front of it.

  Not until they drew into the clearing beside Mom's did he realize that two hours before he had crossed a wet, puddled street rather than take a chance on meeting someone he knew coming down the library steps; now he was going into a place where there probably wouldn't be more than a few people he didn't know. And that was Sara Kent's fault; that was a woman for you. Make you forget your whole damned life if you weren't careful, didn't stay clear. It was too late to back out now, and he followed her inside, wary and defensive.

  Mom's was already nearly full; the only table for two left was one in the rear, next to the swinging doors to the kitchen. As they walked toward it he noticed Simmons and Dunbar seated at a wall table, and to his surprise both raised a hand in greeting accompanied by what, for them, passed as smiles. Racial solidarity, thought David, intellectual type.

  He was quiet after they sat down, looking over a menu he knew as well as he knew the Lord's Prayer. The waitress stood over them, fat and short-breathed. "You want ribs again tonight?" she asked David.

  "Yes, please. And chicken for the lady with French fries on both, and coffee. And garlic bread."

  "Why are some people fat and some people thin?" asked Sara. "And probably eat the same things. Like that waitress and the baneful Beanie."

  "Beanie's all right." For the second time that day he found himself defending Benford. "He's O.K."

  "You crazy or something?"

  "I know he's sort of difficult as a teacher—"

  "Difficult! He's murder. I know he goes to church, because I've seen him, but I'll bet you my new paints, David, that when he says his prayers he says 'em to Euclid and Einstein, his only begotten son. Didn't he eat you out yesterday. After class?"

  David's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Eat me out? Beanie? No. Who says so?"

  "Oh—everyone—"

  "Tell 'everyone' for me to go take a big fat jump in the lake." He could not go on and explain, because this was in one of those important areas in life where there was no communication. There could be no telling Sara about Beanie Benford who had been revealed yesterday on the balcony outside the classroom. There could be no telling Sara about so many things. They could share only the surface of life, the things that had to do with life and not its wellsprings—not, certainly not, a Beanie Benford saying "... for a young Negro in a white world, adolescence is a luxury beyond his means..."

  He said, "Just because a guy who has to sweat in math has a talk after class with his professor doesn't mean he's being chewed out. People like 'everyone' ought to mind their own business."

  Ella brought the chicken and the ribs, but they did not silence Sara. "David, let's talk."

  He smiled across at her. "That's like saying 'be funny.' "

  "Well, I'm going to anyhow. If you don't want to listen you can walk out, and I'll just sit here and talk to a plate of cold ribs."

  "All right, Sara. You do the talking because I haven't got anything to say."

  "You ought to have, David. Honestly, you ought. You can't just—just sit and let people lie about you and tell dreadful stories—"

  "Eat your chicken. Smallest—"

  "Oh—the—the hell with my chicken. And put that rib down and listen."

  "I'm not putting any rib down, woman."

  "Then eat it and listen. David, I think there's an answer. I honestly do."

  "Fine. You'll go down in history as the only person who had the answer."

  "David, stop. There's a girl in the administrative office that I grew up with. You've heard me ment
ion her. Dolores Mathewson. We're good friends—and she's getting a list, sneaking it, of the names and addresses of every Quimby and every non-Quimby Negro student who's left Pengard or been expelled in the last five or six years. She thinks she can give me the list in the morning."

  David had finished his ribs. At Mom's, French fries were eaten with the fingers, and he sat now, a sliver of potato in one hand, a salt cellar in the other, not moving, forgetting he held them.

  "What are you two going to do with it? With this list?" He hoped he was keeping the rising anger out of his eyes as he looked at her.

  "It's not just we two—well—" She stumbled over the words, her eyes on his face. "David, for gosh sake! Are you angry? It's as plain as the nose on your face what we're going to do with it. Track them down. Get them to tell what really happened. And then—"

  "Tell who?"

  "Whoever we decide to have write to them, of course. There'll have to be a sort of spokesman, anyhow. Maybe some of them could even be reached by telephone. Maybe—"

  "Maybe you'd better let it alone, Sara—"

  "David, you stubborn mule! Can't you see how important it is? Look, David, I was, well, all starry-eyed and stupid about things until this happened—"

  "You mean you aren't now? Look again—"

  Something apart from his anger told him he was well into his first free-swinging quarrel with Sara Kent, and it had the effect of bringing their relationship into the realm of reality. He hadn't thought he'd ever permit himself to get closely enough involved to quarrel with her; certainly he hadn't intended to; now, with every contrary, angry word the involvement was becoming deeper.

  He spaced his words slowly. "Sara, I appreciate it. I honestly do. It's swell of you to go to the trouble. But let it alone. And don't drag other people into it." He wanted to go on, but knew it would be useless. He couldn't explain to her that this was his fight, that this was white against black in a mess that was different only in kind from any other white-against-black fight, different only in weapons from a rock-throwing street fight.

  He looked over at Sara, and saw that by now her anger matched his own.

  "Don't you want to straighten this out? Not just for yourself but for the others? You like it the way it is? Don't you ever think of anyone besides yourself and your own—your own damned pride!"

  He laid his big paper napkin down slowly, wondering how a guy could feel such anger at a girl who hadn't done anything but be herself. He laid change under his plate and pushed his chair back deliberately.

  "Come on, Sara," he said softly. "Come on. Let's go."

  "David." He could scarcely hear her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

  "Let's go, Sara. They need this table. There are people waiting now—"

  He walked ahead of her as they left, stopping at the cashier's desk to pay the check. Sara did not speak again, but he felt her eyes on his face as they walked through the rain to the car. He had picked up the packages she had piled by the umbrella stand in the hall and now he took the car keys from her and unlocked the trunk of the car, moving slowly and deliberately so as not to give in to the impulse to throw the packages into the trunk and slam the cover shut. Instead he stacked them slowly and carefully, closed the trunk gently, testing it to make sure the catch was engaged.

  When he came forward, Sara was still standing outside, hair wet against her cheeks now, the pompon on the knit cap sodden and limp. He opened the right-hand door and said: "Get in, Sara. You'll catch cold. I'll drive. My eyes are O.K. now." She looked like a wet and bedraggled kitten as she slid into the seat. Twice before they reached the campus she started to speak and stopped, red-mittened hands opening in an unfinished gesture, then closing on each other tightly.

  He stopped at Quimby House and got out, closing the car door quietly. Looking through the half-opened window on the driver's side as she slithered across the seat to the wheel, he felt his breath go and his muscles become limp. For the first time he saw that her eyes were a dark, wet blur, her cheeks streaked with their overflow. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out hoarse.

  "O.K., Sara," he said. "Everything's going to be all right. Don't worry about a thing. Take it easy—" and he turned away to limp into the house with the sound of the car's turning wheels in his ears.

  ***

  When he got to his room, he pulled back the cover from the couch, stacked pillows against the wall at its head, and sat against them, legs stretched out. Another time when study was impossible he would have gone through the rain and slush to the rec hall where he could play the piano, listen to records, knock balls around on the pool table in the game room, even find someone to talk to, but not tonight, not to face the question he would see in the eyes of those who had heard. If those eyes asked, "Did you cheat—did you steal—" it would be easy. But not when the question started with the words "Are you—"

  Tom Evans had implied the afternoon before that he had a good idea of the person who had started the rumor. David hadn't gone along—but now he was sure, damned well knew that it had to have been Randolph Clevenger. And if he did what he wanted to do, which was cold-bloodedly and deliberately beat Clevenger to a pulp, that would be the ballgame as far as Pengard was concerned. Or he could just ride it out, and if he was expelled that would be it and if he wasn't he wouldn't come back after Christmas. And if he followed either of these courses all but a handful of students at Pengard during his term there would be convinced that he was a queer. And probably that Sudsy was too. And maybe the others in the group—Hunter, Tom, Chuck. And that kind of thing could r'ar up and hit you in the teeth twenty years later.

  Hell! He snatched a small, hard pillow from the couch beside him and threw it in the general direction of the grate, followed it with a heavy, oversized glass ashtray that hit a corner of the mantel and shattered. After that, he felt childish but somehow better. Mixed up in it all, mixed up in the decision of going or staying, or coming back, or giving a guy a well-deserved working over, was a small, dark-haired girl named Sara Kent, whom he must love because you had to be in love with a woman to get as angry as he had been at her this afternoon and an hour later want her so bad your teeth damned near rattled.

  The knock on the door was followed by the crisp sound of Hunter Travis's voice: "David. Open up. Now."

  He was at the door in spite of himself, unlocking and opening it a short way, but Hunter widened the crack without ceremony, shouldering his way in, and David fell back without speaking. Then Chuck Martin's big figure loomed behind Hunter and he followed his companion into the room.

  "Ah! Fire!" said Chuck. From his lips it sounded like "Fa-ahr!" He walked toward the grate, rubbing his hands together. "Sure feels good. Cold outside." He looked at David, and shivered. "Colder in here." He smiled. "My distinguished friend here, Mr. Hunter Travis, he figures to do the talking. Ah told him it wouldn't do no good—"

  "Cracker," said Hunter. "Try and speak English. Or American, anyhow."

  "Snob," said Chuck. He dropped the accent, and the open, homely, country-boy countenance was suddenly serious. "This time you're going to listen, Stoopid," he said to David. He nodded toward Hunter. "That's why he's here." Some of the lightness of tone returned. "He can talk up a storm when he's a mind to—even if that's not very often. They just put him on the debating team."

  "It's late—" said David lamely.

  "Not as late as it will be in about ten days or two weeks," said Hunter. David did not bother to ask a question he knew the answer to: What are you talking about? He went to the wall shelf, lifted the alcohol stove, set out mugs, and started measuring instant coffee into each. He'd tried to get rid of well-meaners the day before, and now they were back and he might as well accept it. After a while, if he stayed at Pengard, they'd let him alone. Everyone would let him alone. He noticed that a wind had risen since he came in, and its gusts were shaking the windows. "Lousy outside," he said.

  "Lousy inside," said Hunter, and David turned from where he was standing at the wall
shelf, his eyes angry.

  "Finish with the coffee before you slug him," said Chuck.

  Why couldn't they let him alone? He was conscious of an unexpected twinge of pain, and realized that it was the first evidence of what would be a continuing sense of loss at Sudsy's absence. He gave his own big chair to Chuck, and sat on the edge of the bed, cradling his coffee mug in his hands. Hunter remained standing, tall and slim and elegant looking in trench coat over tweeds and a pullover sweater, even his heavy galoshes managing to look like Bond Street. He bent now to take them off. "Seen Sara Kent?" he said as he struggled with them.

  "She spotted me on the way to the eye doctor's this afternoon. We had dinner." He wouldn't mention that she'd given him a lift home; one of them might ask about Sudsy's car.

  "Did she tell you what's been cooking?" Hunter walked over and put his wet galoshes on the square of linoleum in front of the washbasin.

  "She mentioned an idea she had—"

  "She wouldn't have told you that the rest of us have been hashing it over too," said Chuck. "You being a mite techy about other people messing in your affairs."

  "Who isn't?" snapped David.

  "Quite a few intelligent people," said Hunter quietly. "And 'messing' isn't the right word. Now listen. And keep quiet. You aren't the first Negro to be Jim-Crowed here—or anywhere else. You know that. I've felt it—here and a lot of places. As soon as they learn my father's identity."

  "God damn it, Hunter, you're just beating your gums together. You're being stupid. Of course I know it. I've lived with it all my life. You haven't. And while we're on the subject, what bright boy or girl suddenly realized there was a nasty thing like prejudice involved? How come all of a sudden someone wakes up?"