Absalom's Daughters (4 page)

“Mornin', Mrs. Hill,” said Judith.

“Let the girls in,” said Mrs. Hill. “You ain't gone carry that laundry by yourself.”

“Where you want this, Mrs. Hill?” said Cassie.

“Be helpful if you'd drag it to the laundry room upstairs. But mind the boy.”

“The al-biner boy?” said Judith.

“Crazy boy,” said Bethel.

“I don't know how crazy he is,” said Mrs. Hill, “but he got some music up there ain't no one else should hear.”

Bethel led them to the narrow back stairs that smelled of coffee and silver polish and left them to wrestle the laundry up to the second floor. Cassie took the top end and Judith grappled with the bottom. The bag was a dead weight. They made it to the high polish of the second floor and collapsed in the doorway, panting. In the breathy silence, Cassie heard someone singing from the back part of the house where the upstairs hallway made a turn toward the bedrooms.

“That's his
phonograph
,” said Judith in the exact same tone that she'd used to tell Cassie about the
pink eyes
. She picked herself up. Cassie thought Judith might walk right on down the hall, leaving the laundry and Cassie behind.

“Wait,” said Cassie.

Judith turned back, lips parted and damp.

“We got things to do first,” said Cassie.

The two of them dragged the laundry into the room Mrs. Hill used for ironing. The black sounds coming out of the white end of the house were harder to hear; they were a vibration through the floorboards.

Judith brushed her hands across her dress. “You wanna see what he look like?”

“That boy?”

Judith was breathless, but not from dragging the laundry up the stairs. She took a step toward the door. “Come on,” she said.

Outside the door, the wood of the upstairs hallway gleamed forbiddingly. The music wasn't any louder, but Cassie could feel it, and its dancing rhythms, through her shoes. “What if Mrs. Hill sees us?”

“Mrs. Hill ain't comin' up them stairs.”

“What about Bethel?”

“Bethel scared of the al-biner.”

“Ain't you?”

“He ain't no ghost.”

“Then why he look like one?”

“You
scared?”

“I ain't.”

“Well, then,” said Judith. “Well, then.”

They tiptoed down the hall until they came to the albino boy's open bedroom door and peered in. The afternoon sun filled his window, framing him from behind as he sat on the bed, tall and pale, his white hair bright as a halo. Music rose from a phonograph on his nightstand. Records lay on the bed, in and out of their jackets.

Judith stepped into full view. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” the boy said and looked right at Cassie with his pink eyes. “You're the other laundry girl.”

Cassie saw what he was. There was a newspaper photo of a white tiger on the papered wall at home.
Not a true albino, as the cat's eyes are not pink, but still a pet worthy of the royal Hindu Raj.
Cassie wasn't sure what a Hindu was or a Raj, but she understood pink eyes, and this white-haired, ghost-white boy had them. He was the whitest white boy she had ever seen. She thought of Lil Ma, and she thought of Grandmother, and then she thought of herself. Her whole body went cold.

Judith walked right over to the phonograph. “What you playin'?”

“A record,” said the albino boy.

“You only lissen to colored music?” said Judith.

The albino boy shifted on the bed. There was a glisten of boyish beard under his lower lip. “What about you?” he said to Cassie.

Out his window, the leaves on the trees moved in the slightest of breezes. Inside, the highly polished floor smelled overwhelmingly of wax. “We ain't got no radio,” said Cassie.

“You poor?”

“No, suh, we jes' ain't got one.”

“I tol' her about the reddio in that ol' car,” said Judith.

“Come by some time and listen,” said the albino boy. “Sometimes we have a little drink out there.”

On the way home, Judith told Cassie the albino boy's name was Jack, that he was an orphan now that his parents had been killed in a car wreck, and that he had fifty, no, a hundred records, in New York City, where he was from.

*   *   *

Word about the albino boy was all around town. That night, while Lil Ma poured cornmeal into a bowl to make bread, Grandmother quizzed Cassie about him.

“I heard he came down from New York City,” said Grandmother, as Cassie folded handkerchiefs in the light of the kerosene lantern. “Mrs. Hill says his parents died in a car crash.”

“Train wreck,” said Lil Ma, “wasn't it a train wreck?”

“Judith said it was their car,” said Cassie.

“Did she say anything about his music?” said Lil Ma.

“She couldn't believe those white folks let him play it.”

“Race music,” said Lil Ma. “Somebody done made a record of what gets played in a juke joint.”

“Did you remember to put salt in that mess, Adelaine?” said Grandmother.

“Yes, ma'am,” said Lil Ma.

“Don't forget the milk,” said Grandmother.

“I can't forget the milk. It won't pull together without milk.”

Cassie finished her stack of hankies and started on another. “Why's it called race music?”

“Uncultured Negroes came up with it,” said Grandmother. “It makes people act like animals.”

“Makes 'em dance,” said Lil Ma. She waved the mixing spoon over her head, hands spread like the women did in church, but there was more to it. More hip and shoulder. “Makes 'em sing.”

She took the milk bottle out of the icebox and turned it to pour, but Grandmother said, “Warm it. You'll kill the yeast.”

“We won't eat for another hour if I yeast this bread,” said Lil Ma. “I'll just put it in the skillet.”

“If the bread needs to rise, the bread needs to rise,” said Grandmother. “We won't be common, frying it till it's black at the edges. This albino boy,” she said to Cassie. “Mrs. Hill says he's paper white and white hair.”

“Eyebrows too,” Cassie said.

Lil Ma poured the milk into a small pan. Drops spilled over the side of the pan and burned on the hot stove. Instantly, the small kitchen smelled of scorched milk. “Doesn't sound too healthy,” said Lil Ma. “Even really white white folks have color to them.”

“I think Judith likes him,” Cassie said, and in that moment of vague speculation, realized she was right. “She can't stop talking about him. She sings what she hears him play on the phonograph. She says he goes out to Duncan Justice's at night and listens to New York music in some old car.”

Lil Ma wet a rag to wipe up the milk. “You stay
away
from Duncan Justice and his boys.”

The thought of going out to the car party hadn't occurred to Cassie. She looked at Lil Ma, but Grandmother's eyes caught her attention first. They glittered in the kerosene lamplight, calculating and narrow.

*   *   *

Miz Tabitha Bromley died that year, Christmas Day 1954, one month after Cassie turned sixteen. Miz Tabitha had been married to the late Elmer Tawney, who'd run Tawney's Store on the south end of Market Street in Heron-Neck ever since he'd come back, one-legged, from the Great War. Miz Tabitha had never changed her last name. That and the fact that Elmer had left her the store against his family's wishes made the fate of Tawney's Store a subject of widespread speculation at the time of Miz Tabitha's death. It was no surprise when Elmer's relatives got themselves a lawyer from up in Tennessee and announced that there would be an estate sale—not just the merchandise in the store, but every single thing left on the old Tawney plantation.

Since Miz Tabitha had sold out the front door to whites and out the back door to coloreds, on the day of her funeral, folks on both sides of the tracks were taking down the holiday decorations they'd bought from her at Tawney's Store. When the
Thompson County Weekly
announced that the estate sale would be held the next Saturday in February and would be open to all, white and colored, Grandmother marked the date on the
OXYDOL DETERGENT
calendar that hung on the wall behind the laundry counter. “Miz Tabitha had a new wringer,” she said.

“They'll want too much for it,” said Lil Ma, ironing on the board set up beside the stove.

“They won't want it the same way they didn't want her,” said Grandmother.

Cassie sat by the window where the light was best, even though rain was pouring down outside. She was scrubbing a red wine stain out of Armenia Sutter's wedding gown. Armenia's first cousin was getting married, and the wedding gown would be hers. The wedding was in three weeks, but Armenia wanted the dress back
tomorrow
. In the summer, Cassie would have used vinegar and salt, spread the dress out on the roof in the relentless Mississippi sun, and waited for the elements of nature and the kitchen to do their work. In February, weakened bleach would have to do the job.

“You'll ruin the fabric, scraping at it like that.” Grandmother dipped her fingers right into the bleach water and dabbed at the fading stain. “Rub a little at a time. You can't scratch at it till it's gone.”

Lil Ma came out from the kitchen with a basket of freshly ironed shirts. “Why does that woman want it so quick?”

“Her cousin's gettin' married,” said Cassie. “Miz Sutter givin' it to her as a engagement present.”

“If you're going to gossip,” said Grandmother, “at least speak properly.”

“And how would you know what kind of wedding plans white folks have?” said Lil Ma.

At that moment, Judith ran past the front window with a scarf over her head and a patched red coat. She flung open the laundry door and pulled the soaked scarf off her head with arms so lanky and long that it almost looked like a magic trick. “Rainin' like all
hail
out theah!”

“Close that door tight,” said Grandmother. “You know better than to use that language.”

Judith flushed as red as her coat and shut the door.

“How's Henry?” asked Lil Ma.

“He sick, ma'am,” said Judith. “He ain't never been truly well since the weather turned. My momma say he coughin' too much to be runnin' round out in the cold.”

“Go in back and get dry.” Lil Ma opened the swinging door in the counter, and Judith passed into the heat of the kitchen. “The stove's hot. Make yourself some tea.”

“Yessum,” said Judith. “Thanks, ma'am.”

When Judith was out of sight, Grandmother said to Lil Ma in a low voice, “That girl should not be
living
here.”

“She's been wearing the same clothes for days,” said Lil Ma.

“I wonder why,” said Grandmother, without a hint of a question in her voice. “She's got her own people, Adelaine.”

Lil Ma took a breath and said in a tone sharper than any Cassie had ever heard her use with Grandmother. “This is a test from the Lord. And it isn't just a test for
me
.”

Cassie's fingers stopped above the bleach water. Grandmother whirled around and pointed at Armenia Sutter's wedding dress. “You get that stain
out.
Don't you go back there with that white girl until it's done.”

Cassie opened her mouth to say
yessum
. No sound came out. Grandmother turned around again, but Lil Ma was taking down her coat and scarf from the hook behind the counter. She tied the scarf under her chin without looking at Grandmother. Her hands were shaking.

“We're out of onions,” Lil Ma said. She fastened the buttons on her coat and went out into the rain.

The door slammed behind her. Grandmother picked up a bag of laundry, dumped it on the table, and began dividing it into lights and darks.

Cassie dipped her fingers in the bleach water and rubbed the stain. She could sense Judith in the kitchen moving as quietly as possible, pouring hot water for tea. After a while, Judith seemed to be still, probably sitting at the table. Soon she would put her head down and sleep. Grandmother seemed to be listening too. It was quiet in the kitchen when she finished sorting and came over to examine the stain on the wedding dress.

“Better,” she said, “but not done.”

“Yessum.” Cassie kept her eyes down, dabbing at the stain.

“She's pregnant, you know,” said Grandmother. “That white girl.”

“I didn't know,” said Cassie.

“It's hard at that age,” Grandmother said. “To keep it from happening. There's a feeling she got, and she couldn't fight it. All girls get that feeling. It's as strong as it is in boys, though people try to pretend it isn't.”

Cassie thought of Judith's face, her parted lips, when they'd gone upstairs at the Wivells' and the albino had been playing music, which they could both feel as a vibration through the floor.

“I felt it at your age.” Grandmother dipped her fingers in the bleach water. “It's strong in our family, especially in the women. Have you had that feeling?” asked Grandmother. “Have you felt it around the boys?”

The only boy she'd been around lately was the albino boy.

Grandmother took Cassie's chin, turned it toward her, and put both hands on Cassie's cheeks. “You feel it here first. In your face. A heat that comes from deep underneath your skin. Have you felt it?”

“Nome,” whispered Cassie.

“You will,” said Grandmother, “and soon. Then the heat comes down here.” She touched Cassie's chest, over her heart. “And then lower. And that's when that little white girl quit fighting it.”

Cassie's cheeks felt flushed. Her chest felt tight and strange. “I'll fight it,” she whispered.

“You can certainly try.” Grandmother took her hands away. “I'll be upstairs,” she said. “Don't disturb me.”