After the War (30 page)

They were quiet in the living room for a while, and Melanctha assumed they were kissing, or something. Then they began to talk again, but now in whispers. They were probably trying to work it out about where they would sleep, how to go about fooling her, Melanctha. If only they knew how little she cared where they slept, or what they did first. They were both so old, it couldn’t be much, she thought. And she
did not care
.

When they went to bed, Melanctha and River, River slept on Melanctha’s girlish, ruffled (courtesy of Deirdre) bed. He seemed to like or maybe need body warmth, the warmth of something living next to his long lean body. Melanctha wondered what it was that he missed, a bunch of dogs or was it other humans, his owners before her? Wanting to be his first person, she preferred to think that it was puppies. In any case, they continued to sleep back-to-back, or sometimes River curled against her lower legs. He usually went to sleep first,
occasionally giving a wakeful twitch, a snort; God knows what rabbits or squirrels were running through his mind.

Melanctha slept lightly until she heard the bumping, trying-to-be-quiet sounds of Deirdre and Derek coming upstairs together. Not wanting her to know. She thought of going out into the hall to say, “I know you sleep together, I know you make love, or try to, and I don’t care, I just don’t give a goddam.”

Which she of course did not do.

However, she did not want to see them at breakfast, and so as soon as the first sunlight woke her, she got out of bed, rousing River, who followed her into the bathroom where one of his water dishes was.

Downstairs, dressed and hungry, Melanctha fed them both, her toast and coffee, his can of glop for dogs. River ate tidily, always looking around as though to see if someone was checking on his table manners, or maybe if someone was going to take away his food.

After such a rainy spring, the back road was overhung with leafed-out branches, and thick vines twisted among the bordering trees and shrubs. The road was deeply rutted, impassable now for cars, which was fine with Melanctha; she liked the walk, and River needed the exercise. He ran back and forth ahead of her, always checking back with a very light touch of his cold nose on her hand, the tiniest kiss.

It was still early, but Ben always said he liked to see her early. If only she didn’t run into anyone she knew in the post office, she could be there in another fifteen minutes.

But there was Dolly Bigelow, dead ahead of her on the
street when Melanctha emerged from the road, as though Dolly had been waiting for her there. River, who loved all people, with no discrimination or prejudice, rushed out to greet her.

“Well there, if it isn’t Miss Melanctha herself! Big as life and twice as natural, as your daddy used to say. My, you’re looking so pretty in that yellow dress. I always did love yellow, though it does something terrible to my skin—the color, I mean. You’re lucky that way, with that nice curly dark hair. My goodness, if this isn’t the friendliest dog I ever did see. Get down, Rover, whatever your name is.”

“It’s River—”

“Such a coincidence, just before I saw you I saw Cynthia Baird just speeding by, like she was on her way to something important in Hilton. Or to the airport, maybe? Speaking of airports, last night I saw that announcer fellow just outside the Grill, that Eric something, or is it Derek? You reckon he could be around these parts again? Used to be a friend of Cynthia’s, didn’t he? Or was it Deirdre?”

“I guess, I’m not sure. Maybe. Well, I’ve got to keep on with River and his walk. He gets restless. Real nice to see you, Miz Bigelow.”

“Oh, Melanctha. Real real nice. And you give my love to your Deirdre, you hear?”

“Oh, I sure will.”

At last, they were able to walk on, Melanctha and River, in the steadily increasing heat and sunlight.

Cynthia’s car was indeed not there in the driveway, and so Melanctha walked around to the back of the house, to the kitchen, and there she saw, as she had expected, or hoped, Ben Davis eating his breakfast, by himself.

Sometimes when she arrived, he got up and kissed her, friendly, on the cheek, or on the nose, being funny. Today he just stood up, both being polite and showing off that he could stand by himself now, but he just said, “See? Look, no hands. I’m really glad you came, I hoped you would. For one thing Odessa’s been driving me nuts.” He laughed. “I think she thinks I’m her long-lost son. Or else she wants me to marry Nellie. I think she worries a lot about Nellie.” He patted River, who was licking at his ankle. “And you, River, you think I’m your long-lost brother. You want some coffee?”

“Sure. We saw Dolly Bigelow, coming over. She calls River ‘Rover.’ ”

“I’d hate to hear what she calls me when I’m not around. I’ll bet it’s not Mr. Davis.”

“What a dumbbell.” Melanctha poured milk into her coffee.

“No, I don’t think she’s really dumb, any more than your Deirdre is. They just talk that way. You ought to be used to it.”

River was indeed all over Ben, like a long-lost whatever; having finished with Ben’s ankles, he settled across his large white tennis shoes, as though to prevent Ben’s leaving his chair, just as he often lay across Melanctha’s feet.

Melanctha sipped her coffee, and then in a sudden burst—she had not known that she was going to say this, but these sudden bursts of speech or of ideas seemed to occur to her with Ben—she said, “You know what I’d really most of all like to do?”

“No, but lucky you if you do know.” His smile was gentle and kind and interested, though, and his tone without irony.

“I’d like to raise dogs. I mean starting with River, I’d like to have generations of dogs, and maybe sell one or two sometimes but only to people I like.” She laughed with pleasure at her idea. “Can’t you imagine River as a grandfather, with a lot of puppies around who look just like him?” She laughed again. “I was so glad when the vet said he hadn’t been fixed.”

“The first thing is you have to get him a wife. So he can start on all these generations.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I do.” Melanctha mused for a moment, and then, more or less from out of the blue, she said, “I think Deirdre and Derek McFall will get married.”

“You do? I thought you said they weren’t getting along.”

“They weren’t, and in a way they’re still not. But I think they’ll get married. It’s just a strong hunch, but I’ll bet I’m right.”

“Probably you are. And they’ll go away to live somewhere else and the boys will stay away at their schools and then their jobs and marriages, and you’ll have the house and all that land for the dogs.”

“Well, that’s what I think. Or at least today I do.” She wanted to add, And when you get married you’ll come down with your wife and children and they’ll play with the dogs. But she was too shy with him, still, to say that.

Could you fall “in like” with someone, not in love? For that is what Melanctha felt had happened with her and Ben. She just liked him so much, and part of it was her sense that he liked her too. She liked and trusted Ben; with him there would be no bad surprises, no unexpected jolts of cruelty, or violence. Or sex: he would never start anything like that with her.

When he was first immobilized upstairs, over the course of his recovery, they had talked and talked, so that by now
they knew almost everything, or almost all, about each other’s lives. Childhood hopes and fears, disorders and early sorrows. Melanctha wished he were one of her brothers, or maybe even her father, which he was certainly not old enough to be; he was only a couple of years older than she was, but she thought of him as someone much older, and wise and strong and reliable. She had had the curious thought: Are many Negro men like that, like Ben? If they are, you’d think more white women would want to marry them. But then she thought, Probably not, it’s just Ben.

He said, “I mean, you’re lucky if you’ve even got an idea what you want to do. Ever since I gave up the med school plan, I just don’t know.” He stretched long legs out in front of him, displacing River. “I’ll feel better when I can get some exercise—right, River? Shall I come down and help you with your dogs?” He laughed. “Be funny if I ended up in Pinehill, wouldn’t it?”

Before she could stop herself, Melanctha said, “I don’t think you’d really like it here. Not for long.”

“Probably not.” He stretched again. “What I think as of today is that I’ll go back to school and get my master’s in history, U.S., contemporary. There’s already a course called Philosophic Problems of the Postwar World. With a master’s from Harvard, I can always get a teaching job somewhere, probably.”

In a way, it was too bad that Ben was so very handsome, Melanctha thought. Inevitably that was the first thing that anyone noticed, What an extremely handsome man—Negro man. It had occurred to her that if Ben hadn’t been looking sort of awful after his accident, bandages on his head, all that, they would not have got to be friends; she would have been scared off.

“I wonder where Abby and Joseph will end up,” Ben was saying. “He seems to be having some trouble with programs in physics.”

“Really?”

“You know, dumb stuff about his parents being Communists. I mean, they are, or they were, but what on earth does that have to do with anything? Can you see Joseph giving atomic-energy secrets to the Russians?”

But suddenly they heard, at their ears: “Goddam those Southern idiots anyway.” More intent on their conversation than they realized, Ben and Melanctha had not heard Cynthia come into the kitchen. But now they heard her, loud and clear. “Those dumb jerks at Hilton, they won’t let me into their stupid law school. ‘We’re just real sorry, Miz Baird, but we just don’t see our way clear to doing like you want. You know, some of the old professors, they’re not even sure that a pretty lady like you really wants to be a lawyer. Besides, young as you are, you’d be a tad older than all the others.’ Oh, those asses! But I’ll show them, just wait till I get my degree at Georgetown, or even Harvard! I think they let in ‘ladies’ at Harvard, Yale too.” Running almost out of breath, Cynthia sat down hard, her face red and what breath she had left coming in short quick jerks. “Oh, I’m so mad!”

“No kidding, are you?”

Ben gently laughed, and for a moment Melanctha thought Cynthia would get madder yet, maybe throw something at Ben. But after a tiny pause she laughed too and gave him a wide smile as she admitted, “Yes, I am, I’m furious. Oh, River, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

River had slunk into a corner near the new refrigerator, and now gave them all reproachful looks.

“We’ve been planning his future,” Ben told Cynthia. “He’s going to be a grandfather.”

She sniffed. “Well, I’m glad someone knows what to do. And how about you kids? What are your life plans?”

Almost simultaneously they said, “We don’t know!” and laughed.

27

N
OT entirely by coincidence, Ben Davis left for Connecticut the day before Harry came down from Washington for a visit, although Cynthia tried to object. “You’ve never really seen Harry since you were grown, and you’d like him, I know. Everyone does. Besides, I could take you to Durham to the train and then wait there to meet Harry.”

“I’m taking the bus, or I think Melanctha wants to take me. You’ve been so kind already.”

“Well, if Abby insists on getting married, you’ll have to come down for that.”

“Oh, I surely will. Lord, I’m beginning to sound Southern. My mom’s going to be real pleased.” He chuckled.

“Well, I hope you’ll come back to see Melanctha too.”

“I’d like to. But—she’s—I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either.” Cynthia hesitated, realizing that the topic of Melanctha was impossible between them. How could she say to this very nice, intelligent and extremely kind, and handsome (Negro) young man: Melanctha is a deeply troubled girl, I really don’t know if she can have—ordinary relationships with other people. Both her parents, especially her mother—well, really her father too—were sort of crazy.

She could not have said that, and she felt considerable
gratitude when Ben said, a minute later, “She’s trouble. I think mostly to herself.”

“Oh, you’re right!” But even as she was agreeing with him Cynthia had the thought that maybe this young man could be the one to save her, to save Melanctha from herself, so to speak. Of course his being “colored,” as they said down here, would make things difficult, depending on where they lived, and why on earth would they live in the South? Maybe Boston, or even California, someplace distant and more sophisticated. Things had to get better along those lines eventually, Cynthia thought—now that the war was over. Maybe Melanctha needed some large challenge in her life.

With a small show of reluctance, Harry said, “I hope you’re going to think this is funny.” They had just finished breakfast on his first day back, but still sat in an undecided way at the table.

“I’ll try.” Meaning: Of course I’ll think whatever you tell me is funny. I always do, don’t I?

But what he said next did not amuse her. He said, “You remember—you remember a Veracity McCullough?”

“Well yes, you must mean Lady Veracity. That does ring a bell.” You fucking idiot, she did not say, but that phrase could have sounded in her voice.

“Cynthia, darling, for the thousandth time, I’m
sorry
. But
please
, bear with me. It gets to be funny, I promise.”

Coldly, “I told you, I’ll try.”

“Cynthia, Jesus. We’ve been through all that. Or I hope we have—enough. Anyway, as I told you, I haven’t seen her for a month or so—”

Or maybe a week, was Cynthia’s unsaid thought. On the
other hand, could he be telling the absolute, literal truth—trying
that
?

“… and then she called, and she said that at a party in New York she’d met this man who said he was from Pinehill, and did I possibly know him. And, can you imagine? Jimmy Hightower.”

“Well?” But Cynthia knew the large outlines at least of what she was about to hear: Lady Veracity had, somehow, met Jimmy Hightower (contrived to meet, is what Cynthia really thought) and Lady V. was—whatever the English, the English aristocracy, would say, she thought Jimmy was: attractive? all right? possible—a possibility? Whatever, and she wanted to check him out with Harry, by now her dear old friend. (Lady Veracity, Known for rapacity—)