Edge of Eternity (53 page)

The doors of the church flew open and a group of students emerged through the triple arches, dressed in their Sunday best, singing. They marched down the long, broad flight of steps to the street. There were about sixty of them, but George knew that this was only the first contingent: there were hundreds more inside. Most were high school seniors, with a sprinkling of younger kids.

George and Verena followed them at a distance. The watching crowd in the park cheered and clapped as they paraded down Sixteenth, passing mostly black-owned stores and businesses. They turned east along Fifth Avenue and came to the corner of Seventeenth, where their way was blocked by police barricades.

A police captain spoke through a bullhorn. ‘Disperse, get off the street,’ he said. He pointed to the firemen behind him. ‘Otherwise you’re going to get wet.’

On previous occasions the police had simply herded demonstrators into paddy wagons and buses and taken them to jail. But, George knew, the jails were now full and overcrowded, and Bull Connor was hoping to minimize arrests today: he would prefer them all to go home.

Which was the last thing they were going to do. The sixty kids stood in the road, facing the massed ranks of white authority, and sang at the tops of their voices.

The police captain made a signal to the firemen, who turned on the water. George noted that they deployed regular hoses, not the tripod-mounted water cannon. Nevertheless, the spray drove most of the marchers back, and sent the bystanders scurrying across the park and into doorways. Through his bullhorn, the captain kept repeating: ‘Evacuate the area! Evacuate the area!’

Most of the marchers retreated – but not all. Ten simply sat down. Already soaked to the skin, they ignored the water and continued singing.

That was when the firemen turned on the water cannon.

The effect was instant. Instead of a spurt of water, unpleasant but harmless, the seated pupils were blasted with a high-powered jet. They were knocked backwards and cried out in pain. Their hymn turned to screams of fright.

The smallest of them was a little girl. The water lifted her physically from the ground and blasted her backwards. She rolled along the street like a blown leaf. Her arms and legs flailed helplessly. Bystanders began yelling and cursing.

George swore and ran into the street.

The firemen relentlessly directed their tripod-mounted hose to follow the child, so that she could not escape from its force. They were trying to wash her away like a scrap of litter. George was the first of several men to reach her. He got between the hose and her, and turned his back.

It was like being punched.

The jet knocked him to his knees. But the little girl was now protected, and she got to her feet and ran towards the park. However, the fire hose followed her and tumbled her down again.

George was enraged. The firemen were like hunting dogs bringing down a young deer. Shouts of protest from bystanders told him that they, too, were infuriated.

George ran after the girl and shielded her again. This time he was prepared for the impact of the jet, and he managed to keep his balance. He knelt and picked up the child. Her pink churchgoing dress was sodden. Carrying her, he staggered towards the sidewalk. The firemen chased him with the jet, trying to knock him down again, but he stayed on his feet long enough to get to the other side of a parked car.

He set the girl on her feet. She was screaming in terror. ‘It’s okay, you’re safe now,’ George told her, but she could not be consoled. Then a distraught woman rushed to her and picked her up. The girl clung to the woman, and George guessed that this was her mother. Weeping, the mother carried her away.

George was bruised and sodden. He turned around to see what was happening. The marchers had all been trained in non-violent protest, but the furious onlookers had not, and now they were retaliating, he saw, throwing rocks at the firemen. This was turning into a riot.

He could not see Verena.

Police and firemen advanced along Fifth Avenue, trying to disperse the crowd, but their progress was slowed by the hail of missiles. Several men went into the buildings along the south side of the street and bombarded the police from upstairs windows, throwing stones, bottles and rubbish. George hurried away from the fracas. He stopped on the next corner, outside the Jockey Boy Restaurant, and stood with a small group of pressmen and spectators, black and white.

Looking north, he saw that more contingents of young marchers were coming out of the church and taking different southbound streets to avoid the violence. That would create a problem for Bull Connor by splitting his forces.

Connor responded by deploying the dogs.

They came out of the vans snarling, baring their teeth, and straining against their leather leashes. Their handlers looked just as vicious: thickset white men in police caps and sunglasses. Dogs and handlers alike were animals eager to attack.

Cops and dogs rushed forward in a pack. Marchers and bystanders tried to flee, but the crowd on the street was now tightly packed, and many people could not get away. The dogs were hysterical with excitement, snapping and biting and drawing blood from people’s legs and arms.

Some people fled west, into the depths of the black neighbourhood, chased by cops. Others took sanctuary in the church. No more marchers were emerging from the triple arches, George saw: the demonstration was coming to an end.

But the police had not yet had enough.

From nowhere, two cops with dogs appeared beside George. One grabbed hold of a tall young Negro: George had noticed him because he was wearing an expensive-looking cardigan sweater. The boy was about fifteen, and had taken no part in the demonstration other than to watch. Nevertheless, the cop spun him round, and the dog leaped up and sunk its teeth into the boy’s middle. He cried out in fear and pain. One of the pressmen snapped a picture.

George was about to intervene when the cop pulled the dog off. Then he arrested the boy for parading without a permit.

George noticed a big-bellied white man, dressed in a shirt and no jacket, watching the arrest. From photographs in the newspapers he recognized Bull Connor. ‘Why didn’t you bring a meaner dog?’ Connor said to the arresting officer.

George felt like remonstrating with the man. He was supposed to be the Commissioner of Public Safety, but he was acting like a street hoodlum.

But George realized he was in danger of getting arrested himself, especially now that his smart suit was a drenched rag. Bobby Kennedy would not be pleased if George ended up in jail.

With an effort, George suppressed his anger, clamped his mouth shut, turned and walked briskly back to the Gaston.

Fortunately, he had a spare pair of pants in his luggage. He took a shower, dressed again in dry clothes, and sent his suit for pressing. He called the Justice Department and dictated to a secretary his report on the day’s events for Bobby Kennedy. He made his report dry and unemotional, and left out the fact that he had been fire hosed.

He found Verena again in the lounge of the hotel. She had escaped without injury, but she looked shaken. ‘They can do anything they like to us!’ she said, and there was a note of hysteria in her voice. He felt the same, but it was worse for her. Unlike George, she had not been a Freedom Rider, and he guessed this might be the first time she had seen violent racial hatred in its naked horror.

‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he said, and they went to the bar.

Over the next hour he talked her down. Mostly he just listened; every now and again he said something sympathetic or reassuring; he helped her become calm by being calm himself. The effort brought his own boiling passions under control.

They had dinner together quietly in the hotel restaurant. It was just dark when they went upstairs. In the corridor Verena said: ‘Will you come to my room?’

He was surprised. It had not been a romantic or sexy evening, and he had not regarded it as a date. They were just two fellow campaigners commiserating.

She saw his hesitation. ‘I just want someone to hold me,’ she said. ‘Is that all right?’

He was not sure he understood, but he nodded.

The image of Maria flashed into his mind. He suppressed it. It was time he forgot her.

When they were in the room she closed the door and put her arms around him. He pressed her body to his and kissed her forehead. She turned her face away and laid her cheek against his shoulder. Okay, he thought, you want to hug but you don’t want to kiss. He made up his mind to simply follow her cues. Whatever she wanted would be all right with him.

After a minute she said: ‘I don’t want to sleep alone.’

‘Okay,’ he said neutrally.

‘Can we just cuddle?’

‘Yes,’ he said, though he could not believe it would happen that way.

She drew away from his embrace. Then, quickly, she stepped out of her shoes and pulled her dress over her head. She was wearing a white brassiere and panties. He stared at her perfect creamy skin. She took off her underwear in a couple of seconds. Her breasts were flat and firm with tiny nipples. Her pubic hair had an auburn tinge. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen naked – by far.

He took it all in at a glance, for she immediately got into bed.

George turned away and took off his shirt.

Verena said: ‘Your back! Oh, God – it’s awful!’

George felt sore from the fire hose, but it had not occurred to him that the damage would show. He stood with his back to the mirror by the door and looked over his shoulder. He saw what Verena meant: his skin was a mass of purple bruises.

He took off his shoes and socks slowly. He had an erection, and he was hoping it would go down, but it did not. He could not help it. He stood up and took off his pants and undershorts, then he got into bed as quickly as she had.

They hugged. His erection pressed into her belly, but she showed no reaction. Her hair tickled his neck and her breasts were squashed against his chest. He was madly aroused, but instinct told him to be still, and he obeyed it.

Verena began to cry. At first she made small moaning noises, and George was not sure whether they indicated sexual feelings. Then he felt her warm tears on his chest, and she began to shake with sobbing. He patted her back in the primal gesture of comfort.

A part of his mind marvelled at what he was doing. He was naked in bed with a beautiful woman and all he could do was pat her back. But on a deeper level it made sense. He had a vague but sure feeling that they were giving one another a kind of comfort stronger than sex. They were both in the grip of an intense emotion, albeit one for which George did not have a name.

Verena’s sobs gradually eased. After a while her body relaxed, her breathing became regular and shallow, and she drifted into the helplessness of sleep.

George’s erection subsided. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the warmth of her body against his, and the light feminine aroma that rose from her skin and her hair. With such a girl in his arms he felt sure he would not sleep.

But he did.

When he woke up in the morning, she was gone.

*  *  *

On that Saturday morning Maria Summers went to work in a pessimistic mood.

While Martin Luther King had been in jail in Alabama, the Civil Rights Commission had produced a horrifying report on the abuse of Negroes in Mississippi. But the Kennedy administration had cleverly undermined the report. A Justice Department lawyer called Burke Marshall had written a memo quibbling with its findings; Maria’s boss, Pierre Salinger, had portrayed its proposals as extremist; and the American press had been fooled.

And the man Maria loved was in charge. President Kennedy had a good heart, she believed, but his eye was always on the next election. He had done well in last year’s midterms: his cool-headed handling of the Cuban missile crisis had won him popularity, and the expected Republican landslide had been averted. But now he was worrying about his re-election contest next year. He did not like Southern segregationists, but he was not willing to sacrifice himself in the battle against them.

So the civil rights campaign was fizzling out.

Maria’s brother had four children of whom she was very fond. They, and any children Maria herself might have in the future, were going to grow up to be second-class Americans. If they travelled in the South they would have trouble finding a hotel willing to take them in. If they went to a white church they would be turned away, unless the pastor considered himself a liberal and directed them to a special roped-off seating area for Negroes. They would see a sign saying:
WHITES ONLY
outside public toilets, and a sign directing
COLOREDS
to a bucket in the backyard. They would ask why there were no black people on television, and their parents would not know how to answer them.

Then she reached the office and saw the newspapers.

On the front page of the
New York Times
was a photograph from Birmingham that made Maria gasp with horror. It showed a white policeman with a savage German Shepherd dog. The dog was biting a harmless-looking Negro teenager while the cop held the boy by his cardigan sweater. The cop’s teeth were bared in a grin of eager malice, as if he wanted to bite someone too.

Nelly Fordham heard Maria’s gasp and looked up from the
Washington Post.
‘Ugly, ain’t it,’ she commented.

The same picture was on the front of many other American newspapers, and the airmail editions of foreign papers too.

Maria sat at her desk and began to read. The tone had altered, she noticed with a gleam of hope. It was no longer possible for the press to point the finger of blame at Martin Luther King and say that his campaign was ill-timed and Negroes should be patient. The story had changed, with the unstoppable chemistry of media coverage, a mysterious process that Maria had learned to respect and fear.

Her excitement grew as she began to suspect that the white Southerners had gone too far. The press were now talking about violence against children on the streets of America. They still quoted men who said it was all the fault of King and his agitators, but the segregationists’ customary tone of confident deprecation had gone, and now there was a note of desperate denial. Was it possible that one photograph could change everything?