Five Smooth Stones (5 page)

From the beginning drinks were always ready to be served when he arrived at the old house on the edge of the French Quarter that the Professor had bought when he first came to New Orleans. For the first time in his life a drink was mixed for him and served to him by a white man; he didn't count the beers he'd been given by employers, and had stood in kitchens or on galleries to drink. For the first time in his life he saw a white man upset when, at the beginning, he would not sit down in a chair by the fire and talk, and then sat, when it was insisted upon, at the edge of the chair, nervous and ill at ease. At first the man he now called "Prof" as often as he called him "Professor" did all the talking, and gradually Li'l Joe grew easier. Man's nervous, thought Li'l Joe, that man's nervous. And gradually the understanding came to him of the reason. When at last Li'l Joe began to talk, not as he had always talked to white men but as he would talk to a friend, the Professor listened with an interest so intense Li'l Joe knew it had to be real. The Professor sought his friendship, he could tell that, and sought what he had to offer, riot as a musician but as a person, and, finding what he sought, was—in a way that puzzled Li'l Joe—almost humble in his pleasure.

But there was no making Geneva understand. On this troubled day at the start of the bank holiday, she pressed her argument with dogged persistence: "You don't have no feelings about going to folks you've done work for, asking them. But when it's the Professor, you suddenly got feelings about asking favors. You're all the time talking about how he's your friend, how he's different. You knows damned well ain't no white man a friend to colored, not a
friend.
What we call 'em 'ofay' for? Don't it mean foe? And even if he was a friend, wouldn't he be the first to go to? Answer me that, Joe Champlin. You think just because he has you there in his house, sitting with him and drinking beer with him, and talking, that he's your friend. Shucks! He's just picking your brains, that's all he's doing, picking your brains, learning about how the colored people—us 'darkies'—lives and talks. They's a lot like that, a whole lot, coming down here, coming down South, setting around talking to us, not doing a Goddamned thing for us, just using us."

They had been over this before. Things had improved, though, in the short time the new baby, the second David Champlin, had been with them. All he needed to do now, when he thought Geneva's tired, frustration-born nagging was going to get out of control was to say, "That chile's fussing, Neva. You sure he ain't wet?" He had to admit that since the night he had walked into the house and found her trying with inexperienced, fumbling hands to diaper a squirming baby, her nagging had been cut in half. Joseph Champlin loved his wife with a quiet, undemonstrative intensity that no amount of nagging lessened, nor did it detract from the feeling of warm security her presence gave him. Their quarrels had never been bitter ones, never so serious that, when he drifted off to sleep, he did not hold in his fingers a fold of her nightgown.

He tried the diversionary tactic now, on the second day of the bank holiday, saying this time: "You got that chile's bottle ready, Neva? The pore little thing's going to be setting up asking for it, you don't give it to him pretty soon."

She was at the stove, bustling, talking to the baby. "You wait now, David. Y'all wait. Grandma's coming right now." A pan rattled. "Anything" I hates to see is a hungry chile," she said to her husband.

"I been seeing plenty of them these days," he said. "Too Goddamned many." He was sitting at the table in the little alcove kitchen off the bed-sitting room. He stopped speaking suddenly, his head cocked like a wary chipmunk's, listening.

"Someone's coming," he said. "Someone's coming 'cross the courtyard."

***

Although Li'l Joe had been half expecting it, the knock on their door was so loud and peremptory that he jumped with a nervous start. Geneva's pan rattled again as she dropped it to the stove, then caught it before it tipped over. "Gawd sake!" she said.

She started to speak again, stopped when she turned and saw the man standing in the doorway, filling it from side to side, head almost at its top. She did not need to be told who it was. Her husband had described the Professor too often for her not to recognize him—the big frame, the startlingly blue eyes, the red hair and beard, the tremendous voice and the lilting, singsong accent so different from the French and Italian accents to which her ears were accustomed.

She glanced quickly at her husband. Joseph Champlin was standing with the knob of the open door in his hand. His thin face was split by a wide smile that turned the vertical lines in his cheeks into half-moon brackets. He was looking up at the man in the doorway; even Pop Jefferson, six feet and some, would have had to raise his eyes to this man.

"Ja!"
the big man said. Geneva saw her husband's slight, small hand disappear in the other's grasp. "I have found you. It was not easy. I knew only that you lived on this street. They lied to me, those I asked. They knew where Joseph Champlin lived but they would not tell me. Only when I said I was searching for you to offer you work did they tell me."

She saw him throw an arm around her husband's shoulder, and then he saw her where she stood by the stove, and walked over to her, smiling. When he came opposite her he stopped, feet together on the worn boards. The heels did not click but seemed to, and he made a bobbing bow with his head and held out his hand. Her own was drawn to it as by a magnet and she felt it engulfed in warm, muscular hugeness.

"Mrs. Champlin! Your husband hides you," he said. "He talks of you much of the time, and now we meet after ? these years. I am delighted."

"Yes, sir," said Geneva, because she could think of nothing else to say, and was overwhelmed and bewildered.

Her husband came to her rescue, pulling forward Tant' Irene's old rocking chair, their only chair with arms. He set il beside the center table with some misgivings.

"Sit down and rest yourself, Professor," he said. "You sure surprised me. Heard someone walking 'cross the courtyard and thought to myself, That's a mighty big person walking 'cross our courtyard. Didn't figure it would be you. Neva, why'n't you fix us some coffee? The Professor likes it strong. Real strong."

"No!" said the Professor. "No, no! In times like these coffee is too precious to share."

"We got enough," said Geneva.

"Then you are fortunate." He turned to Li'l Joe. "How is it with you, my friend? That is why I am here. Do you have money?"

Joseph Champlin laughed. Only on rare occasions did he laugh aloud; usually he laughed as he did now, with little sound. "You ever seen anything like what's going on?" he asked. "There ain't no one, near's I can make out, has any money. Few days ago I got aholt of a little piece of change, and we spent it for stuff we needed and all, and then we wakes up one morning and there ain't no money at all, no place. You all right for cash, Professor?"

Knudsen, who would not sit until Li'l Joe had pulled up one of the straight chairs from the kitchen and sat across the table from him, leaned back in the rocker and did not hear Geneva's gasp of apprehension as its ancient frame creaked with fierce complaint at his weight.

"Yes!" he said. "For once Bjarne Knudsen becomes lucky. On the first of the month I receive a check from the university. I cash it instead of banking it because I have things I must buy and people I must pay and many of them do not trust checks, even Bjarne Knudsen's checks, people who like the look of green. And after I have done these things I have money left and do not put it in the bank. This morning I woke up with the thought of my friend Joseph Champlin in my mind. I think, Perhaps he has no money, and so I come here. With cash I come. Bah! Man is a selfish animal. I should have come yesterday."

"That's sure fine of you, Professor." Joseph Champlin spoke softly. "That's sure fine. But you needs your cash. No ling what's going to happen, how long things will be like y is." Behind him kitchenware rattled significantly. He ignored the sound. "Reckon we're no worse off than most folks, and not as bad as some."

Geneva was at the table now with cups and saucers and a pot of coffee. Knudsen was on his feet. "I will not drink unless you join us." He seemed at home already in the cramped quarters, and walked around her to the kitchen alcove, bringing the other straight chair back to the bed-sitting room. Before he could set it down, young David Champlin made his presence known with a loud, hungry wail. Knudsen stopped, holding the chair in midair. It looked like a toy in his hands. His eyes were wide and startled under the bristling brows and heavy mop of hair. "My God!" he gasped. "What is that!"

Geneva brushed past him without ceremony. "That's David," she said. "That's our David. I'm late feeding him." Her tone was accusing.

Knudsen set the chair down. "Why did you not tell me?" he whispered.

Li'l Joe chuckled. "Can't see's you've given me much chance, Prof," he answered. "That's my boy John's son; my boy that was killed. The chile ain't more'n a week old. His mamma died birthing him, and we taken him for a while."

"You should have told me, Li'l Joe." The Professor was still whispering. He walked to Geneva's side, watched her as she picked up the baby and cradled it on one arm, putting the nipple of the bottle in the eager mouth. "I am terrified of babies. They are so weak and helpless, which is a strange reason. Children baffle me, but babies terrify me."

"Ain't no need to whisper." Li'l Joe's smile was wide again. "He's awake now. He ain't going to pay no mind to us now he's got that bottle. And they ain't as weak and helpless as you think. They speaks up for theirselves, and they can stand a lot more'n you'd think. Lots of 'em has to."

"I suppose so," said the Professor. He no longer whispered, but his voice was lower by several decibels. "I suppose so."

Joseph Champlin was watching his wife covertly, thinking of the many times he had wanted to ask the Professor to his home for a meal, red beans and rice, gumbo, stuffed crab. He was not ashamed of their home. They were poor people, but they offered no less than the rich—the best they had. It would have delighted this big man from over the water. But Geneva had refused. She was not, she said, cooking for no whites in her home unless she had to, unless it was an emergency. "When I cooks for the whites," she had said, "I does it

for pay, and I does it in their house. And when I walks out of their house I walks out. I mean
out."

Li'l Joe wished, now that his wife had been so unexpectedly confronted with the Professor, that he could read her mind. He had not missed the expression on her face when the Professor had stood before her and bowed with Old World courtesy, because she was a woman and he was a man of politeness and breeding. He had boomed at her, "Mrs. Champlin!" Li'l Joe knew it was the first time in her life she had ever been called "Mrs. Champlin" by a white person. Joseph Champlin himself had never been called "Mister" by a white person, even by the Professor, but their manner of meeting had precluded it. Identified by Kid Arab as "Li'l Joe," it was as that the Professor addressed him, although he always remembered that the big man had said, "Do you mind if I presume on such short acquaintance and call you by your k-nickname?"

He wondered, as he watched Geneva feed the baby now, if she was remembering some of the things she had said about the Professor. "I don't know nothing about Denmark, and no Danes," she had said. "But I sure don't think they're all that different. White's white. He just ain't heard what they calls people like him down here. You just wait. Some day someone's going to call that man a 'nigger lover' and that day come he's going to be learning banjo from a white musician, drinking his beer with an ofay player."

"He's been called that," said Li'l Joe. "He's been called that plenty times. Told me so hisself."

"What's he say about it?"

"He laughed, just at first, when he told me. Then he cussed." Li'l Joe shook his head in reminiscence. "Cussing sure sounds mean in Danish."

Was she remembering these things now, he wondered, and maybe coming round, just a bit, to his way of thinking about the Professor?

Now Knudsen rose and walked toward Geneva and the baby, looking down at them nervously. He reached out a huge paw and touched the baby gently on the cheek. Like a lion patting a kitten, thought Li'l Joe. The big man smiled a fearsome smile at the baby and Li'l Joe, looking at his wife's face, saw it as he had seen it often these last few days, soft and young. He wished again that he could read her mind, know what she was thinking of the man he called his friend.

Geneva answered the question for him. Cradling the baby in both arms she held it out to the Professor, smiling. "You-all want to hold the baby a minute?" she said.

***

As they sat over their coffee, Li'l Joe thought of the wine in the cupboard, Hank's donation. He put down a momentary twinge of selfishness and watched Geneva a little fearfully as he took it down. There was no sign of displeasure on her face when he brought the bottle and glasses to the table.

They sat drinking companionably, talking about the nightmare that the country was living through, and the Professor explained the situation so clearly Li'l Joe thought that even a little child could have gotten an understanding of it. "Maybe now they got a new President, things will be better," Li'l Joe said.

"I have no doubt they will," said the Professor. He looked at the man opposite, lids narrowed over searching eyes. "You do not say 'we,' Li'l Joe; you say 'they.' Bah! How can one teach the history of civilization as I am supposed to do in this country! My God! How can one teach tie history of something that has never been realized fully by those whom one teaches!"

Li'l Joe poured more wine, and Knudsen leaned back, exhaling mightily, and said, "Whatever happens when the pendulum swings back—and it will, my friend, because it is a law of nature—there must always be wine and fellowship or we are truly lost! Eh, Li'l Joe?"

"Reckon so," said Joseph Champlin. His tone carried no conviction. Knudsen leaned across the table and wagged an enormous finger at him. The first time he had done that, in the days when Joseph Champlin had first known him, the small brown man had drawn back nervously. Now he smiled. The Professor boomed: "I know what you are thinking, my friend. You are thinking of your people. You are thinking there can be no fellowship in a world where one must teach a child fear,
teach him fear.
It is a terrible thought, that a child must be taught to be afraid, must be trained to be afraid of doing certain normal things, must be taught not to look into the eyes of another person because the other person's skin is white. You see, I know how you must raise your children, Li'l Joe. It is one of the things I have learned since I came to this country. They are civilization? No!"