Four Spirits (49 page)

The open doorway framed Cat in her chair and Mr. Parrish leaning a little toward Cat, trying to reason with her. Around the campus, throughout the college, Gloria saw the lights were going out. First the science building, now the music building and the few lamps above the sidewalks. Somebody was at the switches. Gloria imagined him at the box. Somebody wearing a white robe and a white hood;a man's white-gloved hand was at the controls.

Students were huddling against the side of the music building. No, somebody was leading them around the corner to put the mass of the building between them and the H.O.P.E. classroom. No, Mrs. LaFayt was leaving the group and walking back to Gloria. Agnes LaFayt! Gloria started to call to her to retreat, but then Gloria stopped herself.
Who am I to say?
she asked.

When she looked back inside, what she saw sent her body rigid.

Cat's hand was coming slowly out of her purse. Cat's hand had a gun in it, and she was pointing it at Mr. Parrish.

“Now put that away,” he said loudly, raising his hands.

“I won't,” she said. “Back off.”

“I could rush you, Cat.”

“Better not.”

“I could carry you out of here.”

“My choice,” she said. “Raise your hands higher.”

Slowly Mr. Parrish raised his hands, his open palms toward Cat.

“I don't want to have to come get you,” he said. But Gloria knew he was complying.

“Mr. Parrish, I like you a lot,” Cat said. “I respect you and admire you. You rush me, and I'll fire. Don't doubt it. I know how to shoot.”

“I'm your friend, Cat. We're in this together,” he said. “We leave now, we come back tomorrow.”

“You leave,” she said. “I don't want to endanger you. Or anybody.”

Gloria realized that Agnes LaFayt had come to stand beside her. Agnes reached down and took Gloria's hand.

“Mr. Parrish,” Mrs. LaFayt called sweetly. Surely she was seeing the gun in Cat's hand, too. “Mr. Parrish, I want you to come on out here with the rest of us. Your family needs you, Mr. Parrish.”

She sounds like she's his mother,
Gloria thought.

Slowly Mr. Parrish lowered his hands. He turned toward the door. Already Cat was lowering the barrel of the gun.

“The Lord bless you, and keep you, Cat,” he said.

Gloria held her breath. Now was the moment to turn and rush her, if he chose to. He walked out. He walked past Gloria and Mrs. LaFayt and kept walking. “Y'all come on,” he said as he passed.

But Gloria and Mrs. LaFayt stood on the porch, looking in.

Just as Cat let the gun rest in her lap, the lights inside the classroom went dark.

“Maybe we hear police siren soon,” Agnes said.

Gloria surveyed the campus. Not a light. At the outskirts, a little traffic passed. A few cars slowly pushed their headlights along, minding their own business.

From across the campus, Gloria heard sprightly piano music played in the dark: “The Marseillaise.” There was something ironic in the way the man played the piece—
too
jaunty.
Why did that madman from New York choose to play the anthem of the French Revolution?
She shuddered to think of the French awash in blood, but their cause—one of class, not race—had been just.

Another song, the anthem of nonviolence, bloomed slowly in the dark:

Gloria felt as though she was on the moon. Through darkness from a great distance, she seemed to hear and watch the ways of human beings. But it was just over there, across the campus.
Le jour de gloire n'est pas arrivé.
The day of glory.
Gloire.
Another name for herself, a revolutionary name, a secret name of her own for her own inner strength:
Gloire
. An ugly word that stuck in the throat like swallowing a raw egg the way old country people did.

Agnes squeezed her hand. Inside the dark classroom, Cat was striking a match to light her candle. Gloria marveled that Cat's grip could manage
striking a match. She saw Cat moving the candle away and trying to blow out the match. The aim of her breath was uncertain; her head bobbed. Gloria supposed Cat's gun was resting in her lap. The match blinked out, and the candle wavered and glowed.

Agnes LaFayt shuffled through the door. “Cat baby, I come to sit with you,” she said as though she were speaking to a six-year-old.

“Is that you, Agnes?”

“Yes, it is,” she said.

And Mrs. LaFayt was pulling a desk into Cat's circle of light.

“I was afraid,” Cat said.

“I know,” Agnes said. “Don't nobody like to sit by herself in the dark. But I sit with you.”

“I knew if I gave in, I'd never come back,” Cat said. She was pleading. To be understood, to understand herself. “I need my job. For my future.”

“God willing, we all live to see the sun rise and the sun set, and we be back studying tomorrow night, thanking him.”

“It's always a bluff,” Cat said. “These bomb threats.”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's in God's hands now.” Agnes paused. “You want me to hold your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Let me just get my own candle lit, then we hold hands. Then we feel brave.”

Gloria watched Agnes dig into her purse, come up with the little wax cylinder. She touched her wick to Cat's flame. “This is what I bought these candles for,” Mrs. LaFayt said. She reached out and held Cat's hand. “I used to be nursemaid to lots of white children,” Agnes said.

“But not now?” Cat asked.

“I didn't have none of my own. That the only thing ever make me doubt God. TJ and I never had none. Too late now. But we try. We still try, remember Sarah and Abraham.”

Gloria felt shocked. She could imagine Agnes and TJ dancing together but not trying to make babies. She felt the lean emptiness of her own youthful body and was grateful for her virginal intactness.

“But few years back,” Agnes continued, “I couldn't work for white folks no more. TJ, he say he understand.”

Gloria saw that Cat was growing more frightened, could hardly speak, while Mrs. LaFayt settled more and more calmly into her waiting. Gloria wanted both to leave and to stay to witness. In the wink of an eye, this quiet tableau could be transformed: blast and crashing down of walls, the room filling with dust, the building collapsing. The end of their lives.

Agnes went on speaking, keeping up both ends of the conversation. “And you know why I left taking care of white children? Well, it was one reason only. I loved 'em too much. Loved 'em too much.”

“Sing,” Cat said suddenly. “Please sing.”

And Agnes's voice rose up like the wind rising in an organ, full and rich:

Gloria found herself walking into the room.

“I come to sit with you,” Gloria said.

“Well, pull up a chair and sing,” Mrs. LaFayt said.

With all her heart, Gloria joined the song. She wasn't sure she even believed in Jesus, but now she was inside the movement. This was protest and determination. Beside her, Cat was trying to belt it out, but with her speech problem, she only got a few tones.

“You got your candle?” Mrs. LaFayt asked Gloria between verses.

“Naw.”

“Don't matter. We got two already.”

Mrs. LaFayt began to pump her body at the waist, forward and backward.

Then a strong, male tenor voice—“To be hap-py in Jes-us”—entered the song, and Jonathan Green came into the room. “Hope you guys don't mind I join in.”

He pulled a chair between Gloria and Agnes. Gloria felt that ten people had joined them instead of one. The room was almost crowded. He reached out his ivory hands on both sides. In the candlelight, his face was very pale, his hair a dark red. And then his voice took off, singing complicated running notes, weaving all around and in and out of the melody. He leaned back in his chair
and sang as nonchalantly as though he were alone on the riverbank, fishing. Gloria and Agnes had to sing louder to hold their own.

Despite his being an ugly man, Gloria decided, he glowed. At the end, Agnes said quickly, “I believe your name must be Michael,” and then she launched into singing “Michael, row the boat ashore, hal-le-lu-jah….”

Gloria began her own riff, ornamenting the hallelujah so that it ran like a holy fire above all their heads.

WHILE LIONEL WATCHED THE FLICKERING CANDLELIGHT
from inside the H.O.P.E. classroom from a safe distance, he cursed himself. He had left the crippled girl in there, but she had pulled a gun on him. If the place blew up, he couldn't say that she pulled a gun. The school was pledged to nonviolence. That was what the grant proposal to Washington had said: “In the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. H.O.P.E. offers the opportunity to earn equality in the nonviolent quiet of the classroom.”

Lionel Parrish couldn't believe somebody as helpless as Cat Cartwright would pack a gun. He'd seen how her hands wavered. She'd blow her own head off before she'd defend herself.

At his ear, Christine said, “It could go any second.” She grasped his hand.

“Yes.” He squeezed back. He didn't want Christine running off to die. Gloria, that mouse. And Mrs. LaFayt, the meekest of the meek!

They stared across the campus. The low one-room brick building hunkered close to the earth. The columned portico looked stately to Lionel, as though it were quietly proud of itself. The students had stopped singing; the dim light still flickered from inside their classroom. A profound silence settled on the gathered group. He began to count his sheep. All the students stared at the building.

Impulsively, Lionel held up his hand and closed his eyes. “Dear Heavenly Father,” he said. “We pray for their lives. We pray for this campus and all the students, and for the buildings. We pray for peace and justice in Birmingham, and all of Alabama, and the world over, dear Lord. Give us courage. Give us
wisdom. Help us to trust in Thee. Not our will, but Thine be done. In the name of Him who taught us to pray, ‘Our Father, Who art in Heaven….' ” The group joined in the prayer. When Lionel opened his eyes the building was still there. He felt better.

At Lionel's ear, Charlie Powers spoke. “Who's that left inside? We ought to tell 'em to come on out.” His tone was manly—one man speaking to another.

“I tried,” Lionel said. “They insist on being where they are. They think the bomb call is a bluff.”

“We ought to do something,” Charlie insisted. “Tell 'em to come on out now.”

“I tried,” Lionel said again.

Stella said, “It's just five minutes till school will be out for the night. They'll come out then. That's their point. Nothing is going to cut out school.” Every few moments, she flicked up her wrist to read her watch; the figures on it glowed a faint green.

Lionel wouldn't let himself ask
how much longer?
The group fell silent and waited. As the minutes ticked by, he became increasingly angry. The person who telephoned was a white, a redneck woman. He hated to admit it, but she had sounded concerned for them. He had believed they were really in danger. And now these women still in the building, one of them with a gun, of all things. All over the South, women were trying to take over the leadership roles. But he didn't want the school to close down in fear. Look what education was doing for Charlie Powers already.

Christine said, “Once they safe, everybody come over to my house. Let's talk about what we can do. In Birmingham.”

“I can't do that,” Lionel said. “As the director, I can't be involved in any sort of planning of protests.” He dropped her hand.

“That's okay, Mr. Parrish,” Christine said. “We understand.” When she touched his bare arm, her fingertips almost burned his flesh.

“I think it's best just to continue what we're doing,” he said. “Getting ready to take the GED.”

“If you want to, you can come over later,” Christine said.

Lionel reached over and lightly touched her. “Thank you. I'd like that. Cup of tea?”

Then Cat wheeled herself out onto the porch slab. The students clapped and hollered. Mrs. LaFayt emerged and stood beside her, clasping her purse to her stomach. All around Lionel, the students raised the volume of their
approval. Gloria stood behind the chair, but nobody seemed to notice her. When Gloria tried to push Cat's chair toward the step, Cat looked back at her, made a circling motion—“turn me around”—with her hand. Lionel saw nothing of the gun.

After Cat's instructions to Gloria, Gloria turned the chair to take it down the one step backward, big wheels first.

“That's right,” Stella murmured, as though she were there with them. “Backward.”

Lionel said, “You did the right thing, Stella, to obey me when I said evacuate. Don't go making them into some kind of heroes.”

“Look,” Stella said, “that's Jonathan Green.”

While the four figures moved off the porch, Lionel thought,
It could blow yet
. The white man was taking his sweet time. Cat's group had
no
sense of urgency. A monstrous fire could billow orange through the door and onto the porch and steps. Engulfed by a huge impatience, Lionel shouted, “Hurry up! Hurry up!”

“We're coming,” Mrs. LaFayt's sweet voice called back to him through the hot night air. “We be there in a minute, Mr. Parrish.”

He led the group out to meet the brave ones, but now his relief was bigger than his shame.

 

THE WHOLE SCHOOL
walked with Cat and Stella to their car. After the women were seated inside, and the wheelchair had been folded and hoisted into the trunk, the white man leaned his head into the car and spoke to Stella. Lionel leaned his head in on the passenger side and said to Cat, “You bring that thing to school again and you're fired. No letter of recommendation, either.”

Cat smiled at him. “I won't,” she said. And he could see she was sincere, way too pleased with herself, but sincere.

Then Lionel looked across the seat and introduced himself to the white man.

“Jonathan Green, voter registration,” he answered and thrust his arm past Stella to shake hands.

A New York Yankee, Lionel thought; he had a firm, warm hand. No sweat.

While they all watched the battered-up old car creep off the campus, Christine renewed her invitation to the students for a gathering at her place. Mrs. LaFayt said she needed to go home, and Lionel escorted her to her car.

When he stood alone at the circuit box with his hand on the big switch, he thought how just a half hour before, a white man had stood there.
Evil leaves a presence,
Lionel thought. He could almost smell the man—somebody stupid and poor. The tool of the rich white bosses. Somebody who didn't even know he had been created to fight their battles for them. Somebody stood here ignorant of the industrialists' fear of the unions, of their need for cheap bodies in dangerous places, of their need for replaceable black men in the steel mills. A man with no more mind than a robot had stood here and pulled switches. He had put his hand on the big switch not long before Lionel himself.

Lionel pulled the lever, but he wondered whose tool was he? A hum came over the campus, lights jumped on. Just a simple, functional metal handle made the change.
Let there be light
. Cool to the touch, the handle felt like a bony hand holding out a finger at him, pointing at him. Mr. Bones.
Let there be bright light,
the disembodied voice mocked sarcastically.

In the restored light, the hall stood barren. The cool handle of the lever still chilled Lionel's hand. He made himself let go.

Survived again? Now tell me, what do you want most out of this dark night?

“Christine.”