Marching to Zion (12 page)

Magnus Bailey thought he was beyond astonishment in life, but the identification of that woman as Aurora Mae Stanton stunned. He could not imagine how she’d come by such physical transformation except through either the greatest misfortune or the greatest effort. When last he’d seen her, she was a lean and languid country marvel. There was a virginal succulence about her that dried every man’s mouth with desire. Now she struck him as an epic goddess of sensual energy. Her copious flesh evoked both the fertile sustenance and the deadly menace of the Delta itself. Her material transformation was a deeper mystery. Then he remembered Mags Preacher McCallum’s story about the night riders and Aurora Mae’s escape from a life of the most vile servitude thanks to Minerva Fishbein. He remembered more. He remembered that after the flood, she’d returned to the family farm with money, lots of it, the origins of which were secret, no doubt connected to a crime of blood. His mind whirred and clicked like the gears of the slickest engine.

Perhaps I’ve been hasty in judging your Dr. Willie, he told Thomas, taking him by the elbow to enter with him the Miracle Church of God’s People. He summoned his most irresistible smile. Let us ascend to the gates of paradise together, he said.

Thomas was excited, thinking he’d finally made a dent in his cousin’s resistance to deliverance. When they got upstairs to the room Dr. Willie had consecrated, Bailey took note of a plain hall with rows of folding chairs, a plywood platform with a pulpit flanked by pots of lilies, and a modest homemade cross hanging on the wall. DeGrace said, Let me introduce you to the great man. Oh, you’re gonna be impressed, I promise you.

But the great man was preoccupied.

Dr. Willie sat on a stool pulled up opposite a front-row chair occupied to overflowing by Aurora Mae Stanton. Magnus put a hand out to stop Thomas from approaching him. He wanted to step back and observe the man he suspected would be his chief competition for access to the woman’s sizable purse. Dr. Willie was a short, stocky, bald man in parson’s black. His hands were folded over a sizeable stomach round and hard as a barrel. He tapped his fingertips against his belly while talking nonstop, unless he paused to nod and smile, nod and smile whenever Aurora Mae Stanton managed to get a few words in edgewise. His eyes raised themselves toward the ceiling often, presumably whenever he called upon Jesus to make a point. He had small feet in shiny black shoes that jigged against the floor from time to time. Magnus thought maybe he was loosening them up for the prayer service. He surely looked the type that pranced back and forth, up and down, filled with the spirit, he’d say, although to Magnus’s mind, Dr. Willie looked more likely to be filled with impatience for supper. Aurora Mae appeared fascinated by him. As their conversation drew to its close, Dr. Willie rose, bowed a little, dipped his head, and all but clicked his heels, like an actor in a picture show. Magnus critiqued the gesture as superfluous since the woman already had her hand in her purse to withdraw the inevitable envelope. Besides which, that particular piece of hoity-toity flair never worked its best magic without a monocle. Sloppy, he judged his rival, envying the fat little man of God who’d staked an early claim on territory properly his. An amateur.

The preacher stuffed the envelope inside his vest, checked his pocket watch, and moved to greet the other worshippers just entering the room. He blessed them profusely, claiming the day as one blessed by the Lord. Magnus Bailey sidled up to Aurora Mae and took the seat next to hers. He did not acknowledge her but sat with his eyes straight ahead, holding his hat in his lap, gripping its sides tightly as if anxious for the service to begin. He breathed deeply, slowly, and waited, waited for her eyes, still obscured from his observance by the veil, to sneak a look at him.

Up in front of the pulpit, Dr. Willie Smalls pitched his Jesus rant with a clap of hands and a rat-a-tat-tat of toes against the plywood floor. Oh, I am so delighted to see you all ready to praise the Lord, he started out with clarion voice in a rhythm that approached song. He who is the only Place where His children shall find respite from this valley of sorrows known as life and the Mississippi!

Amen, Aurora Mae Stanton murmured. And Magnus Bailey echoed her. Amen.

And who is that Lord I’m talkin’ about? Dr. Willie continued.

From the back came a single uninhibited voice. Jesus! it said with conviction, although the rest of the people murmured indistinctly as they were not yet fired up.

You are His children! His darlin’ baby girls and boys! Dr. Willie said. Don’t you know your Daddy’s name?

Then, Jesus! Jesus! cried out the whole congregation, all twenty-five of them, including Magnus Bailey and Aurora Mae Stanton, who found themselves speaking the holy name in concert, which excited them both. Each time they responded Jesus! Jesus! together under Dr. Willie’s baton they could feel the heat rising from the other’s flesh, and so a heady bond was formed between them. Dr. Willie went on to quote scripture from Noah and his flood, from the trials of Israelites in bondage, and at last, he preached salvation through King Jesus, then knit everything together in a convincing line of entreaty that culminated in a passed collection plate. Making an investment not in the Miracle Church of God’s People but in the mind of the woman beside him, Magnus Bailey reached inside his pocket and withdrew three dollar bills for the plate before passing it to the row behind. His movements gave him the opportunity to look her square in the face, feign a great but not excessive surprise, and exclaim:

Why, Aurora Mae Stanton. Is that you? Is it even possible? Under all that net and feathers?

The lady in question made a deep trilling sound that came from somewhere between her mighty bosom and her strong, thick neck. She raised her arms and untied her veil, lifting it so that it folded artfully over the magnificent hat’s brim like a cloud of spun sugar. Her face revealed, she tilted her head and gave him the wry look of a woman of the world, not that of the gangly wood witch of years before. The look said, or so he thought, Why’d you hold back so long, honey?

Yes, it’s me. And you are Magnus Bailey, late of East St. Louis, are you not?

He rose and bowed before her in a quiet, graceful manner, with none of the ostentation of Dr. Willie Smalls.

At your service, he said.

They looked at each other for a moment or two, assessing the changes time and the flood had brought. He was relieved to see that despite the obvious ravages to her figure, her face was as handsome as ever. She put a hand on his shoulder and rose.

Life has not been kind to either of us, has it, she said.

He sighed then opened his arms and shrugged, a gesture he’d learned from the saddest man in the world.

Life is never kind to anyone for much of a stretch, my dear. How is your brother?

She took his arm and said, Why, he’s well but settled in another town after the flood. Why don’t you walk me home, and I’ll tell you all about him.

Just like that, they left together and thereafter began working nearly every day side by side, as it turned out Aurora Mae was as much in need of a capable man as Magnus Bailey was in need of her money. She was building a house from which she hoped to operate a business in healing herbs and liquid remedies and having an awful time of managing her carpenters and plumbers, who were unaccustomed to listening to a woman on the job. All I do is throw money at the place and nothing much gets done, she told him. Magnus promised to help and help he did with a great and abounding joy as the money she threw at him in payment brought him closer and closer to his goal.

It didn’t take more than a couple of weeks for Dr. Willie to understand he’d been replaced, that he should seek more fertile rows to hoe than Aurora Mae Stanton, which did not please him. He vowed revenge against the usurper Magnus Bailey. He was a small enemy, to be sure, but a large enemy can be turned to friendship when mutual gain is at stake, while a small enemy festers everlastingly looking for his chance.

They took to having
supper together. It was a convenient time to go over the day’s progress on the house, and they were both lonely, although neither would admit to such a pitiable state. Bailey didn’t know very much about the construction of homes with storefronts, but he knew enough to spot a goldbricker, which was all Aurora Mae required. She liked going with him to the worksite to watch him harass the men who’d been milking her. It gave her a sense of power to stand behind Magnus Bailey while he delivered invective and ultimatum. He might have been a sword or a gun she held in her hand, directing the slash and fire. When it was over, it pleased her to know the workmen who’d previously dismissed her concerns bowed to her retreating figure as she marched away, Bailey at the rear holding high over her head the pom-pommed parasol that kept the punishing rays of the Memphis sun from her proud, unvanquished brow.

One night, while they lingered over their coffee, taken in the lobby of Mama’s Morning Star Boarding House, where Aurora Mae had established herself while she awaited completion of her home, she made mention of her feelings.

It was different when my brother Horace and I worked together, she said. I had the things I did, he had his, and combined we made a life. But nowadays I’m doin’ things I never dreamed of havin’ to do before, and it’s been a world of help to have you. You’re somethin’ like a partner. I never had one of those.

Her words seared the inside of his chest like a hot iron pressed against the soft, sweet tissue of his lungs. This was the moment, the moment he’d been working toward from the git-go, the one that signaled his achievement of an inroad to the core of her fortune if only he played her right. Beyond that immediate goal, he saw before him the glittering path he might walk upon toward a confrontation with Minnie Fishbein, which would end in the emancipation of their eternal souls. Not for a heartbeat did it occur to him that the road to release from the sins of the past should be paved with only the smoothest, purest stones. That idea came later to his mind, and Aurora Mae’s sterling influence had not a little to do with its arrival. For the moment, what mattered was that he got where he wanted to go, not how he got there.

Even then, Magnus Bailey was not a monster. He admired Aurora Mae. He knew enough of her sad history to feel a warm compassion for her. She never spoke on the bits Mags Preacher McCallum told him about her past degradation. He could only guess about most of it. Her silence confirmed for him how deep her wounds went. Often, he wanted to ask her how she’d wound up at L’il Red’s that time and what his Minnie did to save her. There were nights, when he was alone in his bed, staring at the ceiling, grieving his mama, the Fishbeins, and times gone, that he would give his life’s blood to imagine Minnie in such a heroic role, yet he knew to press Aurora Mae for details would only hurt her and push her away. There was no advantage for him in being anything but helpful to her. At the same time, he was not above bending her will that he might win from her everything he could.

He took her hand.

Darlin’, he said. A partner is a very good thing to have in life.

He flashed his most seductive smile, hoping that the firelight of the lobby’s hearth would glint off his gold tooth and dazzle her.

She laughed from the depths of her considerable belly.

Oh my Lord, Magnus Bailey, she said. You are the very devil, aren’t you?

He shrugged but did not give up.

Why do you laugh? I may not be the man who strides up to your house in the woods with a bouquet of wildflowers and a worshipful air, but you’ve had that, haven’t you? And where did it lead?

He was singing in the dark, but the shadow that covered Aurora Mae’s features told him he’d struck his mark. He continued.

There’s been love gone wrong in my life too, he said. I have my regrets. They are big and heavy and blight me.

He slapped the tabletop. The boardinghouse cups and silverware jumped. Aurora Mae, whose head hung low in contemplation, snapped to. She raised her chin and studied him with an expression that was startled, querulous, and hopeful.

I am not suggestin’ that you and I traipse off into the sunset together, holding hands and whistling a song, he said. But we might keep each other company, you know, and help each other forget what needs forgettin’, and make right what needs to be made right.

I have so much of both, she said, and her great black eyes grew distant.

Though Bailey did not know the exact provenance of her sadness, sorrow was something he understood well enough. He spoke softly, wistfully, to give their hearts a place of convergence.

I do too, darlin’, he said. I do too.

He said it so earnestly, he convinced even himself her purse had nothing to do with his empathy. Aurora Mae put her hand over his fist, squeezed, then kept her hand there warming his. He knew they’d struck some kind of deal.

When the house was finished, he helped her settle in. They bought furniture together and set up the shelves and display tables of her shop, The Lenaka. The final day, the day before her opening, Aurora Mae was exhilarated, happy for the first time she could remember since long before the flood. She stood in the middle of her shop and regarded its appointments. Three walls of shelves were covered with bottles of liquid remedies in various sizes. The tables supported honeycombs of open wooden boxes in which fragrant herbs released their perfumes, making the air heady and thick. A glass case with a cash register on its countertop displayed rows of vials filled with powders, along with packets of bandages in a rainbow of colors. To the rear of the store was the entry to the living quarters, a curtain made of strung glass beads that cast prisms over the walls. Its valance was made of dangling chicken bones knit together with multicolored yarn.

It’s perfect, isn’t it? she said. Oh! but where is the sign? Do you have the sign?

Why, yes, I do. I put it up this morning while you were settin’ up in here.

They went out through the front door to inspect his handiwork. The little brass bell he’d installed in the door’s frame to warn her when a customer entered tinkled merrily. Aurora Mae squealed with delight. The sign hung from a short iron post just outside the front gate and read
the lenaka,
just as it should. As an aid to those who could not read, a variegated leaf dangling above a mortar and pestle was painted underneath the script. Behind the yard’s picket fence and to the left of the house were boxes planted with herb seedlings. In the back, rows of root vegetables were planted and a chicken coop constructed so that Aurora Mae might have access to some of her most common stock. A hothouse next to the chicken coop finished the place off. She was beside herself with joy. When she spoke, her voice was thick with sentiment.

Come inside, Bailey, she said. I’m going to make you one of my special teas to celebrate.

He had no idea what was in the brew she served him, but it made his head light. Soon they were laughing over next to nothing together. Aurora Mae sang his praises and her gratitude. Then she said, Look. You’ve helped me so much, let me help you. Why don’t you move in here, to the spare bedroom.

His green eyes went large and round.

Now, now, Miss Aurora Mae. Whatever would the neighbors say? he asked, and they both laughed, knocking into each other on the couch where they sat, drinking tea.

All at once, she grabbed his arm.

I’m serious, she said. I want to help you. I need to help you. Isn’t there some little business of your own you’d like to start up? I can be your partner. Isn’t that what you wanted? That we be partners? Don’t worry about the money. I swear I have so much money I don’t know what to do with it. It burdens me. Sometimes I want to just give it all away. Why shouldn’t I start with you, who has been helpful to me?

Magnus Bailey did what came naturally, for him, anyway, if not Mags Preacher McCallum. He asked her how she got so rich.

Where’d your money come from, Aurora Mae? How is it there’s so much of it, with times bein’ hard and all?

She shrugged, looked at him steady straight in the eyes without a blink.

I found it, she said. It came to me in the flood like a chick to the roost.

He didn’t believe her, but he didn’t press her on it. Aurora Mae was entitled to her secrets as he was entitled to his. He next made a show of refusing her help until she begged some more, and then he said yes.

Although by the time he left her it had begun to rain, he walked over to L’il Red’s on his way back to Thomas DeGrace’s place. He stood in his usual spot across the street, cloaked in shadow, his gaze fixed on the whorehouse. His eyes moved from one window to the next, floor to floor. It was raining, it was hopeless that he should see her, and yet there he stood for more than an hour, talking to her in his mind, telling her that what was past was past and what could be in the future if she could bring herself to forgive him for setting her down the road to ruin. When his heart filled with the picture of her response, weeping and grateful, leaving with him, hand in hand, toward their bright paradise, he quit his hiding place to go pack up. The rain came down now in blinding sheets. He turned his collar up and ventured through the rain with his head up and his chest thrust out like a boy imagining high adventure.

At first, Magnus and Aurora Mae lived together as brother and sister. They shared their meals, their daily troubles and triumphs. At night, they sat together in the parlor listening to the radio or the phonograph. They grew close and fond. Every once in a while, Aurora Mae would forget herself and call him Horace.

Using her seed money, Magnus started up a business as a bail bondsman, a venture he’d found lucrative back in East St. Louis when his partner was old Fishbein. His clientele were crooks of every description and color, but his bread and butter were white boys who’d drunk themselves into a pile of trouble of a weekday night and needed to get sprung from jail before their daddies noticed they weren’t where they should be, boys who couldn’t call Daddy’s lawyer and depend on his discretion. He loved those boys, because none caused him a wakeful minute wondering if they’d skip. They gave him tips on the cotton and lumber markets where their daddies made their fortunes. Following up, Magnus Bailey doubled and sometimes tripled his money. The remainder of his clients he chose carefully for their roots in the community or the depth of their felonious pockets. His choices paid off. He lived modestly and banked most of his money. Come 1929, he figured he was just one more year from achieving the stake he needed, and then the crash came. His stocks floundered, and his bank failed.

The day it all fell apart, Aurora Mae came home from the market to the sight of Magnus Bailey weeping on the couch with a glass of neat bourbon in one hand and a revolver in the other. His collar was undone, his suit rumpled, his hair mussed. He talked to himself. His lips trembled. He didn’t notice she’d entered. Quietly, slowly, she went to his side. Locked as he was in the miseries, he did not so much as lift his head. She knelt before him and put her hands on his thighs. He stared straight ahead, as if her considerable presence were invisible, and muttered.

It’s over. All over. Can’t do it now. Couldn’t do it then. Three times now, I lost it all. I am cursed for my sins. Might as well die.

The hand that held the gun went up and pointed the weapon at his temple, but he had the shakes so bad Aurora Mae took it from him easily. As she got up to put it down far away from his grasp, she saw the bank paper on the mantelpiece and understood what had happened. Without hesitation, she sat down beside him and put her arms around him and drew him to her, cradling his head against the broad shelf of her chest, rocking him back and forth like her very own baby boy.

This all about money, Magnus? What a foolish thing to despair over. I have money. I told you. Don’t you remember? I have so much money I don’t know what to do with it. You’ll be alright. I’ll give you more. Look. Here’s some.

She got up, went to a floorboard he never knew was loose, and pried it up with the fireplace poker, then with the strength of two hands dragged a good-sized metal box from the space underneath. She opened it and scooped up a double handful of gold coin. She knelt at his feet and poured treasure into his lap. It made a clinkity-clink-clink as it fell, and light from the parlor windows made it shine. Magnus looked stunned at first, and then he started to laugh in a high voice, like a woman or a child.

Oh ’Rora, oh ’Rora Mae, was all he could manage to vocalize, so he clasped her in his arms while relief flooded his veins like wine, and perhaps because he was that grateful, perhaps because he was that drunk, perhaps because he finally knew where she stored her money, he took her to his bed, where she accommodated his desires half out of pity and half out of affection.

By dawn, Magnus Bailey found his fortunes restored and his life significantly complicated. Luckily, Aurora Mae did not make further carnal demands upon him straightaway. Under the implacable glare of morning’s light, not to mention sobriety and the restoration of his hopes, his fondness for her had settled back to its usual fraternal warmth, which harbored little erotic heat. This was no fault of her own, just the way of things with a man whose heart yearned in another direction. He got up, made her breakfast, served her in bed for a surprise, kissed the crown of her head as if he were her daddy instead of her lover, and went to his office where he had nothing special to do early on but where he could be alone to ponder the night’s events.