River, cross my heart (20 page)

outride, and no lamps were lit. Though it was nearly an hour before she heard Alexis descend the stairs, Alice knew she was in the house. When Alexis came into the kitchen, she was wearing a dull pink wrapper. Her hair was gathered messily into a pony tail, and dried material was caked at the corners of her eyes. The sight of her shocked Alice. Alexis had always comported herself with circumspection about her clothes and hygiene. And though she had always been friendly and easygoing, she was never anything less than properly dressed and ladylike. Alexis had never been one for suffering vapors or lolling about in her nightclothes. She was energetic and she enjoyed her activities, her gardening and her knitting and her club meetings.

"Miz St. Pierre, you feeling all right?" Alice asked with genuine concern. If she was sick it had come on suddenly. Yesterday she had been quiet and threatening tearful, but not ill.

Alexis didn't reply. She pulled her wrapper tightly about her neck and sat in one of the kitchen chairs.

"You'll feel better if you have a cup of tea." Alice put a pot of water on to boil, dunked and wrung a facecloth in warm water, and bathed Alexis's face. She must be coming down with a croup. That could explain her disheveled appearance.

After Alice had swabbed the corners of Alexis's eyes and rubbed the facecloth over her face and down her neck and at her nape and across the exposed area of her chest, Alexis still sat unmoving in the chair. Suddenly she began to shake and sweat. Alice tried to mop her dry. The shaking and sweating continued and tears flowed. Tears broke over her breast like beads from a broken strand. She could not be calmed.

Alice propped Alexis against the back of the chair and

ig2 - Breena Clarke

went out through the back screen door. As she moved between the bushes lining the walkway from the back of the house to the front, her hard, businesslike thighs broke twigs along the way. At the street, she saw Mr. Pud Allen going by in his wagon and hailed him and asked him to get the white people's doctor, Dr. Mason.

Alice was unable to move Alexis from the chair and take her to her bedroom. When the doctor arrived, the two managed together to take her upstairs to the large front bedroom.

The doctor said that it was most likely an inability to sleep that had caused Alexis's nervous attack. He sent Alice to the pharmacy for a medicinal draft to be mixed in water. Instructions were given that Alexis must rest. He told Alice to assure the woman's husband that she would certainly feel better soon.

When Alice returned with the draft and began to mix it with water, Alexis stopped her. She handed her a letter. "Read. Read what he has written," she said.

I am gone. I have taken nothing except all that you had and all that others had. I have lost everything. You may say that I deserted you and get a divorce. The house in Philadelphia is still yours. All else is gone. Douglas.

Alexis was grief-stricken and tearful, but she was not incapacitated. The circumstances of Douglas's financial ruin were hazy. He had lost all his money. He had lost most of hers. He had looted her inheritance, though he'd not been able to sell her father's house in Philadelphia. He had borrowed from his friends and lost that money, too. He had not been able to

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borrow against her house in Philadelphia because he could nor bring himself to ask her to sign the papers. He had taken money in his position at the treasury department and had lost that money, too. He had simply left.

Alexis had only the house in Philadelphia now and she made arrangements to return there. Alice did the packing though there was less to do than she would have thought. There was mostly clothes and small personal mementos. The jewelry of any value and the furniture had been sold to satisfy Douglas's debts. Alexis had dispassionately handed over her diamond engagement ring and other items Douglas had given her to the lawyer who was settling the accounts. There had been the suspicion that she had joined in Douglas's embezzlement and was possibly hiding some money. She had had to submit to a search o( her belongings by the police and representatives oi the treasury- department.

As she left the house for the train station, Alexis put a brooch in Alice's hand. The brooch was as round as a silver dollar and studded with tiny garnets. Alexis said they were garnets with a touch of apology in her voice. They were not diamonds. They were only garnets. The lawyers had taken all oi the diamonds. As she got in the cab for the train station, she urged Alice to remember her.

"That woman didn't deserve that! She didn't deserve it!" Alice said with heat and pity. In her kitchen, she unwrapped four teacups with a floral pattern and the saucers that matched them. Alexis had pressed these on her, too. Alice turned them over in her hands one at a time. These cups and saucers, pretty and fragile, would remind her of Alexis.

"God doesn't think about what you deserve. He's got a plan," Ina answered, sucking a strand of cotton thread. She bent toward the lamp and drew the thread through a needle.

"Oh, hush up, Ina!" Alice snapped.

"What am I doing but telling the truth?" Ina countered with wounded sensibilities.

"I don't want to hear about God's plan now, Ina. I'm talking about that man walking out on his wife like she was a common whore. That's what I'm talking about. He left her with only the clothes on her back practically."

"She's got a big house in Philadelphia to sit up in."

"Ina Mae, what plans has God got for you, I wonder." Alice laughed wryly at her funny, contrary little cousin. She always thought of Ina Mae as younger, though she was fully eight years older than Alice. Ina was the plump little girl who'd stood back on her heels and extended her arms to Alice when she'd toddled her first steps. Ina was the one who'd stayed behind gladly watching the smaller children when others went to dances. Ina had been the one who'd always dreamed of a houseful of children and had never had a single one.

"Well, the Lord made me colored. And on account o{ that, I'm not sitting up in a house in Philadelphia licking myself like a cat. I got to work for a living whether my husband is alive or dead or playing possum — and you the same," Ina countered.

"Ina, you're being kind of coldhearted. Don't you have any sympathy for that poor woman?" Alice said, only half teasingly.

"I save my sympathy for you. What you gonna do about your job? Instead of worrying about her, you ought to be wor-

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rying about yourself. What're you gonna do with those cups and saucers and that brooch? You can sell 'em and when the money's gone, it'll he gone."

Electricity came through Georgetown like a wave the same spring that the swimming pool was finished. Block by block, every house — big or small, palatial or pitiful — was wired to accommodate the incandescent bulbs. The gas street lamps were changed to the new electric lightbulbs and everybody in Georgetown, except the big-thighed Fontarellis, was glad about it.

Electric light came through the same year that George-town got a swimming pool for colored and a colored lifeguard. The water in the pool and the lifeguard who was studying to be a doctor and the thrill of little round glowing globes of light to cut on and off gave Georgetown many things to look forward to.

That same spring, the District of Columbia recreation department announced it was assembling teams of young swimmers to compete with teams from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Neighborhood groups throughout town were grooming their best swimmers to compete to be on the city-wide team.

Charles Edward Hughes, a medical student at Howard University and the head lifeguard at the Francis pool, organized swimming classes for the Georgetown children who came to the pool as soon as it opened. With a view to putting together a team, he gave each youngster a test to gauge his or her swimming abilities. Nobody was surprised that Johnnie Mae Bynum emerged as the best o( the girls. Charles Hughes —

Charlie, they called him—praised her and made her the captain of the girls' team.

Johnnie Mae was, without doubt, the best female swimmer that Charlie Hughes had at the Francis pool. In fact, she was the best swimmer, male or female, at the Francis pool. Her mastery of the strokes was uniformly competent. He was surprised that she'd never had formal lessons. She was as close to a natural swimmer as Charlie had ever seen.

Pearl Miller, Mabel Dockery, Sarey Tyler, Dumpling Mason, Tiny Sham, Lula Lavery, and Johnnie Mae Bynum came to the pool each day for lessons with Charlie Hughes. They all wanted to be as close to Charlie as possible. They had all been swept up in the newness and the adventure and the beauty of Charlie Edward Hughes and the swimming pool.

Pearl was especially determined to learn the rudiments of swimming. But it was more as a means of preserving her friendship with Johnnie Mae than from a passion for water. The water itself exerted no pull on her. It was the pull of the other girls—especially Johnnie Mae. Sarey Tyler, afraid of spoiling her pressed hair, spent most of the swimming lesson shielding her hair from the water. But she, too, basked in the glow of Charlie Hughes.

Johnnie Mae's swimming was fluid, graceful, all that it should be. Why, she could likely win against any but the absolute best swimmers. But it was in the diving that you saw the best of the girl. It was her absolute, flawless ascent to the top of the diving tower full of confidence that made Charlie know she could compete and win. Only occasionally did she not connect well and falter enough to throw off the dive. These times were rare, and with practice were becoming even more so.

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Johnnie Mae's innate moxie was what took her off the board and sent her swirling gracefully through the air and into the water. She handled all the dives competently, but it was her utter willingness to jump that was so thrilling. Some who eventually jumped off the diving board would hesitate, sometimes for long moments, before deciding to take the plunge. But Johnnie Mae was never unsure if she would jump. She would always jump. She would jump and descend to the surface of the water with a speed and force that belied the delicacy with which the water's surface parted to let her in. She seemed to break the surface with no more effort than the will to do it—breaking downward, then upward again, passing like a knife through butter.

The first time Pearl saw Johnnie Mae on the diving board, her form was silhouetted against a late afternoon sun slipping down into Rock Creek. Pearl climbed toward the playground up the hill from Rock Creek, coming to the pool for her lesson and for the camaraderie. Johnnie Mae stood on the diving board at the Francis pool with an energy in her limbs that appeared to Pearl to emanate from the sun. She was struck by the sight of Johnnie Mae. She didn't recognize her friend at first, but saw a tall, slim form standing higher than she'd ever seen a body stand. From where Pearl stood watching, trees obscured the platform on which the figure stood. Before the figure raised her arms, Pearl thought that it must be a statue she was seeing. When the figure left the end of the board in a perfect dive, Pearl drew in her breath and ran toward where she thought the figure must land, not realizing that there was water below her.

Pearl stood back and watched Johnnie Mae for a full hour that day. At times she squinted and threw her head back.

Johnnie Mae, completely absorbed in Charlie's assessment of each dive, didn't notice Pearl standing watching her from the fence. Pearl thought to herself that Johnnie Mae didn't look like a graceful little swan when you saw her up close, but atop that diving board it seemed as if she could jump off into the clouds.

She became a part of the water when she entered it, and so her moving through it was effortless and completely without fear. Charlie knew about fear in the water. A river swimmer will know about fear because a river is not a captive. It moves and changes. It can fool you and take you down in a minute if you are not always paying it mind. And it is fear that seals the swimmer's fate. Flailing about to stay afloat is what sinks the swimmer. The not knowing how far to the land again and how far to the bottom. Fear of it makes water fathomless.

Johnnie Mae hopped on one leg to let the water run out of her ear. She changed legs and hopped, letting water run out of the other ear. There was a feeling like ants running up her back. She slapped at her shoulders and scratched her neck. It was like when you disturb an anthill and all the ants come run-ning out. They think it's a fire. That's what Rat said. Rat said they looked like they were running away from a house on fire. And that afternoon — some summer afternoon that was like so many she and Clara had shared—Johnnie Mae told Clara that they could really give the ants a taste of fire if they lit a match and stuck it down the anthill. The two girls looked all over the yard until they found an anthill. Johnnie Mae struck a match that she scraped on the bottom of her shoe. It flared

up. Rat got so excited that she humped Johnnie Mae's elhow. Johnnie Mae told her she'd swat her upside the head it she didn't keep still. And Johnnie Mae held the match steady and watched the flame eat up the matchstick, inching down toward her ringers. Then she jahhed the lighted match down the hole in the top of the anthill. Ants came running out like their house was on tire. Rat yelled because one or two climbed up her silly arm, and she jumped around to knock them off when she could just have slapped them off.

Johnnie Mae wanted to scratch and pull her swimming suit away from her skin, but Charlie had said she must stand still and think only about the water and how wonderful it would be to glide through it. He said to think about how proud every' body would be—especially him. He didn't say especially him. He only said that everybody would be proud. She figured he meant to say he'd be especially proud of her too. If she won. She wanted Charlie to be proud of her—and Mama—and Daddy and Aunt Ina and Pearl and Rat—Rat too. Rat must be proud, but Rat must be jealous as well. She wanted Rat to be a little jealous. She wanted Rat to look down on her from wherever she was and wish she herself was getting ready to swim.