Solomon's Vineyard (12 page)

The blondes started clown the stairs. At the same time a Negro came
in a door at the back of the hall by the stairs. A knife scar split his
upper lip. He looked big and mean.

“Throw this bastard out, Jim,” the fat woman said.

The Negro came for me, moving light on his feet like a big cat. “We
don't want no trouble, white man. Just get out.”

“First I get an answer to my question,” I said.

The Negro kept coming. “You slob,” the woman said to me; “throwing
women around.”

“Come on, white man,” the Negro said.

I let him get close to me. “All right,” I said. “I'll go.”

“Throw him on his ear, Jim,” the woman said.

He reached for my collar and I gave him a knee in the groin. He
grunted. I let go a right to the face, putting my shoulder back of it.
He started to shuffle away and I followed and gave him the old one-two
and he went down. He lay on his back on the hall rug.

“Damn you!” said a woman behind me. “Leave Jim alone.” I turned just
in time to get hit on the head with a lamp made of a Chinese vase. The
porcelain, or whatever it was, shattered over me. The blonde who'd
swung it stood there, waiting for me to fall.

“What the hell?” I asked her. “What's the Negro to you?”

She came at me, clawing. I caught one arm, jerked it hard and let it
go. She spun into the parlour and crashed against the far wall. From
the stairs the other blonde screamed. I looked at the Negro. He was
trying to get to his feet, an ugly-looking straight-edged razor in one
hand. I waited until he got up; then I jerked the rug. He fell on his
side. I kicked the razor out of his hand. Then I kicked him in the
face. The blonde on the stairs screamed again. I picked the Negro up by
his belt and threw him out one of the hall windows. He took the shade
and the lower pane of glass with him. I ran up the hall and shoved the
fat woman away from the telephone. I jerked it off the wire and threw
it into a big mirror. “Now, damn you,” I said to the woman; “where's
Carmel?”

She was so scared she could hardly talk. “She went out . . . last
night.”

“Where?”

“I don't know.”

“Who'd she go with?”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“The hell you don't know,” I said. “You don't let your girls go out
that way.”

I grabbed her arms and shook her. Her false teeth fell out and rolled
across the carpet. I stopped shaking.

“Chief Piper,” she said.

I gave her one more shake. There were a lot of heads at the top of
the stairs, but when I looked up they disappeared. I started into the
parlour, but a thin man in shirtsleeves was in the way. I hit him and
he went down. In the parlour the blonde who'd slugged me with the lamp
began to scream. She thought I was coming for her. I went to the big
radio in the corner. I picked it up, tearing out the plug, and tossed
it across the room. It shattered against the wall. I kicked over a
table with two lamps on it. I tore some of the fabric off a davenport.
I threw a chair at a big oil painting over the fireplace. I took a
metal stand lamp and bent it up like pretzel. I pulled up the Oriental
rug and ripped it down the middle. The fat woman and the blonde watched
me with eyes like oysters. I came out into the hall.

“After this be more civil,” I told the fat woman.

I went out the door. The Negro was lying in some bushes under the
window. I didn't worry about him. A Negro takes a lot of killing. I
went back to the hotel, walking on the shady side of the street. I
don't know why I did that; habit, I guess; I had already sweat up my
clothes.

At the hotel the clerk gave me a number to call. Prospect 2332. I
went up to my room and took off my clothes and got in the shower. I had
a good bump on my head where the lamp had hit me. After a while I dried
myself and called the number. The Princess answered, her voice as
smooth as cream. “Hello, honey.”

“Hello,” I said.

“How are you feeling?”

“All right.”

“You're coming out tonight, aren't you?”

“I don't know.”

“Oh, but I'm expecting you. Don't eat; we'll have dinner together.”

I didn't say anything.

“How does it sound, honey?”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“About seven.”

“All right.”

“Goodbye, honey.”

“Goodbye.”

She hung up and I jiggled the hook on the telephone. When the clerk
answered, I ordered a bottle of brandy and a dozen raw eggs.

McGEE'S old touring car had once been green. It had also been painted
black, but this had worn thin and you could see the original green
coming through on the hood. The fenders were still black. The
speedometer said 53,562 miles, but the motor was smooth. McGee drove as
though he had a horse in front, saying 'Giddap' when he wanted to start
and 'Whoa' when he was stopping. I was scared he would forget the horse
wasn't there sometime and try to stop by pulling back on the
steering-wheel. He didn't, though. We got through town without a bump.
On the highway McGee opened her up to twenty-five.

“What have you been doing?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You look a mite pale.”

“It's the heat,” I said, trying to hide a yawn.

“I don't recall a hotter spell,” McGee agreed.

He began to talk about the heat; remembering every wave for thirty
summers. His voice made me sleepy. I tried to keep my eyes on the
Vineyard's buildings on the hill ahead, watching the sunlight come off
the red bricks.

I'd said goodbye to the Princess up there not more than two hours
ago. And we had another date tonight, if I lived that long. I yawned. I
thought, maybe I could really slug her when she asked to be hit. Maybe
that would slow her up.

“Quite a place,” McGee said.

“Huh?”

“The Vineyard.”

“Oh. Yeah, it is.”

“Almost like a medieval colony.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Only it changed,” McGee sighed; “when old Solomon died.”

The road was beginning to climb. All around were the green rows of
vines. I felt the sun through the fabric top. I thought it would be fun
to lie under one of the vines. It looked cool there.

“Old Solomon would never have let you and me on the grounds,” McGee
was saying. “He ran the place like a kingdom.”

“Who runs it now?”

“The Elders.”

“I heard the Princess—” I began.

“Whoa, now.” McGee pushed down the brake and turned into the
Vineyard's driveway. I saw a lot of cars parked by the buildings. “I
guess she takes a hand, too,” McGee said.

We parked and got out of the car and walked to the mausoleum. There
was a line of people on the stone steps, waiting to get inside. They
looked to me like townspeople and farmers. Their faces were solemn and
they didn't talk much. A lot of them carried flowers. We got in line.

“This temple cost a hundred and fifty thousand,” McGee said. “Solomon
built it before he died.”

“It's bigger than Grant's tomb,” I said.

The line moved up the steps. I stared at the building. It was built
of marble, the stone kind of pink in the sunlight. Inscribed over the
door was:
Vanity, Vanity I All is Vanity.
That was from the
Bible, I thought. From the steps I could not see through the door. It
was too dark inside.

McGee read the inscription aloud. “Don't look like Solomon took that
to mean him,” he added.

A woman in front glanced back over her shoulder. She didn't like what
McGee was saying. She was dressed in black. McGee didn't pay any
attention to her.

“Funny thing,” McGee said. “Solomon died the day after the temple was
finished. Seemed like he couldn't wait to try it out.”

The woman snorted. We moved up the steps. There were people behind us
now. I figured at least a thousand people were on the grounds. I saw a
brown carpet leading inside from the doorway. The people were walking
on that, moving slowly into the darkness. As we came to the door, the
line got more compact. My face almost touched the back of McGee's neck,
and the man behind was pushing me.

McGee said: “The temple that bootleg built.”

We moved into the doorway. The people all around were very quiet. I
began to walk on the carpet. I saw candles burning in the far end of
the room. I smelled incense.

“The Prohibition Prophet,” McGee said loudly.

The woman turned around. “Keep quiet,” she said to McGee. “This is a
house of God.”

“Madam, I am sorry if I have wounded you,” McGee said. “But I have a
right to my opinion.”

“Have you no respect for the dead?”

“For certain dead, yes,” McGee said.

The man behind me said “Shut up.” Other people were muttering. I
heard someone say: “Throw him out.” We moved slowly along the carpet.

My eyes had got used to the gloom. There was nothing in the big room
except a coffin at the far end and an altar. There were candles on both
the coffin and the altar. On the foot of the coffin were heaped all
kinds of wreaths and flowers. While I watched a woman dropped a bunch
of roses on the pile and went on. “Do you notice the stink?” McGee
asked. I didn't answer. I was afraid McGee was going to get us in
trouble. We went on a few more steps and men I got the stink. It was
something! It was like the stink of a horse that's been dead two weeks.
It made my nostrils close up. It killed the smell of the incense. I
said “Whew!” and got a few dirty looks myself. McGee laughed.

Now we were quite close to the coffin. It was set on a gold and
marble table that was about three feet above the floor. The coffin was
made of bronze and had leaves engraved all over it. It had a glass top.
The table was bigger than the coffin and some of the flowers had fallen
on it from the foot of the coffin. About ten dozen candles put a queer
light over everything. I heard the woman in front begin to pant. She
was looking down through the glass. “Keep moving, please.”

I jumped, almost knocking over the man behind me. An Elder in a white
robe was standing across from the coffin. He said again: “Keep moving,
folks.” He had a deep voice. I tried to see him, but his face was in a
shadow. I began to feel spooked.

McGee had reached the head of the coffin. He looked inside, bending
down until his nose was close to the glass, and then straightened up,
nodding as though everything was all right. I don't know what he'd
thought he might see. He walked on, and I was next. I held my breath
and peered into the coffin.

Solomon lay on red velvet, face up, blue-grey eyes staring up at me.
The open eyes gave me a start. He had on a black robe and on one of his
fingers was the biggest diamond I'd ever seen. He didn't look dead at
all, except that his face was the colour of wax. The skin made a
contrast with his inky black hair. He was a tall man, about six foot
six, and he was thin. His face had hollows under the eyes and in the
cheeks. He looked nasty and cruel. I could see one tooth back of the
blue-white lips. “Keep moving, please,” said the Elder.

I followed McGee out a side door. The sunlight hurt my eyes. I kept
smelling the queer odour of incense and flowers and decay around the
coffin. It was good to breathe in the fresh air again.

“Well,” McGee asked; “what'd you think of it?”

“It's something I won't forget quick.”

We went down the stairs. “Take a look around?” McGee asked.

“Sure.”

We walked towards the largest of the brick buildings. McGee said that
was the administration building. He pointed out the women's building.

“That's where I saw the Grayson girl,” I said.

Another of the buildings, McGee said, was for men. The last one was
the nursery. It was only two stories high, but it was big.

“Where do the children come from?” I asked.

He led me towards the nursery. “Some of the women bring 'em,” he
said. “And some have 'em while they're here.”

“I thought this was a religious colony. How do they arrange it?”

There were people walking around the grounds. McGee waited until a
man and two women had passed by us.

“Have you ever heard of the Walpurgis Night?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, that was a night when all the men and women went out into the
woods. They stayed all night, drinking and making love and dancing. It
didn't matter who you stayed with, it was all part of the ceremony.”

“And they have those here?”

He nodded. “Twice a year. One of them is the Ceremony of the Bride.
Another is the Wine Festival. That, I have been told, is the wildest.”

“Why don't they stop them? Don't they have to register the babies?”

“That's where they're smart. After a woman is initiated into the
order, they make her marry one of the men. Then any babies are
legitimate, though often the woman never even sees her husband.”

“Well, my God!” I said.

I wondered how much McGee really knew. I couldn't tell. He talked as
though he knew all about the Vineyard. Maybe he did.

I said: “What is this Ceremony of the Bride?” McGee looked at me.
“You've heard of it?”

“The Grayson gal is to be the bride.” McGee's lantern jaw came open.
“Who told you?”

“She did.”

“That's terrible!” I began to get alarmed. “Why?”

He shook his head mournfully. He went over to a bench and sat down.
He looked sick.

“What happens to the bride? What's the ceremony?”

“There is a festival one night. And the next night she spends in
Solomon's mausoleum.”

“The hell!”

“She's supposed to be Solomon's bride.”

“And then what?”

“She holds a special place in the Vineyard. She doesn't have to work
any more.”

“How many Brides are there?” McGee looked queer. “None.”

“None! Haven't they ever done it before?”

“Yes. Every year since Solomon died.”

“What happened to 'em?”

“They died.”

“Right there in the mausoleum?”