William Styron: The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice (64 page)

La Ruth gave him a crack on the head. “You hush yo’ nasty face,” she said. “You gonna need mo’ dan baptism to save yo’ dev’lish soul.” She began to moan again, rocking back and forth in the twilight, and pressed Stonewall against her: “De Lawd he’p us, Mama, Satan is fo’ sho’ stalkin’ around de proppity dis day. Seem like de Lawd jes shet de door on His people——”

“Quit moanin’,” Ella said, grabbing her arm, “trust in Him.”

The bus, marked “Special,” came clattering over the hill; they got on. They dropped two nickels in the box.

“How old is that child?” the driver said, turning cold blue eyes on La Ruth.

Three steps down the aisle La Ruth turned. “He’s five years and ‘leven months old, six come September.”

“Are you sure?” the driver said.

“Yes, suh, ’deed I is. Mama she said always tell de troof when de man asks. Dat child ain’t but——”

“O.K., O.K.,” the driver said.

The bus pulled away from the curb; the three of them moved to the rear, joining a group of Negroes on the back seat.

“How do, Sister Ella? You do look fine,” said a small plump woman with tan skin. Her robe had arms of lace, with beads; these she rattled noisily and obviously, tucking the hair beneath her turban. “I do hear, though,” she said solemnly, “from Sister Moreen. She said you had sorrow in yo’ fambly today.”

“ ’Deed we did,” Ella sighed, “de Lawd plucked off de prettiest creature in dis world.”

“When de Lawd plucks, he
plucks
.” A thin little man had spoken; he was very old, with a mangy gray mustache, but spry. When he spoke he clapped both feet on the floor, for emphasis. He fanned himself with a bandanna.

“ ’Deed he does, Brother Andrew,” Ella said mildly. “De Lawd plucks fo’ sho’. When he plucks.”

“Ain’t you grievin’?” said the other woman.

“Done grieved all I can,” said Ella. “Can’t grieve no mo’, Sister ’Delphia, can’t grieve no mo’.”

“Dat’s right,” said Sister Adelphia. “Daddy Faith, he say grief is a wellspring and a fount, dat when it run dry den it’s time to lift up yo’ heart and praise Him fo’ His blessin’s, dat it’s time fo’ thanks-givin’——”

“And de blood offerin’!” Brother Andrew put in, snapping his heels.

“And de blood offerin’!” said Sister Adelphia.

“Amen,” said Ella.

They rode on through the twilight, past fields and woods and dirt roads. At each road the bus stopped to take on more people, until finally it was crowded with passengers, all Negroes except for one white man, a railroad worker, who stood up in front and seemed nervously out of place. The air generally was that of expectancy and hope and jubilation; they jostled one another, stepped on one another’s toes, sang hymns. One old woman near the back door became prematurely hysterical, began to wail and to clutch rapturously at the walls, until the driver slowed down and, standing up, told her to quit it, because she was ringing the bell. Soon they were in Niggertown, on Jefferson Avenue; the street outside became a parade, filled with robed and turbaned figures streaming eastward toward the water. Some blew horns; a band could be heard somewhere in the distance, brassy and loud, with celebrant trumpets, xylophones, and a thunder of drums. The bus halted in the jam, waited, lurched on. La Ruth began to moan again. “God he’p us,” she said. “Dem po’ people! What dey gonna do? Po’ Peyton. Oh, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd …”

Ella rubbed her hand gently across La Ruth’s knuckles. “You hush now,” she murmured. “It’s all done and finished with. God will provide in heaven.”

“Amen!” Brother Andrew put in.

“Dis day I am with you in paradise,” said Sister Adelphia, nodding her head certainly. “De Master hisse’f said dat. Ain’t dat enough fo’ you, Sister La Ruth?” She rattled her beads; there was a trace of a sneer on her lips, one that indicated she had no use for doubters.

La Ruth hiked Stonewall up higher in her lap. “I know,” she said, “but de po’ chile, Miss Helen crazy an’ all, God knows I don’t know …” Her voice trailed off, and she gazed out the window; the river could be seen from here, a motionless silver patch at its junction with the bay: on the distant shore, behind a stretch of trees, the sun was setting, a violent half-circle of yolk-colored gold. Nearby was marshland, cattails and sawgrass standing up straight and without motion in the windless dusk. It was high tide; the smell of sea was borne through the windows, salty and faintly sulphurous from the rot of the marshes, but clean. At the railroad crossing the white man got off. The bus moved on, faster now; black hands waved wildly from the windows, toward the sky, toward nothing, in rapture; faint from across the bay there was a final groan of thunder as the storm passed out to sea. Ella sat up stiffly in her seat and rocked with the motion of the bus, her eyes glued together: it was as if she had become suddenly oblivious of the noise around her, the prayers and the laughter and the singing; it was an expression neither grieving nor devout but merely silently, profoundly aware: of time past and passing and time to come, a look both mysterious and peaceful. “Gran’ma,” said Stonewall, tugging at her robe, but she said nothing and rocked tranquilly along with the motion of the bus.

Finally the bus turned off onto a dirt side road winding through the marsh. It crossed the railroad track again. They went slowly; there were watery places traversed by corduroy logs; and the bus heaved and lurched, scraping up cattails beneath the fenders. A cloud of mosquitoes swarmed through the windows. The people slapped at them, leaving streaks of blood on brown skin. “Happy am I,” someone began to sing, “in my Redeemer,” and by the time the bus reached the beach everyone had joined in, except for Ella, who kept her eyes peacefully closed, and Stonewall, who didn’t know the words. They ground to a halt, bogged down in the sand. Then everyone piled out. La Ruth came last. Here there were scores more people standing around on the beach; some sat in the loose, dry sand near the marsh, eating watermelon and fried chicken and green sour grapes as big as plums. A railroad trestle arched over the creek nearby, and long tables had been set up in its shadow: they sagged with food, and around them the juice from discarded melon rinds ran like blood in the sand.

But most of the people looked at the raft. They stood around in clusters, watching it, discussing it. It lay anchored offshore in the shallow water, bobbing gently in the waves. On it had been erected a sort of stage, surrounded on four sides by a golden damask curtain; embroidered designs—dragons and crosses and crowns, Masonic emblems, shields, bizarre and unheard-of animals, an amalgam of myth and pagan ritual and Christian symbology—all these glowed against the curtain in green and red phosphorescent fabrics, literally hurting the eyes. At the corners of the curtain were tall golden rods, and surmounting each was a transparent globe, through which an electric bulb shone, giving outline to painted red letters, which said simply: LOVE. Three or four elders, in black robes and black monks’ skull caps, tended the raft, and the water came nearly to their waists, although they had little to do except to keep the raft from rocking in the waveless shallows, and to send occasional self-important glances toward the throng on shore. Now many of the people crowded up close to the water’s edge; at least a thousand had come: they milled about in the sand, some still with chicken in their fingers, shoving each other, trying to get a better view. Ella and her family stood with Brother Andrew and Sister Adelphia at the rim of the shore. Stonewall was wading; he was eating a deviled crab. La Ruth sucked noisily on a bottle of pop.

“It sho’ is pretty,” said Sister Adelphia. With an air of careful insouciance she thrust her arms out, to display her rattling beads.

“It sho’ is,” said Ella. “It’s de prime sanctua’y, de alpha and de omega, where all mysteries are revealed.”

“Amen!” said Brother Andrew, with a nervous skip on the sand. “Dat’s what he say.”

La Ruth belched. “Stonewall,” she said, “come on in here outa dat water! Put on dem sandals, boy. You gonna snag yo’ feet on a oyshter.”

Stonewall complied, scuffing meekly back up the beach, dragging his robe in the water. He had found a playmate, a little girl of about four, who had jam smeared around her mouth and who, when Ella bent down and said, “What’s yo’ name, child?” told her in a tiny faint voice, “Doris.”

“Where’s yo’ mama? You lost?”

She giggled, stuck the hem of her robe in her mouth and refused to answer.

“Well den,” Ella said, “you jus’ stick wid Stonewall. He take good keer of you. We find yo’ mama directly.” They all looked up again at the raft. Something seemed to be about to happen; a dark hand poked itself out of the curtain, beckoned to one of the wading elders: he climbed up on the raft and disappeared into the sanctuary. There was a murmur up and down the beach; the crowd pressed closer, buzzing, speculating.

“He gonna make de ’Pearance any time now.”

“He sho’ is. I kin always tell.”

“How come
you
know?”

“I kin always tell. When de elder goes in, it’s almos’ time.”

“De band gotta come yet.”

“Dat’s right. Wonder where dey is?”

Then, as if it had been given a key, a trumpet sounded in the marsh behind the crowd, one loud clear note, massive and prolonged. The people turned, gave way in the center, and the band, twenty or thirty male musicians in bright scarlet robes, strode down the beach, made a precise military turn, and waded out into the water. A gasp went up from the crowd; everybody applauded, some people cheered.

“Gret day, don’t dey look swell!”

“Mmm-
hh
. Talk about a band!”

Sandaled and robed, the musicians struggled toward the raft in hip-deep water, balancing themselves with outthrust trombones and cornets: these glinted in the twilight, sending muted gold reflections across the water. Then the band turned and slowly arrayed itself in two groups beside the raft. An immense quiet fell over the throng; there was not the faintest whisper, except among the children, who got their ears wrung, or were poked, by their parents. It was a moment of supreme expectancy. Down the shore a ferryboat pulled out of the slip, tooted, and the sound drifted across the water, lingered, then faded. Small wavelets lapped against the shore; someone groaned with excitement, was hushed, and an airplane buzzed unheard across the sky: above, the air grew pink and then darkened to a deep crimson, flooding the bay with a sudden burst of fire. Out behind the raft a croaker leaped up with a silver splash of fins; La Ruth began to rock and moan. “Oh, Jesus, po’ people. What dey gonna do? Po’ Peyton. Gone! Gone!” Ella jabbed her in the ribs. “Hush up now!” La Ruth sobbed quietly, clutching Stonewall by the arm, but Ella gazed at the raft, again, with the look of peace and mystery. There was a flutter behind the curtain, a quiet gasp from the crowd, and a man appeared at the edge of the raft. It was not Daddy Faith. It was his major domo, announcer, Gabriel, chief lieutenant: a personage with a stern, muscular face, and glassy, bulging eyes. He seemed to come from finer, rarer stock, with his aquiline profile, both views of which he displayed without modesty, almost contemptuously, and with his thin, straight-lipped mouth. None of the crowd had seen this man before; they stood watching in wonder and in humility. His robe was blue, caught tight at the neck like a vestment; above his heart, embroidered on the robe against his hard, visibly muscular chest, was a silver escutcheon of obscure design. He stood for perhaps a minute, stock-still except for his arrogant, turning head, on astonishing display; a small breeze came up, flicking the hem of his robe. The raft rocked gently. Then he raised his arms slowly from his sides.

“Lift up your heads, O … ye …
gates!”
he cried.

There was a pause. The voice was like no voice ever heard before—orotund, massive, absolute, like the sound of thunder, or the voice from the whirlwind; it possessed a quality of roundness that was the roundness of the infinite—terrible, majestic and beautiful. He still paused, his arms outstretched, glowing like sun-scorched ebony in the dusk. Then he spoke again. “Lift up your heads, O … ye …
gates
.” Another pause. “And be ye lifted up, ye
everlasting doors!”

A murmur ran through the throng once more; people turned to one another in a flurry of whispers. “My, listen to dat man!“

“Don’t he talk right?”

“Hush, man. Listen at him.”

He spoke once more. “And de King of Glory shall come in!” Then he lowered his arms slowly to his sides, so slowly that they seemed to descend upon invisible cords. Water rocked the raft, but he stood stern and erect and unperturbed, his robe a blue splash against the red shields and green prophetic talismans and crawling dragons. Then something seemed to change within him; it was not that he appeared any the less regal or stern: he still wore the bulging, hot look of arrogance and contempt. Rather, it seemed that this first majestic, almost unbearably imperious tone which he conveyed through his voice, dissolved; now tempered, even with a touch of gentleness, the voice spoke again.

“Who
is
dis King of Glory?”

It was a question. No one replied. The crowd remained still, quietly stupefied, and with a shaky reverence. Ella stood with her sandals sinking into the beach, bemused and peaceful in her rapt look of mystery, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. Her lips moved over her gums, but she said nothing. The voice came again across the water, majestic and beautiful: “Who
is
dis King of Glory?”

Then Ella said it—the first—shrieked it aloud, her arms flung up to the dusk, her eyes rolling toward heaven. “Daddy Faith!” she yelled. “Daddy Faith! Oh yes, Jesus, He de King of glowry! Daddy Faith! Yes, Jesus, oh yes!” It was like the first firecracker on a string, and it set off an explosion of yells: everyone took up the cry. It was as if Ella’s shriek had been all they needed, and they began to shout too. “Daddy Faith! Daddy Faith, He de King of glowry! Come on out now, Daddy, come on, Daddy!” Then a hush gradually settled over the throng, for the man had motioned for silence; Ella was one of the last to quiet down: she kept crying it over and over again until her voice was a squeak—“Yes, Daddy Faith, he de King of glowry, yes, Jesus!”—and until Sister Adelphia, herself almost hysterical, calmed her somewhat, saying, “Hush now, sister, we gotta lot mo’ to go!” So she became quiet, her breast heaving, plucking at her robe, her turban askew, and with tears still coursing down her cheeks.