William Styron: The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice (65 page)

Then the man’s voice came across the water once more: “He
is
de King of Glory!” He gave a short nod of his head, a furious, quick gesture; and with a flourish of his robe he stepped down the ladder and into the water. For him it seemed a token of abject and complete humility, to descend in this fashion; had he at that moment sprouted wings and soared up into the sky, no one would have been startled, so utterly possessed he had seemed of the absolute and the miraculous. But, in spite of his majestic voice and bearing, he was only the prelude to the coming wonder; thus his sudden descent seemed not humble, but only proper. And the ensuing wait, which felt like hours but was actually only a minute or so, was even more dramatic in its effect than the appearance of the man in blue. They all stood around for a moment, whispering. “Man, dat was some show!”

“De way he talked!”

“Look at him standin’ dere!”

But gradually it occurred to them that Daddy Faith had still not made his entrance. “Why don’t Daddy come?” They quieted down, fidgeted; the time passed. Gulls circled overhead and a crab scuttled toward the shore, stuck out one glistening blue claw, and retreated toward the shallows. Ella gazed steadily at the raft, at the elegant dragons, the crosses and cruciform-embroidered trees and bizarre crouching lions; she said nothing: her eyes, yellow with rheum, reflected a perfect peace, a transcendent understanding. Stonewall ran his empty crab shell through Doris’ hair, and she whimpered; silently La Ruth took the shell away. “Where’s Daddy?” someone said.

Then it happened, with the sound of a trumpet. A robed, scarlet arm went up, and a single note rang across the water. The arm descended, the curtains parted, and Daddy Faith appeared. The crowd stirred and grinned among themselves, but remained respectfully quiet. There he was: a round tub of a man, as black as black ever could get, dressed, like all the rest, in a simple white robe. He stood at the edge of the raft, smiling, benign, avuncular; had he been white he might have been mistaken for a senator, with his quizzical, shy yet friendly eyes, and his benevolent smile. He had no turban, his head was as devoid of hair, and as shiny, as a bullet; his hands were small, not much bigger than a child’s: he put these out in front of him, gently, more in entreaty than command. Then he spoke. The words were hoarsely spoken, but sweet and soothing, and they poured over the crowd—touching them, palpably, so that one could almost hear the people shudder—like some liquid from paradise, caressing and divine.

“Comfort ye.” Softly.

He paused, gazing at them with a smile, and with benign, twinkling eyes. “Comfort ye,” he said again, in the raw rasping voice, but the words were gentle, borne across the water with infinite tenderness. He paused once more, raised his arms outward and toward the sky.

“Comfort ye, my people!”

Then he struck himself on the breast with the flat of his hand. This too seemed a gesture not so much lordly or pompous as merely fitting, self-evident and in perfect harmony with his benevolent grin. The thump echoed across the water, and he spoke again.

“Saith your God.”

He dropped his arms to his sides for another moment silent and contemplative, with gentle, twinkling eyes. The people stood rigidly still and expectant, waiting for his next words. The band stirred uncomfortably in the water; the elder in blue, hip-deep beneath Daddy Faith, surveyed the crowd with flashing, scornful eyes. Then Daddy Faith spoke again. They knew what he was going to say, watched him stand there relaxed and benign, and his words, a question, were hardly out of his mouth before they were crying the answer.

“Who loves you, my people?”

“You, Daddy! Daddy Faith! You loves us! You, Daddy!” Ella joined in with the rest, her arms outstretched and with blissful weeping eyes, as if she could gather him by pure force of will, and across that stretch of water, into her arms. “You, Daddy! Yes, Jesus, you loves us!” But Daddy Faith motioned politely for quiet, with a sweep of his hand. He was chuckling out loud; they could hear him, watched him put his hand slyly to his chin and chuckle happily, all the time regarding them with his friendly, humorous eyes.

“Dat’s right,” he said.

He paused, still chuckling.

“
My
, dat’s right.”

He ceased his laughing, but a smile lingered on his face, and he shook his head, in amusement and with a certain wonder.

“Dat
sho’
is right!” he said. And everybody laughed again. Far off the horn of a freighter blew; darkness would be coming soon. The red fires had disappeared from the water, now it had only the green of dusk in it, and the palest pink from the vanished setting sun. Daddy Faith straightened himself up. His approach at first was direct but friendly, almost like that of an uncle or a raconteur engaged in conversation with children. Once or twice he paused to look at his wrist watch, and only gradually did his voice lose its soothing, intimate tone and work up to its true grandeur, its native triumph. The crowd listened, stood shuffling in the sand, and while he spoke some old women, including Ella, closed their eyes and prayed. “We seen a tough time, my people,” he said, “all dese years. We done had de wars and de pestilenches and de exiles. We had de plagues and de bondages and de people in chains. Isr’el has suffered in de land of de pharaohs and de land of Nebucherezzar. And de people have laid down in de wildiness and cried out loud: Woe is us fo’ our hurt, our wound is grievous, and where is now our hope? Dey shall go down to de bars of de pit, when our rest together is in the dust. And de people have wept out loud, My Lawd, my Lawd, why hast Thou fo’saken me? De people have been sore hurt and dey say, our inheritance is turned to strangers, our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have bo’n their iniquities. And de people have wished to see de pure river of de water of life, clear as crystal, proceedin’ outen de throne of God and of de Lamb. Dey stand in de streets of desolation and dey say, Lawd, show me dat revelation where dere shall be no night and no need fo’ candle, neither light of de sun. Show me dat, Lawd, for our hurt is grievous and our way is fenced up so we can’t pass, and dere is darkness in our paths.

“Now de people of Isr’el done gone off to war,” he went on, propping himself against one of the golden rods. Above him the lamp flickered LOVE in the dusk; Ella, rapt and with her eyes closed, moaned a quavering, “Amen!” Somewhere in the crowd a woman echoed, “War. Amen! Yes, Jesus!” and the words drifted shrilly across the darkening marsh. “Now de people done gone off to war and dey sent down de atom bomb on de Land of de Risin’ Sun and de sojers come home wid glory in dey th’oats and wid timbrels and de clashin’ of bells.” He paused again; his eyes grew sad, caressing the throng. “Well, my people, it do seem to me dat we got a long way yet. De hand of de Lawd is against de sinful and de unjust, and de candle of de wicked is put out. But mo’ time to pass yet and de eyes of de people shall see His destruction and dey shall drink of de wrath of d’Almighty. And dey shall see a time of hate and a time of war, like de preacher said, and dey shall hear de sound of battle in de land and de great destruction. ‘Oh, Lawd,’ dey’ll go on and cry still, ‘Oh, Lawd, I am oppressed, undertake fo’ me! I mou’n as a dove, my eyes fail wid lookin’ upward! Hear my prayer, Lawd, and let my prayer come unto Thee! Don’t take away my freedom again, Lawd, don’t take away dat!’

“Dey gonna holler ‘O God, de proud are risen against me, and de assemblies of vi’lent men done sought after my soul! How long, Lawd, wilt Thou be angry fo’ever, shall Thy jealousy
burn like fire?’ “

In the twilight came a hoarse “Amen! Oh yes, Jesus!” Shadows from the sheltering marshland lengthened over the water, and there was a long wild moan, a woman’s tortured wail, “Oh yes, Daddy! You
right!
” Daddy Faith put out his tiny black hands, a motion of compassion and tenderness.

“Comfort ye,” he said softly, “comfort ye, my people. Do you not know dat I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean, and a new heart also will I give you and a new sperit will I put widin you? If it were not so I would have told you.”

“Oh yes, Daddy!”

“Hallelujah!”

Then there was a vast sorrow, one somehow proud and proper and just, in his voice, as he spread his arms to heaven and lifted his round face toward the dusk. “Be not afraid, my people. De voice said, Cry! And he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all de goodliness thereof is as de flower of de field. De grass withereth and de flower fadeth, because de sperit of de Lawd bloweth upon it …

“Sho’ly de people is grass.”

He paused, gazing with benevolence upon the throng. “Sho’ly” he repeated tenderly, “sho’ly de people is grass.”

“Oh, Daddy!”

“Praise him! Praise him!”

He quieted them again with a single wave of his hand, tapped himself gently on the chest, and smiled. “De grass withereth, de flower fadeth,” he said, “but de word of your God shall stand forever.”

When their baptizing was over, drenched and exhausted, Ella and La Ruth climbed back up onto the beach, dragging behind them Stonewall and Doris, who still hadn’t found her mother. They walked up the sand a bit, to the camp tables beneath the trestle, and here they sat down. Ella still trembled with the fever of the ritual, remembered the bubbles, the salt water in her nose as she went under—yet, more than this, half-swooning when he smiled at her, as her place came in line, and the divine delight of the touch, on her turban, of his hands. She squeezed the water from her robe and then nibbled on a piece of fried chicken. She shivered with the cold and the memory of his hands. “Dat was sho’ some immersion,” she said.

La Ruth didn’t answer. She had her face in a piece of watermelon.

“Gret day, dat was an immersion,” Ella said again.

Sister Adelphia and Brother Andrew joined them, together with a light young girl who seemed to be Doris’ mother. She snatched Doris up from a sandpile, where she had been playing with Stonewall.

“Runnin’ off like dat!” She slapped the child and then, when she began to scream, kissed her until she became quiet. “Crazy little fool,” she crooned, half-sobbing herself, “runnin’ off from me. I thought you was drowned.” Then she said, “Thank you, Sister,” to Ella, and vanished with Doris up the beach.

Sister Adelphia crushed out the water from her robe and sat down on the bench next to Ella with a bottle of Seven-Up. “Whoo-ee, Sister, I seen ’em all now.”

“Amen!” said Brother Andrew.

“Dat was
one,
all right,” said Ella. “It was in dis world.” All sins washed away, her warfare accomplished, her iniquity pardoned, beneath the touch of his hands, in the flooding seas.

La Ruth let the melon rind drop from her fingers and began to moan. “I don’t know,” she said, “comin’ around to thinkin’ about all dat time an’ ev’ything, po’ Peyton, po’ little Peyton. Gone! Gone!” She thrust her head in her hands and spread out her legs, snuffling into the wet sleeves of her robe. “God knows, I don’t know …”

Sister Adelphia sniffed scornfully, rattling her beads. “Ain’t you been baptized, Sister?” she said.

Twilight fell around them; the evening became sprinkled with stars. Far off the band tooted triumphantly, around the illuminated love-lamps, amid the flare of blossoming torches. Ella thought of the touch of his hands, the sin-destroying seas. The spell was still on her, and she got up. “Yes, Jesus,” she said in a soft voice.

“Dat’s right, Sister,” said Sister Adelphia, clapping her hands together.

“Yes, Jesus!” Ella said again, louder. She began to shake all over. “I seen Him!”

“Amen!” said Brother Andrew.

“I seen Him!”

In the distance a train rumbled, approached the trestle, setting saucers in a rattle on the table. Ella whirled about in the sand, a black finger upraised to the sky. “Yes, Jesus! I seen Him! Yeah! Yeah!” The train roared, trembled, came nearer. It was a ferocious noise. Stonewall stuck his fingers in his ears; the others turned their faces toward the sea. “Yes, Jesus! Yeah! Yeah!” The voice was almost drowned out. The train came on with a clatter, shaking the trestle, and its whistle went off full-blast in a spreading plume of steam. “Yeah! Yeah!” Another blast from the whistle, a roar, a gigantic sound; and it seemed to soar into the dusk beyond and above them forever, with a noise, perhaps, like the clatter of the opening of everlasting gates and doors—passed swiftly on—toward Richmond, the North, the oncoming night.