Absalom's Daughters (12 page)

Cassie managed to pull the car over. The Justice boys—and their father—were not in the police car. There was only the one policeman. If this was God's consequence, He was sending the police a long way for a banged-up car that hardly ran. She turned to Judith, huddled against the passenger door, muttering “Jesus! Jesus!” in her jaybird voice, and it struck Cassie that Judith should have been driving—or was it better that she was the passenger? Where Judith was sitting right now made a difference in how to explain why they were
together
, and where they were going
together
.

“Hush now!” said Cassie. “You actin' like a criminal. All we tryin' to do is find your daddy, right?”

“Jesus!” whispered Judith.

“Right?”

“Right! Right!”

“Now hush and try telling the truth for once.”

Judith swallowed and sat up straight in the car seat as though she were in a church pew. The policeman got out of his car, put on his hat, and walked up the driver's side. He leaned down to rest an elbow on Cassie's window and saw Judith. His breath smelled of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. His sleeve smelled of cigarettes.

“Where you ladies goin' so fast?” said the policeman.

Cassie stared at the steering wheel. It was better not to say anything, better not even to take a breath. Judith answered him all in a rush.

“Suh, we tryin' to git to
church
.”

“What church?”

“Missionary Baptist, suh. I's s'posed to sing for the evening service. Mah girl drivin' cause I's too nervous to drive on days when I sings.”

Cassie bit the inside of her cheek. She felt his eyes come to rest on her, then travel back to Judith.

“Which Missionary Baptist?” said the policeman. “The one in Jefferson?”

“Is that the nex' town?” said Judith. “I ain't got no map, an' mah girl don't know what direction she goin' half the time.”

“Next town is Madison. Jefferson's ten miles on from there.”

“That's where we headed. I jus' hopes we gits theah on time.”

The policeman studied her. “Young lady, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you don't sound like you got no singin' voice. And your girl here was weavin' like she'd had a drink or two.”

“She ain't drinkin'. She jus' a turrible driver.” Judith stuck out her chin. “In fact, in Heron-Neck where I's from, mah singin' voice is well-known and respected
.
In fact, I's headed to New York City for an aw-diction with the
Main
Missionary Baptist Church.”

Cassie made herself be still. It was too late to say anything now.

“That so?” said the policeman. “Then why don't you step out that car and let me hear your well-respected voice.”

“Come on out, Cassie,” said Judith. “You kin sing harmony.”

Something bad was going to happen. Cassie could feel it as she sat in the lumpy seat. She had no idea what she could do to stop it except physically grab Judith, throw her into the car, and try to outrun the police.

“Yessum,” said Cassie.

The two of them stood in the road by the car, which was still half in the lane, half under a barely leafed tree along the side of the road. There was no other traffic, only the sounds of birds, and dogs barking in the distance.

The policeman stood in the middle of the empty road on the white line that divided the lanes. “I'm waitin'.”

Judith said to Cassie, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”

Cassie nodded. She'd half-expected Judith to say,
Get in th' car! Les run fer it!
but Judith clasped her hands before her chest as though in prayer, took a breath, and sang.

Precious Lord, take my hand,

Lead me on, let me stand.

Maybe it was the chill air that made Judith sound so grown, so full of feeling, or maybe it was the way the road resonated. She sang without drama or her usual wild hand motions. She sang the song as though she'd known the man who'd written it, a man whose wife had died in childbirth along with the child itself, and come to understand his pain. Cassie looked out of the corner of her eye to see if the policeman had any appreciation for what he was hearing. He had taken off his hat. He had taken a shuffling step across the white line into the other lane as though pushed. He looked amazed.

Judith shut her eyes and let her voice rise through the refrain into the parts where a soloist would leave the choir behind. Cassie looked at her shoes and thought about Lil Ma. She would never go back and make a baby with a white man for Grandmother. If that was selfish, then that's what it was. If there was a punishment down the road for being selfish—and she knew there would be—it wouldn't be a light-skinned child and a sudden move to another town farther north. It would be something unexpected and perhaps awful. She looked at the policeman again and wondered if God would punish her and Judith both by compelling him to escort them to a church at which they had no appointment.

Take my hand, precious Lord,

Lead me home.

Another car approached from the east, slowed, and stopped as Judith came to the end of the second verse. Two elderly white women poked their heads out and began a fluttering applause. Judith smiled, gracious and sweaty, and looked like she could use a drink of water.

“The spirit moves in you, sister!” shouted one of the women.

“The Lawd done touched her,” cried the other.

“She singin' at Missionary in Jefferson tonight,” said the policeman.

“Oh, ain't that exciting!” said one of the women. “My grandson goes there with his wife's family.”

Another car pulled up behind them, a battered old heap in worse shape than the one they were driving. A gaunt white man and his gaunt children stared out the windows.

Judith, sensing an audience, pushed her hair back with her usual drama. “An' now I'll be singin' ‘Wade in the Water.' Y'all join with me!”

The gaunt man got out of the car. His children, so thin and dirty it was impossible to tell which were boys and which were girls, got out too and stood in a barefoot row. Judith began to sing and they clapped along without rhythm.

Who's that yonder dressed in red

Wade in the water

Must be the children that Moses led

And God's gonna trouble the water

Another car, this one from the west, slowed and stopped. A white man in a pressed suit got out and gave a nod to the policeman. Judith, singing, slid her eyes over to him and swung her arms wide like she was fending off hornets.

More cars stopped, and people got out of them, as though all the churches in these parts had let out at once, and all the folks who'd been in church had to travel home along this road.

You don't believe I've been redeemed

Wade in the water

Just see the holy ghost looking for me

God's gonna trouble the water

Judith finished and everyone applauded. The policeman put his hat back on in an approving way, so that it seemed that instead of stopping a car for weaving, he had actually discovered Judith's talent, and having her stop traffic in the middle of a Sunday was a blessing to everyone.

Judith coughed delicately into her palm and nudged Cassie with her elbow.

“We gone be late, Miz Judith,” said Cassie loudly. “Lawd bless these folk for stoppin' and list'nin' to you sing.”

“The Lawd bless you
all
,” said Judith. She took a step back and slid as gracefully as she could into the car and across to the passenger side. Cassie could hear people saying, “Missionary Baptist in Jefferson tonight!” She got into the car and turned on the ignition, praying to Jesus and every angel that the car would start without trouble. It did. She put it in gear and inched it forward. People in the road smiled and waved as Judith blew kisses. Cassie pulled away, and the collection of cars and locals diminished in the mirror.

“Mah goodness!” said Judith. “Go faster, Cassie. I'm overheated, and I need a breeze!”

Cassie glanced in the mirror. There was no sign of a police car, but she didn't speed up. “Aw-diction in New York City? The
Main
Missionary Baptist Church?”

“It jus' come into my head. I cain't help it. I reckon I get it from my daddy.”

“Lucky no one from Jefferson was there,” said Cassie. “We'd be in jail.”

Judith wiped her forehead on her sleeve. “Seen any signs for Jefferson?”

“Not yet.”

“If you do,” said Judith, unnecessarily, “we better go in a diff'rent direction.”

 

CHAPTER
SIX

Someone had lied about Porterville. Beanie Simms or Ovid Beale, and for the life of her, Cassie couldn't understand why. She felt a strange twinge when she thought about herself as a white girl instead of a black one, like she wouldn't know who she was anymore. Using some kind of magic was different from using the albino boy to create a light-skinned baby. Surely turning white wasn't something that could happen overnight. It must be something that took time and some study. Judith wouldn't want to wait around. She would go on to Virginia and leave Cassie behind.

With only four weeks to get to Virginia, it seemed sensible to get off the secondary roads and try the more direct highways. An east-west line on the map was marked
HIGHWAY
80; they ran into Highway 80 later that afternoon. There was a man parked at the intersection in his pickup truck selling from a crate of apples and a stack of cheeses. The apples were mealy, what you'd expect this time of year, but the cheese was good. In another few miles, just past Compton's Bluff, they found a gas station.

Cassie sat in the driver's seat needing to pee, but the bathroom was for
WHITES ONLY
. She didn't want to go around back behind the bushes. There were houses nearby, and besides, there was this pimply white boy
.
He was wearing a white gas station uniform. His job was to pump gas and wash all the car windows. He sopped the side mirrors and the headlights, which didn't even work. Why was he being so thorough with the windows when the rest of the car was such a mess? He looked at her through the windows as he washed, which made her uncomfortable. For the most part, though, he stood by the side of the car and rattled the gas pump until the sounds of flowing sputtered to a stop and the tank was full.

Judith had gone inside craving Red Hots. Cassie had given her a nickel, saying, “You sure you ain't pregnant?” Judith had laughed.

Farther down the road, Judith showed Cassie what you could get for a nickel—Red Hots
and
about fifty jellybeans in
all
different colors, even the licorice ones which Cassie hated. Judith reached into the bottom of the bag. “I got this for you.”

It was a postcard of a town square with a statue in the shape of a woman holding a vase over her head. Water sprayed out of the vase and cascaded down. People in their Sunday best stood around, admiring her.

“You like that?” said Judith. “The man behind the counter give it to me for free.”

Cassie slowed and took the postcard.

“Keep your eyes on the road now.”

“Where's this?”

“That in Enterprise, Al'bama, straight ahead, 'bout eighty, hunnert miles. We goin' right through.”

“They have a statue?”

“It's a
monument
.”

“To what?”

“He din't say.” Judith took the postcard, squinting at the printing on the back. “Hail, I cain't read this. Here, les switch, an' you kin read it to me.”

“My turn to drive.”

“Well.” Judith dug in the bag again and took out a freshly sharpened, bright yellow pencil. “I got this for you too.”

“What for?”

“Well,” said Judith. “I thought you might want to send a postcard to your mama.” She pulled out an identical second postcard from the bag. “An' while you're at it, mebbe you kin help me write to my momma too.”

In the evening, well behind a billboard for
KELLOGG'S CORN SOYA TWIN TREATS
, they built a fire, ate the rest of the jellybeans, and Cassie wrote out postcards as Judith scratched another day off the calendar.

“What you want to say?” she said to Judith.

Judith put the calendar down. “Dear Mama an' Henry,”

Cassie had already written that part. Her letters looked blocky, unpracticed. Not like the flowing script in blue ink from the newspapered-over walls back home.
My dearest sister; I am sorry to tell you that our father is dead.

“I am almos' in Al'bama.”

Cassie wrote it down. In spite of the candy taste in her mouth, the sense of accomplishment in driving so far, and her own denial, she felt homesick.

“It is cold,” said Judith, and Cassie wrote that down too, but Judith made her erase it. “Then she'll try'n' send me new socks or somethin'. Here, write this. ‘I am on my way to New York City to be-come a singin' star.'” She watched Cassie print the words. “Now write, ‘You keep list'nin' to the reddio, and you'll be hearin' from me.'”

Cassie wasn't sure how to spell
radio
, so she wrote it the way Judith always said it.
Reddio.
“You want to mention your daddy?”

“It'd make her spittin' mad if she knew I was gonna see him. Now lemme sign it.”

Cassie gave Judith the pencil. Judith took the card and made smeary black marks in the remaining space at the bottom that spelled
Judith Forrest,
as though her mother might be confused about which Judith had sent her a postcard.

Later, when Judith was asleep, Cassie wrote her own postcard.