Little Sacrifices (14 page)

It was autumn, with bright Georgia sunshine smiling on cool days, making the long walks to the riverbank at least pleasant on the outside, if uncomfortable within. The city was in deep decline, but it charmed me just the same. Like a wife who sees the beauty in her old husband’s wrinkles, I saw Savannah as she must have been. Shuffling along Factor’s Walk, then along the riverfront side, I thought about the cobbles beneath my feet that were the ballast for the first ships to arrive in the colony. All the warehouses were closed, but instead of finding it forlorn, I thought it was romantic. I could almost hear the factors negotiating their cotton prices, their cajoles, hollers and occasional bursts of anger bouncing off the red brick and water.

I developed a habit of muttering to myself while I walked, arguing for and against my behavior with my friends, and causing strolling parents to shield their children from my path. Even though I’d won the right to remain in the fellowship of my classmates, the victory was bitter, and I was ashamed to have come away with it. When we first arrived, I looked as an outsider upon Savannah’s whites, and condemned them. Now I was one of them, as guilty as if I’d written the laws myself. I proved it with my silence if not my words.

Old Missus Robinson at the home gave me the chance to consider some of my ideas out loud without alarming oncoming pedestrians. When I knew her, she was only a few years older than I am now, and she was an antique. I like to indulge in the opinion that I’ve somehow outsmarted the march of time. But it only takes one child at the supermarket to call me ma’am, and ask if I need help lifting the groceries from the cart to knock those delusions out of my head. Even so I’m still waiting to be graced with even a little of my old friend’s mature wisdom. She passed her years in Savannah knowing as little about Northerners as I did about the South, so we made equally ready pupils for each other’s instruction. After the first couple of weeks she lost some of her bite, and started asking the occasional question about me. When I finished Heart of Darkness, instead of challenging my reading skills further, she suggested that I come along each week to keep the flies from settling on her, as she put it. She liked a good debate, and most of her fellow inmates were too senile to give her much of a run for her money. I didn’t flatter myself into believing she thought me a worthy adversary. I was merely the only person in shouting distance in command of most of my faculties. She fascinated me. Born just after the Civil War into a plantation family, she was like a cursing history book.

‘Those were poor times. General Grant didn’t burn Savannah like he did Atlanta, so at least our city was still intact. Do you know, he gave it to Lincoln as a Christmas present? Bloody cheek. No, we had our city, but the damn war’d stripped us of our livelihoods. It killed our gentlemen and made orphans of our children. Everyone was poor.’

‘Is that because the slaves were all freed? You had nobody to work for you?’

‘Nah, though that’s probably what your poxy Northern history teachers tell you, isn’t it? We had to pay for the war, girl, that’s what bankrupted us. There wasn’t any money to buy seed to plant the crops. We’d eaten all there was to eat off the land during the aggression. Over a million of our men died. Widows and children were all that was left on a lot of the plantations.’

‘And after the Proclamation, did the Negroes all leave?’

‘What? No, of course not! Where were they gonna go? Things were bad all over. A few left, but not our house Negroes. They were part of the family. Mostly, it was the field hands who hightailed it, though lots came back with their caps in hand looking for jobs from us.’

‘Did you take them back?’

‘Yes we did. We were better off than a lot of folks. My daddy had a little money so we were able to plant again. Lots worked out the rest of their lives with us, and their children carried on after them. We did right by our Negroes. They were all treated fairly by us. But I suppose you don’t believe that, do you?’ She squinted at me. I had to answer her without risking my neck.

‘Yes, ma’am, I believe you. But I think it was wrong to own people. Just because they’re born with black skin doesn’t mean they’re naturally inferior.’

‘Now hold on a minute, girl. Just because a dog is born a dog
does
mean he doesn’t have the intellect that we do.’

‘Missus Robinson! Do you honestly believe that Negroes are inferior to us?’

‘Don’t put your blasted liberal words like inferior into my mouth, young lady. I didn’t say inferior. I said that they don’t have the same intellect. That’s different. One is a judgment, the other’s a fact. Most Negroes aren’t able to make the best decisions for themselves. We looked after them.’

‘But I know Negroes who are just as able to take care of themselves as I am.’

‘Who?’

‘Dora Lee, for instance, our maid.’

‘Uh huh. Didn’t you tell me her daughter couldn’t read?’

I had. I’d wanted to find out if what Dora Lee said about farm Negroes was true. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And didn’t you say that was because her mother took her out of school to go work with her?’

I hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘Mm hmm. And do you think that was the best thing to do for the girl?’

‘No, ma’am, it wasn’t.’

‘No, it wasn’t. That’s right. We made sure all of our people got education. Now who would have made the best decision? It just kills me to hear everyone talking about how badly we treated them. They were a darn sight better off with us looking after them than they are now. Just look around you. Today everyone’s worse off. Look around. Everything’s changed. Our whole way of life is changing.’ Emotion overcame her. She looked away into silence.

I didn’t want to ride her too hard in case she got really mad, or cried, so I left our conversation alone. I chafed under her words. I knew she spoke for a lot of people in the South, including my classmates and neighbors. They were afraid. Their world was less sure and as far as they were concerned, Negroes were the reason. They planned to do everything in their power to keep their way of life safe from change. I had no appreciation then of the lengths to which they would go.

Ma was tearstained when she caught me at the front door. Duncan was in the hospital. Shock loosened my jaws and forced garbled questions through my teeth. No, he wasn’t dead, he’d been knocked down by a car. No, she didn’t know how badly he was hurt or exactly what was wrong with him. She’d just had a call from the hospital telling her he’d been brought in. Yes of course he’d be okay. Dora Lee floated around us like cobwebs, Lord Have Mercys steadily escaping her. Fear and guilt jostled me for room on the front seat as Ma drove like a madwoman to Candler Hospital.

‘I’m sorry, Powell, you said? David Powell?’ Duncan! ‘No, I don’t ... Just a minute.’ The nurse disappeared through an official–looking door, leaving me with the certainty that Duncan was dead and no one wanted to tell us. An older nurse appeared. ‘Missus Powell? Come this way, please.’ Tears pricked my eyes. They were taking Ma away to tell her how sorry they were, that there wasn’t anything they could do. ‘Young lady, you too. Your father’s just down the hall.’ Ma didn’t look like she’d just lost a husband, so he must still have been with us. Alive, but how badly hurt?

My heart threatened to lodge in my windpipe as we walked down the sterile corridor to his room. I didn’t want to see him, and recognized the feeling from years before when I thought I’d killed my neighbor’s dog. Not a week went by that the mangy little monster didn’t snap at one of us. He belonged to two older boys who lived around the corner, and was never far from them. When he sank his teeth into my leg, I smacked him so hard he yelped. When I hollered at him to go away, to everyone’s surprise, he did. Not long afterwards one of the boys started taunting me. He suggested that I go next door to see what had happened to his dog. I had the overwhelming feeling that I was somehow the cause of his demise. I didn’t want to see my handiwork. The dog was fine, the boy was just mean, but I never lost the lingering sense of guilt. It snapped at my heels just like that spiteful little dog as I peered around the corner into Duncan’s room.

He was perfectly still in the bed, his head turned to one side. His face was gray and the lines in it deep. ‘Duncan?’

He turned to us and smiled. He looked okay. I started to cry.

‘Now, what’s all this? You think your old man kicked the bucket? Aw, honey, stop the waterworks. I’m fine. You can see that. Really, I’m fine.’

Ma’s voice was a whisper. ‘Really?’ Worry pushed her voice off balance.

‘Sure I am. It takes more than a car to crack this tough old nut. They just want to keep me here for a while to make double sure, that’s all.’

Ma reached over Duncan and gave him a squeeze, forcing a cry from him that ran deep down my neck. ‘Duncan!’ She searched his face, intent on the pain she saw there.

His breath was sharp. ‘It’s nothing, I told you. I’m fine.’

Ma drew back the covers. My father had white tape plastered along one side of his torso, red and blue bruises leaking out from underneath to run all the way into his armpit and down his thigh.

‘Oh my God, Duncan, you’re really hurt.’

‘Now, Sarah, don’t overreact. They told you, I was hit by a car. It bruised me, that’s all ... And broke a couple of ribs.’

‘What? Duncan!’

The doctor’s brisk step into the room cut through all the emotion clouding the air. ‘Hello, Mister Powell. How are you feeling? Missus Powell?’

Ma began firing questions until the doctor held up his hand. ‘He’ll be fine, don’t worry. He’s just banged up pretty good. He’s got three broken ribs where he was struck. As I’ve told him, though, he’s a very lucky man. His rib came awfully close to puncturing a lung.’

‘See, I told you...’

‘You could have...’

‘I’m fine, now stop...’

‘died and I wouldn’t have even...’

‘worrying.’

‘been here for you.’

I sat next to the bed and watched them potter around well–worn phrases. They were locked again in the world they shared, and anyone looking at them could see they were in love. I knew then that Ma would stick with him no matter what hare–brained plans he hatched.

The hospital released him the next day, but he had to stay home for a week while his bones started to mend. It took a month before he stopped wincing when he moved too much. He never did find out who hit him. The car drove off and no one admitted to seeing the accident. I was suspicious about the lack of bystanders on such a busy street at midday, and I’m sure Ma had her own theories, but Duncan only accused us of hysterics when we broached the subject. It was nothing more than a stupid twist of events he said. Thousands of people probably got hit by cars. What made him special? In any case he didn’t seem to hold a grudge against me for wishing his accident upon him. Just the same, I tried to be more charitable towards my parent while he recovered.

Chapter 21

1918 Savannah

By autumn, Mirabelle had overshot her mark. She was late, and realized she was carrying more than just a sense of guilt. It took all her willpower to keep from telling Henry when they were together. She wanted his proposal to come of its own accord. Otherwise she’d never be sure he’d have gotten around to it on his own.

Much as her corset fought the good fight, her belly won the war. She was fast losing her girlish figure, and Henry hadn’t yet popped the question. She found it impossible to concentrate on anything except her delicate condition. One minute she giggled, the next she gushed buckets. A baby! Holy Moses. She was going on four months, and couldn’t decently wait any longer to tell Henry. She wrote asking him to come along as soon as he could get away. Then she waited.

And waited. No letter arrived. No Henry did either. Every day that ticked away stoked her imagination. He didn’t get the letter. The postman had a heart attack on the way to his house and his mailbag got lost in the confusion. He got her letter but was run over in the street. He got it, and just wasn’t coming.

At last, a letter postmarked from Atlanta arrived.
Dear Miss Reynolds, I’m terribly sorry to have to write you that a fortnight ago, young Henry became gravely ill with Influenza. He was very strong and kept in good spirits, but despite all the doctors could do, he passed away last night. He did not suffer much, and he had God at his side in the end. Miss Reynolds, although he was my nephew, I loved Henry as my son. Soon after he had the good fortune to meet you, he took me into his confidence and told me that he loved you very much. These same words, almost his last, he repeated to me last night. Please accept my deepest sympathy for the grief you must be feeling upon reading this letter. I am sorry that I am forced to inform you so impersonally, but I’m afraid I too am under the weather and cannot come to Savannah now. I did not feel it right to delay this news.

It was the Spanish flu that killed Henry in one of the worst pandemics in history. One fifth of the world’s population was infected, and forty million people died. Its victims were mostly young and fit, and the fact that the Great War was on helped it make its world tour. It traveled on ships and mingled with the soldiers in the trenches. Within six months of its outbreak in America, in Fort Riley, Kansas, cities all over the country reported two and three hundred deaths every day. Almost a third of all the casualties were tallied up in October, the month Henry died. It was a terrible sickness, sudden, resilient and deadly, and Mirabelle had to know it. Almost nowhere in the country was untouched by the insidious virus.

Chapter 22

If I were a less honest narrator of my own life I’d be sorely tempted to say I never bothered about Clay again, but the fact was, he still spent an unhealthy amount of time in my thoughts. I was addicted to the idea of him, the ticklish feeling that imagined discourse aroused. I didn’t harbor much hope that we had a future, but my heart sank to the pit of my stomach to hear he’d shifted his sights to Charlene.