The Black Rose (18 page)

Sarah felt herself gingerly take the fish lady’s hand, patting it, trying to provide the old woman comfort. “I know,” she said softly. “I know they kilt him. I know.”

She couldn’t make herself stop repeating the awful, unbelievable words no matter how hard she tried. Somehow, she
did
know. And she refused to push past the deputies to look down at the corpse that was her husband’s, disfigured and flung into the water like useless fish innards.

Rather than seeing Moses broken and bruised, Sarah would not lay eyes on him again.
Float on away, Moses
, whispered the part of Sarah’s mind that was not frozen in grief and shock, as the skies flooded across her face.
You done in this place now, my big ol’ angel-man. This world don’t deserve
you nohow. You jus’ float on away, then
.

For the rest of her life, Sarah would remember nothing else about that day.

For two weeks, Sarah battled the terrible cold she brought home with her from the levee the day Moses died. Lou moved in with her, sleeping at her side in the bed Moses had built, and in her feverish sleep Sarah sometimes awakened believing the covered figure sleeping beside her was Moses. When she touched Lou and saw her sister’s face instead of her husband’s, the finality of her new life shocked her anew. She would stare at Lou with blinking, uncomprehending eyes. He was gone. And the sobs racked her weak body anew.

“Ma-ma … where Daddy?” Lelia asked every day, as she had when Moses was away picking. Lela had been to the funeral, but her father’s body had not been there for her to see, so she had not understood why her grandmother was so beside herself, screaming until she was hoarse, and why there had been so many tears in the house since the day of the rainstorm.

Sarah didn’t know how or what to tell her, so she gave her the same answer she had the month before: “In the fields, Lela. Daddy’s workin’.” Her voice was thin.

“When Daddy … comin’ home?”

Sarah stroked her daughter’s face, peering at her more closely for the features that were Moses’, her blunt little nose and closely set eyes. She remembered Moses carrying Lelia up the stairs for her taking-up ceremony, and the joy in his face as he had proclaimed to her that she would have anything she wanted. What could Lela have now that her father was dead?

“I don’t know when, Lela,” Sarah told her. “I jus’ don’t know.”

As she slowly recovered and her hacking cough began to subside, giving her more time to think, Sarah made the simple realization that she could not salvage anything of her old life. She could not bear to walk past that levee or see Moses’ men friends on the street, reminding her of what she’d lost. She could not live in fear that someone Moses had angered might seek to harm her and her daughter. She was already a month behind in her rent, and she could not afford to keep their house without Moses’ income. And she could not move back to Lou’s, not even for a day, as long as Mr. William Powell was there. In her present frame of mind, she was afraid she might kill that man just for the sake of it, whether he ever touched her again or not.

Sarah felt her spirit sinking even lower, until it seemed that her body was literally turning to stone, pulling her toward her own grave.
They didn’t
jus’ kill Moses that day, huh? They done kilt me, too
, she thought.

Then the answer came. One morning, as she sat at her table and sipped a cup of sassafras-root tea that Lou had brewed for her, Sarah announced she was going to leave Vicksburg.

“You gon’ do what?” Lou asked, stunned.

“I gotta go, Lou. I ain’t got nothin’ here. Not no mo’.” Sarah was wrapped tightly in a shawl to ward off the growing draft in the house. She was only twenty years old, she realized, but she looked and felt like an old woman. “If I stay here, all I’ma think of is what I ain’t got. What Lela ain’t got. I need to go somewhere an’ git somethin’ else.”

“Sarah, you can find a new man here, too.” Lou’s words sounded nearly cheerful.

Sarah stared at Lou with disbelief, and she wanted to slap her sister’s face. Was that all it would mean to Lou if Mr. William Powell died, that she would just find a new man? Or would she be relieved? Suddenly Sarah felt pity for Lou, who was living with an unloving man who frightened her because she could not imagine living any other way.

“I ain’t talkin’ ’bout a new man, Lou,” Sarah said. “I’m talkin’ ’bout a
life
. If I can’t make no life for myself, then what I’m s’posed to give Lela for hers?”

Lou stared at Sarah, shaking her head. “No matter where you at, you jus’ gon’ be takin’ in washin’. May as well wash where somebody
know
you.”

“Papa wanted to leave,” Sarah said, suddenly excited by the memory. “You ’member? He was ready to go, right ’fore he died. And Moses was, too. I know it, ’cept he was so damned stubborn, set on makin’ things right here. I wish we’d of gone. Alex was smart to set off like he did. I hear tell there’s higher wages in St. Louis, an’ lots of folks with rooms to rent. Well, that’s where I’ma go.” Sarah was making the decision as she spoke, and she felt a gratifying relief awaken within her, as if she could breathe again after having a strong hand clamped across her face. Moses, she knew, would be proud of her if he could hear her words from heaven. Sarah felt a comforting sense that Moses was speaking through her own mouth. “That’s where I’ma go make a new life.”

“Unh-hnh.” Lou sounded skeptical, gnawing on the edge of her fingernail. “You talk mighty big for somebody who ain’t got no money. How you gon’ pay to go to St. Louis?”

“I’ll save ’nuff for a train ticket. An’ even if I don’t have but a dollar an’ some left after that, it don’t matter. Least I’ll be where I want, away from this damn place.” At the end, her voice cracked, but she stanched her flood of sorrow.

Lou sighed, gazing at Sarah incredulously, then with sympathy. She leaned over and gave Sarah a tight hug, rocking back and forth with her as if she were trying to call out a demon. “You talkin’ out your head cuz of Moses passing on, girl. You know you can’t go to no big ol’ city like that all alone with a baby. How you gon’ feed her? It git cold up there, too. In yo’ heart, you know you can’t do nothin’ that crazy.”

This time Sarah didn’t answer. In truth, she’d barely heard her.

Sarah had tea with her sister on a Thursday morning. When Lou came back by Sarah’s house to see about her that Sunday, only three days later, Sarah’s house was neatly swept, her bed was made, her dishes were washed, and their meager furniture was neatly in place. Even Moses’ banjo stood in the corner exactly where he’d always kept it, waiting to be played.

But true to her word, Sarah Breedlove McWilliams had taken her daughter and was gone.

St. Louis Woman

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—

When he beats his bars and would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven, he flings—

I know why the caged bird sings!

—
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might

be a diamond in the rough.

—
MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE

OCTOBER 29, 1916

DELTA, LOUISIANA

There were no markers on her parents’ grave sites. Sarah had found the way
to the field behind her cabin from memory, remembering an old oak stump
that still stood about twenty paces beyond it, even though the stump had been
overgrown with tangling weeds and crabgrass. The fall breeze riffled the branches
of nearby trees. Sarah knelt on the grassy ground, running her palm along a
small mound of earth that might or might not be her parents’ resting place. But
she knew their spirits were close
.

“Well, Mama, I can’t stay long … but I made you a promise,” Sarah said,
reaching into her pocketbook for the tiny leather traveling Bible she always carried with her. “You’ll forgive me if I can’t sit and read the whole thing. But I’ve
picked out a passage I know you’ll like. You, too, Papa. Y’all just listen.”

Sarah flipped through the book’s tiny pages until she came to the Book of
Matthew. She squinted at the tiny numbers to try to find Chapter Thirteen.
When she did, she began to read, pacing herself the way she’d rehearsed, delivering the words as if she were addressing a crowd: “The whole multitude stood on
the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, ‘Behold, a
sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side,
and the fowls came and devoured them up.’ ” Sarah paused here, feeling a stone
in her throat, because suddenly she realized that was what had happened to her
parents, and to Moses. “ ‘Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much
earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And
when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they
withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and
choked them: But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a
hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.’ ”

You’re the seed
, Sarah’s mother had told her on her dying bed, and it had
taken her years to understand what her mother had been trying to tell her. Or
had she somehow known all along? Today it seemed to her that she had always
known
.

Sarah had nearly forgotten the two onlookers who were watching her from a
polite distance while she visited her parents’ burial site. Once she bowed her head
and thanked her parents for the love they had shown her, Sarah stood up and began to walk toward the two women, who stood in the field beside Sarah’s car,
their skirts whipping in the wind. One was Anna Burney Long, and the other
was her daughter, a spinster in her thirties named Lillie with a wide, girlish smile.
“Madam Walker, ma’am,” the younger woman said, “Mama and I just want to
say again how thrilled we are to spend this time with you.”

“I’m so proud I could bust,” Mrs. Long said, her face flushing. “I never
thought less of nobody just because they cleaned house or washed clothes, Sarah.
To me, you felt more like family. And I worried for you and your sister so… .”

“It’s true,” the daughter said, wrapping her arm around her mother protectively. “She’s read me newspaper accounts about you, Madam Walker, and she’s
always so tickled. Why, you’re a real-life famous person. And it’s like you were
one of our own.”

Sarah had grown so accustomed to praise that she often had to remind
herelf of how awe-inspiring her life must seem to outsiders. It really was a blessing, wasn’t it? “Well, you’ll both have to visit me sometime in New York,” Sarah
said. “I have a grand four-story town house there and a beauty parlor like you’ve
never seen. I would be very happy to host you. Then you can meet my
daughter.”

Anna Burney Long’s eyes shone with sadness. “Oh, I don’t know if these old
bones could take that long trip, Sarah, but Lillie would love to go. Just let us
know when she’s welcome.”

“Madam?” said Lewis, the chauffeur. He had climbed out of the car to
open the rear door for them. Lewis enjoyed the formality of his role when he
drove Sarah, especially when they were driving through the South, and she
didn’t doubt he was playing it up just a bit more because of the Longs’ presence. He’d been giving Sarah strange looks all afternoon, no doubt because
he couldn’t understand how she could be cordial to a family that had once
owned hers
.

“Ooh, I can’t get over it!” Lillie Long exclaimed. “Riding with a chauffeur!”

Missus Anna looked slightly embarrassed at her daughter’s outburst, but
Sarah smiled at her gently to let her know it was all right. “Some days I don’t believe it myself,” Sarah said. “ ’Specially back here in Delta.”

“Sarah, you just have to tell me about your hair tonic,” Missus Anna said.
“How in the world did you come up with it? Was it as soon as you moved to St.
Louis?”

Ruefully, Sarah shook her head. She gazed back peacefully at her family’s old
cabin as Lewis drove the car toward the Longs’ home. “Oh, no, Missus Anna.
When I moved to St. Louis, I didn’t have a thought in my head except tryin’ to
feed my baby girl. Believe me, I had a long set of trials that had nothin’ to do with
hair tonic. I was still a washerwoman for the longest part of my life, Missus
Anna. I wish the change hadn’t come to me so late in life, I really do, but then
again, I tell myself I should just be grateful it ever came… .”

For many years, Sarah reminded herself, she hadn’t believed change would
come at all
.

Chapter Nine