"The Prof says maybe a dozen or a little more. That's in all classes. They want more. And the Prof says there's no segregation. Not in the dormitories or the classes or even in the town."
"You colored boys going to look like a bunch of lonesome fleas floatin' in a pan of milk. How many head of kids they got there, all told?"
"Maybe couple of thousand."
Gramp was quiet for a moment, then elaborately casual. "They got wimmens up there?"
"It's co-educational."
"You ain't answered my question."
"It means they've got girl students too."
Suddenly Li'l Joe Champlin's voice sharpened. "You steer Clear, y'hear!"
David gave an involuntary start at Gramp's quick sharpness. "My gosh, Gramp! Did I say I wouldn't? Don't get so excited."
"It's no good."
"What's no good?"
"Pork meat," said Gramp bluntly.
David's sideways glance was sly and amused. "You speaking from experience?"
"I ain't saying I is and I ain't saying I ain't. What I'm saying is I ain't never knowed one of us what hasn't had the chance was he damn fool enough to take it. You ever hear Kid Arab tell about how they goes after them mens of his when they travels? How they entices 'em? You ever hear them mens of his braggin' about how the white wimmens throws theirselves at 'em?"
"Sure I have. Plenty of times. And I didn't need Kid Arab or any of 'em to tell me. Learned a thing or two myself, right down here. There's a woman where I used to deliver laundry, couple of months ago—I- told you about it. See-through nightgowns and negligees, managing to get her hand on me when she took the package—"
"You'd have touched her and someone come along she'd have screamed rape. You'd have been seeing striped moons the rest of your life. If you lived—"
"That's what I knows. Shucks, what you think I am? Some kind of a li'l chile? Who wants it? Me, I always thought it would be like messing around with a half-dead fish." Now David's smile was open and wide. "Is it?"
Gramp ignored the smile and the question. "Mebbe you ain't no chile, mebbe you a man now, but you young yet." Obviously his fears were not quieted. "They sure funny people. All the time worried and screaming 'bout their lily-white southern wimmens, scared as a cat in a kennel full of bulldogs. All the time saying they has to keep segregation on account of mixed marriages, getting a lot of mongrels around. Sweet Jesus! What they got now! People passing whose grandaddies were a hell of a lot blacker'n me, and way blacker'n you. Got 'em in high places, too. You never seen your ma, but she was near as light as Rudy. Had freckles, too. Them white men making the most noise, they the ones shacking up with colored wimmen all the time, and their kids running wild being called niggers. Somebody, I disremember who, said all a white woman had to do if she didn't want to marry colored was to say 'no.'"
"Langston Hughes. Colored author. He's the one who said it"
"Well, he saying it right. He sure saying it right. What they scared of? I knows. You knows. Their own wimmens. That's what they scared of. Marriage ain't rape, and the rape they hollering so loud about ain't a thing in the world but what comes of segregation. And there's damned little of what they calls rape that's really rape. I knows."
David stood up and pushed his chair back, still smiling. "Bet you do, Gramp. Bet you know a hell of a lot more'n what you're saying. But for gosh sake, quit worrying. I keep telling you, I'm not interested. Period. Look, I'll do the dishes when I get back. I got a movie date with a girl. She's green with red spots. That O.K.?"
"Be better was she black," grumbled Gramp, unsoothed.
***
The Professor's advice, the day before David took the bus for Cincinnati, was different. "You must not be like the old maid who looks under the bed every night, David."
"Say that again, Prof?"
"I have never known whether the old maid hoped she'd find a man or was afraid she would. You know what I mean. Do not look so puzzled. You must not see prejudice, which you live with every day in New Orleans, everywhere. It will be in many places, even there, but it will not be everywhere. Do not look under the bed for it when something happens or something is said that would have happened or been said whatever your color."
"O.K., Prof, I'll try. But like—as—Gramp says, it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm not pushing myself."
"My God! This I must see. Ja! This I must see. David Champlin pushing himself. You are damned near as shy today, my boy, as the first time you sat over there, one leg in a cast and the other wound around the chair leg like a rubber band. You remember? You are still that boy grown only a little older. When the great day comes, David, that you push yourself, you must let Bjarne Knudsen know."
Now, in the train with sleep catching up with him, David thought: "I wasn't shy in that Goddamned bus, not after I got my senses back after that minchy-mouthed red-neck wouldn't let me off."
The Professor had walked to the door with him the day before, and repeated his earlier words. "Remember, you are not to see things under the bed. They will not always be there."
That, thought David just before sleep obliterated bis thoughts, that I have to see; that they gotta prove.
When he left the train at Laurel, he stood for a moment on the platform, movement arrested by the scent of a spring he had never experienced. Spring did not come like this to New Orleans: cold crispness with warmth beneath it, new grass a faint green mist over open ground, trees not quite budded yet showing pale promise, defying the patches of gray snow that lay in the crooks of their trunks and on the ground in shady places, the sap of the trees restlessly stirring. The feel of its stirring was in his own body, disturbing and exhilarating.
And then Dr. Knudsen was there, bustling, talking, his hair rising in islands of spiky disorder, triumphant over brush and comb and water. David had called him from the Cincinnati station and explained his early arrival by saying that he had changed his mind and taken a train instead of a bus. Knudsen had told him there was a train to Laurel in a matter of minutes and, miraculously, he had made it.
When they were in the car and driving off, the doctor said, "We had planned that you would stay with us: la. But our niece arrived yesterday. With a broken arm." He clucked and shook his head. "She was alone because her father is on a trip and she called us and we told her to come at once. It is not a bad break but there is a cast. She lives outside of Chicago."
David was sorry for anyone with a broken bone, anyone, white or colored, but he felt a surge of relief over not staying at the doctor's. How in hell would they have worked it? Have him eat in the kitchen with the cook or maybe go out to meals? Now that he had arrived he felt dubious about all this talk about integration in the town and college. There was bound to be a Negro boardinghouse somewhere in the town where he could relax and feel at home. As they drove he could see Negroes working in yards, maids shaking dustmops from windows and porches, men in a work crew repairing the road.
"You will stay at the Inn." The words penetrated his thoughts slowly, then left him disturbed and fearful. What in hell was the "Inn"? It sounded white and he wondered if the doctor knew what he was doing. It also sounded expensive, and his money would just barely hold out for three days in a cheap boardinghouse. The car slowed and stopped. "Ja," said the doctor. "We are here. I will go in with you."
You'd better, thought David. Sweet Jesus! You'd better go in with me. Or stay on the porch and catch me on the way past when they heave me out.
He followed the other up broad steps, across a wide porch, and through massive, graceful doors. The lobby had once been the central hallway of a converted mansion, and there was still the aura of another age about it. He was walking very straight and tall, eyes masked and wary, defenses bristling.
Karl Knudsen was talking to a man behind a counter in the far left corner of the lobby beyond a wide, arched entrance to a lounge. The man swung a book toward David, looking at him coolly with no welcome in his eyes. He did not speak. David signed the book and wondered, smar
ting under the clerk's cold disapproval, if he ought to write "Colored" after his name, then heard a voice beside him that warmed and strengthened him. He turned and saw a youth of about his own age, and of his own complexion, wearing tan slacks and a light-blue, brass-buttoned uniform jacket. "I'll get your bag upstairs, show you the way," the boy said.
"Ah, Randall!" Dr. Knudsen gripped the boy's shoulder, shook it gently. "You did not go home for vacation?"
The boy called Randall smiled. "No, sir. Needed the bread."
"Slang!" barked Knudsen, then turned to David. "A fellow Pengardian, David. Randall, this is David Champlin— Randall is a sophomore, David. Only slightly retarded."
David shook hands with Randall, heard Knudsen saying, "Straight A's. Ja. Straight A's. Only one A-minus to show hi weakness."
"Can't win 'em all," said Randall. "You coming up with us, Doc?"
"We are going to eat first, if there is food."
"It can be arranged." The man behind the desk did not smile. "I do what I'm paid to do," the narrowed, cold eyes seemed to be saying.
"See you later, Champlin," said Randall.
Throughout a gargantuan breakfast—its probable cost making David shudder inwardly—the little doctor talked almost without stopping. David learned that if he was accepted he would be known as "Champlin," although, Knudsen said, he himself would probably call him "David" because he had known him first as a leggy ten-year-old. He also learned that the college kept a loose rein on students and that students were aided in finding jobs if they needed them, either on or off campus. There were no restrictions on weekend leaves, but there was an eleven-o'clock week-night curfew, Monday through Thursday. Liquor was not allowed on campus, but a strange astigmatism prevailed where beer was concerned. "We can do it like this because we are so small," said Knudsen. "And because we are so careful. Our students come to learn. If they do not—there are other colleges and universities—"
Many of the things Dr. Knudsen said did not sink in. David was nervous and edgy. They were alone in the smallish dining room except for a middle-aged white couple sitting across the room at a table against the wall. Whenever he glanced at them they were either eating or talking, but David felt that, whenever he was not looking at them, their eyes were fixed on him. It was a real bomb that Dr. Knudsen tossed when he said: "You see that couple sitting across the room? She is on the board of directors of our local NAACP chapter. Her husband is vice-president. He holds the chair of anthropology. If you are lucky you will be in his class next year. I will see what I can do."
I'll be damned, thought David. I mean, I'll really be damned, a couple of honest-to-God white northern liberals like you read about. And with only one head apiece, yet. He looked over at the doctor, saw that he was smiling, and surprised in the blue eyes the same warmth that so frequently animated the eyes of the Prof in New Orleans. "See?" said the doctor. "As my brother said—'chips.' I saw them. Wear them for the stupid clerk. Discard them for others."
"Yes, sir—" said David, and tried to smile, then was distracted when the waitress presented the check and Dr. Knudsen scrawled his signature across it. "When you eat your meals here, David, sign your name to the check. Your room, of course, is paid for. You did not know? Ja. My brother was
to tell you. We have an arrangement here for scholarship applicants during our remodeling period, while we are short of dormitory space."
David was thankful his room was paid for, but he was damned if he'd walk into that dining room alone, NAACP directors, anthropology professors or not. For every one of those, there could be ten filming racists, and he wasn't about to take any chances.
In the lobby the doctor said, "At four, either my wife or I will pick you up. This morning I arranged your first interview for four thirty. Latin. Afterward you will have dinner with us."
"I will? I mean—thanks, only I don't want—"
"At four."
He followed Randall to a small room under the eaves on the top floor. When they were inside, he said, "What kind of a place is this?"
"Good," said Randall. "It's O.K. most of the time. Hell, for a cat just coming out of the South, it'll seem like getting out of jail."
"Where you from?"
"Philadelphia. And that place doesn't smell like roses, either. I had some adjusting to do. Look, take it easy. Some of the colored guys hole up and don't have anything to do with anyone, and some of them throw their weight around, and either way it's not good. Most of the students are all right. Some of them stink. Where would you find it different? The faculty's O.K. Most of it. You have to feel your own way."
"What about the town? Man, that dining room gives me fits. Suppose I want a sandwich or a Coke or something?"
Randall shrugged. "Any place you want. This Inn was Crow for years. I guess ever since it opened way back when. Then the faculty boycotted it; most of the students went along and had their parents stay at the hotel across the square. The Inn saw the light. Same with the Coke and juke joints and hamburger places. Enough of the students gave 'em a bad time to make 'em change their minds. A real quiet cash register's a mighty moving thing. Influencing."
This guy must know what he's talking about, thought David. But he wasn't taking too many chances. There were bound to be, had to be, what Gramp called "traps for the unwiry."
***
The doctor's wife was walking through the front doorway
of the Inn just as David reached the bottom of the wide curving staircase that afternoon. Her first words were a commonplace greeting, and David felt surprise because he had taken it for granted that she would be Danish. But hers was a strictly American accent, of a region he could not identify, and his guard went up instantly. She was a tall woman; must be, he thought, a good two inches taller than her husband, with curling light brown hair touched with gray, and clear, direct, gray-blue eyes. She was wearing a short Mackintosh-type jacket and plaid skirt Her handshake was crisp, firm, and unavoidable. The car she led him to was an elderly Plymouth four-door. She went to the far side, slid beneath the wheel, and reached across the front seat to release the lock of the right-hand door.
David wondered if she had noticed that his hand had been on the handle of the rear door. Act like you would was you down here. That way you can't get in no trouble. Smell out the land first. Gramp had said that to him. Still, he couldn't ignore the door to the front that she had pushed open. "Best car we ever had," she was saying. "We won it in a raffle and it makes us practically the only two-car family in the faculty."
They swung away from the Inn and she drove first around the central square of the town, pointing out buildings and landmarks he knew he'd forget as soon as they were left behind. They passed the Inn at the end of the circuit and continued on a broad tree-lined street from which they did not turn and which, after the first mile, became less thickly lined with houses, until finally it was almost a rural road with mailboxes at the sides.
"My husband told you that we're expecting you for dinner?"
"Yes, ma'am. It's sure nice—"
"Nonsense. You'll be company for Sara. That's our niece. Not our real niece, our courtesy niece. Her mother and I were childhood friends and then roommates at Smith. She died three years ago. We claim Sara gladly. She has a sister living in Brazil, and her father flew down there a few days ago. On the way home from the airport her taxi was in an accident and she broke her arm, poor pet. She'll be entering Pengard when you do, next fall."
He could feel his guard lowering, not all the way, just enough so that his replies were made in normal tones. The car slowed and she said, "On your right—" and he turned and saw a big white house of turn-of-the-century vintage. A sign hanging from the roof of the porch proclaimed MOM'S.
"When we can't find a student anywhere on campus, we inquire at Mom's first. Fried chicken and spareribs. They raise their own chicks and I don't know where they get the ribs, but they're the best you've ever tasted. And inexpensive. It's closed now for spring vacation."
He could see
ahead, on their left, the cluster of buildings that must be the campus, and behind the buildings there were glimpses of blue water through the trees. "Laurel Lake," said Mrs. Knudsen. "And very beautiful. Some of the hardier swim in late spring."
David had poured over so many pictures in Pengard catalogues that he had little trouble identifying many of the buildings: the Infirmary just inside the entrance to the campus, on their right; the dormitories lining two sides of a quadrangle whose far end was framed by the recreation hall and student dining hall. He knew that beyond the main quadrangle was another, smaller one formed by classroom buildings and the administration building. On this day scaffolds hung against the walls of several dormitories, piles of brick and lumber obstructed the sidewalks, and in two places, one on each side of the main quadrangle's broad, grassy center, new buildings were going up.
"We're trying desperately to expand without enlarging," said Mrs. Knudsen. "It's a neat trick if you can do it. There will be two new dorms in the fall, and remodeling of the old ones. The place is an architectural hash, but we hope to improve it gradually."
In the classroom-building area they stopped in front of a gray two-story fieldstone building. "Here we are, David Champlin. Your first interview. Room Ten. Don't let it worry you, please. Andrus is a pet, truly. From all I've heard you'll be what my husband calls 'right out of his kitchen cupboard.' We live over thataway and we'll be expecting you any time at all." She gave him explicit directions, then stopped quickly and said, "We'll pick you up," and David knew she had remembered his gimpy leg.