"No, you won't," said David. "That's good for a long time yet. You don't know our people if you don't know that. Join us? On the rocks?"
"Just straight, with some water on the side. Thanks." He looked at Brad. "You're not pleased at the idea of a local committee, are you?"
"To be honest, no."
"You, Champlin?"
"No. But I think I see the point."
"If Brad briefs the committee properly, I cant see the harm. Incidentally, it's a good committee. I know them all. Mrs. Simmons has cause to be tough. Her oldest boy—he's left home now—has a stiff leg as the result—" he stopped, embarrassed.
David smiled. "It's all right. A truck ran over mine. When I was a kid." A sensitive guy, this, he thought
"As for Liz Peters, she's a widow. Granted her husband was a no-account rascal and she was well rid of him, almost any woman would resent being widowed by a policeman's club. And she does. He died of a blood clot on the brain. Prompt hospitalization and surgery might have saved him, Dr. Anderson tells me."
Chuck Martin had come in quietly and was standing beside Brad. "Is this a private fight?" he asked.
"Definitely not," Brad said. "Drink?"
"It may wreck my image, but I could sure use one."
David had not taken his eyes from Murfree's face. He felt too damned tired to be polite, to play games, and he said now: "I'd like to ask you a question. Feel free to tell me to go to hell."
Murfree smiled. "Of course."
"It's this: Why are you over here? Instead of over there?"
For a moment the man in the white suit did not answer, but stood facing them, looking through the window behind them at the rain coursing down its panes, the drops caught in the light from the overhead fixture. One hand was in a trouser pocket; the other held his glass containing a half-finished drink.
When he spoke he said: "It would be easy to say 'I don't know.' Or, classically, T don't remember.' Do any of us know what makes us commit ourselves? Any of us remember the exact moment of our involvement?" The hps that had been thin and tense when he entered the house had relaxed now; the mouth was wide, sensitive, delicately shaped.
"I'm not as noble as one might think," he went on. "I'm striking my colors as soon as this is over. You heard me say 'I travel alone these days.' Last week my wife took our children and went to her mother's in Philadelphia. She is as committed as I am, but when little children become the targets for filth—am I boring you?"
"Good God, no," said Brad. "Go on."
"Our little girl's birthday was a week ago last Sunday. It happened to fall on the same day as her confirmation. Just before we left the house a boy rang the bell, handed our maid a package marked for our daughter, and ran off. My wife opened it on the spot. It was a doll. Handmade, at least in parts. A little black doll, naked, very—er—male and precocious, in an obscene posture. Attached to the doll was a card, 'Happy Birthday little nigger lover.' "
He finished his drink, handed his glass to Brad, and David noticed that Brad's hand was shaking when he took it. "My wife cracked. One can't wonder. The next day she packed and left. I've stayed on, to pull up stakes." He laughed shortly. "They've left precious few stakes for me to pull up."
Brad gave him a refilled glass, and he stood looking into it, not touching it at first. "That doesn't answer your question, Champlin; I was committed long before that. All it does is explain my continued commitment, my physical presence here tonight."
"Look," said David, "I shouldn't have asked. Forget it."
"I don't want to." Murfree smiled. "Do you mind? It's doing me good. I don't know why I'm talking to you like this, but it's satisfying a long-felt compulsion. My family were, and my wife and I are, Catholics."
"One strike against you to start with, in these parts," said Chuck.
"I know." Murfree looked at the big blond man who had hoisted himself up so that he sat now on the tiled counter, long legs dangling, a glass in his hand. The four men were alone in the room. Once Mrs. Haskin had hurried through the kitchen, clean bed linen over her arm, and gone through to the back porch. Murfree went on: "Strange, isn't it, Chuck? You've had your lumps, but they have not been as big as they would be if you had been of my faith. Yet, basically, where do we differ? You and I or those of any faith who believe that God is something more than an exterior force." Murfree took a swallow from his glass, shook his head at Brad's gesture toward the bottle. "Later, Brad. These things are difficult enough to sort out with a clear head. But one must sort them out sooner or later. There is endless talk, there are hundreds of thousands of words in writing, about the 'guilt complexes' of the white Southerner, his subconscious burdens and urges, his divided loyalties, his sexual and economic fears. I'll buy some of it, I'll buy a good deal of it. But, by God, I won't buy all of it."
"Well, hallelujah," said Chuck. "Excuse me, John."
"Quite all right, my friend. A noncontroversial interruption if I ever heard one. Of course, if one refuses to acknowledge anything but that which goes on within the finite mind of man, one can accept all the glib and complicated explanations of the theorists and those who attribute all commitments to humanity to subconscious motivations and enlightened self-interest. I happen to believe that there are other and equally valid reasons—'causes' may be a better word—for the involvement of a great many of us, white and black, Southerner and Northerner, in a movement that is concerned with something far deeper than merely civil rights."
David had pulled a high stool forward and was perched on it now. "May I interrupt?"
"Of course."
" 'Merely civil rights.' I think I like that. I think I like it very much. What you are saying, in part, is that denying a fellow citizen the right to vote is more than a crime against established law, something our courts will eventually correct Whether we live to see it or not" He waited for Murfree's nod, and went on: "And you're saying that the greater crime —sin, you would call it, perhaps—is the refusal to accept other men in—in—I don't know exactly how to say it—I'm no theologian—"
"The fellowship of the Holy Spirit?" said Chuck.
"Yes," said Murfree. "But by your phrasing you are narrowing it to Christianity, Chuck. A man called Brother Lawrence, back in the seventeenth century, a cook in a monastery, wrote as no one has ever written before or since, in my opinion, of what he called the 'practice of the presence of God.' He wrote within the frame of reference of his own religion, of course. But the same thoughts, the same spiritual truths, have been a part of all the great religions. That God is not the exterior entity which some people use as a crutch, but is a force which moves within us, sometimes unrecognized, unrealized, but which, once it is recognized, can never be ignored again. It goes by many different names, in many religions. I have to fall back on my own. We Catholics call it grace."
"Two cents worth, please," said Brad. It was the first time David had ever heard a note of tentativeness in Brad's voice; deference, courtesy, puzzlement, but never tentativeness or uncertainty.
"A dime's worth if you want it." Color had come into Murfree's face now; he was smiling easily, warmly.
"What you're saying is—" Brad stopped and laughed. "We keep putting words in your mouth. Your point is one of first principles: two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This—this thing of the spirit you call God—and I thoroughly understand your differentiation between the exterior entity some people worship and the interior presence— cannot occupy the human soul at the same time that it is occupied by hatred. A simple matter of what might be called spiritual physics."
"You've managed to be a hell of a lot briefer and more succinct than I was. And you've made my point."
"Hold on," said Chuck. "Are you saying that all those who have been outspoken against—"
"Outspoken? No. I'm talking about commitment, involvement. Those who hear the voice behind them saying: 'This is the way; walk ye in it.'" He laid his empty glass down. "My God, how insufferably pious I sound. And yet, in spite of all
I've been saying, I'm running away."
"No," said David. "After what happened? You have children. It wouldn't be right—"
"Right. Wrong. Who's to say where the difference lies in a case like this? Who's to say where wisdom ends and cowardice begins? At times they run courses that are close to parallel, and the ends and beginnings are hard to spot. Anyhow, Champlin, did I answer your question? I'm afraid not."
David did not reply immediately. When he did, he said: "My question was a rude one; it was about you, specifically; about John Murfree, white Southerner. That question you answered; My God, yes, you answered. But I don't think this particular finite mind is big enough to include, in that answer, all the phonies I've known: the Northerners who do not recognize that expediency is masking as conscience, or who want to feel all comfy warm inside; the southern moderates who may not hang you from a lower limb, as Gregory says, but who nevertheless hang you so that your toes just touch ground and you don't quite strangle to death. I'm afraid I'll have to reserve my opinion."
"That they are instruments—"
"Oh. That." David looked at Murfree directly. "Yes. I'll even go you one better. I'll concede the red-neck Ku Kluxer is an instrument. My grandfather used to say, 'Reckon God has to have something to work on and He sure got Hisself a mouthful in the whites. One of these days He's going to start giving 'em fits. You'll see.'
***
Haskin, Brad, and Winters took over direction of the committee while David sat quietly, his chair against the wall, fighting off waves of sick fatigue. He spoke only to add emphasis to the repeated reminders to committee members that a deliberate violation of law was involved, that the young people could not be expected to be let off scot free, and that the main objective was to prevent them from being sent to what Haskin had called the "human cattle pen" of the emergency—and probably jerry-built—juvenile detention home. It seemed a hundred years ago to David, the days when he and Brad had taken for granted such things as immediate hearings, the rights of prisoners to be brought before a judge, taken as a matter of course the simple rights of citizens living in a country governed by consent of the people.
Mrs. Haskin gave no warning of her entrance, but suddenly was standing before him, hands on hips. "Mr. Champlin, you going to bed."
David's eyes widened in surprise. "In a—"
"Now. Dr. Anderson called, said you wasn't in the bed in half an hour I was to see to it you was. And I'm seeing to it."
There was a soft laugh behind her, and he turned and saw Gracie standing in the kitchen doorway, tall, straight, her face that was so darkly handsome when she was not smiling, softly pretty now that she was.
"You ask Dad Haskin what happens if you don't pay attention to Ma," she said.
Chuck and Winters had left their seats at the table and were standing beside him.
"Going quietly, Stoopid?" asked Chuck.
"Oh, go to hell," said David, but he was smiling when he crossed the kitchen with Mrs. Haskin.
They went out to the back porch and Mrs. Haskin opened the door to a room on their right. "I give you this room here by yourse'f so's you could get a good rest, get them aches and pains to bed where it's quiet,"
***
For a long time after Mrs. Haskin left he sat on the edge of the three-quarter bed in the center of the little room. Now that the opportunity for sleep and rest was here, he was too keyed up to take advantage of it. The bed linen smelled fresh and sweet, as though it had been dried in sun and air before ironing. Only an occasional penetrating voice—he recognized one as Mrs. Peter's—came to him from the front of the house; then there was the unmistakable sound of a group of people breaking up, then footsteps within the house as people sought their rooms, then only the sound of the rain, lighter now, the storm subsiding reluctantly.
Listening, he wondered whether he would ever, this side of eternity, shake the feeling of disembodiment that had dogged him intermittently for so long; the standing outside himself, feeling pain and tiredness in another body, watching himself, and so damned tired of watching himself, wanting to merge the two bodies, the one that was tired and full of a pain that had no relation to the physical, and the one that watched it; and then to run, run like hell until, exhausted, he could fall down in some dim place that would be cool, silent as the sky is silent, or the grave.
The sleeping pill that Anderson had given him was in his shirt pocket and he took it out now and laid the little white envelope on the peeling varnish of the table beside the bed. That wouldn't do it, that wouldn't bring the peace he sought; it would only make the coming day a more formidable foe. With only a few hours left in which to sleep, if that sleep was artificial the awakening would be slow, leaden; his body would awaken, but his inner weapons of defense would be dulled and heavy and he would be without the strength to wield them.
He wondered if the stockade was quiet, or if the boys stirred and talked under their tarpaulin. "Them chilren," Hummer had said hoarsely. "Them chilren—" Mrs. Peters had said the girls had been taken into the jail building before she came to the meeting. When the rain stopped, as it would, for now it scarcely could be heard, would the singing start again? That would do it, he thought; that would really do it, the kids awake and singing in the gray and dreary hours before day broke. God, let them be asleep, he prayed, and bent his body forward, hands rubbing, fingers kneading, the tired, aching muscles of his neck and shoulders.
Gracie was standing in front of him before he realized she was in the room. He raised his head slowly, seeing first the straight, strong legs, then the hem of the fresh starched print, the fullness of the rounded thighs, the surprise of the slender waist and the soft heaviness of her breasts above it, their dark abundance spilling over the square neck of her dress. The skin of her face glowed in the weak rays of the table lamp as though the light were behind instead of in front of it. The dark smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes had not been there earlier, but the eyes were clear, moist and gleaming.
"I seen your light," she said softly. "Me'n the baby's sleeping in the room across the porch tonight. You ain't getting your rest like the doctor says you should."
He said, "Hi, Gracie—" not smiling, holding her eyes with his own. He knew what the glowing skin of her face would feel like against his cheek, knew the softness of breast and thighs would be warm velvet to his touch.
She came closer, the skirt of her dress brushing his arm and the cloth of his trousers. "You all nerved up." Her hand was on the back of his neck, replacing his; her firm warm fingers and palm kneaded the muscles of neck and shoulder, gently stroked the upper part of his spine. He had never felt strength like this in a woman's hand. "I does this all the time for Dad Haskin," she said. "Nights when he comes in all nerved up, people fussing at him all day." He could feel the blood coming into his neck, feel tenseness he had not realized was there giving way under her fingers. "All this trouble," she whispered. "All this trouble. Them muscles're like boards. Ain't no wonder you can't sleep."
She did not draw away when his arm encircled her waist, yet did not yield or come forward until his insistent strength drew her body against his. With his free hand he grasped the hand stroking his neck, drew it down and under his chin so that her body seemed to enfold his, laid his cheek against her breast, then turned and buried in his face in its softness.
"Gracie... Gracie... You don't mind.... Tell me you don't mind... Gracie..."
"I did... I did... I swear I did... but Lawd, I don't now.... Good Gawd, man! Turn me loose so's I can lock that door.... Give me time so's I can get out of these things..."
"No... No, Gracie, no... Gracie, Gracie... you'll run away...."
"I swear I won't.... Lawd, man! But you strong... I ain't running away.... Oh, Gawd!... Minute I seen you I says there's a man needs some lovin'... there's a man needs lovin'.... There ain't no harm... there ain't no harm in it...."
Grade's embrace was more than adequate for his physical need; deeply adequate for his spirit's need. There, in that small
room for that small moment in time with Gracie, he was one person again, no longer two; at home, at peace even in the vortex of his passion, and when at last the vortex passed, gave way to an exhausted calm, he kept her body close to his, holding its warm softness gently, his face against her shoulder, plummeting into sleep at last with his hand cupping her breast.
CHAPTER 75
Sara Kent told herself that it wasn't any hotter in Düsseldorf's Bahnhof than it would be in Grand Central in mid-August, nowhere nearly as hot as any one of Chicago's stations. She wiped the perspiration film from her face and throat, and wished that she could extend the operation to the rest of her clammy, moist body.
The train she had come to meet was in; she could tell by the increase in the number of hurrying individuals in the central lobby. Maybe Chris hadn't been able to make it, and that would be fine, would almost be a relief because it would give her another day to stiffen her resolves. The feeling of loneliness that swept over her at the thought that he might not have made it warned her of how badly those resolves needed stiffening.
Then there was Chris, coming toward her but not seeing her yet, covering ground rapidly, yet managing to seem unhurried, even deliberate. For God's sake, Sara, she told herself, for God's sake, smile; the man is tired and hot and has been under pressure and he'll need a smile and then some coffee or a drink.
"Sara! I hoped and it happened—"
She looked up at him, and the smile had been no effort. It was never any effort, when the time actually came, to smile at Chris, laugh with him. And that was why it was so hard, so damnably hard to face what she must do.
"What did you hope that happened?"
"You. Here. Meeting me." He stooped and kissed her lightly, quickly, on the forehead. "That was just for now," he said.
"It's hellishly hot, Chris. You'll wish you'd stayed in Switzerland."
"Don't be silly, Sara. You were here."