“Just where you think you going?” Aunt Margaret asked him.
“Water,” he said.
“Hydrant in that back yard,” Aunt Margaret said.
“Tite told me where it was.”
Marcus’s face and shirt were wet with sweat. Two lines of sweat ran down the sides of Tite’s face, too.
As Marcus and Tite went around the house, the dog came from under the house and started barking at Marcus. He followed them all the way to the back, growling at Marcus through the fence.
Aunt Margaret looked through the house now, and she could see that Louise’s toes were pointed the other way. “You see that wench trying to show that boy something he ain’t—” Aunt Margaret said, and started toward the back. When she got back there, Marcus had turned on the hydrant and was letting the water run in the barrel.
“Drink and get on back to the front,” Aunt Margaret said.
“That water hot,” Marcus said.
“It ain’t that hot,” Aunt Margaret said. “Drink and get on back to them leaves.”
“I ain’t scawling myself with that hot water,” he said. “Y’all got anything cold in there—lemonade or anything?”
Aunt Margaret said she didn’t say anything, she just looked at him. She said she didn’t want cuss with the next day being her ’Termination Sunday.
She said all the time Marcus was letting the water run in the barrel, he was looking at Louise laying there on the cot. But Louise pretended he wasn’t anywhere around. Laying there with half of her belly out and with that skirt pulled halfway up her thighs, and still pretending he wasn’t anywhere around. Aunt Margaret said she tried to block out much of Louise as she could, but no matter how she stood, Marcus was still able to see some part of Louise’s body. And from the way Louise was laying down there, looking at her painted toenails could cause as much trouble as looking at her belly.
“Didn’t I tell you to drink and get back to the front?” Aunt Margaret said.
“All right, I reckond it’s cool enough,” he said.
He lowered his head and drank from the hydrant. When he raised up again, Tite asked him to let her drink.
“No, you don’t,” Aunt Margaret said. “She got a cup in here and she got ice water to go in it.”
“Can’t have none, Tite,” he said.
“Dolo,” Tite said, jumping. “Dolo, dolo.”
“That old lady standing on that gallery say you can’t have none,” he said.
“Dolo,” Tite said, jumping. “Dolo, dolo.”
He picked her up and held her to the hydrant.
“Now, duck your head to the side,” he said. “Don’t stick your tongue out like a snake, duck your head to the side. To the side, Tite.”
He put her down. She started jumping again.
“Shut up,” he said, “you go’n have some. Now look at me. See what I do.” He drank. “See?”
“Wee,” Tite said.
He picked her up.
“All right now, duck your head to the side. To the side, to the side, Tite.”
Aunt Margaret said she stood there looking at that convict trying to drown that child, and that woman, the child’s own mon, just laying there with that skirt pulled halfway up her thighs, not saying a word. She said the dog said more—at least he was still growling at the convict through the fence.
Marcus put Tite down again.
“Now, get back to the front,” Aunt Margaret said.
“Got to turn the water off,” he said.
“Turn it off and get back to them leaves.”
All the time he was twisting the knob on the hydrant, he was looking at Louise laying down on the cot. Then Aunt Margaret saw him grin. She turned quickly to look at Louise. Louise raised the magazine up to her face again. Aunt Margaret turned to Marcus.
“I told you to get moving,” she said. “I mean just that.”
“Come on, Tite,” he said.
Tite took his hand and they went around the house. The dog followed them, barking at Marcus through the fence. Aunt Margaret said Louise was holding the magazine up to her face like she was reading. But Aunt Margaret knew she wasn’t reading, because she could hardly read or write her own name.
Aunt Margaret went back to the front gallery. She could see Tite and Marcus going across the yard holding hands. Marcus picked up his rake and Tite picked up her branch and they went back to work.
Aunt Margaret stood there another five minutes watching them. Marshall Hebert’s car went back up the quarter. As he went by the yard, he slowed up and looked at Marcus through the fence again.
Aunt Margaret moved back inside and started ironing. She had finished two of Bonbon’s white shirts when Louise got up and came out to the front gallery. Louise stood in the door and looked across the yard where Marcus and Tite were working. Standing there barefooted, she looked more like a twelve-year-old child than she did a twenty-five-year-old woman, Aunt Margaret said.
“Judy?” Louise called.
“Wee, Mama?” Tite answered.
“Don’t work too hard,” Louise said.
Aunt Margaret stopped ironing and looked at Louise standing in the door, because she knew it wasn’t Judy, Louise was talking to, it was Marcus. Louise turned from the door and went back to her room. Aunt Margaret started ironing again.
32
Aunt Margaret thought about church the next day and started singing. She thought about the people who were going to be there, how they were going to be dressed and where they were going to be sitting. She knew that Aunt Polly Williams liked sitting by that first window near the pulpit. Aunt Polly would come to church before any of the other members just to get that seat. If anybody else sat there before she did, she would be mad all day. Sometimes Glo Hawkins did that just to make Aunt Polly mad. Once they had a fight in the church. Aunt Polly told Glo Hawkins to move, and Glo Hawkins told her to go sit down. Aunt Polly started beating Glo Hawkins over the head with her pocketbook, and it took three or four other people in church to stop her. Aunt Margaret, thinking about Aunt Polly, had to smile to herself. She thought about the other people who wouldn’t be able to come to church because of sickness. Whenever she thought about the sick people, it always made her sad.
Aunt Margaret heard noises in Louise’s bedroom. It sounded like Louise was pushing something heavy across the floor. Aunt Margaret stopped singing and listened a moment. Louise stopped pushing whatever it was she was moving. Aunt Margaret thought it sounded like the dresser. She started singing again. Louise started moving the dresser again. Aunt Margaret laid her iron on the side and went out on the gallery. But Marcus was raking leaves just like he was supposed to be doing. Aunt Margaret came back inside and started ironing and singing, and the moving started all over again. Aunt Margaret stopped and listened; the moving stopped. She started singing; the moving started. She stopped and faced the door. She was still humming her church song to herself, but she was humming so low she was sure Louise couldn’t hear it. All the time she faced the door, she couldn’t hear a sound.
Aunt Margaret went quickly to the front door, and this time she saw Marcus looking toward the house. She moved toward the end of the gallery just as fast as she had come outside, and looked around the corner of the house at Louise’s bedroom window, but she saw nothing but the curtains. She thought if she stood there long enough she would see the curtains move, but they never did. Aunt Margaret moved away from the end of the gallery and looked at Marcus again. He had gone back to work; Tite was working right beside him.
Aunt Margaret went back inside and started ironing. Everything was quiet in Louise’s room now. Even when Aunt Margaret started singing again, nothing happened in the room.
Fifteen minutes after she had been inside, she saw Marcus and Tite coming toward the house. They went around the house to the hydrant, and a minute later Aunt Margaret heard the water running in the barrel. She stepped back from the ironing board to look at Marcus drinking; then he was holding Tite up so she could drink.
> “ ’Nough?” he asked Tite.
“Wee,” Tite said.
Marcus and Tite started for the front, and Aunt Margaret moved back to her ironing board. She hadn’t been ironing a minute, she said, when she heard a loud, booming noise in Louise’s bedroom. She jumped around and faced the door, then she went to the door and asked Louise what was the matter. Louise didn’t answer. Aunt Margaret heard another noise: it sounded like two people moving fast and trying to be quiet at the same time.
“Wait,” Aunt Margaret said. “I know this ain’t what I think it is.”
She ran to the front door and looked across the yard, but she didn’t see Marcus or Tite. She ran back through the house to the back gallery, but she didn’t see them by the hydrant, either. Now, she ran back to the front, and this time to the end of the gallery, to look around the side of the house. Tite was standing outside the fence, letting the dog lick her hand. Marcus was nowhere in sight.
Aunt Margaret started to holler at Tite, but she remembered Tite’s bad heart. She was scared, too, if she hollered and Tite jerked her hand back too quickly, the dog might bite her. So she broke away from the end of the gallery and ran toward the steps, but after going halfway down, she ran back up again.
“Master,” she said. “Master.”
She broke inside and started beating on the door with her fist.
“Come out of there, boy,” she said, beating. “I mean, come out of there, come out of there.”
She heard something slam against the wall—it sounded like a piece of furniture.
“What was that?” she called. “What hit there?”
Nobody answered. Then she heard the same noise again. It might have been a chair one of them was throwing against the wall.
Aunt Margaret moved back to hit the door with her shoulders. She said she knew that that little frail latch would fly off even if Tite had hit that door hard enough. She hit it. But like she had hit one of those oak trees out in the yard, she went falling back on the floor. “What in the—” She got up and hit it again. Again, it was like hitting one of those oak trees.
“So that’s it, that’s what she was doing,” Aunt Margaret said. “Propping things back there.”
“Come out of there, boy,” Aunt Margaret hollered through the door. “You hear me?”
She said one of them slammed that chair against the wall again. She said she tried to vision what chair it was, but she didn’t have time for visioning. She started to hit the door with her shoulder, but she thought about Tite and ran out on the gallery. Tite was still at the fence, letting the dog lick her hand. “Master,” Aunt Margaret said, and ran back inside. Just about then that chair or something else heavy slammed against the wall. Then it got quiet—too quiet.
“What y’all doing?” Aunt Margaret said softly, holding her ear against the door. “Miss Louise, what y’all doing in there?”
Then she heard another loud, booming noise, like somebody had jumped from one end of the room to the other. Marcus said:
“I got you now, I got you now, you pretty little hot pretty thing. I got you now, hanh? Hanh? Give me my two little pears here. Give ’em here. Give me my two little sweet pears.”
Aunt Margaret said she hit that door with all her might, but again it was like hitting that oak tree. She fell and got up and hit it again: this time it was like hitting that oak tree with another tree behind it.
She heard a slap.
“What was that?” she called, and listened. “What was that? You slapped that white woman, boy?”
She said she heard, “Why you pretty little hot—you taking it off or I’m go’n tear it off?”
“She ain’t go’n do nothing and you neither,” Aunt Margaret said through the door. “Not long as I can draw breath.”
She hit the door with her shoulder. She fell, got up, and ran out on the gallery to see what Tite was doing. Tite was letting the dog lick her hand, so Aunt Margaret ran back into the room.
Marcus was saying, “Lord, look how pretty you is. Lord, I didn’t know you was this pretty. How can a man leave all this pretty goodness and go—Oh, Lord, look at all this. And look at my two little pears hanging here, just look at ’em.”
Aunt Margaret hit the door and hit it again.
She heard Marcus saying, “Now see me, see how pretty I’m is. See that? See?”
“Boy, you naked in there?” Aunt Margaret called through the door. “You naked in there, boy?”
“Let me kiss you,” he said. “Oooooo, you sweet. Good Lord—Lord, have mercy. He know you this sweet? Let me kiss this little pear here … now this one. Two of the sweetiest little pears I ever tasted. ’Specially this one here … Go on touch it. That’s right, touch it. Won’t hurt you. See? See?”
Aunt Margaret hit the door again. She hit it again, again, again. Then she heard him laughing. She figured he was carrying Louise to the bed, because the next sound she heard was the spring when they laid down. She pushed against the door again—not with her shoulder—with both hands. But she knew it was no use. And even if she had got into the room, it would have been too late now. She could tell by the deep moan that Louise made.
She turned now and went outside to pull Tite away from the fence. While she led Tite across the yard, Tite raised her other hand and showed her a nickel. Aunt Margaret didn’t say anything, she couldn’t say anything; she started crying when Tite wasn’t looking. She sat down against one of the big oak trees and pulled Tite in her lap.
33
Aunt Margaret didn’t know how long she sat there. She was facing the house and crying. Tite had gone to sleep in her lap. She passed her hand over Tite’s head. Tite’s hair was white like cotton and it felt like rabbit fur. It wasn’t much longer than rabbit fur, either.
Aunt Margaret looked at the house again. The house was quiet—too quiet. The yard was too quiet; the whole plantation was too quiet.
“It won’t end good,” Aunt Margaret thought. “It’s all right for the others, the ones in Baton Rouge—yes, it’s all right for them. They have the right to do what they doing. Everybody expect them to do it. It was done from the start and it will always be done. But this won’t end good. Even if she don’t tell him, it won’t end good. He go’n pay, she go’n pay, both of them go’n pay for this day.”
When Louise first came off the bayou from around Lake Charles, she didn’t know anything. She didn’t know where she was, she didn’t know who she was, she hardly knew why she was here. She was fifteen then—that was ten years ago—but she acted like somebody eight or nine. She acted like a week-old calf that was led to a new pasture. Aunt Margaret was brought up to the house to help her with the housework. But most of the time it was like talking to a crazy person; she wasn’t listening to anything, Aunt Margaret said.
Louise tried to run away. But each time she left, Bonbon brought her back. One time her papa and two brothers brought her back. Aunt Margaret said the papa had a red face and big ears and a big nose. His teeth were yellow from chewing tobacco. Both of his sons were just like him; both short, powerfully built fellows. Both chewed tobacco, and one had a half quart of wine in his back pocket. He wore overalls and a jumper and clodhopper shoes just like his papa and his other brother did. He took out the bottle and handed it to his papa, and his papa unscrewed the cap and took a swallow and passed it to the other son, the oldest one. The oldest son took a drink and wiped his mouth and passed it back. The younger son, before drinking, handed the bottle toward Bonbon. Bonbon shook his head, and the young son drank and capped the bottle and stuck it back in his pocket.
“Next time she try that you beat hell out her,” the papa said to Bonbon. “You hear me up there, Louise?”
Aunt Margaret said the papa and brothers and Bonbon were standing in the yard, and she and Louise were standing on the gallery. Louise went inside the house and Aunt Margaret followed her.
“I beat hell out her, she try that again,” Aunt Margaret heard the papa saying. “That bottle, Jules.”
L
ouise didn’t try to run away any more. She stayed to herself and hardly spoke to Aunt Margaret or Bonbon. Bonbon didn’t mind because by then he was spending most of his time in Pauline’s bed, anyhow. Seven years after Louise was there she had a little girl. The baby had come too early and she weighed only four pounds. Aunt Margaret said from the moment Louise saw Tite, she couldn’t think of anything else but revenge. Bonbon would have to pay. Pay for the suffering she had gone through while he slept in Pauline’s bed; pay for the suffering she had gone through on that bayou with her brothers and papa.
But Louise didn’t know how to get revenge. She didn’t have any idea what she was going to do, Aunt Margaret said. She was twenty-two now, had given birth to a child, but she was still a child herself. She hadn’t learned anything about being a woman from her papa and brothers (nobody knew for sure if her mama was alive or dead) and Bonbon hadn’t taught her anything, either. So she didn’t know how a woman got revenge. She knew that men shot each other, beat each other, knifed each other, but what could a woman do.
She watched Pauline. She liked Pauline, she hated Pauline. She liked Pauline’s clothes, she liked Pauline’s hats, she liked the way Pauline walked. She looked at Pauline the way a young girl looks at a grown woman she admires. Sometimes she even tried to walk the way Pauline did.
But she hated Pauline, too. Not because she wanted Pauline to give her back her husband; she didn’t want her husband. She wanted to be free of her husband. But she knew she never would be free of him. If Pauline was white, then everything would be different. Bonbon would marry Pauline and she would be able to leave. But Pauline was not white, and there couldn’t be any marriage. Since there couldn’t be any marriage and since she couldn’t run away without them bringing her back, then she had to find another way to be free.
So she watched Pauline, and she watched the twins that went by the gate. There was no mistaking about the children, they were Bonbon’s. They were her daughter’s brothers, but nothing like her daughter. They had all the life, Tite had none. But by watching them and by watching Pauline, Louise knew how she would get her revenge. Only she didn’t know if she could go through with it. She would have to practice awhile, she would have to build up her courage. Not that she was afraid of Bonbon. Bonbon couldn’t hurt her any more than her papa and her brothers had already hurt her on the bayou. Physical hurt didn’t matter any more. No, what she needed courage for was to put herself in a man’s way to make him look at her. Because, Aunt Margaret said, she didn’t know if she had anything worth looking at. Since Bonbon never looked at her, she wasn’t too sure anybody else would look at her, either. So she had to build her courage, she had to practice awhile. She probably stood before the looking glass hours on hours, looking at herself; probably twisting one way, then the other, looking at herself from different sides, wondering if anybody would come. She probably put on her clothes, laid across the bed to rest a while, then got back up, took off her clothes, and looked at herself in the glass again.