Chapter 10

'Don't you have any children of your own, Bessy?' Alice asked, early next morning, the morning of Tuesday the 3rd of July.

Bessy, who was still in bed, called upon the Lord in a tone of general, unspecific dissatisfaction.

'Because you said you did, and then, you know, you said you didn't.'

'Lord, child, ain't you starting off awful early in the day?' 'It's ten-thirty. I've been up for twenty minutes already, and I'm hungry.'

T swear, that mother of yours must not have fed you nuthin'. If you lived with me a while, I'd fatten you up sure enough. Skin-and-bones!'

'You didn't answer my question.'

'Look here, child—I don't have to answer your questions!'

'But this is your husband in the picture, isn't it? You said so last night.' Alice held up a gilt-framed snapshot of Bessy (though it was hard to see many points of correspondence between the woman in the photo, just pleasantly buxom, and the so-much-larger woman in the bed) and of a Negro sailor in dress whites with an arm around her waist.

'I guess he'll have to pass for a husband: I'm not going to find anything better now.'

'Is he dead? Or what?'

'Yes, he's dead. Though it ain't no business of yours, and I'll thank you kindly to keep your little brown nose out of my business. Lord!' She was out of bed and had wrapped herself in a cotton housedress. She took the snapshot out of Alice's hands and put it back on the dresser. Then, with the key that had been pinned to her nightgown, she unlocked the door, and she and Alice went downstairs for a breakfast of fried mush, Alice having learned, as her latest lesson in cooking, how to prepare the mush itself in advance.

It seemed to Alice that she had seldom eaten a breakfast quite so good.

Upstairs there was a great clamour and a clattering, after which a door slammed and Fay came running down the stairs, half undressed, and giggling furiously. Inexplicable vapours

followed in her wake. The door slammed again and Clara, in her nightgown, came to the head of the stairs where she screamed terrible things at Fay who had by now locked herself into the downstairs bathroom.

'God damn it, Fay, who told you you could use my cologne? Birdbrain! Idiot! Moron!' And other epithets too, more terrible but less strictly relevant.

'What's the .matter, Clara?' Bessy asked lazily, putting away the last dry dish into the cupboard and coming into the living-room.

'What's the matter! That idiot Fay spilled a whole bottle of my cologne, that's what's the matter! And woke me up when I've had about two hours of sleep, that's what's the matter! I can't keep a-thing around here, without that-----idiot breaking it in-pieces, that's what's the matter!'

'Tell you what, Clara—we'll get you a new bottle of that expensive cologne right the next time we're down by Woolworth's. And for the time being, you better get yourself a long hot bath, and Fay too, 'cause the two of you don't exactly smell kissin'-sweet, if you know what I mean.'

Clara tried to make her receding chin jut forward aggressively but only managed to convey what she might have looked like without this defect. 'I've had just about enough out of you, Bessy McKay! You and your crazy kidnapping schemes. If I didn't know that...

'Hush up about what you don't know, girl,' Bessy said, no longer lazily, 'Little pitchers got big ears.'

Clara's scrawny fist clenched about the cracked cologne bottle. For a moment Alice thought she would throw it at Bessy. Instead she stormed back to her bedroom.

Bessy settled down for a long day's rock (she could sit hours in that rocking chair, not doing a thing except rocking and humming), and Alice wandered over to the picture window to regard the weedy lawns and empty lots of North Tidewater Road. She imagined, rather listlessly, herself as a prisoner in a prison camp, where a beastly German officer threatened to torture her without ever quite getting around to it. She had to get back to her own lines with the secret off the German High Command, the secret that would win the war...

'Bessy,' she asked, 'do you want to buy some Spengler's Beer?'

'No thank you, child.' 

A beer truck had stopped right in front of Green Pastures,

and a brawny, black-haired young man in a uniform with SPENGLER'S BEER embroidered on it in red was coming up the walk to the house. He stopped in his tracks and looked directly at Alice standing in the window.

'Because,' she went on, 'there's a man coming up to the house who's selling Splengler's Beer.'

'At this hour?' Bessy rocked forward, tilted herself to her feet, and joined Alice at the window. The Splengler's Beer man ground out the butt of a cigarette on Bessy's front steps, then came forward to knock on the door.

'You remember what you promised me, Dinah?'

'I'll go in the kitchen,' Alice promised meekly.

'It's too late for that now, he's seen you. Just put on your sunglasses and sit on the couch and no matter what happens you don't say a word. Just do whatever I say. Promise?'

'I promise.'

'If you don't, you may get me in a pile of trouble. You wouldn't want to do that, now would you? Aren't we good friends?'

Alice nodded. And it was true: she had come to like Bessy. Bessy might have, if she'd had a mind to, keep her asleep all the time with pills, but instead she'd been nice. She'd even been teaching her to cook.

Besides, a promise is a promise.

The man banged on the door impatiently: Bessy went into the foyer, where she was out of sight from the couch, and unlocked the door. 'The girls is both asleep, and you should know better 'n to come knocking at this hour. Come back around six o'clock—even that's early—and ..

'You're Mrs. Elizabeth McKay?' the man asked, in the mumbly, uneducated accent of a poor white, an accent more offensive to Alice's ears that Bessy's own.

'That's who I is, but it ain't more than five minutes after eleven, and...'

'My name is Owen Gann,' he said. Then he said, 'Mumble, mumble, my credentials. Mumble, mumble, questions I'd like to mumble—inside, if I may.'

'Sure 'nough,' Bessy said, following him into the living-room. Her tone and manner had changed. Her shoulders were hunched up and she was bent forward at the waist, an attitude that made her look inches shorter. Beside the tall white man she seemed scarcely adult. Her face wore a wide, toothy grin, which was dismaying in its fixity and not like Bessy at all, not at all. The place ain't none too clean,' she complained in a whining tone. 'I try to make it look nice, the Lord knows, but what with one thing and another, one thing and another She ended with a sigh and a rolling of her eyes.

The man looked at Alice, incuriously, and looked away.

'Dinah honey, you run out to the kitchen and have yo'self a glass of milk, This gennulman and me's got a little business to discuss.'

As Alice was walking reluctantly into the kitchen, Bessy added: 'Dinah there is my sister's child. She only staying with me until Fanny can find herself a job.'

Before letting the door swing closed behind her, Alice took a last look at the Spengler's Beer man (who was, she was fairly sure, a policeman in disguise), but his attention was already directed back to Bessy.

After dutifully pouring out a glass of milk and taking one sip, Alice crept back to the door and pushed it open a crack, just enough to peek through. All she could see was the man's broad, muscly backside, and behind him the broader mass of Bessy. They spoke almost in whispers, and Alice could hear only a word now and then. One of those words was Dorman.

'Who's that, Captain?' Bessy said.

'You heard me—Harry Dorman.'

'Oh yes, Harry—bless his heart, I thought he was still in jail. If you find him I hope you remind him he owes me five hundred dollars. I just about done give up on seeing that money again. Been a long time.'

The man said something else, inaudibly, raising his voice at the end, as though in question.

'Why, Colonel, you know I wouldn't try to fool you! Why, if it wasn't for the police and the likes of you, I couldn't make a living. Bless you, Captain!'

Was he, Alice wondered, a captain or a colonel? Or neither perhaps, for Bessy seemed to be using both titles very freely. And why had she said: 'The police and the likes of you'? What was he, if not a policeman?

The man shifted his weight so that Bessy's face came into view, and Alice let the door close. The wood was as scarred with carving as a desk in a public school. There were names of people, and all the dirty words there are, and initials inside hearts. It seemed an awkward place to carve, since the door could swing freely in both directions and would have backed away under the pressure of a knifeblade unless held in place.

'Who?' Bessy said.

'Raleigh,' the man repeated impatiently.

Then he is looking for me, Alice assured herself. If only there were some way she could let him know she were here without breaking her promise to Bessy!

'Raleigh?' Bessy said, shaking her head. 'Wilbur Raleigh?'

'Don't play dumb, lady. We've got it in the files.'

'I don't doubt you do, Captain. But there's just so many of them, and of course it's not always the same ones. Especially college boys. Soon's they graduate, most of 'em, they stop coming round to Green Pastures. Course I do remember that night you mention—Lord, I can't never forget that\—but not no Raleigh. You're talking about fifteen years ago.'

Alice hadn't quite followed the drift of this, but she had been amused to think that in a strictly grammatical sense Bessy might have been telling the truth, because to remember 'not no Raleigh' was a double negative and meant that she did in fact remember Raleigh.

'But what,' Dinah asked, 'did she mean by "fifteen years ago"?'

'You again!' Alice said angrily. 'It ain't nobody else!' Dinah declared. 'I won't talk to you!' Alice warned.

But Dinah, knowing better, lifted a coy finger and traced along the time-darkened crevices of the largest initials gouged into the door: D.B. Then, beneath that, by the same hand but smaller: K.K.K. 'What do you suppose D.B. stands for?' she asked of Alice. 'Dumbell Buckler, maybe?

'I told you never to mention. ..'

'And K.K.K. Would that be Kernel Karmel Korn? Or Karen at Kilkenny?'

Alice laughed and, doing so, surrendered to the black girl's charm.'What about Krazy Kat Komics?'

'What about Ku Klux Klan?' the black girl suggested, not quite charmingly.

Apparently the policeman, if he was a policeman, was going to search the whole house, for he had gone down the downstairs hallway looking into all the bedrooms. There was a little shriek and much splashing about when he looked into the bathroom, where Fay was giving herself and her baby a bath in the long tub.

As he was going up the stairs, Alice heard him say, 'Mumble, mumble, member of Kappa Kappa Kappa. Still doesn't ring any bells?'

'Sorry, Captain,' Bessy said.

'Captain!' Dinah said scornfully. 'Kaptain Korny Krudd.' Alice had no reply to make to this. She seemed to grow more retiring in proportion to Dinah's outspokenness. That had always been the way with them.

Upstairs Clara put up a big fuss before she let the policeman look into the bathroom. When he came downstairs again, Bessy was saying to him: 'I bet you think this is just the bathingest, perfumiest house that ever was!' And she began telling him the story of Clara's broken cologne bottle.

The Spengler's Beer man came into the kitchen. By that time Dinah was already sitting at the formica-topped table, sipping her milk, a perfect lamb. He looked about the room with wan interest, only going through the motions of a search. He opened the cupboard doors.

'Always keep your books here?' he asked.

Bessy laughed, and even her laughter seemed to be altered for his benefit and implied that she only laughed by his gracious permission. 'Not always, Captain. I just moved 'em out here yesterday on account of little Dinah here coming for a visit. Don't want her reading 'bout no feminine anatomy, do we?'

The man laughed good-naturedly and took a book down. He read the title aloud: 'School for Sinners! He set it down on top of the copy of Just-So Stories that was lying face up on the kitchen counter.

He left the kitchen, and a moment later she could hear Bessy letting him out through the front door. From under her cheap sunglasses tears were streaming down her brown cheeks, and though she stared at the swinging door she could no longer see the initials carved there. When she heard the motor of the truck starting up, she tore off the detested sunglasses and, cradling her head in her arms, she began uncontrollably to cry.

'There, there,' said Bessy. 'There, there, there! That's all right, honey. That's all right. You're a good little actress, and I'm proud of you. You saved my life, and don't think I ain't grateful.'

'That's a double negative,' Alice wailed disconsolately. 

'It sure enough was, honey, and I was scared every minute, believe me.'

The phone rang.

'You gonna be all right now?' Bessy asked, stroking her curls. Alice nodded yes.

Bessy went to the phone, which was on a wall in the living-room. 'Hello,' she said, mildly enough, and then, with a quick flare of anger: 'You goddam stupid sonofabitch, what are you calling up here for?' There was a pause, after which she spoke more softly. Though she strained to listen, Alice could only catch her last words—'Are you drunk?'

She tiptoed to stand behind the swinging door again.

Bessy said, 'If you and Harry is having difficulties, you just leave me out of them. I ain't taking sides, understand? He don't take me into his confidence no more than you do, and I likes it that way. I'm just the baby-sitter—that's all I am.'

'She is undoubtedly,' Dinah noted, 'talking to one of your kidnappers. And not to Harry Dorman.'

Bessy said, 'Donald Bogan? What you expect me to know about him ...? Well, I don't love him either, honey, and you of all people should know that ... I don't see what difference it makes today, but I've got an idea he's dead... About two years ago, but I can't remember who told me. Maybe I read it in the papers. Where you calling me from anyhow?'

There was a long pause, during which Alice could just barely hear the mouse-squeaks of Bessy's caller issuing from the receiver.

Donald Bogan, Alices thought. Donald Bogan—where had she heard that name before? That she had heard it somewhere, sometime, she was certain. If she could but recall the tone of voice in which she had first heard that name pronounced: her uncle's tinder-dry wisp of a voice? Or Miss Godwin's silken-smooth contralto? No, it was more a sort of ... whining voice.'

If I'd married Donald Bogan, when I had the chance ... Her mother? Her own mother?

Bessy said, 'Don't hand me that! You're a damn fool, calling up this number. The F.B.I, was just here, and they was asking about you! Yes, they was ... and they looked right at little Goldilocks here three, four times. Funny? I thought I'd die. But what if they got somebody listening in on this phone? If they got suspicions enough to come calling ...' A long pause; then, 'It was about that night back in 'fifty. I told him one fraternity boy is just the same as another... He never mentioned the kidnapping, but I don't think...'

Dinah whispered: 'I know who it is on the phone.' 

Alice said, 'No.' She backed away from the door. She went to the table and stared at the half-full glass of milk. 

'Oh yes,' Dinah insisted. 'Oh yes.'

Reluctantly Alice lifted her eyes to the initials carved on the door.

'What do you suppose D.B. stands for?' Dinah insisted. 'Donald Bogan,' Alice admitted. 'And K.K.K.?'

'Ku Klux Klan?' Alice ventured weakly. Dinah deigned no reply to that, but continued her interrogation. 'And who do you suppose is R.R.?' 'No,' said Alice.

The Spengler Beer man said Raleigh, but Bessy said he didn't mention the kidnapping. He didn't mention you. He mentioned another Raleigh therefore, one that was here fifteen years ago.'

'Maybe the other kidnapper is Donald Bogan?' Alice said, shooting wild.

'Not if he's dead. Didn't you hear her say he was dead?' 'She said she didn't know for certain.'

'I know for certain.' 

'No. No. No.'

'Your father was in Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity. He still has the tie pin from those days with the three letters on it. K.K.K.'

'I won't ever talk to you again,' Alice warned. 'Ever, ever.' 

'I didn't say anything,' said Dinah. 'I didn't name his name. And I won't.'

'But it can't be anybody else, can it?'

'No,' said Dinah sadly.

'It has to be my father.'

'Yes,' Dinah agreed,'... Roderick Raleigh.'