Читать книгу The Living is Easy - Dorothy West - Страница 12

CHAPTER 6

BART JUDSON stared over the shimmering sea, his eyes screwed up against the sun and his sixth sense straining for some inner awareness of the merchant ship Lucy Evelyn sailing up from Jamaica under the English flag. Incoming craft bent their bows toward the busy harbor, their whistles blasting holes in the morning. Sea gulls dipped and screamed and soared. In their upward flight toward the sun, their breasts had the beauty of alabaster. Sparows twittered in the eaves of the wharves, and pigeons searched the gutters. Greek stevedores, with curls and classic faces, descended like dirty gods into the holds of ships at anchor. Jobbers darted about, shouting directions to shore workers. Over all was the ceaseless rumble of wagon wheels on the cobbled streets of the Boston Market.

Bart stood alone, responding absently to the hurried genial greetings of the market men, whose places of business, along with his, formed the sprawling city of warehouses, wholesale stores, and retail stalls that made up the old historic market, which was the terminal point for the produce that came by sea and rail to feed the city and her neighbors north to Canada.

All of Bart’s living had led to this place, and even this hour when he watched for a sea-scarred ship from Jamaica, bringing a cargo of bananas, of which his consignment was more than a thousand bunches. The fancy gold lettering over his store read: Bartholomew Judson, Foreign and Domestic Choice Fruits and Vegetables, Bananas a Specialty. There was no other man in the market who knew better than Bart how to ripen the delicate and perishable banana. From the great hooks in his ripening rooms hung the heavy fruit winter and summer. Always there was the ripening smell. Always it hung about Bart. His weekly bath could not wash away the odor of tropic fruit.

He had seen his first banana when he was ten, somewhere along the middle seventies, and nine years after Mary, his mother, had snatched him from his crib, and tossed him in the air, and laughed, and cried, and told him he was free.

He took his first step out of bondage that night, and walked without faltering straight to the shining object his mother held out to him. It was a piece of silver money that she had found the year before. She closed his tiny fist over it, and counseled him to treasure it, for money was the measure of independence.

His year-old mind had not grasped that, but his mother dinned it into him over the period of his formative years until it was part of everything he thought. Mary knew what she wanted for herself and for him. She had no recollection of her own parents, and her man had been sold away from her. She was determined that she and her son would be the forerunners of a solid family.

She packed her few belongings in a bandana, put her heavy baby on her hip, and walked off the ruined plantation into Richmond. She knew where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. She went to the Widow Mears, who had sometimes hired slaves from the Judson plantation and who was known to be a just mistress. Widow Mears kept a rooming house for drummers and farmers in town for a brief stay. Mary had been a field hand all her life, but she talked herself up as the finest cook on the Judson plantation, and Widow Mears was persuaded to advertise meals.

Mary fixed up the back shed and moved into it. Then she got a cigar box and cut a slit in it. She ripped the stitches in Bart’s pinafore pocket, where she had sewed the silver piece for safety. She placed it in his hand again and urged him to drop it down the hole. He yelled and resisted. She tugged at his tightened fist and pried it open. The coin fell through with a plunking sound that caught Bart’s ear. He picked up the box, shook it carefully, heard the roll and rattle of his savings, swallowed his sobs, and grinned.

Every penny Mary made went into that box. As soon as her son was five years old and smart and strong enough to do a few chores, Mary got Widow Mears to put him to work shining shoes, filling pitchers, emptying slops. Each morning he followed her to the open market with a basket on his arm for rush things. Watching the dealers polish and praise, and Widow Mears pick and choose and warily watch the scales, Bart learned the elementary lessons of trade.

As he grew older, there formed in his mind his dream of buying and selling. He began to live close, denying himself the peppermint sticks and candy apples that his sweet tooth hankered for, in order to swell the cigar box. When he was grown enough, he was going into business, and he would need capital.

When he was eight, he put himself in school, not because he had any interest in formal education, but because he wanted to learn how to figure, and to write with a flourish, so that men would see he had schooling and would know in advance that he wasn’t a poor ignorant darky who would take a dime for a dollar.

When he was ten, he knew exactly the line his life should follow. He borrowed a word from the Bible — beget. He liked the sound of the saying, money begets money. He and Mary counted their savings and rented an eating house in the center of town. Bart did the buying, and doubled as barker, shouting the specials of the day through the business section and taking orders drawled at doorways and windows. At the noon hour he trotted up and down office stairs in a long, immaculate apron that missed tripping him by a miracle.

He saw his first banana on a cluttered desk in Lawyer Smith’s seedy office. He set down his tray and bugged his eyes. Lawyer Smith and his visitor, a sea captain, watched him indulgently. The captain’s ship had touched the Bay Islands, off Honduras, and he had come away with two magnificent stems of the strange, exotic fruit as souvenirs for his friends. Half of them had ripened and rotted on the long sail to New Orleans. The rest the captain had separated into hands, and one now lay on the desk of his old friend Smith, a dozen luminous yellow fingers, faintly tinged with green and slowly beginning to speckle.

“Excuse me, Massa Smith, Cap’n, suh, what all is that?” Bart asked, bowing and scraping, and feeling no shame at abasing himself, since the quest was knowledge of what might be a marketable edible.

“Bananas, boy,” said the captain expansively. His own acquaintance with the fruit being recent, he had the initiate’s irrepressible desire to pass on information lately come by as if it were old knowledge.

“You eats it, Cap’n, suh?” Bart asked ingenuously. “I never see such on any stall.”

“You know where Honduras is, boy?” asked the captain, casting an amused look at Lawyer Smith.

“Nawsuh, Cap’n, suh.”

“It’s a heap of miles and a heap of ocean away. Bananas grow there on trees. And the trees grow in the jungles. And nigger natives climb them trees like monkeys.”

“You reckon,” Lawyer Smith interposed, his palate still relishing the rich fruit, “there’s money in bananas?”

“Hear tell of a Cap’n Baker, Boston way,” said the captain sententiously, “is starting to bring ’em in regular from Jamaica. Began about six or seven years ago. He was master of a schooner then, eighty-five tons or so. Used to fish winters, carry freight summers. Started making port at Jamaica and bringing bananas back to Boston.

“Wasn’t much steady demand for ’em. Trip took sixteen, seventeen days. Most of his cargo rotted on the way, and not many folks got to sample ’em. But this here Baker sees a future in bananas. Built himself a bigger ship more cargo space, more speed.

“Latest thing is he’s got some kind of setup in Jamaica and is loading other vessels along with his own to bring bananas back to Boston. Commission house sells ’em through a man name of Preston. Him and Baker are talking about forming some kind of consolidation to make bananas a year-round trade, ’stead of splitting it up with fish in winter.”

“They’d better stick to fishing,” said Lawyer Smith judiciously. “Everybody eats fish, and I don’t know another soul in this town but me a minute ago who ever put his teeth in a banana.”

Bart let his eyes roll around in his head. His tongue darted out and made a persuasive circle of his lips. “Please, Massa Smith, and Cap’n, suh, I sure would like to be the onliest black boy in this town to taste one.”

“Well, here you are,” said Lawyer Smith largely, stripping a finger from the cupped hand and tossing it across his desk.

Bart caught it deftly. “Thank you kindly, Massa.”

“Now be off with you,” said Lawyer Smith, removing the snowy napkin and beginning to uncover the savory dishes.

“Yes, suh!” said Bart, and scooted out, his humility falling away from him as he clattered down the stairs.

He saved his banana all day. When the last late diner had been fed, he walked two miles to the one-room cabin of Mr. Alonzo White, a black man of good education, who had been schooled with his delicate young master to satisfy the white lad’s whim. The lesson was geography at Bart’s request that he might trace the course from Boston to Jamaica and from Richmond to Boston. The lesson concluded, Bart paid the twenty-five cents that was Mr. White’s fee for an hour’s education, and walked slowly home, his mind afire with dreams.

He looked up at the stars. He believed that he had been born under one of the lucky ones, and that everything he touched would turn to money. In the darkness he walked with his head held back and feet slapping proudly on the dirt road. Some day he was going North to Boston. It was a long way from the South. White folks there weren’t apt to know too much about how black folks were used to being treated. Folks up North fought to make the South free. Stood to reason then that they wouldn’t want to treat any man anywhere as if he were a humble dog. In the North they respected money, whether it was white or black. You could look a man level in the eye and keep your hat on your head if you had as much cash on the line as he did.

When Bart reached home, he got his banana out of the kitchen safe and carried it to the table, where Mary sat rocking and resting and humming a paean to Jesus. Carefully he peeled the fruit, watching the petals fall away, revealing the delicate filament of their undersides. Mary bent forward to stare at the slender, golden-white spear. It was small and uncultivated, but firm-fleshed, and its heavy exotic odor struck some dormant stream of atavistic longing for the breast of jungle earth.

“Take a big bite, Mam,” Bart said generously, and held the fruit to her dreaming mouth.

She bit into it and chomped with delight. Bart’s square white teeth cut out a cylinder, and the taste ran down his throat like milk and melted butter and honey.

“Mam,” he said reverently, “I reckon this tastes like manna mus’ taste in heaven.”

All night he dreamed on his narrow bed of bananas and Boston and ships setting sail from Jamaica.

Now, staring out across Boston Harbor, he was troubled by his dream of the night before. He had dreamed that the Lucy Evelyn had foundered, and her cargo of thirty thousand stems had washed out of the hold and plunged heavily to the bottom of the sea. He had waked in a cold sweat, with the cries of drowning men in his ears, and his eyes still seeing the helpless ship and her sunken cargo.

He believed in his dreams. To him they were visions, and were the Lord’s way of making revelations. Still, the Lucy Evelyn was a stout ship, as were all the big banana boats that plied between the West Indies and Boston and Central America and New York and New Orleans under the charter of the Consolidated Fruit Company, bringing a prize crop of highly cultivated fruit from the banana plantations of the leveled jungles to the tables of North America all the seasons of the year.

The weather this morning was sunny and clear. There had been no reports of a storm sweeping up the Atlantic to force the Lucy Evelyn off her course. Her run was seven days or eight, and this was the morning of the eighth day. She had until sundown to keep within running time.

But on his way to the dock, Bart had detoured to the office of the Consolidated Fruit Company. He had barged in on their busy representatives, who had assured him that they had had no unfavorable word from the Lucy Evelyn, who would make port sometime that day as she had been doing, fair weather or foul, for ten years. Bart had not been reassured. The premonition was too strong in him. God was too surely signifying.

He believed in God. He believed in himself and he believed in God. There was constant communion between them, and he never doubted for a moment that God spent a lot of His time looking out for his interests. His conversion had come when he was seventeen, and his faith had deepened with the years of his prosperity. He rarely went to the South End church of his faith because Cleo would never go with him. The congregation was largely composed of transplanted Southerners, hard-working simple worshipers, who broadly hinted, to Bart’s embarrassment, that his wife considered herself too good for them. He was a shouting Baptist, and Cleo thoroughly disapproved. She had never felt the spirit, and he supposed she never would. Her Episcopalian friends were persuading her to their wishy-washy way of worship. They really believed you could get to heaven without any shouting.

He remembered how his mother had worried until he wrestled with the Devil. Their blessings had increased beyond her greatest expectations. They owned a home and a horse and buggy. Their restaurant employed five in help. Fried chicken was their specialty, and they catered to supper parties. Mary’s mattress was lined with money. She spent most of her free time on her knees, thanking God for His generosity.

She did not think Bart gave God enough credit. Bart couldn’t see where God figured in. Their success was their own doing. But Mary was afraid that Bart might be tempted by the Devil to throw his money away in riotous living if he did not walk with God by his side. They went to church, and the spirit did not move him. He sat in sinners’ row with the other unsaved souls, and none of the singing and shouting sent him to his knees.

One Sabbath dawn Mary shook him awake. He opened his eyes and stared sleepily at her transfigured face.

“Bart,” she commanded, “kneel and pray.”

He blinked in bewilderment and burrowed deeper into his pillow.

She went on in a breathless singsong, “De Lawd, He come in a vision, and I see His eyes running over with tears of blood, and I hear His voice like a mournful pleading, ‘Mary, Mary, wake your child and teach him to pray.’ ”

He peeped at her over the edge of the sheet. She began to moan, strangely and beautifully. Her small spare body rocked back and forth. Her tears were streaming.

He was frightened and stirred. He reached for her hand. “Mam, Mam, I can’t find Jesus. I search’ in the Bible. He warn’t there! I search’ one night in the lonesome graveyard, and I heard the ha’nts wail. But I couldn’t find Jesus. He warn’t there!”

Mary beat upon her breasts. “Search your heart, my son!”

His face was tortured. It was screwed up in a desperate agony of straining toward God. An icy chill rushed over him.

Mary persisted inexorably: “Can’t you hear de rush of wings? Can’t you hear de los’ lambs bleating on de hills? Can’t you hear de Marster’s voice, ‘Come up higher. Sinner, rise! Come up higher. Sinner rise!’? Ain’t you feel de monstrous light what strike and blind? Ain’t you heart rise up in your mouth, and your conscience stab like a sword? Can’t you see de little Jesus holding out His bleeding hands, and de water and blood gushing out of His side? Rise, my son, rise!”

He was swept out on the tide of her passion. She began again her strange sweet moaning. He found himself swaying. Music surged through him. He flung back the covers and stood erect. His face became radiant.

Mary stared at him, still now and watchful.

The music grew. Suddenly there emanated from his heart a voice of matchless purity singing over and over, “Kind Jesus, kind Jesus, thy servant waits on the Lord.”

He stretched out his hands and groped toward the open window. Mary did not touch him. She would rather have seen him fling himself out than disturb the mysterious ways of God.

In the half-light, with the little bird calling, Bart saw the vision. He saw the heavens split asunder, and God with a crown on His long white hair, and His face too powerful for the eyes of man. God in a chariot with golden wheels and golden spokes that shone like a thousand glittering suns.

And Bart saw the Devil wrestling with a boy, and the boy was Bart. All around them the red flames leaped like horrible licking tongues. The Devil had gained the uppermost hand, for what with the fire and the face of God the boy could not see.

The Lord said, “Satan, let my servant go!” The sound of that voice was a peal of thunder. The Devil clapped his hands to his ringing ears. His proud tail shriveled between his legs. He fell into outermost darkness without a mumbling word.

The boy began to plead toward that blinding light for mercy on his soul. God in His chariot barred the way to the gates of gold. The boy pleaded, “Lord God, have mercy!” But God was stern.

Then the boy saw Jesus standing in the gates with the crown of thorns on His head, the mark of the nails in His bleeding hands and His bleeding feet, and the water and blood in a sad stream down His side. The face of Jesus was the face of a little child. Bart stretched out a humble hand, and Jesus smiled. Jesus spoke in a voice like a rippling brook. Jesus said, “Father, forgive this poor sinner. For him I done suffer and die. Forgive him as I have forgive him. Bid him enter into Thy kingdom.”

God was soothed. God said gently, “Come, my son.” The boy ran along beside that chariot into the kingdom of heaven.

Bart cried out in a loud voice, “Hallelujah! I been redeemed! The Lord is my savior! I been redeemed!”

The great tears sluiced down Mary’s smiling face.

That was the hour that Bart got religion. From that day on, God walked beside him like a natural man.

A mournful wail cut across Bart’s thinking. Who-ee, Who-ee! and the sound was a soul in torment. It was the Lucy Evelyn giving up the ghost and going to meet the mermaids of the sea. For a moment Bart brooded over this poignant fancy, then he struck his fist in the palm of his hand and muttered softly, “Great Scott! I see now, Lord.”

His suppliant attitude changed to furious energy. The Lucy Evelyn had sunk. He had no doubt of that at all now, nor any more time or pity to waste on her. The who-ee, who-ee, was the whistle of a train pulling into South Station. It was also a sign from God.

He streaked through the crowded market. The cobbled streets and narrow sidewalks struck crashing cymbals of fierce activity against his seasoned ear. The rumble of wagon wheels was continuous, and drivers cursed each other as they tried to thread their huge loads and huge horses through the nearly impassable lanes. Pushcart peddlers were everywhere, balancing their beautiful pyramids of showy fruit and making a precarious way out of the market center to the street corners of Boston. Wagoners, bound for the alleyways of suburbs and housewives at kitchen windows, beat against the incoming traffic, and here and there a horse reared in protest.

Curb salesmen shouted their wares, their piled-up produce blocking the sidewalks along with retail buyers inspecting the open crates. Wholesalers stood in their doorways watching the truckers unload their freight. Faneuil Hall was a droning hive in and out of which darted agile jobbers to inform the busy sellers, at their rented stalls, of merchandise en route by train or boat from every corner of the country and the farthest reaches of the earth.

The scent of fruit and vegetables struck the morning freshness from the air and substituted the headiness of summer produce. Color overwhelmed the eye, glowing apples, golden apricots, oranges, lemons, green avocados, cream-yellow cantaloupes, purple plums, buttery pears, prickletop pineapples, wine-red cherries, blush peaches, sweet Georgia melons, dust-brown figs, the dark oblong of dates, and the last of the season’s strawberries.

Out of crates and barrels and bags and boxes poured summer squash, asparagus, broccoli, beets, artichokes, onions, lettuce, peas, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes, corn, string beans, spinach, tomatoes, and limas in the more modest livery of vegetables.

Italian faces, Greek faces, Jewish faces, and Yankee faces swirled past Bart as he ducked a box of apples and slid around a side of beef. He was in frantic search of his broker. He was going to tell Pennywell to wire every jobber in New York and Philadelphia until he got enough favorable answers for two carlots of bananas. There would be a banana shortage in Boston. He believed this with everything in him. He would corner the market and make a killing while his competitors were feverishly canvassing the concerns that had already sent him their limit.