Flight

For my daughter
Jane

I

The long train rumbled and swayed, whistle blowing intermittently, screeching discordantly, past smoky factory and office buildings, through rows of one-storied, two- or three-room cottages, outside which on hard packed clay earth played here towheaded white children or there black or brown or yellow ones. It plunged suddenly into cavernous darkness under a bridge, thick acrid smoke pouring into the open windows of the wooden coaches.

“Union Station—Atlanty. All out for Atlanty,” bawled a grinning Negro porter as the train rolled into a long, dingy shed with low-hung roof. Eager, laughing Negroes matched boxes and bundles of varied shapes from the racks over the seats or pulled mates to them from under the seats. Mimi awoke with a start as Jean shook her gently.

“We’re there, petite Mimi,” he told her. Through the throng, peering vainly through the murky air, redolent of stale banana and orange skins and of bodies in need of washing, she made her way to remove the worst of the soot and grime from her face.

“My father’ll be here to meet us,” Mary told Jean.

Though he disliked Mr. Robertson intensely Jean was happy to receive the news. He felt bewildered, lost, a malady bordering on nausea at the hubbub around him. Methodically he obeyed his wife’s commands to gather their bags and parcels. Then with Mimi, refreshed, alert, her weariness dropped from her as she would have discarded a cape, they made their way out of the coach in the van of the surging throng.

Incisive Mr. Robertson kissed Mary and Mimi brusquely, shook hands with Jean and hustled them through the waiting room labeled “For Coloured” to the sidewalk where a horse-drawn surrey was waiting.

“No—No,” shouted Mr. Robertson as the driver started down the street. “Go around by Pryor Street and from there down Auburn Avenue.” To the Daquins he explained: “If he’d gone that way he’d have carried you through Decatur and Ivy Streets—that’s the slum district—saloons and houses—” He paused significantly, looking at Mimi. “Pretty bad,” he added. “Lowest kind of Negroes.”

But Mimi did not hear him nor even the newsboy who ran alongside the cab shouting: “Extry! All about the Japs licking the Rooshians! All about th’ big battle!” Because it was terra incognita to her she tried to see everything as eagerly as she had watched the land from the car window in the long ride from New Orleans. Spring was in the air. The cab, to the accompaniment of various cluckings, “gid-daps,” “go-long-theres” of the ancient driver, joggled and bounced over the Belgian block pavement. Mimi sniffed the air eagerly, anticipatorily.

The carriage rumbled and jerked through the ghostly confines of shut business houses, turned into Auburn Avenue lined with blowzy boarding houses, their porches lined with men and women, a loud, staccato, mirthless laugh occasionally floating on the breeze. Soon the scene changed. Black and brown and yellow faces replaced the white, the laughs became more frequent, more rich, more spontaneous. The April evening seemed more filled with the sheer joy of living. To Mimi the sudden change was pleasant, warming, inviting. Jean, sunk dejectedly in the seat beside the driver so that only the top of his black, crumpled felt hat showed above the high seat, was too engrossed in delightfully painful nostalgia for his New Orleans to notice anything. Mary and her father were eagerly discussing the change in the lives of the Daquins, which to them both seemed so altogether admirable and desirable there was no questioning of its wisdom.

“Got to rush right back to Chicago Thursday—election this fall and two or three important deals—had to see you get started off right—” floated in Mr. Robertson’s crisp tones to Jean.

“You were a darling to come all the way to Atlanta,” gushed Mary.

“Nothing at all—nothing at all,” declared her father. He pronounced it “nothing a-tall.”

“Wanted to see you get introduced in the right circles, too. Gene thinks his Creole crowd’s stuck-up and exclusive—these Atlanta Negroes’ll show him a trick or two for fair. Got to get in right—or you’ll never get in.”

Jean, who squirmed every time Mr. Robertson familiarly called him “Gene,” found his old hostility to Mr. Robertson, his voice, his ideas, his coarseness, rising higher than ever before. His gratitude to him in the train began to vanish. He wished fervently his father-in-law had remained in Chicago. He hated his high-handed method of interfering in his and Mary’s and Mimi’s most private affairs.

Money—money—money—how much is it worth?—how much can I make out of it?—these were the first, last and intermediate stages of Mr. Robertson’s every thought, every statement, every action. I’ll go through with it, thought Jean, but I’ll never let my soul be turned into a moneygrubber’s. The resolution, even though he knew it couldn’t possibly be carried out completely in this new world he was entering, nevertheless gave Jean some comfort. …

Mrs. Plummer waddled down the hall, pushed open the screen door, and slapped with the corner of her gingham apron at the insects which buzzed inside. “These nasty bugs’ll be the death of me yet,” she complained to her companion, Mrs. Sophronisba King, lean, acidulous, suspicious of all humans and their motives save her own. Mrs. King was as curveless as a young sapling as she went around the room giving quick little jabs at the furniture with an oiled cloth, pursuing relentlessly bits of dust which had settled upon the chairs and table and mantelpiece since late afternoon.

“Heard the news about that Lizzie Stone?” she asked Mrs. Plummer. “You ain’t?” she demanded incredulously when Mrs. Plummer shamefacedly admitted she had not. The possession of a juicy morsel which had not yet come to her friend’s ears caused Mrs. King’s skinny frame to swell with prideful importance. “Why, honey, it’s all over town!”

“She always seemed to me such a nice, Christian girl—so quiet and respectable—”

“Mis’ Plummer, them’s the very ones who’ll fool you nine times out of ten—they go to church and they’s sweet as pie in the daytime—but slipping and sliding into all sorts of devilment.”

Mrs. Plummer’s ears seemed to stretch out from her head in her eagerness to learn the derelictions of Lizzie Stone. “Tell me what she’s done. You know my heart’s bad and the doctor told me I couldn’t stand much excitement,” she pleaded.

“You know Jerry Reed—he’s head of the Royal United Order of Heavenly Reapers?”

“ ’Cose I do—ain’t I a member of the Ladies Auxil’ry?”

“You know, Mis’ Plummer, I ain’t one of these no-count women who runs around town meddlin’ in other folks’s business—I stays at home and tends to my own bus’ness.”

“ ’Cose you don’t, Mis’ King—ev’rybody knows you don’t gossip. But what’s Lizzie and Jerry Reed been doing?”

“I’ll tell you, Mis’ Plummer, though I ain’t vouching for the truth of it ’cause I wasn’t there to see it with my own eyes—but they tell me they saw Lizzie getting in Jerry Reed’s automobile down on Auburn Avenue late last Tuesday night—and he had all the curtains up.”

“You don’t say! A body’d think she’d have mo’ sense than to do her dirt so bold like! I always heard that Jerry Reed wouldn’t have a girl work for him unless he could get fresh with her. The nerve of her—she was at church last Sunday, struttin’ round just as brazen as any fancy woman!”

“Lord, Mis’ Plummer, I don’t know what’s gettin’ into these coloured folks—they gettin’ mo’ like white folks ev’ry day. Comes from workin’ in white folks’ houses and in these here hotels—seein’ all their dirt and thinkin’ they got to do the same things white folks does.”

“That’s the God’s truth! And say, Mis’ King, did you know these new folks is Cath’lics? Well, they is—their name’s ‘Day-Quinn’ or ‘Day-kin’ or something Frenchy like that. He’s goin’ to work down to the Lincoln Mutual Life Insurance Company—that’s the company got them swell offices down Auburn Avenue.”

“Cath’lics, is they? Any time I hear tell of coloured folks bein’ anything ’cept Baptists or Methodists I know some white man’s been tamperin’ with their religion. That’s what Booker T. said once and he sho’ did know what he was talkin’ ’bout.”

“That’s the God’s truth! Wonder where these folks goin’ to church? They tell me down in N’Awleens where there’s so many furriners most anybody can go where they please long’s they ain’t black. But they better not try it in Georgia.”

“Is you got a picture, Mis’ Plummer, of any coloured folks no matter what kinda religion they got stickin’ their heads in that ‘Sacred Heart’ church out Peachtree Street? White folks talk about Jesus but the only Jesus they thinkin’ ’bout’s got a white skin. An’ the only heaven they want’s one got a sign on it ten foot high, ‘No Niggers Allowed in Here.’ ”

“Lord, Mis’ King, there they come. An’ me settin’ here talkin’. I bet them ’taters done boiled to death!”

Mrs. Plummer rocked briskly in the chair wherein she had rested her weary frame. The needed momentum gained, she heaved her bulky person to her feet and disappeared in the general direction of the kitchen as through the open door Mr. Robertson’s hearty voice came: “Well, folks, here we are!” …

Mimi and Jean and Mary climbed down from the surrey and entered the house. Mrs. Plummer, her potatoes looked after with incredible speed considering her size, greeted them as though she were welcoming them into her own home.

“Come right in! Come right in! I know you must be as tired as all-out-doors. My name’s Mrs. Plummer—I live right down the street and Mr. Robertson got me to sorter fix things up—” she poured forth.

“Mrs. King! Mrs. King!” she called. Mrs. King hastened from the kitchen, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand as she came, scanning the arrivals from head to foot in one swift, critical—very critical—glance.

“This is Mrs. King,” introduced Mrs. Plummer grandly. “She was nice enough to help too.”

Mrs. King nodded in rapid succession to the three, adding one for Mr. Robertson though she had seen him only an hour before. He had employed only Mrs. Plummer to clean up the house and arrange everything but it had not been a difficult matter to persuade Mrs. King to assist—it gave both women ample opportunity to examine at their leisure each piece of furniture and to speculate on its probable cost.

Without taking off her hat, Mme. Daquin (Mrs. Plummer called her Mrs. Day-queen) rushed from room to room of the two-storied house. On the first floor there was a living room, “the parlour,” to the left as one entered the door, back of that the dining-room and then the kitchen. To the right were steps leading to the floor above, behind them a small room to be used instead of the more formal parlour and dining-room which apparently were opened only when company came. Above stairs were two fairly large bedrooms above the parlour and dining-room, while a small bathroom, its woodwork painted a yellowish white, and a third and smaller bedroom opened on the other side of the narrow hall.

“This big front room will be mine,” decided Mme. Daquin, half to Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King, who had accompanied her on the tour of discovery and appraisement, and half to herself, “Jean will sleep in the next room, while Mimi gets the little room off the hall.”

“That po’ little skinny man downstairs with the funny moustache don’t seem to have much to say in this house,” whispered Mis’ King to her companion as they followed Mme. Daquin. “ ’Tain’t hard to see who wears the pants in this family.”

Like beagles they followed every word, every expression. Their scanty store of information about the newcomers would be sufficient, when amplified during their mutual discussions on the morrow, as foundation of the extensive tales they would bear to eager ears in the neighbourhood.

Downstairs Mimi sat in the parlour, wearied, but interested in sizing up her new home. She was perched in a huge chair, of brilliantly polished oak, the seat and back of plum-coloured damask. The chandelier was of intricately twisted bands of metal painted a dull gold which formed weird and awesome designs on the ceiling in the reflections from the flickering gas lights. Underneath it there sat an oak table with elaborately, fantastically carved legs, covered with a faded tapestry centrepiece. On it rested a fat family album of red plush, a diamond-shaped mirror in the centre. Near it rested an odd-shaped instrument that Mimi longed to examine but which she contemplated from afar for fear of incurring a frown from Mr. Robertson, who was advising or, rather, ordering Jean regarding the steps he must take to “get on” in his new position. The object was of dark polished wood, a long rod serving as a sort of backbone. At the end was a glass partly enclosed with a little wooden fence, on the rod below was a handle. At the other end was a slotted rack. Near this odd object rested a pile of cards. Gently raising herself by her elbows pressed against the arms of the chair, Mimi could see a brightly coloured picture of a mountain scene on the topmost card. She made a mental resolution to explore this mystery at the earliest possible time.

“… And tomorrow morning right after breakfast you’ll go with me to the office, Gene, where I’ll introduce you to Hunter—he’s the president of the Lincoln—Watkins, Jones and the rest of the crowd. They’re a live bunch—that is, live for this town but pretty small potatoes up in Chicago, and they’ve got a gold mine insuring all the coloured folks here in the South. I want you to stick to the job—no monkey business or I’m through, you hear me?—and you’ll make so much money you’ll wonder how you ever managed to stick in that dead old hole of New Orleans.”

Mr. Robertson’s words came to Mimi sharply as his voice rose. He took a fat cigar from his pocket, bit the end from it and tossed the severed bit through the open window. She disliked this bossy old man intensely. She looked at Jean, wondering that he so calmly submitted to the dictatorial attitude of the man who, though his father-in-law, was not many years his senior. But Jean heard his words only vaguely, if he heard them at all. He sat beside his wife’s father on the couch that matched the chair on which Mimi perched and gazed through the window, the thin white curtains opening and closing as a faint breeze stirred them. Somewhere outside, a voice, throaty but rich, plaintively sang of his woes and his “blues”:

“I’m jes’ as misabul as I can be,
I’m unhappy even if I am free,
I’m feelin’ down, I’m feelin’ blue;
I wander round, don’t know what to do.
I’m go’na lay mah haid on de railroad line,
Let de B. & O. come and pacify mah min’.”

The voice died away in the distance but the poignant, nostalgic longing of the unseen singer remained. Jean and Mimi, used to the Creole dilution of the Negro songs, sat straining their ears to catch every note of this barbaric, melancholy wail as it died in the distance, a strange thrill filling them. The swiftly moving tragedy of the song, dying off abruptly as though the singer was too full for further words, stirred them both to the exclusion of all else. Again a voice was heard, this time a woman’s:

“These men I love, honey,
Sho’ do make me tiahed,
These men I love, honey,
Sho’ do make me tiahed.
They got a han’fulla gimme
An’ a mouth fulla much oblige.”

A loud laugh greeted the end of her song.

“Hey dere, Babe, what’cha doin’?” called the first voice, and in response to the reply: “Nothin’ much. Come on in!” the two voices mingled in indistinct words, punctuated frequently with laughter, gay, rich and in unison.

“Gene, are you listening to what I’m telling you?” snapped Mr. Robertson, and Jean came back to realities with a start.

“Certainly! Certainly!” Jean hastened to assure him.

Mr. Robertson eyed him suspiciously and then, as the look of apparent interest on Jean’s face seemed to satisfy him, he continued his instructions. No sooner had he begun again, however, before Jean’s mind began to wander once more. He hoped fervently the singers would again begin but the warm night wrapped them in its vast silence.

Mimi welcomed her stepmother, who came briskly down the stairs followed at a respectful distance by her two companions.

“Everything’s just lovely and I don’t know really how to thank you, papa,” she bubbled. “Mimi, you’d better run upstairs and get your face and hands washed. Mrs. Plummer tells me she’s fixed supper for us and we don’t want it to get cold. Jean, you and papa’d better do the same thing and don’t take all night getting back.”

Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander never spoke to common soldiers more brusquely nor with greater assurance that their commands would be obeyed. Nor did it occur to Mimi or Jean to protest—both were too much under the domination of this person who would never be familiar to either of them.