Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [102]
‘God bless you, son. Run on, honey, and don’t get weary!’
‘Lord, I been introduced,
To the Father and the Son,
And I ain’t
No stranger now!’
Yes, as he moved among them, their hands touching, and tears falling, and the music rising—as though he moved down a great hall, full of a splendid company—something began to knock in that listening, astonished, newborn, and fragile heart of his; something recalling the terrors of the night, which were not finished, his heart seemed to say; which, in this company, were now to begin. And, while his heart was speaking, he found himself before his mother. Her face was full of tears, and for a long while they looked at each other, saying nothing. And once again, he tried to read the mystery of that face—which, as it had never before been so bright and pained with love, had never seemed before so far from him, so wholly in communion with a life beyond his life. He wanted to comfort her, but the night had given him no language, no second sight, no power to see into the heart of any other. He knew only—and now, looking at his mother, he knew that he could never tell it—that the heart was a fearful place. She kissed him, and she said: ‘I’m mighty proud, Johnny. You keep the faith. I’m going to be praying for you till the Lord puts me in my grave.’
Then he stood before his father. In the moment that he forced himself to raise his eyes and look into his father’s face, he felt in himself a stiffening, and a panic and a blind rebellion, and a hope for peace. The tears still on his face, and smiling still, he said: ‘Praise the Lord.’
‘Praise the Lord,’ said his father. He did not move to touch him, did not kiss him, did not smile. They stood before each other in silence, while the saints rejoiced; and John struggled to speak the authoritative, the living word that would conquer the great division between his father and himself. But it did not come, the living word; in the silence something died in John, and something came alive. It came to him that he must testify: his tongue only could bear witness to the wonders he had seen. And he remembered, suddenly, the text of a sermon he had once heard his father preach. And he opened his mouth, feeling, as he watched his father, the darkness roar behind him, and the very earth beneath him seem to shake; yet he gave to his father their common testimony. ‘I’m saved,’ he said, ‘and I know I’m saved.’ And then, as his father did not speak, he repeated his father’s text: ‘My witness is in Heaven and my record is on high.’
‘It come from your mouth,’ said his father then. ‘I want to see you live it. It’s more than a notion,’
‘I’m going to pray God,’ said John—and his voice shook, whether with joy or grief he could not say—‘to keep me, and make me strong … to stand … to stand against the enemy … and against everything and everybody … that wants to cut down my soul.’
Then his tears came down again, like a wall between him and his father. His Aunt Florence came and took him in her arms. Her eyes were dry, and her face was old in the savage, morning light. But her voice, when she spoke, was gentler that he had ever known it to be before.
‘You fight the good fight,’ she said, ‘you hear? Don’t you get weary, and don’t you get scared. Because I know the Lord’s done laid His hands on you.’
‘Yes,’ he said, weeping, ‘yes. I’m going to serve the Lord.’
‘Amen!’ cried Elisha. ‘Bless our God!’
The filthy streets rang with the early-morning light as they came out of the temple.
They were all there, save young Ella Mae, who had departed while John was still on the floor—she had a bad cold, said Praying Mother Washington, and needed to have her rest. Now, in three groups, they walked the long, gray, silent avenue: Praying Mother Washington with Elizabeth and Sister McCandless