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By Root 2838 0

had been taken in the fields. That night had robbed her of the right to be considered a woman. No man would approach her in honor because she was a living reproach, to herself and to all black women and to all black men. If she had been beautiful, and if God had not given her a spirit so demure, she might, with ironic gusto, have acted out that rape in the field for ever. Since she could not be considered a woman, she could only be looked on as a harlot, a source of delight more bestial and mysteries more shaking than any a proper woman could provide. Lust stirred in the eyes of men when they look at Deborah, lust that could not be endured because it was so impersonal, limiting communion to the area of her shame. And Florence, who was beautiful but did not look with favor on any of the black men who lusted after her, not wishing to exchange her mother’s cabin for one of theirs and to raise their children and so go down, toil-blasted, into, as it were, a common grave, reinforced in Deborah the terrible belief against which evidence had ever presented itself: that all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.

One Sunday at a camp-meeting, when Gabriel was twelve years old and was to be baptized, Deborah and Florence stood on the banks of a river along with all the other folks and watched him. Gabriel had not wished to be baptized. The thought had frightened and angered him, but his mother insisted that Gabriel was now of an age to be responsible before God for his sins—she would not shirk the duty, laid on her by the Lord, of doing everything within he power to bring him to the throne of grace. On the banks of a river, under the violent light of noon, confessed believers and children of Gabriel’s age waited to be led into the water. Standing out, waist-deep and robed in white, was the preacher, who would hold their heads briefly under the water, crying out to Heaven as the baptized held his breath: ‘I indeed have baptized you with water: but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.’ Then, as they rose sputtering and blinded and were led to the shore, he cried out again: ‘Go thou and sin no more.’ They came up from the water, visibly under the power of the Lord, and on the shore the saints awaited them, beating their tambourines. Standing bear the shore were the elders of the church, holding towels with which to cover the newly baptized, who were then led into the tents, one for either sex, where they could change their clothes.

At last, Gabriel, dressed in an old white shirt and short linen pants, stood on the edge of the water. Then he was slowly led into the river, where he had so often splashed naked, until he reached the preacher. And the moment that the preacher threw him down, crying out the words of John the Baptist, Gabriel began to kick and sputter, nearly throwing the preacher off balance; and though at first they thought that it was the power of the Lord that worked in him, they realized as he rose, still kicking and with his eyes tightly shut, that it was only fury, and too much water in his nose. Some folks smiled, but Florence and Deborah did not smile. Though Florence had also been indignant, years before when the slimy water entered her incautiously open mouth, she had done her best not to sputter, and she had not cried out. But now, here came Gabriel, floundering and furious up the bank, and what she looked at, with an anger more violent than any she had felt before, was his nakedness. He was drenched, and his thin, white clothes clung like another skin to his black body. Florence and Deborah looked at one another, while the singing rose to cover Gabriel’s howling, and Deborah looked away.

Years later, Deborah and Florence had stood on Deborah’s porch at night and watched a vomit-covered Gabriel stagger up the moonlight road, and Florence had cried out: ‘I hate him! I hate him! Big, black, prancing tomcat of a nigger!’ And Deborah had said, in that heavy voice of hers: ‘You know, honey, the Word tell us to