Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [55]
‘Sister Deborah,’ he said, much later that night as he was walking her to her door, ‘the Lord done laid something on my heart and I want you to help me to pray over it and ask Him to lead me right.’
He wondered if she could divine what was in his mind. In her face there was nothing but patience, as she turned to him, and said: ‘I’m praying all the time. But I sure will pray extra hard this week if you want me to.’
And it was during this praying time that Gabriel had a dream.
He could never afterwards remember how the dream began, what had happened, or who he was with in the dream; or any details at all. For there were really two dreams, the first like a dim, blurred, infernal foreshadowing of the second. Of this first dream, the overture, he remembered only the climate, which had been like the climate of his day—heavy, with danger everywhere, Satan at his shoulder trying to bring him down. That night as he tried to sleep, Satan sent demons to his bedside—old friends he had had, but whom he saw no more, and drinking and gambling scenes that he had thought would never rise to haunt him again, and women he had known. And the women were so real that he could nearly touch them; and he heard again their laughter and their sighs, and felt beneath his hands their thighs and breasts. Though he closed his eyes and called on Jesus—calling over and over again the name of Jesus—his pagan body stiffened and flamed and the women laughed. And they asked him why he remained in his narrow bed alone when they waited for him; why he had bound his body in the armor of chastity while they sighed and turned on their beds for him. And he sighed and turned, every movement torture, each touch of the sheets a lewd caress—and more abominable, then, in his imagination, than any caress he had received in life. And he clenched his fists and began to plead the blood, to exorcise the hosts of Hell, but even this motion was like another motion, and at length he fell on his knees to pray. By and by he fell into a troublous sleep—it seemed that he was going to be stoned, and then he was in battle, and then shipwrecked in the water—and suddenly he awoke, knowing that he must have dreamed, for his loins were covered with his own white seed.
Then, trembling, he got out of bed again and washed himself. It was a warning, and he knew it, and he seemed to see before him the pit dug by Satan—deep and silent, waiting for him. He thought of the dog returned to his vomit, of the man who had been cleansed, and who fell, and who was possessed by seven devils, the last state of that man being worse than his first. And he thought at last, kneeling by his cold bedside, but with the heart within him almost too sick for prayer, of Onan, who had scattered his seed on the ground rather than continue his brother’s line. Out of the house of David, the son of Abraham. And he called again on the name of Jesus; and fell asleep again.
And he dreamed that he was in a cold, high place, like a mountain. He was high, so high that he walked in mist and cloud, but before him stretched the blank ascent, the teep side of the mountain. A voice said: ‘Come higher.’ And he began to climb. After a little, clinging to the rock, he found himself with only clouds above him and mist below—and he knew that beyond the wall of mist reigned fire. His feet began to slip; pebbles and rocks began ringing beneath his feet; he looked up, trembling, in terror of death, and he cried: ‘Lord, I can’t come no higher.’ But the voice repeated after a moment, quiet and strong and impossible to deny: ‘Come on, son. Come higher.’ Then he knew that, if he would not fall to death, he must obey the voice. He began to climb again, and his feet slipped again; and when he thought that he would fall there suddenly appeared before him green, spiny leaves, and he caught on to the