Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [94]
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I done come, and it was the hand of the Lord what sent me. He brought us together for a sign. You fall on your knees and see if that ain’t so—you fall down and ask Him to speak to you to-night.’
Yes, a sign, she thought, a sign of His mercy, a sign of Hs forgiveness.
When they reached the church doors he paused, and looked at her and made his promise.
‘Sister Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘when you go down on your knees to-night, I want you to ask the Lord to speak to your heart, and tell you how to answer what I’m going to say.’
She stood a little below him, one foot lifted to the short, stone step that led to the church entrance, and looked up into his face. And looking into his face, which burned—in the dim, yellow light that hung about them there—like the face of a man who has wrestled with angels and demons and looked on the face of God, it came to her, oddly, and all at once, that she had become a woman.
‘Sister Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘the Lord’s been speaking to my heart, and I believe it’s His will that you and me should be man and wife.’
And he paused; she said nothing. His eyes moved over her body.
‘I know,’ he said, trying to smile, and in a lower voice, ‘I’m a lot older than you. But that don’t make no difference. I’m a mighty strong man yet. I done been down the line, Sister Elizabeth, and maybe I can keep you from making … some of my mistakes, bless the Lord … maybe I can help keep your foot from stumbling … again … girl … for as long as we’s in this world.’
Still she waited.
‘And I’ll love you,’ he said, ‘and I’ll honor you … until the day God calls me home.’
Slow tears rose to her eyes; of joy, for what she had come to; of anguish, for the road that had brought her here.
‘And I’ll love your son, your little boy,’ he said at last, ‘just like he was my own. He won’t never have to fret or worry about nothing; he won’t never be cold or hungry as long as I’m alive and I got my two hands to work with. I swear this before my God,’ he said, ‘because He done give me back something I thought was lost.’
Yes, she thought, a sign—a sign that He is mighty to save. Then she moved and stood on the short step, next to him, before the doors.
‘Sister Elizabeth,’ he said—and she would carry to the grave the memory of his grace and humility at that moment, ‘will you pray?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I been praying. I’m going to pray.’
They had entered this church;, these doors; and when the pastor made the altar call, she rose, while she heard them praising God, and walked down the long church aisle; down this aisle, to this altar, before this golden cross; to these tears, into this battle—would the battle end one day? When she rose, and as they walked once more through the streets, he had called her God’s daughter, handmaiden to God’s minister. He had kissed her on the brow, with tears, and said that God had brought them together to be each other’s deliverance. And she had wept, in her great joy that the hand of God had changed her life, had lifted her up and set her on the solid rock, alone.
She thought of that far-off day when John had come into the world—that moment, the beginning of her life and death. Down she had gone that day, alone, a heaviness intolerable at her waist, a secret in her loins, down into the darkness, weeping and groaning and cursing God. How long she had bled, and sweated, and cried, no language on earth could tell—how long she had crawled through darkness she would never, never know. There, her beginning, and she fought through darkness still; toward that moment when she would make her peace with God, when she would hear Him speak, and He would wipe all tears from her eyes; as, in that other darkness, after eternity, she had heard John cry.
As now, in the