Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [98]
‘You mighty proud, ain’t you,’ his father said, ‘to be the Devil’s son?’
But John did no listen to his father. He turned to watch the woman pass. His father grabbed his arm.
“You see that? That’s sin. That’s what the Devil’s son runs after.’
‘Whose son are you?’ John asked.
His father slapped him. John laughed, and moved a little away.
‘I seen it. I seen it. I ain’t the Devil’s son for nothing.’
His father reached for him, but John was faster. He moved backward down the shining street, looking at his father—his father who moved toward him, one hand outstretched in fury.
‘And I heard you—all the night-time long. I know what you do in the dark, black man, when you think the Devil’s son’s asleep. I heard you, spitting, and groaning, and choking—and I seen you, riding up and down, and going in and out. I ain’t the Devil’s son for nothing.’
The listening buildings, rising upward yet, leaned, closing out the sky. John’s feet began to slip; tears and sweat were in his eyes; still moving backward before his father, he looked about him for deliverance; but there was no deliverance in this street for him.
‘And I hate you. I hate you. I don’t care about your golden crown. I don’t care about your long white robe. I seen you under the robe, I seen you!’
Then his father was upon him; at his touch there was singing, and fire. John lay on his back in the narrow street, looking up at his father, that burning face beneath the burning towers.
‘I’m going to beat it out of you. I’m going to beat it out.’
His father raised his hand. The knife came down. John rolled away, down the white, descending street, screaming:
Father! Father!
These were the first words he uttered. In a moment there was silence, and his father was gone. Again, he felt the saints above him—and dust was in his mouth. There was singing somewhere; far away, above him; singing slow and mournful. He lay silent, racked beyond endurance, salt drying on his face, with nothing in him any more, no lust, no fear, no shame, no hope. And yet he knew that it would come again—the darkness was full of demons crouching, waiting to worry him with their teeth again.
Then I looked in the grave and I wondered.
Ah, down!—what was he searching here, all alone in darkness? But now he knew, for irony had left him, that he was searching something, hidden in the darkness, that must be found. He would die if it was not found; or, he was dead already, and would never again be joined to the living, if it was not found.
And the grave looked so sad and lonesome.
In the grave where he now wandered—he knew it was the grave, it was so cold and silent, and he moved in icy mist—he found his mother and his father, his mother dressed in scarlet, his father dressed in white. They did not see him: they looked backward, over their shoulders, at a cloud of witnesses. And there was his Aunt Florence, gold and silver flashing on her fingers, brazen ear-rings dangling from her ears; and there was another woman, whom he took to be that wife of his father’s, called Deborah—who had, as he had once believed, so much to tell him. But she, alone, of all that company, looked at him and signified that there was no speech in the grave. He was a stranger there—they did not see him pass, they did not know what he was looking for, they could not help him search. He wanted to find Elisha, who knew, perhaps, who would help him—but Elisha was not there. There was Roy: Roy also might have helped him, but he had been stabbed with a knife, and lay now, brown and silent, at his father’s feet.
Then there began to flood John’s soul the waters of despair. Love is as strong as death, as deep as the grave. But love, which had, perhaps, like a benevolent monarch, swelled the population of his neighboring kingdom, Death, had not himself descended: they owed him no allegiance here. Here there was no speech or language, and there was no love; no one to say: You are beautiful, John; no one to forgive him, no matter what his sin; no one to heal him, and lift him up. No one: father and mother looked backward,