Native Son - Richard Wright [101]
“Say….” the man called; his voice sounded tentative, dubious.
“What?” one man at the table answered.
“Come here! Look!” The man’s voice was low, excited, tense; but what it lacked in volume was more than made up for in the breathless manner in which he spoke. The words had rolled without effort from his lips.
The men set their cups down and ran to the pile of ashes. Bigger, doubtful and uncertain, paused as the men ran past him.
“What is it?”
“What’s the matter?”
Bigger tiptoed and looked over their shoulders; he did not know how he got strength enough to go and look; he just found himself walking and then found himself standing and peering over the men’s shoulders. He saw a pile of scattered ashes, nothing else. But there must be something, or why would the men be looking?
“What is it?”
“See? This!”
“What?”
“Look! It’s….”
The man’s voice trailed off and he stooped again and poked the shovel deeper. Bigger saw come into full view on the surface of the ashes several small pieces of white bone. Instantly, his whole body was wrapped in a sheet of fear.
“It’s bone….”
“Aw,” one of the men said. “That’s just some garbage they’re burning….”
“Naw! Wait; let’s see that!”
“Toorman, come here. You studied medicine once….”
The man called Toorman reached out his foot and kicked an oblong bone from the ashes; it slid a few inches over the concrete floor.
“My God! It’s from a body….”
“And look! Here’s something….”
One of them stooped and picked up a bit of round metal and held it close to his eyes.
“It’s an earring….”
There was silence. Bigger stared without a thought or an image in his mind. There was just the old feeling, the feeling that he had had all his life: he was black and had done wrong; white men were looking at something with which they would soon accuse him. It was the old feeling, hard and constant again now, of wanting to grab something and clutch it in his hands and swing it into someone’s face. He knew. They were looking at the bones of Mary’s body. Without its making a clear picture in his mind, he understood how it had happened. Some of the bones had not burnt and had fallen into the lower bin when he had worked the handle to sift the ashes. The white man had poked in the shovel to clear the air passage and had raked them out. And now there they lay, tiny, oblong pieces of white bone, cushioned in grey ashes. He could not stay here now. At any moment they would begin to suspect him. They would hold him; they would not let him go even if they were not certain whether he had done it or not. And Jan was still in jail, swearing that he had an alibi. They would know that Mary was dead; they had stumbled upon the white bones of her body. They would be looking for the murderer. The men were silent, bent over, poking into the pile of grey ashes. Bigger saw the hatchet blade come into view. God! The whole world was tumbling down. Quickly, Bigger’s eyes looked at their bent backs; they were not watching him. The red glare of the fire lit their faces and the draft of the furnace drummed. Yes; he would go, now! He tiptoed to the rear of the furnace and stopped, listening. The men were whispering in tense tones of horror.
“It’s the girl!”
“Good God!”
“Who do you suppose did it?”
Bigger tiptoed up the steps, one at a time, hoping that the roar of the furnace and the men’s voices and the scraping of the shovel would drown out the creaking sounds his feet made. He reached the top of the steps and breathed deeply, his lungs aching from holding themselves full of air so long. He stole to the door of his room and opened it and went in