Native Son - Richard Wright [140]
“Ahmen!” the preacher intoned fervently.
“Forget me, Ma,” Bigger said.
“Son, I can’t forget you. You’re my boy. I brought you into this world.”
“Forget me, Ma.”
“Son, I’m worried about you. I can’t help it. You got your soul to save. I won’t be able to rest easy as long as I’m on this earth if I thought you had gone away from us without asking God for help. Bigger, we had a hard time in this world, but through it all, we been together, ain’t we?”
“Yessum,” he whispered.
“Son, there’s a place where we can be together again in the great bye and bye. God’s done fixed it so we can. He’s fixed a meeting place for us, a place where we can live without fear. No matter what happens to us here, we can be together in God’s heaven. Bigger, your old ma’s a-begging you to promise her you’ll pray.”
“She’s tellin’ yuh right, son,” the preacher said.
“Forget me, Ma,” Bigger said.
“Don’t you want to see your old ma again, son?”
Slowly, he stood up and lifted his hands and tried to touch his mother’s face and tell her yes; and as he did so something screamed deep down in him that it was a lie, that seeing her after they killed him would never be. But his mother believed; it was her last hope; it was what had kept her going through the long years. And she was now believing it all the harder because of the trouble he had brought upon her. His hands finally touched her face and he said with a sigh (knowing that it would never be, knowing that his heart did not believe, knowing that when he died, it would be over, forever):
“I’ll pray, Ma.”
Vera ran to him and embraced him. Buddy looked grateful. His mother was so happy that all she could do was cry. Jack and G.H. and Gus smiled. Then his mother stood up and encircled him with her arms.
“Come here, Vera,” she whimpered.
Vera came.
“Come here, Buddy.”
Buddy came.
“Now, put your arms around your brother,” she said.
They stood in the middle of the floor, crying, with their arms locked about Bigger. Bigger held his face stiff, hating them and himself, feeling the white people along the wall watching. His mother mumbled a prayer, to which the preacher chanted.
“Lord, here we is, maybe for the last time. You gave me these children, Lord, and told me to raise ’em. If I failed, Lord, I did the best I could. (Ahmen!) These poor children’s been with me a long time and they’s all I got. Lord, please let me see ’em again after the sorrow and suffering of this world! (Hear her, Lawd!) Lord, please let me see ’em where I can love ’em in peace. Let me see ’em again beyond the grave! (Have mercy, Jesus!) You said You’d heed prayer, Lord, and I’m asking this in the name of Your son.”
“Ahmen ’n’ Gawd bless yuh, Sistah Thomas,” the preacher said.
They took their arms from round Bigger, silently, slowly; then turned their faces away, as though their weakness made them ashamed in the presence of powers greater than themselves.
“We leaving you now with God, Bigger,” his mother said. “Be sure and pray, son.”
They kissed him.
Buckley came forward.
“You’ll have to go now, Mrs. Thomas,” he said. He turned to Mr. and Mrs. Dalton. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dalton. I didn’t mean to keep you standing there so long. But you see how things are….”
Bigger saw his mother straighten suddenly and stare at the blind white woman.
“Is you Mrs. Dalton?” she asked.
Mrs. Dalton moved nervously, lifted her thin,