and quantify love?
She felt some need to come to terms with at least some of her past. There
was an epidemic of yellow fever, the black wind as it was called, in
Alabama and some of the other Southern states, but against Alec's strong
advice, and she seldom went against him, she decided to go to Jass's
funeral, and to take Abner with her. It was proper that he be present at
the burial of his grandfather.
They took a coach to Florence, riding on the outside because they were
nigra, and Abner thrilled to the journey, for he had no memory of
anything outside Savannah. They booked into a cheap lodginghouse, and the
following day
755
756 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
Queen dressed in black, and hired a cart and driver to take her to The
Forks.
As they rumbled down the old familiar road that was not familiar to her
anymore, Queen looked desperately for things she might recognize, but found
nothing, not even a few distant memories. She tried to recall where Andy
had picked her up in the butcher's cart, but could not. Every bend in the
road looked the same as any other. The driver of the cart, Jonson, an old
black man who had been a slave, talked of The Forks of Cypress and how
famous it once had been, and how sad it was that Massa Jackson was dead.
She learned that Jass had never regained anything of his former fortune,
but had enjoyed a settled life as state senator. She learned that he was no
great friend to black people, and had voted, in the state legislature,
against several measures that might have improved their lot. Of the
surviving family she learned very little, other than that Miss Lizzie had
died some years ago, perhaps about the time that Queen had arrived in
Savannah.
Then suddenly they broke through the trees, and the mansion stood before
them on the little hill. Queen gasped at the flood of memories that surged
through her, but she felt no pain, and began telling Abner of the days of
her youth. This was why she had come, for it was important that he know
something of his past. Abner, who was ten, listened attentively to his
mammy, but found it difficult to imagine why this house, splendid as it
was, so occupied his mother's mind.
She did not want to be too early for the funeral, so she told Jonson to
drive on past the house, farther down the road. When they came to the old
Henderson store, it was locked and abandoned, the windows boarded up.
Jonson did not know what had happened to the people who had owned it.
They rode back to The Forks and Jonson let them off at the main gate, and
said he would come back for them that afternoon. Queen took Abner's hand
and walked with him up the drive. The racecourse was long gone, overgrown
with weeds, and only a few fences left to suggest what it had once been.
Queen could hardly remember what it looked like.
"And over here," she said, pointing to the other side of the drive, "were
cotton fields, as far as the eye could see."
Abner tried to imagine cotton fields to the horizon, but all
A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 757
he saw was untended grass on a few acres, and edged by encroaching trees.
They approached the mansion. The lawn was pretty and well kept, and the
magnolia tree was enormous now, and filled with huge, creamy blossoms. But
the house was not quite as large as she remembered, not quite as mag-
nificent, and the twenty-one lovely columns were sorely in need of a coat
of paint.
They didn't go inside, for they had not been invited, but made their way
to the back of the house, and down the track through the empty, derelict
slave quarters, most of which had been pulled down. Through the trees
Queen could see that the weaving house was still there, but she avoided
it.
She was filled with a sense of nature reclaiming its own, for the path
to the graveyard was overgrown, and the trees lining it were crowding in,
as if they were walking through a forest.
"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of
misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower. He fleeth as it were
a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. "
The preacher stood at the grave, surrounded by many mourners, for Jass
had been an important man. All were white. Queen stayed back, at the edge
of the graveyard, holding Abner's hand. She looked for faces she might
recognize, but saw none, except a frail old lady with white hair, wearing
thick pebble glasses, who was supported by a younger man she did not
know. William, perhaps? James?
"In the midst of life, we are in death. Of whom shall we seek succor but
of Thee, 0 Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased."
Queen became aware that someone had noticed her, and smiled to herself,
for the color of Abner's skin was the confusion. All the mourners were
white, as she looked to be, but the darker Abner told the truth.
"Yet, 0 Lord God most holy, 0 Lord most mighty, 0 holy and most merciful
savior, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death."
One of the mourners whispered to another, and pointed to Queen. The man
who had been spoken to detached himself from the group, and walked
quietly to Queen. He asked who
758 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
she was, and what she was doing there. Queen sensed his antagonism, and told
him that she had been a slave at The Forks, and had come to pay her last
respects to her old Massa. The man told her she could stay as long as she
behaved her nigger self, but she was to keep away from the family. He walked
back to the funeral, and Queen bowed her head and prayed.
"We therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to
ashes, dust to dust, looking for the general Resurrection in the last day,
and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose
second coming, in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth and the
sea shall give up their dead."
Queen moved back into the trees and stood with Abner watching as the,family
made their way from the graveyard. Sally, supported by the young man she
didn't know, walked by, and for just a moment Queen wanted to run to her
and hold her and comfort her. But she didn't think Sally would know who she
was.
When they were gone, she took Abner to the grave, and said a small prayer
for her father. She led her son up the hill to the slave cemetery, and
looked for her mother's grave, but could not find it. There were some few
mounds in the earth, but no markers, and nothing to indicate that the dead
lay here. It didn't matter, Queen thought. Easter was somewhere happier.
They wandered back to the slave quarters, and sat on the grass under an old
oak tree. Queen had some sandwiches in her bag, and they made a picnic
lunch.
"This is where the slaves used to live," she told Abner. She could feel the
ghosts of them now, and marveled at the fo
rtitude with which they had
endured their bondage for so many years, with so little hope.
"Was you a slave?" Abner asked her, and Queen nodded, and pointed to the
weaving house.
"I was born over yonder." She could not avoid it; she had to go there.
It was abandoned, almost derelict. Dust and cobwebs had claimed it for
their own. Abner explored the nooks and crannies, while Queen stood in the
middle of the room and won-
A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 759
dered why this house had ever seemed so important to her.
Then Abner brought her some treasure. A few old cards, handmade and
painted, of the alphabet. The dam that had been blocking her memory
broke, and she remembered how Cap'n Jack taught her the ABCs from these
cards, and Easter's disapproval, and she put them in her purse, and kept
them for the rest of her days. She remembered the awfulness of her
mother's death, and she remembered hearing Jass tell Easter that she,
Queen, was to live in the big house.
She went outside, to free herself of the nightmare that was sneaking into
her mind, for the big house reminded her of things she would rather
forget, of Lizzie, and of the Henderson store, and of being chased
through the woods, and flames, and a burning barn, and more flames, and
the body of Abner's father, and she wept a little for what had been.
She held him close to her, and the sun and the daylight eased the grief.
"We gwine go to the big house, Mammy?" Abner asked, for he was anxious
to see inside it.
Queen shook her head. There was nothing for her here anymore. Whatever
relationship she had with this place was over, buried with Jass.
"No, chile, we're going home," she told Abner.
For home is where you are loved.
89
Simon came to her late in life. Another little girl was born to them,
Emma, after Annie and Conway, but Emma died when she was three. She had
been playing on the kitchen floor, and drank some lye, while Queen was
hanging washing on the line. She died in great pain, and Queen blamed
herself for what had happened, and for a while they worried for her mental
state, but then she became pregnant again.
She had thought her childbearing days were over, and she
760 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
believed Simon to be a gift from God, to take Abner's place, for recently
he had demanded his right to his own life, and had left home. Abner had
grown into a handsome, strapping young man, with a young man's energy. He
worked hard and well on the farm, but he pined for a wider world, for
adventure, and he heard the siren song of the big city.
He tried to explain it to his mother. "I'm twenty-one, an' all I ever
seen of the world is Savannah. I wants to know what the rest is like."
But his mother would not listen. He was still her baby. She had to
protect him from the cruel world.
"What you going to do, end up in a gutter like half the other nigger boys
up North?"
He grumbled because he didn't want to go far, only to Memphis, and only
for a year or two, to see what it was like, and he wouldn't end up in a
gutter, he'd get a job.
"Ain't much call for sharecroppers in Memphis," Queen snapped.
"I's going, Ma," he insisted. "No matter what you say,"
She tried to get Alec to talk some sense into him, but he listened to
what Abner had to say, and nodded as if in agreement.
"All my life, I's done what other people tol' me," he explained. "You an'
Ma, and ev'ryone. Nobody ever done ask me if I wanted to be a farmhand,
I jus' did it, coz I was tol'."
Alec accepted that, and it made Queen increasingly nervous.
"All right. I'll ask you now," Alec said. "What do you want to do?"
Abner didn't know, but he wanted to be more than what he was, doing the
same thing day in, day out, coming home every night with cotton tufts in
his hair, going to the same places, seeing the same people.
"I don't want to end up with my guts busted from throwin' cotton bales,
and never knowin' what else was out there."
He looked at his mother, who was fiddling with her dress.
"It don't mean I don't love you, Ma," he said softly.
Alec didn't want him to go to nothing, and it was agreed he could visit
Memphis on weekends and look for employment. If he found a job, he could
take it, with Alec's blessing.
"No!" Queen shouted. They looked at her in surprise. She
A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 761
was snatching cookies from the table, and stuffing them into her pocket.
"You don't listen to him on this," she told Abner. "He ain't your real
pa. You listen to me!"
She stopped in horror, appalled by what she had said. She pleaded with
Alec to forgive her, but he was bitterly hurt. He got up and left the
shack. He sat in his old rocking chair, puffing on his pipe, furious with
Queen, for he had never done less than his best by Abner. To his
surprise, Abner came and sat with him, on the step. He wasn't quite sure
what to say. Nor was Abner.
"She didn't mean it, Pa," Abner said eventually. "She's upset, coz of me.
-
"I know it," Alec agreed.
"I won't go if'n it's gwine cause trouble," Abner said, and he meant it,
Alec knew, but it cost him dear.
"You go, if'n you want," Alec said. "If'n you c'n find a job. You cain't
live yo' life tied to yo' mammy's apron strings. She gotta let go, one
day. -
In the kitchen, Queen tried to do the dishes, but she was bitterly
disappointed in herself for what she had so unfairly said to Alec, and
she was terrified for Abner, who had so nearly been taken from her by
fire when he was little. Those fire demons crept up on her, and burned
themselves into her mind. She went out into the night, to be free of
them, but no matter where she went, she could not find peace.
They found her two hours later down by the river, wandering up and down
the bank, clutching at her skirts, and crying out.
"They're after me," she cried, for all she could see was flame. They took
her home and Alec fetched the, doctor, who recommended care and rest, and
constant attention. He walked outside with Alec, and suggested that if
she was not better in a few days, he might want to consider having her
put in an institution for a while, for examination.
Alec was appalled. "She ain't mad!" he insisted. "She jus' a Fil bothered
about her boy."
He paid the doctor and went back into the shack. He sat with Queen,
holding her hand, and stroking her forehead. He slept beside her at
night, and stayed with her in the day. He
762 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
fed her and washed her and changed her, and slowly the fire eased in her
mind. Abner did not mention leaving while she was ill, but he went to
Memphis on his weekends, and eventually found a job that suited him, in the
cattle yards. He did not know how he was going to tell his mother.
&n
bsp; To everyone's surprise, Queen accepted Abner's news well. Her brush with
her demons had frightened her, and by now she knew she was pregnant with
Simon. She took it as a sign that she should let Abner go, and in any case
was persuaded that his going was inevitable. She kissed him sweetly, and
wished him Godspeed.
"Wherever you go, whatever you do," she told him on his last night with
her, "if you don't find what you're looking for, or if you got troubles, or
if you lonely and cain't manage no more, remember no matter how far you've
traveled, it ain't such a long road home."
He kissed her, and told her he would not forget, but she was not happy.
Yet as she had hoped, her last-born son healed the rent in her heart caused
by her first. Simon was a blithe and serious child, light-skinned, and with
a gentle, caring manner. He was also a quick study, and by the time he was
four he knew his ABCs. Queen taught him, using Cap'n Jack's old cards and
others she made herself in place of those that were missing. When he was
five, she delivered him to school and felt a pang of loss, but it was not as
sharp as that caused by Abner. Simon did well at school, and was his
teacher's delight. By the time he was in sixth grade, the teacher had
developed an ambition for Simon that she knew was unrealistic, but she could
not bear to see his mind go to waste. She went to see Queen, and said she
wanted Simon to stay on at school, until eighth grade, at least. Queen was
all in favor of it, but had learned something from her experience with
Abner. She spoke to Simon, to find out what he really wanted to do, before
tackling the man who had the final decision.
"No," Alec said. And to make sure Queen understood, he said it again. "No!"
"I heard you the first time," Queen said calmly, sucking on her empty pipe.
They rocked their chairs in the peace of the night.
A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 763
"He's leavin' school," Alec said firmly. "That's what boys do in these
parts. I need him on the land."
It wasn't true. George was married and had a few acres of his own, but
Freeland and Conway were all the help Alec needed, and Simon had never
been much use in any practical sense, on the farm. Still, Alec couldn't
imagine an alternative career for him.
"You hear me?" He was angry now.
"I hear you." Queen nodded calmly. "Cain't believe what I'm hearing,
though."
Alec sighed. He knew he was in for a hard time.
"Dadgummit!" he muttered.
Queen had her arguments beautifully marshaled, and went through them
point by point. She wondered what they had worked so hard for all these
years. They'd built the farm up to a hundred and fifty acres, and didn't
need any more. They weren't rich, but they surely weren't wondering where
their next meal was coming from. It had been hard, and she and the
children had worked hard, and Alec, but it had been good because she
thought it had been for a purpose. Now she wondered what it had all been
for.
"It's been fo' us," Alec said, "an' fo' our children. So they'd have a
better day to look forward to than we did."
"That's what I thought," Queen agreed. "Obviously, I was wrong.
Alec said "Dadgummit" again, but more softly, knowing she wasn't done.
She wanted to know where the better day was for Simon. He worked hard,
as hard as any of them, was in sixth grade while most boys of his age,
black or white, were in fifth, and now he had to throw it all away
because his pappy was so pigheaded he saw only a life on a farm for a
boy, no matter whether the boy was suited for that life or not. Did he
want the same thing to happen to Simon as had happened to Abner, so
frustrated with life in this narrow community he left it rather than
stay?
"I thought you were more of a man than that," she said. "I thought you
were somebody who could afford to waste a boy, just one, and let him
follow his own star. Obviously, I was wrong. Obviously I've been working
my po' fingers to the bone all these years for no reason."