In My Father's House

“You ought to be in bed,” Elijah said. “Let Jonathan conduct service tomorrow.”

  “I’m all right,” Phillip said, still facing the curtains.

  “The doctor want you to stay in bed,” Elijah said.

  Phillip didn’t answer him.

  “Reverend Martin, sir?”

  “Leave me alone, will you,” Phillip said, looking back over his shoulder. “I just want to sit here and think a while.”

  Elijah went back to his room and lay on top of the covers, but a few minutes later he was knocking on the office door again.

  “Reverend Martin? Reverend Martin, sir?”

  “All right,” Phillip said, coming out. “Good night, Elijah.”

  5

  Phillip Martin went back to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He lay wide awake for hours, listening to his wife snoring quietly beside him. He was trying not to think about the boy. He didn’t want to think about him in here because he couldn’t think clearly enough in here. The only place where he could think at all was in his office, but they came and got him out each time he went in there. He lay wide awake, hoping for tomorrow to hurry up and get here. Alma, Elijah, and Joyce Anne would go to church, and he would have the entire house to himself.

  He didn’t go to sleep until after daylight and he slept only about an hour. When he felt Alma waking up beside him he shut his eyes again and pretended to be still asleep. He heard her calling his name as she propped herself up on her elbow and leaned over him. When he didn’t answer her, she got up, slipped into her robe, and quietly left the room. He lay in bed another half hour, then he got up, yawning loudly, and went into the kitchen where she was. Alma and Elijah sat at the table drinking coffee.

  “I hope you don’t think you going to any church today?” she said.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “I made sure of that already,” Alma said. “Before Jonathan left from here last night I told him he was conducting service today.”

  “You told him?” Phillip asked her. “That’s not your job. That’s my job. That’s Mills’s job when I’m not there.”

  “When you start falling in front of a house of people, I make it my job,” Alma said. “And I done already told Elijah when he go to church tell them people don’t be coming here, and don’t be calling on that phone neither. Doctor want you to rest, and you can’t rest if that phone be ringing all the time.”

  “Ain’t you going to church?” Phillip asked her.

  “Joyce and Elijah going—I’m staying here,” Alma said. “Leave, first thing I know you be in that office messing with papers.”

  “I got nothing in that office to do,” Phillip said.

  “You’d find something to do if I left from here.”

  Phillip looked to Elijah for help, but Elijah averted his eyes. Phillip turned back to Alma.

  “No reason for you to stay here today,” he said.

  Alma didn’t have any more to say about it, and Phillip left them and went back to bed. A few minutes later, Alma brought his breakfast and sat down on the bed to feed him. He told her he wasn’t dying, neither was he an invalid, and he could feed himself. He didn’t want the food at all, but he ate it just to keep her from worrying about him more. When he had finished eating she took away the tray and brought him the newspapers. He tried to read, but he could not keep his mind on the papers for thinking about the boy. But he didn’t want to think about him in here. He had to get into his office. Only in there would he be able to sit and think and try to make some sense out of what had been going on the past week.

  He folded the papers and laid them on the floor, then as he turned on his side to face the wall he heard Alma speaking to someone in the front room. A moment later she was opening the bedroom door to let Howard Mills come in. Mills wore a black overcoat with fur round the collar. He came into the room with his hat in his hand.

  “Well, young fellow, how you feeling?” he asked Phillip.

  Phillip nodded his head as he watched Mills come toward the bed. Mills pulled up a chair and sat down facing him.

  “What happened?” Mills asked.

  “I just went down,” Phillip said, looking closely at Mills. He wondered what Mills would say if he really told him why he fell.

  Mills looked suspiciously at Phillip. Phillip didn’t look sick now, and surely he didn’t look sick at all yesterday while he was at the party. He glanced over his shoulder toward the door, then looked back at Phillip again. Maybe Phillip would tell him if he was having some kind of problem. But Phillip had nothing to say.

  Mills nodded his gray head. “Well, it happens to the best of us,” he said.

  “You think you and Jonathan can handle it all right?” Phillip asked him.

  “Third Sunday—sure,” Mills said. “He called me early this morning. We already went over what we have to do. I see Elijah’s gone already?”

  “Him and Joyce,” Phillip said. “Alma’s staying here with me.”

  Mills nodded his head. “How long the doctor keeping you in bed?” he asked.

  “Couple days,” Phillip told him.

  “Couple days rest won’t hurt you,” Mills said.

  The minister and the deacon looked closely at each other again. Phillip wanted to tell Mills, but he knew he could not. And Mills looking back at him knew that he had something on his mind.

  “Well,” he said, when he saw that Phillip wasn’t going to say anything, “I better get on up there. See that Alcee get them heaters lit.”

  “Still cold out there?” Phillip asked him.

  “Colder,” Mills said, and stood up. He moved his chair back to the wall. “Something I wanted to say,” he said. “Something. Something. Something about the party yesterday. But I can’t remember now what it was. When you get this age you get a little minus every now and then.”

  “Had anything to do with Chenal?” Phillip asked him.

  Mills shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Looked like it’s something else.”

  “Well, it’ll come to you,” Phillip said.

  “Yeah, in church,” Mills said. “And by the time I leave church I be done forgot about it all over again. Ehh, when you get this old you get minus.”

  He grinned to himself. He twirled his hat on his finger. He looked at Phillip. Phillip didn’t look weak at all. He wondered if Phillip had anything he wanted to say to him.

  Phillip didn’t say anything, and Mills nodded his head and went to the door.

  “Have Jonathan remind the people about Chenal Friday,” he said to Mills.

  “I’m sure he’ll bring it up,” Mills said. “Think you’ll be ready by then?”

  “I’ll be ready,” Phillip said.

  “Wouldn’t want to face Chenal without you,” Mills said.

  “You won’t,” Phillip told him.

  Mills nodded again and went out. Phillip could hear him and Alma talking in the hall. Alma was saying that she wished Mills would tell the people not to call or visit for a day or two. Mills said he understood and would bring it up in church.

  Phillip lay on his side facing the wall. He wondered what it was that Mills wanted to talk about. He wondered if it was about the boy. But, no, how could it be? If Mills had known who the boy was he would have brought it up yesterday.

  Again in his mind’s eye he saw the boy’s thin, bearded face watching him from across the room. At first he paid it little attention, but after noticing it each time he looked in that direction he began to ask himself why. Who was he? How did he get in here? Who invited him? He was sure he had never seen him anywhere before. He would look away a moment to answer someone’s question, but when he looked back across the room he would find the boy still watching him as if no time whatever had passed. Why? he asked himself. Why? Who is he?

  Then he remembered having heard about a stranger in St. Adrienne. The stranger had sat behind his church door the first night that he was here. Several people had seen him passing by the house. One or two had even seen him standing out in the
street watching the house. Yes, and now that he remembered, Elijah had said something about inviting him to the party. But why was he standing there watching him? Why?

  Then he knew. Even when he told himself no, it couldn’t be so, he knew definitely that it was. The dream that he had a night or two before the boy got here was more than a dream, it was a vision, an omen, a warning.

  Phillip pressed his face down against the sheet and tried not to think about it any more. Let him think about anything else but not about this. Think about Chenal. Chenal wasn’t going to be easy. Chenal knew the people needed work. Even if he paid them less than minimum they still had to work for him, because there weren’t any other jobs. Phillip wondered what he would do if Chenal said no to their demands. Demonstrate against the store? Yes. What else? But suppose Chenal fired the people working for him, then what? They could eventually close down Chenal if the people demonstrated long enough against the store, but where would they work during that time?

  Phillip Martin felt tired and confused. He looked at the two little bottles of pills and the glass of water on the small lamp table by the bed. He picked up one of the bottles and started to unscrew the cap, then threw it back. He wanted to knock everything on the floor, but he knew Alma would hear the noise and come into the room.

  Just before noon he went to sleep again. When he woke up a couple of hours later he heard the piano in the living room. Joyce Anne and Elijah had come back from church, and Joyce Anne was playing the piano while Alma and Elijah were talking. They kept their voices down to keep from disturbing him.

  Phillip started thinking about the boy again. Why? he asked himself. Why after all these years—why? And how did he know where to find me? Did she send him here? And if she did, why this game? Why sit behind the church door? Why for a week walk the street and watch the house? Come into the house, watch me, but say nothing—why? What’s he want? What’s he up to? He’s got to be up to something. What?

  Phillip heard Alma and Joyce Anne talking in the hall, and he shut his eyes only a moment before Alma came into the room and asked him if he was still asleep. He didn’t answer her, but he could tell that she was standing there watching him. Then he heard her crossing the room to the dresser where she sat before the mirror to brush her hair. He would hear a few strokes of the brush, then a moment of silence as if she might be watching him through the mirror; then he would hear the brush again. After she had gotten her overcoat out of the closet, she came to the bed and kissed him and left the room. He could hear her telling Elijah not to dare leave from here until she got back. He figured that she and Joyce Anne were going on the Island to her mother to get the other two children, Patrick and Emily.

  Phillip stayed in bed until he heard the car backing out of the yard, then he got up and put on his robe. Elijah was at the piano now, playing quietly, and only with one hand. Phillip stood by the door listening a moment, then when he was sure Elijah had not heard him moving round in the room, he hurried across the hall into his office.

  His office was a small, dark, cold room, with heavy brown curtains over the window. A desk, two chairs, and a file cabinet made up the furniture. On the wall facing the desk was a large picture of the crucifixion. On the left was a collage of President John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. In another frame hanging evenly with the first was another collage, of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington. Across the room on the right wall were Phillip’s diploma from Bible school, a 1970 calendar from the local mortuary, and a picture of Phillip and his deacons standing before the church. The men were all dressed in dark suits, their hats in their hands, looking severely at the camera. Howard Mills, whose head was nearly snow white, stood a couple of inches taller than anyone else.

  The room was dark and cold, but Phillip wouldn’t turn on the light or light the heater. He went directly to the window and pulled back the curtains to look out on the street. Where was the boy? Where was he this moment? Why wasn’t he passing the house? Phillip had heard that he walked the streets day and night, whether it was raining or not, whether it was cold or not—then where was he now?

  Phillip stood at the window looking and waiting. But Virginia’s new tenant did not go by the house. No one passed by walking or driving. There was nothing out there but a leafless pecan tree in the open pasture across the street.

  Phillip would not move from the window. Now he was thinking about the dream he’d had the night before the boy got there. In the dream he was sitting on the side of the bed, just as he’d been doing twenty-one years ago. In the dream, just as it had happened that day, he saw the boy’s small hand in the crack of the door as he took the money from the woman. He left with the money, but soon brought it back. When he left the second time, Phillip got up from the bed and ran after him. In the dream it happened like that, but twenty-one years ago he hadn’t run after the boy at all. He had sat on the bed looking down at the floor until he was sure the boy had gone, then he went to the woman who was still clutching the money, tore it out of her hand, and threw it into the fire. When the woman tried to get the money out of the fire with her bare hands, he slapped her so hard that she fell halfway cross the room. She came back, not for the money, the money had burned, she came back fighting. This time he hit her with his fist. Then he went to the bed and sat down, burying his face in his hands and crying. But in the dream they did not fight. In the dream he told her the money was hers, she could do whatever she wanted with it, and he ran out of the house to catch the boy. The boy had already gotten on the wagon along with his mother and other brother and sister, and Chippo Simon was driving them to the road to catch the bus. Phillip could see Johanna calling to him; he could see the oldest boy reaching out his small arms. But the other two children sitting in the bed of the wagon neither saw anything nor heard anything.

  Phillip woke from the dream screaming, his bedclothes wet with perspiration. He didn’t go back to sleep at all that night, and the next day while sitting behind his desk in the office he quit his reading or writing several times to reflect on the dream again. He could still see Johanna in the black overcoat and black hat waving her arms and calling to him. But why black? Why black? He had never known her to wear anything but the brightest colors when she was here. Why black now? He could still see the oldest boy at the tailgate of the wagon reaching out his small arms. But the other two children went on playing as if nothing was happening round them. He ran as hard as he could to catch them, but the wagon slowly and steadily moved farther and farther away.

  Phillip stood at the window looking out on the street, looking and waiting. But the boy didn’t go by. No one went by. The street, gray, empty, cold. The tree in the pasture across the street, gray, leafless, cold.

  Phillip turned from the window to his desk. He wanted to pray, he needed to pray, but how could he pray? If he prayed out loud, Elijah would surely hear him; and he could not get satisfaction praying in silence.

  The Bible on his desk was opened to the fourteenth chapter of John. He had chosen today’s sermon from that chapter. He began reading, moving his lips as he read: “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go—” He stopped. He turned back to the window and pulled the curtains to the side.

  Who could he go to? Who would believe him? Mills? Would Mills believe him if he told Mills he had fallen because he recognized his boy across the room? Or would he feel the same way the others did, that he had fallen because he was tired?

  Tired? Tired? He, Phillip Martin, tired? He could have picked up both Octave Bacheron and Anthony McVay at the same time. He could have pushed that piano across the room with both of them sitting on top of it. Tired? Tired? He, Phillip Martin, tired?

  Why did he do it? Why did he lie there and let them say that? Did they ask him if he was tired? Did they ask his wife anything? Why did he let them do this to himself, do
this to his people? Why didn’t he knock that white man’s hand away from his chest? He could have done it easily as flicking away a fly. Wouldn’t that have been the right thing for him to do—brushing away that white man’s hand and getting to his feet? Being leader, wasn’t that the thing to do? If not the leader, who then? Who?

  But no, like some cowardly frightened little nigger, he lay there and let them do all the talking for him. He even let them push pills down in his mouth. Here’s a white pill, here’s a pink pill, take that and stay quiet. Rest, rest, rest a few days and you’ll be back doing your work again. What work? What work? Getting up off the floor, without their help, that was the work he should have done.

  His back was to the window now, and he was looking at the pictures on the wall. These great men always gave him encouragement when he was troubled. In his heart he asked them now for guidance. He prayed quietly to the picture of Christ on the cross.

  He turned back to the window and looked out on the street again. But no one was passing by his house.

  He could hear Elijah at the piano. Should he go to Elijah? But say what to Elijah? Say what to Elijah today that he couldn’t say yesterday, or last night when Elijah called him out of the office? Say what to Elijah that he couldn’t even say to his own wife? Or to Mills whom he had known all of his life? No, no. He must first talk to the boy. He had to find out why he was there. Did his mother send him? He was too young when he left from there to remember, so she must have sent him. But sent him for what? For what? And why the game?

  Phillip went out of the office and stood in the door between the hall and the living room. Elijah had just finished one song, and he was turning a page in the hymnal to begin another when Phillip spoke to him.

  “Always practicing, Elijah?”

  Elijah jerked around, his hand slamming down on the piano keys. He nearly fell off the stool when he saw Phillip standing only a few feet away from him.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” Phillip said. “I had been listening to your music from the bedroom. Just thought I’d come in here to listen better.”