Song of Solomon

  She shrugged. “Do what you like. Everybody does what he likes nowadays anyway.”

  Milkman lit the cigarette and the dogs hummed at the sound of the match, their eyes glittering toward the flame.

  “Ssh!” whispered Circe.

  “Beautiful,” said Milkman.

  “What’s beautiful?”

  “The dogs.”

  “They’re not beautiful, they’re strange, but they keep things away. I’m completely worn out taking care of ’em. They belonged to Miss Butler. She bred them, crossbred them. Tried for years to get them in the AKC. They wouldn’t permit it.”

  “What did you call them?”

  “Weimaraners. German.”

  “What do you do with them?”

  “Oh, I keep some. Sell some. Till we all die in here together.” She smiled.

  She had dainty habits which matched her torn and filthy clothes in precisely the way her strong young cultivated voice matched her wizened face. Her white hair—braided, perhaps; perhaps not—she touched as though replacing a wayward strand from an elegant coiffure. And her smile—an opening of flesh like celluloid dissolving under a drop of acid—was accompanied by a press of fingers on her chin. It was this combination of daintiness and cultivated speech that misled Macon and invited him to regard her as merely foolish.

  “You should get out once in a while.”

  She looked at him.

  “Is this your house now? Did they will you this? Is that why you have to stay here?”

  She pressed her lips over her gums. “The only reason I’m here alone is because she died. She killed herself. All the money was gone, so she killed herself. Stood right there on the landing where you were a minute ago and threw herself off the banister. She didn’t die right away, though; she lay in the bed a week or two and there was nobody here but us. The dogs were in the kennel then. I brought her in the world, just like I did her mother and her grandmother before that. Birthed just about everybody in the county, I did. Never lost one either. Never lost nobody but your mother. Well, grandmother, I guess she was. Now I birth dogs.”

  “Some friend of Reverend Cooper said she looked white. My grandmother. Was she?”

  “No. Mixed. Indian mostly. A good-looking woman, but fierce, for the young woman I knew her as. Crazy about her husband too, overcrazy. You know what I mean? Some women love too hard. She watched over him like a pheasant hen. Nervous. Nervous love.”

  Milkman thought about this mixed woman’s great-granddaughter, Hagar, and said, “Yes. I know what you mean.”

  “But a good woman. I cried like a baby when I lost her. Like a baby. Poor Sing.”

  “What?” He wondered if she lisped.

  “I cried like a baby when I—”

  “No. I mean what did you call her?”

  “Sing. Her name was Sing.”

  “Sing? Sing Dead. Where’d she get a name like that?”

  “Where’d you get a name like yours? White people name Negroes like race horses.”

  “I suppose so. Daddy told me how they got their name.”

  “What’d he tell you?”

  Milkman told her the story about the drunken Yankee.

  “Well, he didn’t have to keep the name. She made him. She made him keep that name,” Circe said when he was through.

  “She?”

  “Sing. His wife. They met on a wagon going North. Ate pecans all the way, she told me. It was a wagonful of ex-slaves going to the promised land.”

  “Was she a slave too?”

  “No. No indeed. She always bragged how she was never a slave. Her people neither.”

  “Then what was she doing on that wagon?”

  “I can’t answer you because I don’t know. Never crossed my mind to ask her.”

  “Where were they coming from? Georgia?”

  “No. Virginia. Both of them lived in Virginia, her people and his. Down around Culpeper somewhere. Charlemagne or something like that.”

  “I think that’s where Pilate was for a while. She lived all over the country before she came to us.”

  “Did she ever marry that boy?”

  “What boy?”

  “The boy she had the baby by.”

  “No. She didn’t marry him.”

  “Didn’t think she would. She was too ashamed.”

  “Ashamed of what?”

  “Her stomach.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Borned herself. I had very little to do with it. I thought they were both dead, the mother and the child. When she popped out you could have knocked me over. I hadn’t heard a heartbeat anywhere. She just came on out. Your daddy loved her. Hurt me to hear they broke away from one another. So it does me good to hear they’re back together again.” She had warmed up talking about the past and Milkman decided not to tell her that Macon and Pilate just lived in the same city. He wondered how she knew about their split, and if she knew what they broke apart about.

  “You knew about their quarrel?” he asked quietly, non-chalantly.

  “Not the substance. Just the fact. Pilate came back here just after her baby was born. One winter. She told me they split up when they left here and she hadn’t seen him since.”

  “Pilate told me they lived in a cave for a few days after they left this house.”

  “Is that right? Must have been Hunters Cave. Hunters used it to rest up in there sometimes. Eat. Smoke. Sleep. That’s where they dumped Old Macon’s body.”

  “They who? I thought … My father said he buried him. Down by a creek or a river someplace where they used to fish.”

  “He did. But it was too shallow and too close to the water. The body floated up at the first heavy rain. Those children hadn’t been gone a month when it floated up. Some men were fishing down there and saw this body, a Negro. So they knew who it was. Dumped it in the cave, and it was summer too. You’d think they would have buried a body in the summer. I told Mrs. Butler I thought it was a disgrace.”

  “Daddy doesn’t know that.”

  “Well, don’t tell him. Let him have his peace. It’s hard enough with a murdered father; he don’t need to know what happened to the body.”

  “Did Pilate tell you why she came back here?”

  “Yes. She said her father told her to. She had visits from him, she said.”

  “I’d like to see that cave. Where he’s … where they put him.”

  “Won’t be anything left to see now. That’s been a long time ago.”

  “I know, but maybe there’s something I can bury properly.”

  “Now, that’s a thought worth having. The dead don’t like it if they’re not buried. They don’t like it at all. You won’t have trouble finding it. You go back out the road you came in on. Go north until you come to a stile. It’s falling down, but you’ll see it’s a stile. Right in there the woods are open. Walk a little way in and you’ll come to a creek. Cross it. There’ll be some more woods, but ahead you’ll see a short range of hills. The cave is right on the face of those hills. You can’t miss it. It’s the only one there. Tell your daddy you buried him properly, in a graveyard. Maybe with a headstone. A nice headstone. I hope they find me soon enough and somebody’ll take pity on me.” She looked at the dogs. “Hope they find me soon and don’t let me lay in here too long.”

  Milkman swallowed as her thought touched his mind. “People come to see you, don’t they?”

  “Dog buyers. They come every now and then. They’ll find me, I guess.”

  “Reverend Cooper…They think you’re dead.”

  “Splendid. I don’t like those Negroes in town. Dog people come and the man that delivers the dog food once a week. They come. They’ll find me. I just hope it’s soon.”

  He loosened his collar and lit another cigarette. Here in this dim room he sat with the woman who had helped deliver his father and Pilate; who had risked her job, her life, maybe, to hide them both after their father was killed, emptied their slop jars, brought them food at night and pans of water to wash. Had
even sneaked off to the village to have the girl Pilate’s name and snuffbox made into an earring. Then healed the ear when it got infected. And after all these years was thrilled to see what she believed was one of them. Healer, deliverer, in another world she would have been the head nurse at Mercy. Instead she tended Weimaraners and had just one selfish wish: that when she died somebody would find her before the dogs ate her.

  “You should leave this place. Sell the damn dogs. I’ll help you. You need money? How much?” Milkman felt a flood of pity and thought gratitude made her smile at him. But her voice was cold.

  “You think I don’t know how to walk when I want to walk? Put your money back in your pocket.”

  Rebuffed from his fine feelings, Milkman matched her cold tone: “You loved those white folks that much?”

  “Love?” she asked. “Love?”

  “Well, what are you taking care of their dogs for?”

  “Do you know why she killed herself? She couldn’t stand to see the place go to ruin. She couldn’t live without servants and money and what it could buy. Every cent was gone and the taxes took whatever came in. She had to let the upstairs maids go, then the cook, then the dog trainer, then the yardman, then the chauffeur, then the car, then the woman who washed once a week. Then she started selling bits and pieces—land, jewels, furniture. The last few years we ate out of the garden. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore. The thought of having no help, no money—well, she couldn’t take that. She had to let everything go.”

  “But she didn’t let you go.” Milkman had no trouble letting his words snarl.

  “No, she didn’t let me go. She killed herself.”

  “And you still loyal.”

  “You don’t listen to people. Your ear is on your head, but it’s not connected to your brain. I said she killed herself rather than do the work I’d been doing all my life!” Circe stood up, and the dogs too. “Do you hear me? She saw the work I did all her days and died, you hear me, died rather than live like me. Now, what do you suppose she thought I was! If the way I lived and the work I did was so hateful to her she killed herself to keep from having to do it, and you think I stay on here because I loved her, then you have about as much sense as a fart!”

  The dogs were humming and she touched their heads. One stood on either side of her. “They loved this place. Loved it. Brought pink veined marble from across the sea for it and hired men in Italy to do the chandelier that I had to climb a ladder and clean with white muslin once every two months. They loved it. Stole for it, lied for it, killed for it. But I’m the one left. Me and the dogs. And I will never clean it again. Never. Nothing. Not a speck of dust, not a grain of dirt, will I move. Everything in this world they lived for will crumble and rot. The chandelier already fell down and smashed itself to pieces. It’s down there in the ballroom now. All in pieces. Something gnawed through the cords. Ha! And I want to see it all go, make sure it does go, and that nobody fixes it up. I brought the dogs in to make sure. They keep strangers out too. Folks tried to get in here to steal things after she died. I set the dogs on them. Then I just brought them all right in here with me. You ought to see what they did to her bedroom. Her walls didn’t have wallpaper. No. Silk brocade that took some Belgian women six years to make. She loved it—oh, how much she loved it. Took thirty Weimaraners one day to rip it off the walls. If I thought the stink wouldn’t strangle you, I’d show it to you.” She looked at the walls around her. “This is the last room.”

  “I wish you’d let me help you,” he said after a while.

  “You have. You came in here and pretended it didn’t stink and told me about Macon and my sweet little Pilate.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Never surer.”

  They both stood and walked down the hall. “Mind how you step. There’s no light.” Dogs came from everywhere, humming. “Time for their feeding,” she said. Milkman started down the stairs. Halfway down, he turned and looked up at her.

  “You said his wife made him keep the name. Did you ever know his real name?”

  “Jake, I believe.”

  “Jake what?”

  She shrugged, a Shirley Temple, little-girl-helpless shrug. “Jake was all she told me.”

  “Thanks,” he called back, louder than he needed to, but he wanted his gratitude to cut through the stink that was flooding back over the humming of the dogs.

  But the humming and the smell followed him all the way back down the tunnel to the macadam road. When he got there it was ten-thirty. Another hour and a half before Nephew would be back. Milkman paced the shoulder of the road, making plans. When should he return? Should he try to rent a car or borrow the preacher’s? Had Nephew got his suitcase? What equipment would he need? Flashlight and what else? What story should be in his mind in case he was discovered? Of course: looking for his grandfather’s remains—to collect them and take them for a proper burial. He paced further, and then began to stroll in the direction Nephew would be coming from. After a few minutes, he wondered if he was going the right way. He started back, but just then saw the ends of two or three wooden planks sticking out of the brush. Maybe this was the stile Circe had described to him. Not exactly a stile, but the remains of one. Circe had not left that house in years, he thought. Any stile she knew of would have to be in disrepair now. And if her directions were accurate, he might make it there and back before twelve. At least he would be able to check it out in the daylight.

  Gingerly, he parted the brush and walked a little way into the woods. He didn’t see even a trace of a track. But as he kept on a bit, he heard water and followed the sound, which seemed to be just ahead of the next line of trees. He was deceived. He walked for fifteen minutes before he came to it. “Cross it,” she’d said, and he thought there would be a bridge of some sort. There was none. He looked across and saw hills. It must be there. Right there. He calculated that he could just make it in the hour or so left before he should be back on the road. He sat down, took off his shoes and socks, stuffed the socks in his pocket, and rolled up his pants. Holding his shoes in his hand, he waded in. Unprepared for the coldness of the water and the slimy stones at the bottom, he slipped to one knee and soaked his shoes trying to break his fall. He righted himself with difficulty and poured the water out of his shoes. Since he was already wet, there was no point in turning back; he waded on out. After half a minute, the creek bed dropped six inches and he fell again, only now he went completely under and got a glimpse of small silvery translucent fish as his head went down. Snorting water, he cursed the creek, which was too shallow to swim and too rocky to walk. He should have pulled a stick to check depth before he put his foot down, but his excitement had been too great. He went on, feeling with his toes for firm footing before he put his weight down. It was slow moving—the water was about two or three feet deep and some twelve yards wide. If he hadn’t been so eager, maybe he could have found a narrower part to cross. Thoughts of what he should have done instead of just plunging in, fruitless as they were, irritated him so that they kept him moving until he made it to the other side. He threw his shoes on the dry ground and hoisted himself up and out on the bank. Breathless, he reached for his cigarettes and found them soaked. He lay back on the grass and let the high sunshine warm him. He opened his mouth so the clear air could bathe his tongue.

  After a while he sat up and put on the wet socks and shoes. He looked at his watch to check the time. It ticked, but the face was splintered and the minute hand was bent. Better move, he thought, and struck out for the hills, which, deceptive as the sound of the creek, were much farther away than they seemed. He had no idea that simply walking through trees, bushes, on untrammeled ground could be so hard. Woods always brought to his mind City Park, the tended woods on Honoré Island where he went for outings as a child and where tiny convenient paths led you through. “He leased ten acres of virgin woods and cleared it all,” said the men describing the beginning of Old Macon Dead’s farm. Cleared this? Chopped down this? This stuff he coul
d barely walk through?

  He was sweating into his wet shirt and just beginning to feel the result of sharp stones on his feet. Occasionally he came to a clear space and he’d alter his direction as soon as the low hills came back into view.

  Finally flat ground gave way to a gentle upward slope of bushes, saplings, and rock. He walked along its edge, looking for an opening. As he moved southward, the skirts of the hills were rockier and the saplings fewer. Then he saw, some fifteen to twenty feet above him, a black hole in the rock which he could get to by a difficult, but not dangerous, climb, made more difficult by the thin smooth soles of his shoes. He wiped sweat from his forehead on his coat sleeve, slipped off the narrow black tie that hung open around his collar and put it in his pocket.

  The salt taste was back in his mouth and he was so agitated by what he believed, hoped, he would find there, he had to put his hands on warm stone to dry them. He thought of the pitiful hungry eyes of the old men, their eagerness for some word of defiant success accomplished by the son of Macon Dead; and of the white men who strutted through the orchards and ate the Georgia peaches after they shot his grandfather’s head off. Milkman took a deep breath and began to negotiate the rocks.

  As soon as he put his foot on the first stone, he smelled money, although it was not a smell at all. It was like candy and sex and soft twinkling lights. Like piano music with a few strings in the background. He’d noticed it before when he waited under the pines near Pilate’s house; more when the moon lit up the green sack that hung like a kept promise from her ceiling; and most when he tumbled lightly to the floor, sack in hand. Las Vegas and buried treasure; numbers dealers and Wells Fargo wagons; race track pay windows and spewing oil wells; craps, flushes, and sweepstakes tickets. Auctions, bank vaults, and heroin deals. It caused paralysis, trembling, dry throats, and sweaty palms. Urgency, and the feeling that “they” had been mastered or were on your side. Quiet men stood up and threw a queen down on the table hard enough to break her neck. Women sucked their bottom lips and put little red disks down in numbered squares. Lifeguards, A-students, eyed cash registers and speculated on how far away the door was. To win. There was nothing like it in the world.