Jack (Gilead #4)(92)

“Small town,” he said.

“Right,” Marcus said, as if acknowledging a distinction.

“I did do a lot of fishing. Played lots of baseball.” Lied a lot, stole a lot. Blue eye, tan cheek, larcenous habits, a Child Slick somehow rusticated. Not what anyone means by the words “country boy.” The dinner was exhausting, and when he was tired, Jack had to watch out for bouts of candor.

The bishop said, “This is a pretty full house, as you can see, but we do have a couple of cots in a back room for unexpected visitors.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind.” He hated how often he had to say those words. When Della’s mother told the boys that they would be doing the dishes all by themselves for the rest of their lives, Jack caught himself before he could say he had useful experience in that line, or he was living proof that you really could end up doing dishes for the rest of your life. It wasn’t even dark out, and the thought of sleep almost made his knees buckle.

“First, though, I hope we can have a few words, Mr. Boughton,” the bishop said.

“Of course.” Of course. Jack followed him into his study. Big books drab with age and use, a picture of Jesus preaching.

“Mr. Boughton,” he said.

“Jack.”

He nodded. “Mr. Boughton. My family and many of our friends have devoted ourselves to a certain way of life, one meant to develop self-sufficiency in the Negro race by the practice of separatism, so far as this is possible in society as it exists now. I know there are white people who are offended by separatism, but the alternatives also offend them. I’m not asking your opinion about this. My point is that my objection is not to you as an individual.”

Jack said, “You don’t know me very well.”

“Maybe I don’t. I think I have gleaned a few things. But we won’t get into that.”

“Thanks. You’re very kind.”

“Kinder than I want to be sometimes.”

Jack said, “I understand. My father was a clergyman.”

He smiled. “Yes, Della has mentioned that.” After a moment, he said, “You can never be welcome here. I want you to understand that. Della and any children can come here if they want to, or need to, so long as they come without you. You have disrupted our lives, but not our intentions. The situation of black people must change. They must have the opportunity to decide what form the change will take and how it will be achieved. I regret that my daughter does not choose to have a part in this. For the time being, at least.”

Jack said, “Della is loyal to me and I’m loyal to her. I never intended things to work out this way. I couldn’t have imagined it. Neither of us meant any harm, I promise you.”

“So she says.” He took up an envelope from his desk. “Money,” he said. “Enough for bus fare to St. Louis. I want you to go away.”

“Then both of us will go.”

“Maybe so. We’ll see.”

Jack would have refused the money on principle if he were not in fact desperate to leave and at a loss for another way to manage it. “Thank you” seemed wrong in the circumstances, so Jack said, “Christian of you.” This may have sounded a little sardonic, since the bishop said, “You should be very grateful that I am a Christian man.”

The fact was that Jack saw his point. In simple truth, society was a great collaboration devoted to making everything difficult and painful to no good end, a curse on the life of his good Della and her unborn child. True loyalty to them might have been to step away and let this man go about his necessary work undistracted by worry about his daughter, by fear for her. But if Jack did that, if he left her, even her father might think, might say, “Well, what did you expect?”

Jack said to this formidable man, “I’m really very tired.”

“Yes. I’ll show you to your room.”

It was a bare room with three cots in it, two closed up and one with a pillow, sheets, and a blanket. Jack almost made a joke about handing over his belt and shoelaces, which would actually have seemed prudent in his current state of mind. It felt very good to take off his tie and jacket and his shoes. There was a knock at the door, Julia with his valise and a paper bag that smelled like sandwiches. “Della is leaving tomorrow, too,” she said, and went away.

When the light was out, he sank into a despondency that had many of the effects of sleep. He was immobilized and his thoughts were strange, unstable as water. Then it was sleep, the same except that from time to time he woke out of it. Well before dawn began, he pulled himself together as well as he could and sat on the bed wishing the light was good enough to let him read. He had that small old Bible in his valise. After a while there was a knock at the door, Julia again. She said, “Della’s in the kitchen making coffee.” So he went to find her, and there she was, in that warm, enclosing light that blackens windows and delays morning, that most domestic light. Of course he put his arms around her. For a minute or two they had the world to themselves.

Della said, “Are you ready to go?”

“Absolutely, utterly, passionately.”

“I’m sorry it’s been so awful. They’re really wonderful people.”

“I’ll take your word for that.”

“Hurt feelings,” she said.

He said, “Let’s not think about it. It’s done. We’ll think about it later. Forever, probably.”