and the neighbours are not supposed to find out the colour of the new owner’s skin
until the new owner moves in.’
`What did you tell him?’
‘I told him, “Certainly 1’m willing to sell my house if the price is right. But the
price would have to be attractive, as we are comfortable where we are and moving is
always expensive in time and in money. What price does your client offer? In cash, I
mean – not a down payment and take back a mortgage. If I am going to have to find
another house for my large family – eleven of us – I’ll need cash to work with. I
may have to build, rather than buy – not too many houses can handle big families
today; I probably would have to build. If I do this. So the price would have to be
attractive and it would have to be in cash.”
‘This false face points out that any bank would discount the paper on such a
property; a mortgage is as good as cash. “Not to me, it isn’t,” I told him. “Let
your client arrange the mortgage directly with his bank and bring the cash up front.
My dear sir, I’m not anxious to sell. Give me a cash figure and, if it’s big enough,
we’ll go straight to escrow. If it’s not, I’ll tell you no just as quickly.”
‘He said that escrow would not be necessary, as they were satisfied that I could
grant good title. Mo, that told me more than the words he said. It means that they
have already run a title search on us… and probably on every house in our block.
It means to me that this is probably the only house in this block that does not have
a mortgage against it… or some other legal matter that would have to be cleared in
escrow, such as lifetime tenancy under a will, or the property is currently in
probate, or involved in a pending divorce, or there is a lien against it, or a
judgement, or something. A man trying to put together this sort of a deal doesn’t
like escrow, because it is during that waiting period that the “Gentlemen’s
Agreement” sort of people can find out what is going on, and move in to stop it…
often with the connivance of a sympathetic judge.’
‘Briney, maybe you had better explain “Gentlemen’s Agreement” to me. I don’t recall
it from that course in commercial law we took.’
‘You would not have heard of it there because it is extralegal. Not against the law,
just not covered by law. There is no covenant in your deed to this house that
forbids you to sell to anyone you wish to, black, white, or green polka dots… and
it might not stand up in court if there was. But, if you were to ask our neighbours,
I guarantee that they would assure you that there is indeed a gentlemen’s agreement
binding you not to sell your house in this block to a Negro.’
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Heinlein, Robert A – To Sail Beyond the Sunset.txt
I was puzzled. ‘Have we ever agreed to anything of the sort?’ My husband made all
sorts of commitments and rarely told me. He simply assumed that I would back him up.
And I always did. Marriage is not a sometime thing; it’s whole hawg or you’re not
married.
‘Never.’
`Are you going to ask our neighbours what they think about this?’
‘Mo, do you want me to? It’s your house:
I don’t think I hesitated as long as two seconds. But it was a new ides and I did
have to decide. ‘Briney, several houses in this block have changed hands since we
moved in here, uh, twenty-two years ago. I don’t recall that we were ever asked our
opinion about any of those transactions.’
‘That’s right. We never were.’
‘I don’t think it is any of their business to decide what a Negro can or can’t buy.
Or to tell us. What they do with their property is their business; what we do with
ours is our business – as long as we obey the laws and abide by any open covenants