just as educated as I am ignorant. We was as different as two people could be except for one thing – we both
come from Alabama, me from Babylon down in the toolies by the Florida state line, him from Birmingham.
He didn’t even know I was alive – I was just the nigger woman who cleaned the suite where he always stayed
on the eleventh floor of this hotel. And as for me, I only thought of him to stay out of his way because I heard
him talk and seen him operate and I knew well enough what sort of man he was. It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t
use a glass a black person had used before him without it had been washed twice; I seen plenty of that and it
don’t cross my eyes anymore. It was that he was nothing but a puredyed son of a bitch. You know what? He
was like Johnny in a lot of ways, or the way Johnny would have been if he’d been smart and had an education
and if God had thought to give Johnny a great big slug of talent inside of him instead of just a nose for
poontang.
“I thought nothing of him but to steer clear of him, nothing at all. But when she leaned over me, that old
black bruja woman with the smell of cinnamon that seemed to come right out of the holes in her skin, it was
his name that came out with never a pause. ‘Peter Jeffries,’ I said. ‘Peter Jeffries, the man who stays in 1163
when he ain’t writing his books down there in Alabama. He’s the natural father. But he’s white!’
“She leaned closer and said, ‘No he ain’t, honey. Every man’s black inside. You don’t believe it, but that’s
right. It’s midnight inside every man any hour of God’s day. But a man can make light out of night, and that’s
why what come out of a man into a woman be white. Natural got nothin to do with color. Now you close your
eyes, honey, because you be tired. Now! Say! Now! Don’t you fight! Mama Delorme ain’t goan put nothin
over on you, chile! just got sumpin I goan to put in your hand. Now – no, don’t look. just close your hand over
it.’ I did what she said and felt something square. Felt like glass or plastic.
“‘You gonna remember everythin when it be time for you t’think on em. Now go to sleep. Shhh … go to
sleep …. shhh . . . .’
“And that’s just what I did,” Martha said. “Next thing
I remember, I was running down those stairs like the devil was after me. I didn’t remember what I was
running from, but that didn’t make no difference; I ran anyway. And I never went back there except one more
time, and I didn’t see her when I did.”
7
She paused and they both looked around like women freshly awakened from a shared dream. They saw that
Le Cinq had begun to fill up – it was almost five o’clock and executives were drifting in for their after-work
drink or three.
Although neither wanted to say so out loud, both wanted suddenly to be somewhere else. They were no
longer wearing their uniforms but neither felt she belonged among these men in their suits, their briefcases,
their talk of stocks, bonds, debentures, and politics.
“I’ve got a casserole and a six-pack of beer at my place,” Martha said, suddenly timid. “I could warm up the one and cool down the other … if you want to hear the rest.”
“Honey, I think I got to hear the rest,” Delores said, and laughed a little nervously.
“And I think I’ve got to tell it,” Martha replied, but she did not laugh. Or even smile.
“just let me call Harve.”
“You do that,” Martha said, and while Delores used the telephone, Martha checked in her bag once more just
to make sure the precious book was still there.
8
The casserole – as much of it as the two of them could use, anyway – was eaten, and they had each had a beer.