A Garden Of Earthly Delights Part 6

"So what if they told him?" Rosalie said sharply.

Clara saw some kids coming and wanted to cross the street, but Rosalie wouldn't. The kids-three boys and a gawky, scrawny girl-let them get past, then they began whooping and throwing stones at them. Clara and Rosalie started to run. "Dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" Rosalie yelled over her shoulder. The kids behind them yelled too, laughing. A stone hit Clara's back but didn't really hurt, it just made her angry. She and Rosalie ran wildly down an alley, across another dirt lane, and through someone's junk heap. A battered old kettle struck her leg, knocked down from higher up on the pile, and she cried out with pain.

Then they were in a backyard, behind a fence. They stared at each other, panting. Their eyes were big.

"Where are they? Ain't they comin?"

"I don't hear them-"

They waited. Clara whispered, "I'd like to have a knife like my pa does, to kill them. I'd kill them."

"I would too."

After a while Rosalie looked over the fence. "We might could run out the front way-I don't see n.o.body back here-"

They caught their breaths and ran, Rosalie first. Down a nice brick walk and out onto the street. Clara kept waiting for someone to yell out the window at them.

"Look at the gra.s.s they got here," Rosalie said.

It was like a rug on the ground, green and fine.

"Jesus Christ," Rosalie said. They walked along the street, b.u.mping into each other. They had never seen such nice white houses. "The people that live here got money. They're rich," she said.

"We better get out of here," said Clara.

"Yeah ..."

"We better go back...."

Clara was staring at a house some distance from the street. It was a bright clean white like the house in that schoolbook, with trees in the front yard. There were two stained-gla.s.s windows in the entry-way. For some reason Clara started to cry.

"What the h.e.l.l?" said Rosalie. "You sick?"

Clara's face felt as if it were breaking up into pieces. The stained-gla.s.s windows were blue and dark green with small splotches of yellow. "I could break that window if I wanted to," Clara said bitterly.

"What, them windows?"

"I could break it."

"Well, you ain't goin to!"

Rosalie pulled her along. She acted nervous. "We better be goin back, I'm hungry. Ain't you hungry?"

"Or I could take that," Clara said. She was pointing at a flag that hung down from the front porch. The porch had been screened off with dark, green-gray shades.

"Yeah, sure."

"I could take that easy as anything," Clara said. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, as if to make the red-and-white-striped flag smaller, to get it into clear focus so it wouldn't mean anything. "I ain't afraid-"

"You are too."

"Like h.e.l.l I am."

"You're so smart, go on and take it!"

Clara stepped on the gra.s.s. Her thudding heart urged her on, and the next thing she knew she was running and was up on the porch steps, then she was tugging the stick out of its slot. It was a thin little pole that weighed hardly anything. Rosalie stood back on the sidewalk, gawking.

"Hey-Clara! Clara!"

But Clara did not listen. She tugged at the stick until it came loose. Then she ran back to Rosalie with her prize, and both girls ran down the street as fast as they could. They began to giggle hysterically. Laughter began deep inside them, rus.h.i.+ng up to the surface like bubbles in the soda pop that forgotten man had given them.

7.

A month later, about six o'clock in the evening, Nancy was sitting in the doorway, smoking, her legs outstretched in front of her. Both her arms rested comfortably on her stomach, which was beginning now to get big. Clara was sc.r.a.ping food from the supper dishes into a pail. She sang part of a song she heard out in the field: Whispering hope of his coming ...

Whispering hope ...

She had a thin, tuneless, earnest voice. Everyone in the camps sang, even the men. Clara's father did not sing, though. People sang about someone coming to them, someone saving them, about crossing the bar into another world, or about Texas and California, which were like other worlds anyway. Clara asked Rosalie about Texas, was it so special, and Rosalie said she couldn't remember anything. But Rosalie always laughed at everything; she didn't take anything seriously. She was like her father and that whole family. Clara liked to laugh at things too but she was like her father and knew when to stop laughing. In a group of men Carleton would be the first to smile and the first to stop, because he was smartest. Then he would sit back on his heels or turn his face slightly away and wait until the rest of the men finished laughing.

"Clara, get me a beer," Nancy said.

Clara got a bottle of beer out of the cupboard. When Nancy turned to take it from her Clara saw that her face was creased with tiny wrinkles. She was always frowning these days. Clara waited while Nancy opened the bottle and stopped to pick up the bottle cap. Those little caps could cut somebody's feet; Clara went around picking them up in the cabin and around the cabin, outside, where Nancy and Carleton let them roll.

"Is Rosie better now?" Clara said.

"No, she ain't better, and you ain't goin to go an' find out," Nancy said.

Clara hadn't been able to see Rosalie for four days. Rosalie didn't go out to work in the morning, and when Clara got back on the bus with her family they wouldn't let her go down to see Rosalie. Rosa-lie's father, Bert, was out working today and Clara had noticed how cheerful and nervous he was-he mixed with work crews from other camps and was always in the center of the loudest group, where people were laughing and talking and maybe pa.s.sing bottles around. This was against the law. You weren't supposed to mix with the people from a certain camp because they always caused trouble, there were lots of fights, but Bert did whatever he wanted to. He liked everyone.

"Somebody said there was a doctor out," Clara said.

Nancy did not bother to turn. "What's it to you?" She sat with her shoulders slumped inside a soiled s.h.i.+rt of Carleton's. Her hair was stiff with oil and dust from the fields; everything she said or did was slowed down. Clara, who remembered how happy Nancy had been a while ago and how, at night, she used to laugh and whisper from the mattress where she and Carleton lay, felt sorry for her- she had never been jealous of Nancy's happiness, because she thought that anyone's happiness would turn out to be her own someday. Now, Nancy's slurred words and irritated face frightened Clara because there was no reason for them. She could not understand what was wrong.

Rodwell and some other kids ran past the shanty, yelling. Nancy did not bother to look at them. "He better watch out, that big kid's gonna beat him up," Clara said. The kids were gone. They ran between two of the shanties, pounding against them with their fists as they pa.s.sed, as if they wanted to break the shanties down. Roosevelt was out somewhere, Clara didn't know where. Their father was out talking the way he was every day after supper. When Clara was through with the dishes she'd go out to find him, squatting on the ground with some other men, and when she came up to them she would hear important, serious words that made her proud: "prices," "Roosevelt," "Russia." She did not know what these words meant but liked to hear them because they seemed to make Carleton happy, and when he came back home later in the evening he would often talk softly to Nancy about their plans for next year. He would tell Nancy and Clara and whoever else wanted to listen that the country was going to change everything, that there would be a new way to live, and that when they went through a town the next time he was going to buy a newspaper to read up on it. Nancy was not much interested, but Clara always asked him about it. She thought that "Russia" was a lovely word, with its soft, hissing sound; it might be a special kind of material for a dress, something expensive, or a creamy, rich, expensive food.

It began to rain outside again, a warm, misty drizzle. "Christ sake," Nancy said sourly. "More mud tomorrow."

Clara couldn't see much out the window, because it faced the back of another shanty, so she went over to Nancy and looked out; she had to be careful because Nancy didn't like anyone standing behind her. A few people across the way were standing in their doorway too. They were a funny family no one liked because they couldn't talk right. Clara and Rosalie didn't like the girl, who was their age, because she talked funny and had thick black hair with nasty things in it. Nancy told Clara that if she came home with lice she could sleep under the shanty. She could sleep out in the out-house, Nancy said. So Clara and Rosalie and all the other kids pretended to be afraid of the kids in that family, circling around them and teasing. The people in that shanty threw their garbage out in the walk, too, and that was against the rules.

"Lookit them pigs over there," Nancy said. "They ought to be run out of this here camp; this is for white people."

"Are they n.i.g.g.e.rs?"

"There's a lot more n.i.g.g.e.rs than just ones with black skin, for Christ sake," Nancy said, s.h.i.+fting as if she were uncomfortable. "Where's your father? We're s'post to go down the road, what the h.e.l.l is he doin with it rainin out?" Her voice went on listlessly, with a kind of dogged anger. It was as if she had to stir herself up when she began to forget about being angry. She scratched her shoulder. Clara watched how the worn green material of the s.h.i.+rt was gathered up and then released by Nancy's fingernails. It was hard to believe that Nancy was going to have a baby: Nancy was not much different from Clara.

"I'm gonna see Rosie," Clara said.

"Like h.e.l.l you are."

"How come I can't?"

"Ask your father," Nancy said. "What about them dishes, anyway?"

Clara splashed cold water from the pan onto the dishes. Each day when they came back on the bus she went out to get water from the faucets, then kept this water around until the next day. She washed the plates by putting them in a big pan and pouring water on them and swis.h.i.+ng her fingers around. Then she took the plates out and put them facedown on the table to dry, so the flies couldn't get at them. There was old, faded oilcloth tacked on the little table, and Clara liked the smell of it. She liked to clean the oilcloth and the dishes because they were things she could get clean while other things were always dirty-there was no use in scrubbing the walls or the floor because the dirt was sunk deep into them, and if she tried to clear away the junk around the cabin it would just come back again.

"I'm goin out now," Clara said.

"It's rainin."

"Everybody else is out."

"So the h.e.l.l with Rodwell and Roosevelt," Nancy said, drawling. "If they want to get worse colds, let them."

Roosevelt was bad: he ran out anytime he wanted, and he never got over being sick. He was sick all the time now and wouldn't lie still. He wanted to come along to the fields with everyone else, then when he got there he wanted to play with the little kids and not work; if Carleton slapped him he would mind the way an animal minds, not wanting to but doing it out of terror. "Roosevelt's poison, that kid, an' Rodwell ain't much better," Nancy said. "I told him I wasn't goin to bring up no baby of mine around them. I told him that."

Clara's face got warm.

"I could leave here anytime I f.u.c.kin want," Nancy said. She drank from the bottle, noisily. "He don't give a d.a.m.n, that's his trouble. Always talkin about some G.o.dd.a.m.n half-a.s.s job with buildin a road or somethin-when was he ever on a road crew, huh? There's all kinds of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds lined up for that work, and chop down son-ofa-b.i.t.c.h trees, any kind of c.r.a.p you can think of. Buy me! Buy me! Buy me! Buy me! Sonsab.i.t.c.hes saying women are wh.o.r.es, well all of 'em are f.u.c.kin wh.o.r.es. And this here, crawlin in the mud, this is so s.h.i.+tty n.o.body wants to except n.i.g.g.e.rs. You tell him that, huh? Tell him Nancy said so." Sonsab.i.t.c.hes saying women are wh.o.r.es, well all of 'em are f.u.c.kin wh.o.r.es. And this here, crawlin in the mud, this is so s.h.i.+tty n.o.body wants to except n.i.g.g.e.rs. You tell him that, huh? Tell him Nancy said so."

Clara was trying to understand this, that flew past her head like a swarm of riled yellow jackets. "Pa said we were goin to leave real soon," Clara said apologetically. She felt older than Nancy, sometimes. It made her tired. It would come upon her suddenly, a sense of expansion, something dizzy, too much for her to bear; like in those dreams where you are running, running, running-but where? Or, awake, like your eyes are rubbed raw, you see things other people don't see, or don't wish to see.

"s.h.i.+t, I heard that before."

"Pa says-"

"Pa says, Pa says! A lot of c.r.a.p Pa says and he ain't gonna fool me with it anymore." Nancy finished the bottle and tossed it out onto the ground with a flourish wanting it to break. It made a noise but didn't break.

After that, Clara would not remember anything clearly.

Except: the woman from the cabin next door running up. She was holding a newspaper over her head to keep off the rain and her face looked twisted and rubbery with excitement. "They're right here now-they just come in! They been trying to burn a cross, and the rain keeps putting it out."

"Oh, Jesus." Nancy got to her feet stumbling and scared.

"It's the Klan. Like people said. They're here."

"Jesus help us, I heard of them torching a whole camp-"

The woman stood barefoot in the mud, toes curling. She was s.h.i.+vering with excitement and her face had gone crafty. "They ain't gonna do that. They can't. There's men from the camp gonna protect him. The camp owners, they ain't gonna let the place get burnt down. This cross, it's taller'n a man, it's ten feet, it's soaked in gasoline and that burns but it don't burn for long, then-"

"Is Carleton down there?"

"He's there."

"Oh, Jesus." Nancy moaned with fear. "Can't somebody call the sheriff ?"

"It's all the Klan. All of 'em. Out of Tom's River, like people been saying. Half the sheriff 's deputies, people say."

Clara came up behind Nancy, shoving fingers into her mouth.

"Who's comin? What's wrong? Where's Pa?"

She saw the women exchanging a quick, secret look. They were frightened yet suddenly both laughed, the way a dog barks out of nervousness. Clara said, scared, "Where's Pa?"

"None of your business, Clara. This ain't business for a young girl, you get back inside."

Nancy tried to push Clara back but Clara squirmed free of her hands. There was a brief struggle then Nancy gave up, cursing.

"Go to h.e.l.l, then. Like you're goin to go, miss. I I ain't your pulin old ma." ain't your pulin old ma."

Nancy and the woman hurried away in the rain. The newspaper flapped out of the woman's hand. Clara jumped down and ran after them. A cross? A burning cross? A torch? Something had been going to happen that night, people were saying. Everybody knew, but n.o.body would tell Clara. Now older kids were running in the mud, kids she knew and was a little afraid of, but she ran after them not minding the rain or the mud. "Where's it? What is it?"-Clara asked but n.o.body bothered to hear her.

Clara saw men in the rain, in front of Rosalie's house.

Maybe it was a sickness? Some bad sickness like they'd had in one of the camps: meningitis. meningitis. It was just sounds to her she'd memorized: It was just sounds to her she'd memorized: bacterial meningitis. bacterial meningitis. And there was chicken pox they'd been inoculated against, a nurse-looking woman giving you shots in the upper arm from a needle. Nancy hadn't wanted to be inoculated, Nancy near-to fainted like a big baby, but Clara thought the hurt hadn't been so bad. And clothes and things from the camp had been burnt in a big fire, and everybody stood around watching. And it had been fun, kind of. Except it wasn't like that now. What they'd tried to burn was two wooden planks nailed together to make a cross like a cross on a church. Maybe why Nancy said And there was chicken pox they'd been inoculated against, a nurse-looking woman giving you shots in the upper arm from a needle. Nancy hadn't wanted to be inoculated, Nancy near-to fainted like a big baby, but Clara thought the hurt hadn't been so bad. And clothes and things from the camp had been burnt in a big fire, and everybody stood around watching. And it had been fun, kind of. Except it wasn't like that now. What they'd tried to burn was two wooden planks nailed together to make a cross like a cross on a church. Maybe why Nancy said Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.

There was Carleton, you could see him he was so tall. With some of the other pickers. But they were standing at the edge of some louder men, angry men you could see weren't from the camp. It was like Hallowe'en-some of the men were wearing white sacks over their heads, with holes for eyes. White robes that, when they walked fast, kicked open to show their pant legs. Something to do with the cross? Like priests? Except they were carrying shotguns and rifles and were angry-looking, and yelling. Clara shrank from men yelling, it wasn't like women and kids yelling. At such times you are made to know Something bad will happen now. Something bad will happen now.

The men in the white hoods were dragging Rosalie's father Bert out of his cabin. The man was pleading, crying. Hanging on to the doorframe so one of the men with a shotgun rammed the b.u.t.t against Bert's fingers and Bert screamed with pain and let go. All this while Clara was whimpering, "Pa! Pa ..." She could see Carleton at the side grimacing, clenching his fists, but he couldn't do a thing, couldn't push free to help his friend. Clara saw the gang of white-hooded men how they'd taken over, so many of them, there was nothing you could do except stand aside, and watch.

Clara tried to push through men's legs but people just pushed her back. Somebody leaned down to shake her-"Little girl, get the h.e.l.l back home." There was a surge in the crowd and Clara slipped or was pushed and fell into the mud bawling, "Pa! Pa! Rosie!" A man's booted foot came down on her hand, but the mud was soft, it didn't smash her fingers.

They were beating Rosalie's father. Clara couldn't see but she could hear him pleading with his a.s.sailants, and she could hear the whacks of the blows. Up at the cabin there was Rosalie's mother in the doorway, she'd been screaming and screaming and in the rain her clothes were soaked through, and her face and hair were streaming wet. "His property! His property! You got no right!"- over and over she was screaming this, till one of the white-hooded men slapped her, hard.

Some of the men in white hoods, they'd pushed them back now so you could see their wet glistening heads. They were like any other men you'd see in Jersey, Clara thought. Like her own pa, not that different. It was surprising to her, and confusing. Clara was calling, "Pa-" and there came Nancy to grab her by the arm and yank her free of the crowd. "You, Clara! Oh what did I tell you!" Nancy's face was white and twisted-looking like a rag. She made Clara run with her out of the crowd, panting and stumbling, and told Clara not to look back, though the men's shouts were heightened, and something seemed to be happening. Clara whimpered, "Where's Pa-" but Nancy paid no heed. Nancy had slung her arm tight around Clara's thin shoulders. So Nancy didn't hate her! Clara was thinking she would forgive Nancy speaking so cruel of Pearl. Pulin old ma Pulin old ma Nancy had said but maybe she hadn't meant it. Nancy had said but maybe she hadn't meant it.

Farther back into the camp, near where the Walpoles' cabin was, people stood in front of their cabins in the rain, worried-looking but just watching. Somebody asked Nancy what was happening, had they got the man they'd come for, was it that man that his daughter was having a baby, and Nancy shook her head wordlessly and pulled Clara on. And now Clara knew: Rosalie was having a baby. A baby! It was a stunning fact and yet it didn't stay with her, there wasn't time. Like rain falling, running down her face and arms. Like the men's shouts. You were so scared hearing them, when the shouts stopped you wanted to forget right away.

There wasn't going to be any cross burnt. The camp wasn't going to be torched. They'd got who they came for.

"Roosevelt! Get in here. Your pa's coming in a minute."

Nancy gave a swipe at Roosevelt who was squatting in the mud. Clara's brother's head had been shaved, for lice, and that gave him a r.e.t.a.r.d look; he was twitchy and nervous all the time, and now so scared when Nancy went to grab him he flinched like a dog fearful of being kicked, which p.i.s.sed Nancy so she cuffed him, and hauled him into the cabin. "You d.a.m.n kids! G.o.dd.a.m.n you kids! -Where's Rodwell?" n.o.body knew where Rodwell was.

Inside, Roosevelt hunched himself in a corner, bawling. Nancy was saying in a voice trying to be calm, "Now we're just goin to shut this door. We're goin to shut this door." She shut it, and dragged a chair in front of it but was too nervous to know what to do, to secure the door from being shoved open. Clara tried to help her but they were both too nervous. Out the window you couldn't see much that was happening. Clara's teeth were chattering bad and she had to pee. Nancy said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n, Roosevelt, I'm gonna warm your a.s.s if you keep bawling. Drivin me crazy." The boy crawled into the next-door room and lay on the mattress he shared with his brother, like he wanted to burrow into it and hide. Nancy said loudly, "Look, they ain't comin here. That's the Klan you saw. Klansmen. They punish people need to be punished. They don't hurt innocent people. See, it's to protect us. Like against n.i.g.g.e.rs, and bad people. We ain't done a thing wrong in this house. No daddy ever touched his daughter in this house. You kids, your pa is a good man, a Christian."

Clara thought of her father, and why he was different from Rosalie's father. And how the Klansmen would know.

She was seeing Rosalie's father when they tore his fingers from the doorframe. His face, when they grabbed at him. She was hearing him pleading. A spurt of blood at his mouth, she believed she had seen.

"No gun went off," Nancy said. "I never heard no gun."

Clara asked, when her teeth weren't chattering so bad, if maybe they'd shoot Carleton, if they mixed him up with somebody else; and Nancy said vehemently no they would not, no. no. Clara persisted, what if they shoot Pa, what if they beat him bad like they were beating Rosalie's father, and Nancy said Clara persisted, what if they shoot Pa, what if they beat him bad like they were beating Rosalie's father, and Nancy said No! No! "n.o.body's goin to shoot Carleton Walpole." "n.o.body's goin to shoot Carleton Walpole."