‘It about Willie.’
‘I know.’ He rolled the cigarette gingerly between his palms.
His eyes glanced recklessly about him, greedy for the last sweet pleasures.
‘Once I mentioned to you this here Buster Johnson were at the prison with Willie. Us knowed him before. He were sent home yestiddy.’
‘So?’
‘Buster been crippled for life.’
His head quavered. He pressed his hand to his chin to steady himself, but the obstinate trembling was difficult to control.
‘Last night these here friends come round to my house and say that Buster were home and had something to tell me about Willie. I run all the way and this here is what he said. ‘
‘Yes.’
‘There were three of them. Willie and Buster and this other boy. They were friends. Then this here trouble come up.’
Portia halted. She wet her finger with her tongue and then moistened her dry lips with her finger. ‘It were something to do with the way this here white guard picked on them all the time. They were out on roadwork one day and Buster he sassed back and then the other boy he try to run off in the woods. They taken all three of them. They taken all three of them to the camp and put them in this here ice-cold room.’
He said yes again. But his head quavered and the word sounded like a rattle in his throat.
‘It were about six weeks ago,’ Portia said. ‘You remember that cold spell then. They put Willie and them boys in this room like ice.’
Portia spoke in a low voice, and she neither paused between words nor did the grief in her face soften. It was like a low song. She spoke and he could not understand. The sounds were distinct in his ear but they had no shape or meaning. It was as though his head were the prow of a boat and the sounds were water that broke on him and then flowed past. He felt he had to look behind to find the words already said.
‘. . . and their feets swolled up and they lay there and struggle on the floor and holler out. And nobody come. They hollered there for three days and three nights and nobody come.’
‘I am deaf,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘I cannot understand.’
‘They put our Willie and them boys in this here ice-cold room.
There were a rope hanging down from the ceiling. They taken their shoes off and tied their bare feets to this rope. Willie and them boys lay there with their backs on the floor and their feets in the air. And their, feets swolled up and they struggle on the floor and holler out. It were ice-cold in the room and their feets froze. Their feets swolled up and they hollered for three nights and three days. And nobody come.’ Doctor Copeland pressed his head with his hands, but still the steady trembling would not stop. ‘I cannot hear what you say.’
‘Then at last they come to get them. They quickly taken Willie and them boys to the sick ward and their legs were all swolled and froze. Gangrene. They sawed off both our Willie’s feet.
Buster Johnson lost one foot and the other boy got well. But our Willie--he crippled for life now. Both his feet sawed off.’
The words were finished and Portia leaned over and struck her head upon the table. She did not cry or moan, but she struck her head again and again on the hard-scrubbed top of the table. The bowl and spoon rattled and he removed them to the sink. The words were scattered in his mind, but he did not try to assemble them. He scalded the bowl and spoon and washed out the dish-towel. He picked up something from the floor and put it somewhere.
‘Crippled?’ he asked. ‘William?’
Portia knocked her head on the table and the blows had a rhythm like the slow beat of a drum and his heart took up this rhythm also. Quietly the words came alive and fitted to the meaning and he understood.
‘When will they send him home?’
Portia leaned her drooping head on her arm. ‘Buster don’t know that. Soon afterward they separate all three of them in different places. They sent Buster to another camp. Since Willie only haves a few more months he think he liable to be home soon now.’
They drank coffee and sat for a long time, looking into each other’s eyes. His cup rattled against his teeth. She poured her coffee into a saucer and some of it dripped down on her lap.
‘William--’ Doctor Copeland said. As he pronounced the name his teeth bit deeply into his tongue and he moved his jaw with pain. They sat for a long while. Portia held his hand.
The bleak morning light made the windows gray. Outside it was still raining.
‘If I means to get to work I better go on now,’ Portia said.
He followed her through the hall and stopped at the hat-rack to put on his coat and shawl. The open door let in a gust of wet, cold air. Highboy sat out on the street curb with a wet newspaper over his head for protection. Along the sidewalk there was a fence. Portia leaned against this as she walked. Doctor Copeland followed a few paces after her and his hands, also, touched the boards of the fence to steady himself. Highboy trailed behind them.
He waited for the black, terrible anger as though for some beast out of the night. But it did not come to him. His bowels seemed weighted with lead, and he walked slowly and lingered against fences and the cold, wet walls of buildings by the way. Descent into the depths until at last there was no further chasm below. He touched the solid bottom of despair and there took ease.
In this he knew a certain strong and holy gladness. The persecuted laugh, and the black slave sings to his outraged soul beneath the whip. A song was in him now--although it was not music but only the feeling of a song. And the sodden heaviness of peace weighted down his limbs so that it was only with the strong, true purpose that he moved. Why did he go onward? Why did he not rest here upon the bottom of utmost humiliation and for a while take his content? But he went onward.
‘Uncle,’ said Mick. ‘You think some hot coffee would make you feel better?’
Doctor Copeland looked into her face but gave no sign that he heard. They had crossed the town and come at last to the alley behind the Kellys’ house. Portia had entered first and then he followed. Highboy remained on the steps outside. Mick and her two little brothers were already in the kitchen. Portia told of William. Doctor Copeland did not listen to the words but her voice had a rhythm--a start, a middle, and an end. Then when she was finished she began all over. Others came into the room to hear.
Doctor Copeland sat on a stool in the corner. His coat and shawl steamed over the back of a chair by the stove. He held his hat on his knees and his long, dark hands moved nervously around the worn brim. The yellow insides of his hands were so moist that occasionally he wiped them with a handkerchief.
His head trembled, and all of his muscles were stiff with the effort to make it be still. Mr. Singer came into the room. Doctor Copeland raised up his face to him. ‘Have you heard of this?’ he asked. Mr. Singer nodded. In his eyes there was no horror or pity or hate. Of all those who knew, his eyes alone did not express these reactions. For he alone understood this thing. Mick whispered to Portia, ‘What’s your father’s name?’
‘He named Benedict Mady Copeland.’ Mick leaned over close to Doctor Copeland and shouted in his face as though he were deaf. ‘Benedict, don’t you think some hot coffee would make you feel a little better? ‘ Doctor Copeland started. ‘Quit that hollering,’ Portia said. ‘He can hear well as you can.’
‘Oh,’ said Mick. She emptied the grounds from the pot and put the coffee on the stove to boil again. The mute still lingered in the doorway. Doctor Copeland still looked into his face. ‘You heard? ‘ ‘What’ll they do to those prison guards?’ Mick asked. ‘Honey, I just don’t know,’ Portia said. ‘I just don’t know.’
‘I’d do something. I’d sure do something about it.’
‘Nothing us could do would make no difference. Best thing us can do is keep our mouth shut’
‘They ought to be treated just like they did Willie and them. Worse. I wish I could round up some people and kill those men myself.’