The leaves swirled about Edna Belle's feet, the lights were on in the square, a sharp wind swept from the north around the corner of the church. She nodded quietly and to herself because she had made up her mind that she was a woman now, and then she rose and walked home, occasionally nodding, and then tilting her head in wonder because everything seemed so suddenly clear. And yet she knew Miss Benson had not told her anything she did not already know.
In September of 1946, when she was eighteen years old, she followed Miss Benson's advice and left for Pratt Institute in New York City. She rarely thought of the old woman anymore, except to wonder if she was still alive, still living in the South. But whenever she remembered her, as she was remembering her now in a seventh-floor room at the Hotel Astor, staring through a window at the traffic below, the lingering image was always of Miss Benson turning the corner near the courthouse, her head held high.
Without moving from the window, Ebie said to her husband, "In Alabama, when I was a little girl…"
"Spare us the magnolia blossoms and white linen suits," he said.
"… before I even knew there were such things as witty novelists who…"
"I'm not a novelist."
"… who could make clever remarks about magnolia blossoms and linen suits, when I was still a little girl in Alabama…"
Her voice trailed. She kept staring through the window.
"They loved me," she said at last.
4
The car pulled in ahead unexpectedly, entering the highway after barely braking at the full stop sign on the approach ramp. Sally Kirsch had opened her eyes not a moment before, seeing the other car, hearing the squeal of tires as Jonah applied his brakes, and bracing herself for what she knew would be an accident. Across the river on the New Jersey shore, she could see the Spry sign blinking idiotically as the automobile swerved, parkway lights ahead in a winding curve downtown, the glare of northbound traffic on the left, and then a splash of sudden brighter yellow as Jonah's headlights illuminated the other car.
"You dumb bastard!" Jonah shouted, and these seemed to Sally the first human words he had uttered all day long. He yanked sharply on the wheel, trying to avoid the crash, braking desperately, tires whining. The other car was a yellow Buick, vintage 1953, and the man driving it glanced to his left an instant before the cars collided, noticing Jonah's car for the first time, it seemed, and opening his eyes wide and then wrenching the wheel over to the right too late. Left fender hit right fender with terrible crunching impact. The cars ricocheted one from the other like billiard balls veering in opposite directions. Sally felt herself being hurled forward, perversely grateful for the break in the monotony, pushed her hands out in front of her, and then pulled them back instantly when she remembered she could fracture both wrists that way. Her head collided with the padded dash, there was a further squeal of tires behind them, and then silence. She shook her head. She could taste blood in her mouth. One of her teeth felt loose.
"Are you all right?" Jonah asked, and she nodded, and he got out of the car. She heard other car doors slamming, and she sat up tentatively, surprised that nothing was broken. "Didn't you see that stop sign?" Jonah was yelling.
She glanced through the windshield which was miraculously intact, she was certain everything would have been shattered by the collision, including herself. The man getting out of the other car was a short dark man in a short green coat and baggy slacks, a black fedora pushed onto the back of his head. He had apparently cut himself when the cars collided, and a thin line of blood was trickling down the right side of his face. Jonah was holding his left hand in his right and Sally wondered whether he had broken any bones. Dazed, she watched the two men as they approached each other.
"Are you talking to me?" the little man said. "To me, are you calling a bastard?"
"What's your name?" Jonah said. "Damn you, I'm going to…"
"To me, are you asking the name?" the little man said. "I will throw you in the river, you stringbean! I will pick you up and throw you in the river."
"I'd like to see you try that," Jonah said, and took off his glasses and moved closer to the little man, as though he would step on him and squash him flat into the pavement.
"You hit me, and I die," the little man warned. "I bleed from the head now, you murderer. Hit me, and I die. Get away from me!"
"You're a maniac," Jonah said. "How dare you drive a car without looking where—"
"To me, are you calling a maniac? A fink is what you are, to call a decent man a maniac. Get away, get away, do you see him?" he asked the gathering crowd. "He is making obscene and threatening gestures!"
"Let me see your license," Jonah said.
"Let me see your license, fink!" the little man answered. "Do you hear?" he said to the crowd. "Do you hear his threatening?"
"There's the police," someone said, and Sally heard the sound of a siren and turned her head to see a police car approaching in the distance, its red dome light revolving and blinking.
"Good," the little man said. "The police, you hear, fink? Now we'll see who threatens, fink."
"Did anyone here see this accident?" Jonah asked.
"I, the maniac," the little man said. "I, the maniac saw it! I saw all of it, a hundred miles an hour this fink comes swooping down a public highway!"
"You're a lying little bastard," Jonah said, "and you're making me very angry."
"You, I am making angry, you?" the little man asked incredulously. "I am here bleeding in a hundred places, and you are standing angry? Where are the police, those finks? Where are they, I ask!"
"All right, what's the trouble here?" the patrolman said, coming out of the squad car. His partner stepped into the highway and began waving traffic around the wrecked autos.
Sally, dazed and certain she was in shock, began giggling. She had not, until the moment the two cars struck, enjoyed either the drive to Poughkeepsie, their brief stay at the college, or any part of their return trip. Jonah had left her to wander the campus that afternoon while he chatted with his World History professor, and she had been unexpectedly depressed by the sight of all those young girls in candy-striped stockings and short suede skirts, God, had it really all been that long ago? Nor could she honestly say that Jonah Willow was exactly an exciting conversationalist. There was a tenseness about him that made her want to scream aloud, a social unease that seemed to translate itself into a physical deformity as he drove the convertible, knuckles white, body hunched, long legs cramped. All the way up to the college, his conversation had consisted of a series of ominous grunts designed to stifle discussion. Not once did he mention the trial, and this puzzled her. She was a lawyer, certainly not as experienced or as well known as he, but a lawyer nonetheless; she had thought he would welcome her opinions, or at least her thoughts. But even on the return trip, when she tentatively asked whether his meeting with the professor had been profitable, he replied only, "Not very," and once again fell silent. Weary and discouraged, she retreated to her corner of the car, closing her eyes and listening to the lulling hum of the tires against the road.