Queen (58 page)

had never been mentioned between them. But long ago he had asked

permission to call on her, which was, within their world, something of a

commitment, which Jass felt honor-bound to fulfill. He had to consider

marriage, for he had to have children. Much as he loved his brothers, The

Forks of Cypress was his, and he wanted it to pass to his son, and his

son's sons, and if nothing else, he wanted to prove his manhood. To

provide a new heir of direct lineage was the simplest thing that he could

do, and the most profound, even if he floundered in all other aspects of

his authority.

    Nor could he think of another white woman who interested him more than

    Lizzie, for he was most eligible, and he had no shortage of applicants

    for his hand.

    The simple truth was that Jass had very little interest in white women

    on a sexual basis. The coffee skin of Easter so entranced him, so

    beguiled him, so excited him that, like Wesley, paler beauty hardly

    stirred him.

    Once you go black, you never go back. Midnight velvet. All the schoolboy

    jokes about black women danced in his mind. It's true, he thought, it's

    true. Even now, sitting at dinner with his family, he wanted to be away,

    to be with Easter, to lose himself in that wondrous body.

350 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    He told her afterward. They made love, and lay together in the little

    shack, and he told her he would be away for four years. The vacation

    breaks would be too short, and the journey too long, to allow him to

    travel such a distance home.

    "You'll be all right," he said. "You'll be looked after. If there's

    anything you need, you only have to ask."

    She was silent for a long time, and he knew she was crying, although no

    sound or movement betrayed her.- He held her close.

    "And then I'll come home," he said later, when he knew she was calm. "And

    I'll never go away again."

Still she didn't speak.

    "It won't be for another few months," he whispered, "but if there's

    anything you want, anything I can do for you before I go-"

    She said something then, but so softly he could hardly hear. But he knew

    what it was, for she said it often, gently when they caressed, or crying

    it out when they made love.

She said it again, now.

"I want yo' baby."

Lizzie didn't take the news as well. Expecting an argument, Jass delayed

telling her until he had little choice. She stared at him in utter

bewilderment.

"Whatever for?"

Jass shrugged. "So I can get my degree."

    "What good is that to you?" Lizzie was on the verge of temper. "Do you

    intend to enter a profession?"

    Jass tried laughter, but it didn't work. "Don't be silly," he said. "It's

    just-"

He wondered why it had become so important to him.

    "I need to do something, something of my own. I don't want to ride

    through my life on my father's coattails."

    Lizzie had one of those odd moments of clarity that came to her

    occasionally, when her world was falling apart and she looked in the

    mirror.

    "That's all very well for you," she said. "But what about me? Four years

    without YOU."

    Jass laughed again. "You'll be fine. You can go to all your balls and

    parties and picnics and not have to worry about dragging dull old me

    along."

    MERGING351

    Lizzie stared at him in amazement. He doesn't know who he is, she

    thought, doesn't appreciate his position. He never has. He needs me.

    "I'm not interested in parties," she said, and let the tears trickle down

    her cheeks. "I need you."

    Which was the real truth of the matter. Lizzie needed Jass-

    someone-desperately. And unlike Jass, she 4idn't have many choices. She

    played her ace.

    "I think it's very unfair," she said. "I had thought your intentions to

    me were more immediate."

    "Oh, Lizzie, I'm still too young to get married," Jass lied. Some of his

    peers had already announced their engagements.

    "Married, perhaps, but if you want me to wait for you for four years, I

    think you should give me some indication that I wouldn't be wasting my

    time."

    Jass didn't know if he wanted her to wait but saw no harm in it. At this

    moment his future seemed limitlessly happy. Young and rich, strong and

    mated, sought by a fairly beautiful woman who would make a fine mistress

    of the manor, soon he would be free of his pressing responsibilities and

    was looking forward to four years of carelessness. Already he was be-

    coming a carefree freshman at college, and he saw no harm in making a

    promise to Lizzie that, in four years' time, he might not necessarily

    have to keep. Anything could happen in four years, and knowing Lizzie's

    low threshold of boredom, he imagined she would eventually find another

    beau, which prospect didn't disturb him, although at this moment, about

    to set off on his great adventure, he felt as close to Lizzie as he ever

    had. Or perhaps ever would.

    Every young man going to college should have a sweetheart waiting for him

    at home.

He smiled at her, and put his arm around her.

    "Hush, now," he said gently. "Don't cry. I promise that it you are true

    to me while I am gone, you will not be wasting your time."

    It sounded pretty good to him, and he believed it at the moment that he

    said it.

    Lizzie believed it too. "Oh, Jass," she said, and closed her eyes.

Her lips were only inches from his, and Jass knew what she

352 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

wanted, what he should do next, and found himself wanting it too. He

kissed her. She yielded to him, but did not open her mouth.

    It made Jass angry. She had chided him at Nashville for his chaste,

    youthful kiss, had told him to learn to do it properly. Well, he had

    learned. He'd had an extraordinary teacher. For one fierce momgnt, he

    pretended it was Easter in his arms, and forced his tongue into Lizzie's

    mouth. It was good, because she was so surprised, but it wasn't great.

    There seemed to be limits on how far his tongue could go, certain hard

    edges. When he kissed Easter, it was completely different, soft and

    endless, without any sense that there was bone within this flesh, just

    warm, wet flesh, soft, sweet flesh, forever, without end.

    Still, Lizzie was amazed. She had allowed young men to kiss her, and one

    had poked his tongue, as a sort of dare, quickly between her lips, but

    she had almost bitten it off and made a considerable fuss. The

    circumstances were not right to make a fuss with Jass now, nor did she

    want to, for now he was everything she wanted him to be, her lover and

    her father and her master.

    She was puzzled because she expected to feel some hardness in his groin,

    pressing against her. All the other girls told her this happened,

    giggling about the pleasure it could give, and swooning at the prospect

    of the pain it was supposed to cause. She certainly felt something

    pressing against her, but it was soft and squashy, and she quite enjoyed

    it. She was also considerably relieved. She'd heard that once the beast

    was unleashed, she would have no power to stop it, and it frightened her,

    for while Lizzie was interested in the potential pleasure, she was

    terrified of any possible pain.

    She backed her hips away from his, and then broke from the kiss.

"Did I do something wrong?" Jass wondered.

    "Oh, no," she said, and had to make him understand. "You do know that I

    love you, don't you?"

    It was important that he did. She could not give herself to him, even at

    some distant date at least four years away, without love.

    Even more importantly, she had to know that she was loved in return. So

    she asked him.

    MERGING 353

"Do you love me?"

"Yes, of course," Jass said.

    And because it didn't sound entirely convincing, even to him, he added

    something else.

"With all my heart."

    And wondered why Easter never asked him that question, and knew it was

    because she had no need to ask.

His family gathered on the veranda to wave good-bye to him, and Cap'n

Jack, although Easter stood in the trees some distance away. He had

spent the night with her, but now he had to ignore her, except for a

simple wave.

She had not told him she was pregnant.

    43

Jass did well at college. A serious and capable student, he had no

difficulty achieving adequate grades, but since his eventual degree was

of little moment to him, and of less value to his station, he studied only

as much as was necessary, and spent the rest of his time enjoying the

respite that this sojourn away from Alabama allowed him.

    The adventure began with the journey. Accompanied by Cap'n Jack, he had

    traveled through Knoxville and Charleston to Alexandria, so that Jass

    might visit the nation's capital across the river, and on to Baltimore

    and Wilmington, before arriving at his destination, the College of New

    Jersey, situated by a lovely lake, near Princeton Village. Virginia was

    his first surprise, his first sense of the age and history of his

    country, the first time he had seen buildings more than fifty years old.

    Cap'n Jack was his guide as far as Washington, having been there before

    with his old Massa, but when they ventured farther north it was virgin

    territory for both of them.

    It was in Washington that Jass saw free blacks for the first time in any

    numbers, and he was puzzled that the sight was

354 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

not more momentous for him. They were like blacks anywhere, going about

their business, ignored for the most pail but, it seemed to Jass as they

journeyed on, as much reviled and despised as anywhere in the South.

Raised to the concept that all Yankees were nigger lovers, he was

astonished at the way blacks were treated throughout the North. Mostly

they seemed to live in enclaves of their own, worked as domestic servants

to wealthy whites or as field hands on fanns or as unskilled labor in the

few factories he saw. Their poverty was dire, and many were beggars, which

would not have been tolerated in the South and certainly was not necessary

there, and Jass wondered when they would arrive in the Negro haven that

the North was supposed to be. He never found it. Intolerance abounded,

there were many taverns and inns that Cap'n Jack could not enter, and when

they stayed at travelers' hostels or hotels, Cap'n Jack had to sleep in

the nigger quarters out back. Just as it was at home.

    Even in New Jersey, which Jass had thought to be a true Yankee state, he

    discovered that there were still slaves. Under pressure from New York and

    Pennsylvania, New Jersey had reluctantly legislated for abolition at the

    turn of the century, but significant concessions had been made to

    slaveholders, which meant that there would be some slavery in the state

    for several years to come. At college, Cap'n Jack was domiciled in the

    scarcely adequate quarters provided for the blacks who attended the

    wealthy students, and Jass was appalled to discover that the Northerners

    often dealt with their "free" servants far more wretchedly than the

    Southerners treated their valuable slaves.

    "Boston," George Pritchard, his roommate from Delaware, told him. "They

    love their blacks in Boston. Only there aren't many there to love. It's

    the bog Irish who are the problem in Boston."

    "I'm Irish," Jass laughed in response, and George, a studious young man,

    looked at him seriously.

    "No," said George, "you are a gentleman. The rest of us are in waiting."

    It was true. His father's death and his inheritance had given Jass an

    authority that set him slightly apart from his fellows, who still lived

    in expectation of their patrimony. Jass had ac-

    MERGING 355

cess to his own money, and, generous as ever, he could be counted on for

small loans when other students' finances were tight. Although the

day-to-day business of The Forks was handled by Tom Kirkman and Mitchell,

Jass was still informed of major decisions that had to be made, and his

advice was waited on, and while Jass appreciated the responsibility, from

time to time it gave him the feeling that, again in his life, he did not

quite fit in. Richer than any of his fraternity, and most of their

fathers, he was still a freshman, battling Livy and Xenophon, fogged in

by algebra, with Horace and Demosthenes and trigonometry to look forward

to. Not yet twenty-one, he wanted the carelessness that his peers enjoyed,

and yet a letter written by him could result in fortunes lost or made from