Rising Tides (31 page)

But Aurore had a new interest. Several years ago she had
convinced the directors to let her finance a small printing press to publish a quarterly journal on river shipping. It was housed on the second floor of the Gulf Coast building, and Aurore claimed it was an old woman’s hobby. She used the press, Gulf Coast Publishing, as an excuse for her continued presence in the building. But she had confided to Dawn that she really went in each day to see the river, because—and Dawn had never quite understood this—it reminded her of who she was.

Now Dawn took in her grandmother’s pale complexion, the faded blue eyes behind gold-framed glasses, the soft white of her once dark hair. “
Grandmère,
are you all right?”

“Fine. Absolutely fine. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” And she didn’t. Dawn gazed at the woman who had been her mainstay for eighteen years. She wasn’t sure what was different, exactly, but she sensed something—resignation, perhaps. “You didn’t tell me what you were doing.”

“Oh, it’s time to prune out all the dead canes. If I don’t, black spot winters over and spoils the leaves in the spring. It’s too humid and hot in New Orleans for roses. So you have to care more than you should.”

“But your roses are always beautiful.”

“I’ve always cared more than I should.”

Dawn understood that Aurore was talking about more than roses, but she didn’t know exactly what. “I’m glad you cared. The roses are my favorite part of the gar den.”

“They were Hugh’s, too.”

“He’s angry at Daddy,
Grandmère.
Uncle Hugh thinks Daddy’s going to make integrating the public schools even harder. He’s agreed to speak at a rally against it next week.”

“Your father and your uncle fell out a long time ago,” Aurore said, staring over Dawn’s shoulder. “Neither of them has ever told me why.”

“Are you angry at Uncle Hugh, too?” The moment seemed right to ask the question that had always bothered her, but, at Aurore’s reaction, she wished she hadn’t. Her grandmother looked as if Dawn had slapped her.

“No! He’s everything I’m not. How could I be angry at my own son?”

“Then are you angry at Daddy?”

“Nobody believes anything without reason. Your father was influenced by his father. He still believes what he was taught. How can I be angry at him for the things I neglected to explain?”

“I want to talk to him tonight,
Grandmère.
I want to ask him not to speak at that rally. But I’m afraid to.”

Aurore nodded. She said nothing.

“What if…?”

“What if you make him angry? What if he thinks less of you?”

“You always know what I’m feeling.”

“Well, this time it’s easy. Those are the feelings any one would have. But I think your relationship with your father is going to have to be like my relationship with my roses.”

Dawn attempted a smile. “Daddy isn’t going to be happy if I try to prune away his deadwood.”

“Your relationship with your father isn’t an easy one, and it’s going to require a lot of work to make it bloom. Being honest about your feelings is part of that work, but you can’t expect to see results right away. Just like my roses.”

“Do you ever kill a rose? Do you ever cut off too much?”

“It happens.”

“That’s what frightens me.”

“It should. But just remember, if you don’t try, if you
don’t do what’s necessary, even if you’re afraid, then there’s no chance of success.”

“I wish I had your courage,
Grandmère.
”

Her grandmother’s response surprised her. “I’m the most terrible coward you will ever meet,” Aurore said. “I pray to God you will always be more courageous than I’ve been.”

Dawn spent the rest of the day going over in her mind what she intended to say to her father. By ten o’clock, her mother had gone to bed and the house was silent. Dawn continued to pretend she was working on a term paper at the dining room table, but she sat where she could see the front door. At eleven o’clock, just as she was shutting her books, Ferris walked in.

She had always admired the way her father swaggered, as if the earth were his domain alone. For the first time, she wished he weren’t so filled with energy and arrogance. Suddenly it didn’t seem as if she had pre pared long enough.

“What are you doing up at this hour, darling?” he asked.

“I was waiting for you.”

“What for? Don’t you have school tomorrow? It’s not another saint’s day, is it?”

“Daddy, I need to talk to you.”

His smile disappeared. He surveyed her, as if looking for some latent sign of rebellion. She wondered where this talk was going to rate on a scale of importance ranging from five-minutes-past-curfew to pregnancy. “Mind if I make myself a drink first?”

A few minutes later, he came back from the kitchen with a gold-rimmed highball glass in his hand. “I guess I’m ready.”

“I guess I’m not,” she confessed. “But I have to say this anyway. Daddy, I don’t like what you said in the legislature against integration. It’s not true that white people are going to
have to protect their daughters just because Negroes will be sitting in school with them.”

“Really?” He swirled his drink. “You’re sure about that?”

“Why do you say those things? How can you, when you let Negroes work in your home?”

“It was a figure of speech, darling. I happen to think that whites and colored shouldn’t go to school together. If they’re forced to, pretty soon nobody will remember their place. Things are the way they are for a reason, and it’s worked just fine for centuries. Nobody’s saying that colored people shouldn’t have their share, just that—”

“Their share isn’t a fair share! And they should have the right to take their share in the same places we do.” She was amazed to discover that she had interrupted him. “Look, I didn’t really wait up to tell you I didn’t like something you already did. I waited up to ask you not to do something else. Daddy, that Citizens’ Council rally’s a terrible idea. It’s only going to get everyone all heated up. Integration’s coming, and you can’t stop it. Can’t you just do your part to be sure that it’s peaceful? Isn’t that what you were elected to do?”

He almost seemed at a loss for words. He swished his drink from side to side as he stared at her. She heard the rhythmic clink of ice, and nothing more.

“I know I don’t understand everything,” she said when she couldn’t stand one more clink, “but hurting people isn’t right. And people are going to be hurt if we resist integration.”

“What should I do?” He quirked a brow in question. He toasted her with his glass, then finished his drink in one swallow. “I’m not one of those raving maniacs in the Citizens’ Council, darling. But some of those maniacs elected me, and they’ll keep electing me if I say the right things.”

“But—”

He held up his hand to stop her. It was broad and strong, a hand that could protect or punish. She fell silent.

“I was eighteen once. I remember how simple every thing looked. Black and white. Funny, that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here. But it’s not that simple. I’m good at what I do, Dawn, and I’ve done some good things for the people of Louisiana. I can continue to do them, or I can make one glorious stand on an issue that isn’t even close to my heart and never, never do anything for this state or city again.”

She didn’t know how to respond.

“I don’t think this rally is a good idea,” he said when she remained silent. “I think it may create trouble we don’t need. I’ve expressed that, but everyone’s dead-set on it. So I have a choice. I can refuse to participate and lose the chance to be a voice of reason. Or I can go and try to ensure that no one stirs the crowd to violence. Which would you do?”

Everything had seemed so simple to her when she was with Ben and her uncle. Now nothing was. “It’s still wrong,” she said. “The rally’s still wrong. That’s all I know.”

“It’s a chance for people to get their feelings off their chests. Kind of like this little conversation of ours.” He warmed her with his smile. “You don’t have to agree with me, but do you understand, darling?”

She did understand, and somehow she felt as if she had betrayed her uncle and everything he stood for be cause she did.

On November 14 a total of four Negro children were admitted into two white schools in the city’s Ninth Ward. Almost all the white parents promptly withdrew their children. On November 15, at the rally that Cappy, as promised, did not
attend, speakers whipped the crowd of more than five thousand into a frenzy.

Dawn heard enough of the speeches recapped over the radio to be appalled that her own father had participated. She was sure that Ferris’s contribution had been moderate in comparison to others’, but just to have him speak on the same platform made her stomach clench.

The next day, a large mob of whites marched on the school board offices, attacking Negroes along the way and injuring more than a dozen. On November 17, there were more riots. Dawn watched the television news with horror. While the vast majority of people in the city took no part in the violence, she watched the hate-filled faces of those who screamed obscenities at innocent children trying to walk up the sidewalk to school. She caught glimpses of her uncle and her father, one trying to reason with racism, the other fueling it with carefully chosen rhetoric.

Afterward, without permission, she drove her mother’s car to Bonne Chance. The rectory of Our Lady of Good Counsel was a small ranch house faced with weathered cypress shingles. Shrubs soared past the windows, and satsuma trees spilled their fruit on an oyster-shell drive. The house had a sagging porch and an air of neglect, as if her uncle’s parishioners lacked interest in their priest’s comfort.

She wasn’t sure what she had hoped to accomplish by coming. She had never felt so impotent or so con fused. Her knocks brought no one. She pounded louder, angry with herself for not having called first. But she hadn’t even known where she was headed until she was out of the city.

She sat on the porch and rested her chin in her hands until the door opened behind her. She turned and saw Ben in the doorway. Ben, with a bruised and swollen cheek.

She was unable to phrase a question. He nodded in answer anyway. “Prejudice, Creole-style.”

“Oh, Ben.” She rose and moved toward him, her hand outstretched. “Were you at one of the schools?”

He seemed to lack the energy to answer. She touched his cheek before she realized how intimate the gesture was. She stroked her fingers lightly around the bruise. “I’m sorry.”

“I got in the way of a man trying to spit on one of the little girls at Frantz.”

“This is a terrible thing.” She dropped her hand, but she didn’t move away.

“Your uncle’s at the Narrows house. They’re talking about what to do here when the time comes to integrate the schools.”

“He doesn’t give up, does he?”

“No. He’s driven, heart and soul.”

“His parish doesn’t like it, do they?”

“No.”

Ben’s gaze was fixed on her. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he didn’t want her to leave. “I came to talk to him, but he really doesn’t need another burden. I should go before he gets back.”

“He won’t be back for a while. The Narrows and some of their friends are holding the meeting, but he’ll stay all night to give his support. You know, they’re starting to talk about a voter registration drive, even though the laws here make it worthless. They’re some of the most courageous people I’ve ever met. But nothing’s going to change in Bonne Chance for a long, long time.”

“Are you scared sometimes? Were you scared today, when you got hurt?”

He hesitated. “Sure.”

All of a sudden she was scared, too. “Why are you here, then? You didn’t have to come back.”

“Because this is my town, dammit, and my state. My mama worked, so I was raised by Negro women who got paid next to nothing to watch over me and cook for me and kiss away my bruises when I fell. And I never gave them a thought. Not once. And I owe them for that.”

He sat on the top step and leaned against the pillar. He motioned for her to do the same. She joined him, leaning against the opposite pillar, so that the toes of their shoes almost touched. The saturated Delta breeze caressed her cheeks and arms. Something sweet and vaguely familiar perfumed the air, some smell that was as much a part of South Louisiana and yet as undefined as the chirps and calls of insects she couldn’t name.

Ben laced his fingers over one knee. “College changed me. I got a new perspective at Oberlin, made new friends. Then my mama wrote and told me about this Catholic priest who was stirring up trouble in Bonne Chance, and I thought I ought to come home and see if I could help a little.”

“How does she feel about what you’re doing?”

“She died this past summer. She passed over to that white Jesus in the sky without knowing exactly what she’d given birth to right here on earth.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was better that way.”

“If it’s your fight, then it’s my fight, too.”

“You have a lot to lose. You’re still young. You need the support of your parents. You shouldn’t have to make choices like this now.”

But his advice was already too late. An idea was be ginning to form in her head, an altogether possible idea. “If all our challenges came when we were ready, then I guess they wouldn’t be challenges.”

“How old did you say you were?” He slouched a little lower and rested the soles of his shoes against hers.

She had long since passed the stage where any male touch was exciting, but as she sat across from Ben, leather caressing leather, her body glowed with new sensations. She could hardly believe Ben was interested in what she thought, and that despite the differences in their age and experience, he was talking to her like an equal. It was more seductive than the wide breadth of his shoulders, the way his dungarees hung low on his narrow hips.

She smiled, but she chose to take the question seriously. “I should be in college. I started school a year late. When I was five, I was such a timid little kid that my grandmother was afraid I’d sit in the corner and sob all day.”

“You don’t seem so timid now.”

“Oh, I’m scared inside,” she admitted. “Of every thing. But if I let that stop me…”