Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Another Country (1962)

  “Because I’m black,” she said, after a moment, and sat at the table near him, “I know more about what happened to my brother than you can ever know. I watched it happen—from the beginning. I was there. He shouldn’t have ended up the way he did. That’s what’s been so hard for me to accept. He was a very beautiful boy. Most people aren’t beautiful, I knew that right away. I watched them, and I knew. But he didn’t because he was so much nicer than I.” She paused, and the silence grumbled with the sound of the frying pan and the steady sound of the rain. “He loved our father, for example. He really loved him. I didn’t. He was just a loudmouthed, broken-down man, who liked to get drunk and hang out in barber shops—well, maybe he didn’t like it but that was all he could find to do, except work like a dog, for nothing—and play the guitar on the week ends for his only son.” She paused again, smiling. “There was something very nice about those week ends, just the same. I can still see Daddy, his belly hanging out, strumming on that guitar and trying to teach Rufus some down-home song and Rufus grinning at him and making fun of him a little, really, but very nicely, and singing with him. I bet my father was never happier, all the days of his life, than when he was singing for Rufus. He’s got no one to sing to now. He was so proud of him. He bought Rufus his first set of drums.” She was not locking him out now; he felt, rather, that he was being locked in. He listened, seeing, or trying to see, what she saw, and feeling something of what she felt. But he wondered, just the same, how much her memory had filtered out. And he wondered what Rufus must have looked like in those days, with all his bright, untried brashness, and all his hopes intact. She was silent for a moment, leaning forward, looking down, her elbows on her knees and the fingers of one hand restlessly playing with her ring. “When Rufus died, all the light went out of that house, all of it. That was why I couldn’t stay there, I knew I couldn’t stay there, I’d grow old like they were, suddenly, and I’d end up like all the other abandoned girls who can’t find anyone to protect them. I’d always known I couldn’t end up like that, I’d always known it. I’d counted on Rufus to get me out of there—I knew he’d do anything in the world for me, just like I would for him. It hadn’t occurred to me that it wouldn’t happen. I knew it would happen.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The number ended and Ida stepped off the stand, wet and triumphant, the applause crashing about her ears like foam. She came to the table, looking at Vivaldo with a smile and a small, questioning frown, and, standing, took a sip of her drink. They called her back. The drummer reached down and lifted her, bodily, onto the stand, and the applause continued. Eric became aware of a shift in Vivaldo’s attention. He looked at Vivaldo’s face, which was stormier than ever, and followed his eyes. Vivaldo was looking at a short square man with curly hair and a boyish face who was standing at the end of the bar, looking up at Ida. He grinned and waved and Ida nodded and Vivaldo looked up at the stand again: with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, with an air of grim speculation. “Your girl friend’s got something,” Eric said. Vivaldo glanced over at him. “It runs in the family,” he said. His tone was not friendly; it was as though he suspected Eric of taunting him; and so referred, obliquely, to Rufus, with the intention of humbling Eric. Yet, in a moment he relented. “She’s going to be terrific,” he said, “and, Lord, I’m going to have to buy me a baseball bat to keep all the hungry cats away.” He grinned and looked again at the short man at the bar. Ida stepped up to the microphone. “This song is for my brother,” she said. She hesitated and looked over at Vivaldo. “He died just a little before Thanksgiving, last year.” There was a murmur in the room. Somebody said, “What did I tell you?”—triumphantly; there was a brief spatter of applause, presumably for the dead Rufus; and the drummer bowed his head and did an oddly irreverent riff on the rim of his drum: klook-a-klook, klook-klook, klook-klook! Ida sang: Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand. Her eyes were closed and the dark head on the long dark neck was thrown back. Something appeared in her face which had not been there before, a kind of passionate, triumphant rage and agony. Now, her fine, sensual, free-moving body was utterly still, as though being held in readiness for a communion more total than flesh could bear; and a strange chill came into the room, along with a strange resentment. Ida did not know how great a performer she would have to become before she could dare expose her audience, as she now did, to her private fears and pain. After all, her brother had meant nothing to them, or had never meant to them what he had meant to her. They did not wish to witness her mourning, especially as they dimly suspected that this mourning contained an accusation of themselves—an accusation which their uneasiness justified. They endured her song, therefore, but they held themselves outside it; and yet, at the same time, the very arrogance and innocence of Ida’s offering compelled their admiration.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “A few days. They figured he must have jumped off the George Washington Bridge.” “My God,” she said. Then: “Who—?” “Vivaldo. He called. Just after you went out. Ida had called him.” “My God,” she said, again, “it’s going to kill that poor girl.” He paused. “Vivaldo sounded as though he’d just been kicked in the belly by a horse.” “Where is he?” “I tried to make him come here. But he was going uptown to the girl—Ida—I don’t know what good he can do.” “Well. He was much closer to Rufus than we were.” “Would you like a drink?” “Yes,” she said, “I think I’d like a drink.” She sat staring at the table. “I wonder if there was anything—we—anyone—could have done.” “No,” he said, pouring a little whiskey in a glass and setting it before her, “there was nothing anyone could have done. It was too late. He wanted to die.” She was silent, sipping the whiskey. She watched the way the sunlight fell on the table. Richard put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard, Cass. After all——” She remembered his face as it had been the last time she talked to him, the look in his eyes, and his smile when he asked Can I come to see you soon? How she wished, now, that she had stayed and talked to him a little longer. Perhaps—she sipped the whiskey, marveling that the children were so quiet. Tears filled her eyes and dropped slowly down her face, onto the table. “It’s a dirty, rotten shame,” she said. “It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible thing.” “He was heading that way,” said Richard, mildly, “nothing, no one, could have stopped him.” “How do we know that?” Cass asked. “Oh, honey, you know what he’s been like these last few months. We hardly ever saw him but everybody knew.” Knew what? she wanted to ask. Just what in hell did everybody know? But she dried her eyes and stood up. “Vivaldo tried like hell to stop what he was doing to Leona. And if he could have stopped him from doing that—well, then, maybe he could have stopped this, too.” That’s true, she thought, and looked at Richard, who, under stress, could always surprise her into taking his measure again. “I was very fond of him,” she said, helplessly. “There was something very sweet in him.” He looked at her with a faint smile. “Well, I guess you’re just naturally nicer than I am. I didn’t think that. I thought he was a pretty self-centered character, if you want the truth.” “Oh, Well,” she said, “self-centered—! We don’t know a soul who isn’t.” “You’re not,” he said. “You think of other people and you try to treat them right. You spend your life trying to take care of the children—and me—”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I never told this to anybody before,” he said, “and I really don’t know why I’m telling you. It’s just that the last time I saw Rufus, before he disappeared, when he was still with Leona”—he caught his breath, he dragged on his cigarette and the glow brought the room back into the world, then dropped it again into chaos—“we had a fight, he said he was going to kill me. And, at the very end, when he was finally in bed, after he’d cried, and after he’d told me—so many terrible things—I looked at him, he was lying on his side, his eyes were half open, he was looking at me. I was taking off my pants, Leona was staying at my place and I was going to stay there, I was afraid to leave him alone. Well, when he looked at me, just before he closed his eyes and turned on his side away from me, all curled up, I had the weirdest feeling that he wanted me to take him in my arms. And not for sex, though maybe sex would have happened. I had the feeling that he wanted someone to hold him, to hold him, and that, that night, it had to be a man. I got in the bed and I thought about it and I watched his back, it was as dark in that room, then, as it is in this room, now, and I lay on my back and I didn’t touch him and I didn’t sleep. I remember that night as a kind of vigil. I don’t know whether he slept or not, I kept trying to tell from his breathing—but I couldn’t tell, it was too choppy, maybe he was having nightmares. I loved Rufus, I loved him, I didn’t want him to die. But when he was dead, I thought about it, thought about it—isn’t it funny? I didn’t know I’d thought about it as much as I have—and I wondered, I guess I still wonder, what would have happened if I’d taken him in my arms, if I’d held him, if I hadn’t been—afraid. I was afraid that he wouldn’t understand that it was—only love. Only love. But, oh, Lord, when he died, I thought that maybe I could have saved him if I’d just reached out that quarter of an inch between us on that bed, and held him.” He felt the cold tears on his face, and he tried to wipe them away. “Do you know what I mean? I haven’t told Ida this, I haven’t told anyone, I haven’t thought about it, since he died. But I guess I’ve been living with it. And I’ll never know. I’ll never know.” “No,” said Eric, “you’ll never know. If I had been there, I’d have held him—but it wouldn’t have helped. His little girl tried to hold him, and that didn’t help.” He sat down on the bed beside Vivaldo. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The snow which had been predicted for the day before Thanksgiving did not begin to fall until late in the evening—slow, halfhearted flakes, spinning and gleaming in the darkness, melting on the ground. All day long a cold sun glared down on Manhattan, giving no heat. Cass woke a little earlier than usual, and fed the children and sent them off to school. Richard ate his breakfast and retired into his study—he was not in a good mood. Cass cleaned the house, thinking of tomorrow’s dinner, and went out in the early afternoon to shop and to walk for a little while alone. She was gone longer than she had intended, for she loved to walk around this city. She was chilled when at last she started home. They lived just below Twenty-third Street, on the West Side, in a neighborhood that had lately acquired many Puerto Ricans. For this reason it was said that the neighborhood was declining; from what previous height it would have been hard to say. It seemed to Cass very much as it always had, run-down, and with a preponderance of very rough-looking people. As for the Puerto Ricans, she rather liked them. They did not impress her as being rough; they seemed, on the contrary, rather too gentle for their brutal environment. She liked the sound of their talk, soft and laughing, or else violently, clearly, brilliantly hostile; she liked the life in their eyes and the way they treated their children, as though all children were naturally the responsibility of all grownups. Even when the adolescents whistled after her, or said lewd things as she passed and laughed among themselves, she did not become resentful or afraid; she did not feel in it the tense New York hostility. They were not cursing something they longed for and feared, they were joking about something they longed for and loved. Now, as she labored up the outside steps of the building, one of the Puerto Rican boys she had seen everywhere in the neighborhood opened the door for her with a small, half-smile. She smiled at him and thanked him as forthrightly as she could, and stepped into the elevator. There was something in Richard’s face as he closed the door behind her, and in the loud silence of the apartment. She looked at him and started to ask about the children—but then she heard them in the living room. Richard followed her into the kitchen and she put down her packages. She looked into his face. “What is it?” she asked. Then, after the instant in which she checked off all the things it wasn’t, “Rufus,” she said, suddenly, “you’ve got news about Rufus.” “Yes.” She watched the way a small vein in his forehead fluttered. “He’s dead, Cass. They found his body floating in the river.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “When?” “Sometime this morning.” “How long—how long ago—?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I mean”—he was watching her; she sat down again, playing with the glass of whiskey—“a man meets a woman. And he needs her. But she uses this need against him, she uses it to undermine him. And it’s easy. Women don’t see men the way men want to be seen. They see all the tender places, all the places where blood could flow.” She finished the whiskey. “Do you see what I mean?” “No,” he said, frankly, “I don’t. I don’t believe all this female intuition shit. It’s something women have dreamed up.” “You can say that—and in such a tone!” She mimicked him: “Something women have dreamed up. But I can’t say that—what men have ‘dreamed up’ is all there is, the world they’ve dreamed up is the world.” He laughed. She subsided. “Well. It’s true.” “What a funny girl you are,” he said. “You’ve got a bad case of penis envy.” “So do most men,” she said, sharply, and he laughed. “All I meant, anyway,” she said, soberly, “is that I had to try to fit myself around you and not try to make you fit around me. That’s all. And it hasn’t been easy.” “No.” “No. Because I love you.” “Ah!” he said, and laughed aloud, “you are a funny girl. I love you, too, you know that.” “I hope you do,” she said. “You know me so well and you don’t know that? What happened to all that intuition, all that—specialized—point of view?” “Beyond a certain point,” she said, with a sullen smile, “it doesn’t seem to work so well.” He pulled her up from the table and put both arms around her, bending his cheek to her hair. “What point is that, my darling?” Everything, his breath in her hair, his arms, his chest, his odor—was familiar, confining, unutterably dear. She turned her head slightly to look out of the kitchen window. “Love,” she said, and watched the cold sunlight. She thought of the cold river and of the dead black boy, their friend. She closed her eyes. “Love,” she said, again, “love.” Richard stayed with the children Saturday, while Cass and Vivaldo went uptown to Rufus’ funeral. She did not want to go but she could not refuse Vivaldo, who knew that he had to be there but dreaded being there alone. It was a morning funeral, and Rufus was to be driven to the graveyard immediately afterward. Early on that cold, dry Saturday, Vivaldo arrived, emphatically in black and white: white shirt, black tie, black suit, black shoes, black coat; and black hair, eyes, and eyebrows, and a dead-white, bone-dry face. She was struck by his panic and sorrow; without a word, she put on her dark coat and put her hand in his; and they rode down in the elevator in silence. She watched him in the elevator mirror. Sorrow became him. He was reduced to his beauty and elegance—as bones, after a long illness, come forward through the flesh.

• From Another Country (1962)

  You were miserable then. We all wondered—I wondered—what would become of you. But you aren’t miserable now.” “No,” he said, and, under her scrutiny, blushed. “I’m not miserable any more. But I still don’t know what’s going to become of me.” “Growth,” she said, “is what will become of you. It’s what has become of you.” And she gave him again her oddly intimate, rueful smile. “It’s very nice to see, it’s very—enviable. I don’t envy many people. I haven’t found myself envying anyone for a long, long time.” “It’s mighty funny,” he said, “that you should envy me.” He rose from the sofa, and walked to the window. Behind him, beneath the mighty lament of the music, a heavy silence gathered: Cass, also, had something to talk about, but he did not want to know what it was. You can’t trust nobody, you might as well be alone. Staring out over the water, he asked, “What was Rufus like—near the end?” After a moment, he turned and looked at her. “I hadn’t meant to ask you that—but I guess I really want to know.” Her face, despite the softening bangs, grew spare and contemplative. Her lips twisted. “I told you a little of it,” she said, “in my letter. But I didn’t know how you felt by that time and I didn’t see any point in burdening you.” She put out her cigarette and lit another one. “He was very unhappy, as—as you know.” She paused. “Actually, we never got very close to him. Vivaldo knew him better than—than we did, anyway.” He felt a curious throb of jealousy: Vivaldo! “We didn’t see much of him. He became very involved with a Southern girl, a girl from Georgia—–” Found my long lost friend, and I might as well stayed at home! “You didn’t tell me that,” he said. “No. He wasn’t very nice to her. He beat her up a lot—–” He stared at her, feeling himself grow pale, remembering more than he wanted to remember, feeling his hope and his hope of safety threatened by invincible, unnamed forces within himself. He remembered Rufus’ face, his hands, his body, and his voice, and the constant humiliation. “Beat her up? What for?” “Well—who knows? Because she was Southern, because she was white. I don’t know. Because he was Rufus. It was very ugly. She was a nice girl, maybe a little pathetic—” “Did she like to be beaten up? I mean—did something in her like it, did she like to be—debased?” “No, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. Well, maybe there’s something in everybody that likes to be debased, but I don’t think life’s that simple. I don’t trust all these formulas.” She paused. “To tell the truth, I think she probably loved Rufus, really loved him, and wanted Rufus to love her.” “How abnormal,” he said, “can you get!” He finished his drink.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then Reverend Foster prayed a brief prayer for the safe journey of the soul that had left them and the safe journey, throughout their lives and after death, of all the souls under the sound of his voice. It was over. The pallbearers, two of the men in the front row, and the two musicians, lifted the mother-of-pearl casket to their shoulders and started down the aisle. The mourners followed. Cass was standing near the door. The four still faces passed her with their burden and did not look at her. Directly behind them came Ida and her mother. Ida paused for a moment and looked at her—looked directly, unreadably at her from beneath her heavy veil. Then she seemed to smile. Then she passed. And the others passed. Vivaldo joined her and they walked out of the chapel. For the first time she saw the hearse, which stood on the Avenue, facing downtown. “Vivaldo,” she asked, “are we going to the cemetery?” “No,” he said, “they don’t have enough cars. I think only the family’s going.” He was watching the car behind the hearse. Ida’s parents had already entered the car. She stood on the sidewalk. She looked around her, then walked swiftly over to them. She took each of them by one hand. “I just wanted to thank you,” she said, quickly, “for coming.” Her voice was rough from weeping and Cass could not see her face behind the veil. “You don’t know what it means to me—to us.” Cass pressed Ida’s hand, not knowing what to say. Vivaldo said, “Ida, anything we can do—anything I can do—anything—!” “You’ve done wonders. You been wonderful. I’ll never forget it.” She pressed their hands again and turned away. She got into the car and the door closed behind her. The hearse slowly moved out from the curb, and the car, then a second car, followed. Others who had been at the funeral service looked briefly at Cass and Vivaldo, stood together a few moments, and then began to disperse. Cass and Vivaldo started down the Avenue. “Shall we take a subway?” Vivaldo asked. “I don’t,” she said, “think I could face that now.” They continued to walk, nevertheless, aimlessly, in silence. Cass walked with her hands deep in her pockets, staring down at the cracks in the sidewalk. “I hate funerals,” she said, finally, “they never seem to have anything to do with the person who died.” “No,” he said, “funerals are for the living.” They passed a stoop where a handful of adolescents stood, who looked at them curiously.

• From Another Country (1962)

  It’s always good to know where you stand. But you certainly aren’t going to allow this— prejudice —to stand in Miss Scott’s way?” “I wouldn’t dream of it. Anyway, Ida does what she wants.” Ellis considered him. He looked briefly at Ida. “Well. That’s reassuring.” He signaled for the waiter and turned to Ida. “What day shall we make it? Tuesday, Wednesday?” “Wednesday might be better,” she said, hesitantly. “Around three o’clock?” “Yes. That’s fine.” “It’s settled, then.” He made a note in his engagement book, then took out his billfold, picked up the check and gave a ten-dollar bill to the waiter. “Give these people anything they want,” he said, “it’s on me.” “Oh, are you going now?” asked Ida. “Yes. My wife will kill me if I don’t get home in time to see the kids before I go to the studio. See you Wednesday.” He held out his hand to Eric. “Glad to have met you, Red; all the best. Maybe you’ll do a show for me, one day.” He looked down at Vivaldo. “So long, genius. I’m sorry you don’t like me. Maybe one of these days you ought to ask yourself why. It’s no good blaming me , you know, if you don’t know how to get or how to hold on to what you want.” Then he turned and left. Vivaldo watched the short legs going up the stairs into the street. He wiped his forehead with his wet handkerchief and the three of them sat in silence for a moment. Then, “I’m going to call Cass,” Vivaldo said, and rose and walked toward the phone booth in the back . “I understand,” said Ida, carefully, “that you were a very good friend of my brother’s.” “Yes,” he said, “I was. Or at least I tried to be.” “Did you find it so very hard—to be his friend?” “No. No, I hadn’t meant to suggest that.” He tried to smile. “He was very wrapped up in his music, he was very much—himself. I was younger then, I may not always have—understood.” He felt sweat in his armpits, on his forehead, between his legs. “Oh.” She looked at him from very far away. “You may have wanted more from him than he could give. Many people did, men and women.” She allowed this to hang between them for an instant. Then, “He was terribly attractive, wasn’t he? I always think that that was the reason he died, that he was too attractive and didn’t know how—how to keep people away.” She sipped her drink. “People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you’re dead, when they’ve killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn’t have any character. They weep big, bitter tears—not for you .

• From Another Country (1962)

  He felt the cold tears on his face, and he tried to wipe them away. “Do you know what I mean? I haven’t told Ida this, I haven’t told anyone, I haven’t thought about it, since he died. But I guess I’ve been living with it. And I’ll never know. I’ll never know.” “No,” said Eric, “you’ll never know. If I had been there, I’d have held him—but it wouldn’t have helped. His little girl tried to hold him, and that didn’t help.” He sat down on the bed beside Vivaldo. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” “Hell, no.” Vivaldo dried his eyes with the back of his hand. “Let’s have another drink. Let’s watch the dawn come up.” “Okay.” Eric started to move away. Vivaldo grabbed his hand. “Eric—” He watched Eric’s dark, questioning eyes and the slightly parted, slightly smiling lips. “I’m glad I told you about that. I guess I couldn’t have told anybody else.” Eric seemed to smile. He took Vivaldo’s face between his hands and kissed him, a light, swift kiss, on the forehead. Then his shadow vanished, and Vivaldo heard him in the kitchen. “I’m out of ice.” “The hell with the ice.” “Water?” “No. Well, maybe a little.” Eric returned with two glasses and put one in Vivaldo’s hand. They touched glasses. “To the dawn,” said Eric. “To the dawn,” Vivaldo said. Then they sat together, side by side, watching the light come up behind the window and insinuate itself into the room. Vivaldo sighed, and Eric turned to look at his lean, gray face, the long cheeks hollowed now, and the stubble coming up, the marvelous mouth resigned, and the black eyes staring straight out—staring out because they were beginning to look inward. And Eric felt, for perhaps the first time in his life, the key to the comradeship of men. Here was Vivaldo, long, lean, and weary, dressed, as he almost always was, in black and white; his white shirt was open, almost to the navel, and the shirt was dirty now, and the hair on his chest curled out; the hair on his head, which was always too long, was tousled, and fell over his forehead; and he smelled Vivaldo’s sweat, his armpits and his groin, and was terribly aware of his long legs. Here Vivaldo sat, on Eric’s bed. Not a quarter of an inch divided them. His elbow nearly touched Vivaldo’s elbow, as he listened to the rise and fall of Vivaldo’s breath. They were like two soldiers, resting from battle, about to go into battle again. Vivaldo fell back on the bed, one hand covering his forehead, one hand between his legs. Presently, he was snoring, then he shuddered, and turned into Eric’s pillow, toward Eric’s wall. Eric sat on the bed, alone, and watched him. He took off Vivaldo’s shoes, he loosened Vivaldo’s belt, turning Vivaldo to face him. The morning light bathed the sleeper.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She made a faint, steamy sound as she sipped her coffee, and this sound was unaccountably, inexpressibly annoying. “And forgive me, now, if I don’t seem to know just what to say, I’m maybe a little—stunned.” He looked over at her, and a wilderness of anger, pity, love, and contempt and lust all raged together in him. She, too, was a whore; how bitterly he had been betrayed! “I’m not trying to deny anything you’ve said, but just the same, there are a lot of things I didn’t—don’t—understand, not really. Bear with me, please give me a little time—” “Vivaldo,” she said, wearily, “just one thing. I don’t want you to be understanding. I don’t want you to be kind, okay?” She looked directly at him, and an unnameable heat and tension flashed violently alive between them, as close to hatred as it was to love. She softened and reached out, and touched his hand. “Promise me that.” “I promise you that,” he said. And then, furiously, “You seem to forget that I love you.” They stared at each other. Suddenly, he reached out and pulled her to him, trembling, with tears starting up behind his eyes, burning and blinding, and covered her face with kisses, which seemed to freeze as they fell. She clung to him; with a sigh she buried her face in his chest. There was nothing erotic in it; they were like two weary children. And it was she who was comforting him. Her long fingers stroked his back, and he began, slowly, with a horrible, strangling sound, to weep, for she was stroking his innocence out of him. By and by, he was still. He rose, and went to the bathroom and washed his face, and then sat down at his work table. She put on a record by Mahalia Jackson, In the Upper Room, and sat at the window, her hands in her lap, looking out over the sparkling streets. Much, much later, while he was still working and she slept, she turned in her sleep, and she called his name. He paused, waiting, staring at her, but she did not move again, or speak again. He rose, and walked to the window. The rain had ceased, in the black-blue sky a few stars were scattered, and the wind roughly jostled the clouds along. 2 The sun struck, on steel, on bronze, on stone, on glass, on the gray water far beneath them, on the turret tops and the flashing windshields of crawling cars, on the incredible highways, stretching and snarling and turning for mile upon mile upon mile, on the houses, square and high, low and gabled, and on their howling antennae, on the sparse, weak trees, and on those towers, in the distance, of the city of New York. The plane tilted, dropped and rose, and the whole earth slanted, now leaning against the windows of the plane, now dropping out of sight.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Don’t you think that hurts me? You lock me out. And all I want is for you to be a part of me, for me to be a part of you. I wouldn’t give a damn if you were striped like a zebra.” She laughed. “Yes, you would, really. But you say the cutest things.” Then, “If I lock you out, as you put it, it’s mainly to protect you—” “Protect me from what? and I don’t want to be protected. Besides——” “Besides?” “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that’s why. You want to protect yourself. You want to hate me because I’m white, because it’s easier for you that way.” “I don’t hate you.” “Then why do you always bring it up? What is it?” She stirred the rice, which was almost ready, found a collander, and placed it in the sink. Then she turned to face him. “This all began because I said that you people—” “Listen to yourself. You people!” “—didn’t know anything about Rufus—” “Because we’re white.” “No. Because he was black.” “Oh. I give up. And, anyway, why must we always end up talking about Rufus?” “I had started to tell you something,” she said, quietly; and watched him. He swallowed some more of his whiskey, and lit a cigarette. “True. Please go on.” “Because I’m black,” she said, after a moment, and sat at the table near him, “I know more about what happened to my brother than you can ever know. I watched it happen—from the beginning. I was there. He shouldn’t have ended up the way he did. That’s what’s been so hard for me to accept. He was a very beautiful boy. Most people aren’t beautiful, I knew that right away. I watched them, and I knew. But he didn’t because he was so much nicer than I.” She paused, and the silence grumbled with the sound of the frying pan and the steady sound of the rain. “He loved our father, for example. He really loved him. I didn’t. He was just a loudmouthed, broken-down man, who liked to get drunk and hang out in barber shops—well, maybe he didn’t like it but that was all he could find to do, except work like a dog, for nothing—and play the guitar on the week ends for his only son.” She paused again, smiling. “There was something very nice about those week ends, just the same. I can still see Daddy, his belly hanging out, strumming on that guitar and trying to teach Rufus some down-home song and Rufus grinning at him and making fun of him a little, really, but very nicely, and singing with him. I bet my father was never happier, all the days of his life, than when he was singing for Rufus. He’s got no one to sing to now.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Federigo, hearing what the lady asked and knowing that he could not oblige her, for that he had given her the falcon to eat, fell a-weeping in her presence, ere he could answer a word. The lady at first believed that his tears arose from grief at having to part from his good falcon and was like to say that she would not have it. However, she contained herself and awaited what Federigo should reply, who, after weeping awhile, made answer thus: 'Madam, since it pleased God that I should set my love on you, I have in many things reputed fortune contrary to me and have complained of her; but all the ill turns she hath done me have been a light matter in comparison with that which she doth me at this present and for which I can never more be reconciled to her, considering that you are come hither to my poor house, whereas you deigned not to come what while I was rich, and seek of me a little boon, the which she hath so wrought that I cannot grant you; and why this cannot be I will tell you briefly. When I heard that you, of your favour, were minded to dine with me, I deemed it a light thing and a seemly, having regard to your worth and the nobility of your station, to honour you, as far as in me lay, with some choicer victual than that which is commonly set before other folk; wherefore, remembering me of the falcon which you ask of me and of his excellence, I judged him a dish worthy of you. This very morning, then, you have had him roasted upon the trencher, and indeed I had accounted him excellently well bestowed; but now, seeing that you would fain have had him on other wise, it is so great a grief to me that I cannot oblige you therein that methinketh I shall never forgive myself therefor.' So saying, in witness of this, he let cast before her the falcon's feathers and feet and beak.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Rufus nodded, feeling a little frightened. Vivaldo watched him, feeling it all come back, his love for Rufus, and his grief for him. He leaned across the table and tapped him on the cheek. “Come on,” he said, “you haven’t got to be afraid of anybody.” With these words, at which Rufus looked even more frightened, though a small smile played around the corners of his mouth, Vivaldo felt that whatever was coming had already begun, that the master switch had been thrown. He sighed, relieved, also wishing to call the words back. The waiter came. Vivaldo paid the check and they walked out into the streets. “It’s almost Thanksgiving,” said Rufus, suddenly. “I didn’t realize that.” He laughed. “It’ll soon be Christmas, the year will soon be over—” He broke off, raising his head to look over the cold streets. A policeman, standing under the light on the corner, was phoning in. On the opposite pavement a young man walked his dog. The music from the night club dwindled as they walked away from it, toward Benno’s. A heavy Negro girl, plain, carrying packages, and a surly, bespectacled white boy ran together toward a taxi. The yellow light on the roof went out, the doors slammed. The cab turned, came toward Rufus and Vivaldo, and the street lights blazed for an instant on the faces of the silent couple within. Vivaldo put one arm around Rufus and pushed him ahead of him into Benno’s Bar. The bar was terribly crowded. Advertising men were there, drinking double shots of bourbon or vodka, on the rocks; college boys were there, their wet fingers slippery on the beer bottles; lone men stood near the doors or in corners, watching the drifting women. The college boys, gleaming with ignorance and mad with chastity, made terrified efforts to attract the feminine attention, but succeeded only in attracting each other. Some of the men were buying drinks for some of the women—who wandered incessantly from the juke box to the bar—and they faced each other over smiles which were pitched, with an eerie precision, between longing and contempt. Black-and-white couples were together here—closer together now than they would be later, when they got home. These several histories were camouflaged in the jargon which, wave upon wave, rolled through the bar; were locked in a silence like the silence of glaciers. Only the juke box spoke, grinding out each evening, all evening long, syncopated, synthetic laments for love.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Her body kept shaking and he felt her tears on his hands. He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them. He tried to look into her face, but she kept her face turned away. “Ida. Ida, please.” “I don’t know any of these people,” she said, “I don’t care about them. They think I’m just another colored girl, and they trying to be nice, but they don’t care. They don’t want to talk to me. I only stayed because you asked me, and you’ve been so nice, and I was so proud of you, and now you’ve spoiled it all.” “Ida,” he said, “if I’ve spoiled things between you and me, I don’t know how I’m going to live. You can’t say that. You’ve got to take it back, you’ve got to forgive me and give me another chance. Ida.” He put one hand to her face and slowly turned it toward him. “Ida, I love you, I do, more than anything in this world. You’ve got to believe me. I’d rather die than hurt you.” She was silent. “I was jealous and I was scared and that was a very dumb thing I said. But I was just afraid you didn’t care about me. That’s all. I didn’t mean anything bad about you.” She sighed and reached for her purse. He gave her a handkerchief. She dried her eyes and blew her nose. She looked very tired and helpless. He moved and sat beside her on the bed. She avoided looking at him but she did not move. “Ida—” and he was shocked by the sound of his voice, it contained such misery. It did not seem to be his voice, it did not seem to be under his control. “I told you, I love you. Do you care about me?” She rose and walked to the mirror. He watched her. “Please tell me.” She looked into the mirror, then picked up her handbag from the bed. She opened it, closed it, then looked in the mirror again. Then she looked at him, “Yes,” she said, helplessly, “yes, I do.” He took her face between his hands and kissed her. At first she did not answer him, seemed merely to be enduring him, seemed suspended, hanging, waiting. She was trembling and he tried to control her trembling with the force of his arms and hands. Then something seemed to bend in her, to give, and she put her arms around him, clinging to him. Finally, he whispered in her ear, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go.” “Yes,” she said, after a moment, “I guess it’s time to go.” But she did not step out of his arms at once. She looked at him and she said, “I’m sorry I was so silly. I know you didn’t mean it.” “I’m sorry, too. I’m just a jealous, no-good bastard, I can’t help it, I’m crazy about you.” And he kissed her again.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He walked up and down behind the altar, behind the bier. “I know there ain’t nothing I can say to you that sit before me—his mother and father, his sister, his kinfolks, his friends—to bring him back or to keep you from grieving that he’s gone. I know that. Ain’t nothing I can say will make his life different, make it the life that maybe some other man might have lived. It’s all been done, it’s all written down on high. But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.” He looked down, then over to the front row. “You got to remember,” he said, gently, “he was trying. Ain’t many trying and all that tries must suffer. Be proud of him. You got a right to be proud. And that’s all he ever wanted in this world.” Except for someone—a man—weeping in the front row, there was silence all over the chapel. Cass thought that the man must be Rufus’ father and she wondered if he believed what the preacher said. What had Rufus been to him?—a troublesome son, a stranger while living and now a stranger forever in death. And now nothing else would ever be known. Whatever else had been, or might have been, locked in Rufus’ heart or in the heart of his father, had gone into oblivion with Rufus. It would never be expressed now. It was over. “There’re some friends of Rufus’s here,” said Reverend Foster, “and they going to play something for us and then we going to go.” Two young men walked up the aisle, one carrying a guitar, one carrying a bass fiddle. The thin dark girl followed them. The black-robed boy at the piano flexed his fingers. The two boys stood directly in front of the covered corpse, the girl stood a little away from them, near the piano. They began playing something Cass did not recognize, something very slow, and more like the blues than a hymn. Then it began to be more tense and more bitter and more swift. The people in the chapel hummed low in their throats and tapped their feet. Then the girl stepped forward. She threw back her head and closed her eyes and that voice rang out again: Oh, that great getting-up morning, Fare thee well, fare thee well! Reverend Foster, standing on a height behind her, raised both hands and mingled his voice with hers: We’ll be coming from every nation, Fare thee well, fare thee well! The chapel joined them, but the girl ended the song alone: Oh, on that great getting-up morning, Fare thee well, fare thee well!

• From Another Country (1962)

  She walked away and another, older and plainer girl, who was also, however, very carefully dressed and made-up, came over to Cass, wearing a very different smile: a bawdy, amused smile, full of complicity and contempt. Cass felt herself blushing. The girl pulled out boxes of scarves. They all seemed sleazy and expensive, but she was in no position to complain. She took one, paid for it, tied it around her head, and left. Her knees were shaking. She managed to find a cab at the corner and, after fighting a small duel with herself, gave the driver the address of the chapel: she had really wanted to tell him to take her home. The chapel was small and there were not many people in it. She entered as silently as she could, but heads turned at her entrance. An elderly man, probably an usher, hurried silently toward her, but she sat down in the first seat she saw, in the very last row, near the door. Vivaldo was sitting further up, near the middle; the only other white person, as far as she could tell, in the place. People sat rather scattered from each other—in the same way, perhaps, that the elements of Rufus’ life had been scattered—and this made the chapel seem emptier than it was. There were many young people there, Rufus’ friends, she supposed, the boys and girls who had grown up with him. In the front row sat six figures, the family: no amount of mourning could make Ida’s proud back less proud. Just before the family, just below the altar, stood the bier, dominating the place, mother of pearl, closed. Someone had been speaking as she came in, who now sat down. He was very young and he was dressed in the black robes of an evangelist. She wondered if he could be an evangelist, he did not seem to be much more than a boy. But he moved with great authority, the authority indeed of someone who has found his place and made his peace with it. As he sat down, a very thin girl walked up the aisle and the boy in black robes moved to the piano at the side of the altar.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Elle aussi a atteint la limite de son vocabulaire. Elle n’a pas moyen de le réconforter pour les choses qu’il n’a pas moyen d’exprimer, et ils font du mieux qu’ils peuvent. Il entend son cœur qui bat fort. Elle a une odeur sucrée, avec un relent de popcorn. Son corps est doux et chaud. Il y a des mouettes au-dessus d’eux, qui font des cercles en se laissant dériver sur les courants d’air, ce qui met Wallace mal à l’aise. « En tout cas, maintenant que tu es au courant, pardonne-moi de ne pas te l’avoir dit plus tôt. — Mon dieu, Wallace. Quand a-t-il été enterré ? — Oh, il y a des semaines. — Tu n’y es pas allé ? — Non, c’était trop loin, ça ne valait pas le coup. » Brigit laisse passer cette remarque sans commentaire, et il lui en est reconnaissant. Elle se remet à manger des pop-corns. Il boit son eau, qui est devenue tiède. Le groupe joue une mélodie solitaire, un peu fausse, noyée dans la reverb. Lui ayant dit pour son père, il n’éprouve pas le besoin de lui en raconter davantage. Ça lui semble suffisant, en un sens, c’est la partie qui révèle le tout. Ils s’affaissent dans leurs sièges, qui grincent un peu tandis que leurs cuisses glissent sur le métal. Le son les fait rire, comique en cet instant. Leur rire dépasse son contexte, jusqu’à se faire disproportionné, jusqu’à ce qu’ils cessent de rire et se mettent à pleurer à chaudes larmes. Wallace laisse échapper le gémissement hideux, hoquetant d’un petit enfant, ou de quelqu’un qui s’est oublié lui-même. Tout remonte : les larmes, la frustration, la difficulté. Il se convulse, frissonne, larmes, morve et toux, sanglots, les mains à plat contre ses yeux, grelottant, brûlant, tellement brûlant, trempé. Et Brigit pleure doucement sur son épaule, un son en staccato, comme les animaux dans les buissons, ce chuintement frêle. Cette nuit-là, en Alabama, une fois que l’homme a quitté sa maison, Wallace a pleuré. Son père s’est penché, l’a pris par la taille, et lui a demandé : Pourquoi tu pleures ? Mais pourquoi tu pleures ? La réponse avait paru évidente à Wallace, mais plus son père lui posait la question, plus Wallace s’interrogeait sur le sens de ses larmes, et au bout d’un moment il avait cessé. Son père avait fait un tour de magie, converti la certitude en doute, sans plus d’effort qu’il n’en fallait pour demander : Pourquoi tu pleures ? Pourquoi pleurait-il ? Pourquoi ? Mais ici, avec Brigit, la raison s’affûte, se fait d’une clarté terrifiante. Il pleure parce qu’il n’arrive plus à se reconnaître, parce que la route devant lui est indiscernable, parce qu’il n’y a rien qu’il puisse dire ou faire qui lui apporterait le bonheur. Il pleure parce qu’il est coincé entre cette vie et la suivante, et pour la première fois il ne sait pas s’il vaut mieux partir ou rester.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He felt what the policeman might say and do if he had been Rufus, walking here with his arm around Leona. He said, nevertheless, after a moment, “You ought to leave him. You ought to leave town.” “I tell you, Viv, I keep hoping—it’ll all come all right somehow. He wasn’t like this when I met him, he’s not really like this at all. I know he’s not. Something’s got all twisted up in his mind and he can’t help it.” They were standing under a street lamp. Her face was hideous, was unutterably beautiful with grief. Tears rolled down her thin cheeks and she made doomed, sporadic efforts to control the trembling of her little-girl’s mouth. “I love him,” she said, helplessly, “I love him, I can’t help it. No matter what he does to me. He’s just lost and he beats me because he can’t find nothing else to hit.” He pulled her against him while she wept, a thin, tired girl, unwitting heiress of generations of bitterness. He could think of nothing to say. A light was slowly turning on inside him, a dreadful light. He saw—dimly—dangers, mysteries, chasms which he had never dreamed existed. “Here comes a taxi,” he said. She straightened and tried to dry her eyes again. “I’ll come with you,” he said, “and come right back.” “No,” she said, “just give me the keys. I’ll be all right. You go on back to Rufus.” “Rufus said he’d kill me,” he said, half-smiling. The taxi stopped beside them. He gave her his keys. She opened the door, keeping her face away from the driver. “Rufus ain’t going to kill nobody but himself,” she said, “if he don’t find a friend to help him.” She paused, half-in, half-out of the cab. “You the only friend he’s got in the world, Vivaldo.” He gave her some money for the fare, looking at her with something, after all these months, explicit at last between them. They both loved Rufus. And they were both white. Now that it stared them so hideously in the face, each could see how desperately the other had been trying to avoid this confrontation. “You’ll go there now?” he asked. “You’ll go to my place?” “Yes. I’ll go. You go on back to Rufus. Maybe you can help him. He needs somebody to help him.” Vivaldo gave the driver his address and watched the taxi roll away. He turned and started back the way they had come. The way seemed longer, now that he was alone, and darker. His awareness of the policeman, prowling somewhere in the darkness near him, made, the silence ominous. He felt threatened. He felt totally estranged from the city in which he had been born; this city for which he sometimes felt a kind of stony affection because it was all he knew of home.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Wallace pleure toutes les larmes de son corps, jusqu’à ce que finalement il se retrouve vide, sans plus rien sur quoi pleurer, jusqu’à ce qu’il ait la sensation d’être une cloche qui a fini de tinter. Quand ils cessent, ils ont un peu honte de s’être laissés aller comme ça. Il y a quelque chose de très américain là-dedans, dit Brigit – tout ce qui fait du bien doit s’accompagner de honte. « C’est parce qu’on est tous protestants, explique-t-elle. — Tu n’es pas allée à l’école catholique toute ta vie ? » Elle rit. « Si, mais n’empêche. » Ils rentrent acheter des glaces. Wallace demande une coupelle en gaufrette avec des boules de vanille, et elle se moque de lui. Elle se prend un cornet au chocolat, ce que Wallace ne trouve pas plus aventureux que la vanille. Le hall est décoré d’une espèce de fresque, qui dépeint les actions charitables d’un Blanc d’un passé lointain : celui-ci distribue des bonbons à des petits enfants qui ont un drôle d’air démoniaque, et toute la scène semble à la fois bucolique et horrifiante. Il y a beaucoup de monde qui traîne, qui mange des glaces, des saucisses, bavarde. La musique qui vient de l’extérieur s’entend plus fort ici ; le groupe est passé à des reprises de rock très premier degré. Sur le côté, un homme mange quelque chose dans un saladier en carton. Il a un visage mince, on voit les muscles de sa mâchoire remuer. Wallace les regarde s’activer sous la peau olivâtre. Il y a aussi l’épaississement des muscles de son cou quand il avale la nourriture qui descend dans sa gorge pour aller disparaître dans ses entrailles sombres. C’est un acte ordinaire, assez banal pour sembler invisible, mais quand on regarde n’importe quel acte minuscule de la sorte, il se dote d’une étrangeté insensée. Il n’y a qu’à voir comme la paupière glisse sur l’orbite, puis remonte, le monde plongé dans les ténèbres un instant, à chaque fois qu’on cligne des yeux. Il n’y a qu’à voir la respiration, qui vient régulièrement et sans effort – et pourtant l’énorme masse d’air qui doit entrer et sortir de notre corps constitue un événement presque violent, avec les tissus poussés, comprimés, et écartés, et ouvert et refermés, et tout le sang impliqué dans l’affaire. Les actes ordinaires se revêtent d’ombres insolites lorsqu’on les observe de près.