Little Sacrifices Read online

‘Hey, do you want to ride around and I’ll show you the school?’ A bicycle was one of my very few possessions. I said sure, and the awkward moment passed. We spent the afternoon pedaling amiably around my new home town. Adolescent clemency is a thing to wonder at.

  I awoke the next morning to my parents’ futile attempt to shout in whispers. After fifteen years my ears were trained to pick out the sibilance of their anger. I crouched on the top stair to eavesdrop.

  ‘And I’m saying, Duncan, how can a person come with the house? That’s ridiculous, it’s not the eighteen hundreds anymore. Besides, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re perpetuating the same system we’re against.’

  ‘Oh stop being dramatic, Sarah, I am not. I’m just telling you what the conditions of the sale were. Dora Lee worked for the old lady, and the executor promised he’d make sure she was employed by the new owners. That’s us. What do you want me to tell you? Those were the conditions.’

  ‘So you bought the woman with the house?’

  ‘No! I told you– ’

  ‘That’s just great. Are you going to have her call you master?’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. I didn’t pay anything extra for her,’ he paused. ‘I mean...’

  I started down the stairs to watch Ma finish him off.

  ‘So she was free? Like the furniture, or the, the little crocheted doilies? Like the old cracked cups in the cabinets? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Morning. What’s going on?’

  They gave their opinions at once, glad for an arbiter. Duncan was a real martyr in the name of the cause when he wanted to be. ‘Sarah, think a minute. This isn’t about us, or what we want. It’s about helping someone who needs it, by giving them a job. If we don’t hire Dora Lee, what’ll happen to her? Hmm? What do you think? There aren’t exactly a million jobs in town for maids, you know. She’s got kids. What’ll happen to them? Who knows what kind of person she might end up with, if she finds a job at all.’

  Ma stayed quiet as her ideals and her heart debated their positions. ‘I don’t like it. I don’t need a housekeeper.’

  ‘Come on, we can afford to hire her. Let’s try it out. If you really hate it we’ll think again. What do you say?’ He smiled at Ma and after a time she smiled back. The matter was apparently settled.

  Unbelievable. ‘Will someone please explain to me what the point is of having beliefs if you’re just going to bend them any which way when your husband says so?’ Ma looked away, shrinking a little.

  ‘May, that’s not fair. Your mother certainly has a mind of her own, and we discuss things, to come to agreements.’

  ‘Oh really, Duncan? So when was the last time you gave in on anything?’

  ‘That’s enough young lady,’ interrupted Ma. ‘Your father’s right. I won’t be responsible for someone being thrown out on the street. Not now. We can make sure she’s treated right.’

  I found it curious that she let me run roughshod over her, but came out swinging when I went after Duncan. It didn’t matter. Arguing was a waste of time when they presented a united front. We were about to become people who had ‘help’.

  I was finishing my pancakes when Jim turned up, glasses still on the end of his nose, hand still leaning on the bell. Did I want to take a walk into town with him? Ma and Duncan both urged me to go have fun. What they meant was, I might as well go. No one else was beating down the door to spend time with me.

  Sleep did nothing to dampen Jim’s fondness for minutiae. He launched into the town’s local history while we were still in view of the house, sounding like he meant to take a running start at it from two hundred years ago and enlighten me chronologically. I thought about turning back until I remembered my alternative. To be honest, I was developing a middling interest in Jim’s trivia. He seemed to know something about everything. It was one of the unintended rewards of not having a social life to take up his time.

  The air was heavy, humid and strong with the smell of green things. There was a pace to the city like a long exhale. No one was inclined to hurry, and even brisk walkers managed to move with a softness in their hips that implied leisure. I kept finding Jim behind me and had to slow down or risk losing my guide altogether. Eventually he steered us into the park that had spoiled Duncan’s plans to find our neighborhood the day before. It rambled off into the level distance and was much leafier than the squares farther north. Palm fronds rustled and clacked in the breeze, giving the place a tropical feel in some parts while live oaks shaded the sidewalks in others. Spanish moss swayed from their branches like old men’s beards.

  All of my mother’s hard work raising me to mingle in polite company went out the window as we walked. I’d never seen so many black people, and couldn’t keep from staring at them. Some looked just like us except for their skin. The women wore pretty dresses and hats. They tottered around on high heels with matching handbags. Little girls in pinafores and boys in short pants clasped hands as they strolled along. They weren’t the people, though, who most captured my interest. It was the poor Negroes living at the edge of the society I saw in front of me. They looked sad and worse, they looked cowed, haunted, hunted, and dangerous. Most were men. All sported mismatched rags, dirty dinner jackets with patched dungarees or raggedy trousers tied with cord. Their faces were shiny with sweat. Hairs stood out on my arms and heat crept along the back of my neck. I was plain scared of these people, finding menace in their unfamiliarity.

  Snatches of conversation flowed over us, so heavily accented that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what anyone was saying. Southerners chewed on their words, stretching them like bubble gum. Jim, too, had a drawl that put more syllables in his words than we thought prudent up north. I asked him who all the poor people were.

  ‘Oh they’re just regular folks, come in off the farms mostly. They bring the produce over to City Market.’

  ‘They’re here all the time?’

  ‘Uh huh. Why?’

  ‘Are you, afraid of them?’

  ‘Of them? Of course not. Why would I be?’

  Why should he be? He’d grown up in Savannah. I just wasn’t used to being around them. Nothing to be afraid of. If he wasn’t. Besides, even though there weren’t any Negroes in Williamstown, it wasn’t like I’d never seen anyone with dark skin before. It behooved me to make this point to Jim. ‘We had an Indian fellow over to our house once for Thanksgiving. He was in Duncan’s class, from England. It was too far to travel home for the holiday so we took him in. He was nice.’

  ‘Why would English people care about Thanksgiving?’

  I had no answer. The notion that anyone might be different from me was one I was still getting used to. There was an awful lot to learn so, not realizing that there were topics polite Southerners did not broach, I asked. ‘Jim? What’s it like for them, living here?’

  He weighed up my question but found no threat in it. ‘They’re a lot better off here than in other places. We’re known all over as the most tolerant, liberal–minded people in the South. We generally keep to ourselves and let everyone get on with their business. Do you know we don’t even have the Klan in Savannah?’ I didn’t. ‘Um hmm. In fact, there’s never been a lynching. Not many other towns can say the same around here. Though we did come close, it was a long while back. Over ten, maybe fifteen years.’ He looked at me suddenly with something like embarrassment flashing across his face. I gave him a smile that was meant to be encouraging. He went on. ‘Anyway, a Negro got himself accused of shooting a white man. By Southern etiquette, he should’ve been lynched with no questions asked. But our sheriff had him locked up to wait for his trial instead. You see, we believe in the law for everyone, no matter if they’re white or not. Some people didn’t take kindly to our way of thinking though. A bunch of Klansmen from down in Statesboro heard we weren’t keeping our Negroes in line, and came to do the job themselves. Our sheriff waited for them on the jailhouse steps and when they showed up, he shot one man dead in the road. And that was the end of that.�
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  ‘Did the Negro get convicted?’

  ‘Oh, I guess so. They usually did. I didn’t say Negroes get a fair trial, just that they don’t get lynched in Savannah.’ He smiled a little apologetically, then stopped and looked around. We were standing on Bull Street in front of the college where in a few days Duncan would take up his post.

  ‘What do you say we walk up to River Street and I’ll show you Factor’s Walk? That’s where the cotton buyers had their offices, on the bluff. Used to be that the entire world’s cotton prices were set right here in Savannah. Can you imagine? White Gold, they called it. It’s all closed up now. More cobwebs than cotton there. Everything went to pot after the Civil War. Not very civil if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, that was a long time ago,’ I mused, gazing at the houses. They were striking in an aged film star kind of way, trying to hold their composure when time hadn’t done them any favors. Some were in good shape, shaded by ancient trees, their yards groomed and their porches beautifully painted. I’d have given my little finger to live even in one that was derelict, as long as there weren’t any ghosts. We Northerners were as superstitious as Jim’s people when it came to spirits.

  Jim’s silence drew my attention. ‘Not for us, it wasn’t,’ he said. I realized he meant the war. ‘It ruined the South and we never recovered, not really. You want to be careful who you say things like that to around here. I don’t mind so much, but you won’t make many friends with talk like that.’

  I murmured my apology. For Pete’s sake, who’d have thought that anyone would care after eighty years? I still had a lot to learn about social memory. Jim didn’t hold my ignorance against me and after a few awkward seconds he chattered on again. Finally, near lunchtime, his momentum slowed enough for me to shoehorn a few questions into his commentary. Curiously, he didn’t want to talk about himself. All I got out of him was that his mother lived in Atlanta and that he’d been with his Nan since he was little. Reluctant to get hollered at again, I didn’t badger him about his father, who was as absent from the conversation as he seemed to be from Jim’s life. Since I wasn’t exactly forthcoming with certain facts about my own parents, I was happy to let him keep his secrets in return for keeping my own.

  Chapter 3

  The prospect of trying to fit in made me sick to my stomach. In a small town, finding kindred spirits within walking distance is as easy as falling off a log. Not so in a city where the white population alone had its choice of four high schools. I’m sure everyone was nervous starting high school, but at least they’d have some friends to lean on. I wondered whether one boy met forty–eight hours earlier qualified as a social circle. Given the answer, I managed to keep my breakfast where it belonged for half an hour. Only Jim was there to see my waffles make their second appearance and he took them in stride, so to speak, hardly breaking his train of thought as he fished in his pocket for a handkerchief. Despite his obvious lack of social connections, I was glad to have him around.

  School was a long way from home and Savannah was one of the most humid places I’d ever been. Stepping outside was like sitting too long in a hot bath. By the time we reached the front steps, my blouse made an unflattering first impression on the other students. I stole glances at them. Most looked older than me and none looked as sweaty. Great, I thought. Here’s the new girl. She’s from the North, she talks funny and has parents who are bent on changing the entire social structure. What? Oh, no, that’s just a glandular problem. Nice to meet you.

  Everyone huddled in noisy little knots sharing their summer escapades. Their voices ebbed and swelled, breaking over us and making me homesick. I missed my best friend Lottie terribly. We’d been together since we were five. Naturally I assumed we’d start high school together, double date, celebrate birthdays, weddings, children and grandchildren and generally spend the rest of our lives within walking distance. Instead I was utterly alone except for Jim, whose three–day acquaintance hardly qualified him as my new best friend. While we stood on the steps in the maelstrom of soon–to–be classmates, I kept my eyes peeled for anyone who looked likely to acknowledge his existence. No one did. A by–the–way boy just as I’d thought.

  As in the North, new students in Savannah weren’t allowed to slip quietly into class. In some misguided endeavor to appear welcoming, a parade of sorts took place, with the newcomer installed at the front of each class for inspection. I’d pitied them at home, the kid fidgeting at the front in a room full of curious stares, hoping against hope that the roof would cave in and end his humiliation. I dreaded the next few hours. Jim wished me good luck and left me at the principal’s office to await further orders. A booming voice answered my tentative knock.

  ‘Well, May Powell, welcome to Savannah. Very nice to meet you. Come in, come in. Sit down, why don’t you?’

  Principal Mathers was a corpulent fellow. He spoke with the soft Savannah drawl that sugared unpalatable conversations. While I settled myself he asked what Duncan did, so I sat up straight and told him.

  ‘Excellent. We’re very proud of our college, you know.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Mayor Gamble started it just about ten years ago, for our less fortunate boys. A fine place. A history teacher you said your father was?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Very good. Of course, he’ll have a lot to learn about the South and our history. And there’s quite a lot of history here, I can tell you.’

  I doubted that Duncan would be limiting his lessons to affairs south of the Mason Dixon line but didn’t want to spoil Principal Mathers’ proud moment.

  ‘Well.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ We looked at each other.

  ‘So.’ His stock of teenage small talk was exhausted. He’d run out of steam. To our collective relief the girl nominated to be nice to me for the day materialized in the doorway. I was ridiculously grateful when she smiled at me. We shook hands, sized each other up and went to our homeroom where I stood, red–faced, while the teacher introduced me as ‘May Powell, from the North’. Once I sat down, everyone ignored me, so I took the opportunity to stare at them. Southern girls looked different. They were softer, more feminine. Whereas I came from the no–nonsense school of fashion the girls around me were perfectly coifed, combed and color coordinated. Pastels ran amok.

  Throughout the morning the kids were polite in their ‘haddyados’ but no one fell over herself to be my friend. By lunchtime I was pretty grateful for my next–door neighbor.

  ‘So, how’s it going?’ Jim’s face was so earnest, so truly interested in whether I was okay that I wanted to cry. I told him fine, everything was fine. The lunchroom bustled with kids renewing their camaraderie after the long summer and I eavesdropped greedily on their taken–for–granted conversations. It was as if I had no history at all, or at least none to share. It felt terrible to be lonely among so many people.

  I’d whittled my lunch to the crusts when I noticed that one table near us was particularly lively. I knew without asking that they were the popular kids. Every school has them. Every kid not with them harbors the desire, whether they’ll admit it or not, to be included.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Idiots,’ Jim said, not losing focus on his sandwich.

  ‘That’s what they are. I asked who they are.’

  ‘They’re the girls you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. Minty’s daddy’s the police chief. That’s Charlene and that’s Ceecee. They’re her henchmen.’

  ‘I take it you’re not friends.’

  ‘Who’d want to be?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Hah, you can count me out of your plans.’

  ‘How come you hate them so much? What’d they do, tease you or something?’

  ‘Of course. Everybody teases me. But they’re mean.’

  Minty was the ringleader, the other two smiling and nodding in time to her comments like punctuation marks at the end of her sentences. They were all pretty, but Minty was a stu
nner. It wasn’t anything particular about her face but rather how she wore her confidence. She had straight and glossy chestnut hair, swept back in a hair band, where mine preferred to hang about in my face and go curly in the heat. I stared at her green eyes. They turned up at the corners, were knowing, sly almost, and older than her years. They were eyes that promised a good time. I envied those girls like crazy.

  The afternoon’s classes went the same way as the morning’s, and I was glad to see Jim lingering on the sidewalk after the last bell rang. It was nice of him to wait, especially since I didn’t know the way home. I started to wilt as we walked. The air was thick, like pea soup straight from the stove. At home, such humidity promised rain but I had the feeling that here I’d wait in vain for relief. The heat made a sound, like a bow high up across violin strings. ‘What’s that noise?’

  ‘Cicadas.’

  ‘Sick–what?’

  ‘Bugs,’ he said, as if entomological knowledge was common among Savannah’s teenagers. He seemed to know his onions about most things of small consequence. As we wandered, Jim pointed out the sites of local interest. Most of the houses were architecturally intriguing rather than historically noteworthy, and like their companions downtown, they tended at best towards a faded grandeur. Nowadays, would–be homeowners flock in droves to pay over the odds for the broken down old places – gentrification they call it. There was no hint of such a movement in nineteen forty–seven.

  I was dripping by the time we reached home. Jim’s Nan waited on their porch.

  ‘Hello Missus Rumer!’ I waved.

  She barely acknowledged my greeting. ‘Jim, I expected you thirty minutes ago. Why are you late?’ She was thin without any trace of elegance, reminding me of the woman in Wood’s American Gothic.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nan, I was showing May around on our way home. I guess I lost track of time.’

  ‘Well, go upstairs and start your schoolwork.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’ He turned and went into the house. I knew he didn’t have any homework. No teacher was that cruel on the first day of school.