Misner looked at them and, giving himself more time to think of a reply to Pat's question, concentrated on identifying the children onstage. The four youngest Cary girls: Hope, Chaste, Lovely and Pure; Dina Poole; and one of Pious DuPres' daughters-Linda. Then the boys, manfully grasping staffs while they two-stepped toward the money counters. Peace and Solarine Jury's two grandsons, Ansel and one they called Fruit; Joe-Thomas Poole paired with his sister Dina; Drew and Harriet Person's son, James; Payne Sands' boy, Lorcas, and two of Timothy Seawright's grandsons, Steven and Michael. Two of the masked ones were obviously Beauchamps-Royal and Destry, fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who were already over six feet tall-but he wasn't sure of the other two. This was the first time he had attended the play. It was held two weeks before Christmas, when he returned to Georgia for his annual visit to his family. This year the trip was postponed because an all-family reunion was scheduled for New Year's. He would take Anna, if she agreed, let the folks look her over and, he supposed, let her look them over. He had hinted to the bishops that he was up for a new parish. Nothing urgent. But he was not sure he was well used in Ruby. He had thought any place was fine as long as there were young people to be taught, to be told, that Christ was judge and warrior too. That whites not only had no patent on Christianity; they were often its obstacle. That Jesus had been freed from white religion, and he wanted these kids to know that they did not have to beg for respect; it was already in them, and they needed only to display it. But the resistance he'd found in Ruby was wearing him out. More and more his students were being chastised about the beliefs he helped instill. Now Pat Best-with whom he'd taught Negro History every Thursday afternoon-was chipping away at his Bible class, confusing self-respect for arrogance, preparedness for disobedience. Did she think education was knowing just enough to get a job? She didn't seem to trust these Ruby hardheads with the future any more than he did, but neither did she encourage change. Negro history and lists of old-time achievements were enough for her but not for this generation. Somebody had to talk to them, and somebody had to listen to them. Otherwise… "You know better than anybody how smart these young people are.
Better than anybody…" His voice trailed off under "Silent Night."
"You think what I teach them isn't good enough?"
Had she read his mind? "Of course it's good. It's just not enough. The world is big, and we're part of that bigness. They want to know about Africa-"
"Oh, please, Reverend. Don't go sentimental on me."
"If you cut yourself off from the roots, you'll wither."
"Roots that ignore the branches turn into termite dust."
"Pat," he said with mild surprise. "You despise Africa."
"No, I don't. It just doesn't mean anything to me."
"What does, Pat? What does mean something to you?"
"The periodic chart of elements and valences."
"Sad," he said. "Sad and cold." Richard Misner turned away. Lorcas Sands leaves the group of families and in a loud but breaking voice addresses the masks: "Is there room?"
The masks turn toward each other, then back to the supplicant, then back to each other, after which they roar, shaking their heads like angry lions. "Get on way from here! Get! There's no room for you!"
"But our wives are pregnant!" Lorcas points with the staff.
"Our children going to die of thirst!" Pure Cary holds a doll aloft.
The masked ones wag their heads and roar.
"That was not a nice thing to say to me, Richard."
"I'm sorry?"
"I am not sad or cold."
"I meant the chart, not you. Limiting your faith to molecules as if-"
"I don't limit anything. I just don't believe some stupid devotion to a foreign country-and Africa is a foreign country, in fact it's fifty foreign countries-is a solution for these kids."
"Africa is our home, Pat, whether you like it or not."
"I'm really not interested, Richard. You want some foreign Negroes to identify with, why not South America? Or Germany, for that matter. They have some brown babies over there you could have a good time connecting with. Or is it just some kind of past with no slavery in it you're looking for?"
"Why not? There was a whole lot of life before slavery. And we ought to know what it is. If we're going to get rid of the slave mentality, that is."
"You're wrong, and if that's your field you're plowing wet. Slavery is our past. Nothing can change that, certainly not Africa."
"We live in the world, Pat. The whole world. Separating us, isolating us-that's always been their weapon. Isolation kills generations. It has no future."
"You think they don't love their children?"
Misner stroked his upper lip and heaved a long sigh. "I think they love them to death."
Bobbing and bowing, the masked ones reach under the table and lift up big floppy cardboard squares pasted with pictures of food. "Here. Take this and get on out of here." Throwing the food pictures on the floor, they laugh and jump about. The holy families rear back as though snakes were being tossed at them. Pointing forefingers and waving fists, they chant: "God will crumble you. God will crumble you." The audience hums agreement: "Yes He will. Yes He will."
"Into dust!" That was Lone DuPres.
"Don't you dare to mistake Him. Don't you dare."
"Finer than flour he'll grind you."
"Say it, Lone."
"Strike you in the moment of His choosing!"
And sure enough, the masked figures wobble and collapse to the floor, while the seven families turn away. Something within me that banishes pain; something within me I cannot explain. Their frail voices are accompanied by stronger ones in the audience, and at the last note more than a few are wiping their eyes. The families cluster campfire style to the right of the stage. The girls rock the dolls. Away in the manger, no crib for His head. Slowly from the wings a boy enters. He wears a wide hat and carries a leather bag. The families make a half circle behind him. The big-hat boy kneels and draws bottles and packages from the satchel, which he arranges on the floor. The little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head.
What's the point? Richard asked himself. Just enjoy the show and let Pat alone. He wanted to discuss, not argue. He watched the children's movements with mild affection at first, then with growing interest. He had assumed it was in order to please as many children as possible that there were four innkeepers, seven Marys and Josephs. But perhaps there were other reasons. Seven holy families? Richard tapped Pat on the shoulder. "Who put this together? I thought you told me there were nine original families. Where the other two? And why only one Wise Man? And why is he putting the gifts back in the satchel?"
"You don't know where you are, do you?"
"Well help me figure this place out. I know I'm an outsider, but I'm not an enemy."
"No, you're not. But in this town those two words mean the same thing."
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. In a shower of gold paper stars, the families lay down the dolls, the staffs and form a ring. The voices from the audience peal as one. I once was lost but now am found.
Richard felt bitterness take the place of the nausea that had driven him from his seat. Twenty, thirty years from now, he thought, all sorts of people will claim pivotal, controlling, defining positions in the rights movement. A few would be justified. Most would be frauds. What could not be gainsaid, but would remain invisible in the newspapers and the books he bought for his students, were the ordinary folk. The janitor who turned off the switch so the police couldn't see; the grandmother who kept all the babies so the mothers could march; the backwoods women with fresh towels in one hand and a shotgun in the other; the little children who carried batteries and food to secret meetings; the ministers who kept whole churchfuls of hunted protesters calm till help came; the old who gathered up the broken bodies of the young; the young who spread their arms wide to protect the old from batons they could not possibly survive; parents who wiped the spit and tears from their children's faces and said, "Never mind, honey. Never you mind. You are not and never will be a nigger, a coon, a jig, a jungle bunny nor any other thing white folks teach their children to say. What you are is God's." Yes, twenty, thirty years from now, those people will be dead or forgotten, their small stories part of no grand record or even its footnotes, although they were the ones who formed the spine on which the televised ones stood. Now, seven years after the murder of the man in whose stead he would happily have taken the sword, he was herding a flock which believed not only that it had created the pasture it grazed but that grass from any other meadow was toxic. In their view Booker T. solutions trumped Du Bois problems every time. No matter who they are, he thought, or how special they think they are, a community with no politics is doomed to pop like Georgia fatwood. Was blind but now I see. "Do they?" It was phrased as a question but it sounded like a conclusion to Pat.