"He's been looking all over for you," the girl at the desk said.
When I walked in he looked up from the telephone and said, "Never mind, he's here now," and hung up. "Where's Mr. Norton?" he demanded excitedly. "Is he all right?"
"Yes, sir. I left him at his rooms and came to drive you down. He wishes to see you."
"Is anything wrong?" he said, getting up hurriedly and coming around the desk. I hesitated.
"Well, is there!"
The panicky beating of my heart seemed to blur my vision.
"Not now, sir."
"Now? What do you mean?"
"Well, sir, he had some kind of fainting spell."
"Aw, my God! I knew something was wrong. Why didn't you get in touch with me?" He grabbed his black homburg, starting for the door. "Come on!"
I followed him, trying to explain. "He's all over it now, sir, and we were too far away for me to phone ..."
"Why did you take him so far?" he said, moving with great bustling energy.
"But I drove him where he wanted to go, sir."
"Where was that?"
"Back of the slave-quarter section," I said with dread.
"The quarters! Boy, are you a fool? Didn't you know better than to take a trustee out there?"
"He asked me to, sir."
We were going down the walk now, through the spring air, and he stopped to look at me with exasperation, as though I'd suddenly told him black was white.
"Damn what he wants," he said, climbing in the front seat beside me. "Haven't you the sense God gave a dog? We take these white folks where we want them to go, we show them what we want them to see. Don't you know that? I thought you had some sense."
Reaching Rabb Hall, I stopped the car, weak with bewilderment.
"Don't sit there," he said. "Come with me!"
Just inside the building I got another shock. As we approached a mirror Dr. Bledsoe stopped and composed his angry face like a sculptor, making it a bland mask, leaving only the sparkle of his eyes to betray the emotion that I had seen only a moment before. He looked steadily at himself for a moment; then we moved quietly down the silent hall and up the stairs.
A co-ed sat at a graceful table stacked with magazines. Before a great window stood a large aquarium containing colored stones and a small replica of a feudal castle surrounded by goldfish that seemed to remain motionless despite the fluttering of their lacy fins, a momentary motionful suspension of time.
"Is Mr. Norton in his room?" he said to the girl.
"Yessir, Dr. Bledsoe, sir," she said. "He said to tell you to come in when you got here."
Pausing at the door I heard him clear his throat, then rap softly upon the panel with his fist.
"Mr. Norton?" he said, his lips already a smile. And at the answer I followed him inside.
It was a large light room. Mr. Norton sat in a huge wing chair with his jacket off. A change of clothing lay on the cool bedspread. Above a spacious fireplace an oil portrait of the Founder looked down at me remotely, benign, sad, and in that hot instant, profoundly disillusioned. Then a veil seemed to fall.
"I've been worried about you, sir," Dr. Bledsoe said. "We expected you at the afternoon session ..."
Now it's beginning, I thought. Now --
And suddenly he rushed forward. "Mr. Norton, your head!" he cried, a strange grandmotherly concern in his voice. "What happened, sir?"
"It's nothing." Mr. Norton's face was immobile. "A mere scratch."
Dr. Bledsoe whirled around, his face outraged. "Get the doctor over here," he said. "Why didn't you tell me that Mr. Norton had been injured?"
"I've already taken care of that, sir," I said softly, seeing him whirl back.
"Mr. Norton, Mister Norton! I'm so sorry," he crooned. "I thought I had sent you a boy who was careful, a sensible young man! Why we've never had an accident before. Never, not in seventy-five years. I assure you, sir, that he shall be disciplined, severely disciplined!"
"But there was no automobile accident," Mr. Norton said kindly, "nor was the boy responsible. You may send him away, we won't need him now."
My eyes suddenly filled. I felt a wave of gratitude at his words.
"Don't be kind, sir," Dr. Bledsoe said. "You can't be soft with these people. We mustn't pamper them. An accident to a guest of this college while he is in the charge of a student is without question the student's fault. That's one of our strictest rules!" Then to me: "Return to your dormitory and remain there until further notice!"
"But it was out of my control, sir," I said, "just as Mr. Norton said ..."
"I'll explain, young man," Mr. Norton said with a half-smile. "Everything will be explained."
"Thank you, sir," I said, seeing Dr. Bledsoe looking at me with no change of expression.
"On second thought," he said, "I want you to be in chapel this evening, understand me, sir?"
"Yes, sir."
I opened the door with a cold hand, bumping into the girl who had been at the table when we went inside.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Looks like you have old Bucket-head kind of mad."
I said nothing as she walked beside me expectantly. A red sun cast its light upon the campus as I started for my dormitory.
"Will you take a message to my boy friend for me?" she said.
"Who is he?" I said, trying hard to conceal my tension and fear.
"Jack Maston," she said.
"Okay, he's in the room next to mine."
"That's swell," she said with a big smile. "The dean put me on duty so I missed him this afternoon. Just tell him that I said the grass is green ..."
"What?"
"The grass is green. It's our secret code, he'll understand."
"The grass is green," I said.
"That's it. Thank you, lover," she said.
I felt like cursing as I watched her hurrying back into the building, hearing her flat-heeled shoes crunching the graveled walk. Here she was playing with some silly secret code at the very minute my fate for the resf of my life was being decided. The grass was green and they'd meet and she'd be sent home pregnant, but even so, in less disgrace than I ... If only I knew what they were saying about me ... Suddenly I had an idea and ran after her, into the building and up the stairs.
In the hall, fine dust played in a shaft of sunlight, stirred by her hurried passing. But she had disappeared. I had thought to ask her to listen at the door and tell me what was said. I gave it up; if she were discovered, I'd have that on my conscience too. Besides, I was ashamed for anyone to know of my predicament, it was too stupid to be believed. Down the long length of the wide hall I heard someone unseen skipping down the stairs singing. A girl's sweet, hopeful voice. I left quietly and hurried to my dorm.
I lay in my room with my eyes closed, trying to think. The tension gripped my insides. Then I heard someone coming up the hall and stiffened. Had they sent for me already? Nearby a door opened and closed, leaving me as tense as ever. To whom could I turn for help? I could think of no one. No one to whom I could even explain what had happened at the Golden Day. Everything was upset inside me. And Dr. Bledsoe's attitude toward Mr. Norton was the most confusing of all. I dared not repeat what he'd said, for fear that it would lessen my chances of remaining in school. It just wasn't true, I had misunderstood. He couldn't have said what I thought he had said. Hadn't I seen him approach white visitors too often with his hat in hand, bowing humbly and respectfully? Hadn't he refused to eat in the dining hall with white guests of the school, entering only after they had finished and then refusing to sit down, but remaining standing, his hat in his hand, while he addressed them eloquently, then leaving with a humble bow? Hadn't he, hadn't he? I had seen him too often as I peeped through the door between the dining room and the kitchen, I myself. And wasn't his favorite spiritual "Live-a-Humble"? And in the chapel on Sunday evenings upon the platform, hadn't he always taught us to live content in our place in a thousand unambiguous words? He had and I had believed him. I had believed without question his illustrations of the good which came of following the Founder's path. It was my affirmation of life and they couldn't send me away for something I didn't do. They simply couldn't. But that vet! He was so crazy that he corrupted sane men. He had tried to turn the world inside out, goddamn him! He had made Mr. Norton angry. He had no right to talk to a white man as he had, not with me to take the punishment ...