Me.”
“Yes.
Then you can go to Memphis.
You can read law in Peebles’s office.
He will teach you law.
Then you can take charge of all the legal business.
All this, all that he does, Peebles does.”
“And then learn law in the office of a nigger lawyer,” his mouth said.
“Yes.
Then I will turn over all the business to you, all the money.
All of it.
So that when you need money for yourself you could ... you would know how; lawyers know how to do it so that it ... You would be helping them up out of darkness and none could accuse or blame you even if they found out ... even if you did not replace ... but you could replace the money and none would ever know. ...”
“But a nigger college, a nigger lawyer,” his voice said, quiet, not even argumentative; just promptive.
They were not looking at one another; she had not looked up since he entered.
“Tell them,” she said.
“Tell niggers that I am a nigger too?” She now looked at him.
Her face was quite calm.
It was the face of an old woman now.
“Yes.
You’ll have to do that.
So they won’t charge you anything. On my account.”
Then it was as if he said suddenly to his mouth:
‘Shut up.
Shut up that drivel.
Let me talk.’
He leaned down.
She did not move.
Their faces were not a foot apart: the one cold, dead white, fanatical, mad; the other parchmentcolored, the lip lifted into the shape of a soundless and rigid snarl.
He said quietly:
“You’re old.
I never noticed that before. An old woman.
You’ve got gray in your hair.” She struck him, at once, with her flat hand, the rest of her body not moving at all.
Her blow made a flat sound; his blow as close upon it as echo.
He struck with his fist, then in that long blowing wind he jerked her up from the chair and held her, facing him, motionless, not a flicker upon her still face, while the long wind of knowing rushed down upon him. “You haven’t got any baby,” he said. “You never had one.
There is not anything the matter with you except being old.
You just got old and it happened to you and now you are not any good anymore.
That’s all that’s wrong with you.” He released her and struck her again.
She fell huddled onto the bed, looking up at him, and he struck her in the face again and standing over her he spoke to her the words which she had once loved to hear on his tongue, which she used to say that she could taste there, murmurous, obscene, caressing. “That’s all.
You’re just worn out.
You’re not any good anymore.
That’s all.”
She lay on the bed, on her side, her head turned and looking up at him across her bleeding mouth.
“Maybe it would be better if we both were dead,” she said.
He could see the note lying on the blanket as soon as he opened the door.
Then he would go and take it up and open it.
He would now remember the hollow fencepost as something of which he had heard told, as having taken place in another life from any that he had ever lived.
Because the paper, the ink, the form and shape, were the same.
They had never been long; they were not long now.
But now there was nothing evocative of unspoken promise, of rich and unmentionable delights, in them.
They were now briefer than epitaphs and more terse than commands.