Tell me.”
The janitor’s face was round, a little flabby, quite dirty, with a dirty stubble.
His eyes were quite clear, quite gray, quite cold.
They were quite mad too.
But the woman did not notice that.
Or perhaps they did not look mad to her.
So they faced one another in the coalgrimed doorway, mad eyes looking into mad eyes, mad voice talking to mad voice as calm and quiet and terse as two conspirators.
“I’ve watched you for five years.” She believed that she was telling the truth. “Sitting here in this very chair, watching him.
You never sit here except when the children are outdoors.
But as soon as they come out, you bring this chair here to the door and sit in it where you can watch them.
Watching him and hearing the other children calling him Nigger.
That’s what you are doing.
I know.
You came here just to do that, to watch him and hate him.
You were here ready when he came.
Maybe you brought him and left him on the step yonder yourself.
But anyway you know.
And I’ve got to know.
When he tells I will be fired.
And Charley may—will—Tell me.
Tell me, now.”
“Ah,” the janitor said. “I knowed he would be there to catch you when God’s time came.
I knowed.
I know who set him there, a sign and a damnation for bitchery.”
“Yes. He was right behind the curtain.
As close as you are.
You tell me, now.
I’ve seen your eyes when you look at him.
Watched you.
For five years.”
“I know,” he said. “I know evil.
Ain’t I made evil to get up and walk God’s world?
A walking pollution in God’s own face I made it.
Out of the mouths of little children He never concealed it.
You have heard them.
I never told them to say it, to call him in his rightful nature, by the name of his damnation.
I never told them.
They knowed.
They was told, but it wasn’t by me.
I just waited, on His own good time, when He would see fitten to reveal it to His living world.
And it’s come now.
This is the sign, wrote again in womansinning and bitchery.”
“Yes.
But what must I do?
Tell me.”
“Wait.
Like I waited.
Five years I waited for the Lord to move and show His will.
And He done it.
You wait too.