Читаем Ginny Gall полностью

“That’s us,” he said. “We are loose in the world, free to wander the earth poking our noses into whatever interests us. Many will complain and grieve about our plight, and it’s true it looks, especially in certain areas, as if the white man has the upper hand, yes. But this is only appearances. In the kingdom of the spirit, we are so far ahead of these lily-livered folk that it is really our job to take care of them. Look at us. Stolen from our homes and sold into slavery, mistreated, raped and lynched, and still we find a way to love the work of the Lord, if you want to call it that, or the natural creations of the universe if you don’t. That church you are familiar with. It’s not just a house of worship — rebuilt, by the way — it’s a depot, a trolley stop, a way station and refreshment stand for those traveling this world of pain and struggle. In religion after religion you find at the heart of God a mystery. That same mystery is in everything, every rose — it’s in every dog or pig, every human being. In that mystery is the power of life. Not only the existence of life, but the purpose as well. The mystery is at the heart of life itself. A perplexity, a boggler. Everywhere you turn you find it. Who are we? Who is that lovely young woman over there? What did you mean by saying that? Who are you? A life of questions. Well, we don’t need so many questions really. Our job, son, through living, through love, through helping one another along in this wilderness, is to snug up with it. Simply that.”

He stared at Delvin with an expectant expression in his cool green eyes as if he had just explained everything.

Delvin looked him straight back. “With the mystery?” he said.

“Damn, you’re right,” Carmel cried, chuckling. “That must be what I mean.” He laughed, a croaky, slappy laugh. “Yes, son, with the mystery. We are the ones supposed to get up close and hug it till it squeaks.”

“You mean, colored folk?”

“I do indeed. We are the only ones got the heart for the job.”

He went on to explain that this wandering life — plus, he said, the willingness to bear burdens without complaint — was—“were,” he said — exactly the recipe for getting down to the heart of said mystery.

This last was spoken at a dinner they ate at Fanny’s Hot Shop over on Washington street in the quarter. Carmel informed Delvin that he was on the run from forces that were dedicated to the elimination of the negro race in general and him in particular.

“The materials I carry in my little traveling museum are a threat to the well-being of certain elements that will not be deterred until they have put out of existence the truths these materials contain. And I have to admit, it is true that in some quarters what I carry has the eliminatary aspects of a bomb. Built to blow the foolish, sanctimonious notions of these folks right out of the water. In a generous, in a kindly, way,” he added, his eyes twinkling.

As it turned out, Carmel had received this caravan of truths from a white man, his former employer, Dr. Haskell Sullivan, the famous ethnologist from the University of Chicago. Dr. Sullivan, with whom Professor Carmel had worked for many years as driver and helper of all kinds, and finally as partner, “in the ethnological enterprise you see before you” (they were back with the van, parked now in a field next to a little brushy river), had passed the outfit on to Carmel when he was taken with spasms and became too ill to continue.

“What kind of spasms?” Delvin asked.

“Hard to say. Gut mainly. He’d also lost a bit in the head department. I had to put him in a home over in Jackson. I left him on the front steps of the Berrins Home for the Aged with a note pinned to his coat.”

This was six days into their association. Delvin sat in sweet-smelling roadside grass on a rice mat provided by Carmel. By then Carmel had told him to call him Professor. They were drinking sugar cane juice from white china mugs.

“It was five years ago this September,” the professor said, “that I said goodbye to that fine white man on the steps of the charity home. When I am in the area I stop by and check on him. He is still alive, but only in body. His mind has become part of the great mystery.”

This mystery the professor spoke of hung like a misty picture in Delvin’s mind. His life was filled with mystery. Everywhere he looked he was baffled and diverted.