from Memphis. Bringing it all the way down here to give it away.
The waitress did not move. “I’m not hurting Max.”
The blonde woman looked at the other’s lowered head. Then she turned and went toward the door. “See that you don’t,” she said. “This won’t last forever. These little towns won’t stand for this long. I know. I came from one of them.”
Sitting on the bed, holding the cheap, florid candy box in her hands, she sat as she had sat while the blonde woman talked to her. But it was now Joe who leaned against the bureau and looked at her. She began to laugh. She laughed, holding the gaudy box in her bigknuckled hands. Joe watched her. He watched her rise and pass him, her face lowered. She passed through the door and called Max by name. Joe had never seen Max save in the restaurant, in the hat and the dirty apron. When Max entered he was not even smoking. He thrust out his hand. “How are you, Romeo?” he said.
Joe was shaking hands almost before he had recognised the man. “My name’s Joe McEachern,” he said. The blonde woman had also entered. It was also the first time he had even seen her save in the restaurant. He saw her enter, watching her, watching the waitress open the box. She extended it.
“Joe brought it to me,” she said.
The blonde woman looked at the box, once. She did not even move her hand. “Thanks,” she said. The man also looked at the box, without moving his hand.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Sometimes Christmas lasts a good while. Hey, Romeo?” Joe had moved a little away from the bureau. He had never been in the house before. He was looking at the man, with on his face an expression a little placative and baffled though not alarmed, watching the man’s inscrutable and monklike face. But he said nothing. It was the waitress who said,
“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.” He watched Max, watching his face, hearing the waitress’ voice; the voice downlooking: “Not doing you nor nobody else any harm ... Not on his time ...” He was not watching her nor the blonde woman either. He was watching Max, with that expression puzzled, placative, not afraid. The blonde woman now spoke; it was as though they were speaking of him and in his presence and in a tongue which they knew that he did not know.
“Come on out,” the blonde woman said.
“For sweet Jesus,” Max said. “I was just going to give Romeo a drink on the house.”
“Does he want one?” the blonde woman said. Even when she addressed Joe directly it was as if she still spoke to Max. “Do you want a drink?”
“Don’t hold him in suspense because of his past behavior. Tell him it’s on the house.”
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “I never tried it.”
“Never tried anything on the house,” Max said. “For sweet Jesus.” He had not looked at Joe once again after he entered the room. Again it was as if they talked at and because of him, in a language which he did not understand.
“Come on,” the blonde woman said. “Come on, now.”
They went out. The blonde woman had never looked at him at all, and the man, without looking at him, had never ceased. Then they were gone. Joe stood beside the bureau. In the middle of the floor the waitress stood, downlooking, with the open box of candy in her hand. The room was close, smelling of stale scent. Joe had never seen it before. He had not believed that he ever would. The shades were drawn. The single bulb burned at the end of a cord, shaded by a magazine page pinned about it and already turned brown from the heat. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right.” She didn’t answer nor move. He thought of the darkness outside, the night in which they had been alone before. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Go?” she said. Then he looked at her. “Go where?” she said. “What for?” Still he did not understand her. He watched her come to the bureau and set the box of candy upon it. While he watched, she began to take her clothes off, ripping them off and flinging them down.
He said, “Here? In here?” It was the first time he had ever seen a naked woman, though he had been her lover for a month. But even then he did not even know that he had not known what to expect to see.
That night they talked. They lay in the bed, in the dark, talking. Or he talked, that is. All the time he was thinking, ‘Jesus. Jesus. So this is it. He lay naked too, beside her, touching her with his hand and talking about her. Not about where she had come from and what she had even done, but about her body as if no one had ever done this before, with her or with anyone else. It was as if with speech he were learning about women’s bodies, with the curiosity of a child. She told him about the sickness of the first night. It did not shock him now. Like the nakedness and the physical shape, it was like something which had never happened or existed before. So he told her in turn what he knew to tell. He told about the negro girl in the mill shed on that afternoon three years ago. He told her quietly and peacefully, lying beside her, touching her. Perhaps he could not even have said if she listened or not. Then he said, ‘You noticed my skin, my hair,” waiting for her to answer, his hand slow on her body.
She whispered also. “Yes. I thought maybe you were a foreigner. That you never come from around here.”
“It’s different from that, even. More than just a foreigner. You can’t guess.”
“What? How more different?”
“Guess.”
Their voices were quiet. It was still, quiet; night now known, not to be desired, pined for. “I can’t. What are you?”
His hand was slow and quiet on her invisible flank. He did not answer at once. It was not as if he were tantalising her. It was as if he just had not thought to speak on. She asked him again. Then he told her. “I got some nigger blood in me.”
Then she lay perfectly still, with a different stillness. But he did not seem to notice it. He lay peacefully too, his hand slow up and down her flank. “You’re what?” she said.
“I think I got some nigger blood in me.” His eyes were closed, his hand slow and unceasing. “I don’t know. I believe I have.”
She did not move. She said at once: “You’re lying.”
