him. He took me there and he kissed me and he showed me
with courtesy to the little bed where we slept that was all made
up like a sofa in what was sort o f a living room, with the
paintings all around, and he showed me where some books
were, and he thanked me, and I said I would wait, and I was so
sorry. I waited many hours. Sometimes I walked around.
Sometimes I sat. There wasn’t enough light to read really. I
looked at the paintings. Then Eldridge came in and he touched
me on m y face and I pulled aw ay and said no and said I was
waiting for Arthur and his sister was dying o f cancer and he
was at the hospital and she was dying now, dying now, and he
said yes but I’m his friend what’s w rong with me I’m as good
as he is I’m as good; and he limped but he was tall and strong
and angry and he forced me down on the bed and he hit me flat
out with his fist in m y face and I fought him and he raped me
and pushed me and he hit me and he was in me, sitting on top
o f me, upright, m y skirt was up over m y face and he was
punching me; and after I was bleeding on m y lips and down
m y legs and I couldn’t m ove and I could hear Arthur coming
and Eldridge said, I’m his best friend and I’ll tell him you
wanted it, and he said, I’m his best friend and yo u ’ll kill him if
you tell him, and he said, he’ll kill you if you tell him because
he can’t stand any more. I straightened up the bed fast because
I could have been sleeping on it so it didn’t have to be perfect
and I straightened up m y clothes and I tried to get the blood o ff
m y face by rubbing it on m y sleeve and I sat on the edge o f the
bed with m y hands folded, waiting, and the lights were out,
and I didn’t know if Arthur would see anything on m y face,
pain or bruises or cuts, and I didn’t know what Arthur would
believe; and he said his sister had died; and he sat down next to
me and he cried; and I held him; and he asked me if everything
was all right; and I said yes; and he asked me if anything was
wrong and I said no; and he asked me if Eldridge had bothered
me and I said no; and he wanted to make love so we made love
in the dark and the pain o f him in me was like some hot,
pointed branding iron in me, an agony o f pain on pain, and I
asked God to stop the pain, I had forgotten God but I
remembered Him now and I supplicated Him with Arthur in
me asking Him to stop the pain; and the light started coming
up, so slow, and it fell, so slow, on Arthur’s grief-stricken,
tear-stained black face, a face o f aging grace and relentless
dignity, a handsome face with remorse and sorrow in it for
what he had seen and known and done, the remorse and
sorrow that is part o f any decent life, more sorrow, more
trouble than white men had, trouble because o f color and then
the burden o f regular human pain— an older sister, Caroline,
dies; and I turned my face away because I was afraid he would
