She does not destroy the watermelons. She only picks one up, kisses it tenderly, and hurls it into the river. It explodes like a grenade.
Phyllis faces the prow of the ship, its shrouded body. She pulls the last knife from her chest.
“I have killed them,” she says, and she bleeds for the first time: a dark rain between her legs.
Tamara takes the train back to the city the next day. She grips my hand on the platform as though she longs to tell me something. In the end she just puts on her smile and kisses my cheeks.
I do not tell Pea of my dream. I wonder, as she must have, if this presages my death, or another kind of change.
The following morning is Mayor Bell’s memorial. It dawns winter-cold. Two state squad cars have parked alongside the hearse in front of the church. Which means Bobby Junior is already inside. The police are monitoring his movements until the attempted manslaughter case goes before a grand jury. Though Craver might never wake up, several local papers have called even that charge a political frame-up. They blame it on anarchist elements in Albany.
My mother asked me to come to Mayor Bell’s farewell. To represent the family, she said. The war has made regular communication with Britain impossible. She’s as safe as anyone can be, on a Devon country estate, out of the range of the blitz. But the connection was predictably terrible, and her request unexpected. I was too shocked to object.
Pea hasn’t told me why she wanted to come. I didn’t need to ask. Her reason appears a moment before the reverend steps up to the lectern. An eddy in the crowd of latecomers standing by the doors. It ripples outward in whispers and gasps and second glances over shoulders.
“She dares?” whispers a woman in front of us. I wonder how Pea plans to protect Mae Spalding, here to bid farewell to her former employer. The man police claim that her son murdered.
The pastor, unaware or pragmatic, continues his eulogy of the late mayor: “a legendary statesman,” “a loving father.” Even that last seems suspect. Junior’s manfully suppressed tears notwithstanding. The Bobby Senior I remember ran this town like a despot king. He exploited it with a jovial immorality bred into him by generations of Bells.
Pea twists at the far edge of the pew. She fixes her gaze on the church attendants flanking Mae. For the rest of the ceremony they stand guard beside her. I assume the hope is to induce her to leave without causing a scene. If so, they are disappointed. Every time Junior darts a look from the front, she sets back her shoulders. Her gaze is righteous and direct, Moses come down from the mountain. She sweats like a man in the desert, too. A steady stream dampens the collar and armpits of her gray dress. Twice during the service she closes her eyes and sways. But after a moment she seems to regain her equilibrium and we relax.
The recessional is “Be Thou My Vision,” bloodless liturgical fare that Pea would mock in happier circumstances. One moment I’m mouthing my way through and the next Pea has sprinted to Mae’s side. Mae leans against her in a half faint, eyes rolling, breath spastic.
Junior’s control snaps. He barrels down the nave ahead of the pastor and rips Mae from Pea’s grip.
“Leave!” He shakes her. She looks at him as if she has just woken up. Smiles slowly.
“Did you imagine you’d be welcome here? Your son killed my father! If we weren’t in a church—”
He stops. Pea has a knife at his throat.
“Let her go,” says Phyllis.
He lets her go. His skin breaks against the edge of her knife every time he gasps.
“Now,” she says, “walk out of this church. The memorial is over and you two got nothing more to say to each other.”
“No, no.” Mae stands upright with unexpected energy. “I got something to say. One last thing to say.”
Phyllis nods permission. She looks proud, as if she had hoped this would happen. I can’t fault Mae’s fury. But I don’t understand the benefit of staging a confrontation at the funeral.
“This I say to you, Robert Randolph Bell Junior, who I fed and clothed and protected like my own until you made clear you weren’t any of mine: there exists justice, if not in this world then in the next, and it will find you, for the Lord hath no creed nor color, the Lord keeps his scales, the Lord knows and the Lord abides.”
Outside a cloud must break. Light pours through the south window. It paints the three in shades of ocean: cerulean, verdigris, and pearl.
Craver wakes up two weeks later. He tells the police that he doesn’t remember who attacked him that night. He tells them that it was probably Alvin. Bobby Junior is cleared of all charges, and Marnie hosts a celebration in his honor at the inn that doubles as a fundraising dinner for next year’s election. The architects and prospectors begin preliminary work on the grounds of the old church and graveyard. No one tells Craver, slowly recovering in the hospital.
I go to town to pick up a telegram.
TAKEN CARE OF. T SENDS LOVE.
I smile and burn it with the ash end of the cigarette that I smoke outside the hospital doors. Mae waits with me, patient and watchful. Legally, there is no reason we can’t enter this hospital as freely as a white man, but Mae and I are more than familiar with the two faces of northern segregation. I promised her I would get us in anyway. I feel wary of seeing my old mentor again, but Mae deserves to say her piece and to help her son. This is a good that my hands can still do, when they have of late been merely self-serving.
“I think,” Mae says, apropos of nothing, “that all this time Craver’s been like that other one Phyllis
