for some time now his mother had seemed different. almost always when she spoke to him it was as if she had something else very much on her mind, and so was making a special effort to be gentle and attentive to him. and it was as if whatever it was that was on her mind was very momentous. sometimes she looked at him in such a way that he felt that she was very much amused about something. he did not know how to ask her what she was amused by and as he watched her, wondering what it was, and she watched his puzzlement, she sometimes looked more amused than ever, and once when she looked particularly amused, and he looked particularly bewildered, her smile became shaky and turned into laughter and, quickly taking his face between her hands, she exclaimed, “i’m not laughing at you, darling!” and for the first time he felt that perhaps she was.
there were other times when she seemed to have almost no interest in him, but only to be doing things for him because they had to be done. he felt subtly lonely and watched her carefully. he saw that his father’s manner had changed towards her ever so little; he treated her as if she were very valuable and he seemed to be conscious of the tones of his voice. sometimes in the mornings grandma would come in and if he was around he was told to go away for a little while. grandma did not hear well and carried a black ear trumpet which was sticky and sour on the end that she put in her ear, but try as he would they talked so quietly that he could hear very little, and none of it enlightened him. there were special words which were said with a special kind of hesitancy or shyness, such as “pregnancy” and “kicking” and “discharge,” but others, which seemed fully as strange, such as “layette” and “basinette” and “bellyband,” seemed to inspire no such fear. grandma also treated him as if something strange was going on, but whatever it was, it was evidently not dangerous, for she was always quite merry with him. his father and his uncle andrew and grandpa seemed to treat him as they always had, though there seemed to be some hidden kind of strain in uncle andrew’s feeling for his mother. and aunt hannah was the same as ever with him, except that she paid more attention to his mother, now. aunt amelia looked at his mother a good deal when she thought nobody else was watching, and once when she saw him watching her she looked quickly away and turned red.
everyone seemed either to look at his mother with ill-concealed curiosity or to be taking special pains not to look anywhere except, rather fixedly and cheerfully, into her eyes. for now she was swollen up like a vase, and there was a peculiar lethargic lightness in her face and in her voice. he had a distinct feeling that he should not ask what was happening to her. at last he asked uncle andrew, “uncle andrew, why is mama so fat?” and his uncle replied, with such apparent anger or alarm that he was frightened, “why, don’t you know?” and abruptly walked out of the room.
next day his mother told him that soon he was going to have a very wonderful surprise. when he asked what a surprise was she said it was like being given things for christmas only ever so much nicer. when he asked what he was going to be given she said that she did not mean it was a present, specially for him, or for him to have, or keep, but something for everybody, and especially for them. when he asked what it was, she said that if she told him it wouldn’t be a surprise any more, would it? when he said that he wanted to know anyway, she said that she would tell him, only it would be so hard for him to imagine what it was before it came that she thought it was better for him to see it first. when he asked when it was coming she said that she didn’t know exactly but very soon now, in only a week or two, perhaps sooner, and she promised him that he would know right away when it did come.
he was aflame with curiosity. he had been too young, the christmas before, to think of looking for hidden presents, but now he looked everywhere that he could imagine to look until his mother understood what he was doing and told him there was no use looking for it because the surprise wouldn’t be here until exactly when it came. he asked where was it, then, and heard his father’s sudden laugh; his mother looked panicky and cried, “jay!” all at once, and quickly informed him, “in heaven; still up in heaven.”
he looked quickly to his father for corroboration and his father, who appeared to be embarrassed, did not look at him. he knew about heaven because that was where our father was, but that was all he knew about it, and he was not satisfied. again, however, he had a feeling that he would be unwise to ask more.
“why don’t you tell him, mary?” his father said.
“oh, jay,” she said in alarm; then said, by moving her lips, “don’t talk of it in front of him!”
“oh, i’m sorry,” and he, too, said with his lips-only a whisper leaked around the silence, “but what’s the good? why not get it over with?”
she decided that it was best to speak openly. “as you know, jay, i’ve told rufus about our surprise that’s coming. i told him i’d be glad to tell him what it was, except that it would be so very hard for him to imagine it and such a lovely surprise when he first sees it. besides, i just have a feeling he might m-make see-oh-en-en-ee-see-tee-eye-oh-en-ess, between—between one thing and another.”
“going to make them, going to make em anyhow,” his father said.
“but jay, there’s no use simply forcing it on his att-eigh-ten-ten, his attention, now, is there? is there, jay!”
she seemed really quite agitated, he could not understand why.
“you’re right, mary, and don’t you get excited about it. i was all wrong about it. of course i was.” and he got up and came over to her and took her in his arms, and patted her on the back.
“i’m probably just silly about it,” she said.
“no, you’re not one bit silly. besides, if you’re silly about that, so am i, some way. that just sort of caught me off my guard, that about heaven, that’s all.”
“well, what can you say?”
“i’m godd—i can’t imagine, sweetheart, and i better just keep my mouth shut.”
she frowned, smiled, laughed through her nose and urgently shook her head at him, all at once.
and then one day without warning the biggest woman he had ever seen, shining deep black and all in magnificent white with bright gold spectacles and a strong smile like that of his aunt hannah, entered the house and embraced his mother and swept down on him crying with delight, “lawd, chile, how mah baby has growed!”, and for a moment he thought that this must be the surprise and looked inquiringly at his mother past the onslaught of embraces, and his mother said, “victoria; victoria, rufus!”; and victoria cried, “now bless his little heart, how would he remembuh,” and all of a sudden as he looked into the vast shining planes of her smiling face and at the gold spectacles which perched there as gaily as a dragonfly, there was something that he did remember, a glisten of gold and a warm movement of affection, and before he knew it he had flung his arms around her neck and she whooped with astonished joy, “why god bless him, why chile, chile,” and she held him away from her and her face was the happiest thing he had ever seen, “ah believe you do remembuh! ah sweah ah believe you do! do you?” she shook him in her happiness. “do you remembuh y’old victoria?” she shook him again. “do you, honey?” and realizing at last that he was specifically being asked, he nodded shyly, and again she embraced him. she smelled so good that he could almost have leaned his head against her and gone to sleep then and there.
“mama,” he said later, when she was out shopping, “victoria smells awful good.”
“hush, rufus,” his mother said. “now you listen very carefully to me, do you hear? say yes if you hear.”
“yes.”
“now you be very careful that you never say anything about how she smells where victoria can hear you. will you? say yes if you will.”
“yes.”
“because even though you like the way she smells, you might hurt her feelings terribly if you said any such thing, and you wouldn’t want to hurt dear old victoria’s feelings, i know. would you, would you, rufus?”
“no.”
“because victoria is—is colored, rufus. that’s why her skin is so dark, and colored people are very sensitive about the way they smell. do you know what sensitive means?”
he nodded cautiously.
“it means there are things that hurt your feelings so badly, things you can’t help, that you feel like crying, and nice colored people feel that way about the way they smell. so you be very careful. will you? say yes if you will?”
“yes.”
“now tell me what i’ve asked you to be careful about, rufus.”
“don’t tell victoria she smells.”
“or say anything about it where she can hear.”
“or say anything about it where she can hear.”
“why not?”
“because she might cry.”
“that’s right. and, rufus, victoria is very very clean. absolutely spic and span.”
spic an span.
victoria would not allow his mother to get dinner and after they had eaten she also took entire charge of packing some of his clothes into a box, asking advice, however, on each thing that she took out of the drawer. then victoria bathed him and dressed him in clean clothes from the skin out, much to his mystification, and once he was ready, his mother called him to her and told him that victoria was going to take him on a little visit to stay a few days with granpa and granma and uncle andrew and aunt amelia, and he must be a very good boy and do his very best not to wet the bed because when he came back, very soon now, in only a few more days, the surprise would be there and he would know what it was. he said that if the surprise was coming so soon he wanted to stay and see it, and she replied that that was just why he was going away to granma’s, so the surprise could come all by itself. he asked why it couldn’t come if he was there and she said because he might frighten it away because it would still be very tiny and very much afraid, so if he really wanted the surprise to come, he could help more than anything else by being a good boy and going right along to granma’s. victoria would come and bring him home again just as soon as the surprise was ready for him; “won’t you, victoria?” and victoria, who throughout this conversation had appeared to be tremendously amused about something, giving tight little cackles of swallowed laughter and murmuring, “bless his heart,” whenever he spoke, said that indeed she most certainly would.
“and say your prayers,” his mother said, looking at him suddenly with so much love that he was bewildered. “you’re a big boy now, and you can say them by yourself; can’t you?” he nodded. she took him by the shoulders and looked at him almost as if she were threading a needle. as she looked at him, some kind of astonishment and some kind of fear grew in her face. her face began to shine; she smiled; her mouth twitched and trembled. she took him close to her and her cheek was wet. “god bless my dear little boy,” she whispered, “for ever and ever! amen,” and again she held him away; her face looked as if she were moving through space at extraordinary speed. “good-bye, my darling; oh, good-bye!”
“now you keep aholt a my hand,” victoria told him, the sun flashing her lenses as she looked both ways from the curb. arching his neck and his forelegs, a bright brown horse drew a buggy crisply but sedately past; in the washed black spokes, sunlight twittered. far down the sunlight, like a bumblebee, a yellow streetcar buzzed. the trees moved. they did not wait.
“victoria,” he said.
“wait, chile,” said victoria, breathing hard. “you wait till we’re safe across.”
“now what is it, honey?” she asked, once they had attained the other curb.
“why is your skin so dark?”
he saw her bright little eyes thrust into him through the little lenses and he felt a strong current of pain or danger. he knew that something was wrong. she did not answer him immediately but peered down at him sharply. then the current passed and she looked away from him, readjusting her fingers so that she took his hand. her face looked very far away, and resolute. “just because, chile,” she said in a stern and gentle voice. “just because that was the way god made me.”
“is that why you’re colored, victoria?”
he felt a change in her hand when he said the word “colored.” again she did not answer immediately, nor would she look at him. “yes,” she said at length, “that’s why i’m colored.”
he felt deeply sad as they walked along, but he did not know why. she seemed to have no more to say, and he had a feeling that it was not proper for him to say anything either. he watched her great, sad face beneath its brilliant cap, but she did not seem to know that he was watching her or even that he was there. but then he felt the pressure of her hand, and squeezed her hand, and he felt that whatever had been wrong was all right again.
after quite a little while victoria said, “chile, i want to tell you sumpn.” he waited: they walked. “victoria don’t pay it no mind, because she knows you. she knows you wouldn’t say a mean thing to nobody, not for this world. but dey is lots of other colored folks dat don’t know you, honey. and if you say that, you know, about their skins, about their coloh, they goan think you’re trying to be mean to em. they goan to feel awful bad and maybe they be mad at you too, when victoria knows you doan mean nuthin by it, cause they don’t know you like victoria do. do you understand me, chile?” he looked earnestly up at her. “don’t say nuthin bout skins, or coloh, wheah colored people can heah you. cause they goana think you’re mean to em. so you be careful.” and again she squeezed his hand.
he thought about victoria while they walked and he wished that she was happy, and he felt that it was because of him that she was not happy. “victoria,” he said.
“what is it, honey?”
“i didn’t want to be mean to you.”
she stopped abruptly and with creaking and difficulty squatted down in the middle of the sidewalk so that a man who was passing stepped suddenly aside and looked coldly down as he went by. she put both hands on his shoulders and her large, kind face and her kind smell were close to him. “lord bless you, baby, victoria knows you didn’t! victoria knows you is de goodest little boy in all dis world! she just had to tell you, you see. cause colored folks has a hard time in dis world and she knows you wouldn’t want to make em feel bad, not even if you didn’t mean to.”
“i didn’t want to make you feel bad.”
“bless your little heart. i don’t feel bad, not one bit. you make me feel happy, and your mama makes me feel happy, and there’s not one thing in the world i wouldn’t do for de bole of you, honey, and dat you know. dat you know,” she said again, rocking her head and smiling and patting both his shoulders. “i missed you terrible, honey,” she said, but somehow he felt that she was not talking exactly to him. “i couldn’t hardly love you more if you was my own baby.” a silence opened around them in which he felt at once great space, the space almost of darkness itself, and great peace and comfort; and the whole of this immensity was pervaded by her vague face and by the waving light of leaves. “now let’s git along,” she said, creaking upright and smoothing her starched garments. “we don’t want to keep your granmaw waitin.”
and there was the dusty ivy on the wall, the small glasshouse in front, and on the porch, aunt amelia and his grandma. even when they were still across the street he saw his aunt amelia wave and victoria waved gaily back, chuckling and croaking, “hello,” and he waved too; and amelia leaned towards his grandmother who sought out and tilted her little trumpet and amelia leaned close to it and then they both turned to look and grandma got up and he could hear her high, “hello,” and they were at the front steps, and grandma came cautiously down the steps from the porch, and they all met on the brick walk in the shade of the magnolia, while aunt amelia came up smiling from behind her mother. and soon victoria left; she disappeared around a corner, a few blocks up the street, handsomely and gradually as a sailboat.