The Sweetest Hallelujah. Elaine Hussey

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СКАЧАТЬ the strains of a soul-searing harmonica. Real this time, not the stuff of myth and magic. The musician could be anybody from a blues legend to some teenage kid with a gut-punched feeling and a harp in his pocket.

      The harmonica walked all over Cassie’s heart. It was Joe’s second love. That’s one of the things she missed most: the sound of blues at unexpected moments. She could be in the tub or putting a casserole in the oven or arranging roses she’d picked, when all of a sudden the blues would pull her heart right out of her chest.

      Joe, she’d say, and he’d come around the corner, blues harp in his mouth, eyes shining with devilment or laughter or sometimes unshed tears. It was his love of stomp-your-heart-flat music that drew him to Shakerag.

      Cassie had begged to go with him, but he’d said, Women don’t go to places like that. Besides, Daddy would disown me if I took my wife to a Negro juke joint.

      “I’ve already been there when I interviewed Tiny Jim, and nothing bad happened to me. Even when I drank a glass of sweet tea from their cup.”

      “For God’s sake, Cassie. Be serious. Exposing beautiful white women to randy young coloreds is causing race riots.”

      “No, the riots are caused by ignorant, hysterical women and hot-tempered men who settle differences with guns and lynching ropes. You’re not ignorant and I’m not foolish. Please, Joe.”

      She finally wore him down on his birthday. To avoid unnecessary talk, they took care that nobody in their neighborhood knew where Cassie was going, and, aside from a few raised eyebrows in the juke joint, nothing happened. In their society, white was not merely a color but a privilege, one Joe took for granted and Cassie agonized over.

      That evening, he’d driven home with one hand so he could hold his harp to his mouth with the other. The only sound in the car was an old Delta blues song whose words Cassie didn’t know until Joe alternately played and sang.

      That was the only time he ever took her, and she’d finally stopped asking to go. She couldn’t remember when. Or why. Or even if she’d ever wondered.

      The lyrics Joe had sung on that otherwise silent car trip home suddenly played through Cassie’s mind. Ain’t no use cryin’, baby. The world done stomped us flat. Ain’t no use cryin’, baby. Your tears won’t change all that.

      Li’l Rosie had composed that particular blues song. Cassie remembered because she’d asked Joe. She’d wanted to know who knew her so well she’d written lyrics especially for Cassie.

      Or had the lyrics been for Joe? Had he been trying to tell her something, but she had looked the other way, shut her ears and walked around him?

      Maple Street came into view, but as far as Cassie could see, there was only one maple tree on the entire street. The neighborhood was made up of one wooden saltbox house after the other, mostly unpainted, with a scattering of them featuring washed-out and peeling paint. The rest of the view came to Cassie in snatches—skimpy yards, many of them overgrown with Johnson grass and honeysuckle that will strangle anything in sight if it’s not cut back, old tires stacked under tired-looking oak trees, sagging porches with swings on rusty chains.

      Still, they were homes for somebody, raggedy havens where men with grease under their fingernails and women with detergent-cracked hands could lie together on a squeaky bed frame and forget the world outside. The houses sat back from the street on long, narrow lots. Cassie leaned down so she could peer at the numbers tattooed over the front doors.

      The frame house she was looking for was painted a pastel blue faded the color of an old chambray shirt, blue gingham curtains at the windows, navy blue shutters, the one on the left side of the small wooden porch pulled loose at the top and hanging crooked. Several scrawny petunias and a few caladiums pushed their way through weeds that were trying to take over the flower beds. The gardener in Cassie wanted to grab a spade and set to work. The reporter saw the dying gardens as a metaphor for their owner.

      On the porch an empty swing with a beautiful patchwork quilt thrown over the back swayed as if it had just been vacated.

      When she stepped out of her car, an old woman weeding caladiums next door glared at her with such outright hostility, Cassie had to look behind herself to make sure she wasn’t trailing trouble like a blood-stained shawl. She waved and smiled, but the woman stomped inside her house and slammed the door.

      What kind of reception would be waiting inside this Shakerag house? When the front door opened, Cassie startled like a cat with its tail in a washing machine wringer.

      Miss Queen stood poised behind the screen door. It could be no other, for she looked much the way she had when Cassie had seen her at Tiny Jim’s, pounding out the blues on his old upright. It had been so long ago she couldn’t remember. Ten years? Fifteen? Miss Queen’s face was a map of years, her dress sprigged voile from a vanished era. She had dressed for Cassie. Suddenly she was glad she was wearing her yellow linen dress instead of her usual garb of slacks and a blouse. It seemed more respectful somehow.

      “Good afternoon. I’m Cassie Malone from The Bugle.”

      Miss Queen unlatched the screen door, but not before she’d put a gnarled hand to the white lace collar at her throat. When Miss Queen stepped onto the front porch, Cassie thought of the Titanic—a ship capable of taking care of thousands of families, a ship that nothing could fell save an iceberg.

      “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. I’m Queen. Queen Dupree.”

      Cassie climbed the steps onto the porch, and the old wooden floorboards creaked. Through the screen door drifted the mingled smells of lemon furniture polish and freshly baked pies overlaid with the strong fragrance of barbecue. The legend at work or proximity to Tiny Jim’s? Either way, the scent gave Cassie the shivers.

      “I remember you from Tiny Jim’s.” Cassie offered her hand to Miss Queen. “You and your daughter used to play piano there.”

      “Yessum.” Queen peered closely at Cassie, squinting in the way of the nearsighted, but she didn’t take her hand. Cassie felt foolish. Coloreds didn’t shake hands with whites, not in this ancient, dignified woman’s world. “I seen you there some years back.”

      In the way of old people comfortable with who they are and not about to put on airs to impress anybody, Queen didn’t try to hide the fact that she was studying Cassie. Did she pass muster? She wished she’d taken the time to go home and put on a dress without wrinkles. For Pete’s sake, she hadn’t even bothered to comb her hair. She must look as if she had on a Halloween wig.

      “I came to see your daughter.”

      “Yessum. Do come in, Miss Cassie. She’s waitin’ on you.”

      Queen led her down a hallway filled with pictures. The centerpiece was Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the place of honor on his right was the photograph of a little girl with cheekbones slashed high, eyes too big for her thin face and lips compressed tightly together as if she were daring the photographer to make her smile. Something about her eyes made it hard to look away. The arresting shade of green? The frank stare?

      Other photographs chronicled her life from laughing babyhood to gap-toothed schoolgirl. Betty Jewel’s daughter, Cassie guessed. Who would take her picture in her cap and gown? Her wedding gown? The pink quilted robe she’d wear home from the hospital when she had her first baby?

      Cassie hoped her story would make a difference. Shouldering СКАЧАТЬ