James Baldwin - Another Country

“Oh,” said the girl. Cass had managed to wipe away the smile. “Marie!” she called, sharply, “will you take care of this lady?”

She walked away and another, older and plainer girl, who was also, however, very carefully dressed and made-up, came over to Cass, wearing a very different smile: a bawdy, amused smile, full of complicity and contempt. Cass felt herself blushing. The girl pulled out boxes of scarves. They all seemed sleazy and expensive, but she was in no position to complain. She took one, paid for it, tied it around her head, and left. Her knees were shaking. She managed to find a cab at the corner and, after fighting a small duel with herself, gave the driver the address of the chapel: she had really wanted to tell him to take her home.

The chapel was small and there were not many people in it. She entered as silently as she could, but heads turned at her entrance. An elderly man, probably an usher, hurried silently toward her, but she sat down in the first seat she saw, in the very last row, near the door. Vivaldo was sitting further up, near the middle; the only other white person, as far as she could tell, in the place. People sat rather scattered from each other — in the same way, perhaps, that the elements of Rufus’ life had been scattered — and this made the chapel seem emptier than it was. There were many young people there, Rufus’ friends, she supposed, the boys and girls who had grown up with him. In the front row sat six figures, the family: no amount of mourning could make Ida’s proud back less proud. Just before the family, just below the altar, stood the bier, dominating the place, mother of pearl, closed.

Someone had been speaking as she came in, who now sat down. He was very young and he was dressed in the black robes of an evangelist. She wondered if he could be an evangelist, he did not seem to be much more than a boy. But he moved with great authority, the authority indeed of someone who has found his place and made his peace with it. As he sat down, a very thin girl walked up the aisle and the boy in black robes moved to the piano at the side of the altar.

“I remember Rufus,” the girl said, “from when he was a big boy and I was just a little girl—” and she tried to smile at the front-row mourners. Cass watched her, seeing that the girl was doing her best not to cry. “—me and his sister used to sit around trying to console each other when Rufus went off with the big boys and wouldn’t let us play with him.” There was a murmur of amusement and sorrow and heads in the front row nodded. “We lived right next door to each other, he was like a brother to me.” Then she dropped her head and twisted a white handkerchief, the whitest handkerchief Cass had ever seen, between her two dark hands. She was silent for several seconds and, once again, a kind of wind seemed to whisper through the chapel as though everyone there shared the girl’s memories and her agony and were willing her through it. The boy at the piano struck a chord. “Sometimes Rufus used to like me to sing this song.” the girl said, abruptly. “I’ll sing if for him now.”

The boy played the opening chord. The girl sang in a rough, untrained, astonishingly powerful voice:

I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away.

I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away.

If you drive me away, you may need me some day,

I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away.

When she finished she walked over to the bier and stood there for a moment, touching it lightly with both hands. Then she walked back to her seat.

There was weeping in the front row. She watched as Ida rocked an older, heavier woman in her arms. One of the men blew his nose loudly. The air was heavy. She wished it were over.

Vivaldo sat very still and alone, looking straight ahead.

Now, a gray-haired man stepped forward from behind the altar. He stood watching them for a moment and the black-robed boy strummed a mournful hymn.

“Some of you know me,” he said, finally, “and some of you don’t. My name is Reverend Foster.” He paused. “And I know some of your faces and some of you are strangers to me.” He made a brief bow, first toward Cass, then toward Vivaldo. “But ain’t none of us really strangers. We all here for the same reason. Someone we loved is dead.” He paused again and looked down at the bier. “Someone we loved and laughed with and talked with — and got mad at — and prayed over — is gone. He ain’t with us no more. He’s gone someplace where the wicked cease from troubling.” He looked down at the bier again. “We ain’t going to look on his face again — no more. He had a hard time getting through this world and he had a rough time getting out of it. When he stand before his Maker he going to look like a lot of us looked when we first got here — like he had a rough time getting through the passage. It was narrow .” He cleared his throat and blew his nose. “I ain’t going to stand here and tell you all a whole lot of lies about Rufus. I don’t believe in that. I used to know Rufus, I knew him all his life. He was a bright kid and he was full of the devil and weren’t no way in the world of keeping up with him. He got into a lot of trouble, all of you know that. A lot of our boys get into a lot of trouble and some of you know why. We used to talk about it sometimes, him and me — we was always pretty good friends, Rufus and me, even after he jumped up and went off from here and even though he didn’t never attend church service like I — we — all wanted him to do.” He paused again. “He had to go his way. He had his trouble and he’s gone. He was young, he was bright, he was beautiful, we expected great things from him — but he’s gone away from us now and it’s us will have to make the great things happen. I believe I know how terrible some of you feel. I know how terrible I feel — ain’t nothing I can say going to take away that ache, not right away. But that boy was one of the best men I ever met, and I been around awhile. I ain’t going to try to judge him. That ain’t for us to do. You know, a lot of people say that a man who takes his own life oughtn’t to be buried in holy ground. I don’t know nothing about that. All I know, God made every bit of ground I ever walked on and everything God made is holy . And don’t none of us know what goes on in the heart of someone, don’t many of us know what’s going on in our own hearts for the matter of that, and so can’t none of us say why he did what he did. Ain’t none of us been there and so don’t none of us know. We got to pray that the Lord will receive him like we pray that the Lord’s going to receive us. That’s all. That’s all . And I tell you something else, don’t none of you forget it: I know a lot of people done took their own lives and they’re walking up and down the streets today and some of them is preaching the gospel and some is sitting in the seats of the mighty. Now, you remember that. If the world wasn’t so full of dead folks maybe those of us that’s trying to live wouldn’t have to suffer so bad.”

He walked up and down behind the altar, behind the bier.

“I know there ain’t nothing I can say to you that sit before me — his mother and father, his sister, his kinfolks, his friends — to bring him back or to keep you from grieving that he’s gone. I know that. Ain’t nothing I can say will make his life different, make it the life that maybe some other man might have lived. It’s all been done, it’s all written down on high. But don’t lose heart, dear ones — don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”

He looked down, then over to the front row.