Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [62]
‘Gabriel,’ she said, ‘I going to have a baby.’
He stared at her; she began to cry. He put the two pails of water carefully on the ground. She put out her hands to reach him, but he moved away.
‘Girl, stop that bellering. What you talking about?’
But, having allowed her tears to begin, she could not stop them at once. She continued to cry, weaving a little where she stood, and with her hands to her face. He looked in panic around the yard and toward the house. ‘Stop that,’ he cried again, not daring here and now to touch her, ‘and tell me what’s the matter!’
‘I told you,’ she moaned, ‘I done told you. I going to have a baby.’ She looked at him, her face broken up and the hot tear falling. ‘It’s the Lord’s truth. I ain’t making up no story, it’s the Lord’s truth.’
He could not take his eyes from her, though he hated what he saw. ‘And when you done find this out?’
‘Not so long. I thought maybe I was mistook. But ain’t no mistake. Gabriel, what we going to do?’
Then, as she watched his face, her tears began again.
‘Hush,’ he said, with a calm that astonished him, ‘we going to do something, just you be quiet.’
‘What we going to do, Gabriel? Tell me—what you a-fixing in your mind to do?’
‘You go on back in the house. Ain’t no way for us to talk now.’
‘Gabriel——’
‘Go on in the house, girl. Go on!’ And when she did not move, but continued to stare at him: ‘We going to talk it to-night. We going to get to the bottom of this thing to-night!’
She turned from him and started up the porch steps. ‘And dry your face,’ he whispered. She bent over, lifting the front of her dress to dry her eyes, and stood so for a moment on the bottom step while he watched her. Then she straightened and walked into the house, not looking back.
She was going to have his baby—his baby? While Deborah, despite their groaning, despite the humility with which she endured his body, yet failed to be quickened by any coming life. It was in the womb of Esther, who was not better than a harlot, that the seed of the prophet would be nourished.
And he moved from the well, picking up, like a man in a trance, the heavy pails of water. He moved toward the house, which now—high, gleaming roof, and spun-gold window—seemed to watch him and to listen; the very sun above his head and the earth beneath his feet had ceased their turning; the water, like a million warning voices, lapped in the buckets he carried on each side; and his mother, beneath the startled earth on which he moved, lifted up, endlessly, her eyes.
They talked in the kitchen as she was cleaning up.
‘How come you’—it was the first question—‘to be so sure this here’s my baby?’
She was not crying now. ‘Don’t you start a-talking that way,’ she said. ‘Esther ain’t in the habit of lying to nobody, and I ain’t gone with so many men that I’m subject to get my mind confused.’
She was very cold and deliberate, and moved about the kitchen with a furious concentration on her tasks, scarcely looking at him.
He did not know what to say, how to reach her.
‘You tell your mother yet?’ he asked, after a pause. ‘You been to see a doctor? How come you to be so sure?’
She sighed sharply. ‘No, I ain’t told my mother, I ain’t crazy. I ain’t told nobody except you.’
‘How come you to be so sure?’ he repeated. ‘If you ain’t seen no doctor?’
‘What doctor in this town you want me to go see? I go to see a doctor, I might as well get up and shout it from the housetops. No, I ain’t seen no doctor, and I ain’t fixing to see one in a hurry. I don’t need no doctor to tell me what’s happening in my belly.’
‘And how long you been knowing about this?’
‘I been knowing this for maybe a month—maybe six weeks now.’
‘Six weeks? Why ain’t you opened your mouth before?’
‘Because I wasn’t sure. I thought I’d wait and make sure. I didn’t see no need for getting all up in the air before I knew. I didn’t want to get you all upset and scared and evil, like you is now, if it weren’t no need.’ She paused, watching him. Then: ‘And you said this morning we was going to do something. What we going to