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.Welcome home, Dinah.''She was hitch-hiking on the highway out of town.It's a good thing I found her there, because the damn brat knows everything.One of you has got some explaining to do.''What you know?' Bessy asked in a sorrowful voice, turning her head sideways on the armrest of the sofa.Alice bit her lip and made no reply.'Well, with you carrying on this way and bringing her round here, she sure enough knows everything now?'I tell you I'd practically got her back to Baltimore, when it all spilled out.One of you told her I was in on her kidnapping.''Don't look at me, mister,' Clara growled.'I don't know nothing of what this is all about, and I don't want to know nothing.You two kidnappers talk this over by yourselves and leave me and Fay out of it.First minute I saw that little piece, I knew she was gonna be bad luck.'Roderick's eyes locked with Clara's in a communion of hatred.There was something about the girl's ugly, angular face, something about the way she stabbed out her cigarette, as though it were no ashtray she used, but the palm of his hand.something.'I told you before,' Alice explained in a small voice, 'that nobody told me.I figured it out by myself.Actually, Daddy, there were all sorts of clues.'He slapped her across the face.He couldn't stand the way she pronounced 'clues'.'You'd better take her upstairs and lock her up,' he commanded, pushing her across the room to Bessy.'Then we can discuss what we're going to do.'Bessy seemed to welcome the opportunity to leave the room.'Come along, Dinah,' she said, taking Alice by the hand.She was more than usually slow up the stairs, and her breath wheezed and whistled like a toy accordion.Clara kept on regarding Roderick with the same disquieting fixity, as though she hoped, by staring hard enough, to nail him to the wall.He avoided her gaze now.'Trying to remember who I am?' she asked, jutting her teeth forward like a belligerent weasel.'Can't place me?''No, I'm afraid.not.''I know!' Fay said, with a dazzling, whiter-than-white smile.'You're Clara !'Roderick had backed into a corner, where he toyed with the broken forty-five phonograph, spinning the little turntable with one finger.'I 'spect I've changed some since the last time you saw me.But then I 'spect all niggers probably look just the same to you, don't they? Don't they?' Her eyes narrowed.She walked to within a few inches of him and whispered:'I held her down.Now do you remember?''Shut up! For the love of.for the love of.' The three-legged end-table rocked away from the wall that had been supporting it.Waving its single arm, the phonograph crashed to the floor.'I guess you do,' Clara said.'No!' said Roderick emphatically.He walked into the kitchen.It was strange how after all this time the kitchen still seemed familiar, not to say homey.Though it was seedier than he'd remembered.No.He didn't remember.When Bessy came into the kitchen he was draining a carton of milk, in gargantuan swallows.The milk trickled down from the corners of his mouth.'I remember,' he said, when the milk was gone, 'that you used to serve coffee in here.You made me drink it black.''You all right, Roderick?''I thought they'd killed her.I thought she was dead.' He sounded disappointed.'Clara? They damn near did.They came round in white robes, so I suppose they must of been Klansmen.Though I would guess college boys, more likely, judging by their voices.After all, why should the Klan be concerned? She wasn't no white girl.Police never did a thing, of course.Took Clara to the hospital and fixed up the bones that were broken.She's got a silver plate in her head to this day.She can't sleep on account of it, that's what she says.So when she gets mean, I try and take into account what she's been through.''You're a fool, keeping her on after what happened.No wonder this dump has gone downhill and you don't have any more business.''It ain't Clara that's to blame,' Bessy said, sighing and sitting.'She brings in more than her share of regular customers.Klansmen, especially.We got them cutting their meetings short some nights just to come here and be with Clara.Kladds and Kludds and Kleagles.She's become sort of famous.They call her Ku Klux Klara.''I don't think it's funny.'Bessy shrugged.After an awkward silence, she asked, 'What you meaning to do with little Dinah?''Maybe you should take her away with you and keep her.' He began to collapse the empty milk carton.'For a while.''How long a while?'Till I can get good and lost.Of course, I'll give you some more money.''It ain't the money I care about.It's the trouble I'm getting into.When she escaped I thought, "Well, that's it, Bessy McKay.You've had it." If you hadn't found her, I might be in jail now—and you would be, sure enough.'Then why did you come back here? Why didn't you leave on the bus when you had the chance?'Bessy shook her head slowly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]