And then my head took over and told me it couldn’t be. “No,” I said, backing away from this pretender. “My sister is dead. Talked to the man who buried her.”
The girl stepped closer, took my hand, and stuck it down her bodice until I felt five rows of puffed-up scars, round as pearls. She put her hand on my scars and the presence of Mama and Iyaiya came on so strong I could smell the licorice root they both were given to chewing. There was no denying it: the bawd was my sister Clemmie. Once the truth of it came clear, I saw that the only thing truly different about her was that the woebegone look that had fallen upon Clemmie after Old Mister began having his way with her had vanished. Though gone to fat and to the bad, little sister had been returned to me as bright and shiny as she had ever been. I fell into Clemmie’s arms.
I can’t say how long we’d been clinging to each other and sobbing before Solomon said, “This must be the famous baby sister Clemmie.” He said it like she was his family, too, put his arm around both of us and added, “We heard you was dead.”
Clemmie and I wiped away tears and snot and she answered, “No, I’m alive.”
“She never stopped looking for you,” Solomon went on. “There wasn’t a black face we come across, she didn’t search it. About wore the neck of her dress out, tugging it down, showing those Africa scars, asking if anybody’d seen the like.”
I never suspected that Solomon had ever much noticed what I did unless it was not chopping or cleaning or serving to his liking. But he had. He’d been paying attention the whole time.
“No,” Solomon went on, “she never stopped looking. Not for you, nor…” He glanced my way and added, “Nor your mama.”
The way Clemmie froze, only her eyes darting to find mine, I knew for the first time that Mama was gone and a crumbling that started in my knees overtook me, for until that moment, I had not truly believed that Mama was truly gone.
I wobbled and Clemmie stepped forward to grab me. “Could you give my sister and me a moment?” she asked Solomon.
I collapsed, sobbing, into Clemmie’s arms; she welcomed me with a kick in the shins from her boot so hard that the pain snapped the tears right off my cheeks. Before I could hit back, she grabbed me by my shoulders and ordered, “Get a hold yourself, right now this instant.”
“But Mama,” I whimpered.
“No!” she shouted sharp and hard, way you would a dog messed on the carpet. “No! Ain’t having that. Not one bit of it. You listen to me. Mama went North, you hear? Went North to be with our daddy—”
“But they said Daddy was—”
“Shut your mouth. Shut it. Don’t let that word come out of your mouth or enter into your mind. Mama and Daddy are up there in Illinois now eating biscuits and honey. He’s doing his tailoring and she’s taking care of him. They have them a sweet little house with hollyhocks in the garden.”
I was seeing my sister for the first time. Who she really was. She was ten times tougher than I would ever be and had seen grief I could not imagine. She was tough enough to decide she wouldn’t allow the cruelties of a wicked world to break her down or destroy her memories.
“Now that is the picture of Mama and Daddy I want and I will not let you or anyone else take it from me.”
I nodded, swallowing back my grief. So, though my little sister did hold me and let my tears run down her neck, we spoke no more of Mama. I told her my tears were for joy at finding her again and, by the time the crowd surged in around us, pushing and jostling toward something behind us, tears of joy were what they had become.
Suddenly, a marching chant rang out from the distance.
Say that in the Army, chicken’s might fine
One jumped off the table, started marking time
Say that in the Army, coffee’s mighty fine
Looks like muddy water, tastes like turpentine
Say that in the Army, biscuits mighty fine
One rolled up off the table, kilt a friend of mine
Sound off!
One! Two!
Sound off!
THREE! FOUR!
I glanced up and found that, for some reason, whoever was counting cadence was causing everyone to stare off with looks on their faces like Jesus was behind me raising Lazarus from the grave. When I finally threw enough elbow to twist around and get a look, what I saw was more miraculous than a dead man rising.
The crowd parted and a detachment of black soldiers—real soldiers, not the scruffy work gangs of contrabands I’d seen in their cast-off jackets and seat-blown trousers digging graves and chopping kindling—came marching up. And here’s the miraculous part: these troopers were carrying rifles and they were wearing the blue suit. Crisp new uniforms, not ones ventilated with bullet holes and bayonet stabs. These soldiers had their shoulders pinned back, spines straight as fence posts, heads held high. They were ready to look anyone, black or white, straight in the eye with no fake smiles or shift-down glances. These were real, full men. Real, full human beings.
A brass band struck up the “Battle Cry of Freedom” and, with the stern profiles of our men marching past—Spencer carbines resting on the left shoulder, stiff right arms ticktocking back and forth with each step, keeping time—we sang along with the chorus.
The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
It was the first time the song had ever been about our boys and we couldn’t shout that battle cry of freedom loud enough.
Even the band, playing atop a low stage, was made up of a dozen of our boys. Soldiers holding torches took places around the platform and the light gleamed up onto the brass curlicues of the horns the musicians held to their mouths. Their forage caps were on straight, not hanging off to one side or the other trying to look jaunty the way the contraband soldiers wore them. No, these caps sat right so that the golden horns embroidered on the round tops all faced us and we knew that they were in the United States Infantry. They were bona fide marching soldiers.
Another unit of soldiers paraded in and lined up, four abreast on either side, in front of the stage. This group wore caps that I knew for a calcified fact no other black men had ever worn atop their heads. They weren’t infantry. These caps were embroidered in gold with the crossed swords that meant they were better. They were the best. Like Sheridan, they were cavalry. They were riding soldiers.
“Company halt! Parade rest!” their top sergeant called out. The ground beneath us thundered as all the men stomped a foot down and set their rifle butts down next to the toes of their boots.
“To the right!” the sergeant bellowed. Every soldier jerked his head toward his right shoulder and stared hard into the shadows where the jingle of a bridle and some loud snorts told us a man ahorseback waited.
“Salute!” Their hands snapped up so hard and so fast that I was sure some prissed-up white commander was waiting out there to make his big entrance. Maybe it was even that show-off Boy General Custer with his greased-up yellow ringlets. I heaved a sigh of disgust and bid farewell to the little fairy tale I’d just been telling myself where my people were the equal of whites, running the show, being saluted. That happy vision crumpled: the white boss was coming.
The ones up near the front of the crowd saw him first. It made me sick the way the men pawed the hats from their heads, children pointed, and women put a hand to their mouths or sent fingers fluttering at their necks.
If I hadn’t been boxed in so tight I’d of left then and there. The last thing I ever intended on doing again in my life was stare up at some white man lording it over me atop a horse. With Solomon’s arm still cocooning my shoulders and Clemmie snugged up next to me, though, I reckoned I could stomach the sight of this showboating jackass making his grand entrance.
But the commander who rode up to the edge of the stage wasn’t white. In fact, he had skin near as dark as my own, fine full lips, a strong, wide nose, and a high, noble forehead. He dismounted, stepped onto the stage and gazed out at us. Though the soldier had never seen me before, he immediately picked me out of the crowd and stared right into my eyes.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but he knew me. I was for God sure of it because, for the second time that night, a ghost had appeared. Like Clemmie, Wager Swayne had come back to me.