There Is a River Read online

  It seemed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been President forever, and it felt odd to say “President Truman” in his wake. The war was not yet over in Europe, but everyone was certain now that it was only a matter of time. Germany would soon be defeated, and then there would be Japan left to defeat. The war had to—certainly to God—be over soon, and the boys could come home, and people were beginning now to fret at what would happen when Victory was reached—would there be jobs for returning soldiers? Would people working lose out to those coming home from the war? How long would rationing continue? When would the shortages end? What would happen when the Allies reached Berlin and Hitler? Would the Japanese ever surrender?

  Victory was coming. They could all feel it. The question was when. When would peace come?

  As May came in, everyone was looking toward Germany. There were reports over the radio that the Allies were nearing Berlin, then the word finally came—Hitler was dead; the Germans had surrendered. The war in Europe was over at last.

  But peace had come at a high price. Europe was a devastated land, bomb-pitted, fire-blackened, stained with the blood of its own young men and others. It was a people, a land, war-ravaged and in places desolate. Its treasures had been pillaged. Its homes burned. Its children frightened. The Allies had won, but the marks of the struggle would remain forever.

  The war in the Pacific continued, and Elise began to wonder if it would ever end. The Japanese seemed almost inhuman, as if they would all rather die than be defeated. Sadness hung over the families of the boys returning from the battlefields—a face grown older, aged beyond his years, seen after years of worry and at times weeks with no word. Tears, hugs, joy, a rest, then to return, only to be retrained to be shipped out to the Pacific. People were whispering that there would be an invasion of Japan. Elise heard the whispers, and she could only feel relief that Janson was out of it now. If nothing else, he was out of it.

  Summer wore on, hot and breathless. Many of the boys who had fought in Europe were now ready to ship out for the Pacific. Peace seemed as far away as ever, and Elise realized that her greatest worry was just beginning—if the war did not end with Japan, then Henry might have to go. He had turned seventeen already, and had begun to talk of wanting to enlist in the Navy. Elise felt sometimes as if her heart would stop with the very thought—Henry so far away from home, Henry on one of the ships the Japanese often sank. She and Janson both refused to give their consent, but still she worried—Henry could so easily pass for eighteen. All he would have to do would be to lie about his age. Even if he did not, in one year he would no longer need their consent. He could even be drafted—please, God, it had to end before that. She could not be worrying at every knock at the door that it was a telegram telling her that her son was gone—it had to end. It had to.

  She and Janson were both working in the mill, both earning well, saving for that day after Victory when Janson’s dream could at last come true—a Victory that she prayed for more fervently now than ever before. Perhaps Janson might understand now why she had had to go to work in the mill while he had been gone, why she had had to do her part in some way more than just conserving food and collecting scrap, why she had had to continue to work on her shift even after he had come home and had gone back to the mill. She could see it in his eyes now when he looked at Henry—they all had to do their part. They had to reach Victory before the war could take her only son.

  They were leaving their shifts in the mill when word came that President Truman had ordered that an atom bomb be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. An atom bomb—Elise had never heard the phrase before, and at first she could only hope that it would bring an earlier end to the war.

  Then she listened with horror to the radio reports of an entire city destroyed, uncountable people killed, more horribly burned, not just soldiers, but civilians, women and children, babies, old people who had a right to peace at last—and she realized for the first time in her life that she did not understand at all what her husband was feeling when Janson told her that the bomb was better than sending our boys in to be killed in an invasion.

  “But, all those people, babies, little children—”

  “More’n that’ll die if we have t’ invade.”

  Still she could not understand the thought—so many dead, so many hurt, so many—

  Three days after the first bomb, a second, smaller one was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The next day peace negotiations began at last, and four days later words came over the radio they had been waiting so long to hear—“We have just received word that the Japanese have surrendered—”

  The war was over at last.

  12

  Elise was laid off from the mill before Janson could make her quit. It happened almost as soon as word came of the Japanese surrender. Most of the women who had taken jobs after the war began received notice that they were no longer needed—you’ve done a good job, girls, now go home and raise your children. Janson was glad to have her home again, glad even when she put the sign in the window saying “Sewing Done,” but he also found that he was angry—quitting should have been her choice, and his, not a decision made by Walter Eason.

  The women in the mill village were not the only ones affected by the end of the war. For over a year everyone had been waiting, knowing that it was only a matter of time until it was over. But, even with all the talk that had gone on of reconversion to a civilian economy, of what people would do “after the war,” or “when we reach Victory,” no one seemed quite prepared for it when it came. The need for military goods was suddenly cut off. Stocks of supplies purchased to complete government contracts sat in factories. Finished products needed for the now non-existent war effort sat unneeded in warehouses the nation over. Women and blacks who had been taken on during the war effort all received notice that the plants, mills, and factories would no longer need their services. Even many of those who had taken jobs in retail stores were told they would have to vacate positions for returning servicemen.

  War plants shut down, throwing thousands out of work with little or no notice. People were left stranded in big cities with no money on which to return to the towns where they had lived before the war—it had seemed such a boon, so much money after the long, desperate years of the Depression.

  But there also arose a sudden, unbelievable demand for civilian goods, toasters, vacuums, automobiles, and other things that production had been halted on so that factories could produce the materials needed for the war. Shortages continued and even worsened. The war was over at last and it was time for the victory lists to be filled. They had all been planning for after the war, all dreaming of the things they would have, all the things they would do—and the day had finally come.

  Janson had his own plans. They were not put away on a victory list or expected to be bought from a store shelf, but had been a part of him now for a very long time—he would soon have his land back. He had already gone to talk to the current owner of the land, and had even been taken on a walk through the house and out over the cotton fields—the man was willing to sell. It was only now a matter of time.

  As he entered the lunchroom at the mill on a Thursday in mid-October, his mind was filled with plans of what he would do once the land was his again. He would clear more, plant more, than was in use now. There was a tenant in the house, and the land had been parceled out, but he knew that he and his family could be on the place well before the next spring. When their first crop came in the following fall, it would be all their own, without a share to go to a landowner, for Janson would be the owner of the land—there would be money to buy things for Elise, money to buy things for the girls and Henry; the life he had sworn to Elise so long before would be theirs at last. The house already had running water and electricity to it, luxuries the place had never known when he had been a boy—finally, all the things he had dreamed of for so long would be coming true.

  His thought
s were so occupied that Janson paid little attention to anyone around him as he walked into the lunchroom, until he was drawn up short by the voice of Buddy Eason from not too far away.

  “Yeah, I heard that the damned red-nigger was all crippled up—too bad the damn Kraut’s bullet didn’t kill him instead—”

  Janson almost turned—but he knew that was what Buddy wanted. He sat down at a vacant table and opened the paper sack of food he had brought with him to the mill that morning—there had been too many fights between them over the years. Too many fights from the time they had been no older than Henry was now. He had almost killed Buddy Eason back then, and he wished he had. There would be at least one good man alive now if Buddy had died all those years before, for Buddy had been responsible for the death of the downtown grocer, Edgar Brown, and had almost allowed Janson to be lynched for Brown’s murder, as well as for the burning of half of downtown, which Buddy had also caused.

  “He’s one ugly son-of-a-bitch, but he’s got two girls who’d be worth having a go at. I bet even the youngest is old enough now, and the oldest has a pair of—”

  Janson’s hands tore his sandwich into pieces. He turned in his chair, rage filling him so completely that he could not hear the remainder of Buddy’s words—he was going to kill Buddy Eason this time. He was certain of it. He was going to—

  There was a look of satisfaction on Buddy’s heavy face, pleasure at having gotten what he wanted as he stared now at Janson. He stood there in his expensive suit and tie, a man going rapidly to fat at the age of thirty-seven.

  The men standing near Buddy moved away as Janson rose to his feet, as if distancing themselves from what Buddy said—but that did not matter. Janson knew the words had been meant for him, and for no one else. They had accomplished nothing more than what Buddy had intended.

  “Do you think you can beat me now, Crip?” Buddy asked as Janson moved toward him, a smile on his heavily jowled face. “Do you think you can beat me?—I’m going to kill you this time, you crippled-up red nigger. I’m going to—”

  “That’s enough!” The voice came from just within the entrance of the lunchroom, and Janson turned to find Walter Eason standing there, his eyes on Janson and his grandson. The old man leaned heavily on his walking cane, but he came forward anyway, stopping only when he had reached a point between where Janson stood and where Buddy remained nearer to the doorway. “Go back to the card room, Janson,” Eason said, but his eyes were set now on his grandson. “Go back to the card room—now,” he repeated, his voice rising after a moment when Janson did not move.

  Janson looked back to Buddy, and a look of hatred passed between them. Then Janson turned to leave.

  “This is the end of it between you two—” he heard Walter Eason say to Buddy behind him.

  No, it’s not—Janson thought. It would not be over until only one of them was alive.

  The mid-century mark was only five years away, and at last the modern world had come to the mill village. Elise stood in her open front door, looking out on the usually quiet street. There were men passing to-and-fro, trucks with carpentry supplies and pipes, shovels, bricks, and mortar. The sound of work could be heard from several streets away. At last, it was beginning.

  She had walked to Dorrie’s house earlier in the day, had seen the work going on in the streets, yards, and houses. Trenches were being dug to run water pipes into the houses. For all the years Elise had lived in the village, water had been supplied to the mill villagers through faucets in the yards between every other structure, each faucet supplying water for two houses, and each mill house had an outhouse in its back yard. Now rooms were being boxed in on rear porches for lavatory facilities. Toilets and claw-foot bathtubs were being installed, as well as running water in the kitchens. Houses were being underpinned, so that they no longer sat on stacks of rock—it was quickly becoming a village far different from the one she had first seen when she had come here eighteen years before.

  It had taken the village so long to gain the comforts of the world she had lived in as a girl. Electricity, running water, a bathroom—a bathroom again, at last—they were things she had taken so little notice of as a girl. She had never once given thought to the fact that so much of the South around her might not have such niceties. Eighteen years ago—and now they seemed fantastic luxuries, until she found herself longing for the workmen to reach her street, her house, as she had once longed for Christmas mornings as a girl.

  Elise turned from the view outside the screen door and went back to her sewing. The war was over, the days of work in the mill, the seemingly endless shifts, and now it was odd to be home during the days. She had never thought she would miss working in the mill, miss seeing the people, and having some place to go, but she did. She had the house to tend to, Janson, Henry, and the girls, and sewing to do, but still the days passed slowly while the children were in school and Janson on his shift in the mill.

  The demand for her sewing had not decreased during the war, had in fact increased with the extra money in the town and village, but eight-hour shifts in the mill had left little time for sewing. She had the time now, and she turned her energies back to the sewing machine where she had spent so many hours for so many years. Janson had not objected to her returning to the work, had in fact surprised her with a new hand-lettered sign that read “Sewing Done.” It now hung in the front window of the mill house. Perhaps they both had done a lot of growing up over those eighteen years.

  Men were returning from the military. Families were being united after years apart, the dead cried over again, lives resumed. The county’s population swelled as not only soldiers came home, but also many of those who’d left years before for war jobs in the big plants and factories, war jobs that had now ended. There seemed to be a great demand for everything, and people were buying as never before—houses, refrigerators, electric stoves, toasters, vacuum cleaners, all the things they had not been able to afford during the Depression and had not been able to get during the war. Stores could not keep up with the demand, nor could the factories, newly converted from war production.

  Even Janson talked of all the things he would buy her once they were on their own place, but she knew it would take every cent they had just to get started—a few more months, he had said only that morning. Just a few more months.

  Even as he showed her outward optimism, Elise knew he had to be worried. They had been so close before; they had saved for so long, saved and lost only to save again, dreamed and hoped and prayed. It seemed almost as if fate’s hand would have to step in again as it had before to stop them.

  Janson had driven her by the land a few days before in the old jalopy that Henry, he, and Stan had recently managed to piece together from an old frame and numerous car parts, an ugly vehicle that ran surprisingly well to be a concoction of several junk automobiles. They sat on a rise for a long time, just looking out over that red earth to the white house where he had been born, to the barn where he had played as a boy, the fields he had worked—only a few more months. The place was tenanted out now and the present owner had told Janson he would sell—by January it could be theirs.

  The farm was priced higher than Janson had expected, and there would be a mortgage, but they had always known there would be one, no matter how much they had scrimped and saved. It was the size of the mortgage that worried Elise, as it did Janson. He had lost the land nineteen years ago when he was unable to meet the payments on it. She knew it would kill him if he were to lose it again.

  But it was not just a mortgage that worried Elise, it was Janson himself. His hip seemed to be improving every day, and sometimes she could almost forget that he had been wounded in the war—but then she would see the scars, see him limp as he walked, or catch a glimpse of pain on his face. He refused to let the injury hold him back in the mill, at home, even with her when they were alone, but it was still there. The limp persisted, at times worse than at others, and th
ey had both come to realize that he would likely have it the remainder of his life. He had not touched the walking cane again since the day he returned to work in the mill, but it still stood in one corner of the front room, as if he kept it as a reminder of the struggle—of all the struggles—he had been through.

  His hip was better, but farming was far more strenuous than anything he was doing now, the little garden patch in their back yard nothing compared to the acres of fields he would have to work if they were on their own land—but it would do no good to speak to him about it. He was too stubborn, too determined, too close again to the dream, and no amount of worry or fretting on her part would stop or even delay him. He would have his land. He would plant a crop on it the coming spring. And he would drag himself to the fields each day if he had to.

  The room had grown chilly and she got up to pull on a sweater, but stopped with her arm half-way into a sleeve when a thought occurred to her—what would the Easons do when Janson left the mill village to return to his own land? She remembered all too well the stories he had told her of what had happened twenty years before—the broken windows, the slaughtered animals, the fire set near the front of the house, and the second that had taken his father’s life. Henry Sanders had refused to sell his cotton in Eason County at the prices the Easons were paying, and that refusal had cost him his life. Janson himself had told her that.

  He had also told her he would do exactly the same.

  Walter Eason sat behind his massive oak desk that afternoon, his fingers interlaced tightly on its polished top. His hands had acquired a tremble in the past year, at times worse than at others, but he refused to acknowledge even that slight sign of weakness and old age, choosing to clench his hands uselessly rather than let anyone else see the tremor—he was not that old yet, he kept telling himself. There were still things he had to accomplish, and he worried that he would not get everything done before his time ran out.