Manderlay Page #7

Almost all of their provisions

were now inedible.

On top of that, the pneumonia

brought by the dust was inevitable.

The dust had got in everywhere,

particularly where no new boards

could have provided weatherproofing,

namely through the cracked glass

in the window on the stars

above Claire's bed.

Valuables, not to mention cash,

were non-existent at Manderlay,

since the elegant clock

miraculously still ticking merrily away

on the mantelpiece

turned out to be not Swiss,

as Mam believed,

but a copy made quite locally

and worth practically nothing.

"The Freed Enterprise

of Manderlay" was bust.

Wilhelm and Grace

were therefore under no illusions

that anybody

would attend class this day.

But then, one by one,

the Manderlay flock began to appear.

I'm happy you're all here.

But I don't really

have a lecture for you today.

I'd just like to say...

...how badly I feel

about this hopeless situation.

But, of course,

words aren't much use to you.

No. Missy has learned

that much, at least.

But as regards hopelessness, it is

something we do know a bit about.

There are a million plants

out there beneath the dust.

If we can save but 50 of them,

perhaps we can grow

a small quantity of great quality

and get a better price for it.

I reckon we should make a move.

And that is how the greatest disaster

turned into a stroke of luck for Grace,

and how the people, with a common

foe, the dust, as their excuse,

suddenly found themselves working

shoulder to shoulder

with their deadliest enemy

to achieve the common goal

as free, grown-up Americans.

Stanley and Bertie

had sown the fields with little sticks

so people could tell where

to uncover the tender seedlings.

While Flora, ever so childishly,

kept teasing Grace

with her digs at Grace's supposed

romantic feelings towards Timothy.

Good night, old Wilma.

Good night, child.

We can lie down and talk for a while

before we go to sleep.

No, thank you, Wilma.

I'm not weary enough

to go to bed yet.

A little walk helps.

A walk when a body ain't sleepy

is a very good thing.

I do the same myself.

Good night.

Good night.

That everything seemed

as moving along on its own

could be nothing

but welcomed by Grace.

But her lack

of an active part to play

had suddenly left her

in a kind of vacuum,

and allowed other things

inside her to claim attention.

Human things like instincts

and emotions.

An ominous sense

of homelessness and loneliness

struck Grace this evening.

As she wandered about,

Grace suddenly found herself

outside the wooden rear

of the bath house.

Without warning, the homelessness

transferred into a strange desire

to move up that rusty pipe

against the flow of dirty water

into where naked bodies

were being washed in cheap soap.

Black skin.

Male and black manhood.

What Grace had felt at the bath

house was undignified, shameful.

Her mind was meant to be

devoted to policy at Manderlay,

a matter in which these thoughts

had no business whatsoever.

Grace had forced herself to sleep,

to rid her thoughts of those black bodies,

an achievement

that was actually possible

thanks to the stubbornness

that flourished in Grace's family.

But the cotton seedling in her

love-starved body did not give up.

It manifested itself as a dream.

Grace was in southern climes.

There were women in exotic

costumes and men in turbans.

Even in her sleep,

she hated with a passion

any idea of allowing

that her father might be right.

But it was a harem.

A group of black slaves appeared,

bearing a huge charger piled with dates,

and in a twinkling, Grace lay among

the dates trembling with pleasure

as a flock of Bedouin satisfied her

one by one with their noses.

And it was even more confusing

when Timothy appeared

and was both the slave

bearing wine, hands shaking,

and the sheik himself,

whose authoritative hands

tested the size

of Grace's most intimate orifices.

- I must have overslept.

- I'm sorry.

Claire's had another turn.

Yeah.

Yeah, she's running

a bad fever again.

Has she had anything to eat?

Oh sure.

Pork chops and baked chicken.

She's taken a little oatmeal,

but it's hard to get it into her.

She had this trouble with her lungs

last year when the dust come, too.

But there's

far more dust this year.

Honestly, Missy,

you oughta go back home

to the clean air

and larders full of food.

We're all in this together,

no matter how hard it gets.

And hard it will get.

I've seen what's left around here,

though some folks

are still filling their bellies.

Right.

We've got to talk about that.

Come on, it'll be all right, Rose.

I propose that we ration

what we have left,

and spread

our provisions over a month

until we can harvest more

from the vegetable gardens.

And, as I hear that there are

so very few beans and potatoes left,

I think we should give them

to Rose, who needs them for Claire.

What's left will be shared out

equally among the rest of us.

- Excuse me.

- Mm-hm.

The rest of us?

That goes for us, too?

Yes, of course it does.

We've already eaten things

your father would never have put up with.

Joseph swears they couldn't be

described as food at all...

legally speakin'

Your father used to let us obtain stuff

when the coffers were empty.

Surely we could steal

something from somewhere.

But I suppose

that's no good, either, Miss Grace.

I'm afraid

you're one tough cookie.

Maybe I am.

Sadly, the most nourishing fare

the estate could still provide

had not improved

Claire's condition much.

But she needed meat,

and Timothy knew it.

So henceforth,

they would have to do without

the loyal old donkey

on the treadmill.

It was not a good portent

of the level of morale

that the gangsters

were now trying hard to fix the car

from the ravages of the dust.

But luckily, Joseph, a legal expert

with the ability to interpret

the most incomprehensible of texts,

had met his match

in the 1923 Ford owner's manual.

Timothy, thank you.

For Claire.

As time went by, the scattered

cotton plants at Manderlay

grew side by side

with its denizens' hunger

now that the little that was left

of the donkey meat

was reserved for Claire.

And Grace found herself

in the peculiar situation

of joining Wilma and the other women

in what had been completely

forbidden under Mam's Law,

namely, the Southern tradition

of eating dirt.

Having given up

on the automobile manuals,

Joseph had found

a quaint turn of phrase

in the agreement into which

he had originally entered

with Grace's father

regarding his employment.

The wording could,

with a little good will,

be interpreted to mean

that certain circumstances

obliged an employee

to obey

a higher authority than his boss,

the authority in this case

being his stomach.

The good news was that,

although the drought

had been hard on the fields,

Stanley and Timothy had invented

a weapon to deploy against it.

Wait, wait.

Watch out! It's coming.

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