ANY DAY NOW
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her thin cheeks and she made doomed, sporadic efforts to con–
trol the trembling of her little girl's mouth.
"I love him," she said, helplessly, "I love him, I can't help
it. No matter what he does to me. He's just lost and he beats
me because he can't find nothing else to hit."
He pulled her against him while she wept, a thin, tired,
bewildered
girl,
and unwitting heiress of generations of bitter–
ness. He could think of nothing to say. A light was slowly turn–
ing on inside him, and he saw dangers, mysteries, and chasms
he had never seen before.
"Here comes a taxi," he said.
She straightened and tried to dry her eyes.
"I'll come with you," he said, "and come right back."
"No," she said, "just give me the keys. I'll be all right.
You go on back to Rufus."
"Rufus said he'd kill me," he said, half smiling.
The taxi stopped beside them. He gave her his keys. She
opened the door, keeping her face away from the driver.
"Rufus ain't going to kill nobody but himself," she said,
"if he don't find a friend to help him." She paused, half in, half
out of the cab. "You the only friend he's got in the world,
Vivaldo."
He gave her some money for the fare, looking at her with
something, after all these months, explicit at last. They both
loved Rufus. And they were both white. Now that it stared
them so hideously in the face, each could see how desperately
the other had been trying to avoid this confrontation.
"You'll
go
there now?" he asked. "You'll
go
to my place?"
"Yes. I'll go. You go back to Rufus. Maybe you can help
him. He needs somebody to help him."
Vivaldo gave the driver his address on Bank Street and
watched the taxi roll away. He turned and started back the
way they had come.
The way seemed longer, now that he was alone, and
darker. His awareness of the policeman, prowling somewhere in
