“Was it Jesus?” Caddy said. “Did he try to come into the kitchen?”
“Jesus,” Nancy said. Like this: Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus, until the sound went out, like a match or a candle does.
“It’s the other Jesus she means,” I said.
“Can you see us, Nancy?” Caddy whispered. “Can you see our eyes too?”
“I aint nothing but a nigger,” Nancy said. “God knows. God knows.”
“What did you see down there in the kitchen?” Caddy whispered. “What tried to get in?”
“God knows,” Nancy said. We could see her eyes. “God knows.”
Dilsey got well. She cooked dinner. “You’d better stay in bed a day or two longer,” father said.
“What for?” Dilsey said. “If I had been a day later, this place would be to rack and ruin. Get on out of here now, and let me get my kitchen straight again.”
Dilsey cooked supper too. And that night, just before dark, Nancy came into the kitchen.
“How do you know he’s back?” Dilsey said. “You aint seen him.”
“Jesus is a nigger,” Jason said.
“I can feel him,” Nancy said. “I can feel him laying yonder in the ditch.”
“Tonight?” Dilsey said. “Is he there tonight?”
“Dilsey’s a nigger too,” Jason said.
“You try to eat something,” Dilsey said.
“I dont want nothing,” Nancy said.
“I aint a nigger,” Jason said.
“Drink some coffee,” Dilsey said. She poured a cup of coffee for Nancy. “Do you know he’s out there tonight? How come you know it’s tonight?”
“I know,” Nancy said. “He’s there, waiting. I know. I done lived with him too long. I know what he is fixing to do fore he know it himself.”
“Drink some coffee,” Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup to her mouth and blew into the cup. Her mouth pursed out like a spreading adder’s, like a rubber mouth, like she had blown all the color out of her lips with blowing the coffee.
“I aint a nigger,” Jason said. “Are you a nigger, Nancy?”
“I hellborn, child,” Nancy said. “I wont be nothing soon. I going back where I come from soon.”
III
She began to drink the coffee. While she was drinking, holding the cup in both hands, she began to make the sound again. She made the sound into the cup and the coffee sploshed out onto her hands and her dress. Her eyes looked at us and she sat there, her elbows on her knees, holding the cup in both hands, looking at us across the wet cup, making the sound. “Look at Nancy,” Jason said. “Nancy cant cook for us now. Dilsey’s got well now.”
“You hush up,” Dilsey said. Nancy held the cup in both hands, looking at us, making the sound, like there were two of them: one looking at us and the other making the sound. “Whyn’t you let Mr Jason telefoam the marshal?” Dilsey said. Nancy stopped then, holding the cup in her long brown hands. She tried to drink some coffee again, but it sploshed out of the cup, onto her hands and her dress, and she put the cup down. Jason watched her.
“I cant swallow it,” Nancy said. “I swallows but it wont go down me.”
“You go down to the cabin,” Dilsey said. “Frony will fix you a pallet and I’ll be there soon.”
“Wont no nigger stop him,” Nancy said.
“I aint a nigger,” Jason said. “Am I, Dilsey?”
“I reckon not,” Dilsey said. She looked at Nancy. “I dont reckon so. What you going to do, then?”
Nancy looked at us. Her eyes went fast, like she was afraid there wasn’t time to look, without hardly moving at all. She looked at us, at all three of us at one time. “You member that night I stayed in yawls’ room?” she said.
She told about how we waked up early the next morning, and played. We had to play quiet, on her pallet, until father woke up and it was time to get breakfast. “Go and ask your maw to let me stay here tonight,” Nancy said. “I wont need no pallet. We can play some more.”
Caddy asked mother. Jason went too. “I cant have Negroes sleeping in the bedrooms,” mother said. Jason cried. He cried until mother said he couldn’t have any dessert for three days if he didn’t stop. Then Jason said he would stop if Dilsey would make a chocolate cake. Father was there.
“Why dont you do something about it?” mother said. “What do we have officers for?”
“Why is Nancy afraid of Jesus?” Caddy said. “Are you afraid of father, mother?”
“What could the officers do?” father said. “If Nancy hasn’t seen him, how could the officers find him?”
“Then why is she afraid?” mother said.
“She says he is there. She says she knows he is there tonight.”
“Yet we pay taxes,” mother said. “I must wait here alone in this big house while you take a Negro woman home.”
“You know that I am not lying outside with a razor,” father said.
“I’ll stop if Dilsey will make a chocolate cake,” Jason said. Mother told us to go out and father said he didn’t know if Jason would get a chocolate cake or not, but he knew what Jason was going to get in about a minute. We went back to the kitchen and told Nancy.
“Father said for you to go home and lock the door, and you’ll be all right,” Caddy said. “All right from what, Nancy? Is Jesus mad at you?” Nancy was holding the coffee cup in her hands again, her elbows on her knees and her hands holding the cup between her knees. She was looking into the cup. “What have you done that made Jesus mad?” Caddy said.
Nancy let the cup go. It didn’t break on the floor, but the coffee spilled out, and Nancy sat there with her hands still making the shape of the cup. She began to make the sound again, not loud. Not singing and not unsinging. We watched her.
“Here,” Dilsey said. “You quit that, now. You get aholt of yourself. You wait here. I going to get Versh to walk home with you.” Dilsey went out.
We looked at Nancy. Her shoulders kept shaking, but she quit making the sound. We watched her. “What’s Jesus going to do to you?” Caddy said. “He went away.”
Nancy looked at us. “We had fun that night I stayed in yawls’ room, didn’t we?”
“I didn’t,” Jason said. “I didn’t have any fun.”
“You were asleep in mother’s room,” Caddy said. “You were not there.”
“Let’s go down to my house and have some more fun,” Nancy said.
“Mother wont let us,” I said. “It’s too late now.”
“Dont bother her,” Nancy said. “We can tell her in the morning. She wont mind.”
“She wouldn’t let us,” I said.
“Dont ask her now,” Nancy said. “Dont bother her now.”
“She didn’t say we couldn’t go,” Caddy said.
“We didn’t ask,” I said.
“If you go, I’ll tell,” Jason said.
“We’ll have fun,” Nancy said. “They won’t mind, just to my house. I been working for yawl a long time. They won’t mind.”
“I’m not afraid to go,” Caddy said. “Jason is the one that’s afraid. He’ll tell.”
“I’m not,” Jason said.
“Yes, you are,” Caddy said. “You’ll tell.”
“I won’t tell,” Jason said. “I’m not afraid.”
“Jason ain’t afraid to go with me,” Nancy said. “Is you, Jason?”
“Jason is going to tell,” Caddy said. The lane was dark. We passed the pasture gate. “I bet if something was to jump out from behind that gate, Jason would holler.”
“I wouldn’t,” Jason said. We walked down the lane. Nancy was talking loud.
“What are you talking so loud for, Nancy?” Caddy said.
“Who; me?” Nancy said. “Listen at Quentin and Caddy and Jason saying I’m talking loud.”
“You talk like there was five of us here,” Caddy said. “You talk like father was here too.”
“Who; me talking loud, Mr Jason?” Nancy said.
“Nancy called Jason ‘Mister,’” Caddy said.
“Listen how Caddy and Quentin and Jason talk,” Nancy said.
“We’re not talking loud,” Caddy said. “You’re the one that’s talking like father—”
“Hush,” Nancy said; “hush, Mr Jason.”
“Nancy called Jason ‘Mister’ aguh—”
“Hush,” Nancy said. She was talking loud when we crossed the ditch and stooped through the fence where she used to stoop through with the clothes on her head. Then we came to her house. We were going fast then. She opened the door. The smell of the house was like the lamp and the smell of Nancy was like the wick, like they were waiting for one another to begin to smell. She lit the lamp and closed the door and put the bar up. Then she quit talking loud, looking at us.
“What’re we going to do?” Caddy said.
“What do yawl want to do?” Nancy said.
“You said we would have some fun,” Caddy said.
There was something about Nancy’s house; something you could smell besides Nancy and the house. Jason smelled it, even. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said. “I want to go home.”
“Go home, then,” Caddy said.
“I don’t want to go by myself,” Jason said.
“We’re going to have some fun,” Nancy said.
“How?” Caddy said.
Nancy stood by the door. She was looking at us, only it was like she had emptied her eyes, like she had quit using them. “What do you want to do?” she said.
“Tell us a story,” Caddy said. “Can you tell a story?”
“Yes,” Nancy said.
“Tell it,” Caddy said. We looked at Nancy. “You don’t know any stories.”
“Yes,” Nancy said. “Yes, I do.”
She came and sat in a chair before the hearth. There was a little fire there. Nancy built it up, when it was already hot inside.
