“I can tell you what the Bible says about that.” He’s forming a tent out of his fingers, sticking the tips up under his ample chin. “First, love. You know that, you know that if you pay attention during my sermons.” He winks at her. “You do pay attention now, don’t you?”
She welcomes his bantering tone. “I memorize every word, Pastor M.”
He laughs. When he laughs, he shakes, and that makes Frangie smile.
“First, love. Love above all. Love for the ones who love you, love for the ones who hate you. That’s pretty hard to follow if you’re in a war.”
“Were you ever?”
The question takes M’Dale by surprise. He sits farther back still and drops his hands to his lap. “No, young miss Marr, I have not. But I have counseled many men who did go to the last war.”
“Yes, sir,” Frangie prompts.
“Well, they talk about the horrors. But they do also talk about the brotherhood with other black soldiers. I’ve only ever spoken with one who acknowledges taking a life. He says it was either shoot that other man, or be shot himself.”
“I guess that’s what war is,” Frangie says. “But it’s also patching a fellow up after he’s been shot.”
“Our friends of the Jewish faith say that he who saves a single life saves the world entire,” M’Dale says. “I may not have that quotation quite right, but the sense of it is there. That’s not from scripture, but I believe our Lord would agree with the sentiment. But real life can be more complicated than that. You heal a soldier in a war, and he goes off next thing to take a man’s life. How then do you avoid responsibility for that death?”
“Sometimes you have to fight,” Frangie says.
“Sometimes you do. Sadly, yes, sometimes you do. And what would you be fighting for, Frangie Marr?”
“Fighting for ?”
The question overwhelms her and she has to think about it, and as she thinks she looks down at the feather, more like down, really, it’s so light. Its little feathery fate rests on the next breeze.
“Should I not go, Pastor?” It will be easier if he forbids it. If he forbids it then she’ll have to find some other way to support her mother and father. Some other way to make her own life better than her mother’s life.
“I can’t tell you go or don’t go,” M’Dale says at last. “I can tell you what the scriptures say. They say to love and not to harm. They say to turn the other cheek. But each of us faces a path with many forks and turns, and that which guides us on that path must be our own conscience, as reflecting the light of Jesus.”
Frangie makes a shaky sigh. She’s just gotten permission, however reluctant.
I am not a feather. I will not be blown this way or that. Not from now on.
M’Dale sees all this. “You pray on it, little Frangie. You’re a good girl. You’re a faithful daughter to your parents and to this church. You pray on it, and if your conscience says go, then you go, and take with you the love and prayers of this congregation.”
Now tears fill Frangie’s eyes, and she cannot speak.
M’Dale waits until she has mastered her emotions.
“Will you add me to the prayers, Pastor?”
He gets up from his seat and comes around to her. He opens his arms and she stands, and he practically absorbs her in his large frame. “Little girl, we will pray for you at every service until you come home safe to us.”
Frangie spills tears onto his collar and knows these are not the first tears to stain his coat, and won’t be the last.
He pushes her away, holds her at arm’s length, and says, “When you’re ready you let me know, and I’ll send a couple of my deacons with you. Some of the white folk don’t much like our kind enlisting. You’d do best to have company.”
She nods, wipes away the tears, and says, “Then I guess you best send for them.”
It’s an eight-block walk to the nearest enlistment center, eight blocks during which humanity around her grows steadily lighter in color. At first Frangie and the two solemn, elderly deacons are just part of the passing scenery, but whites had begun to encroach on what had been an all-black neighborhood before the riots, and the abandoned Mason Hall that has been made over as an induction center is now in a fringe area.
A line of black recruits—mostly male—extends from the propped-open doorway out onto the sidewalk. The line seems to be moving, though slowly. But a white crowd has gathered, young men in school letter jackets or blazers, others in white T-shirts and jeans. They smoke cigarettes and make loud, braying laughs, and amuse themselves by flicking lighted matches at those waiting.
A white cop at the end of the street looks on tolerantly, ready—perhaps—to step in if any of the white folks turn nasty. Ready—very definitely—to step in if any of the colored folks object to being mocked.
So boys and men and some women who will soon be at war dodge flying matches and hold their dignity tight to them as the insults fly.
Frangie hesitates. The two deacons slow as she slows, following her lead. Perhaps if she comes back later the line will be shorter and she can go right inside. Or perhaps the crowd of white trash will grow bored and find something better to do.
“We can’t start trouble with them white boys,” one of the deacons advises her.
“Yes, sir, I know that,” she says.
They have come to a stop half a block away. It will be Frangie’s decision whether to go ahead. Bile rises in her throat, a barely suppressed rage at being put in this position. She doesn’t even want to do this. She’s only doing it to help her family. Why would these crackers feel they need to make it all still worse?
She’s angry too at the deacons, though she knows it’s unfair. Pastor M’Dale insisted they keep her company, but what good are they? Old black men, old men who were here when the buildings burned and black women were raped and the Tulsa police—the police!—flew a rickety plane over Greenwood throwing gasoline bombs on black businesses and homes.
Helpless then, helpless now.
“I made it here,” Frangie says, her voice tight and low in her throat. “You did your duties. Go tell Pastor M that I made it safely.”
“Now, Miss Frangie—”
“No. You know what happens if the three of us go stand in that line. I’m just a little thing, they won’t start trouble, not too much trouble, anyway. But if I have bodyguards . . .”
The deacons did not take too much convincing. They knew she was right, and they knew they were weak and useless in her eyes, as they were in their own.
Frangie walked the last half block. The crowd of whites noticed her immediately.
“Well, look at this, boys. It’s a sweet little colored girl come to sign up to shoot Japs.”
“Nigra bint lookin’ for a government check, more like.”
“Now I know we’re going to lose if that pickaninny is who’s fighting.”
She joins the line behind a young man who stands so stiff she wonders how he breathes. He ignores her, focusing on his own self-control.
“Hey, want a light?” One of the white men flicks a match at her. It spins, hits her shoulder, and falls extinguished. She does not look at him. Will not look at him.
“Must want to be raped by some of them Japs,