Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman Read Free Book Online Page A

said hello, just nodded while she went to the ice chest to grab a bite of whatever appealed, or opened the breadbox to pilfer something there. And it was pilfering. Fishbein had his own kitchen up there on the second floor and no victuals kept on the first belonged to him or his daughter. Following her husband’s example on such occasion, Mags would smile and say, Why good day, Miss Minnie, although there was never more response than a grunt before the girl went back upstairs, her footsteps as heavy and plodding in ascent as they’d been rapid and light on the way down.
    Minnie had tutors coming and going every day but the Fishbein Sabbath and on that day, Saturdays, they would often hear her wail with boredom or frustration. Come winter, she began music lessons. On Wednesdays they could count on listening to Miss Minnie attack a piano as if it had murdered her mother and she sought annihilating vengeance. On such occasions, George McCallum would say to his wife, That child’s not right. And Mags would say, What do you think it is? George would only shake his head and return to helping her do. Over time, Mags learned to accept Miss Minnie’s mercurial presence in her life the way she accepted the unexpected arrival of thunder and lightning or a snow squall.
    As for the girl’s daddy, she never saw him at all nor heard him anymore for that matter. George went up to the second floor weekly to collect their wages and report on the business below. How’s Mr. Fishbein? Mags asked afterward. And George would say, The same. She’d picture that sad face, the hunched shoulders, the spindly arms, crossed as if protecting his wounded, bleeding heart, and ask no more.
    Every once in a while, George McCallum was required to go to the rail station to pick up special-order coffins, chemical supplies, maybe the bones of a son of East St. Louis who’d sought his fortune elsewhere. Mags went with him whenever their schedule permitted. Her interest in the feminine arts had not waned since life had taken her talents in an unexpected direction. She enjoyed watching the people on the platform. She studied the hairstyles and costumes of the ladies from far-off cities as they disembarked and regarded critically the careful toilettes of women who paced the waiting room searching with darting eyes the arrival of a lover, son, or husband. When she went home from such expeditions, she’d rearrange her hair and sew onto her sleeve or bodice a gewgaw, a ribbon, a dime-store bauble she thought echoed the new fashion she’d observed. She kept a modest store of such treasures in a cigar box under the bed that allowed her imagination to soar. Once satisfied, she’d parade her transformation in front of George for a man’s opinion. He nearly always praised her. When he did not and she pressed him, he talked in a roundabout way so as not to hurt her feelings.
    The train was late one day toward the end of March 1917, barely a week before war was declared. A high wind came in from the river. The colored waiting room, a place established by routine rather than law as it was elsewhere, was cold and uncommonly crowded. Negroes pressed up against one another on every square inch of space. The ones who couldn’t fit were outside, shivering and stamping their feet. George was outside. He was not the sort who would take a woman’s spot to avoid the elements. Mags watched him blow on his hands and tap-dance, then duck his angular head inside his jacket when the wind came up. She felt proud, and she felt happy.
    On the way home that day, she thought about the scene on the platform, especially when the train arrived and the passenger cars emptied. Did you notice, she asked George, how many colored men got into town today? There musta been a hundred of ’em gettin’ out of that one car, poor boys in cotton shirts and no jackets luggin’ bundles tied in string. It’s been like that for a while. There’s twice as many of ’em comin’ as before. What’s it