Black Power in the Courtroom, Cont.

4.  Family Housing

Once in Hanau, we turned into the Housing Area, identifiable as American by the green license plates on all the cars parked in parallel painted slots on each side of the concrete dead ends between each pair of four or five story buildings.  Beaten grass, a baseball diamond, a sand pile, and a Dempsey Dumpster filled in the intervals between one set of buildings and another.  Balconies attached to each apartment sported barbecues, playpens, flowers, tricycles.  Martha turned to me.

            --We’ve been havin trouble with one of our sisters.

            She slightly emphasized the word sister.

            --The sister, who you will meet later, seems to think she has come to Germany to sleep with GI’s.

            --I’ll take care of her, said Montrice as she got out of the car.  Don’t worry.

            --We goin’ to Francois Caserne, Martha told Dog. 

            --Yeah, I know.

Hanau looked like a real military town.  At least the only part of it I ever saw did:  this was a strip with store fronts and night spots, separated from the rest of the city by a railroad crossing at one end, Francois, Friedenhorst, and Pioneer Casernes at the other, all in hitchhiking distance from each other.  The lady in Igls had lived in a town called Hanau which I never saw.  Dog parked in one of the slots in front of Francois and said he’d go look for Charlie.

            --We’re going to this Sergeant’s house for our dinner, explained Martha.  I am using him to do some investigating for me in other sections of the country.  The three of us are going to cover this area.  I have a letter here from Shirley Chisholm which will get me onto any base in Germany.

She put her hand on her purse.

            --Also, one of her aides is coming into Frankfurt on his Congressional tour this week, and we are going to get him to help us too.

            --Charlie already left for Frankfurt, said Dog through the window.  We got anyone else to pick up here?

            --I told him we were coming to get him, said Martha.  You sure he’s gone?

            --What they said in his room.

            --Then let’s go back to Frankfurt.

            Sgt. Wifford lived on the fourth floor.

            --They always put the blacks on the top floor, said Martha.  He said he been in the Army seven years, and he always up four pair of stairs.

A child’s rubber boots were on the landing.  Inside a dog barked.  A thin white blond woman opened the door, holding a small shepherd dog by the collar.  He stood on his hind legs and pawed the air in our direction.

            --We’re back, said Martha firmly.  This is June.

The women nodded and said she would put her dog in the bedroom.  It was the first time I had ever been inside an apartment in Army Housing.  It looked very nice, like a furniture advertisement in a slick, moderately-priced American magazine.  The record player was going.

            --I want you to play June my revolutionary record, said Martha.

Sgt. Wifford stood up, smiled, asked me what I would like to drink.  He was tall and light with a small military moustache.

            --You gotta listen to the words, June, said Martha.  I’m gonna help Montrice with the dinner.

            --I’ll help.

            --Don’t worry, we’ll call you, we got plenty of time, Charlie hasn’t turned up yet.

            --So you come from Paris?  asked Sgt. Wifford.

His wife seemed to be staying in the bedroom with the dog.  The other rooms, hall, living room, dining alcove, kitchen, all opened into each other.  A young woman in a long African skirt and white shirt was standing in front of a hot stove.  Grocery bags, packaged bread, open and closed cans, hot and cold pots were spread on every available surface.

            --I’ll go in and say hello, I said to Sgt. Wifford.

            --What you drinkin?  he asked.

            --Oh, I don’t know.  What do you have?  Scotch?

            He slid open a small glass door in the bookshelves.

            --We have a little bourbon left.

I said that would be fine and went into the kitchen to see the third sister, the one in front of the stove.  She said hello and went on cooking southern fried chicken.  I gave her the kerchief I had brought, one for each sister, from Austria.

            --Thank you, she said.  I’m Mary Rose.

            --June.

            --Montrice!  shouted Martha from the dining alcove.  You better see that that chicken gets off  the stove.  I’m startin’ my meat loaf.

The meat loaf went in the oven, so I did not see why the chicken had to get off the stove unless it was to drive Mary Rose out of the kitchen.

            --Martha needs the stove, Montrice told her.

I went back to the living room.  Mary Rose came in and sat on the couch under an oil painting of brown and white horses galloping across a blood red desert.

            --Your bourbon’s on the table, said the Sergeant.

His wife came in and sat down across from Mary Rose.  There was a silence.

            --You have a very nice place, I remarked.

            --It’s okay, said Wifford.  Except we’re on the fourth floor.

Max once said that there was an unwritten law in every country that all leftists had to live on fourth floors without an elevator.  I wondered whether Sgt. Wifford regarded himself as a leftist.

            --What do you  think of those astronauts going to the moon?  he asked.

            --The Panther paper calls them astronaut pigs, I said.

            Wifford shrugged.

            --You thought about why they goin’?  he asked.

            --Look in the paper bag, said Montrice loudly from the kitchen.

            --It’s a good way to divert people from their troubles on the Earth, I said. 

This did not seem to be the right answer.

            --Wiff, you get my revolutionary record and play it for June, called Martha, also from the kitchen.

            --In a minute, said Sgt. Wifford.  Think about how the moon is placed strategically.

I thought.

            --Well, yes, you mean--

            --What I’m getting’ at is, it is the obvious place for them to stock their atomic weapons to bombard the Earth.

            Martians?  Russians?  Chinese?

            --You mean, the US Army?

Wifford leaned back and nodded.

            --Now, when you all finish discussing the world’s politics, said Martha.  Maybe we could get on with this dinner.

I asked again if I could help.  I wanted to get out of the confrontation going on in the living room.

            --You could make a sauce for the brussels sprouts, said Montrice.

            --Don’t you agree, Martha?  asked Wifford.

            --It wouldn’t surprise me, said Martha.  They ready to do anything to come down on us.  Why you think I’m over here?  Speaking of which, when you going to start helping me get information for my reports?

            --Well, the first thing we do is set up a meeting, said Wifford.  I think we should organize that in Darmstadt.  I have a friend will let us have it in his apartment in Housing down there.

            --Okay then, you get busy on that.

            --You have to help me, said Wifford.  I want you to go out there Monday afternoon.

            --We’ll talk about that on Monday, said Martha.  We’ll have to have a conference on that.

            --I’m not settin’ up a meeting you not comin’ to, said Wifford.

Martha laughed.

            --Did I say I wasn’t comin’?  she asked, turning to me.

            --Martha, if you don’t put your loaf in now, it never gonna be ready with the chicken, called Montrice.

            --No point everything ready before Charlie and his friends get here, said Martha.  What time’s it gettin to be?

I said you have to work hard.

If  you want what you lack.

            --That’s not the record I want June to hear, said Martha.

            --That’s one of mine, said Wifford.

            --Its getting’ on for nine o’clock, said Montrice.  I don’t know where those boys are.

Martha said to Dog he might just have to eat it all by himself.

I wondered if Charlie and the others would come.  I was used to GI’s, white and black, not coming when they said they would, but I usually thought it was because they had decided we were too revolutionary, which seemed improbable with these ladies.  Unless it was Wifford being a sergeant that had put them off.

            --Oh, they gonna be here, said God.

            Dog.  Wasn’t that a medieval palindrome?

            --You help Montrice set the table, said Martha to Mary Rose.

            --I’ll set it, said Wifford’s wife and got up.

Wifford and Dog struck me as playing the role of those who are fed by women.

            --I’ll make the sauce, I said.

            I decided if that was the way these women were running it, I’d better go along.

            --No, June, said Martha.  I want you to come in the bedroom with me.

            White-lady-fed-too?  Not that I minded being cooked for, but I wanted to learn the rules.

The dog barked as we passed a closed door.  I wondered where the child was.  The bedroom was at the end of the short hall.  Matching bed, closet and dressing table with old rose drapes and a bedspread matching them.  From a shopping bag under the dressing table, Martha drew out a number of packages.

            --We got to wrap Dog’s birthday presents, she said.  You notice how he’s dressed?  He’s been wearing those clothes since two months.  So we thought he’d want to go home looking nice, and we got him a shirt and coat--we couldn’t get the trousers without him, and we wanted it to be a surprise.

I said I was good at wrapping packages.

            --We’ll do it together, said Martha.  Then we’ll have Montrice turn out the lights, and we’ll light the cake and sing Happy Birthday.

I decided it was not so much women-feeding-men as Dog representing the masses.  Still, masses of men.  I don’t think Martha and Montrice would ever have cooked up a meal for women soldiers.

            --Martha, called Montrice.  Charlie’s here.

            --This is June, this is Charlie--hey, where are Chick and Coates?

Charlie was thin and young with horn-rimmed glasses and curly brown hair.

            --Chick’s cousin came in to see him, said Charlie.  Coates went over there with him.

            --Well, we got a lot to eat then, said Martha.  For Dog’s birthday party.

            --You makin’ that white sauce?  Montrice asked me.

            --I could make hollandaise.

            --I usually make white, said Montrice.

The kitchen was in a state of transition between American food in its crude form and its transformation into soul.  The seven of us—Wifford’s wife said she had already eaten and went back into the bedroom with the dog--sat down to southern fried chicken, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, pan-fried biscuits, over-baked bread, Black Cat wine and beer.  After dinner, Martha and I went to the bedroom to get the presents and Montrice turned out the lights, and we all sang Happy Birthday.  Dog was very pleased with his coat and shirt.  He said it was the nicest birthday he had ever had.

            --Now tomorrow, announced Martha, we are taking a day off.  Have to rest sometime.  We are going to Frankenstein’s Castle.  How about that, June?

I said that would be fine.

            --Of course, after what happened with me and the Jersey Monster, said Martha, I don’t know if I should go to Frankenstein’s Castle.  I’ll tell you about the Jersey Monster tomorrow, June.

            --You have to be careful, said Montrice.

Charlie laughed.

            --We won’t let nothin’ happen to you, Martha, he said.

            --You better not, said Martha.  Else I’ll have to send for my bodyguard from the States to come and protect me.

            --We can take care of protection, said Dog stiffly.

            --You better had, said Martha.

It was settled we should all meet at the Sun Hotel around noon.  Wifford said he couldn’t make it, but we’d be all right with Dog’s car.

            --Coates, maybe he come too, said Dog.

I offered to take my car.

            --Maybe you won’t have to, June, said Martha.  We’ll see.

Dog and Charlie accompanied the three sisters and me back to the hotel.  I thought that would be the end of the evening, but when we all went up to Martha’s room, we found the Hotel Manager in the bathroom.

            --Excuse me, he said straightening up hurriedly over the bathtub.

He looked very strange in there in his morning coat at midnight.

            --There has been a water shutoff in this district, and I have been filling your bathtub and sink so you will have water for the night.

Everything but the excuse me was in German.

            --What’s he say?  asked Martha.

I told her.

            --I never heard of that, she said primly.  A water shortage just around the hotel I happen to be staying in.  Get rid of this clown, June.  We are going to have an evaluation session.

The clown was as eager to leave us as Martha was to have him leave and stood uneasily before the six bodies blocking the door.

            --Let him by, said Martha.  We’re on foreign soil here.  Every move we make has to be carefully figured out--in advance.

She stood aside, we all stood aside, the Manager started out, stopped, turned to me and asked, indicating Martha, if she had understood.  I said she had.

            --What was that about?  asked Martha.

I had a partially deaf friend once who always talked very loudly and would not let anyone else start a conversation without coming in to dominate it.  Probably because if he didn’t dominate, he would not hear what was said.  Martha reminded me of him, but I decided my sympathies were nevertheless with her and not with the Hotel Manager.  Germany must have seemed to her like a foreign language movie without subtitles, that is, if she had ever gone to a foreign language movie.

            --He wanted to know if you understood German.

Martha turned to Charlie and God.  Dog.

            --You all have to be back at any special time?  she asked.

They both shook their heads.

            --You sure?

Re-shaking of heads.

            --Good.  Because we have to have an evaluation session right here and now,

I looked at my watch.  After midnight.  I’d give the evaluation session half an hour and then go to bed.  We all sat down on the beds:  Martha, Montrice, the two soldiers, Mary Rose and I.

            --There is something going on here, said Martha.  First: two men take the room next to us I was saving for June.  They were pretending to be German, but I came up behind them when they were waiting for the elevator and heard them talking American.  Now, there is something funny about that.  Something I don’t like at all.

I asked what.  Everyone looked at me.

            --They have been sent here to watch me, said Martha.

            --Then why should they pretend to be German?

            --Camouflage, said Martha.  You don’t think I’d pay any mind to a whole lot of Germans running around?  But when Americans come in here, then I watch out.

            --If they wanted to check on you, I said, they’d probably send real Germans then.  There are a whole lot working for the Army.  Why send Americans pretending to be Germans?

            --The Germans wouldn’t dig the way we talk, she said.

            --Well, that’s true.  But for a routine check, they’re probably more interested in whom you see and where you go than what you say.

            --Anyway, they left this morning, said Martha.  So I ask right away for the room for June, but they already put some weird woman in there--she don’t even speak German.  I don’t know what her bag is, but I don’t think she’s active.  I think she’s just an instrument put there to occupy the room and keep June from getting it.  This was we are all separated in case of attack.  I didn’t think it would come so soon, but I think we better consider that tonight may be the night.

            --Who’s going to attack?  I asked.

Everyone looked at Martha.

            --The FBI, she said.

            --The FBI doesn’t come to Germany, I objected.  If anyone, it would be the CIA or CID.

            --I have information, said Martha slowly, that there are a certain number of FBI officials ready to be detached at any moment to follow me and report on my activities.

            --Maybe the Hotel Manager’s one, I said, thinking I might as well enter into the spirit of the thing.

Martha seemed very pleased at this evidence of my good will.

          --He’s their inside man, she said.  Tonight, for example:  we never come back to the hotel this early, so it was the ideal time to go through our things.  We’ll just check out his story.  June--can you give him Wifford’s number to call?  If we don’t get it, then we’ll know.

I hoped whatever we were going to know, we would know in the next fifteen minutes.  My trip from Austria was beginning to catch up with me.  Wifford’s voice came through as equable and pleasant as it had been at dinner.  He sounded neither as if he had just been awakened nor as if he had stayed up to fight with his wife.

            --Martha wants to speak with you, I began.

I was beginning to sound like Montrice.

            --Hello, Wiff, this is Martha.  Our conversation may be public.  Do you know Pig Latin?  Well, I’ll put June on and she can explain.  I don’t want my voice to be recognized.

I wondered about her voice.  By this time, both our voices could be recognized if anyone was really interested.  I could hardly believe anyone was.  I don’t think Martha thought anyone was listening in but just wanted to establish an aura of prestige around herself as a Personage.  Everything she said and did was like ectoplasm, or will o’the wisp summoned to give body to this myth.  My calling Wifford was part of it: a moneyed, middle-aged liberal making calls for Martha Albertson.  My own myth was that we were all revolutionaries working together.

            --Hello, June, said Wifford from far away.  What’s she want?

As a matter of fact, I did not know.

            --He wants to know what you want, I said.

            --I want to know if there’s any talk of a water cut-off where he is.

            --Nothin’ up here, said Wifford.  Why?  You people havin’ trouble?

There was a knock on the door.  We all looked at each other.

            --You open it, Montrice, said Martha.

It was the Hotel Manager again.  He wanted to let us know that the water was back on.  I translated to the people in the room, to Wifford on the phone, to whoever was supposed to be listening in.  Exit Hotel Manager.  Good-bye, Wifford.

            --All right, said Martha.  I’m gonna sleep in June’s room, and June can sleep here with Montrice.

General consternation.  I did not know why they were consternated, but I knew why I was.  If I was going to have to spend all day with these ladies and share a room with them at night, I would not last long.

            --Where you at, Martha?  asked Charlie.

            --They want us off guard, said Martha.  That’s when they going to strike.  What time is it in Philadelphia?

            --What you want Philadelphia for?

            --I have to call and get them to send over my bodyguard.

Dog stood up.

            --We can take care of that, he said.

            --Why you gonna sleep in June’s room?  asked Montrice.

            --I have one rule I never go against, said Martha, looking down at her clasped hands. I don’t endanger the people working for me.

Pause.

            --I will sleep alone.

            --Now look, said Montrice.  You don’t worry ‘bout me.  I’m here to protect you.

            --We goin’ spend the night here, said Charlie.  You all go to sleep.

            --Maybe we should just all stay in here, said Montrice.  While they keep guard outside.

I thought of re-launching the theory of the Hotel Manager and the Hidden Microphone.  But it was getting on to one o’clock and I could see us spending the rest of the night tearing apart beds, untacking carpets, loosening moulding--

            --I am going to bed, I said.

Mary Rose said she was too.

            --That’s all right then, said Martha suddenly.  I don’t think anything else will happen tonight.

Suddenly the play was over.  Was it being played for me?  I had expected them to go on evaluating all night, or that the two GI’s might even sit shotgun in the corridor.  I was a little surprised that none of the other guests in the hotel had complained about us yet, since we had made no effort to talk quietly.  Not even the Hotel Manager had said anything.

            --We stay here if you want us to, said Dog.

He was still serious, but his conviction seemed to have faded.

            --No, it’s too soon, said Martha.  I was right the first time.  They are going to watch us a little more.  You go back and get some sleep, and we’ll all go to Frankenstein’s Castle tomorrow.

And that is what we did.

5. Frankenstein’s Castle

            --I never told you about the Jersey Monster, said Martha the next day on the way to Frankenstein’s Castle.

            Cora had mentioned this monster in her letter to me, the letter that had, in its way, brought me here:  “Tell Martha to come to Martinique and not worry about the Jersey Monster finding her here.  The Caribbean ain’t the Atlantic!”

            --I don’t know if I’m doin’ right in even goin’ near Frankenstein’s Castle, said Martha.

            --You be careful, Martha, said Montrice.

We were all three ensconced in my car, Mary Rose was in the lead car with Dog, Charlie and Coates.  Coates was short and stocky, sure of himself, and very interested in Mary Rose.  Charlie told us he himself had a lady back in Philadelphia.  Dog was so passive, it was hard to tell how he reacted, but since he was driving the other car, he hadn’t had to do anything particular to have Mary Rose be with him.  None of this had pleased Martha very much.  When she saw that all three soldiers intended to ride with Mary Rose, she had made a slight move to change this disposition of forces, suggesting that Montrice go with them and Mary Rose with us, but Montrice balked at this, saying she had to stay with Martha and protect her all the way to Frankenstein’s Castle.  So Martha found herself with the two older women, and Mary Rose with the three young men.

Yesterday I had identified Mary Rose more or less with Montrice.  Both of them had been wearing long skirts and cooking.  Today Mary Rose looked her age, around twenty-four or five, in blue jeans and the same man’s shirt as the night before, tied in a knot under her breasts.  I also kept forgetting that Martha could not have been out of her twenties herself.  Her very bulk put her beyond all categories of age for me.  Incorrectly, as far as understanding her went, but then I was not particularly interested in understanding her.  I was interested in what she was here to do.  Eventually she did make her play to be a young woman, but by that time I was no longer in her group.  Her effectiveness in organizing GI resistance was perhaps enhanced by her weight.  She surrounded herself with the fables of her successful exploits--there were no failures--weaving a bright mythology around every humdrum in her life; in her own way a Ulysses, transforming sordid and discouraging facts into transcendental tales for posterity.

Posterity this morning was Montrice and me, although Montrice must have heard the story of the Jersey Monster many times.

            --I have to be careful when I go anywhere near water, began Martha.  You see, we went to New Jersey once because we decided it was time we got out of Philadelphia and breathed some fresh air for a change.  There were about five of us, three brothers and another sister.  We drove down to the beach, and I got right out of the car and ran down to the water.  I left them up there, all getting into bathing suits.  I told them they’d better be careful but they said, Martha, we come here to bathe, we gonna bathe.  So I went on ahead to see, and I let out a scream!  I swear to God, I saw this gigantic thing rising up out of the water after me.  The brothers came piling out of the cars, this police car drew up--why, they all looked at me like I was crazy.  The brothers and sister gathered ‘round me, the policeman said, Lady, you can’t scream like that on this ‘beach.  I told him, Come on down, you’ll scream too.  So we all go down, and there’s this gigantic fin just disappearing in the water, and on the beach, this rowboat, that’s been anchored to one of those stands where the lifeguard sits in summer, well, this boat’s been dragged to the edge of the water, and the lifeguard stand pulled out by the roots, lying on the beach like some old tooth.  So those two policemen just look at me and say, Lady, we don’t know who you are, but you better stay away from the beach.  Later on, the hotel owner said the same thing, the Jersey Monster been reported in that part of the world, and they all scared to death.  He said I had to leave the hotel because that monster liable to come right up off the beach and tear it all down.

Martha laughed.

            --Those niggers with me piled into the car like they couldn’t wait to get out of there.  I tell you, that was the end of us tryin’ to breathe anything else but Philadelphia air again.  Before I said I’d come to Germany, I had them bring me a map.  I wanted to be sure Frankfurt wasn’t on any large body of water where that monster could come and get me.

I guess a partial explanation of all this would be that the other sister had been like Mary Rose, that is, slim and good-looking in a bathing suit, and Martha was not going to sit alone on the beach while the others went in swimming.  And so she called up monsters from the briny deep, like Glendower in Henry IV, part I.  As for the Atlantic City hotel owner, he might have been difficult about all the noise I suppose they made if they were anything like they had been last night, and maybe he had called the police who had given them a moderately hard time.  The positive Kodachrome souvenir that Martha had produced of all this was an enlarged snap of a monster flanked by a small, terrified  hotel owner, and two equally frightened policemen.

            --I don’t feel so good about you going to Frankenstein’s Castle, said Montrice.

            --We just better not let that car ahead out of sight, said Martha.  I may need those boys up there as bodyguards.

She laughed

            --For all the good they’ll be.  I should have called Philadelphia last night like I wanted and had my own bodyguard sent over.

A sentry booth blocked the end of the particular road we were on.  Charlie got out of the first car and came back to Martha’s window.

            --This don’t look like Frankenstein’s Castle to me, said Martha.

            --We at Cambria-Fritsch Caserne, laughed Charlie.  You got a map? 

I reminded myself to get a map of Frankfurt and environs.  The map of Germany in the glove compartment was too large scale to be of any use.  Before we left the hotel, the Manager had traced an inner route on the hotel map which unfortunately was attached to the hotel wall.  I remembered the Castle was somewhere near Darmstadt.

            --Where is Darmstadt?  I asked.

            --We in Darmstadt, lady, laughed Charlie.  This here Cambrai-Fritsch Caserne is right in Darmstadt.

            --Maybe we should go back through town.

            --Charlie, said Martha.  Go ask that soldier over there where Frankenstein’s Castle is.

She pointed at the sentry box at the gate.  Behind it was a large sign reading:

            Cambrai-Fritsch Caserne

            93 Signal Battalion

                                                                        Commander:  Lt. Col. David S. Poteet

The street behind us was as closed as Sunday afternoon could make it:  closed Laundromat, closed Used Car lot, closed bratwurst stand on the right, a high wire fence on the left protecting the Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne from whom?  The Russians?  The Chinese?  The citizens of Darmstadt?  German terrorists?  Who were Cambrai and Fritsch the living sons and daughters of?  Lt. Col. Poteet had been the villain in the Darmstadt trial.  My previous GI support work.  It all ended in a dead end unless you drove by the sentry box into the base grounds and out at the other end.  Which is what we did.

            --We go through here and and turn right on the other side, said Charlie.  Then we go back on the road.

I forget whether or not we saw Frankenstein’s Castle perched up on a hill in the distance.  Probably.  Even on the Frankfurt-Heidelberg Autobahn, you could see castles perched on hills.

Martha spent the rest of the trip filling me in on her life, her political life.

            --We were the ones got Rizzio elected Mayor, she said.

Back in the 60’s, Rizzio had been a synonym for white racist corrupt municipal government.  It was almost like saying, We were the ones got Hitler elected on the Hindenburg ticket.  I was a little shocked and wondered who were we--she and her bodyguards?  I did not think she said that to shock me. Neither did I think she was afraid I would hear about it from some other source and walk out on her.  Philadelphia was light years away, and Mary Rose, the only one I was likely to come across who would know anything about it, had already been discredited as a sister who is here to sleep with GI's.  Like Scarlet, I thought I’d think about that tomorrow.  As for Black GI’s from Philadelphia, like Charlie, I was hardly likely to start asking him what he thought about Martha getting Rizzio elected. Unity above all.

            --Why in the world did you do that?  I asked.

A direct question was, after all, the simplest way to find out.

            --To show people we control things, said Martha.  If we had gotten a liberal in, it would have been too easy.  We had to show we could make Black people vote for that racist.  Now he owes his election to us, and we make him toe the line.  Were those Panthers mad!

            --You’re not with the Panthers?

            --She was with the Panthers, said Martha contemptuously, gesturing towards the car ahead. 

Then she laughed and said that Karenga’s boys just shot them down.

            --You’re with Karenga?

I was only slightly less shocked than I had been over Rizzio.

            --We're Black Nationalists, said Martha simply.

Black Nationalists!  In 1971?  As far as I was concerned, Black Nationalist had gone out as an avant-garde movement with Malcolm X’s trip to Mecca in 1962.  Of course, I had never lived in the Philadelphia ghetto.

            --What about Karenga’s gas stations?  I asked.

One of the Panther accusations against Karenga, the Black Nationalist leader, had been that he had integrated into the System by running Esso gas stations, thus becoming a lackey of the pigs.

            --Oh that, laughed Martha.  We needed money.  So we were looking around, and we found that these Esso gas stations were run by a manager.  It worked on sort of a percentage basis.  Each manager handled all the money come into his station.

I didn’t even bother to ask if he was supposed to give any of the money he took in back to Esso.

            --So we thought it would be a good idea for us to take over those gas stations.  And to do that, we had to fix it so no one else would want them.

She laughed again.

            --Well, we did that easy enough.  Some of our boys went by a few nights and threw some bombs.  At the end of two weeks, nobody wanted to manage those fuckers.  So then Ron got some of his connections to give them to us.

Connections?  I was beginning to see why they had wanted Rizzio re-elected.

            --That’s all there was to that gas station business.

            I don’t know if the Mayor’s office controlled the Esso station concessions.  On the other hand, why not?  Maybe once you got to be Mayor of Philadelphia, you were so corrupt it did not matter whether you were Rizzio or the guy who had not had a chance to get his hand in the honey pot yet.  But I was not so interested in these far away people as I was in Martha, sitting next to me in the car.

            --Of course, we don’t go along with Karenga on everything, said Martha.  He has three or four wives, thinks he’s some sort of African chief.  So we’re ready to fight him on that aspect.

I’d seen pictures of Karenga, clad in a white boubou with snow chains around his neck.

By now we were on a forest road leading upwards to Frankenstein’s Castle.  Because of our conversation about Karenga, the forest reminded me of Africa.  The trees here were much greener and taller, the underbrush much thicker than in Senegal, the only part of Africa I knew, but the foliage had the same dusty look.  It was a hot day, and the dust from the road had settled on the leaves. I kept this impression of Africa to myself since I was the only white and the only one in our caravan who had ever been there.  White liberals have money to travel and Black Americans stay at home.  Not that that was absolutely true since the NAACP had been organizing vacation tours to Africa for the last ten years.  But only middle-class Blacks could afford them, and they were a minority.  I had not sounded Martha on the class struggle yet.  As a nationalist, it would not be one of her priorities.

            --I think there’s something behind those trees, said Martha, running up her window.  They’re closing in on us.

            --The road is narrowing, said Montrice.

            --They’re watching us, said Martha.

            --We got to stay together, said Montrice.

            Frankenstein’s Castle was a ruin.  We parked in a large field with the other Sunday trippers and walked up the dirt road to the castle.  A few towers were connected by a stone parapet; a low wall marked the other side of what had once been the inner courtyard.  Mary Rose went over and sat on the wall, and the three GI’s followed her.

            --You come up here with us, Dog, hollered Montrice.

Dog was wearing his new shirt and fringed jacket and obediently got up to accompany us.  Montrice shooed him ahead with Martha.  Both sisters were wearing new outfits; in fact, they seemed to have a new outfit for every occasion, I was to find out.  Martha had put on an auburn wig.  I later identified the auburn wig as being her battle dress, although today’s skirmish was not going to take place till the end of the afternoon.  A Frankenstein Monster would have been more natural than a Jersey Monster, but there were too many unforeseen elements here in Germany.  If the castle had been deserted, she might have tried to panic us all into the cars, but she was not sure of dominating a crowd situation where she could not make herself understood.

Montrice and I leant over the balustrade between the two towers and looked down at the ruined courtyard, at Mary Rose and the two GI’s who were standing below in the courtyard near one of the towers and looking at the view of the surrounding countryside. 

            --They don’t show us everything, said Montrice gravely.

I wondered if she was talking about Mary Rose.

            --How do you mean?

            --This castle.  There’s more to it than we see.

            --There is?

            --You know they’re not gonna let people see what really goes on here.

            --I don’t suppose much does.

            --Oh, things go on, all right, said Montrice.  But they keep them hid.

I decided to interpret this sibylline utterance with a little popular Marxism.

            --Well, I suppose that was part of the myth.  You know, the rich baron had the castle and was completely separated from the people.  They didn’t know what he did up there in his castle, whereas he knew what they did down in the fields; mainly that they were working for him.  So, of course, a lot of myths grew up about the monstrous and strange goings-on in the castle, as a sort of way to exorcise their anxieties about this tyrant that ruled over them.  Fanon says that the black slaves in the West Indies created the idea of a zombie as something more frightening than their masters--something even the master was frightened of.  Of course, the Frankenstein monster was a pure literary creation, but it turned easily into a myth where it fills the same role as the zombie; it scared the oppressor as much as, or even more than, the people he was oppressing.

Montrice waited until this outburst was over and then asked if I had noticed there was a closed door at the foot of the tower.  Mary Rose and the two GI’s got up, as if they had had our conversation drafted down to them and walked to the door.

            --Do you believe in voodoo?  I asked Montrice, still trying to attach her to Fanon.

            --We’d better go down there to be with them, she said.  They are going to try and open that door.

Charlie and Dog had used the handle of Dog’s machete to turn the bolt on what had once been the private chapel of the Frankenstein family.  A bunch of tourists followed them inside.  I did not see why it had not been left open in the first place unless they had planned to charge extra admission.  Stone slabs with the names of various Frankensteins and their wives lay along the walls:  Ursula, Edeltraut, Graeffin von, Gemahlin des...Some of the Frankenstein men had had two wives.  Like Karenga.  At the far end of the chapel, a small stone altar stood below dusty ogival windows.  The slabs must have been brought from the cemetery, since the walls were obviously too thin to house anything like a stone casket.  Even for those small knights and ladies of long ago.  Perhaps after the war.  Darmstadt had been heavily bombed.

Our party was very pleased at the discovery of the tombs in the locked chapel which, in fact, justified Montrice’s assertion that they were hiding something from us.  It was sufficient to have made the afternoon a success.  Whitened slabs symbolized white bodies?  The Black Nationalists had found them out.

            --I think I’m gonna become one of those travelin’ niggers, said Martha as we walked out what remained of the gates.  Get myself sent over to China maybe.

In the meantime she wanted something to eat.  A restaurant had been built as part of a large concrete building a few hundred feet above the castle.  Mary Rose and the GI’s started up the road ahead of us.

            --I don’t feel good, said Martha.

Montrice took hold of her arm.

            -- We gotta find someplace for her to sit, she said.

She piloted Martha back towards the castle and sat her down against a wall.

            --Are you all right, Martha?

            --I need some milk.

            --You go up there and get her some milk, said Montrice.  Martha got to get in the shade.  She got sickle cell anaemia.  I got to look after her.

            --Montrice is a registered nurse, said Martha faintly.

I had never seen anyone look less anaemic than Martha, but apparently even tubuculars can get all tan and healthy-looking and then die.  Anything is possible.  I left them and went to tell the others.  There were long tables on the terrace looking out over the landscape, striped with shade, but no milk.  Enormous globs of ice cream with jellied fruit and whipped cream were meeting with no favor from our party.  Martha and Montrice had followed me up.  Perhaps they were afraid I would sit down with the others and not come back.  Which was possible.  In the summer I am very fond of ice cream.

There was some talk of sending me for a doctor, but Martha and Montrice finally calmed down and helped the others criticize the ice cream and cake.  Relieved and a little guilty, I thought that if any of us had been sick, Martha would have been running up and down the terrace, figuratively speaking, calling for a doctor.  None of us did this for her.  All gaiety had gone from the afternoon.  On the road to the parking place, she began complaining that everyone was looking at her.

            --What you lookin’ at?  she called out to a party of three tourists passing us.  You want to look at me--here I am!

She stood in the middle of the road, faint no longer, her arms flung out on either side of her body.

            --Those Germans, they look at you like you some sort of animal, said Dog. 

The woman in the party of three came over to us. 

            --You must understand, she said, picking her way through the language.  People do not care to be rude.  But we do not often see people like you are,

            --It’s no reason to stare, said Mary Rose.

            --It’s very unpleasant, I added in German, to have people turn their heads and look after you.

            --People are astonished, said our fellow tourist.  They mean no harm.

Martha did not bother to answer but moved triumphantly to the head of our little procession, flanked by the three soldiers.  Montrice walked slightly behind her, and Mary Rose and I brought up the rear.  This was probably the marching order Martha had been working for all day.  At any rate, her disposition had improved noticeably by the time we arrived at the car.  I don’t remember how the day ended.  We must have eaten somewhere, although the only two places I remember eating that summer were the Miguel Arms and the Wiener Wald, the last bad, the first good, according to my companion’s criteria, which I adopted.  In fact, I accepted their criteria on almost everything until I got tired and went back to Austria.  That night I went to bed early, leaving Martha and Montrice to their evaluation session on Frankenstein’s Castle.  Mary Rose went to bed early too.