fact. Maybe the farm wouldn’t have all that Vanetta said it did, yet he was sure there would be the small pond where Vanetta said they’d swum as kids, and the watermelon patch and a peach tree, too. And even though he knew deep down that a grandmother couldn’t really be kidnapping her grandson, he continued to fantasise that they were on the way to Mississippi until Vanetta pulled up sharply in front of a vast old building of brown stone with a sharp pitched roof and a wooden bell tower that needed painting.
‘This is our church,’ Vanetta explained as they got out of the car and went inside. She led them into an enormous room which looked like a dilapidated assembly hall in a school. Rows of chairs sat in lines on the hardwood floor instead of pews, and although the windows were tall and thin, none of them held stained glass. There was an altar of sorts, tucked at the back of a large, projecting stage, where people were now congregating. A few were as young as Duval, but most were teenagers or young adults, with a handful of older people. Gradually they assembled into two outward-facing semicircles, one male and one female, and the lone figure of the choir leader stood facing them, his back to the audience.
‘Go on, boy,’ Vanetta said to Duval now. ‘Get on up there. We late enough as it is.’
When the rehearsal began Bobby and Vanetta sat down on two of the chairs. The singing began with several old Negro spirituals, including a solo by a pretty girl with bad teeth who hit the highest note spot on. Vanetta leaned over and whispered, ‘She sang with Mahalia Jackson last year downtown.’
‘Oh,’ he said, trying to sound impressed, though he didn’t know who Mahalia Jackson was. After the spirituals came hymns, of the staider sort he’d heard before on the rare occasions he went to church – usually Rockefeller Chapel at the university, when his father roped them all in for service on Christmas Eve and Easter morning. The rhythms seemed looser here, the range of the voices greater. When a skinny boy stepped forward to sing a solo, Vanetta nudged Bobby. ‘That’s Jermaine, Duval’s cousin. Listen to him now.’
And he had a sweet alto voice that projected well. Bobby wondered if Duval would have a solo, too, and was disappointed when he remained in the chorus. It wasn’t fair, thought Bobby, since he knew how well his friend could sing. Didn’t people understand? It didn’t seem right. He told Vanetta they should let Duval sing, and she squeezed his shoulder. ‘He’s good, but lots of them can sing real good too. You just prejudiced on account he’s your friend.’
The choir stopped then for a while, as the choir leader talked them through their performance. Vanetta got up and led them to a back corner of the room where two trestle tables had been set up, with paper tablecloths. Six or seven older ladies were putting platters and bowls of food out, and there were paper plates and plastic cutlery. An enormous tin coffee receptacle sat at one end, four stacks of foam cups next to it.
The women all greeted Vanetta warmly – ‘Hey, V!’ and ‘How’s it going, baby?’. Feeling shy, he tried to hide behind her.
‘Come on out here, Bobby, and show yo’ face.’ Vanetta sounded different here, her voice more thickly Southern, and black. He let her take his arm and lead him out. ‘This here’s Bobby,’ she declared. ‘Ain’t my baby cute?’
‘Your baby?’ one of the woman said, snorting. ‘I ain’t seen any white boys in your family before. There some secrets you been keeping from me, sister?’
Someone else snickered, and Vanetta turned towards her. Her teeth were clenched, and her soft jaw jutted angrily. For a moment, Bobby thought she was going to lose her temper, just as she had on 63rd Street, but she managed to control herself, and her features grew more composed. ‘Ain’t no secrets, Wanda, as you well know. Let’s be nice now, we’re in church.’
And for the first time Bobby felt self-conscious, wondering now if people were looking at him because he was white, and if they were wondering why he was there. He hated feeling like this, because he had been having such a good time. He liked the church, and these laughing, joking women, and the trestle tables loaded with wonderful food – they had corn on the cob, and fried