In Search of Satisfaction Read Free Page A

white midwife who sent Ma Lal to the notary with the papers for a birth certificate. Josephus carried all the money and messages. Ma Lal smiled as she handed him the papers. They named Master Krupt as father. His plan stepped up speed.
    Josephus knew the master would not be living much longer, and the mistress didn’t look like she was far behind. Would they have relatives who would take the child, ten years old, away with them? Away from him? Relatives did come from time to time, distant relatives from distantplaces, to see what they could salvage or take away with them. Her relatives who saw the sunshine tint in the skin of the child didn’t think it was the Mistress’. “It must belong to the Master and one of his Negras he used to have, so it wasn’t anything but a Negra.” Wasn’t nothin to worry bout in the inheritance, was there anything left. Still, some others, among his few relatives, thought she was white. This frightened Josephus. They could take his child away.
    Josephus began stealing more, kept taking more things to sell in the name of the master. Rambled through the dark rooms at night looking for a hiding place where there might be gold or silver, sold all he could for his “master.” Some things he found, he just put away, biding his time. With the white men riding and killing Negroes now freed, Josephus dug holes in places to bury his value. The plan stepped up speed again. Time was getting hard, scary and short.
    Josephus knew that if the money was caught on him when he and Yin left, it would all be taken away; he might even be killed. And, he thought, heaven forbid, Yin could be taken and raped, beaten and whatever them men wanted to do if they didn’t think she was white, and some, even if they thought she was white. Hadn’t the Master in his diseased drunkenness tried to reach out and grab her with his long-fingered, scabby, dirty-fingernailed, gnarled hands? “I would’a kilt him!” Josephus snarled to himself as he tightened his fist.
    One day when he picked up Yin from her teacher, she asked him, “Who is God?” Josephus had heard of God, but he didn’t know anything about Him. He did not know what to tell her. “What yo teacher say he is?” Yin looked up at her father, “She say … said I need to go to church and learn about Him. She said I can go with her since my mama don’t go.” She held up a book to Josephus, “See? This here is His book. It tells us about Him.”
    That night they read in it together. Somehow they came to the verse about “Thou shalt not kill.” Josephus held the book a long time.
    “Turn the page, Pajo.” Yin reached for the book.
    “No, not right now. I got to try to read mo of it. Let me think, baby.” He put a small rock in the place of the book and closed it. “But you can go wit that teacher to church. I will take you on Sundy.” As he did. Soon they spoke again about God. Josephus asked Yin, “What you spose happen to a body if’n they was to do what God said not to do?”Yin answered, looking up at him, “I blive whatever you do to somebody else, it will come right back on you. That’s close as I can make out from what they say in the church.”
    However, later, when he spoke with God, on his knees, Josephus said, “So, this is who you is. Well, you know I don’t know yo, don’t know nothin bout yo. Much. An I done met yo awful late. I blive I could like yo, but I got to do what I got to do. Tha’s my chile. Yo sposed to be done give her to me. Well … sir, I wants to keep her side me. So … sir, I gots to do what I gots to do it. Tha’s all.”
    Time passed, slowly. Old Master Krupt was sick to death, but just didn’t die. Josephus in his gardening had gathered poison mushrooms, put them in a jar of water. He did not want Master Krupt to die before he was prepared to run away with Yin. He wanted to know WHEN Master Krupt was gone for good. He fed Master Krupt a little of the water off the poison mushrooms in his food