The Price of Love and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

the whisky. I always enjoyed our talks. You treated me like a human being.”
    I said nothing. I could think of nothing to say.
    “It was a fine night outside. Hot and humid. It reminded me a bit of home, I suppose, of Louisiana, and I was walking along thinking about all those years ago when I was a kid fishing off the levee, hooking the bracelet. When I got to the park, I heard some sounds, stifled, as if someone was being gagged. It was dark, but I could make out two figures struggling, one on top of the other. I’m not a fool. I knew what was happening. When I got closer, I could see that he was … you know, thrusting himself in her and beating her face. I grabbed him and tried to drag him off, but it took all my strength. The girl was nearly unconscious by then, but she managed to lash out and give me that scratch. Finally, I pulled him loose and he ran off into the night.” Cornelius shrugged. “Then I went back to the base.”
    “Did you recognize him?” I asked.
    For a moment, he didn’t answer, just carried on smoking, that faraway look in his eyes. “Yes,” he said finally. “I recognized him.”
    “Then why the hell didn’t you say so?”
    “What would have been the point?”
    “The truth, Cornelius, the truth.”
    Cornelius smiled. “Frank, my friend, you have the white man’s trust in the truth. It’s not quite the same for me.”
    “But surely they would have investigated your claim?”
    “Perhaps. But the man who did it is a black man, like me. Only he’s a really bad man. People are scared of him. The morning after it happened, even before you came to see me, he made it clear that he wasn’t going to take the blame, that if I tried to accuse him, everyone in his hut would swear he was back on base when the attack took place.”
    “What about the guards on the gate?”
    “They can’t tell us apart. Besides, they don’t even pay attention.
    They just sit in their gatehouse playing cards.”
    “So he’s just going to let you die instead of him?”
    Cornelius shrugged. “Well, I don’t imagine he’s any too keen on dying himself. Would you be? It doesn’t matter anyway. What happens to him. That’s between him and God.”
    “Or the Devil.”
    Cornelius looked at me, a hint of the old smile in the turn of his lips. “Or the Devil. But even if he hadn’t managed to get it all fixed, they wouldn’t have believed me anyway. They’d have simply thought it was another trick, another desperate lie, that the two of us darkies were in it together. They had all the evidence they needed, then I came up with some crazy story about trying to save the girl. What would you think?”
    “I know you wouldn’t do what they accused you of.”
    “But they don’t know me. To them, I’m just another no-good nigger. It’s the sort of thing we do. If I’d given his name, it would havebeen just one more nigger trying to lie his way out of his just desserts by pointing the finger at another.” Cornelius shook his head. “No, my friend, there’s no way out for me.” He lifted up his sleeve. “At least I got my bracelet fixed and they let me have it back. No longer evidence, I guess.” Then he unfastened the clasp and handed it to me. “I want you to have it. I know I said it was going to be for my girl, but I never did find her. Now I’d like my friend to take it.”
    I looked at the bracelet resting in his palm. I didn’t really want it, not after everything that had happened, but I couldn’t refuse. I picked it up, feeling an odd sort of tingle in my fingers as I did so, and thanked him for it.
    That was the last time I saw Cornelius Jubb. The morning they hanged him, I walked and walked the length and breadth of the city, feeling as if I were the one living in a foreign country, and when I came to the biggest bomb site in the city centre, I took out Cornelius’s charm bracelet and threw it as far as I could into the rubble.

THE MAGIC OF YOUR TOUCH
    Above all was the sense of hearing