There were lots of smiles, and when the two exchanged their Gamma fraternity handshake, I turned my head to preserve their mystery.
“Patrick, it’s so good to see you! You are the spitting image of your grandfather!”
“Everybody says that, Dr. Hargrace.”
“Rob-Boy would be so proud of you. I haven’t seen you since his homegoing. That was a lovely funeral.” He nodded his head for a few seconds. “And now look at you! How you’ve grown.”
“I’m fatter than him, though.”
“Not at all! That’s just good living! Isn’t that right, sugarfoot?”
“Uncle Root, I keep trying to tell him how handsome he is.”
Inside, we young folks sat on the sofa and the old man brought us cold sweet tea. We caught him up on campus doings, which buildings needed alumni donations for repairs, and which were holding up, and he asked, what did we think about the new president, that fellow that used to work on Wall Street? The old man didn’t approve of these corporate types to run colleges. They didn’t understand the classroom, let alone the moral and spiritual work of teaching. It was only about the money to those people, but if the new president could track down where half the school’s endowment had gone, then bless that man’s journey.
Then he dived into Frantz Fanon with Pat. It had been some years, but Uncle Root was working his way back through the postcolonial canon. He liked to read things at least three times, and now that he was retired, he had his leisure moments. But he hoped Pat knew that so much of Fanon’s ideology was stolen from Du Bois. It was true, and when the old man turned to his ancient story about meeting his hero, the tale changed. This time, the great scholar had entered Miss Fauset’s room as Uncle Root sat there drinking his tea.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “That’s not right.”
“This is my story, Ailey,” he said. “I think I know how it goes.”
“You’ve told me this story six times, and you never said you saw him again. You only said he was an asshole.”
Both men shouted my name.
“What?” I asked.
“You can’t call him that,” Pat said. “That’s like cussing in church.”
“Last I heard, W. E. B. Du Bois was not Black Jesus,” I said. “But I see the two of y’all are getting along.”
“And why wouldn’t we?” the old man asked. “This young man comes from very good stock. Now let me get back to my tale. You didn’t hear all the facts, Ailey, because you were barely a teenager when you first heard this. I didn’t want to shock you. But yes, indeed, the great scholar walked into Miss Fauset’s room, without knocking. He called her ‘Jessie.’ And she called him ‘Will.’ And then . . .” The old man mustered a longer-than-usual dramatic pause, before flinging his arms wide. “They both began speaking in French!”
“Um . . . what’s so scandalous about that?” I asked.
“Brother Patrick, your young lady has told me that you are a Francophile. Will you explain the significance of that exchange to her?”
Pat put his arm around me. He kissed the top of my head. “I sure will. See, Ailey, two Americans didn’t need to speak in a foreign language unless they were trying to hide something from the other people in the room.”
I leaned away and looked up at him. “Maybe they were being fancy.”
“Or maybe they were having an affair. After all, baby, French is the language of love.”
My cheeks warmed as the old man told us, there were more than enough tidbits about that affair in the latest biography of the great scholar. All one had to do was put the clues together.
“So, wait,” I said. “You really think them two were messing around? But Dr. Du Bois was married!”
The old man shrugged. He sighed. He had never wanted to speak ill of the great scholar when I was younger, but now I was old enough to hear the truth, that Dr. Du Bois had been a well-known Lothario. So many mistresses—so many—all over the country: white women, Negro women, young and old. He’d given Mrs. Du Bois such trouble over the decades, causing scandals. And imagine how Miss Fauset had felt, when she’d really been his junior wife! Or would have been, over in Africa. Those two poor, long-suffering women. It was awful, the way the great scholar had mistreated them, all the while writing essays about the need to protect the equal rights of Negro women. Such rank hypocrisy, but still, Dr. Du Bois had been a brilliant man who’d labored in the service of our people. And all extraordinary human beings had their faults.