Lancelot

reconciled poor white sharecroppers, poor black sharecroppers, overseers, sheriffs, blacks, whites, and the half-caste girl, who was accepted by neither race. They have come to rescue the planter, played by Merlin, and his daughter the librarian, played by Margot, from the hurricane. The planter, however, fixed in his ancient prejudices and secretly liking the apocalyptic fury of the hurricane, decides to remain. He also expects his daughter to stay with him. The daughter decides to leave her father and go with the stranger. It is the farewell scene between father and daughter. After the farewell, the planter, who is not so much prejudiced as indifferent, caught up by aesthetic rather than social concerns, returns to the house alone, to his organ. Crashing chords of a Chopin polonaise fuse with the mounting fury of the hurricane.
    â€œI want more of a Lear-like effect, Bob,” said Jacoby, turning off the hurricane machine after one of many takes. “You know, mad king raging on the heath, wild-eyed, hair blowing.”
    â€œYeah, right, Lear, okay,” said Merlin ironically, but Jacoby missed the irony.
    Before the shooting began. I went to the bank and withdrew $75,000 from Margot’s and my checking account.
    â€œWhat the hail, Lance?” said Macklin Maury Lamar, my cousin, who was president of the bank.
    â€œWe’re giving it to the American Negro College Fund.”
    â€œAh.”
    I told him this for two reasons. One was that it was the only reason he would believe, believing as he did that I was still a liberal and therefore capable of any madness. (Yet curiously it was for him an understandable madness: you know how old Lance is, etc., etc.)
    The other reason was that my explanation was, in a sense, true.
    â€œYeah,” said Macklin. “A wonderful cause. In fact I agree with you, that’s what they need.”
    What was worrying Macklin was not this particular withdrawal but the likelihood of losing Margot’s and my half-million-dollar checking account. Or my asking him to pay interest.
    â€œHow do you want it, Lance?”
    â€œIn cash. Any denominations.”
    â€œWhy the cash, Lance?” asked Macklin, laughing heartily, eyes worried.
    â€œI’m afraid your bank will blow down tonight. The money will be safer at Belle Isle.”
    â€œThere you go! Ha ha.” Macklin laughed and slapped his side, all the while keeping a sharp eye on me, trying to parse out craziness and horsiness, wondering whether I was ordinarily crazy as he always held me to be or possessed by some new craziness.
    He gave me the $75,000 in hundreds in a locked canvas bag, handing me the little brass key separately.
    After the shooting was finished at Belle Isle and the crew was busy dismantling the hurricane machine and packing their station wagons, I summoned Elgin to the pigeonnier and gave him the $75,000. He unlocked the bag with the little brass key. He looked at the money.
    â€œHow much money is this?”
    â€œSeventy-five thousand dollars.”
    â€œWhat’s it for?”
    â€œIt’s very simple. I have a great deal of money, more than I can use, and there are two things you want.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œOne is to finish your education at M.I.T. despite the fact that your scholarship has run out.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThe other is you want to marry your classmate Ethel Shapiro and buy a house in Woodale, a subdivision of Concord, which though a cradle of American liberty is unwilling to sell houses to blacks or Jews especially blacks married to Jews. Yet you are determined to buy a house there despite all obstacles.”
    â€œNot despite. Because.” Elgin looked down at the money. “Okay. But you don’t owe me anything. I’d have done it for you anyway. It was an interesting problem. Sorry about the tape quality. The color was defective.”
    â€œI liked it that way.”
    â€œThe sound was rotten, too. Jesus, I felt bad about that.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it. It was okay.”
    â€œWell—” said Elgin, standing in the doorway. He was always standing in the doorway.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI have a feeling there is something else. Perhaps a condition.”
    â€œA condition?”
    â€œSomething you want me to do.”
    â€œOnly two things.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLeave now.”
    â€œNow?”
    â€œNow. In the next hour.”
    â€œThe other is, don’t come