“At least you’ve been to Taliesin,” he continued, returning his attention to Charles William. “When I saw it, I thought, the second movement of Beethoven’s Sixth. Turns out to be one of his favorite pieces of music, naturally. They were awfully kind to me. A genius. Well, bring the books up here and let’s get them wrapped. Education. How can they call what they’re doing education. Nursemaids and sycophants. Villains and cutthroats, greed and ambition in the academy. I knew it would come to that, but what can you do? Milk toast instead of Latin. There won’t be a Sanskrit scholar left in the world by the time I die. It’s gone out of favor in India. That’s what happens when the class system poisons a culture. Too many people everywhere.” He was wrapping the books.

“I took Latin,” I said. “I took it for four years. They made me go to three high schools but I still got educated. I educated myself. I took anything hard they had wherever I went to school. I love Latin. I translated the whole Gallic Wars I think. I still have the books.”

“A shaft of light. Well, let me add this up.” He took the books Irise and Charles William had and began to add up the prices on a pad of paper. He continued to talk and mutter as he added. “Take this phonograph record to Derry. It’s Debussy, something I’m lending her. And this.” He handed a magazine to me. It was Jet magazine, a magazine about black people. I opened it curiously to a page with a bookmark in it. There was a photograph of a child whose face had been beaten and disfigured. I stared in disbelief at the photograph. Charles William and Irise were looking over my shoulder. No one said anything. We just looked at the photograph and read the words. Emmett Till. “The men who did that got off scot-free,” Donald said. “They gave an interview last month and told how they did it. They sold the interview for four thousand dollars. Take it to Derry. She needs a copy for something. This is where we are, children. This is the dark side of our coin. Go on, look a long time and remember.”

“It’s a terrible picture,” Irise said at last. “Why did they do this, Donald?”

“He was accused of flirting with a white woman. He was fourteen.”

“Rhoda and I saw the Klan,” Charles William said. “I wanted her to see it. She knows it now, don’t you, Rhoda?”

“Isn’t it against the law?” I asked. “They don’t arrest them?”