Page 23 of The Heart of a Woman

  "My dear. You will never return to this theater. You have just closed."

  I looked at Jim Baldwin.- Vus's statement was as shocking as Bernstein's rejection. I knew that Jim would understand that I couldn't simply not return to the the theater. He would explain that as a member of Equity, the theatrical union, I was obliged to give at least two weeks' notice. Jim was silent. Although we three stood in arm's reach of each other, he watched Vus and me as if we were screen actors and he was sitting apart in a distant auditorium.

  I said, "I can't close without giving notice. My union will have me up on charges. Bernstein can sue me . . ."

  Vus walked away to the pavement's edge and hailed a taxi. I whispered to Jim, "Tell him I can't do that. Please explain. He doesn't understand."

  Jim grinned, his big eyes flashing with enjoyment. "He under­stands, Maya. He understands more about what Bernstein has done than you. Don't worry, you'll be all right."

  We crowded into the back seat of the cab. Vus leaned toward the driver.

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  "Take us, please, to the nearest Western Union office."

  The driver hesitated for a few seconds, then started his motor and drove us to Broadway. On the ride, Vus and Jim leaned across me, agreeing on the bloody arrogance of white folks. It was ironic that the producer of a play which exposed white greed so elo­quently could himself be such a glutton. Whether we were in the mines of South Africa, or the liberal New York theater, nothing changed. Whites wanted everything. They thought they deserved everything. That they wanted to possess all the materials of the earth was in itself disturbing, but that they also wanted to control the souls and the pride of people was inexplicable.

  We walked into the Western Union office. Jim and I stood talking while Vus filled out a form.

  He handed it to the telegraph operator. When the man finished copying the message, Vus paid and then, taking the form back, he walked over to us and read aloud: "Mrs. Maya Angelou Make will not be returning to The Blacks or the St. Mark's Playhouse. She resists the exploitation of herself and her people. She has closed. Signed, Vusumzi Linda Make, Pan African Con­gress, Johannesburg, South Africa. Currently Petitioner at United Nations."

  Vus continued. "That will be the last you will hear of those people, my dear. Unless Bernstein wants an international inci­dent."

  Jim laughed out loud. "See, Maya Angelou, I told you, you have nothing to worry about."

  We walked out of the office, and linking arms, strolled into the nearest bar.

  The fat Xhosa, the thin New Yorker and the tall Southerner drank all night and exchanged unsurprising stories on the theme of white aggression and black vulnerability. And somehow we laughed.

  I sat beside the telephone the next day. The hangover and drama of leaving the show made me quick and ready to blast the ears of Bernstein, or Frankel or Glanville or anyone who would dare call me about Vus's telegram. The telephone never rang.

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  Black and white activists began to press hard on the nation's conscience. In Monroe, North Carolina, Rob Williams was op­posing a force of white hatred, and encouraged black men to arm and protect themselves and their homes and families. Mae Mal-lory, a friend from the U.N. protest, had joined Rob. Julian Mayfield, the author of The Big Hit and Grand Parade, wrote a stinging article on Williams' position and then traveled South to lend his physical support. Stokely Carmichael and James Fore­man founded a new group, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an offshoot of the Southern resistance organizations, and were taking the freedom struggle into hamlets and villages, where white hate was entrenched and black acceptance of inferior status a historic norm. Malcolm X continued to appear on na­tional television. Newspapers were filled with reports of tributes to Martin Luther King and editorials honoring his nonviolent ideology. The white liberal population was growing. White stu­dents joined black students in Freedom Rides traveling on public conveyances to Southern towns which were racist strongholds.

  Ralph Bunche was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and had received the Nobel Prize for his work as mediator in the Palestine conflict. When his son was denied membership in the all-white Forest Hills Tennis Club, Dr. Bunche made a statement which revealed his insight. The internationally respected representative, who had a-complexion light-colored enough to allow him to pass for white, said, "I know now that until the lowliest Negro share­cropper in the South is free, I am not free."

  Ossie Davis' play Purlie Victorious opened on Broadway, and his wife Ruby Dee, as the petite Lutie Belle, had white audiences howling at their own ignorance and greed. Paule Marshall's Soul Clap Hands and Sing was published, and readers were treated to well-written stories of black hope, despair and defeat. John Kil-lens' And Then We Heard the Thunder, exposed the irony of

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  black soldiers fighting for a white country in a segregated army. Baldwin's The Fire Next Time was an unrelenting warning that racism was not only homicidal but it was also suicidal. In Little Rock, Daisy Bates had led nine children into a segregated white high school and when the Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus, or­dered local police to prevent the students' entry, President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to keep the peace.

  Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba were performing fund-raising concerts for the freedom struggle. Max and Abbey traveled around the country doing their "Freedom Now Suite."

  Guy was totally occupied with school, SANE, Ethical Culture and girls. Vus traveled to and from East Africa, West Africa, London and Algeria, and I sat at home. I had no job and only the spending money Vus had left. My departure from the SCLC had been so hasty, I was embarrassed to go back and offer my services even as a volunteer. I was not a Muslim nor a student, so there was no place for me either in Malcolm X's organization or in SNCC. I withdrew from my friends and even the Harlem Writers Guild.

  At last Vus returned from his latest extended trip. As usual, he brought gifts for me and Guy, and stories which had us tense with excitement and open-mouthed with admiration. My present was a blouse and an orange silk sari. He was delicate and assured when he wrapped the cloth around my hips and draped the end over my shoulders. I didn't ask where or how he had learned the technique. I was becoming a good African wife.

  We walked into the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the quiet was intimidating. Tuxedoed white men held the elbows of expensively dressed white women, and they made no noise as they glided over the carpeted floor. I held on to Vus's arm and, dressed in my orange sari, stretched my head and neck upward until I added a few more inches to my six-foot frame. Vus had taught me a little Xhosa, and I spoke clearly and loudly in the click language. When we entered the elevator I felt all those white eyes

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  on my back. I was an African in the bastion of white power, and my black King would protect me.

  The Sierra Leone's ambassador's suite was festive with brown-and black-colored people in African dress and the melodies of Ghanaian High Life music. Vus took me to the ambassador, who was standing with a group of women near the window.

  The ambassador saw Vus and beamed. "Ah, Mr. Make. Wel­come. Ladies, I would like you to meet our revolutionary brother from South Africa, Vusumzi Make." Vus smiled and bowed, the light catching his cheekbones, and causing his hair to glisten.

  He straightened up and spoke, "Your Excellency, I present my wife, Maya Angelou Make."

  The ambassador took my hand. "She is beautiful, Make." He also bowed. "Madam Make, we have heard of you in Africa. Mr. Make has done the continent a great service. Welcome."

  I shook hands with the ambassador and each of the women and suddenly found the crowd had dispersed. I saw Vus near a table where a uniformed bartender mixed drinks. The ambassador was dancing with a pretty little woman in a very low-cut cocktail dress and I was left at the window. A roving waiter offered a tray of drinks. I chose a glass of wine and looked down on the lights of New York.

  Strange languages swirled around me, and the smell of a s
pice, known among Arkansas blacks as bird pepper, became strong in the room. I stopped the waiter and took a glass of Scotch from his tray. Vus had taken over from the ambassador and now he was dancing with the little sexy woman, holding her too close, gazing too deeply in her eyes. I found the waiter in a group of laughing guests, took another Scotch and went back to the window to drink and think.

  I had a fresh haircut and was wearing the prettiest outfit I owned. I could speak French and Spanish very well and could talk intelligently on a number of subjects. I knew national politics intimately and international subjects moderately well. I was mar­ried to a leading African freedom fighter and had daubed French

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  perfume on my body, discreetly. Yet, no one talked to me. I had another drink.

  The lights on the street had begun to blur, but I could see clearly that Vus was still dancing with the woman. I would have known what to do if the party had been given by Afro-Americans, or even if there had been a few Afro-American guests. Or if the African guests had all been female. But Vus was successfully teaching me that there was a particular and absolute way for a woman to approach an African man. I only knew how a wife addressed an African husband. I didn't know how to start a conversation with a male stranger, but I did know I was certainly getting drunk. If I could eat soon, I could stop the fast-moving effect effect of alcohol on my brain and body. I headed for the kitchen.

  I nearly collided with the ambassador. He backed away and smiled. "Madam Make, I hope you're enjoying yourself."

  I made myself smile. "Thank you, Your Excellency," and con­tinued.

  A black woman in a housedress was bent over, taking baking tins from the oven. When she straightened and saw me, she made her face and voice flat.

  "Can I help you, ma'am?" Her Southern accent was strong.

  "I just wanted a bite of something. Anything."

  "Ma'am, they will be serving in a few minutes."

  "Are you the ambassador's wife?" My question might have sounded stupid, considering the way she was dressed. But I knew that sometimes the chores of party-giving could increase so that guests arrived before the last tasks were done and the hostess had the time to change.

  The woman laughed loudly. "Me? God, no. Madam Ambassa­dor? Me?" She laughed, opening her mouth wide, her tongue wiggled. "No, ma'am. I am a Negro. I am the cook." She turned back to the stove, her body shaking with glee. She muttered. "Me?"

  I waited until she turned to me again.

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  "May I give you a hand? I am also a cook." The laughter left her face* as she examined me. Her gaze slid from my hair and gold earrings, to my necklace and dress and hands.

  "No, honey. Maybe you can cook, but you ain't no cook."

  I pulled out a chair from the dinette table and sat down. She was right about my profession, but we were both black, both American, and women.

  I said, "I'm married to an African, who is out there danc­ing the slow grind with some broad. And nobody's talked to me. So . . ."

  She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. She said, "Honey, mens, they ain't gone change. You need a little sip." A drink was the last thing I needed, but she reached down alongside the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of gin from her purse. She poured lavishly into a coffee cup. I took it while she sloshed a little gin into her cup and raised it to me.

  "Honey, we women got to stick together. I mean." She swal­lowed the gin, made a face and growled and I followed her example.

  "Sit down and take it easy." She turned and stirred a pot of bubbling sauce, still talking to me over her shoulder.

  "What you going to do about it? You welcome to sit in here, but sooner or later, you're going to have to go out there and face him. But help yourself to the gin."

  I did.

  The cook was ladling chili into a large Chinese bowl when Vus came through the kitchen door. The steam and the booze un­focused my eyes. When I saw him loom through the mist, I started laughing. He reminded me of Aladdin's Djinn, only big­ger.

  Maybe the cook's gin bottle was a lamp, and I had certainly been rubbing it.

  Vus stood over me, asking what I was laughing about. But each time I inhaled so that I could explain, Vus seem to grow larger as if he were somehow connected to my breathing, and laughter would contract my chest and I couldn't say a word.

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  Vus walked out of the room, and the cook came to me.

  "That was your husband?" I nodded, still laughing.

  "Well, child, you better get to stepping. He's fat. When a fat man gets mad, huh. I don't care if he's African or not. Ain't no fat man in the world wants to be laughed at." She handed me my purse. The sound of her voice had a small sobering effect, but when I tried to tell her why I had been laughing, I began to giggle again.

  "You better go out of here, child, before that man comes back. I saw his face and it wasn't funny."

  Finally, her advice reached my active brain. I got up, thanked her and walked from the kitchen through the living room door out into the hall. I pressed the elevator button and as the doors opened Vus burst out of the apartment, saw me and came run­ning down the hall, shouting, telling me to wait. We both stepped into the half-filled elevator.

  Vus began to talk. I was his wife, the wife of an African leader. I had embarrassed him. Sitting in the kitchen, getting drunk with the cook. When he tried to talk to me, I had laughed in his face. No African lady would bring such disgrace on her husband. I looked at the other people in the elevator, but they averted their white faces. As neither Vus nor I existed in their real world, they simply had to wait until we reached the ground floor and then our sounds and shadows would disappear.

  Vus kept up his tirade as the elevator stopped on our descent, picking up people from other floors. When we reached the lobby, the other passengers scattered like snowflakes. I walked, with my head high, toward the front entrance. Vus was following me, talking, ranting, saying what shame I had brought onto his head, to his name, to his family. What a disappointment I was. How disrespectful I was to a son of Africa.

  Deciding not to go out into the street, I turned sharply from the revolving doors and headed back to the elevators. Vus's voice, which had been a rumbling monotone, suddenly lifted.

  "Where are you going? Not back to the party. I forbid you. You are my wife. We are going home." At the elevator, I made a quick

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  pivot and walked in the direction of the registration desk, Vus following in my wake, still talking.

  The desk clerks, dressed as formally as expensive morticians, thrust long mournful faces at me. I walked past them haughtily. Vus grabbed for my arm but only brushed my sleeve. I snatched away from him and lengthened my stride. When I reached the front doors the second time I looked over my shoulder and saw that his face was bathed in sweat. With an oblique turn, I dodged a small group of white men entering the lobby and increased my speed. Vus's breath came harder and his sentences were short explosions. "Stop! Foolish woman! Moron! Idiot!" I might be all those things or none, but he wasn't going to catch me. I began to sprint. I ran around the sofas, making guests draw their legs out of the way. Vus was lumbering less than a foot behind me. A desk clerk's face suddenly appeared at my side, anxious and gulping. We could have been two underwater swimmers in a clear pool. With just a little energy, I quickly outdistanced him. Vus shouted, "Don't touch her. She's my wife." He stressed the pos­sessive.

  A conservatively dressed black man stood in my way. I ran straight toward him but at the last second I veered, and he pulled his attache case up, and cradled it in his arms. I heard his sigh of relief after I passed him.

  When I reached the bank of elevators again, I looked back. Vus was nearly in arm's reach. The desk clerk followed him, and behind the desk clerk, a uniformed policeman and a grey-suited man, whom I took to be the manager, brought up the rear. The cop's presence gave me added energy. This seemed as a good a time as I was ever likely to get. I would show that if I didn't h
ave to dodge bullets, if it was a fair race, just me and him, I could outrun any New York policeman. I hitched my purse in my armpit and stretched my legs.

  Shouts floated around the lobby "Stop her!" and Vus's "Don't touch her" and "Who is she?"

  Startled guests stood together under the crystal chandelier, as

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  we wound through the lobby. I screamed back, "All of you can go to hell."

  An empty revolving-door section was moving slowly, so I dove into it and pushed quickly. I heard a thud, and when I stepped out onto the pavement, I looked through the side window. I saw Vus, the clerk and the policeman had hit the door at the same time and tumbled into a heap on the floor. At that moment I turned and saw a woman get out of a taxi. Before she could slam the door, I ran and jumped into the cab.