The Black Rose

by Tananarive Due

  But a faint voice deep inside Sarah’s head wondered if Miss Bowen from Mt. Miegs School in Alabama might have a good point. An itching scalp was one thing, but could hair-straightening really just be another way of trying to look white? Some misguided Negroes nowadays were even trying to bleach their skin! Sarah hated to think it, but she didn’t doubt that if Negroes could somehow make themselves white tomorrow, the next World’s Fair would need a special exhibition on the nearly extinct American Negro.

  But Sarah forgot her fear that she might secretly be ashamed of being a Negro as soon as Mrs. Margaret Murray Washington finally took the stage. Mrs. Washington sauntered with every bit of self-assurance as had her husband, yet with the grace and modesty of a woman. She was fair-skinned, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. Sarah recognized the materials of her black one-piece dress as chiffon and taffeta, and the dress was perfectly creased and complemented by a string of gray pearls that hung from her neck. Her expression was solemn, yet her features were kind. And her hair, not quite straight, but not quite kinky, was pinned with precision atop her head.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” the woman began, and her voice reminded Sarah of the tones Etta had used when she was demonstrating to Lelia how actresses delivered their lines on the Broadway stages of New York. “We have so much work before us, and yet we are so lovely a people that my heart swells with pride as I stand before you. We have a problem at hand.”

  Then Mrs. Washington began to rail against the group’s planned visit to the Colored Women’s Day exercises at the World’s Fair. Despite her husband’s speech there so recently, she insisted that the fair was discriminating against Negroes by not offering them employment. “Certain of our race have been refused refreshments and other privileges at the World’s Fair accorded to every other group of people, simply on the ground of color,” she said, her voice trembling with anger. “So I am introducing a resolution to this effect. I say we should not spend our money to support a fair that does not value our patronage.”

  Her words caused an explosion in the room. Sarah’s fellow church members and others from St. Louis couldn’t believe she would try to rob the organization of its chance to see the fair, but the residents from other parts of the country sided with Mrs. Washington. And, though she kept her tongue, so did Sarah. Sarah watched the exchange in silence, more and more impressed by Mrs. Washington’s fervor. The woman never once lost her temper, presenting her arguments with convincing logic.

  I’d like to be a woman like that, Sarah thought, watching her. What would she give to be so fearless, such a refined beacon to her people, and a partner to a powerful and respected man? But Sarah also felt the growing realization that her distance from the stage where Mrs. Washington stood was so great that she might well be insane to ever hope to cross it.

  By the next day, when Sarah was again lugging her cart of clean laundry toward the squalor of the Eads Bridge, a sense of hopelessness had taken hold of her. Her back and arms ached from pulling the cart, and she could no longer attach her spirit to the sense of power and promise she had felt so strongly before. She was just a lowly colored woman with a cart of laundry, in an endless stream of other colored women who carried their laundry bundled on their heads. She’d devised a cart for the job, but that didn’t make her superior to the other washerwomen, Sarah reminded herself. Neither did her next-day service. Or her thoroughness. She was still working herself to the bone every bit as much as they were, and possibly even more.

  To make things worse, Lela was hemming and hawing about not being ready to go away to school yet, and Sarah was beginning to wonder if her daughter would ever be ready. Maybe Lela should start courting and try to find a man to provide for her, Sarah thought, because she didn’t know if her heart could bear it if Lela ended up washing her whole life, too.

  Those thoughts weighed hard on Sarah’s mind as she passed the gritty-looking hay carts, crates, and horse carriages that were crowded near the bridge, looking so drab and awful in comparison to the prettiness of the fair-grounds. Sarah liked the vibrance of city life, but on days like today she also missed the open feeling of the countryside where she’d grown up. Here, smokestacks spewed thick black clouds into the air, irritating her eyes, and she gazed with disgust at the piles of garbage gathering in corners. Was this all life had to offer?

  There were puddles left over from the morning’s rain, so Sarah had to walk close to the side to avoid flying water and mud from carriages and occasional automobiles that went past her. Drivers didn’t pay any mind to a colored woman with her laundry, Sarah thought. Don’t be thinkin’ thoughts like that, Sarah. They’re jus’ like poison to the heart, she tried to remind herself, but her mind was stuck feeling mean and angry.

  Finally, unable to tolerate her aches a moment longer, Sarah stopped walking midway across the bridge, pausing to catch her breath. Where she stood, all of St. Louis was spread out before her—the intersecting streets, rows of homes, factories, alleys. She could even see the fair’s far-off Observation Wheel, though it was frozen in the air, not spinning today because it was Sunday and the fair was closed. Sarah felt stuck, just like that big wheel. Even when it was moving, it spun all day long, and for what? It never went anywhere.

  A pressing heat began rising in Sarah’s chest, and she knew she was close to tears. All right, then, you jus’ stand here an’ feel sorry for yourself, Sarah Breedlove McWilliams.

  Why not? She had as much right as anyone. Parents dead before she could even fix them in her memory good, the most loving man she’d ever known stolen from her, a sister and brother far away (and Alex’s health was failing, he’d written), a daughter bent on doing things her own way, and aching muscles on top of that. Sarah swallowed back an anguished sob.

  You can’t think of no more than that? How ’bout you still ain’t learned to read as good as you wanted, an’ you look ’bout as raggedy as they come? Now you know what a real lady looks like, an’ you’re only fit to wash her clothes!

  This time Sarah’s sob broke to the surface of her throat, scraping it raw. But she shook her head hard, trying to prevent any more sobs from escaping. Imagine her nerve to stand up here crying! How could she, after those great speeches she’d heard? Hadn’t they meant anything at all?

  With that, Sarah gazed down nearly sixty feet into the rushing brown current of the Mississippi River, which had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. Her papa had taught her to fish in these waters, her mother had washed clothes in them, and it was still there running beneath her feet. Still there. So why not do exactly what Dr. Washington had said in his speech? Why not cast a bucket down?

  I ain’t got no damn bucket, the angry voice inside Sarah railed. An’ that water’s so bad you got to let it settle overnight ’fore you can skim off the good parts to drink.

  But Sarah knew that voice was lying to her. The voice was afraid of something. Hard work? Well, she’d been working hard her whole life, so why not work toward something she really wanted? Was she afraid maybe Dr. Washington was wrong? Well, if he was, so be it. It would pain her more to give up than to keep on going, she realized. She could live with failing a lot better than she would be able to live with herself if she tried to smother her deepest hopes.

  Inhaling deeply, Sarah tried to come up with a plan for what she needed to put on her Wish Board next, and her mind kept going back to her hair. She wanted to find something that would make her troubles go away, and she wanted to help others with the same problem.

  “Poro,” she said aloud. She’d bought the jar she was using right from a woman in St. Louis who sold it door-to-door, she remembered. Why shouldn’t she do that, too? She had a little extra time, and she could make good money selling something people were so eager to buy. Rosetta wasn’t the only friend she had who was using Poro! She’d learn to sell Poro the same way Moses had tried to teach her to sell fried catfish, by raising up her voice and making folks believe they had to have what she was selling.

  But did Poro rea
lly work?

  Sarah still wasn’t sure. Maybe it did, because she’d heard it said that Annie T. Malone had some chemistry training, and that was how she’d discovered a formula for hair. Chemistry! Sarah had barely finished her business course and was still struggling to read when she’d left school, and she’d certainly never progressed as far as the sciences. Education made all the difference, didn’t it? Maybe …

  Sarah knew where that voice was coming from, too. She and Lela had tried a lot of combinations in Sarah’s search for a hair formula, with Sarah keeping track of them in her mind like cooking recipes, and none of them had been quite right. Something was always missing. What did Annie T. Malone know that she didn’t? Was it really that hard to find a good formula, with so many ads in the newspaper from others who’d done it?

  No, Sarah thought, feeling strangely certain. She could do it, too. Of course she could.

  Sarah took the rope of her cart again and gave it a pull to finish her journey across the bridge and get her clothes delivered. Her heart felt nearly as light as it had the day before, and she ignored her aches this time because her mind was in a flurry of thought. She would find out how she could start selling Poro, that was the first thing. She could knock on her neighbors’ doors in the early evenings, when her washing was finished. That would give her some extra money to buy ingredients. What was the name for that she’d learned in business class? Those raw ingredients would be her capital investment. Then, come hell or high water, she would find her own hair treatment, something she could believe in with all her heart, and start selling that instead.

  Now she had a plan! Sarah couldn’t wait to finish her work and get back home so she could tell Lela and put it up on her Wish Board. Her Wish Board really did seem to have a way of making things come to life, she thought.

  Maybe my bucket’s already been cast down a long time, Sarah realized. An’ now all the good water’s floated up top so’s I can finally start takin’ my drink.

  Sarah wasn’t sure exactly how she would do it … but somehow she knew she surely would.

  Chapter Fourteen

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  Dearest Lou,

  Word has just Reached me from Denver to say we have lost our brother Alex. I can’t find Words for what I feel as I write this. I know we have not seen much of him in these past years in fact we have not seen each other either. But we did not see Alex much since we were young and it feels like a terible Shame. I feel I have lost somthing I did not yet know I had until it was gone. I hope he had Peace. I am sending some money for his Family and I hope you will do the same. I have not met his Wife but she has sent me very nice letters. I was so sad to read this one.

  Me and Lelia both miss Aunt Lou!!

  Much love,

  Sarah

  With her hand unsteady and her eyes strangely dry of tears, Sarah wrote the letter to her sister on her kitchen table the same afternoon she received word of Alex’s sudden death from pneumonia. The funeral date was long past by the time Sarah received the neatly written note from his widow, and she knew it would be an even more distant event by the time Louvenia received her letter and wrote back to her. All of them would have to mourn alone.

  Suddenly Sarah had a vivid image of her parents’ bodies being carried out of the Delta cabin, wrapped in the blankets from their bed and then tied with rope around their necks, waists, and feet. Then she remembered a burning, and people singing songs, but she could see little else in her memory. All she really remembered was how she couldn’t believe her mama and papa were wrapped inside those blankets, being carried over men’s shoulders like bags of seed.

  Then, slowly, another image surfaced: Alex hugging her and Lou over the grave site, looking so tall in Papa’s hat, betraying no evidence of tears because he was trying so hard to show his sisters that he was man enough to provide for them. Oh, yes, she remembered that!

  Today, news of Alex’s death seemed far away and long ago, as if it had nothing to do with her or that family of dazed children huddled over their parents’ graves. And there would be no hug between her and Lou to mourn Alex, either. That, in some ways, hurt Sarah almost as much as the passing of her brother, her Papa’s only son. Almost.

  Sarah sighed from her deepest places, but she still didn’t shed any tears.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt Lelia wrap her arms around her neck from behind, leaning close to her. Lelia stayed there, hugging her mother’s neck, for a long, comforting minute, perhaps even two. She didn’t say anything, probably because she was old enough to understand that she didn’t need to. Sarah grasped her daughter’s hand, squeezing tight. In that instant, Sarah was so grateful to have Lela with her that her entire frame gave a violent shudder.

  “It’s all right, Mama,” Lela said softly, at last. “I’ll go mail the letter for you. I could’ve written it, too, if you wanted.”

  Sarah shook her head. She almost said, Mama would’ve wanted me to do it my own self, but she didn’t. Lela wouldn’t understand that, and she couldn’t even begin to explain.

  That night, in the midst of her sadness, Sarah had the most vivid dream of her life.

  In her dream, she was standing near her family’s cabin in Delta, kneedeep in crabgrass, alongside the rutted muddy roads she’d traveled so often as a child. She even thought she could smell the sweet scent of elderberries in her nostrils, and hear the currents of the Mississippi River rushing just beyond the knoll behind the cabin, the way it had before her parents died. The river ain’t changed course yet, she thought to herself with amazement, forgetting she was dreaming.

  As she gazed toward her cabin, her father suddenly appeared in his rocking chair, gazing toward the sky. Then Mama and Alex were there, too, sitting on the wooden step beside him, telling each other stories as they swatted flies from their faces. Sarah wanted to go hear their stories, but every time she took a step toward them, she felt herself drawing farther away, and a mist began to float in front of the cabin, obscuring their faces.

  “Papa!” Sarah shouted.

  “Right here, Li’l Bit,” her father yelled back, sounding as if he were calling to her from a distant part of a cotton field the way croppers used to shout to each other on the wind to carry their voices. Calling the wind, Papa had called it. Sarah could barely hear him. She wanted to tell him to speak more loudly, but then he called out again, faintly: “Go on, now, Sarah. It’s time!”

  Yes, Sarah realized, Papa was right. It was time.

  Then, as much as Sarah wanted to join her family at the cabin, she found herself turning away from them, walking the familiar path toward the shallow bathing creek. This was why she had come, she realized.

  A black-skinned man was sitting naked in the creek, his arms folded around his knees. He looked as tall as Moses, but also much broader, built with thick, solid muscles across his chest and arms. His bald head gleamed. In fact, his whole body seemed to glisten, either from the creek’s water or his own perspiration. He was beautiful. Sarah had never attached the word beautiful to a man, but this one was. His skin was the color of midnight. She felt her body glowing warm, drawn to this dark man she realized must certainly be an African.

  The man raised his hand, beckoning her slowly with one finger. At first, startled, Sarah shook her head. She couldn’t go to him!

  What are you afraid of? he asked her, except that he somehow spoke to her without moving his lips. His white teeth were shining at her from his beautiful black face. His teeth were nearly blinding. Suddenly Sarah couldn’t think of a thing she was afraid of, not a single thing. Tentatively Sarah took a step toward the creek—and suddenly the creek drew right up to her and she was standing on the bank. Here, standing over the clear water, she could see the man’s naked manhood, and her face grew warm, too.

  “I know what you seek,” the man said, and this time he did speak aloud.

  “How do you know?” she asked him. Her own voice sounded melodic to her.

  “You told me,” he said.
>
  Sarah knelt alongside the creek and let her hand slip into the cool water. Sure enough, she felt her hand begin to tingle, and the tingle traveled throughout her entire frame. She shuddered, grateful, relieved, ecstatic. She longed to dive in beside the African and luxuriate in the water with him, but she didn’t dare leave the bank. Sarah realized she could no longer see the features of the man’s face, only his mesmerizing smile. She had never seen teeth so perfect.

  “This is for you, my princess,” the man said, and he held between his fingers the thorny stem of a rose. But Sarah had never seen a rose like this one; unlike the red and yellow roses Lou used to grow in Vicksburg to decorate her table, this one was shiny and a deep violet color, almost black. Yes, she realized with wonder, it was black. It gleamed like the man’s skin.

  The mere sight of the extraordinary rose brought tears to Sarah’s eyes.

  “Look around you,” the man told her. His voice was brother, father, lover. “Look all around you, Sarah.”

  So she did. She lifted her eyes, and her family’s little cabin was gone. Instead, stretching as far as she could see, there was a field of roses in full bloom, all of them as black as the one in the African man’s hand. They swayed gently in rolling waves, a black ocean, their lovely buds swollen open toward the sky. There must have been thousands! More than Sarah could begin to count.

  “Where did they come from?” Sarah asked the man, amazed.

  “Come from?” The man laughed, extending the single rose in his hand toward her. “Where do you think they come from? They’ve always been here.”

  But I’ve never seen all these flowers here, Sarah thought in her dream, puzzled. There was only cotton in this field before. How come I ain’t never seen them?

  Then, suddenly, Sarah was awake. The last thing she remembered was taking the stem to raise the flower to her nose and smell it. But then she’d pricked her finger, and the sharp sensation had awakened her with a gasp and a start.