Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White

by Claudia Mair Burney

  I looked at her. She kept her eyes on the road. She cussed. Then said she was sorry. “I agreed with ’em. John was a dreamboat. I could think of four or five women from his church—good, educated, hot-looking women who his parents would love—and I set about trying to get that going, girl.”

  “No way.”

  “I loved him. And I wanted him to be happy. More happy than he’d be with a whore.”

  “Former whore.”

  “To some people, if you were once a whore, you’ll always be one. I knew I’d never make the cut with them, and he loved his parents. I didn’t want him to give them up for me, so I let him go.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” she says sarcastically. “Wow.”

  “So what ended up happening?”

  “He became a priest.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did his parents feel about that?”

  “Hated it.”

  We both crack up. It was the way she said it. Billie is hilarious.

  “Girl, you made that poor man turn into a priest, and he still didn’t get his parents’ approval. You might as well have married him.”

  She gives me a wicked grin.

  “What’s that smile about?”

  “Anyway,” she says, ignoring my question, “I know what it feels like to be despised by the parents. At least you have no control over your skin color. I felt like my life was all my fault, whether or not it actually was.”

  Time seems to fly by as Billie and I talk about everything. We whiz down 96 until we hit the downtown area. Finally, we pull up to a lovely old Arts and Crafts house somewhere near Grand Circus Park.

  “Welcome to the Beloved Community,” she says.

  “It’s smaller than I thought.”

  She shakes her head and laughs. “Well, this is just one house of many that’s part of our community. This is a kinda modified House of Hospitality. You familiar with those?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’s a Catholic Worker thing.” She thinks about it. “No, really, it’s a Jesus thing. We wanted to offer hospitality to the stranger. Remember how Jesus said in Matthew 25:35, ‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in’?”

  “Yes. So, you help who? Poor or homeless people?”

  “Not always. In our community, a stranger is a person who, for whatever reason, is disconnected from love. Sure, if you don’t have a place to lay your head you’re certainly most likely disconnected from love, but people who seem to have everything can be ‘the stranger.’ You can have the best designer clothes and drive a fancy car and live in the biggest mansion but feel like nobody is listening to you. Or you can be just lonely for some reason you don’t even know. We give meals and clothes, a place to sleep, and a little hand up. We even give a handout or two. But sometimes a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup with somebody to listen to your story is what people need most. And we give them that.”

  God knows I need that. If that’s the criteria for being a stranger—being disconnected from love—I’ve never been more strange in my life.

  Billie keeps talking. “Sometimes, a girl just doesn’t want to sleep on the darned floor again and look at those blue walls, no matter how pretty the blue is. And she doesn’t want to sleep on the air mattress her boyfriend bought for makin’ whoopee. We’d like to make her feel welcome too.” She shakes her head. “Makin’ whoppee! I’m showing my age now, baby.” She chuckles, but I don’t get it. “Anyway, some of our houses are more for the homeless. We welcome the stranger, but some strangers are stranger than others. Even with hospitality there are issues. Sometimes it just gets darned—” I can tell she really wants to cuss. “It gets darned hard, Zora. Hosts get tired. Guests get crazy. We try to be Jesus to them, but we’re not. God knows I’m not my husband. I’m always ready to give a smackdown. I have to apologize to somebody every day. But I love this life. It’s the hardest grace to come by, and I love it.”

  We get out of the van and walk up to the house. Before we even get on the porch the door opens and Billie runs into the arms of a man and gives him a fierce kiss. The kind I gave Nicky.

  He’s a black man. A good one. Tall. And fine. Brotha is into her like he’s gotta serious love jones, and when I see them together it feels like someone takes a pair of vice grips to my heart and tightens it. And not because I’m lonely.

  Billie’s husband is black! She didn’t let on one bit after all our talk about what’s happening to me.

  Few things rankle me like brothas passing over sistahs for the prize of a white woman. And for a moment, I think about all the worthy, beautiful, intelligent sistahs I know who couldn’t get a date with a good black man if they paid for one, and this former hooker—

  Oh, this isn’t feeling good inside of me. Didn’t we just have this conversation? And despite me kissing very blond and white Nicky Parker this very day and loving it, I feel angry that Billie has herself a brotha.

  She practically purrs at him.

  “I was bad today,” she says to her husband.

  “What did you do, Ma?”

  Ouch. He called her Ma in that sweet way the brothas do.

  “I was mean to Zora’s boyfriend. He was trying his game on her. And I called him on it.”

  He pulls her into a hug. “Baby, you can’t judge people.”

  I can’t judge people either, but I am. I am!

  “I know,” she says. “I’ll apologize. But he bought her an air mattress and some prophylactics! You know I couldn’t let that go.”

  Her husband shakes his head. “Air mattress. Lord, have mercy.” He kisses her again. “Now stop smooching and let me meet Zora.”

  He finally disengages himself from Billie long enough to come up to me. I try to hide my disappointment, but it’s all over me like God’s handwriting on the wall. “Hello,” I say, but it sounds cold, though I don’t mean it to. Billie notices, and her own crestfallen gaze finds mine. She’s so tough. Such a broad. I wait for her rebuke, but she doesn’t say anything hard to me.

  She takes me by the hand, and it nearly kills me. “This is my new friend, Zora, who I’ve already told you everything I know about. And as you can see she’s as fabulous as I said. And Zora …” She looks at him with such love and admiration. “This is my husband, Father John Jordan, priest, husband, father, and former condom-and-sandwich guy.”

  I utter a feeble, “I thought priests were celibate.”

  “With a woman like Billie? I’d have changed religions.”

  She howls in laughter, like she’s never heard that joke, although she’s probably heard him say it a million times before.

  “I’m an Orthodox priest. As in Eastern Orthodox. We’re allowed to marry.”

  “Billie’s told me all about you. In a very sneaky way. You two have quite a story.”

  “So do you, I hear. Now come on in the house. Let us show you around.”

  I step into the house, and everything is simple. The furniture is simple. It’s just the kind of place that invites you to come on in and sit a spell. Nothing is too nice or too shabby.

  Billie quips, “It ain’t much, is it?”

  “I kinda like it,” I say.

  “We’ve just got beige walls, but I long for color. I think color is soul feeding, but John is afraid to let me paint.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I say, and the three of us crack up.

  John rubs Billie’s arm. “I let her paint once, and we ended up with a Day-Glo pink family room.”

  “I didn’t realize it was Day-Glo until I got it home. It seemed like a really good deal, and I saw why when I got it on the walls.” She looks at her husband. “But you have to admit. It did brighten the place up.”

  “Billie, it brightened Chicago up.”

  She gives him a playful punch.

  “After that we had to take her off the decorating committee, and she’s been mourning the loss ever since.”

  I keep thinking how weird this all is. He doesn’t seem
like a priest. Not that I’ve ever seen a black priest, Eastern Orthodox or otherwise. He seems like some kind of college professor. I try not to think about how much it bothers me that a catch like him is with Billie, who I just reassured in the van. Former hooker, I told her.

  I’ve always hated it when white people cry reverse racism. I figured the odds were stacked up so far against us whatever we thought or said about them was a trifle by comparison.

  What do You think, Jesus?

  An ache in my heart tells me.

  I don’t think He likes it. But I don’t want to think about it tonight. I just don’t want to be alone, and if that means hanging with Billie and her brotha man, I’ll take it.

  I should have gone with Linda. I’m certain Linda wouldn’t have had a black man hiding in her closet.

  God help me. Nicky was right. I am a racist.

  I suck.

  We get to the dining room, and there’s a huge oblong dining table. It must seat sixteen. Father John says, “This is where we share meals. I don’t think there are many things in the Christian tradition more important than shared meals.”

  “Really?” I say. A procession of shared meals I have known come to mind. I think about the pharisaical Sunday dinners we had at home after church, all elegant and refined, complete with our black servants. We only invited the best of the best; we only hung out with those who had the shine of God’s prosperity on them. And then there was the dinner with Daddy, Mama, and Miles on Thursday night where I gave my father back the Lexus and got in exchange this nothing that is changing everything. The lunch I had with Nicky ended abruptly with him insulting my work. Then the disaster at Nicky’s parents’ house today. “What’s the hype about eating together? The last three shared meals I had left a lot to be desired.”

  “I heard about the last one, Zora, but it may have been an unexpected grace.”

  “I know people have a lot to say about my father’s church, but even there we’ve got the right definition of grace. That’s God’s unmerited, undeserved favor. I didn’t see any grace being passed around today.”

  “Your definition is basically correct, Zora. But grace is much more then that definition can contain. It’s much more than our language can contain.” He pulls out a chair for me. “Have a seat, Zora.”

  Billie seems to know the drill. She hurries to the kitchen and comes back with bread and a bottle of wine.

  “I don’t drink,” I say.

  “Are you an alcoholic?” she asks.

  “Uh. No. I just …”

  “I don’t think God is going to strike you down just because Father wants to make a point.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  Billie sets the wine and basket of bread on the table and disappears once again.

  “Let’s go back to the upper room when Jesus instituted the Eucharist.”

  “Is this some kind of Catholic thing? Billie said something about the Catholic Worker Movement. At our church we don’t—”

  “I know what your church teaches, Zora. I’ve seen your father on television many times. But you take communion, right?”

  “Yes, but it’s not the same way that Catholics do it. And I don’t know anything about your church, Father John. In fact, doesn’t the Bible say that Jesus said, ‘Call no man father’? I don’t even know if I should call you that.”

  He winks at me. “Call me John then.”

  “Okay, John.”

  “In the Holy Orthodox Church we believe that we partake of the mystery of the body and blood of Christ each and every time we share in the mystical supper.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. All my life I’d heard that teaching was wrong, and I wasn’t interested in a theological debate I couldn’t offer anything to. I didn’t want to be converted either. I didn’t come here for that.

  Again, these people seem to be psychic or something.

  “Don’t worry, Zora,” John says. “We’re not trying to convert you. We want to share with you something vital about hospitality. So you can understand why we do this.”

  “Don’t you do it because Jesus said, ‘When I was a stranger you welcomed me,’ like Billie said?”

  “Definitely. But there’s more.” He looks at his wife. “Billie, could you get us some water and the pitcher, dear?”

  Billie returns with a single wine glass in one hand and a basin of water balanced in her arms. She sets the glass and water on the table in front of John. He picks up the glass and pours wine into it.

  “A long time ago,” he says, “on one of the worst nights of His life, Jesus sat with His disciples. He wouldn’t be long in this world after that.” He pauses as if lost in memory. As if he had been there himself. “They sat at a table that I like to think was much like this one. It was there He showed us what hospitality is about.”

  Father John holds up the glass. “But first,” then he sets the glass back down again, “He humbled Himself. He put on the garments of a slave and became a servant to His own disciples. Zora, will you please remove your shoes so that Billie and I may serve you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Billie places her hand on my shoulder. “We want to serve you as Christ did His disciples. May we, please?”

  How can I say no to that kind of request?

  Father John and Billie kneel down before me, and oddly, I feel so sad. I don’t even know why. Billie slides off the black leather ballet slippers another servant of Christ gave me. I feel nervous and my heart palpitates. I’ve read about these kinds of services at Spelman but never participated in one, not even at my grandfather’s church. Daddy abandoned so many of the old traditions. Tradition is almost a dirty word at LLCC. And this isn’t church. This is some weird shelter or halfway house. I don’t know what it is.

  “You have beautiful feet, Zora,” Billie says.

  I start chattering like a fool. “I get a pedicure every week. Or at least I used to. I go to this Korean lady, and I always leave her a good tip because she does a great job.” I jabber on and on because I start feeling choked up because she’s cradling my feet reverently. As if they are sacred. This white lady is about to wash my feet.

  “I’m so sorry, Zora, for all the hateful burdens you carry that my people placed on your beautiful back.”

  I try to pull my feet out of her reach. I don’t want to deal with this stuff right now. She put me on the spot. But she eases my feet so gently into the warm water. And then she starts to cry.

  “I feel that pain you have. I’m so sorry,” she says.

  “You can’t feel it,” I whisper.

  “Not like you do. But I feel it a little. Jesus is giving me just a little bit of it. But He feels all of it, Zora.”

  She keeps dipping her hands in the warm, soothing waters and pouring it onto my feet. Dear God, it feels good. And she’s telling me she’s sorry.

  “And I’m sorry for taking one of your men. I know you’re angry at me for it. I just fell in love with him. How could I not? He gave me so much love. And nobody loved me like that before.”

  And then she really begins to weep. And I start crying too, because everybody needs love. The world is so messed up. John dips his hands into the water, and he begins to wash my feet too.

  “You must feel like I betrayed you, sister Zora, marrying this white woman. But she made me love her. She’s so wild and beautiful. She was like a daisy growing between the concrete, but loving her never meant that I don’t love you. Or my mother. Or my other sisters or myself. But forgive me for hurting you with my choice. I never meant to, sister. I believe my African American sisters are dark and lovely Shulamites, just like the Song of Solomon says.”

  “You nailed me,” I choke. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sister,” John says, “the only nails here are the ones on the cross. And that’s where all our sins belong. We are all sinners. But we all belong to God. Let’s allow Him to begin this work of welcoming one another.”

  We sit there crying as they wash my feet, until I’m so tired
I don’t think another tear can come out of me. Billie realizes she didn’t bring a towel and jumps to her feet.

  She returns and hands the towel to Father John, and he dries my feet while she puts the basin away. When Billie returns, John informs me our sharing isn’t over.

  He picks up the wine glass again.

  “And now for the best part.” He smiles at me. “You didn’t think I forgot about the food, did you?”

  I answer him with a smile.

  He lifts the glass. “This is where hospitality began. Jesus lifted a single cup and gave it to His disciples. Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks He said, ‘Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For … I will not drink of the fruits of the vine, until the kingdom of God.’” He pauses. “Have you ever celebrated Kwanzaa, Zora?”

  “Yes. We used to every year, but it kind of fell out of favor.”

  “You know how there’s a unity cup that everyone drinks from?”

  I chuckle. “We never really drank from it. We just did it symbolically.”

  He nods. “I understand. But the Eucharist Jesus instituted here was no mere symbol. It’s the foundation of the church. It’s the feast that we are all to continually share. Without it, we cannot worship. We cannot be hospitable. I know we’re far from real unity, just like with the Kwanzaa unity cup. But we’re meant to drink from it. All of us. From one cup like Jesus said.”

  I don’t understand. This is nothing like anything I’ve ever known. What about germs? How can we all drink from one cup in reality?

  John holds the cup of wine in his hand to his lips and takes a long drink. He gives the cup to Billie, and she drinks, and then he offers the cup to me.

  For a moment I hesitate. What’s it gonna be, Zora? Think about how you’re going to live your life. Symbolically? Or will you get down to the messiness of being involved with something real for a change? I take the cup. I take a drink as long as the one Father John took. The wine is sweeter than I imagined it would be and, though it’s cold, the alcohol warms my throat.

  John tears a piece of bread from a single loaf in the basket.