The bathroom was nearly as large as their bedroom. Bright white ceramic tiles covered the floor and walls.
The girls oohed.
“Watch this,” Aubrey said. And with the dramatic flair of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, he tore back the blue and white cloth curtain to reveal a claw-foot bathtub.
Ethel grinned, the girls squealed with delight.
Aubrey whirled the faucet handles until crystal-clear water rushed from the silver spout. “We don’t go to the water, the water come to we!”
The girls clapped their hands with joy.
“See there?” Aubrey pointed at the toilet. “That is where you do your business and then flush it clean away.” And with that, he pressed the lever and they all watched the water swirl round and round in the bowl before draining down its porcelain throat.
Running water and a flushing toilet were luxuries for Ethel and her children. Back in Barbados, they used an outhouse and fetched water for cooking, washing, and bathing from the community standpipe.
“G’dear,” Ethel moaned, genuinely pleased.
Beyond the bathroom was a small, sunny kitchen, outfitted with one table, four chairs, a stove, a double sink, and an icebox.
Outside the window, the wind howled and the bare tree limbs shivered. Ethel shivered too. Taking Gwen’s hand, she started back toward their room. “Let’s get unpacked,” she said.
* * *
They’d moved twice since that first place. With each move the living situation improved, and now they were living in a spacious apartment in a prewar building with plenty of windows.
The previous apartments, the crossing of the Atlantic, and Barbados were often topics of dinner conversation—conversation Gwen could not participate in. She had not forcibly shaken from her memory the sound the rain made against the rusted roof of their tiny brown and beige chattel house, the fragrant, colorful bougainvillea that grew wild along the winding roads, the musty smell of the ship, the pitch of it atop the rolling Atlantic, or the sound of her father’s snoring, booming like thunder in that first small bedroom they shared.
“You really don’t remember?” her sister would whine.
No, she did not.
Gwen hadn’t intentionally rid her mind of those memories, but they were gone just the same and she had to endure the pitiful looks from her sister and parents whenever they talked about “back home,” “the crossing,” and “that first place,” while she sat there with nothing at all to offer.
The lack of recall didn’t much bother Gwen. Even though West Indian blood pulsed in her veins, her heart strummed “The Star-Spangled Banner”—she was an all-American type of girl who preferred apple pie to West Indian black cake, franks and beans over rice and peas, mashed potatoes to the Barbadian mixture of cornmeal and okra known as coo-coo.
With her family, Gwen spoke in the rapid-fire melodious way of her motherland, but when she was with her peers, the notes in her voice disappeared, and she dropped her Rs—what-ev-a, wa-ta—just like any other self-respecting New Yorker.
Chapter 35
On that morning, a week after the world of blues began mourning the death of their queen, Ethel crumpled up the oily newspaper carrying the headline and tossed it into the trash. She scrubbed clean the frying pan, dried it, and set it onto the stove for the next meal.
Noon arrived and the day warmed enough for Ethel to raise the window a bit, allowing fresh autumn air to blow in. Still, she reached for the yellow sweater draped on the back of the kitchen chair and pulled it on.
In the front hall, the jangle of keys announced that Aubrey had returned home for lunch. “Afternoon,” he offered lightly. “Mail come early today.” He tossed the stack of letters onto the kitchen table. “Going to wash up for lunch.”
Ethel reached for the mail as she heard the gurgle of water emanating from the bathroom. A letter from home, light bill, the credit account she had at Martin’s department store, and . . . what was this? She took a moment to admire the pretty pink envelope and the exquisite cursive. It was from the Mary Bruce School of Dance where Gwen took classes.
Saturday mornings, Gwen and a half-dozen other Brooklyn girls, all skirts, bobby socks, and Vaseline-polished knees—a giggling mess of femininity—boarded the uptown train to Harlem. Drunk with freedom, they fell into each other, stumbling through the moving cars in search of a section large enough to accommodate the lot of them. During those trips there was not much talk of school, but plenty boy talk—who liked who, who was going with who, who kissed who, who allowed whose hand beneath her blouse.
The men on the train snatched glances at the girls, at their pretty knees, and smiled to themselves, while the women who had daughters of their own aimed sharp-as-knives eyes at them, glaring until the girls were shamed silent.
The Mary Bruce School of Dance was founded by its namesake, a petite brown-skinned woman who hailed from the Windy City. Mary Bruce addressed the art of dance with all of the gravity of a mathematician tackling calculus. “My time is not playtime,” she reminded the girls each week. “Dancing is serious business, not to be taken lightly, and if you feel different, then you’re in the wrong place.”
Not long after Gwen started attending the school, Mary Bruce advised Ethel that her daughter was not suited for the graceful elegance of ballet (Gwen was big-boned with large feet) and should take tap instead.
“No skin off my nose,” Gwen had spouted at the news. “I prefer hoofing anyhow.” Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was her hero.
Gwen had gone to see the movie The Little Colonel four times, committing to memory Robinson’s famous step dance, which she then reenacted for her parents, Mary Bruce, and anyone else willing to sit and watch.
* * *
Ethel tore open the flap and removed the announcement card:
I am pleased to inform you that Gwendolyn Dorothy Gill has been chosen to participate in the Star Bud Recital, which will be held at Carnegie Hall on
Monday, April 25, 1938, at 7 p.m.
Ethel swelled with pride. Gwenie would be so happy, she mused, turning the card over and over in her hand.
Chapter 36
They usually practiced with records, but Mary Bruce said she’d be bringing in live musicians. “You won’t be dancing to records at Carnegie Hall!”
In addition to their regular Saturday class, those chosen to participate in the recital were now required to attend rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. And when they weren’t rehearsing at the dance school, Mary Bruce encouraged them to practice every free moment they had.
Well, Ethel couldn’t have Gwen tap dancing up and down the halls and marble steps of the Eastern Parkway apartment building they lived in. Those white folks wouldn’t tolerate that noise, no matter how pleased they were with Aubrey’s work or how many compliments they dropped in Ethel’s ear about her polite and clean daughters.
Ethel knew that all of the praise would disintegrate, right along with their radiant smiles, and those tenants would march their disapproval, their downright infuriation, straight to the landlord, Mr. Leo Rubenstein, who lived a few blocks away in a mansion on New York Avenue. And, before any one of them could blink, Aubrey would be out of a good job and he and his family turned out into the streets.
So no, Gwen couldn’t practice in the apartment or anywhere in the building. “Take that outside,” Ethel said.
“But I need steps.”
“Cheese on bread, child, then go to the library, it got plenty of steps!”
“The library? But Mum, you’re supposed to be quiet in the library.”
“I’m talking ’bout the steps outside the library.”
Gwen went, but halfway through her routine, a librarian rushed out and shooed her away.
There was a playground on Sullivan Place, just a fifteen-minute walk from her apartment building. The playground sat high off the sidewalk; one had to climb seventeen sprawling stone steps to reach the grounds.
It was perfect.
* * *
All of that dancing muscled Gwen’s already thick thighs and raised her behind high onto her back.
“My goodness,” Ethel cried, swatting Gwen’s bottom, “your boxy is getting big enough!” As if it wasn’t a family trait. As if big legs and broad backsides didn’t run as thick as molasses through the family line.
Unfortunately, though, the trait had skipped Irene, who was tall and lanky like her father—all limbs, no ass, and barely any breasts to speak of. She had tried and failed to put on weight, evidence of which cluttered an entire shelf in Ethel’s kitchen cabinet. Pills and potions, powders and capsules—all promised results that always failed Irene. She couldn’t even eat herself fat. Blame her overly sensitive stomach that rejected spice, salt, and portions larger than the palm of her hand.
So now, as Gwen bloomed and curved, Irene found herself swallowing her envy when she and her sister were out together. Gwen drew all the attention, all the favorable glances and cheeky comments from men who beckoned her as if she wasn’t a girl at all, but a cat.
Pssssst.
Gwen may have had the body of a woman, but a man didn’t have to kiss her to taste the film of mother’s milk on her tongue—he could look her in the face and see she was still just a child.
Not that this mattered to Harlan and the other musicians who were tuning their instruments when Gwen and her friends came rushing through the door of the Mary Bruce School of Dance.
Chapter 37
Shy girls don’t look at men the way the bold ones do. Shy girls steal camera-shutter-quick glances—time enough to capture the fan of eyelashes, the jut of a chin, lips.
Gwen didn’t have a shy bone in her body. She didn’t giggle behind her hand or blush like the other girls when the musicians’ admiring looks turned hard and probing.
Gwen enjoyed being leered at. Welcomed it. Provoked it.
During the warm-up exercises, all for the entertainment of the handsome guitar player, Gwen floated her arms extra-wide like a swan vying for a mate. She rested the heel of her foot atop the wooden rail, arched her back, presenting Harlan with the most exquisite view of her beseeching ass.
When Mary Bruce called for a five-minute break, Gwen joined the other girls around the water cooler. Amidst sips of water from paper cups, giggling, and gossiping, Harlan caught the music riding her tongue.
“Shit, she’s a West Indian,” he groaned.
The West Indians thought quite highly of themselves; those dark people from those hot islands viewed black Americans as vultures, hawks, dung beetles, and blowflies—Eh, you come along and fill your guts after someone else has done all the hard work—scavengers, born of slave stock. Lazy and worthless, just like the white man claimed.
But whether it took a day, a month, or a year, they soon learned that their pretty talk, high regard for themselves, claims of being children of Mother England, children of God, or both—here in the land of amber waves of grain, none of it mattered. If you were black-skinned, you were a nigger no matter where you hailed from.
All of that aside, Harlan still thought Gwen was very cute. So by the third rehearsal he was dropping praise at her feet like confetti.
“You look nice today.”
“What’s that scent? It sure smells good on you.”
“New hairdo? It really fits your face.”
Gwen looked through him.
The other musicians shook their heads in pity.
“Give it up, man, can’t you see she ain’t studying you?”
“Anyway, why you running behind a coconut when you got down-home ass right here under your nose?”
“And she ain’t even that good-looking!”
The other guys thought Gwen was easy on the eyes, but not drop-dead.
“Man, you’ll break your mama’s heart if’n you come home with a monkey on your arm.”
Monkey or not, coconut or peach, Harlan wanted her.
Chapter 38
In 1938, just in time for Gwen’s dance recital, spring arrived and sprawled her loveliness all of over New York. Crocuses, marsh marigolds, tulips—all rose to greet the steadily warming sun.
Gwen and her family exited the subway station and joined the caravan of smartly dressed black folk, all making their way toward Carnegie Hall.
In Weill Recital Hall, the smallest theater in the Carnegie complex, Ethel took a seat beside her husband and immediately began to fret about the massive chandelier dangling high above her head. “Waa-lah,” she exclaimed, “I sure hope that ting don’t fall and kill me.”
The houselights dimmed. A spotlight flooded the stage and Mary Bruce appeared in a shimmering purple sheath. “Friends and family, welcome to the Mary Bruce School of Dance’s sixth annual spring recital. The dancers you’ll see today were chosen exclusively by me, and you all know how I am . . .” She let her words trail off with a sly smile.
A titter rippled through the audience.
“But seriously, these dancers are the best and brightest in my school. You all are in for a real treat.”
With that, the stage went dark. The audience took a collective breath, drowning out the click of Mary Bruce’s heels as she headed into the wings. The orchestra struck up, the footlights glowed, and the curtains parted, revealing a magical woodland scene.
Forty minutes into the performance, Ethel reached over Aubrey and tapped Irene on the knee. “When is Gwen coming on?”
Without taking her eyes off the stage, Irene shoved the program at her mother.
Ethel slapped the program. “Me ask you something ’bout a program?” she spat. “Me ask you when she coming on!”
A couple in the row of seats ahead of them turned and shot Ethel a menacing look. To that, she sucked her teeth and glared until they looked away.
Onstage, the dancers brought their routine to an end, bowed, and walked off to applause. The curtains slowly closed and the houselights came up.
“Is this the end of the show? But Gwenie didn’t perform yet. What’s happening?” Ethel raged.
“Mother,” Irene calmly replied, “it’s not the end of the show, it’s intermission.”
“Intermission?”
“A break in the show.”
“A break?”
“To use the toilet or get a glass of wine—”
“You know I don’t drink,” Ethel snapped.
Exasperated, Irene collapsed into her chair.
Ethel watched her for a while before turning her attention to Aubrey. “Who dey make these chairs for? Not me, not you.” She slapped at her knees and fixed her gaze once again onto Irene, who was trying to disappear into the bloodred upholstery of her seat. “Look at your father. His knees are in his throat!” Ethel shrieked.
“Lower your voice, Mother, please,” Irene implored, glancing around to see if anyone was watching.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Aubrey coughed.
Ethel caught him by the wrist and tugged. “You are so lie-ard. Get up. Get up and stretch your legs before you get a blood clot and die!”
Irene closed her eyes in shame.
Aubrey pulled himself to his feet, offering apologetic smiles to those who openly stared.
Using the program to fan her neck, Ethel called out to Irene.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Look at your program and tell me when your sister going to perform.”
* * *
On the stage, the lights were brighter than Gwen expected, and hot. Racing heart, shaky hands, her feet felt like blocks of cement cast in lead. Worse still, the big toe on her right foot was throbbing.
This left shoe is fine, she thought as she walked to the mark on the stage, but the right one is too tight. This right shoe can’t be mine. How am I going to dance? I won’t be able to dance. I won’t be able to dance . . .
The audience applauded, the music swelled, and to her amazement, Gwen’s feet began to move.
Did I put on deodorant?
What is that pain in my side?
Why won’t my ha
nds stop shaking?
Smile, Gwenie, smile.
I’m going to be sick.
Remember to smile, keep your head up, smile!
Is this the right music?
Don’t forget to smile.
This doesn’t sound like the right music.
Oh my god, Ms. Bruce gave them the wrong music!
Head up. Smile, smile.
I’m going to puke all over this nice stage.
Why won’t my hands stop shaking?
I think my toe will have to be amputated.
Whoever switched my shoe is dead!
Smile. Smile. Smile . . .
Chapter 39
The warm spring faded into a humid summer.
Newly graduated from high school, but with no jobs available to them, Gwen and her friends whiled away the steamy summer on Coney Island’s hot beach, splashing about in the salty blue Atlantic Ocean, gorging themselves on Coca-Cola, Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, and fried shrimp on a stick.
At Steeplechase Park, they rode the Lindy Loop and Roll-O-Plane with their hands stretched high above their heads, screaming themselves hoarse.
On the Coney Island Cyclone, they favored the first or last car of the coaster because that’s where they felt, most intensely, the blossoming sensation in the pit of their stomachs when the coaster dove over the camel humps in the tracks. The girls didn’t know what to call it, how to label that thing that felt so good, they just knew that they longed for it, and worked to recreate that unnameable thing in the dead of night while hidden beneath bedsheets, fingers between their legs, prodding and stroking.
The effort left them damp; the reward, however, was so much more than the amusement park ride could ever bring.
When there was no more money for hot dogs, pretzels, and ice cream, they trolled the boardwalk in search of lost coins.
Gwen’s friends wouldn’t touch the pennies they found tails up. “It’s bad luck,” they warned her.
“That’s silly,” she said, plucking up the pennies and dropping them into her pocket.
The Book of Harlan Page 9
