Harlem Redux

by Persia Walker

  He straightened up.

  Seconds later, Annie showed Rachel into the parlor, then left and shut the door behind her. David rose at the sight of her. He put on a smile. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but it would be wrong not to greet her. Furthermore, she did look comely, fresh and crisp in her nurse’s uniform.

  “My, my. What a surprise. Your patients must love to see you coming.”

  “Hush your mouth,” she said, but her eyes twinkled at the compliment. She handed him his leather gloves. “You left these at my place. I was hoping to get them here before you left.”

  “Well, that was nice of you, but I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Not for a while.”

  She looked at him for an explanation, but he gave her none. Instead, he invited her to coffee. She agreed, saying she had an hour before her shift started.

  “You told me that Gem seemed to exert a strange influence over Lilian,” he said. “How was that possible?”

  “I’m not sure myself, but …”

  Her voice trailed away.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “Well, I was just thinking that time we all went out together. It was me, Gem, Lilian, and Sweet. Lilian had some tickets for the Harlem Symphony. Fletcher Henderson was playing. The place was packed. We were all in a good mood. Afterward, somebody suggested we check out Happy Rhone’s place over on 143rd. Lilian didn’t want to go. But Gem pushed for it.”

  He’d heard of Arthur “Happy” Rhone’s. It was closed now, but at the time it was the place to go if you wanted to see and be seen. It was known as “the millionaires’ club,” and it was posh. The interior was a sleek and sophisticated ebony-on-ivory. It was the place where Hollywood met Harlem, a namedroppers’ paradise, where Nobodies and Somebodies swung to the same smooth sax.

  “It’s not the kind of place Lilian would’ve liked,” he said.

  “She hated it. Said it was stuck-up and snooty. Well, it was, but it was fun.”

  The four of them had lucked out and gotten a table with a good view of the floor show. But none of them watched it. They were too busy listening to Gem. She held them spellbound with risque, bawdy stories about her life in Paris. She had an endless supply of tales that she felt just had to be told.

  “There was this silly man who claimed to be a Russian count. He could’ve been. Nobody, absolutely nobody gave a damn. But I thought I’d give him a turn. He had money, after all, and lots of it. For my birthday, he took me to the Chateau de Madrid. Very exclusive. Just outside Paris. But they wouldn’t let him in. I was perfectly dressed, but he—well, Russians, you know.”

  Gem rolled her eyes. “You won’t believe this: He went ‘round by the kitchen and got hold of a waiter. He bribed the man to swap clothes with him. That’s how we got in. He danced the tango with me in a waiter’s dinner jacket. Not one of those hoity-toity so much as sniffed the difference.”

  She chuckled, delighted at her wit. “We ate caviar—nasty, nasty stuff—and drank champagne till three in the morning. Then we went for a swim in a pond in the forest. I think it was breakfast time when we finally collapsed in bed. We were tired, but not too tired to, well ... shall we say ... enjoy one last tango.”

  She softly exhaled. Her shadowy eyes slithered in Sweet’s direction, lingered a moment, then slid over to Lilian. Sweet’s eyes glittered. Lilian’s face was pale, very pale. Gem raised her glass to her lips, hiding a satisfied smile.

  Then she went on recounting tale after tale of merry mischief and creative self-indulgence. She told of parties that began on Wednesdays and ran on till Sunday. She described a world of manic gaiety, one in which people threw champagne bottles out of windows, ran half-naked through the streets, and danced on car tops past dawn. Rhapsodizing over a supper party she attended, Gem said the champagne punch was made from fifty bottles of brut, and gallons of whiskey, Cointreau, and gin.

  “Then there was the Four Arts Ball. It’s a huge, wild thing given every June by art students in Paris. Thousands of people in costume—if you want to call it that. People don’t really wear much more than body paint, a loincloth, and maybe some feathers on their heads. I went to one ball at the Porte d’Auteuil with a rich kid from Minnesota. Everyone was supposed to dress up like an Incan. Robby—that was his name—rubbed himself down with red ocher and strung three dead pigeons around his neck.”

  Sweet leaned forward. “And what did you wear?”

  “Something exquisitely fashionable and stylishly simple … bare breasts and a turquoise wig.”

  Sweet smiled faintly. Lilian gagged. She grabbed her glass of water, tried to drink it, and sloshed water over her chest. She jumped up so violently that her chair toppled over. Her eyes were wet; her shoulders hunched. She hugged her purse to her chest as though it were a shield.

  “I have to go,” she gasped, then fled the room. Sweet went after her.

  “Lord help the person who’s got something Gem wants,” Rachel said. “That woman would scare the Devil himself if he got in her way.”

  Indeed. Gem had been mercilessly clever. She had chosen a public place, with a private audience, to reveal her own rebellious morality, to tantalize Sweet and embarrass Lilian with suggestive tales. Had Sweet really remained immune to Gem’s charms?

  “But Gem didn’t stop there,” Rachel said. “First, she went after Lilian’s marriage to Sweet, then she went after her friendship with me. She made out like there was something between Sweet and me or that I wished there was. See, I knew Sweet before Lilian did. We grew up on the same block. His family moved there after you guys left. Lilian knew that I’d met Sweet before, but I’d never told her that we’d known each other as kids. It was a long time ago and it wasn’t worth mentioning. But Gem used it. Twisted it around. Put it in Lilian’s head that I liked Sweet.”

  “Surely Lilian didn’t believe her.”

  “No, but that was just the beginning.”

  David could well imagine. He knew Gem’s methods. What a waste of human energy.

  Rachel said she had to leave. He showed her to the door. At the last moment, she stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his cheek. He was surprised, but pleased. She took his hand.

  “Walk me to work, why don’t you?”

  “All right.”

  As he turned to get his coat from the closet, he had the feeling that he was being watched. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Annie, standing at the foot of the stairs. Guilt gripped him. He didn’t know why.

  “I’m just going to walk her to the hospital,” he said, wondering why he felt bound to explain.

  Annie nodded, but said nothing. Shouldering his way into his coat, David turned back to Rachel and gave her a quick smile, then hustled her out the door. He sensed Annie’s eyes on his back until the door shut behind him.

  11. Passages

  She stood there a moment longer, then continued upstairs to David’s room. As she set about straightening up, her mind was in turmoil. She didn’t like what she’d seen at the doorway, didn’t like it at all. But what could she do about it?

  Nothing, she thought. He’s a grown man. And cain’t nobody do his thinking for him. He’s got to follow his own mind.

  “But how could he … ?” she muttered. “After all that’s happened, how could he start up with that child again?”

  She saw his suitcase lying side down on a chair and went to it with the thought of setting it in his closet. Without thinking, she flipped it open.

  Hm-humph! Didn’t even take his clothes out. He sure don’t mean to stay long.

  She saw one shirt, some underwear, and two pairs of socks.

  Didn’t bring much, neither. And his clothes—they look taken care of, but … well, he sure don’t dress like he used to.

  She started to unpack the suitcase herself—

  Lay everything in his dresser nice an’ neat for him—

  then thought better of it.

  I sure don’t wanna try to force him. Do
n’t wanna upset him.

  She lowered the suitcase lid and turned to the rest of the room. She’d remade his bed and was about to wipe down his desk when she saw that he’d found his old Bible. He’d left it lying open on his desk. She was surprised and pleased. She smiled wistfully.

  Why, I r’member the day I gave him that. It was back in the days of the Tenderloin. His first Holy Communion Day. He was one proud li’l boy. Only nine years old.

  She’d scrimped for a year to be able to buy him that small Bible ... even paid extra to get his name written in gold on the cover.

  “You’re a man, now,” she’d told him. “A man in the sight of God.”

  The two of them had sat together, two or three evenings a week, and read it page for page. He had asked questions—

  Good, smart questions—

  And she’d done her best to give him good answers. And he’d believed— believed with his entire heart—in a loving God, a forgiving God.

  He had such devotion, even more than Miss Lilian. Where’d it go?

  When she mentioned that Miss Lilian had been buried in unconsecrated ground, his silence had said more than words.

  What happened to him? Whatever it was, it just about ruined him. And kept him away. Kept him in exile.

  He thought she believed he’d been working for the Movement all this time. But she knew better. Knew it in her heart. Something had gone wrong in his life.

  “Terrible wrong,” she said out loud.

  Her gaze dwelled on the Bible.

  At least, he took it out. Could be he’s trying to find his way back, God help him.

  The Bible was open to the New Testament. A passage had been marked. Bending for a closer look, she squinted at the fine print.

  “Matthew 26:57-75,” she whispered and began to read aloud. “Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas, the high priest … Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest... A servant girl came to him. ‘You also were with Jesus of Galilee,’ she said. But he denied it b’fore them all. Another girl saw him and said, ‘This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.’ He denied it again. Those standing there went up to Peter and said, ‘Surely, you are one of them, for your accent gives you ‘way,’ Then he began to call down curses on hisself and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!’ Immediately, a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken: ‘Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.”

  She eased herself down into the wooden desk chair and touched the pages, wondering.

  Peter’s denial of Jesus: What’s that got to do with my David?

  “‘And he went outside and wept,’” she read again. “‘Wept bitterly.’“

  The page was well-fingered.

  He been sitting here and reading—reading and reading about how Peter denied his Lord. Why? Has he done sumptin’? ... Or has somebody done sumptin’ to him?

  She was peering into the display window of the Righteous Lady Dress Shop. From a distance, she looked pretty in a clean, simple way. Her coat was practical, but not stylish. And her little hat was modest. Her arms were full of groceries and at her side stood a small boy of about three dressed in knickerbockers. He was playing with a bright green ball. As David’s gaze moved from the woman to her child, his lips bowed in a faint smile. Once, he’d hoped to have a family.

  The boy bounced his ball and it rebounded high. He tried to catch it, but it escaped from between his plump little hands and rolled toward the curb. He scrambled to catch it, but every time he reached for it, it slipped away. It wobbled until it hit the curb, then bounced off and rolled into the street. He followed. His mother, her attention on the display, didn’t notice.

  A milk wagon swung around the corner with a screech of tires. David glanced at it and his lungs contracted. The wagon had taken the corner way too wide and way too fast and was careening down the street. The boy didn’t hear or see it; he was intent on his ball. It had settled dead in the middle of the street. Now it was just beyond his fingertips. He took another step and reached for it.

  David’s heart lurched. Then he was running. Running hard. Giving it all he had. He had a sensation of terrible slowness, of trying to run through mud. Somewhere, as though from far away, a woman screamed. Her sound of terror was muffled, as though he heard it through a glass wall. Now he was closing in on the child, surging forward with arms outstretched, conscious of the wagon bearing down on them. He got a brief glimpse of the boy’s startled brown eyes; then he’d snatched him up and was diving forward, crashing against the pavement. His head hit the ground hard. He felt an explosion of pain and fractals of color went skidding before his vision. The wagon barreled by in a puff of smelly exhaust. David lay with the boy in a heap, the child resting on his chest. He closed his eyes for a moment, stunned. When he reopened them, he found himself looking up into a pair of wide, innocent eyes. A cute little face with round cheeks and a set of miniature teeth grinned back at him.

  “Ooh, that was fun!” the boy giggled. “Can we do that again?”

  What a little charmer, thought David. Then the boy’s smile disappeared into a look of surprise as he was yanked away. David heard a woman sobbing and scolding—the child’s mother, he assumed—in a mixture of love, anger, and relief. Then there were other hands, strangers’ hands, helping him to his feet, brushing him off, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “You okay, mister?”

  “I’m fine.” David nodded. He was still dazed, though, and his head was throbbing.

  “Damn them wagons,” someone muttered.

  “Lady, you one lucky woman,” another said. “I ain’t never seen nobody move that fast.”

  David dusted himself off. The young mother stood nearby, holding her son in her arms. Up close, he could see the dark circles under her eyes. She was young, maybe in her late twenties, and she looked wrung out.

  “Oh, baby, don’t you know you coulda been killed?” she was saying, stroking her son’s scratched and dirt-smudged cheeks.

  Unshed tears sparkled in her eyes. The boy looked at her with stupefied concern. He reached out with his small hands and touched her face. “Don’t cry, Mommy. Please, don’t cry!”

  “You my precious angel. You all I got. If I lose you, I’ll go outta my mind.”

  She bit down on her lip, trying to keep herself under control. An expression of horrified dismay crawled over her boy’s small face. Then the corners of his lips turned down and his lower lip began to quiver. His face screwed up, his mouth dropped open, and he let out a deafening wail.

  “But I wah-wah-wanted my ball!”

  She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “Toby, I’ve told you: If a ball goes out into the street, don’t go after it. Let Mama do it.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Please, please baby. Let Mama do it. You promise? Don’t never run out in the road like that again.”

  Fat tears slipped from his eyes, rolled down his cheeks, and fell in thick drops from his chin. “Unh-uh, I won’t,” he said. “I promise.” He hugged his mother tight, nestling his head in the crook of her neck.

  She looked up from him to David, extended a hand, and brushed David’s sleeve with her fingertips.

  “God bless you,” she whispered.

  “It was nothing.” He reached out and tweaked the little boy’s ear. “You’re a fast one, chum.”

  Toby managed a weak smile through his tears.

  “Too fast,” his mother said. “He ain’t got no sense yet.”

  “He’ll learn.”

  “He’d better.” Now she did give her son a little jiggle to show her annoyance, but she was betrayed by the loving expression in her eyes. He looked up at her and the faint smile he’d given David grew into a mischievous grin for his mother. She grinned back, then looked at David and her eyes were humble.

  “God was with us today, but I shoulda been paying attention,” she said. “I just bought him the ball. He was
so excited and he wanted to carry it. I told him not to play with it till we got home, but I shoulda known better. He’s just a baby. How could I expect him to understand? Then I just stopped for a minute to look at that shop window. They had a sign last week, saying they needed help. I shoulda been paying attention,” she repeated. She glanced down at her son, hugged him closer, and looked back at David. “Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “If you hadna been here, I ...” Her voice broke and the tears she’d been fighting to contain slipped from her eyes.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” David reached over and stroked the small head. “He’s fine. And he’s learned a lesson. He won’t be running out into the street again. Will you, little man?”

  Toby nodded his head without lifting it from his mother’s shoulder. The crowd had drifted away. David put a supporting hand under her elbow and escorted her back to the sidewalk. Her groceries lay spilled on the ground.

  “I’ll pack your bags for you,” he said.

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  Their eyes met.

  “Yes, I do,” he said warmly.

  She smiled and briefly averted her large chocolate eyes. He realized that she was quite pretty, despite the dark half-moons under her eyes. Her face was well scrubbed and her complexion smooth. She had high cheekbones and a kind mouth.

  “This is awful kind of you,” she said as he gathered the errant goods—a Hormel canned ham, a box of Wheaties, some Sanka decaffeinated coffee, a box of Quaker Quick oats, and two candy bars. He returned them to their bags and started to hand them back to her, but she was still holding her son.

  “I can help you carry these,” David said.

  Doubt flickered in her eyes. He understood. He had just saved her son’s life, but he was still a stranger. In New York City, a wise woman did not let a strange man, even an apparently helpful one (in some cases, especially an apparently helpful one), walk her home.

  “It’s okay. I’ll just take you to your corner, if you want me to.”