Some Sing, Some Cry

by Ntozake Shange

  When Bette returned at dawn, the sky had cleared. She was greeted at the kitchen door by the old hound dog Fancy, twitching his nostrils, sensing a difference. She stared him down. He turned and walked away.

  A dark amber baby with black garnet hair and tiger’s eyes, Juliet was born the following cotton harvest. Her master went mad. He banished his slave wife and, this time, beat her with his own hand. This time there was no tear, no sound. He threw her aside and took her two daughters into the house. Bette sensed that Blanche was the strong one, but Elma was bold. “Stand at the gate,” she would say. “Tell somebody to buy you. Get away from here any way you can.”

  Then the war came. Julius, dressed in a bright, new uniform, stitched by his very own people, rode off to Virginia with his favorite horse and manservant. He didn’t last long. He abandoned the assault on the North and returned to join the local militia to defend the honor of his state, he said, but always the mercenary, he connived to amass the spoils of fellow Confederates desperate for any barter, then ran the blockade off the coast, sailing toward the Indies. Upon each return trip, he distributed a meager, cosmetic profit to his neighbors, then dug holes all over Tamarind, depositing his stashes of loot.

  Bette was the only one he trusted. Others vanished as soon as they had word of emancipation, abandoned him to become contraband, stolen property of war. Even the invalid and the one with one leg. Even Elma and Blanche, whom he had taken into his own house. “Union troops are fast approaching,” he rambled on, tossing the dirt to either side of his britches. Bette spiked the torch in the soft marl. Her trembling hands steeling one another, she plunged a kitchen knife into his back. He whirled around to strike her, but was stunned by a sudden explosion of blood in his chest as she struck him again. “Ah Bette, Mah Bette.” Palm-upturned, his hand reached out and he took a last halting step toward her as if still dancing. Her foot moved backward. “Who is Massa now?”

  He fell forward, toward her. His hand graced her foot and curved round her ankle, clutching it. He pulled his body up to her knees, the crimson halo of his life pouring into her dress. She stabbed him again in the neck until the hilt of the blade broke. Blood speckled her face and streamed down her arms and legs. She fell back against the tree, the whipping tree, and thought she heard in the brush footsteps of an animal or spirit. Fancy.

  When the Union troops arrived—the First South Carolina Colored Battalion—she held Juliet at her side and watched Sweet Tamarind burn to the ground. Julius Mayfield was declared a hero. Died, they said, defending his family and honor.

  Mah Bette cloaked her wisdom in a folksy humor, hid her pain behind a wry half-smile. She could look at someone and know they were going to die. She could see the illness before it came on. She knew someone was coming by a scent that twitched her nose. Her left eye jumping forebode ill. The forest would tell her things, the clouds, reflections in a bowl of water. Sometimes pestering souls would scratch at her back. In the voice of thunder, she heard the call of unnamed gods, of spirits who were not at rest.

  The wind on the docks turned cold and awakened Bette. Business was good. Cabinetmakers, tinsmiths, hostler’s helpers, all came to her for aid, the plaintive stories all too familiar. Negroes were suddenly forbidden to ride horses, forbidden to hire out as porters, laborers, even fishermen. They couldn’t be peddlers with a packhorse. Couldn’t carry a cane. She heard black men say they weren’t going to take it that easy. They had tasted freedom, the promise of it, all the worse to have it trammeled again. Gov’t gib lan to railroad, how come not to us? She could see times getting harsher, the tribulation was not over.

  Bette consoled herself with a gentle humming, a song she made up or remembered only slightly—like a glint of hair in the copper sun, a smell and a lightness that sometimes still entered the old woman’s heart. But this time she knew something was amiss.

  8

  Dora had been fired on the spot. Miss Tildie told her blankly, “Get your things and get out. I can’t have you around upsettin’ my guests. One of his nieces is my bridesmaid . . . Goddam it, Cole! Who’s gon finish my dress?”

  All morning, Dora paced up and down the back stoop of the Bonneau house, until in the bright daylight of afternoon, she bit her lip, turned, and knocked on the door three loud times. “Somebody come to this door. Miss Mattie, Miss Tildie, whatevuh yuh name is, you gotta pay fuh the wuk I done. It ain’t right you don’t pay me nothin’.” Mr. McKinley finally agreed to see her.

  “You bastard, Cole, juss smilin’ n lisnin to her complain.”

  “Maddie, this woman says you owe her some money.”

  “You pay huh. I don’t want huh here.”

  “Let her finish the dresses and you never have to see her again.”

  “All right. But I don’t want to have tuh look at huh.”

  Dora sewed like a demon, cussin’ and fussin’, marching on her knees across the redwood floor. This all a ruse to git outa payin’ me what’s due. Just git the job done and git outta this madhouse. She forgot about the time. And worked well into the night until she finished.

  She walked toward the shaft of light in the study and waited in the doorway. “Come in, Dora.”

  “The outfits, I hope, are to Miss Matilda’s satisfaction.”

  “I am sure they will be. What is it that we owe you?”

  “Fifty-three dollars, Mr. McKinley, suh.”

  “I shall give you thirty.”

  “. . . Thank you, suh.”

  “Last night of freedom, gentlemen.”

  “Let the Regulators ride again!”

  “Rise, Oh ancient Saxon Stag Kings!”

  To impress and remove the irritation over the debacle dinner party, Cole had taken the groomsmen down to Little Mexico, to Pilar’s on one of the white nights. The loud, raucous music with the slurping beat intoxicated them. That and the liberties they could take for cheap and some healthy doses of Winrow’s moonshine and scuppernong wine. Anglo-Saxon Stag Kings, future presidents, senators, men of means, the bachelor party. Woodie, his best man, and two other frat brothers from the Ivy League campus that Cole had quit before he was expelled for nonpayment. Cole was to plan it. Drinking since ten, they were singing a blues they had heard at Pilar’s. “Ev’ since I been yo’ man/ I been yo’ dawg/ Well, I’ll be yo’ dawg/ But not be yo’ slave.” They found Cole’s grandfather quaint and would scramble and squat around the house with him, imagining the enemy behind the broom closet or under the table. Cole had taken them to Little Mexico to regain control, an upper hand with cockfights, niggah bitches, and music that vibrated inside their bones. What more? The best man still singing to a rag, the second passed out with vomit in his hair. Woodie, the groom, leaned over. “You had Agassiz for science, didn’t you?”

  “Of course, everybody did. Freshman biology.”

  “You ever go to his office?”

  “Had no cause. That’s the only class I got an A in.”

  “Not for grades, boy, for the pictures.” Cole sat quietly as Woodie explained what he presumed everybody knew. Agassiz had gone south to prove his theory that the Negro race was another species, inferior to humans. He also went at the behest of a certain gentleman farmer who was interested in his theories of maximum yield and who shared his love of the new camera arts. In exchange for his expertise in breeding, Agassiz was allowed to take photographs of certain subjects in hopes of substantiating his theory with physical evidence. The women were stripped to the navel and of their headdresses. They were made to sit thus and to be very, very still while Agassiz and his host huddled under a black sheet, fiddled with some knobs and exploded into white light and smoke. “I remember distinctly,” Woodie recounted, “ ‘Woman Weaver, Sweet Tamarind, home of Julius Mayfield.’ Was that the Mayfield who came to the house?”

  “No, that was his son.”

  The puke-haired youth sat up for a moment. “What kind of name is Agassiz, anyway?”

  “Hey, Cole,” Woodie continued, “how’s the bachelor for a one-night favor? T
hat girl? The one that made Tildie’s dress?”

  Dora walked proudly down the path to the street. She strode with a country stride toward the gate. “Thirty dollars. Coulda been worse.”

  “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah/ Someone’s in the kitchen I kno-o-o-ow . . .” She paused, looked around, a big-eyed doe, ears distended . . . “Oh dem golden slippers, oh dem golden slippers . . .”

  Dora grabbed her skirt and ran down the road, but an arm grabbed her by the neck and pulled her down, took hold of her hair and pulled her across the ground. Briars cut, briars cut her face—draggin’ me in the, where we—uh uh—my face! Uh—Pl—ease! They dragged her into a shed. Her head struck the door. She clung to the post and, groping, found a shovel handle and struck at something, him, them. Another took hold of her and pressed his walking stick onto her neck. He stripped her to the waist, clothes drawn up. She kicked and squirmed. The choke hold got tighter. “Goddam you, open your legs!” “Pour liquor down huh!” “Why you trembling? We got us a Shaker!” “Splittin’ a nigga woman.” “Suck my privates.” “Buck her down. Open your eyes. Open your eyes, yuh goddam yellah bitch! Shut your damned mouth or I’ll knock your goddam brains out!”

  “Make a good girl of yuh,” a voice said calmly. It was husky, contemptuous. “Where you headed, fancy girl? Why fight your blood? I seen you walkin’ down the way. Why act so high n mighty when you come here? Buy you somethin’ nice. Bet you ain’t seen nothin’ nice like this. Where’s your charm? How come you ain’t wearin’ one? Let’s see.”

  The dress, the patch, the tear. Finish the gown fore nightfall. Things tore up n nowhere to go. Didn’t know where to of went. Tears me all to pieces. Draggin’ me down, draggin’ me back. NO! Fight, kick, bite, scrape get up get up

  Blanche was thinking of her new Harvest Ball outfit. No one else’s design would compete, she was sure, with cousin Dora’s—she insisted Dora call her cousin. Aunty sounded so . . . mature, old-timey. After a time, it was only right that she look after her less fortunate relation, especially since the girl didn’t charge her for the dresses. For this occasion, Dora had outdone herself. Gold embroidered panels over the most delicate shade of olive, lace pelerine, rhinestone posts, bustle tied tight around the waist, overlapped with frills and bound with steel. Blanche would be the envy of maidens and matrons alike. She sat in bed beside her husband, enjoying their Thursday evening reading for self-improvement, when Dora arrived at their home.

  “Din’t know where to of went. Din’t want word gettin’ round. Couldn’t risk no doctuh.” She collapsed on the steps, her dress in shreds, blood crusted to her thighs. Blood run down to her heels, clear down.

  Roswell Sr. fetched Bette to the house. He wanted no news of the incident to spread. When she saw Eudora’s bloodied body, swollen jaw with a studded ring emblem embedded in it, Bette threw up her hands, fell on her knees, and poured dirt on her head. Blanche kicked a watering can and folded her arms. “Get up off your knees, Mama! Where was all your powers and potions to see this coming?”

  Mah Bette steeled her face and replied, “Dis no your affair. Was part my doin’. Mine to undo.”

  Bette arranged with Roswell to take Dora back to the island, back to Tamarind. Aunt Sibby rode along silently. While Lijah-Lah docked in the twilight, Roswell carried the girl to the pirogue. In her delirium, Dora still fought, striking feebly at the air, at his chest with her fists and broken nails. As the oarsman pushed off the shore, the gentle waves seemed to bring comfort to her sleep.

  Mah Bette threw off the brambles of her tabby shack and, still wise in the healing ways, she sent Lijah-Lah on a quest. “Tansy root rue enh, penny royal enh, cedar berries enh, camphor enh,” for herbs, poultice, and prayer. Aunt Sibby came in, white shirt round her head, veins in her brow in the shape of a great winged bird. The eyes, once large and almond, now narrow slits, lids heavy, almost forcing them closed. Deep furrows in her cheeks beneath her eyes and around her mouth, her mouth curled and upper teeth forgotten. Despite the heat, she wore white stockings with holes and runs, her top button tight around her neck, and a worn blue velvet waistcoat over her two skirts of wrinkled cloth, plaid over paisley. On her knee, one hand was folded over the other, fingers interlocking, odd twisted bends at the end joints, indigo veins visible through her skin, still soft as a newborn’s. Though you could not see her eyes at all, you could tell she was staring deep into Dora’s soul. “I cotched many baby, ax under the straw. Brought in many white as culled. Neber loss one.”

  Preparing to assist, Aunt Sibby rumbled through her medicine bag of jars and cans. “The gull hoverin’ tween the worlds. You kin call her back or let her gwon.” Bette nodded understanding.

  On the fifth day Aunt Sibby told Dora to walk around the house once and come in. The sky was yellow white with sunlight. A gray-backed sparrow scratched his belly in the dust. When Dora returned, Bette was humming. Aloe had dulled the swelling, and steaming poultices of cider vinegar had made the scabs then fall away, leaving her skin once again smooth, if discolored in places.

  Weeks later when Dora came back to the flat on Rose Tree Lane, she told her neighbors Bette had nursed her through a touch of the fever and shingles. She insisted on holding her regular reading lesson with Win. “Glad to see you is feelin’ bettuh.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Winrow. ’Preciate it.” She seemed distracted. He could see where the fever had caused her skin to peel. He did not correct her on the formal use of his name, but began reading slowly from “King James, Saint Mark . . . You was working too hard, Miss Dora.”

  To his surprise, she agreed. “I thought I might take some time to myself, thought I might like to see that farm you talk about. Mmm, a ride in the country where it’s quiet. Flowers. Lots of birds singing. Not so many people.”

  He was somewhere between proud and embarrassed when they arrived. Seeing all of the flaws of his roughshod place, Win tripped over himself and his words, trying to impress her. “Don’t look like much. Of cose, I don’t git out here that often. But I would, I mean if I had a reason. I’m a hardwukkin’ man, I told you that. But I try to be smart about it.” He straightened up just like his father. Your name Winrow? He laughed awkwardly. “I have a confess to make, Miss Dora. I use them scuppernong grapes to make wine. I bottles it and sells it to Miss Pilar and a few other folk. Ain’t no hard likker, now, but it do make you happy.” She was acting peculiar, her face to the ground, smelling the soil. She touched the flowers with her fingers, examining them as if she had never seen one before, tilting her head to one side as if she were hearing something far away.

  A permanent reminder of the grip on her neck, a sharp shaft of pain shot down her spine and inhaled her smile. “Might I taste some, this wine?”

  “Who? . . . Why sure, cose. Uh, wait a minute. Lemme fine a cup or sumpin.” He rinsed a tin cup at the water pump, all the while talking to himself. “Woman say she want a taste, don’t mean nothin’. Maybe a full moon or sumpin.” He sat on the porch steps beside her. She wrapped her arms around her knees. He poured a sip’s worth and a little more. She took the cup in both hands like a child. He watched her swallow and react, a slight dart of her chest forward.

  “Sweet.”

  “Yes,” he laughed, “yes. Too sweet?”

  “No, just takes some getting used to . . . I will be your wife, Thomas Winrow, if you will have me.”

  He knelt down beside her and took her hand. “I will make you proud to be my wife, Dora May. Won’t be no reason for you not to hold your head up high.”

  They were married in a simple ceremony at Azula Street, the small frame church Win’s preacher friend had managed to build. Dora packed up her things and moved out to Win’s small farm on Camden Road, and they began to make a home. Dora scrubbed, burnished, and polished and brought it into some order. She relished the solitude. Mah Bette explored the woods, hunting herbs and mushrooms. Win was patient. He thought to give her time. He thought a visit with Miss Sibby might cheer her. The old woman took one look at the
young bride. “My dear, you is havin’ a baby.”

  No, no, no, no. This couldn’t be. She had not thought, did not realize, could not believe. Win was delighted. He beamed, “Gon buy him a bugle.”

  Dessalines returned from his voyage to Montreal. He had found a small community there that spoke French and English. Though the weather was fierce, the frozen St. Lawrence Seaway locking him in port for months, he believed he could make a living there and live free. Now that they had no imperial aspirations in the New World, the French let you breathe. The British enjoyed their moral superiority, and the colored were strengthened by a core of families who had risked death to escape their enslavement. Fishing was good, and in the spring and summer months the skiff would make a healthy business of lessons for leisure-class sailors. He returned to Charleston full-chested, with a new song for Dora.

  He found her flat empty. New people were moving in. He went to Pilar. “She got the fevuh, then up n marry Tommy Winrow,” she said. “Married tree munt ahgo. They livin’ out by he farm up Camden Road the way.” Dessalines turned and marched back to his ship, his boot heels digging in the ground. “You say you want Charleston, well now you have it.” Determined to leave the city as quickly as possible, Dessalines offered spring pleasure outings and racing on L’Heureux while his captain bartered goods from the main ship.

  Cole thought to make up to his cousin with a jaunt down to Savannah. Abandoned at the altar, Matilda Bonneau months later was still salty that her whole carefully orchestrated political arrangement had fallen apart. Woodie’s family had whisked him out of town and married him off to a New York debutante. Ben Tillman managed to get himself elected to the U.S. Senate without the influence of Julius Mayfield, wrestling the seat of power from the tidewater families permanently. While Julius Mayfield and his class of planter statesmen retreated from public life, Ben Tillman took his brawling ways to the halls of Congress and remained in the Senate seat he had stolen well into the First World War.