Some Sing, Some Cry

by Ntozake Shange

  On the car ride back to New York, while everyone chattered on about the historic day, Cinnamon bowed her head and cried big heavy tears. “Why did she have to sing spirituals?”

  “Spirituals?” Elma inquired, genuinely perplexed. “Why shouldn’t she sing them? What better day to sing them than the Day of Resurrection?” At that very moment, the woman who was most like a mother to Cinn plunged into her abundant inventory of Negro sacred songs and erupted, swaying back and forth, bellowing out the car window, “Oh Jesus, come before my face!”

  Iolanthe patted Cinnamon on the knee. “Your real recognition will come in Europe.”

  25

  As a present, they said, for her admission to Juilliard, Deacon and Iolanthe offered Cinn that trip to Europe. Elma initially resisted the idea. “Being to tea and a concert doesn’t mean you can go traipsing across the ocean. These people are almost strangers. And there’s so much carry-on going on over there. Don’t know if it’s wise.”

  “If I don’t go now, who knows when I’ll get a chance.”

  “Well, your uncle and I say no.”

  “I’m nineteen years old. I can make my own decision, thank you,” Cinn replied. “He’s my uncle, too, Mama El. They’re just as much family as you.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that,” Elma said, holding back tears at the sharpness of Cinn’s response.

  Cinn softened. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Mama El.” She approached her aunt and put her arm over her shoulder. “You and Uncle Ray and Nana are my family, but Uncle Deacon and Iolanthe don’t have anyone but me. It makes them happy to be a part of my family. It would make me happy if you saw them that way, too.”

  “Have you let your mother know you’ll be coming?”

  “She didn’t come to my graduation. She hasn’t been to see me. I’m not going to Europe to see her. Madame Olivetsky’s colleague who came to see Aida will be meeting us, and she has provided me with letters of introduction to people who can advise me on my career. Prague, Vienna, and Salzburg are already off-limits because of the war. The maestro has offered to make some introductions in Paris and London while there was still time.”

  “At least let her know you’re coming.”

  “Fine, be my guest. But I don’t plan on having the time.”

  “I have been trying to get your uncle to go for years,” Iolanthe said as she busied herself about the stateroom, instructing the redcaps where to dislodge the last trunk from the dolly. Deacon flipped a ten-spot to the beaming porter, impressed that a Negro family was traveling first class. “Europe will appreciate you,” Iolanthe added. Not until they were well out to sea did Deacon confide in his wife that he was in a bit of trouble with the law again. “Police bustin’ the policy wheels, downtown mob on my ass, the mob’s invadin, trying to retake Harlem, again! City Hall diggin’ into my pockets, indictments coming down.” By their leaving town for a while, subpoenas couldn’t be served. Hence Cinn’s graduation present, her first trip to Europe, and theirs.

  The trip was a disaster. The week they arrived, Germany invaded Poland, and Britain and France declared war. Air raid drills in the middle of the day greeted them, soldiers in uniform everywhere. As soon as the trio landed, like the Hellfightuhs comin’ back, all hell broke loose. Gas masks selling on the street, everywhere furtive looks, hurried steps and scuffles, the exit ports stuffed like sardines. Cinn with her statuesque height, her uncle immaculately pressed, polished, spiffed, and Iolanthe, her cloche a russet cashmere, stood out like three beacons.

  “This place is absolutely dead,” Iolanthe quipped with shock. Cinnamon didn’t notice. She was in Europe! The home of Puccini, Bellini, and Mozart! The land where her father was wounded and got a Medal of Honor. “Ma princesse! C’est vrai que je serais avec toi ce soir?” a young pup hollered from the back of a motorbike. “Jamais!” she responded. “Comment osez-vous parler comme ça!” At the sound of her immaculate French, he melted, clutching his heart as the bike sped away. “Je t’aime quandmême, ma chérie!” She laughed, delighted with the feel of the language on her tongue.

  The maestro, Signor Grapelli, who had oozed rhapsodic over Cinn’s Aida, met them at the Paris station. Wiping his brow of the sweat, he apologized for the rush of people. “The French,” he chirped, his shoulders tight as his body jiggled. “The whole country takes vacation in August.” He looked around nervously. “You could have perhaps picked a better time.”

  “It’s convenient for me,” Deacon said blandly, surveying the scene, without looking at the man. The maestro was hoping to get a visa to accompany them back to the States, back to that job offer at Juilliard.

  Iolanthe blinked. “Sweetheart, my husband’s a gangster. He can’t help you. He can’t help himself.” She turned to her husband, pouting. “Deacon, you brought your mess with you. People everywhere leavin’ however they can, and here we come!”

  Neither Deacon nor Cinnamon wanted to see Cinn’s mother, but Iolanthe insisted on it. “The opera’s closed, the museum’s packing up. Montmartre’s the only night life left,” Iolanthe softly fussed as the taxi made its way through the blackout, the city in mourning for itself. Blue streets. Black curtains. The City of Light shrouded. The driver shouted over his shoulder, “Oui, le Club Banana, je connais l’adresse,” then giggled.

  “You sure it will be open?”

  “Oh yes, la rue Pigalle is always open. Toujours ouvert.”

  The taxi pulled up to what looked like a small pocket of squalor. In the blackout, there were no front lights, the sockets just empty husks. The Banana Club. A squeaky clarinet, an accordion, and a gypsy guitar wafted from within. Cinn, brown child of amber light, opalescent like red ochre of clouds at dusk, watched her mother descend from the eaves and glide as if suspended in space through a star-strewn sky. Her voice was huskier, the tone languid, the vibrato still quick,

  “Comment suis-je arrivée à cette chanson lancinante?

  Et pourquoi personne ne me répond?

  Bien que j’en ai cherché la réponse de par le monde entier,

  Je ne chante que cette chanson lancinante.

  De nouveau, je suis seule,

  Et ce soir, je m’envole,

  Pour voir si demain je rencontrerais,

  Quelqu’un qui me libererá de cette chanson lancinante

  Quelqu’un qui me libererá de cette chanson lancinante . . .”

  Honoring her dual nations, she continued the song, this time in English,

  “You ask how I come by this sad, haunting song,

  My friend, that’s a song all alone on its own,

  I have searched the world,

  Still I wander alone,

  Searching no matter how long for my song,

  Yes, I search the world for that crying song . . .”

  Her body shimmered, white feathers covering her breasts and sequined wings, Mayfield Turner . . . descended from the rafters of the tiny club on a silver trapeze. Cinnamon had not seen her mother in fifteen years.

  During the intermission, Cinn walked toward the dressing room. Deacon and Iolanthe held back, Iolanthe sensing that mother and daughter might need some time alone. Lizzie had seen the trio from the stage. Elma had wired her that Cinnamon was coming to Europe, but her sister had said nothing about the traveling companions. “Well, look at you! You’re beautiful! Ray always said you was gonna grow into your beauty.” Lizzie sat down and crossed her thighs with a sigh, a bouquet of feathers her halo, smelling of sweat, funk, and Chanel, her veined hands belying the youth in her face. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “. . . Well, I just graduated from Hunter College. And I’ll be attending Juilliard this . . .” Cinn smiled, dying inside. Why am I doing this? What am I doing here? Tell me about yourself? she says.

  The preshow flurry began. Lizzie changed costumes and spoke at the same time, looking at her daughter through a squint of cigarette smoke, a smile on the other half of her lips. “I seen you ain’t spent none of that money I sent yuh.”

 
Farid poked his head in the dressing room. With the downsized staff, he was now acting as house manager as well as pusher and pimp. “Cinq minutes, Madame.” He stopped, noticing Cinn. “Ohh la lahh!” Lizzie lifted her leg and landed the toe of her shoe on his chest, and let the spiked heel rest on his gut. “Monsieur Farid, this is my niece.” She spiked the cigarette as she spoke. “You must stay till the end of the show. We got lots to catch up. Promise me you’ll stay!” She disappeared with a trail of folks swishing behind, Cinn the tail of the entourage again. “Picked a devil of a time to come to Europe.” Cinn left a note with the hotel number.

  The next morning, Cinn awoke to a U.S. Marshal pounding on the door. All Americans were ordered out of France immediately. Paris was a zoo! Pouring down rain. Carloads of dazed Americans stuffed into buses bound for Cherbourg.

  “What about my mother? Does she count as an American?”

  “Cinnamon, Cinn,” Deacon reassured her. “Your mother will be okay. She’s a survivor. Now get your bags ready. You’ve got five minutes.”

  “I won’t leave without her! I won’t! You can go on ahead, but I’m going to find her.”

  Deacon grabbed Cinnamon by the shoulders and told her to sit down. Iolanthe sat beside her holding her hand. “I will go to find your mother,” he said.

  He left the women at the hotel and went to see Lizzie. The moment he stepped through the door, she reached for her pistol. Deacon stood in the door frame and threw up his hands in a gesture of peace. “That was a long time ago, Lizzie. I am a different man from then.”

  “Don’t you say that to me, don’t you call me by my name!” He had held the conversation many times over in his head, but now as he looked at Lizzie, her face still remarkably like it was twenty years before, a wild, wide-eyed beauty made more stunning by hate, his words vanished. He had not intended to harm her. He had come to her for help. Even then. How could he explain that? “Cinn sent me to come after you. They’re telling all Americans to—”

  “Farid!” Her eyes motioned to Farid standing silently in the doorway behind him.

  Deacon was startled by the Arab’s stealth. How he done got the jump like that?

  “Cet homme doit quitter—maintenant!” Lizzie leaned back in her chair and blew smoke in Deacon’s direction. This was her club. These were her people. She had nothing to fear from him.

  “What shall I tell your daughter?”

  “I have no daughter.”

  “I give you permission to tell her.”

  “Permission? Your permission? . . . Get the hell away from me!” He had mocked her. Her spindly legs, the spray of loud freckles cross her broad nose, big mouth and brazen speech, mocked her in the street. He had threatened her, “You say anythin’ about this and I will kill you. Say somethin’, anythin’ and I will tear your face off.” Through the mirror, Lizzie stared at him standing in the door frame. “Tell her your damn self!” It took all her power to keep her back to him. He had stolen everything that was dear to her. Given her a child she never wanted. He knew this. Deacon lowered his head and stared into his hat, then left without speaking further.

  Deacon stood in the middle of a foreign street and let the rain wash over him. Like the river rapids that carried him away from the prison camp, a mighty stream hurled him down to someplace he didn’t need to be. In the thunder squalls between the lightning, voices mimicked the raging, rippin’ water, claps of driftwood cracking beneath its steam—around him everywhere bodies, faces, hands pullin’ him down. The stranger on the bank, Riley, Win, the men he had killed or ruined, grabbed at him, desperate. Lizzie scratchin’ at him, whirled away from his blow, fell over, rollin’ in the hard dirt, faintin’, legs splayed to the sides, cryin’, cursin’ him. Osceola, his own brother, fightin’ him, tryin’ to kill him, then dyin’ like that. Ossie had marched toward him, grim-faced, heels dug in the ground and took a wild swing. Deke was shocked at how quick he was. The blow grazed his jaw. Nobody did that.

  “Keep away from her.”

  He laughed. “Or what?”

  Ossie charged him and they were in it—fightin’ when the mob come round the corner, swooped down on ’em like locusts. They fought their way back to Sully’s, but Ossie was done by then. Just breathin’ out his life, sittin’ in that barber chair as if waitin’ for a shave. Slippin’ away without a sound, slippin’ under . . . His brother had looked at him with such hatred.

  Finding his way back to the hotel on foot, leaning into the rain, Deke’s mind wandered from then. Chesapeake, Chambersburg, Chester. Small time, layin’ low. Rolled into Harlem, past a tent show. Summertime. Old time, Revival. He thought, Holy Rollers! A parade! But it was women, tall and straight in crisp white, men in high-button black uniforms and boots, their leader in an admiral’s cap, riding high in a gold and sable carriage, a team of black horses drawing it. All of them black, their faces eatin’ up the sun, glowin’ themselves. He said, “I got to see this.”

  “Please remove your hat, brother.” Deacon remembered a face black as his, smiling but looking firm. He went in, stood way to the back in a sea of people. Black pearls of Africa in a sea of new pressed, starched white cotton. The Leader talkin’ about a ship, a fleet of black ships to Africa, to the Kingdom. Talked about how black minds had been twisted into not knowing who they were “because we been slaves who was Kings. We didn’t belong to ourselves, so we don’t know ourselves and what we do!”

  Instantly he had seen it. What his life had been. The cuttin’ and gamblin’, killin’ and stealin’—hurtin’ my own people, makin’ it all strife, makin’ it all pain. From that time, that day, that moment, he turned around. Walked different, thought different, felt different from that time. He had mocked her, he had threatened her, he had hurt her. He was a different man. But Lizzie would never see that, never. How do I undo all that I done? The father. The brother. The daughter. The wife. He had sinned against them all.

  He put the conversation out of his mind and headed back toward the hotel, shards of rain pelting his face. Cinn charged him at the hotel entrance. Deacon tried to speak, “Cinn, your mother wouldn’t come. I’m sorry.” She collapsed in his arms. “She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t love me at all.” He leaned in and cupped her hands in his. “Come on. We have to get ready. We have to go.” He couldn’t bring himself to be despised in her eyes, couldn’t risk it. He was a coward. He could live with that small casualty.

  The Holstein party was herded onto a rustic British freighter that had been pulled into emergency service. They disembarked in Canada. From there, they took a train to Chicago, where Deacon decided to do a sleep-over and conduct some business. New York still being too hot for his return, this would give his favorite girls two more days of their vacation, a little Chicago-style fun. He hired a Duesenberg and let the girls have the car for the day while he got a manicure and shave, saw the tailor and later the Jones brothers at the Club De Lisa.

  After three hours at the Art Institute, Iolanthe begged off from the afternoon with a headache. Riding in the back seat, still trying to make sense of the recent events, Cinn got to see the city with two of the Joneses, henchmen Deacon knew from back in the day, driving her around. Fingers and Snook went all the way back with him to Crook School. They always took care of him when he came through Bronzeville. The trip to the museum had taken longer than anticipated. They didn’t know the boss had a goddaughter. They swung west to make a pickup before heading back south to the De Lisa. The car slowed on a bridge, then stopped completely. Snook rocked and strained his neck, beeping the horn! “Come onnn! Dirty Commies! Some sort of protest march down the street,” he explained.

  She had an uninvited opportunity to review her nineteen years of life and stop in a few places. New York, Charleston, and a brief jaunt to London . . . Paris, Chicago . . . Never expecting no one.

  A young man appeared by the car and tapped on the window. He seemed to look right over the dashboard, straight into her eyes, startling her from her memory.

  “Just thought y
ou gentlemen and you, young lady, would be interested in supporting the working people of America.”

  “Hey buddy, move along.” Fingers nudged him with a hand missing two of its digits. “Damn Communist! Git your hand off the dashboard, I said git your grubby mugs offa duh kah!”

  “I assure you, I’m no Communist. I’m democrat, small d. All we ask is that you blow your horn in solidarity with the demonstration. We’re the Woodlawn Improvement Association.”

  “Your friggin’ fingers? You wanna keep em!?” Fingers hollered as Snooks furiously rolled up the back windows.

  “Mr. Snooks! Stop that!” Cinn admonished her driver. Snooks reluctantly lowered the window just to her eyes. “What is the rally about?” she asked.

  “The shipbuilding plants here on the South Side tell the Negro workers they’re not hiring,” he explained as he walked alongside the automobile, maneuvering through the crowd. “Then they bring in a whole white crew from Indiana. This equipment is being built to help England and France in their fight against Fascism. I ask you why should Negroes fight Fascism abroad when we are battling those same forces over here?”