Saving Savannah

by Tonya Bolden

  The city had been a ghost town. Schools and libraries closed. Public gatherings banned.

  Even after things opened back up, nothing was normal; still they lived in the shadow of death.

  Streets graveyard quiet.

  White gauze masks.

  Flannel bags of camphor dangling around necks.

  Yolande was pacing again. “The Sanderson party was a great big wonderful way to celebrate that so much awfulness is over! No more Meatless Mondays. No more Wheatless Wednesdays! No more victory gardens! No more stupid signs fussing about not wasting food.”

  Food.

  Frankfurter9 out. Hot dog in. Or better yet, Liberty sausage.

  Hamburger10 out. Liberty steak in.

  Sauerkraut out. Liberty cabbage in.

  Oh, no, wait, said the Bee, for one, giving sauerkraut a reprieve: “As a matter of fact, the dish is said to be of Dutch, rather than of German origin.”11

  “Think Excelsior!,” Yolande pleaded. “Think onward and upward!”

  Onward Savannah had gone to the Y solo so many Saturdays to pack comfort kits12 with soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shaving cream, razors, Prince Albert tobacco, pipe cleaners, Juicy Fruit, figs, chocolate. To roll bandages, knit socks … for men overseas up against strafing, machine gun fire, flamethrowers, suffering trench foot, shattered legs, blown-off jaws. How much comfort did a kit bring? Could it keep a man from going mad?

  “Why do you insist on being so glum?” Yolande plopped down on the chaise.

  “You’ve not kept up with the news?”

  “What news?”

  “More anarchist bombs!”

  “That wasn’t here, that was in Philadelphia.13 And weeks ago.”

  “And what about what has happened here—in front of the White House?”

  “White women have been picketing there for, what, two years now? Everybody knows that.”

  Savannah snatched up from her desk a weeks-old Star, waved it in Yolande’s face. “On New Year’s day14 they lit an urn—a watch fire for freedom—vowed to keep it burning until the Anthony amendment gets through. But then—”

  “Yes, I know, I know, there was a bit of a ruckus.”

  “A bit of a ruckus?” Savannah shook her head. “Boys, even grown men, threw stones at the women! Some were dragged across the pavement and hauled off to jail!”

  “Hasn’t that happened before?”

  “Yes, but that it should keep happening is …”

  Yolande was hopeless.

  Unfazed.

  Unmoved.

  Except by the likes of crab puffs.

  So shallow.

  And she just wouldn’t shut up! “So maybe it’s a good thing those Alice Paul people want little to do with Negro women. Mother said years ago they expected Ida Wells-Barnett to travel all the way here from Chicago to march in the back of their parade.”15

  “I know that.”

  The window whistled again, and Savannah was two seconds from telling Yolande to buzz off.

  Yolande shot up. “You abandoned me last night!” Again she stamped her feet. “After you left, it was awful. I was so—so—”

  Savannah drummed her fingers on her sketch pad. “You really need to have more faith in yourself, Yolande. I can’t forever be your crutch.” She snatched her white Shetland shawl from the back of her desk chair, wrapped it over her sky-blue jumper dress, grabbed her sketch pad. Within a few steps she was through the French doors and out onto her small balcony, knowing Yolande wouldn’t follow, given her trouble with heights.

  With a flip, the sketch pad open.

  With a pluck from her plait, the pencil in hand.

  Savannah picked up where she left off with her skyline. Across the top—

  Saturday, February 1, 1919.

  She stepped closer to the wrought iron curlicue railing, stared down.

  Father’s black Buick.

  Old man Boudinot’s Saxon Roadster.

  Mrs. Pinchback, coat collar up, was walking her Yorkshire terrier, Sebastian. He yapped, yapped, yapped at the wind. It had been months since Savannah had seen a smile on Mrs. Pinchback’s face. Still mourning her nephew.

  Looking up, out, Savannah returned to her sketch, to townhouse turrets and gables, treetops, Millet post streetlamps.

  She faced the 900 block of M Street NW again, her skyline again.

  If only Yolande would leave. Savannah hoped silence would do the trick.

  “I guess I’ll be going,” Yolande finally said.

  Seconds later, Savannah flipped to a fresh page of her sketch pad. Across the top she wrote The Watch Fire Women.

  BEGGAR IN THE RAIN

  It was like water slipping through her fingers steadily, daily, and Yolande couldn’t fathom life without the friendship.

  Their homes side by side.

  Birthdays a week apart.

  Their monthlies came a day apart.

  And they were both miracle babies.

  Yolande remembered them scampering up to her mother’s sewing room, finding the key to the rosewood sewing box, picking the ideal needle, pricking each other’s thumbs.

  “Sisters!”

  Blood touching blood.

  “I want my friend back!” Yolande muttered outside the Riddle townhouse all those years later on that February 1919 day.

  Back.

  Where was the Savannah who loved sledding like lightning down snowy I-Dare-You Hill with her mother nowhere in sight and Yolande keeping her secret?

  Where was the Savannah who laughed so hard at Charlie Chaplin photoplays that she got stitches in her sides, who savored marshmallow roasts and ghost stories as darkness crept up on clambakes?

  At least they still walked to, from school together.

  But no longer arm in arm.

  At least they still kept company some weekday afternoons.

  But Saturdays together were rare.

  Entering her home, Yolande was flooded by memories of the once-upon-a-time sweet, smooth rhythm and rhyme of their lives.

  Skipping rope.

  Hopscotch.

  Strolling down the street with the Brownie cameras Charlie sent one Christmas, taking photographs of each other, of maples, lindens, that box of kittens inside old man Boudinot’s gate, the Pinchbacks’ Sebastian straining at the leash, yapping at a stranger.

  Too cold, too hot, rainy, or with dusk begun …

  Chinese checkers.

  Spillikins.

  Crafting cat’s cradles.

  Fashioning stories about the families dwelling in their twin dollhouses.

  Sisters.

  They had vowed that when they grew up, they’d marry fellas from the finest of families, fellas who were best friends, and they’d make them buy homes side by side. Savannah would name her first baby girl Yolande. Yolande would name hers Savannah.

  “We’ll give them both the middle name Marie!” Savannah had said.

  “Fat chance now,” Yolande whispered with a sigh. There was no friendship ring on her horizon, and Savannah, who could take her pick of real catches, well, she had gone and ended it with Cary Sanderson.

  Yolande entered her home pining for the past.

  For photoplays at the Hiawatha.

  Sundaes or ice cream sodas at Board’s Drug Store.

  Lunch at Lee’s Lunch Room or better yet at Gaskins’—all by themselves.

  Like clockwork it used to be. At noon through their front doors they stepped in matching outfits, maybe middy sailor dresses or shepherd’s check suiting.

  Now, time and again—for months—Yolande felt like a beggar in the rain when Mrs. Riddle answered the door, informed her that Savannah had already gone out.

  If Savannah was home and if she did invite her in, after limp pleasantries Yolande was left to fiddle with time by reading a book, a Saturday Evening Post, dreaming up stories around the thistles and blooms on Savannah’s yellow wallpaper.

  Or watching Savannah sketch.

  “I’m back, Mother!”

&nbs
p; “In the kitchen, dear. Would you like some cocoa?”

  “Yes, please.”

  You really need to have more faith in yourself, Yolande.

  “Easy for you to say,” Yolande mumbled, entering the kitchen. She didn’t have willowy Savannah’s beacon-light smile, didn’t have her big beautiful eyes, nor that wondrous coppery skin, didn’t walk with a royal’s grace.

  “I don’t understand it, Mother,” whimpered Yolande, staring at her cocoa’s waning wisps of steam. “Savannah has become impossible!”

  STARLIGHT

  The women small, the banners large.

  MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

  MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?16

  Thinking about that insult to Ida Wells-Barnett, Savannah erased the words on one banner and replaced them with ALICE PAUL, WHEN WILL YOU PICKET AND PARADE AGAINST THE COLOR LINE?

  And when will I really snap out of it!

  Savannah quit her balcony, went to her desk.

  From the bottom drawer she grabbed a bunch of newspaper clippings. In no time at all, every article, every bit of grim, grisly news lay in shreds in the wastepaper basket next to her desk.

  The Great War, Spanish flu, East Saint Louis—gone!

  Next, to her chiffonier where months ago—over a year ago—she had tucked in its mirror’s frame a somber photograph from Charlie.

  Row after row after row …

  Negro men in Sunday best black suits, black hats.

  Negro women and children in white.

  One banner pleaded “MAKE AMERICA SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY.”

  Another scolded “RACE PREJUDICE IS THE OFFSPRING OF IGNORANCE AND THE MOTHER OF LYNCHING.”17

  “Except for muffled drumbeats, it was bone quiet,” Charlie had written of the NAACP’s Silent Parade18 triggered by East Saint Louis atrocities.

  In response to her bitter tears over the reports of those beatings, stabbings, bludgeonings, of homes set ablaze, homes shot up as families slept, children hurled into flames—there was Yolande trying to change the subject, trying to comfort her with yet another bromide. “Mother says thank heavens we live in the capital, where, yes, we have to contend with the color line, but the whitefolks here are not nearly so barbaric.”

  Savannah took down the Silent Parade photograph, placed it in a desk drawer. In a quick glance out her window, she saw straining rays had conquered clouds.

  Out of that Shetland shawl and sky-blue jumper dress.

  Into her cinnamon walking suit, black boots, and black sealskin short-brimmed hat.

  “I’m going out for a bit.” She was standing in the doorway of the living room.

  Mother sat on the davenport reading a book. Father in the arm rocker with the Bee.

  “Where to?” asked Mother, looking up from her book.

  “Just for a walk.”

  Mother pursed her lips. “Is Yolande going with you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you invite her?”

  “No.”

  Father rested the Bee on his lap, glanced at the brass-cased clock on the fireplace mantel.

  “I won’t be out long.”

  “But where’s your coat?” asked Mother.

  Savannah tugged on the front pockets of her suit jacket. “This is wool. And it’s not that cold out.”

  “I’m well aware that it is wool, but I also know that the weather is fickle these days. The temperature could drop by the time you are returning home. You mustn’t go out without a coat.”

  “But, Mother—”

  Father looked at Savannah over his glasses.

  Minutes later Savannah left the house with her black serge overcoat buttoned up to her neck.

  She shed it once off her block, slung it over an arm.

  “Hello, Savannah!”

  “Hello, Mrs. Lane.”

  “Hi, Savannah!”

  “Well, hello there, Jimmy Wiggins.”

  A dour man tipped his homburg. “Good day to you, Miss Riddle.”

  “Good day, Dr. Woodson.”

  She had never seen a smile on that man’s face. If she kept on as she was, would she wind up a sour-face too?

  I don’t want that!

  If only she could find delight in the likes of crab puffs.

  Savannah felt more pep in her step nearer to U Street, that hub of pride with its movie theaters and restaurants, old man Boudinot’s bookshop, the Underdown delicatessen, the Murray Brothers Printing company, Ware’s, the Madeline Beauty Parlor, Uncle Madison’s shop.

  And being around Uncle Madison was like being around Charlie.

  A little.

  Where’s Charlie?

  Years back, she had scurried upstairs, downstairs, searched every room.

  Where’s Charlie?

  Even checked closets.

  Where’s Charlie?

  Heartsick and whimpering.

  Charlie had been writing more often and, as always, sent a photograph. They scheduled telephone time for when Mother and Father would be out.

  One time—

  “Oh, Charlie, Cary is insufferable. The other day at the Fitzhughs’ lawn party I overheard him boasting about his mother surprising him with three new dress suits.”

  Another—

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me—all I know is I’m not happy!”

  Savannah had puzzled over why Charlie had begun to pay her more attention, then chalked it up to worry about Spanish flu.

  Charlie …

  It seemed ages since Father packed her and Mother up in the black Buick and drove to New York City where he had business. The nearer to the city, the thicker the tension in the car, the heavier the silence.

  From the back seat Savannah imagined a sneer on Mother’s face as they pulled up to a storefront on West 135th Street. On either side of the door a display case with urns, fans, other props. Stenciled in white in each window: CHARLESTON RIDDLE PHOTO STUDIO.

  Two boys raced by on roller skates.

  Mother shook her head, then once inside looked around as if a health inspector.

  Charlie came out from the back room, looking like Father spit him out as always. Both tall. Angular. Charlie had Father’s dark, velvety skin, too, along with that look of purpose in his eyes. And he sported a razor-thin mustache just like Father. His hair was pomaded. He had on a nice suit. How Savannah wished she looked more like Father and Charlie, less like Mother.

  Charlie and Father shook hands, embraced.

  Charlie kissed Mother, left cheek, right cheek, then scooped up Savannah in his arms, “And ten hugs for you, Sis!”

  “Certainly much larger than your first studio,” said Father.

  “It is that.”

  “And where do you live?” asked Mother with a sniff.

  “Upstairs.”

  Things were tense still during dinner at the Empire—“the largest and finest Negro restaurant in Harlem,” Charlie had said.

  Father talked about expanding into the Northeast, starting with an office in New York, at which point Mother glared at Charlie, then changed the subject to saving Frederick Douglass’s estate. “It will take years to bring his Cedar Hill back into its original glory, but we will do it!” Mother’s face had softened.

  Whenever Charlie got a word in edgewise, he spoke about the lectures he attended. He also talked about events he covered for the New York Age as if he didn’t know that would get on Mother’s nerves. Or maybe he didn’t care, thought Savannah.

  “Hello there, Savannah!”

  “Hello there, Mrs. Crane.”

  Walking on, Savannah fumed all over again about Mother’s badgering years back.

  You know you are breaking your father’s heart.

  But, Mother …

  You should not be throwing your life away.

  But, Mother …

  I am not asking you to give it up. It makes a perfectly fine hobby.

  But, Mother …

  Your father’s firm offers saf
ety and security.

  But, Mother …

  When Savannah reached 900 U Street NW, she looked up at the sign—SPURLOCK PHOTO STUDIO—that would have read SPURLOCK & RIDDLE PHOTO STUDIO had Mother not driven Charlie away.

  In the display case, Uncle Madison’s usual mix of prominent race men and women, alive and dead—Booker T. Washington, Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell—with photos of everyday people, like Annie Brooks Evans, like little girls lined up at a ballet bar and little boys in Sunday best posed against a car.

  And the door was locked.

  Hands formed into blinders, Savannah pressed her face to the glass.

  She checked her bracelet watch.

  Late lunch?

  She rang the bell.

  Face to the glass again, then to the street. “Shucks!”

  Just as she was about to head off, the door opened.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the Little Riddle! Twice in two days!”

  He was the only person who could make a joke of her name and get away with it. Unlike Lafayette Mercer with his stupid taunts of “Riddle, can you fiddle?” For that he got a punch.

  Once inside Uncle Madison’s shop, Savannah frowned.

  His shirtsleeves were unevenly rolled up, his tie unloosed. His gray trousers had smudges of plaster, flecks of paint. He had cobwebs in his hair.

  “Are you all right?”

  Uncle Madison looked himself over. “I was just sorting some things in the storeroom. Excuse me a minute while I tidy myself.” Once he was through the door at the rear of the shop, Savannah sauntered over to the setup not far from that door. Savannah wondered if the tableau was for his last shoot or for one upcoming.

  Against a black velvet backdrop were silver and gold crescents and full moons in a sea of tiny rhinestone stars. More black velvet on the floor and on it a domed, silver satin chair, a porter’s chair transformed into a throne.

  “And what do you call this one?”

  A tidied Uncle Madison was back in the main room. He did a tap step, made ta-da hands. “Starlight.”

  “Nice.” Savannah strolled around the room.

  “So what brings you here?”

  “Just felt like a walk.”

  Overcoat hung on the coatrack by the door, Savannah pulled out an envelope from her purse, waved Uncle Madison over to a small settee and table near the window. “And to show you two of Charlie’s from a while back.”