by Louise Welsh
“Yet she took the true death.”
“Yes, but not, I think, because of any mistake in judgment on Sorel’s part. But rather on her own. She knew she had done a foolish thing with Samuel and his wife. She had set something in motion that would haunt her always, and Samuel would never relent as long as he lived. Her decision to take the true death was a decision not to destroy him. She said as much before it was done. She asked of you on occasion,” Anthony finished in a soft voice.
Gilda felt a nervous chill slip down her back. She took a large sip from the glass of wine. “But Sorel has been devastated by her death. How can you speak of it so simply? I’m sure he’s not feeling the easy relief you seem to think.”
“I don’t presume any easy relief. Sorel has his grief, as do we all. But he’ll not be ended by it. He can live with his mistakes in judgment. If you’re not willing to take that chance, then you must reconsider how you will spend the coming years.”
After a while he spoke again. “I imagine you feel some degree of disloyalty to Bird in your desire to bring one among us. This is unnecessary. I’m sure Bird would say the same thing to you if you gave her a chance.”
“You may be right. I still feel stuck, as if I were part of a wheel spinning in place. Knowing the right thing to do…”
“Stop trying to make the perfect move; trust your instincts more. You’ve been through quite a bit in the past years. I’m sure you’re as good a student as you’ve always been.”
“I can’t be a student for all my time!”
“We are students for all our time if we’re lucky enough to know it. But that doesn’t mean you wait for Bird to grant you some dispensation before you really live. She can be mother, father, sister, lover – but she cannot create the family for you. You are part of our family and you will create others to be a part of it. This is no one’s mission but your own.”
“When she came to me in Boston I believed she would stay.”
“Even when she said she would not?”
“Yes.”
“You think of it as running away from you. For her it may simply have been running to other things that are most important. You were on your own, your world set. For Bird the world is travel, pulling together the strands of knowledge about her nation, other people from whom she’s been separated. You are a part of her life, but Woodard’s is gone; it will never be again.”
“That day in the farmhouse, when I lay in the bed waiting for Bird to come back from Woodard’s, my greatest fear was that she would decide not to complete the process, that she’d leave me to the mortal life. I was certain I’d never learn to live in the world I’d come to know. It was the most fear I had ever experienced, apart from the constancy of terror that was plantation life.”
“But she didn’t. She knew this life was one in which you would excel, she knew you’d learn to be… as we are, a living history. You don’t need Bird at your side to be this. You need only look forward, just as you did the day you decided to escape the plantation.”
Gilda didn’t respond. Anthony went on as if she had.
“Since there’s no overwhelming reason not to, why not bring this Julius to Sorel’s welcome-home party. You’re bound to see more clearly after drinking that silly champagne all evening.” The smile gleaming on Anthony’s face made Gilda laugh. They didn’t speak of Julius anymore as they sipped the wine. Gilda left through the heavy oak door.
She walked east enjoying the coolness of the night air as it invited the morning. When she stood in front of Julius’ apartment she looked up at the ancient building adorned with peeling fire escapes. East First Street was almost deserted, and the streetlamps glared and sparkled on the broken glass in the gutters. A walk-up, no doubt, she thought.
Gilda easily coaxed the ineffectual lock open and entered his apartment. It was clean and orderly despite the crumbling state of the building. His desk was covered with neat stacks of papers, and books stood lined up in rows. Julius, lying naked under a blanket on a mattress on the floor, shifted uneasily in his sleep. Looking down at him it was easy to see what a child he was. The beard that grew in during the night was soft on his chin, and the whiteness of his teeth was inviting under his partially opened lips. His reverie was of her as she entered the dream.
She glanced at a family snapshot that sat framed beside the bed and at the large posters of Angela Davis, Ché Guevera, and Malcolm X that hung on the walls. She pulled the covers from Julius’ body. He stirred, opened his eyes, and she caught him in a gaze he couldn’t break.
“The dream doesn’t have to end,” she said softly, then lay down beside him, touching her fingers to his skin as lightly as the years touched her unlined face. She held him in her arms and kissed his full lips, listening to his satisfied murmurs. His eyes closed again, convinced this was a dream. She ran her hands across his body making his flesh tingle. Julius held her tightly, his lips seeking hers. His body responded as a man’s, and she lay across his lean thighs and chest providing a comforting sensation. Her hands were as hypnotic as her eyes. As the moment approached when his mind provided the gratification his body hungered for, she sliced across the flesh of his neck with her fingernail and watched the blood ease slowly to the surface.
She pressed her lips eagerly to the wound and drew the life from him as his body exploded with the joy of his imagination. She listened inside of him and was surprised to see the image of the snapshot that sat atop the stack of books beside his bed. She stopped as she felt his pulse weaken, held her hand on his chest, and lifted herself away from his body to ease his breathing. He relaxed into satisfaction. She spoke soft, hypnotic words in his ear until his breathing became regular.
“Goodbye, sweet baby,” she whispered.
Gilda was back on the street in only a few moments and inside her apartment so quickly it felt as if she had never left. She slipped out of her clothes and took a quick shower. The running water made her slightly uncomfortable even though she’d lined the walls with the Mississippi earth she carried everywhere with her. The towel felt good against her skin, and she had no regrets. He would wake in the morning satisfied, as would she, and both could still be separate.
She pulled the silk comforter over her naked body; the earth lining the bed frame beneath her felt cool and familiar. Gilda tried to remember what her family had been like. She was Tack’s child. She knew that wasn’t her father’s real name but one they called him because he was so good with horses. He worked in the tack house and had been sold away before she was born. Her mother’s face was the only one she remembered clearly. Everyone said that, unlike her nine sisters, Gilda resembled her mother. She had been rather tall, her smooth dark-brown skin topped by a full head of thick hair she was endlessly trying to manage so it would not be an embarrassment to the mistress. She worked inside the house, unusual for a woman of her deep color. Her skills with herbs, in addition to her cooking, made them reluctant to lose her to the fields and the sun.
Instead she died from the influenza she caught taking care of one of the endless white women who got sick. Knowing she was now just another slave, likely to be sold away, Gilda had run. She wasn’t sure what sold away meant except that she would disappear like her father had. She regretted leaving her sisters but knew it would only be a matter of time before they’d be sold away too. That had been so long ago.
Gilda remained as determined to survive now as she had then. She knew about the empires of black people in Mali and Ghana, and although there didn’t seem to be much hope at the moment, she would wait and work and move around the world toward the future. As she looked in the mirror, seeing her mother’s eyes staring back out at her was comforting. Bird’s presence in her walk, the sound of Bernice’s laughter in her own, all made the connection to life less tenuous. Finding those she loved within herself eased the passage of time.
Life was indeed interminable. The inattention of her contemporaries to some mortal questions, like race, didn’t suit her. She didn’t believe a past could, o
r should, be so easily discarded. Her connection to the daylight world came from her blackness. The memories of her master’s lash as well as her mother’s face, legends of the Middle Passage, lynchings she had not been able to prevent, images of black women bent over scouring brushes – all fueled her ambition. She had been attacked more than once by men determined that she die, but of course she had not. She felt their hatred as personally as any mortal. The energy of the struggles of those times sustained her, somehow.
Gilda tried to rest now. This was not really sleep, not until that final time when the earth or sea would close around her and the fragments of her body.
She wondered why Julius had no brothers or sisters. Why he’d been left so unequivocally alone in the world. The movements of the sixties had fueled Julius’ vision of the future, too, but to Gilda, George Jackson’s death this past September signaled the end of that era. Angela was somewhere out there alone now with a cause but no community. The horror of slavery appeared to reap endless returns.
Gilda recognized her repeated attempts to grasp what the right step might be. Her need to shrug off human entrapments was strong, but her bond with the past life was deeper. She shoved the thoughts out of her mind, burying the turmoil they caused by promising herself a trip to the West Coast no matter how she managed it.
The darkness of her room was complete. No shadows played behind the locked door. Everything was still above her as she lay in her restless tomb. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present. The words of the Tao played in her mind, lulling her into sleep. She succumbed to the silence of dawn while the world around her prepared to awaken.
*
During a break in rehearsal, one week before the play’s opening night, Gilda ran through the words to a song she was writing at the same time as she scanned the production book checking the light and sound cues. She glanced down at the cast milling around restlessly as the director worked to reblock an actor’s movement. The route from one chair to another became everyone’s focus as they weighed what effect the minute changes would have on their positions. The play was a political polemic full of naive hope and loud music, not unlike many others that were playing the off-Broadway boards at the time.
Denise, the dance captain, was a brilliant dancer and charismatic singer. David, the second male lead, was a born comedian. But the play itself was just a sketch.
The director had been invited by the company partly because of the name he had made directing a popular antiwar musical, and also because word was out that he was in emotional trouble. He had been replaced on a Broadway-bound production the year before. Those were just the qualities that made him irresistible to this anarchistic little group. Gilda sensed him flounder for a second under the pressure to make a quick, clean decision about the moves.
She called out from the booth, “Excuse me, Charles, but Equity rules say they have a break about now.”
There was laughter in her voice. They all knew times when they’d worked hours on end, eating hurriedly only when their characters were not required on stage.
Charles was grateful for the interruption and replied, “Well, if we must bow to the tyranny of the masses, I’ll spring for coffee.” Someone took orders for the run to the deli, Gilda untangled her legs from the wires, and Sonia, who worked the sound, climbed down from the booth. Julius stood at the bottom of the ladder, a tentative smile on his face.
“You going out for something to eat?”
“No, I want to talk to Charles about the blocking problem.”
“How about later after the rehearsal?”
“Not tonight, Julius, rain check.” Gilda walked away, cautiously ignoring the look of disappointment on his face.
That night, after the gate had been drawn, Gilda headed downtown, enjoying the brisk air and trying to wipe the memory of Julius’ face from her mind. She crossed 14th and walked until coming to West Street. Men’s bars studded the neighborhood, sleazy landmarks in the crumbling dock area. Gilda rarely ventured to this part of the City. Its aura of danger – the excitement and pain – was not usually appealing to her. She crossed under the West Side Highway to the piers where young men, most trimly bearded, paraded to entice other men. There was danger in taking blood here: the men’s bodies were frequently saturated with drugs and alchohol, and Gilda didn’t know with what or how much. But tonight, danger was all that would satisfy her.
She walked stiff and wide-legged with her hands in her pockets so that no one would notice her womanhood. She passed a middle-aged white man who hurried toward the street, tucking in his blue button-down shirt and closing a vest over his slightly bulging belly. He looked backward over his shoulder quickly, as if the man who had just given him pleasure would leap on his back to destroy him at any moment. Gilda saw the young man with curly hair leaning against the pilings, rinsing his mouth with beer from a bottle, then spitting into the Hudson. He poured some beer on his hands, wiped them on his denims, and started toward the street. Almost without hesitation he popped a pill into his mouth, washing it down with the last of the beer. The bottle crashed into the abandoned warehouse building behind him.
As the glass tinkled among the other broken bottles, he noticed Gilda coming toward him. He walked a little taller, eager to check out the new figure. Just as he realized she was a woman, Gilda caught him with her eyes. No, tonight was not a night of love. It was a night of feeding.
Gilda held him in her gaze and wiped his mind clear. His eyes opened wide, unseeing, as she pushed him backward into the shadows of the shell-shocked warehouse. She turned his face to the wall, pulling the jacket away from his back and neck with an easy rip. She pressed his body hard against the rough building and sliced open the skin on his neck. He moaned slightly as he felt the pressure against his body. Gilda took his blood easily, barely thinking of what might be in his mind. A small thing, actually. He wanted to visit a friend who was sick but somehow never found the motivation. He felt guilty. Gilda took her share of the blood, and by the time she released him, his resolve to make the visit was firm. The drug that diluted his blood pulsed through Gilda’s veins, light exploded in her head, and her breathing raced dangerously. She didn’t care. She just wanted to forget her own indecision and the boy who sold his body on a crumbling dock.
She pulled back and held her hand over the wound. Her eyes were out of focus and her hand leaden with what she was sure were depressants. Reaching into the front pocket of his jeans she found a slender ampule. His breathing was shallow and didn’t improve, so she flipped off its cap and passed the popper quickly beneath his nose. His heart rate quickened, and soon his pulse rose. His body stiffened in its struggle to consciousness. She threw the container over her shoulder into the river and left him there, against the building, clinging to life with tenacity. Gilda ran quickly, even though the drug made her feel stiff and uncertain.
Once free of the area she walked more slowly, looking at the people on the street and enjoying the movement of the lights. She could hear sounds coming from the buildings around her as if they were programmed through a stereo in her ear. The music from a penthouse above was as clear as the clink of dishes in the storefront diner. She arrived home, took a shower, and tried to wash away the smell of the city.
Gilda sat outside in the back, watching the stars and listening to the music from Marcie’s place, where tonight a blue light glowed. That meant he had more than one guest with him. She heard the laughter and salsa floating down. Gilda wondered if the boy on the dock came home to friends such as these – unexpected and challenging. She watched the stars until they faded and dawn started to take over the sky.
*
The show opened a week later. So few things went wrong that Charles was triumphant and the cast confident they would run forever. At the cast party they milled around Charles’ West 97th Street apartment, reliving special moments, releasing the tension that had been stored for weeks. Gilda sat at a narrow counter watching the young faces. She was pleased with the show – it mad
e a statement and showed off good talent. The group sat stroking each other’s egos for getting this far. Critics would be coming in three days, so the edge was not completely off, but they were good and they knew it. Julius came around to the back of the counter and offered to pour her a drink. Gilda declined and turned back to the rest of the group. Night sparkled outside the large uncurtained windows as Julius stood sipping from a large glass of scotch.
“Drinking alcohol is not good for you,” Gilda teased with a little smile. He ignored the remark, and they were silent again. Then Julius said, “I had a dream about you the other night. You came to my pad and woke me up to make love to me. I was… well… happy. But then you left and I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was dying. I couldn’t wake myself up and kept calling you, begging you not to leave me there, dying, but I couldn’t get the words out.”
Gilda sat very still staring past Julius at the photograph of Greta Garbo on the wall behind him. When she caught his eyes they were pinpoints of curiosity. She looked around the room feeling him holding on to her.
“I know you’re trying to keep from getting into something with me. I’m not a complete fool, sisterlove. You made yourself pretty clear. But I’ve got to let you know how it is for me. I can’t imagine life without you somewhere near me. If it’s as a friend and not a lover, then let it be that. Just don’t ice me out.”