by Vanda Writer
Should I cablegram Max again? Max had told me he’d call if he found out anything more about Schuyler, so before coming to the Lido, I sat on a chair in the hotel lobby staring at the phone. I was trying to send thought messages to Max, so he’d call. He didn’t. Max could survive this mess. He’d fire me and announce to the world that he didn’t know I was like that.
But Juliana. My beautiful Juliana. I looked up from my scotch long enough to see her dancing, singing and flirting to “Coax Me a Little Bit” in English. It was a samba and oh, so sexy. She was dancing all over the stage with the male dancers. She danced in high heels and a black gown with a slit going up her left leg. She was gorgeous. And she could be such a delicious flirt both onstage and off. I couldn’t stand watching her. I had to tell her. If I didn’t act right away, it could hit the papers and everyone would know before she did. Two days. I’d tell her tomorrow. I couldn’t wait until the last minute; it would kill me.
I walked back to the hotel along the Seine, the ever present, always steady, always there, Seine. It flowed out to sea unperturbed by things like Schuyler, scandal, shame, or loss.
Back at the hotel, I thought I might achieve unconsciousness by falling into a deep sleep, so that I’d forget all that was happening and all that I must tell Juliana. But I soon realized sleep was impossible. My stomach was a tight ball of anguish. There would be no sleep tonight.
I walked into the hotel lounge where the stage was lit with a floorshow of dancing girls prancing around, bare-breasted except for the pasties they’d glued to their nipples. Those glued tassels looked painful. I was getting more used to watching women on stage with their breasts hanging out. Actually, it was getting boring. Juliana was ever so much sexier in her heels with that slit on the side of her dress than any of those boob girls could ever hope to be.
I sat at a back table. The waiter came over and I ordered, “un baby scotch les rocks.” The hotel staff was getting more used to seeing me sitting in the back by myself. I can’t say their opinion ever moved up to approval, but I think I was tolerated, an unescorted woman.
I kept running the two scenes over and over in my mind. The one I’d botched up with Schuyler that afternoon and the one I knew I had to have with Juliana in a few hours when she awoke to what she thought would be a bright new day. How would I tell her? How would I get it past my lips?
The floor show ended and I recognized the sound of polite applause that I guess surrounded me, but it seemed distant and fuzzy. I didn’t know where I’d go next, but I knew I couldn’t go up to my room. I needed to be around people but not talk to them.
As I stepped out of the lounge, an exhausted Juliana smiled at me. “No drink tonight,” she said. “I’m beat. I’m going right up. See you tomorrow for breakfast?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said as the bellman guided her toward the elevator. I watched the elevator lift her in the air toward our floor, clanging and shaking all the way.
“What’s going on, Al?”
I jumped to the sound of Scott’s voice behind me. He leaned against the wall smoking a cigarette. He wore his custom-made, tan, cashmere jacket. “And don’t say it’s nothing, because I know it’s something. Talk to me.”
“Will you walk with me? I can’t talk right now. It’s too hard. Just walk.”
I started out ahead of him, shoving myself against the hotel door. How indelicate. No wonder people could tell about me.
Lights blinked at me from across the Seine and I followed them, watching the water ripple as I moved along the quay. Scott caught up. I was walking fast; I needed to walk fast, to walk out the pain, the confusion and fear inside me. I’ll tell her on Thursday. Two days would give me time to think of a good way to tell her. But what if Schuyler put the word out tomorrow and didn’t wait till Thursday? Don’t think about it. Keep walking. But I had to think about it. I had to tell her tomorrow, which was really today.
“Al, where are we rushing off to?” Scott asked.
“I don’t know.”
We wandered into a shadowy corner of the city where there were clubs and dimly lit late-night cafes. The haunting sound of a saxophone drifted into the air. “Let’s go there,” I said to Scott. “I think I could use some jazz right now.”
We went down a series of dimly lit cement steps and found ourselves in one of those cellar boîtes that were cropping up around Paris.
We took seats at a table that was pushed up against a brick wall. The place was mostly empty except for the jazz band and a sprinkling of patrons. The band, composed of a saxophone player, a piano player, and a drummer were perched on a small stage in front of us. The sax player, whose haunting sound had called to me from the outside, was a young Negro man dressed in a brown suit with a tie pulled slightly away from his throat. His eyes were closed as he played, and he seemed oblivious to anything but the music that poured from him. The other two band members were white.
A woman—I guess the waitress, though she showed no signs of it—passed by our table and dropped off two glasses of wine.
“Al,” Scott began. “Can we talk now?”
“Shh, I’m listening to the music. These guys are good, especially that sax player.”
After a few more numbers, the band took a break and most of the other patrons left. It was Scott, me, and one guy who looked like he’d had a few too many glasses of wine. “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on with you now?” Scott asked.
I got up. “I’ve never managed a sax player before. I wonder . . .”
“You have no experience with that. Stop this, Al, and talk to me.”
“Later. I’m going to talk to the sax now.”
Scott sighed and slumped down in his chair, drinking his wine.
“Hi,” I said, approaching the sax player who sat on the edge of the low stage; he lit a Gitanes. “I’m Al Huffman.”
“I know who you are, Miss Huffman. We met briefly at an after-hours party at the Vanguard a few years back. I wouldn’t expect you to remember me. I was a nobody. Still am.”
“But I’m sure you have a name.”
“Willie Washington. What do you want?”
“Well, Mr. Washington, I was hoping you’d join my friend and I for a drink. I haven’t often had an opportunity to speak to many American musicians since I’ve arrived in Paris. Except, of course, the ones I came with.”
“Then you consider me an ‘American’?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Let’s go. Introduce me to your boyfriend.” He headed for the table before me.
“This is Scott Elkins,” I said as Scott rose. “And he’s not my boyfriend. He’s my musical director. He also expertly plays the piano for Juliana at Le Lido.”
“I’m supposed to be impressed, I suppose.”
“Not if you don’t want to be. Won’t you have a seat?”
“Al, what are you doing?” Scott asked as the Negro man sat down.
“Mr. Washington . . .” I began.
“Willie,” he corrected. “Mr. Washington was my father.”
“All right then, Willie, and please call me Al. Scott, why don’t you ask the waitress to bring Willie a glass of wine.”
“If you’re paying, I’d rather have a scotch. Neat.”
“Could you ask her to bring me a scotch too?” I said. “But I want it on the rocks.”
“Sure,” Scott said, his eyes boring into mine like he wanted to punch me.
“Well, Willie, I enjoyed your playing. Since you know who I am, you know that I manage talent. I do have a reputation for recognizing talent in others, and I—” I heard Schuyler’s voice saying ‘exploit it’—“I support it. So, Willie, how long have you been away from home?”
“Away from home? I’m not.”
“But—surely . . . You’re an American.”
“Your accent.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be on tour in the US, cross the Mason-Dixon line, and be told you have to use a separate washroom, one set aside for ‘coloreds,’ like you’re some kind of alien species?”
“No. I don’t. And I’m sorry those terrible things happened to you, but in the North—”
“The North? You Northern white folks love to congratulate yourselves about how liberal you are. You take such pride in how you’re so much more ‘open-minded’ than Southerners. But at least in the South I knew where I stood. You Northerners are a lot sneakier bunch. You broadcast how free and equal we are, but tell me, Miss Huffman, could you and I sit together like this in a club in the North? Would they even let me in?”
“Things are changing, Willie. Granted it’s slow, but . . . The club I run, for instance, The Haven, now admits Negroes as customers, not only as entertainers.”
“Well, aren’t you a nice white lady. I bet you even give to the NAACP too. Maybe you and I should go and get coffee together at Schrafft’s when I’m in town. Talk business. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Well . . .”
“Oh, that’s right, Schrafft’s doesn’t serve Negroes. Now, you tell me where my home is.”
Scott returned with the scotch. I immediately started drinking mine.
“No one cares what I look like here,” Willie went on. “They don’t see me as different from them. All they care about is my music. The US is not my home. A home is a place that when you go there, they welcome you. I was welcomed here. And you wanting to manage my career or whatever you want doesn’t matter one bit to me if it means going back there. I’ll never go back. I found my home. Here. In Paris where I can be me and it’s okay.” He picked up his scotch glass. “Thanks for the scotch. I have to get back to work.” He strode back to the stage.
“I gotta go,” I told Scott, hurrying to gather up my gloves and my purse. “I gotta get out of here.”
“What is it Al?” Scott asked. “Tell me.”
A terror ripped through me and propelled me up the steps like I was trying to outrun it. Scott chased after me.
“Al, what is it? What’d he say?”
I paced back and forth over the cobblestone. “Queers. Queers,” I mumbled, hitting my fists together. The sound of Willie’s saxophone drifted into the night air.
Scott grabbed my arms. “Stop it! You can’t say that in the street. What’s the matter?”
“The matter? The matter?” I laughed. “Queers, that’s what. Queers.” He crushed my face into his chest. “You gotta stop saying that.”
I looked up at him. “But don’t you get it?” I screamed at him. “We have no place. No place in this whole goddamn fucking world. That Negro man found a place, a place where he can be. We don’t have that. Nothing’s safe for us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Queers!” I shouted, pulling myself out of his arms. “Queers! Dykes! Faggots!”
“Al, stop it! You’re going to get us killed.” He grabbed me back into his arms.
“You see? You see?”
“What!”
“We have no place, dammit! Not one damn place in this whole goddamn world. Why don’t you get it? Everyone hates us. Even God and the French.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sun streamed into my room and my eyes. Too bright. I squinted at the clock on the end table next to my bed. Seven. I’d had a sum total of three hours’ sleep. It’d be hours before Juliana woke up.
Juliana and I had become so much closer over the last few weeks, and now everything was about to dissolve into ashes. I hid my head under my pillow, trying to return to unconsciousness, but I couldn’t get back there and it was too early for a scotch.
I kicked off the covers and headed for the bathroom. I’d taken to wearing nightshirts lately, the way my father used to. I’d bought a couple in a little shop near the hotel. Only I didn’t wear the little cap on my head like he did. I liked the less frilly feel of them. More me. And Juliana liked me in them, too. I bent over the basin and splashed water on my face and reached for the tin of tooth powder on the shelf. Colgate Ammoniated. Ammoniated? What did that mean? I supposed the morning I was to be guillotined I’d still be reaching for the tooth powder, ammoniated or not. Can’t have my head chopped off if my teeth aren’t clean. This morning felt very much like one of those head chopping days.
I wandered back into my room and stared out the window. People walked by the hotel down there. What were they scared about? Anything? Did any of them feel like today was the last day of their lives? I had to tell her today. A knot formed in my stomach. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow.
“Good morning,” Juliana said from behind me. “You were out late last night.”
“Yeah. Business.” My stomach tied itself into a great knot. She was up earlier than I expected. I should tell her now. Get it over with. Then tomorrow morning I could bring Schuyler the papers and . . . Juliana would hate me for the rest of my life. I took a deep breath and turned toward her, “Juliana . . .”
“Al?” she said at the same moment.
We giggled at the timing. “You go,” she said.
“No, that’s okay. You.”
“Well . . . This is hard . . .”
Did she know? Did Schuyler . . .?
“I . . .” She hesitated. “Uh, well . . .”
“Yes?”
She sat down on my unmade bed. “Do you mind?”
“No.”
“This is hard for me. Asking you this, but . . .”
She knew. She suspected me.
She looked down at the wrinkled bedspread and held one of its tassels between her fingers. “I was wondering . . . There’s something . . .”
Oh, god, just say it. “Yes?” You know about Schuyler and you want nothing more to do with me. I closed my eyes waiting.
“Uh, my mother’s grave . . .”
“What?” I opened my eyes.
“I’ve never been. Would you go with me?”
“Oh, Jule.” I ran to sit beside her. “Of course.”
She sighed a deep deflating sigh and took my hand in hers; she kissed my fingers. “Thank you.”
* * *
She didn’t ask Richard to go with her when he was here. She asked me. The first time to her mother’s grave and she asked me to be with her. I felt elated and like shit all at the same time. How could I tell her now?
Notre Dame peered through the clouds up ahead. Juliana looked lovely in her crisp red dress cinched with a belt. The skirt’s flare formed a circle around her legs. She wore a new hat she’d bought a few days ago. It sat at the back of her head, a feather poking out of one side. “Your mother is buried in Notre Dame?” I asked as we passed the bookstalls lining the banks of the Seine.
“No, my mother isn’t buried at Notre Dame,” she laughed. “I thought that before we went there, I’d take you to see this beautiful church. There’s been no time for sightseeing.”
“Oh.” I tried to smile, but my stomach was turning over and I thought I might throw up. “There’s a line to get in,” I moaned when we walked onto the grounds of the church.
“Well, we’re not in a hurry, are we?”
“Uh, I guess not.” I got in line behind her. The air was crisp, but I felt warm. I needed this to be done.
“It’s so dirty,” Juliana remarked, looking over the face of the church. “I don’t remember it being this dirty.” She reached into her purse. “I brought these.” She handed me a pair of binoculars. “You simply must look at the outer wall through these. There is nothing like the outer walls of this church.”
I held the binoculars to my eyes and the strange gargo
yles came into clear view. One guy, the devil, I guess, had a mouth that seemed to be saying, “You suckers.” There wasn’t one spot not covered by individual sculptures of Biblical characters or scenes with the most minute details. There was John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary with the Baby Jesus, only that baby looked to be about fifty years old. I could see Adam and Eve and the sly flirty look in Eve’s eyes as she offered the apple to Adam. The men who did this had to have a fierce love for what they were doing to make such exacting sculptures, ones that mostly looked like shapeless stone if you didn’t have a good set of binoculars. They did all this work and then sunk into obscurity. What do our lives mean that we live, we struggle with horrors like Schuyler or we create great beauty like the sculptures that crowd the outside of this Cathedral and then we die. None of it matters anymore. What sense does that make? But this church does matter even if we don’t know the names of those who made it. As I lowered the binoculars I kept looking up, trying to touch those anonymous artists who left behind the grandness of their souls. A few tears of gratitude slid out of the corners of both eyes.
“We’re moving,” Juliana said as we followed the others toward the entrance. “This is good.”
“What’s good?”
“That I can show you a bit of my Paris.”
A smile formed in my heart and for a second there was no Schuyler.
We entered the church. It was dark and quiet, like everyone was afraid to breathe in this holy space. Juliana immediately genuflected in the direction of a gold cross surrounded by a large sculpture of the Virgin Mary with the dying Christ lying across her lap. Behind the sculptures were three huge stained-glass windows—the Rose Windows—and along the side walls there were more stained-glass windows and paintings, and more sculptures. Numerous small candles in red glass holders, their flames dancing in the air, stood on stands throughout the church. Those must’ve been the candles they lit when praying for some special favor. I wished I could secretly slip over to one without Juliana noticing. Maybe if I lit one of those candles and said a little prayer telling Mary about Schuyler, things wouldn’t go so bad. Maybe it’d even turn out good. Come on, Al, that’s going a little too far, don’t you think? I’m sure Mary doesn’t like queers any more than anyone else.