by Sharon Maas
He turned at the sound of his name. Looked down. Saw me at the gate. I entered the yard, ran towards the staircase. He flew down it two at a time. He gathered me into his arms. He squeezed me as if he would never let me go. He sobbed into my hair.
‘George. Oh, George! I love you so. I love you, I love you, I love you!’ The words came out in great blubbering gasps. I was sobbing and laughing and gasping for breath all at once, hugging him and feeling his arms around me and flying as he raised me up and swung me around and around and around. For the first time since that day in the rain I knew the meaning of perfect joy.
And then it all came crashing down. George placed me on my feet. He took a step back, the joyful smile melted from his lips, from his eyes. He looked up at the window and then at me.
‘We – we can’t do this – not here – not now. What you doin’ here? Why you come? I don’t understand – come.’
I followed his glance upwards – was that a shadow I saw reflected in the window-pane – a shadow retreating backwards into the darkness of the house? I shuddered, and tried to answer George’s questions, but the words came out in an incoherent jumble.
‘I had to come – Uncle Jim told me – I couldn’t bear it any more, George! I just wanted you to know, to tell you – and then Papa was so beastly, and I saw the logies and I can’t bear Promised Land, I don’t want to live there, I want to be with you, I love you, and I ran away and, and, that letter you wrote me, it broke my heart and I had to come, I just had to! And then …’
George had grabbed hold of my hand and was pulling me out of the yard, all the time glancing up fearfully at the window.
‘Miss, Miss …’
‘Don’t call me Miss, please don’t, I can’t bear it! Winnie! Call me Winnie!’
By this time we were out on the road. Auntie Dolly materialized, pushing her round body between us. She grabbed George’s wrist and mine and separated our hands. There was a wet stain beneath one of her eyes, as if she had been crying.
But suddenly she stopped, and stared at George. ‘It’s you? You’re George?’
George’s face turned to stone. ‘Say nothing,’ he said, and there was a warning in his voice I didn’t understand. So, Auntie Dolly recognized him? From where, exactly? But Auntie Dolly had immediately pulled herself together, and launched into her stern-protective-mama role once more.
‘This won’t do. Y’all can’t behave like this in public. You George should know that. You in’t got no sense in you head? I should never-a bring the girl here. I should-a know you can’t control yourself. Young people these days! In full public view!’
George stared at her. ‘And who are you?’
So Auntie Dolly knew him, but he didn’t know her? A thousand questions crowded my mind, but all I did was answer his question.
‘She’s Auntie Dolly!’ I said. ‘I met her on the train – she knows the whole story – I told her. I spent the night with her, and …’
‘Young man, you better get back to you work. People up in the house lookin’. Come, we gon’ walk with you.’
We walked together to the next house. We stopped in a cluster before it, and George turned to me.
‘We got to talk, Miss …’
I interrupted him again. ‘I just told you … don’t call me Miss anything. Winnie!’
‘Winnie. We got to talk! But I can’t talk now, people gon’ see, it gon’ cause big trouble. Can you wait till I got lunch break?’
‘Of course! And then where shall we meet?’
‘In the Promenade Gardens. We could find a private place there. You know where that is? Corner of Middle and Carmichael Streets?’
‘I know where!’ said Auntie Dolly firmly. ‘I gon’ bring she. But now you got to come wid’ me, Miss Winnie.’ She turned to George. ‘She don’t understand. She don’t understand one thing ‘bout this. All she know is love. Ah me. Why I is such a weak-hearted ole lady?’ She swiped her eyes, almost viciously, and I knew she had shed tears. For me? Tears of sadness? Tears of joy? I was on the verge of them myself, and I didn’t know their reason either. In me was a jumble of emotions – that initial joy, so pure, so beautiful, was now alloyed with something dark and ugly, a kind of sticky, hollow dread; a sense of fear and insecurity, put there by the alarm I saw in George’s eyes.
Did I really not understand, as Auntie Dolly had said? But I did! I knew very well that we white people did not usually marry darkies. I remembered Uncle Jim’s warning; I remembered too the scorn with which Papa had spoken of him, Uncle Jim, so long ago. I know it was against the grain. But surely love would conquer all of that? What else mattered? Yes, I was too young right now but I would grow older, wouldn’t I? Wasn’t it important to declare our love now, while it was fresh and new and strong? Wouldn’t it give us strength and courage to face the future? I was disappointed in George. I knew he had written that letter under Uncle Jim’s persuasion, but there was no such force here now, and still he looked afraid. Even though he knew now that I loved him, that I had left home and hearth to be with him. Wasn’t that enough? Why this cowardice?
George took both my hands in his now, and looked me straight in the eye. ‘We’ll talk about it,’ he said. ‘But not now. People watchin’. Come to the gardens at twelve o’clock – meet me at the Round House. You gon’ bring her?’ He let go of my hands and turned to Auntie Dolly, a plea in his eyes.
‘Yes, I gon’ bring she. Go back to you work. I gon’ look after she till then.’
And then it was over. George turned away and entered the gate to that new mansion – bigger and better than the one next door. Mansions where ‘my people’ lived. The people I no longer felt a part of.
‘George!’ I called after him. ‘I love you!’ He turned only slightly, made a little wave of his hand as if to quieten me, and marched away, up the stairs to the front door.
I had never felt so lonely, so abandoned, in all my life. It was worse, even, than the day Mama sailed over the ocean. Something was very wrong about this love of mine and I didn’t really understand what. Wasn’t love meant to overcome all obstacles? Didn’t it even say so in the Bible? Hadn’t Mama drummed it into me since day one of my life? Yet I had lost her – my first great love. I could not, would not, lose this one too. Auntie Dolly took hold of my elbow and gently drew me away, across the street and into the walkway. We stepped onto the carpet of fallen red flowers and walked slowly on, towards the town centre. Auntie Dolly produced from somewhere another huge hanky, like the one she had given me on the train. She stopped me and dabbed my eyes with it.
‘Don’t cry, sweetheart. You got to be strong. Is not easy, but Mr George gon’ find a solution. He look like a sensible young man. You can’ do nothin’ foolish. Remember what I tell you yesterday? All you got to do now is promise to wait for each other, and then you gon’ see is much, much better. Tomorrow you gon’ go home, to you people, an’ …’
‘But I don’t want to go home! I want to stay here! I don’t even have a home! I don’t have any people! I hate it all! I can’t go there! I want …’
Immediately her tone turned from comforting to stern, bordering on angry.‘What dis I hearin? ‘I want, I want, I want.’ When me own chirren come to me wit’ ‘I want’ I does tell them, ‘I want never gets’. An’ is true. Only babies get to cry ‘I want’. You is almost a grown up girl. So stop this ‘I want’ and ‘I don’t want’! I know all-you white people think you could get everything you want, that you only got to say the words ‘I want’ and it fall into you lap like in the Bible manna from heaven, like Moses in the Promised Land. That is white-people thinkin’! An’ it wrong! You got to think, what is possible an’ what is right. That’s the grown-up way. ‘I want’ is for babies. An’ lil chirren. An’ white people. For them in them white Main Street mansions. So make up you mind right now, is which way you goin’. If ‘I want’ gon’ be you new gospel than we might as well go home an’ let me pack you on the train today today. Cause I not gon’ be helpin’ no ‘I want, I want’
white lady. No sirree.’
While speaking she stalked away from me now, at full speed down the red-carpet walkway. I scurried to catch up. I tried to butt in, to put in a defence, but she wouldn’t let me.
‘An’ here me, thinkin’ you gon’ be sensible an’ what you go an’ do? Huggin’ an’ kissin’ right there in white-people yard! An’ that boy too! No sense in y’all head. No sense at all. I should never-a bring you here. I should never-a interfere. Oh me oh my. An them white people did see, I tell you! I see them at the window – one white lady peepin’ down at y’all huggin’ an kissin’ in she yard. What was you thinkin’! You mad crazy out-a you mind, or what! ‘An with him, of all people. Of all people. Like it wasn’t bad enough, you white and he black.’
Chin in the air, she marched on, berating me all the time. It was all I could do to keep up. I grabbed her arm, but she flung me away.
‘Auntie Dolly, please! Tell me! Who is he? How come you recognized him but he didn’t know you? What …’
‘Don’t Auntie Dolly please me! You promise! You promise! You promise to behave yourself an’ then this. You trick me into helpin’ you to find him, an’ then what you do, huggin’ an kissin’ in the middle of the road with the whole town watchin’! No, no, that’s not what I bring you here for! I bring you here for a respectable and sensible discussion! That’s what! Not this shameless behaviour! Middle of the road! I tell you!’
A woman pushing a pram, a darkie in a blue uniform and white apron, was walking towards us. She stared, frowning, at Auntie Dolly, who charged on, grumbling to herself. I took a step back to allow the woman to pass. I glanced into the pram; it was a white baby; the woman was a nanny. She looked at me as she passed, slightly askance, as if afraid to look me in the eyes. She gave her head a slight shake, as in puzzled disapproval. It’s only then I realised what I had done: under the normal rules of etiquette, it would have been Auntie Dolly’s role to step aside to make room, not mine. Anyone seeing the two of us together would assume I was the Young Lady and Auntie Dolly my servant; in which case I should be in charge, perhaps giving her a scolding for some transgression. Instead, the roles were reversed: the servant reprimanding the mistress, the mistress meekly stepping aside to make room for a darkie. I flushed, and hurried back to Auntie Dolly’s side. I cried out:
‘Auntie, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Can you please stop because you’re the one making a scene now!’
She did stop then. She turned and looked at me. ‘Very well. I not gon’ say one more word on the matter. But, young lady, I don’t care if you is white or blue or green or golden: you got to obey me now. None-a this rushin’ off to hug and kiss negro men. You understand?’
I flushed again. She had said The Word. I knew The Word. It contained a universe of contempt, scorn, and sheer revulsion. It was the second ugliest word I knew. Papa used it often, with palpable disdain in his voice.
Was I really that naïve? For me, George had always been a darkie. That was different. A darkie was a good person. Many of them were like family members. We girls grew up playing with darkies; they were our friends, our confidantes, people we grew fond of and cared about. Lovely smiley-faced people whose skin just happened to be dark. Darkies were respectful and respectable, well-behaved members of decent society. I had just happened to fall in love with one of them. You can’t help who you fall in love with, can you?
Negroes were different. They were uppity troublemakers who made newspaper headlines. Sometimes when Papa opened his Echo at the breakfast table – it would have been delivered with the previous day’s post, but he always saved it for breakfast – he would exclaim in annoyance. ‘Those uppity negros!’ he would say. ‘That Brewster – who does he think he is? That’s why they should never be given an education. When you give a negro a law degree you’re asking for trouble.’
Negro, of course, was the polite word for those Georgetown troublemakers. There was another word, dirty, ugly, forbidden by Mama, though I had heard Papa utter it once or twice in agitation, long ago; she had rebuked him, but we had heard.
‘Girls, you are never to use it!’ Mama had warned us ‘Papa made a mistake and that’s that.’ But we weren’t stupid. We got the gist of it. Compared to that other forbidden word, negro was polite, yet bad enough, and we put the pieces together: down in Georgetown there were negros, who, unlike darkies, were not on Our Side. They were dangerous, rebellious, demanding; contemptible, vile and evil. Of course we had asked questions. ‘Why?’ we had asked, Yoyo and I, and ‘What have they done?’ But always Papa changed the subject. ‘Don’t bother your pretty little heads,’ he would say, and turn the newspaper page.
And now here was Auntie Dolly, a darkie herself, calling my George, another darkie, by That Name. How could it be? I had to defend my George.
‘He’s not a Negro!’ I cried. ‘Don’t call him that!’
We stood there, glaring at each other. It’s a good thing the walkway was sheltered from the houses by those red flamboyants and the bushes between; it meant we couldn’t be seen from the houses. But if anyone had passed by at that moment and seen us they would have stopped to stare. A young Englishwoman and her servant, blocking the path, glowering at each other; the servant arms akimbo, head pushed forward, frowning; the Mistress – for that is what I’d appear trying to look stern with a wagging forefinger, but failing desperately. It was a farce, and Auntie Dolly recognised it right away. She burst out laughing. Then she turned around, grabbed my elbow, and led me onward toward the Town Centre.
‘So he in’t a negro?’ she said, in a friendly voice, as if truly interested in my opinion.
‘What he is then?’
‘A – a darkie!’ I said, still belligerent. ‘Darkies are good! They’re just like us! They’re not violent or – rude like negros. They’re …’ But then … I remembered now that Uncle Jim had reprimanded me for using the word ‘darkie’. He’d called me patronizing. And now Auntie Dolly was lecturing me too.
‘Stop right there!’ She commanded, and I did. It was extraordinary, what authority she held in her voice. I found myself obeying her every order, bowing to her every wish. It had been that way almost since the moment we met.
‘One thing you gotta learn, my dear, is that they in’t no difference between darkie, Negro, nigger, coolie, buck, coloured, Mulatto, Quadroon, dougla, African, East Indian: whatever y’all want to call we. Because when you get down to the bottom of everything we is all in the same boat and, an’ y’all is all in de other boat. In’t no difference there far as I can see. Some-a we got education, some-a we got money, some-a we does own we own house an’ we own business and some-a we is even lawyer an’ doctor. But that don’t make one lil pea-a difference. Because all a-we, every last one, light-skin-dark-skin, all a-we is down here, and all a-you is up there. An’ the first thing you gotta learn, lil’ Miss Lady Winnie, if you think you gon’ love one a-we, is to get down off you high horse and come right down here wit’ we. Because when you up there lookin’ down you can’t never ever even begin to understand. How can you love what you don’t understand?’
What could I say to that? Not a word. Her little speech burned inside me. It churned inside me. I was blushing, and it started in my belly and spread all over my body – a deep red burning sense of shame and mortification, and a sudden glaring bright sense of realization, the knowledge of what she had said and what we had done and how wrong everything was and how right her words were and how guilty I was, we all were, and how horrible it was and how evil. I felt like sinking into the earth. Crawling on the ground. Prostrating myself before her and begging for forgiveness, on behalf of all my people, and for her absolution, on behalf of all her people. Instead I kept silence.
After a while I said, meekly and softly: ‘Where are we going?’
‘Peter Rose Street.’
‘W-what’s in Peter Rose Street?’
‘Me daughter.’
It was a half-hour’s walk to Peter Rose Street. It seemed we had called a truce, becau
se Auntie Dolly no longer lectured or scolded me; she chatted all the way there, telling me about her daughter Maybelle, married to a minor clerk at the Office of Lands, Mines and Forests (he doin’ well for heself) and her son Jasper, a stevedore on the Georgetown wharf (if he didn’t-a been so damn lazy in school he could-a get a better job.) She told me about their families, their worries, their daily lives. She spoke to me as if I were at last, a friend, an equal, and not just a spoiled runaway child she had to bend into shape. And mercy, I was grateful for that treatment. I had behaved badly enough for the day. And not wanting to spoil the mood, I didn’t insist on her answering my question: who was George?
I understood now what I had done. I realised now that I had ventured onto treacherous land. I had plunged headfirst and eyes closed into a world of which I knew nothing, following only my passions and my headstrong will, without regard for the silent invisible currents of taboo and prejudice; I had broken rules built up over centuries, fiddled with an edifice of convention that at any moment could come toppling down on my head. I vowed to tread more carefully in future.
Her daughter Maybelle lived in a pretty wooden cottage behind a larger, more imposing mansion in a delightful garden. The cottage was as small as Auntie Dolly’s, and young children played in the garden, just as they did at hers. Auntie Dolly introduced me to Maybelle and offered no further explanation as to my presence. She sat me down in a corner, and Maybelle offered me tea and biscuits, which I gratefully accepted.
Auntie Dolly followed Maybelle into the kitchen. I immediately stood up and followed them on tiptoe to the kitchen door, where I stepped aside so as to remain hidden. I knew, I just knew, Auntie Dolly would talk. And talk she did. Or at least, she whispered. They both whispered. And I listened.
‘Is what going on?’ Maybelle asked, her voice lowered. ‘What you doin’ wit’ a white girl?’
‘Shhh! Keep you voice down! Is some girl from a Berbice plantation – I meet she on the train. She got a sweetheart here in town and you never guess is who.’