by Maya Angelou
I considered the invitation. We had been told to stay within the allotted areas and I didn’t relish the idea of calling down the wrath of two governments on my head. However, I was myself. That is, I was Marguerite Johnson, from Stamps, Arkansas, from the General Merchandise Store and the C.M.E. Church. I was the too tall, unpretty colored girl who had been born to unhappy parents and raised in the dirt roads of Arkansas and I was for the only time in my life in Yugoslavia. I divined that if I ever became rich and famous, Yugoslavia was not a country I would visit again. Was I then to never see anything more than the selected monuments and to speak to no one other than the tour-guide spies who stuck so close to us that we could hardly breathe? No. I accepted the couple’s invitation.
Martha and Ethel warned me at the hotel that I had better not contravene the official orders. I tried to explain my reasons, but they either would not or could not understand. Like all company information, the news that I was going to a private party was common knowledge by noon the next day. Friends stopped by my lunch table cautioning me to change my mind. I thanked them for their advice.
Others came by my dressing room that evening to add their counsel to the general consensus. I was amazed when Helen Ferguson said the couple had invited her too, and that she was going to come along. She was one of the youngest singers in the cast, pretty and so petite she looked like a child. I said, “You know, we’re not supposed to go away from the group.”
She said, “Listen, I’ll never come to Yugoslavia again in my life. I want to talk to some of the people here so I can have some real memories.”
We waited outside the stage door and were surprised when a strange young man approached us. “Miss Ferguson? Miss Angelou?”
“Yes.”
“Please come with me. I am to take you to the Dovic party.”
We followed him around the corner to a flatbed truck which held about thirty people crowded together, laughing and talking. With their help, Helen and I climbed up and joined them. The man slammed the flap, ran around and started the engine, and we were off on our adventure.
The men and women were about our ages and they all spoke some French. They passed bottles of slivovitz around and we drank the fiery liquid and tried to talk over the motor’s loud roar. Finally, the crowd began to sing. I couldn’t follow the words, but the melodies sounded like Hungarian tziganes. They were heavy and touching. I was so busy listening that I was slow to realize that we had left the lights of Belgrade behind and the old truck was struggling along on a bumpy dirt road. The night was clear and cold, and in the bright moonlight the flat countryside looked familiar, as if I had seen it all before. I had to remind myself that I was behind the iron curtain, not taking an innocent ride in central California. The people could be taking us to Siberia. Helen and I caught each other’s looks and laughed, for there was nothing else we could do. The engine began to slow down as we went over an even rougher lane when we finally stopped in front of a large gabled Charles Addams-type house. The crowd of people gave a loud shout and began to jump over the sides of the truck. Helen and I and some of the other women waited until the flap was released.
The Dovic couple came out to welcome us and lead us into an already crowded living room. Helen and I were introduced (the rest seemed to already know each other), and while we were welcomed heartily, no one stared at us as though we were apparitions from a nightmare. I soon felt at ease and got into a discussion on the future of art and its relative value to the masses.
In an adjoining dining room we were given festive foods and drink. My hostess told me she had some records I might like to hear and she called for quiet in the room. People sat down on the floor in groups, sharing bottles of wine and slivovitz. The host put the record on a wind-up record player and Lester Young’s saxophone yowled out of the silence. My ears and brain were at extreme odds. I was in Yugoslavia and the ordinary people of the country had no freedom to travel. According to my language teacher in Paris, the common citizen found it impossible to obtain an exit visa or a travel document; they were prisoners in their own land. And outsiders seldom visited the iron curtain countries; few wished to come and fewer were allowed. But I was listening to Lester Young. Helen and I exchanged surprised glances. When the record was over, the host replaced it with a Billie Holiday song and then exchanged that for a Sarah Vaughan, then Charlie Parker.
The host saw my startled expression, and said, “We love music. Everyone at this party is an artist. We are painters, sculptors, writers, singers, dancers, composers. Everything. And we find ways to stay aware of innovations in art everywhere in the world. Bebop was the most important movement in music since Johann Sebastian Bach. How did we get the records?” He smiled and said, “Don’t ask.” I didn’t.
The party was slowing down and I had begun to think of the long, bumpy ride back to the hotel when an old woman emerged from a side door. She wore a chenille bathrobe and slippers to match. She shuffled through the thinning crowd, greeting each person informally and receiving embraces in return. She had to be the grandmother of the house. She had made her way to the center of the living room before she saw me. Her face was immediately struck with panic. She squawked and turned, nearly falling, and headed for the room she had just left.
The host, hostess and other guests came quickly and apologetically to me.
“Miss Angelou, please excuse her. She is eighty years old.”
“She is very old and ignorant.”
“She has never seen a Black person before.”
“She does not mean to hurt your feelings.”
I said, “I understand her. If I had lived that long and never seen a white person, the sight of one would give me a heart attack. I would be certain I was seeing a ghost.”
“Please. You shouldn’t be bitter.”
It wasn’t my intention to be sarcastic. I was sincere.
The hostess went to the door through which the old woman had disappeared and in a moment the two came out together. The hostess, draping her arm across the woman’s frail shoulders, gently guided her toward me. When they were about four feet from where I was sitting, I said in Serbo-Croatian, “Good evening, madame.”
She gave me a very faint “Good evening, madame” in return.
I asked, “Will you please sit with me?” The hostess removed her arm and the old woman inched slowly away from her fear and came to join me on the sofa.
I asked, “How are you?”
She whispered, “I am well,” and kept her gaze unwavering on my face. She raised a wrinkled hand and touched my cheek. I didn’t move or smile. Her hand brushed my hair slightly, then the other cheek. Without shifting her look from me she called her granddaughter.
“Go and bring food and drink.”
“But Grandmother, she has already eaten.”
“Go.”
Mrs. Dovic brought a small meat pie and a shot of slivovitz with the accompanying apricot preserve. I took a bite of the savory and one small spoonful of preserves. Without hesitation I gulped down the jigger of brandy and followed it with another spoonful of preserves.
The old woman smiled and patted my cheek. She began to talk to me so fast I couldn’t keep up with her. I laughed and she laughed, showing a full set of the regulation metal teeth. Only after the party relaxed and general conversation resumed did I realize how tense the atmosphere had been. The grandmother patted my cheek again and touched my knee, then she rose laboriously and headed for her room. I called, “Good night, Grandmother,” but she didn’t respond. The host said, “She has already forgotten you. She is very old. Thank you for being so kind.”
We were collecting our coats when the door opened again and the old woman again emerged, but this time followed by an older man. He, too, wore a chenille robe and matching slippers, and sleep had not yet released his face. When I noticed that he did not look around the room for someone or something strange but began greeting the guests closest to him, I knew the old woman was playing a joke on him. He hobbled from one person to another and the
old woman stayed close to his side. Suddenly he saw me and almost leaped out of his ninety-year-old antiquity. He screamed and turned as quickly as he could to escape, but the old woman caught his sleeve, and with words I couldn’t understand, began to berate him for his ignorance and chide him for being rude.
She guided him to the sofa and made him sit on one side of me while she sat on the other. “Go bring food and drink.”
Again I went through the ritual. When the old man saw I could both eat and drink and I could speak some Serbo-Croatian, he not only decided I was human, he declared me a Yugoslav. Just a very dark one.
“What is your name?”
“Maya.”
“A good name.”
“Who is your father?”
“Bailey Johnson.”
Z”What a strange name for a Croatian. But I am sure I know him. Who is his father?”
“William Johnson.”
“Vilyon? Vilyon? What does he do? I know everybody. I am ninety-three years old. Now tell me, was that Vilyon from Split or the one from Dubrovnik? Tell me.”
No one could convince the man that I belonged to a different race and country.
As we headed for the door he said, “Tell Vilyon you have met me. Tell him to come after Christmas. We will talk of the old times.”
The desk clerk at the hotel had to unlock the door to let us in. He said, “Miss Angelou. Miss Ferguson. Did you enjoy the party at the Dovic home? Did you enjoy the American records and the food? The old man and woman are very amusing, are they not?”
So much for our sense of freedom.
The next morning a clean-cut American asked to see me. I went to a room in the hotel and listened to a strange white man talk to me as if I were a child.
“You have been asked, Maya, not to wander around Belgrade. The Yugoslavs don’t want it. They are a different people from us. They don’t understand our ways. You are, after all, a guest in their country. Simple courtesy demands that you honor the wishes of your host.”
I said, “I am not the one of the two of us who needs lessons in common courtesy. I did not say one thing last night that I didn’t mean, nor that I would be reluctant to repeat. Good morning,” and I left.
If Porgy and Bess didn’t like it, they could find another singer who could dance, or a dancer who could sing. I had already seen Venice, Paris and two towns in Yugoslavia. I could go home to my wonderful son and my night club career.
I never heard any more about the incident, nor did I ask Helen if she had been questioned on our return.
—
“Good morning, Mistress Maya. As you know this is being me, Mr. Julian.”
It was also the morning of our closing night in Belgrade.
“Yes, Mr. Julian.”
Nothing had deterred him. Neither strong words nor outright insults kept him from telephoning. Martha and Ethel became so used to the ring that it no longer awakened them.
“It’s I am loving you yet. It’s that when you are leaving tomorrow I am dying.”
“Yes, Mr. Julian.” The night before, I had joined Joe Jones, Martha, Ethel, Ned and Attles in a slivovitz-and-song fest at a local bar. I felt as if the harsh brandy had baked my brain, and if Mr. Julian could wait until the next morning to die I would best him by twenty-four hours.
“I am not drowning. It is being very difficult for me. Because I am being Yugoslavia’s Olympic swimming champion.”
Swimming champion? Mr. Julian? Doggone it, I had slipped a bet. His voice had sounded ancient, as if it belonged to a body in the last stages of deterioration. I liked strong and muscular men. Had I known Mr. Julian was an athlete, I’d have seen him the first time he called.
“I am loving you and wanting to see you, oh …”
“Maybe I can see you tonight, Mr. Julian.” I couldn’t make up for the time wasted, but there was no reason I should lose another night.
“Is it true? You will let me take you to one expensive café? And watching you drinking down coffee with cream in your lovely lips?”
“Yes, Mr. Julian.” You bet. “After the theater you come to the stage door.”
“Mistress Maya, there are always being so many people around your theater. Is it that you can be meeting me one block away?”
“Sure, yes. Of course.” It seemed a little late for him to show a shy side.
“One block away near the park. I will be standing. I will be wearing a green suit. I will be smiling. Oh, Mistress Maya, my heart is singing for you. Good-bye, my lovely.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Julian.”
I hung up the telephone as Martha and Ethel turned over and sat up.
“So, at last. My Lord, we’ll get to see this damned Mr. Julian.” Martha was grinning and nodding her head.
Ethel said, “Maya, you are cold-blooded. You know the man loves you. And you wait until the last night to see him.”
Martha added, “It is cold—he wants to marry you so you can take him to the States. Now there’s no time to get a license. You’re just going to use that poor man and toss him away, like a sailor does a woman in a foreign port.” She was laughing. “Ohh, you’re mean.”
I told them both to go to hell and went back to sleep.
Ned met me at lunch. “So you’re finally going to see Mr. Julian?”
Annabelle Ross, the coloratura, asked, “Tonight’s the night, huh?”
Georgia Burke, the oldest member of the cast and veteran actress, said, “I understand Mr. Julian’s finally got lucky. Well, there’s nothing like sticking to it, they say.”
Barbara Ann sat down at the table. “What made you wait so long, Maya? And what made you change your mind?”
I told her I had thought that he was an ancient lech and I couldn’t abide the idea of going out with an elderly stage-door Johnny who would slobber on my cheek and pinch my thighs, but that he had finally told me he was a swimming champion and now I was sorry I waited so long.
She understood and sympathized with me.
An hour later Bey appeared at my door. “O.K., Maya. Got yourself a swimming champion, huh?”
On the way to the theater, a few wags in the back of the bus began to harmonize: “I’d swim the deepest ocean …”
Among the cast no news was private and no affairs sacred.
The audience began applauding in the middle of the finale. They were on their feet, throwing roses and shouting before the curtain fell. We bowed and waved and repeated the bows unremembered times.
Backstage, Marilyn, the wardrobe mistress, was supervising the labeling and packing of costumes. Departures were always her busiest time. She had to tag the clothes that had been torn so they could be sewn or replaced before our next opening night, and to keep separate the pieces due for cleaning and the shoes needing repairs.
As I passed the wardrobe room the door was open on a havoc of disarranged clothes, hats, shoes, baskets and umbrellas. She looked up from her counting. “Going to meet Mr. Julian, huh, Maya?”
My only chance of escaping the curious eyes of my fellow singers was to leave the theater by the front entrance. I gathered my costumes and dropped them in the wardrobe room, as we were required to do. Marilyn’s attention was on her work. I slipped past the stage hands who were breaking down the set and stacking scenery. I tiptoed across the stage and jumped from the apron to the theater floor. The lobby was empty and dark as I eased out the door. I had avoided everyone. As I walked to the intersection I looked down the street. I saw a crowd of well-wishers at the stage door; they would keep the company occupied for a least a half-hour. Mr. Julian, I am coming and coming alone. You’ll never know what a remarkable feat I have accomplished.
I approached the designated corner, searching for a tall well-built man in a dark-green suit, possibly a tweedy affair. He might be smoking a pipe—pipes and tweeds went so well together.
Mr. Julian wasn’t on the corner. I wondered if he had decided, after all, to collect me at the stage door. I crossed the street and stood under the light, planning my n
ext move.
“Mistress Maya?”
I turned, happy to be relieved of the problem. A small, very wiry old man was standing before me. His eyes were large and black and glistening. His bald head looked greased under the streetlight. He was smiling a row of decidedly polished metal teeth. And he wore a Kelly green suit.
“Mistress Maya, it’s that I’m being Mr. Julian.”
If he was a swimming champion the match took place in 1910.
“Yes, Mr. Julian. How are you?” I offered him my hand and he took it, stroked the back of it, turned it over and kissed the palm.
He mumbled, “I am loving you.”
I said, “Yes.” And, “How about that coffee?”
If Martha or Ethel or Lillian caught a glimpse of my athletic lover, I’d never be allowed to live it down.
“I can’t go far, I must be in the hotel before curfew, you know.”
He didn’t understand the word “curfew” and I didn’t have the time to stand on the corner explaining it.
“Let’s go to the café up the street. Is that all right?”
We sat at a small table silently. Each conversational opening I tried was blocked by his statements of undying love. His bright eyes watched me drink coffee. He observed my lips so intently, I had the sensation that his gaze was following each sip slide over my tongue, through the esophagus and into my stomach.
I gulped the last swallow and stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Julian. I must get back to the theater or the bus will leave me.”
“I will take you to your hotel.” His eyes were begging.
“No, thanks. The buses have to take us. Sorry.”
“It’s that I will walk you back to the theater. I am loving you.”
“Absolutely not! No, thank you. I appreciate the coffee and the thought, but I’d like to remember you right here, having coffee with cream.” I didn’t offer him my hand again. “Thank you. Please stay. Good-bye, Mr. Julian.”
I walked slowly out of the café, but when I closed the door I broke into a run that would have impressed Jesse Owens. The bus was loading as I reached the theater.
As I climbed aboard, Martha said, “Whatever else Mr. Julian is, I can tell he’s fast.”