by Maya Angelou
Lillian said, “I’ve got something for you, Maya. You left it in your dressing room and I felt I’d better bring it to you. Your life would not be the same without it.”
She handed me a package. It was Mr. Julian’s heart.
CHAPTER 23
The singers were hardened to the discomfort of travel and the sense of dislocation. Yet the Yugoslavia trip put an unusual amount of pressure on us all. The cold weather, gray and dreary, and the incommodious hotel with its grim corridors and heavy odors pressed weightily on our spirits. The unhappy people in their ugly, thick clothes and the restrictions on our freedom of movement all combined to make us impatient to put the dour place behind us and to bask in the sunshine of North Africa.
Ethel, Martha, Barbara Ann, Lillian and I crowded our personal belongings into the two overhead racks of our compartment. It was seven o’clock on a dark morning. The cast had begun to assemble at the train station at six and we had boarded the fabled Orient Express as soon as Ella Gerber and Bob Dustin completed their head count and were satisfied that no member of the company was still sleeping at the Moskva. Belgradians crowded around the train steps. Some Yugoslavian women sniffled and dried their eyes as male singers embraced them, checked their watches and boarded the train. A few female singers waved good-bye to some native men, who wept openly.
My friends and I nestled down, anxious for the train to move. We were chatting when a noise alerted us. We looked up to see Mr. Julian standing in the doorway of the compartment, holding a small package.
“Mistress Maya?” Tears trickled down his face. “Mistress Maya, I am wishing you joy, happiness and wictory.” With that emotional outcry he threw the package in my lap, slammed the door and leaped off the train.
Lillian asked, “That was Mr. Julian?”
Ethel said unbelievingly, “No, surely not?”
Barbara Ann asked, “But when was he a swimming champion?”
Martha shifted her small head and said, “He looks like he’d have a hard time floating across a bathtub.”
Before I could retort, his face was at the window. He waved his hands in a beckoning motion and the train began to move slowly. Mr. Julian kept up with our window for a while, but as the train gained momentum his face and all the other faces of those left behind began to slide from our view. In a few minutes we were in open country, looking out on lonely farmhouses and sullen fields.
Ned Wright pulled the door open and offered a bottle of slivovitz.
“Here we are, me darlings. Long gone and away. Tito can keep his Yugoslavia. I am meant to sit under sunny skies and sing. What the hell are you crying for, Maya?”
Ethel said it couldn’t be for Mr. Julian. “Did you see him?”
Martha laughed, “He looked like a mile of country road in the winter in North Carolina.”
I said, “But he persevered. And he was nice. I mean, he never failed to call and he had to get up very early to be at the station before we left. I admire that in anyone.”
Ethel asked, “Would you like to go back to Belgrade?”
I didn’t have to choose an answer. I said, “No. Pass me the slivovitz!”
The train sped all day through the glowering provinces and we took our meals in an old dining car which smelled like our last hotel. Some of the cast took naps or wrote letters home. We played games of rise and fly bid whist in our compartment with all the passion of addicted gamblers. When the gray afternoon finally surrendered to night, a porter made our beds and we slept.
I awakened to find Martha and Ethel chittering like crickets. The sunlight came boldly through the windows and their faces were lit with a gaiety I hadn’t seen for weeks.
“Maya, girl, you’re going to sleep all day? Look out the window.” Martha edged over and made room for me. The countryside had changed. In one night we had passed from bleak winter to spring. Cows grazed on abundant green foliage and the farmhouses were painted in so many vivid colors the scene resembled a large Matisse painting.
Grownups, smiling broadly, waved at the train, and children bounced, laughing their excitement. The picture touched me so violently that I was startled, and in an instant I realized that I had not seen giddy children since Venice. The Parisian youngsters were so neat in dress and manner they might have been family ornaments created and maintained to adorn. The children I saw in Yugoslavia appeared sensible and level-headed without the buoyancy of childhood. Here were children I could understand. Although their voices didn’t carry over the distance and through our windowpane, I was certain they were shouting, yelling and screaming, and I was just as certain that the mothers were saying “Be quiet,” “Stop that” and “Hush.”
I got up and excused myself. The longing for my own son threatened to engulf me. As I walked down the corridor, controlling the emotional deluge that swelled in my mind, I passed compartments where other members of the company sat close to their windows, absorbed.
We caught brief glimpses of the white buildings and green hills of Athens, then boarded buses which were to take us to the port city of Piraeus. The road was high and winding, and our moods were high. We sang in full voice every song that was suggested and laughed when someone made the wrong harmonic change or forgot the lyrics.
At the waterfront, Dustin doled out cabin assignments and announced that Lee Gershwin was throwing a champagne party on the ship for the entire cast before lunch.
If only Yanko and Victor and Mitch could see me now. I had dredged up some Greek learned during my marriage and greeted the crew members. They were already excited by the cluster of Black people, and when they heard me speaking their language they nearly saluted. Three men left their posts to help me find my quarters, where my suitcases, books and mandolin were already stacked on a table in the single room.
Martha, Lillian, Ethel and Barbara Ann came down the passageway talking about the ship, the champagne party and the handsome Greek sailors.
I stopped them, and said, “Hey, you guys, aren’t you surprised that Lee Gershwin is inviting the humble nobodies to her affair?”
Martha said, “Darling, Miss Fine Thing has never been humble, and for your information, she has always been Somebody. She shall grace the motley crew with her presence.” She grinned and flung her head back.
Lillian said, “Dearie, there’s going to be champagne?” She nodded, answering her own question. “I’m going to drink Madame Gershwin’s champagne.”
Barbara Ann said smoothly, “Maya, you’ve never forgiven her for telling you and Joy what to wear in Venice, have you?” She shook her head and managed a sad smile. “And I thought you were supposed to be a Christian. Shame, Maya, shame.”
They continued looking for their rooms and left me thinking about Lee Gershwin. She had approached me and Joy in Venice’s Saint Mark’s Square on our second day in Italy.
“Don’t you girls know you shouldn’t wear slacks in Italy? The Italians don’t like it.” Her narrow face was sour with propriety. “Be nice. Remember, we are all ambassadors.”
Joy had told her: “One, it’s cold. Two, I’m singing every night on a cold stage and changing in a cold dressing room, and three, I’m working six hours a day with the cast on their roles. Four, I shall continue to wear slacks and, if I need it, a parka!”
I simply looked at Lee. If I had given tongue to my voice, I’d have said too much. I simply continued to wear slacks when I thought it necessary, counting on my own sense of propriety to dictate what I should wear where and when. The incident had slipped from my consciousness, but once reminded of it I had to admit that Lee’s maternalistic attitude had so infuriated me that, although she traveled with us, I had erased her from my thoughts.
I unpacked the clothes I would need for the three-night, two-day trip to Alexandria and changed into a dress for lunch.
When I walked up the stairs, stewards grinned and spoke to me in Greek, and as I entered the dining room a large, bushy-haired man in a black suit caught my arm.
“Mrs. Angelos?”
“Yes?”
“I am the purser.”
I couldn’t dredge up one idea of what to expect.
“You speak Greek?” he asked.
“Yes. A little.”
“How did you learn?”
“My husband was Greek.”
“Ah.” And he grinned a broad approval. “Mrs. Angelos, may I make a suggestion?” He turned his large body sideways and spoke out of the side of his mouth as if he were giving me the secret of building an atomic bomb.
“Yes.”
“There is a party. A champagne party.” He inclined his head toward the tables where members of the cast were already lifting glasses. “We expect a very rough trip to Alexandria. It would be better if you didn’t drink today. Or tonight. Not champagne. Not wine. Not water. Eat lightly. Bread. Biscuits. And no drinking.”
I thanked him and asked if he had warned anyone else. He smiled, pulling his lips leftward to reveal a solid gold tooth.
He said, “They are opera singers. I wouldn’t try to tell them. But you”—again he grinned—“you are nearly Greek”—he took my hand and kissed it—“and you have my sympathy. Good-bye. Remember.”
Sympathy? He thought having married a Greek made me deserving of his compassion? Strange.
My friends had saved a chair for me at their table.
“Miss Thing, hold your glass.” Martha held the champagne ready to pour.
“No, I’m not drinking.” I told them of the warning.
Lillian said, “I’ve never been seasick in my life.
Martha and Ethel seconded her. They shared the wine and giggled, paying no attention to my admonition. Every table was filled with happy flutters. Even the few nondrinkers were in a party mood. I only half believed the purser, but was glad for an excuse not to participate. I liked to pay for my own drink or at least choose the sponsor who treated me.
“Mother Afrique, your long-lost daughter is returning home …” Lillian was composing another toast and no one was waiting for her to complete it.
“Cheers.”
“Salute.”
“À votre santé.”
“Doz vedanya.”
“Skoal.”
An officer at the captain’s table stood up, kissed the women’s hands, bowed to the men and began to pick his way out of the dining room. He was tall and moved gracefully, hardly shaking the braid that looped across his wide shoulders. He turned his head and looked at our table. He had the most sensuous face I had ever seen. His lips were dark rose and pouted, and his nostrils flared as if he were breathing heavily through them. But his eyes were the most arresting feature. They were the “bedroom eyes” sung about in old blues—heavy-lidded, as if he were en route at that moment to the boudoir of the sexiest woman in the world.
“Mart, Ethel, look at that,” I said.
My friends, who usually had a high appreciation of male beauty, were so occupied with their party that they gave the officer only a cursory look.
Ethel said, “Yeah, he’s cute.”
Martha said, “I’ll check him out later. Pour a little more of the bubbly into my slipper, please, for I am Queen of the May.”
I watched the man leave the dining salon and knew that when the sexy women in our company got around to noticing him, they would take some of the arrogance out of his swinging shoulders and lessen the bounce in his narrow hips.
After lunch I returned to my cabin, leaving the party in full hilarity. By midafternoon when we were well away from the coast of Greece, the ship began to shudder under the attack of a storm. My luggage shot back and forth across the tiny space between my bunk and the wall, and had I not stood up I would have been thrown out of bed. I shoved my bags tightly into the closet and jammed a chair under the closet’s doorknob. I took a book and headed for the main deck.
In the passageway I met my suddenly sober and suddenly sick fellow singers. Those who were able to talk said the party had broken up as drinkers and players became too ill to continue; the waiters had removed all bottles and glasses and were tying the tables down.
The dining room was empty and dark, and I struggled, rolling from wall to wall, up the passageway to a small red sign which invited: BAR. The door opened on a small, empty but lighted room. I sat at a table, trying to glue my mind to the plot and away from the roiling sea. After an hour or so, a young crew member came in, saw me and was surprised. He asked if I was all right. I lied and told him in Greek that I was. He looked at me, astonished for a second, then left hurriedly. A few moments later the purser arrived.
“Mrs. Angelos, are you well?”
“Yes, of course.” My composure was paper-thin, but it covered the fear.
“You didn’t drink. I noticed.” He was proud of himself and of me.
“No. I ate bread and a piece of cold chicken.”
“Very good. It is going to be worse tonight, but tomorrow will be calmer. You are not to worry. We have a doctor, but he is very busy. Both the opera company and the movie company are sick and he is kept running between the two.”
I didn’t know about the movie company. “Who are they? From America?”
“No. They are English. Except the star is French. Brigitte Bardot. They are all in their cabins and I don’t expect to see either the singers or actors until we reach Alexandria.”
He took my hand. “Mrs. Angelos, if you want me, please ring this bell”—he pointed to a button on the wall—“and tell anyone to come for me. I will be with you immediately.” He kissed my hand and departed.
A waiter entered and said tea was being served in the dining room. I thanked him and said I wouldn’t have anything.
The ship pitched and rolled and quivered and sometimes leaped, seeming to withdraw entirely from the surface of the water. I was frightened at the violence and my inability to control any part of the experience except myself and there was no certainty that my mental discipline would outlast the physical anxiety. But at least I wasn’t ill.
The purser pushed his head in the door. “Dinner is being served. I suggest that you eat. Again the plain bread. And again a small piece of meat. No wine. No water.” His head disappeared as the vessel rolled over on its side.
Although I had no appetite I decided to continue following his suggestions. The dining room was not quite empty. The captain and his officers sat quietly in their corner; a few teetotalers from Porgy and Bess were at separate tables; and two men whose faces I recognized from British movies occupied a table near the wall. I joined Ruby Green and Barbara Ann and ate sparingly.
Barbara asked, “Where have you been? You haven’t been sick?”
I told her I’d been reading and I wasn’t sick because I didn’t drink the champagne.
“You ought to see downstairs. Everybody’s sick. I mean, people are moaning like they’re dying. The poor doctor no sooner leaves one room than they call him to another. That man’s got his work cut out for him. See, here he comes now. Poor thing. Just now getting a chance to eat his dinner.”
I looked up, following her gaze, and saw the voluptuous face that had startled me at lunchtime.
“That’s the doctor?” I would have more easily believed him to be a gigolo, a professional Casanova.
“Yes. And he’s very courteous. He gives the same attention to the men that he gives to the women.”
I looked at his retreating back and wondered if Barbara in her naïveté had described the man better than she could have imagined.
After a somber dinner we went below, where the groans of suffering escaped mournfully from each room. I paused before my friends’ doors, but I knew I could do nothing for them except sympathize and I could do that without disturbing their agony.
There was a soft rap on my door. When I opened it and saw the purser, I thought he expected me to compensate him for my sound health. I held the door and asked icily, “Yes, what do you want?”
He said meekly, “Mrs. Angelos, I want to show you how to strap yourself in the bed so that you won’t fall out and be h
urt.”
I started to let him in and thought better of it. “No, thanks. I was planning to sleep on the floor. I’ll be all right. Thanks, anyway.”
He shot his hand in the narrow door opening and grabbed my arm.
“Mrs. Angelos, thank you. You are very sad and very beautiful.” He bowed and kissed my hand and released it. I slammed the door. How could he tell I was sad? That was a strange romantic come-on.
I made my actions fit the lie. I stripped mattress and covers from the bed and lay down on the floor to sleep in miserable fits and starts.
The morning was dreary and wet, but the sea was more restrained. The purser was waiting for me outside the dining room door.
“Mrs. Angelos, good morning. You may eat a full breakfast. We will have good weather by evening.” He looked at me lovingly, concern seeping out of his pores. “How did you sleep?”
“Beautifully, thank you. Just beautifully.”
Some members of our company who had survived the storm exchanged stories of the night before.
“Honey, I was so sick I tried to jump overboard!”
“Did you hear Betty? She prayed half the night, then she got mad and screamed, Jesus Christ, this ain’t no way for you to act so close to your birthday!’ ”
My visits to Martha’s and Lillian’s cabins were not welcome, so I made them brief, staying only long enough to see that although their faces were the color of old leather boots, they would survive. I walked around the ship, enjoying the luxury of solitude. For the first time, there was a tender behind the bar and I ordered an apéritif. The very large British movie actor and his companion came in, ordered and sat near me.
“So you’re a sailor too, are you?” The man’s gruff voice was directed to me.
“I suppose so.”
“But the rest of your company have no sea legs?” He laughed and his eyes nearly closed beneath dark, thick eyebrows.
“Some have been a little sick,” I said. The man always played friendly characters, so without knowing his real personality, I felt friendly toward him. “But they’re better now.”