The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

by Maya Angelou

  As we sat down at the table, the telephone rang constantly, interrupting the conversation we were trying to establish. Mrs. Tambo would lower one side of her head and listen and most often allow the rings to wear themselves to silence. A few times she got up, and I could hear the one-sided sound of a telephone conversation.

  Lunch was slow-cooked beef and a stiff corn-meal porridge called mealy. She told me that she had gone to the trouble of preparing South African traditional food so that I would not be shocked when I met it again. I didn’t tell her that in the United States we ate the same thing and called it baked short ribs and corn-meal mush.

  A startlingly beautiful woman spoke to me. Her skin was blue-black and smooth as glass. She had brushed her hair severely, and it lay in tiny ripples back from a clean, shining forehead. Her long eyes were lifted above high cheekbones and her lips formed themselves in a large black bow. When she smiled, displaying white even upper teeth but bare lower gums, I knew she was from Kenya. I had read that the women of that country’s Luo tribe have their bottom four teeth extracted to enhance their beauty. She was bright and tough, describing Europe’s evil presence in Africa.

  Mrs. Okalala from Uganda, a squat tugboat of a woman, said she found it ironic, if not downright stupid, to hold a meeting where people discussed how to get colonialism’s foot off the neck of Africa in the capital of colonialism. It reminded her of an African saying: Only a fool asks a leopard to look after a lamb.

  Two Somali women wrapped in flowing pink robes smiled and ate daintily. They spoke no English and had attended the lunch for form’s sake. Occasionally they whispered to each other in their own language and smiled.

  Ruth Thompson, a West Indian journalist, led the conversation, as soon as lunch was finished.

  “What are we here for? Why are African women sitting eating, trying to act cute while African men are discussing serious questions and African children are starving? Have we come to London just to convenience our husbands? Have we been brought here only as portable pussy?”

  I was the only person shocked by the language, so I kept my reaction private.

  The Luo woman laughed. “Sister, you have asked, completely, my question. We, in Kenya, are women, not just wombs. We have shown during Mau Mau that we have ideas as well as babies.”

  Mrs. Okalala agreed and added, “At home we fight. Some women have died in the struggle.”

  A tall wiry lawyer from Sierra Leone stood. “In all of Africa, women have suffered.” She picked at the cloth of her dress, caught it and dragged it above her knees. “I have been jailed and beaten. Look, my sisters. Because I would not tell the whereabouts of my friends, they also shot me.” She wore a garter belt and the white elastic straps on her left leg evenly divided a deep-gouged scar as slick and black as wet pavement. “Because I fought against imperialism.”

  We gathered around her, clucking sympathy, gingerly touching the tight skin.

  “They shot me and said my fighting days were over, but if I am paralyzed and can only lift my eyelids, I will stare the white oppressors out of Africa.”

  The spirit of overcoming was familiar to me, also. In my Arkansas church we sang,

  “I’ve seen starlight

  I’ve seen starlight

  Lay this body down

  I will lay down in my grave

  And stretch out my arms.”

  Nineteenth-century slaves who wrote the song believed that they would have freedom and that not only would souls cross over Jordan to march into glory with the other saints, but the grave itself would be unable to restrict the movement of their bodies.

  When the lawyer dropped the hem of her dress all the women wrapped her ’round with arms, bodies and soft voices.

  “Sister, Mother Africa is proud of you.”

  “A true daughter of a true mother.”

  The Somali women had also touched the scar. They spoke unintelligible words of sorrow and stroked the Sierra Leonian woman’s back and shoulders.

  Mrs. Tambo brought out a large bottle of beer. “This is all there is in the house.”

  The lawyer took the bottle with both hands and raised it to the sky. “The mother will understand.” She turned and handed the beer to Mrs. Okalala. “Auntie, as the elder, you must do the honor.”

  I followed the general movement and found myself with the women bunched together in the center of the small living room. The woman faced us, solemnly.

  “To talk to God I must speak Lingala.” Except for the Somali women and me, all the women nodded.

  She began to speak quietly, near a moan. Her tempo and volume increased into a certain chant. She walked around in rhythm and dribbled beer in the four corners of the room. The women, watching, accompanied her in their languages, urging her on, and she complied. The Somali women’s voices were united into the vocal encouragement. I added “amens” and “hallelujahs,” knowing that despite the distances represented and the Babel-like sound of languages, we were all calling on God to move and move right now. Stop the bloodshed. Feed the children. Free the imprisoned and uplift the downtrodden.

  I told about black American organizations, remembering the Daughter Elks and Eastern Stars, Daughters of Isis and the Pythians. Secret female organizations with strict moral codes. All the women in my family were or had been members. My mother and grandmothers had been Daughter Rulers and High Potentates. Oaths were taken and lifelong promises made to uphold the tenets and stand by each sister even unto death.

  The African women responded with tales of queens and princesses, young girls and market women who outwitted the British or French or Boers. I countered with the history of Harriet Tubman, called Moses, a physically small woman, slave, and how she escaped. How she stood on free ground, above a free sky, hundreds of miles from the chains and lashes of slavery and said, “I must go back. With the help of God I will bring others to freedom,” and how, although suffering brain damage from a slaver’s blow, she walked back and forth through the lands of bondage time after time and brought hundreds of her people to freedom.

  The African women sat enraptured as I spoke of Sojourner Truth. I related the story of the six-foot-tall ex-slave speaking at an equal rights meeting of white women in the 1800s. That evening a group of white men in the hall, already incensed that their own women were protesting sexism, were livid when a black woman rose to speak. One of the town’s male leaders shouted from the audience: “I see the stature of the person speaking and remark the ferocious gestures. I hear the lowness and timbre of the speaker’s voice. Gentlemen, I am not convinced that we are being addressed by a woman. Indeed, before I will condone further speech by that person, I must insist that some of the white ladies take the speaker into the inner chamber and examine her and then I will forbear to listen.”

  The other men yelled agreement, but the white women refused to be a party to such humiliation.

  Sojourner Truth, however, from the stage took the situation in hand. In a booming voice, which reached the farthest row in the large hall, she said:

  “Yoked like an ox, I have plowed your land. And ain’t I a woman? With axes and hatchets, I have cut your forests and ain’t I a woman? I gave birth to thirteen children and you have sold them away from me to be the property of strangers and to labor in strange lands. Ain’t I a woman? I have suckled your babes at this breast.” Here she put her large hands on her bodice. Grabbing the cloth she pulled. The threads gave way, the blouse and her undergarments parted and her huge tits hung, pendulously free. She continued, her face unchanging and her voice never faltering, “And ain’t I a woman?”

  When I finished the story, my hands tugging at the buttons of my blouse, the African women stood applauding, stamping their feet and crying. Proud of their sister, whom they had not known a hundred years before.

  We agreed to meet often during the conference and share our stories so that when we returned to our native lands we could take back more than descriptions of white skins, paved streets, flushing toilets, tall buildings and
ice-cold rain.

  A year would pass before I actually went to Africa, but that afternoon in Oliver Tambo’s English apartment, I was in Africa surrounded by her gods and in league with her daughters.

  The conference ended and Vus had to go to Cairo on PAC business. He took me to London’s Heathrow airport and handed me a pile of English pounds.

  “Find a good apartment, in Manhattan, and furnish it well. It must be large and central.” I was unhappy at the prospect of going back to New York alone, but he assured me that he would return in two weeks or at most a month. After he concluded his business in Egypt he might have to go to Kenya. The thought of his exotic destinations cheered my spirit and strengthened my resolve. I was happy to return to New York and the task of finding an apartment which would fit his exquisite taste.

  In one week I found an apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West, packed books and hired a mover. On our moving day, Guy and I sat among the boxes in the Brooklyn living room. He wanted me to tell him about London again. I described the speakers talking in the rain at Hyde Park Corner and the solemn guards at Buckingham Palace, but he wanted to hear about the Africans.

  “Tell me how they looked. How did they walk? What were they called?”

  The names were beautiful. “There was Kozonguizi and Make Wane, Molotsi, Mahomo.”

  Guy sat quietly. I knew he was running the sounds through his mind. After a moment he said, “You know, Mom, I’ve been thinking of changing my name. What do you think?”

  What I thought was that my marriage to Vus had affected him deeply, but I said nothing.

  “Johnson is a slave name. It was the name of some white man who owned my great-great-grandfather. Am I right?”

  I nodded and felt ashamed.

  “Have you chosen a name?”

  He smiled, “Not yet. But I’m thinking about it. All the time.”

  Guy spent the next few weeks adjusting to his new school, and I used the time seeing my friends and trying to beautify the apartment.

  The Harlem Writers Guild members and Abbey listened attentively to my description of Africans in London. They nodded, appreciating the freedom fighters’ dedication. They smiled at me, proud that I had been so close to the motherland.

  Before Vus returned, I painted the kitchen and put brightly colored wallpaper in the bathroom. The apartment was crisp and elegant.

  Vus came home like a soldier returning from a conquered battlefield. His sagas of Cairo were heroic. He had drunk coffee with President Nasser and talked privately with his assistant. Egyptian officials supported the African struggle for freedom, and soon he would take Guy and me to live in Cairo. Excitement shook away Guy’s just-forming adult postures. He jumped up, wiggling.

  “We’re going to Egypt? I’ll see the pyramids? Boy, I’m going to be riding camels and everything.”

  Vus chuckled, happy to be the cause of such elation. Guy finally took his thrills to bed and I rushed into Vus’s waiting arms.

  —

  The next morning my interior decorating met with stony disapproval. The old sofa was wrong for a man in my husband’s position and the secondhand-store bedroom set definitely had to go.

  “I am an African. Even a man sleeping in the bush will lay fresh leaves on the ground. I will not sleep on a bed other men have used.”

  I didn’t ask him what he did in hotels. Certainly he didn’t call the manager and say, “I want a brand-new mattress. I am an African.”

  I said, “But if we’re going to Egypt we shouldn’t buy new furniture.”

  He answered, “The things we buy will be of such quality they will have a high resale value. And anyway, we’re not moving immediately.”

  I followed him meekly around a furniture store where he selected an expensive bed, a teak coffee table and a giant brown leather sofa.

  He paid in cash, pulling bills from a large roll of money. The source of Vus’s money was a mystery. He evaded my questions with the agility of an impala. There was nothing for me to do but relax and accept that he knew what he was doing. My son and I were in his care and he looked after us well. He was an attentive father, making solo visits to Guy’s school and sitting with him late evenings over textbooks. They laughed often and affectionately together. When other Africans visited, Vus would insist that Guy sit in on the unending debates over violence and nonviolence, the role of religion in Africa, the place and the strength of women in the struggle. I tried to overhear their interesting conversations, but generally I was too busy with household chores to take the time.

  It seemed to me that I washed, scrubbed, mopped, dusted and waxed thoroughly every other day. Vus was particular. He checked on my progress. Sometimes he would pull the sofa away from the wall to see if possibly I had missed a layer of dust. If he found his suspicions confirmed, his response could wither me. He would drop his eyes and shake his head, his face saddened with disappointment. I wiped down the walls, because dirty fingerprints could spoil his day, and ironed his starched shirts (he had his shoes polished professionally).

  Each meal at home was a culinary creation. Chicken Kiev and feijoda, Eggs Benedict and Turkey Tetrazzini.

  A good woman put ironed sheets on the beds and matched the toilet paper to the color of the bathroom tile.

  I was unemployed but I had never worked so hard in all my life. Monday nights at the Harlem Writers Guild challenged my control. Heavy lids closed my eyes and the best reading of the best writing could not hold my exhausted attention.

  “A bride, you know.” Everyone would laugh, except Rosa, who knew how hard I was trying to be a good housewife.

  “That African’s got her jumping.” Hands clapped at the humor of it all. But they were speaking more truth then they knew. When I wasn’t home tired I was as tight as a fist balled up in anger. My nerves were like soldiers on dress parade, sharp, erect and at attention.

  We were living luxuriously but I didn’t know how much cash we had, nor could I be sure that the bills were paid. Since I had been sixteen, except for three married years between, I had made and spent my own money.

  Now I was given a liberal food and house allowance and a little cash for personal expenditure (taxis and Tampax). Vus collected and paid the bills. The novelty was not amusing and my heart was not at peace.

  Members of the South Africa United Front were invited to India to meet Krishna Menon. When Vus left I fumbled around the house for a few days, seeing no one but Guy, trying to accommodate an uncomfortable sense of uselessness. When every window was polished and every closet as orderly as department-store racks, I decided to go to Abbey’s house. The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.

  “He doesn’t want me to work, but I don’t know what’s going on and it’s making me feel crazy.”

  Abbey brushed the nap of her long-haired sofa. “You wanted a man, Maya Angelou. You’ve got one.” She just didn’t know how seriously upset I was.

  “But, Ab, I didn’t give over my entire life. You know that’s not right.”

  She locked her jaws and stared at me for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was hard and angry. “A man’s supposed to be in charge. That’s the order of nature.” She was raising an argument which we had debated for years.

  My position had always been that no one was responsible for my life except me. I was responsible for Guy only until he reached maturity, and then he had to take control of his own existence. Of course, no man had ever tried to persuade me differently by offering the security of his protection. “Well, then, I must be outside of nature. ’Cause I can’t stand not knowing where my air is coming from.”

  Abbey made a clucking sound with her tongue, and said, “The worst injury of slavery was that the white man took away the black man’s chance to be in charge of himself, his wife and his family. Vus is teaching you that you’re not a man, no matter how strong you are. He’s going to make you into an African woman. Just watch it.” She dismissed the discussion and me. But she didn’t know the African women
I had met in London or the legendary women in the African stories. I wanted to be a wife and to create a beautiful home to make my man happy, but there was more to life than being a diligent maid with a permanent pussy.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage had its second meeting at Abbey’s luxury penthouse apartment on Columbus Avenue. Several weeks before, we had agreed on a charter, a policy statement and a name: CAWAH. It sounded exotic. We agreed. The newly founded organization included dancers, teachers, singers, writers and musicians. Our intention was to support all black civil rights groups. The charter, as drawn up by Sarah Wright and signed unanimously by the membership, stated that since the entire power of the United States was arrayed in fury against the very existence of the Afro-Americans, we, members of CAWAH, would offer ourselves to raise money for, promote and publicize any gathering sincerely engaged in developing a just society. It further stated that our members, multitalented, would agree, after an assenting vote, to perform dance concerts, song fests, fashion shows and general protest marches.

  Abbey’s living room filled with strident voices. Should we or should we not insist that every member show her commitment to being black by wearing unstraightened hair. Abbey, Rosa and I already wore the short-cut natural, but it was the other women, with tresses hanging down like horse’s manes, who argued that the naturals should be compulsory.

  “I’ve made an appointment for next Friday. I’m having all this shit cut off because I believe that I should let the world know that I’m proud to be black.” The woman placed her hands on the back of her neck and lifted years of hair growth.

  I said, “I don’t agree.” I would miss seeing her long black pageboy.

  Abbey said, “I don’t agree either. Hair is a part of woman’s glory. She ought to wear it any way she wants to. You don’t get out of one trick bag by jumping into another. I wear my hair like this because I like it and Max likes it. But I’d dye it green if I thought it would look better.”