The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

by Maya Angelou

  Frankel nodded.

  Ethel and I sat close on the piano stool. The old Porgy and Bess companionship was still good between us. We agreed that the key of C, with no flats or sharps, would be easier for nonsinging actors to learn. Ethel played a melody in the upper register and I added notes. We spoke the lyrics and adjusted the melody to fit. Within an hour, we had composed two tunes. The cast returned from the break. They stood around the piano and listened to our melodies. I turned at the first laughter, ready to defend our work, but when I looked at the actors I saw that their laughter was with me and themselves. Ethel Ayler and I had not done anything out of the ordinary. We had simply proved that black people had to be slick, smart and damned quick.

  That night the play began on a pitch of high scorn. The theater became a sardonic sanctuary where we sneered at white saints and spit on white gods. Most blacks in the audience reacted with amusement at our blasphemous disclosures, although there were a few who coughed or grunted disapproval. They were embarrassed at our blatancy, preferring that our people keep our anger behind masks, and as usual under control.

  However, whites loved The Blacks. At the end of the play, the audience stood clapping riotously and bellowing, “Bravo,”

  “Bravo.” The cast had agreed not to bow or smile. We looked out at the pale faces, no longer actors playing roles written by a Frenchman thousands of miles distant. We were courageous black people, looking directly into enemy eyes. Our impudence further excited the audience. Loud applause continued long after we left the stage.

  We howled in our dressing rooms. If the audience missed the play’s obtrusive intent, then the crackers were numbly insensitive. On the other hand, if they understood, and still liked the drama, they were psychically sick, which we suspected anyway.

  We were a hit, and we were happy.

  Blacks understood and enjoyed the play, but each night in the theater whites outnumbered my people four to one, and that fact was befuddling. Whites didn’t come to the Lower East Side of New York to learn that they were unkind, unjust and unfair. Black orators, more eloquent than Genet, had informed white Americans for three centuries that our living conditions were intolerable. David Walker in 1830 and Frederick Douglass in 1850 had revealed the anguish and pain of life for blacks in the United States. Martin Delaney and Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey and Dr. DuBois, and Martin King and Malcolm X had explained with anger, passion and persuasion that we were living precariously on the ledge of life, and that if we fell, the entire structure, which had prohibited us living room, might crumble as well.

  So in 1960, white Americans should have known all they needed to know about black Americans.

  Why, then, did they crowd into the St. Mark’s Playhouse and sit gaping as black actors flung filthy words and even filthier meanings into their faces? The question continued to stay with me like a grain of sand wedged between my teeth. Not painful but a constant irritant.

  At last, a month after we had opened, I was given an answer. That evening the cast had changed into street clothes and gathered in the lobby to meet friends. A young white woman of about thirty, expensively dressed and well cared for, grabbed my hand.

  “Maya? Mrs. Make?” Her face was moist with tears. Her nose and the area around it, were red. Immediately, I felt sorry for her.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Make.” She started to sob. I asked her if she’d like to come to my dressing room. My invitation was like cold water on her emotion.

  She shook her head, “Oh no. Nothing like that. Of course not, I’m all right.”

  The rush of blood was disappearing from her face, and when she spoke again her voice was clearer.

  “I just wanted you to know … I just wanted to say that I’ve seen the play five times.” She waited.

  “Five times? We’ve only been playing four weeks.”

  “Yes, but a lot of my friends …”—now she was in control of herself again—“a lot of us have seen the play more than once. A woman in my building comes twice a week.”

  “Why? Why do you come back?”

  “Well”—she drew herself up—“well, we support you. I mean, we understand what you are saying.”

  The blur of noise drifted around us, but we were an isolated inset, a picture of American society. White and black talking at each other.

  “How many blacks live in your building?”

  “Why, none. But that doesn’t mean …”

  “How many black friends do you have? I mean, not counting your maid?”

  “Oh,” she took a couple of steps backward. “You’re trying to insult me.”

  I followed her. “You can accept the insults if I am a character on stage, but not in person, is that it?”

  She looked at me with enough hate to shrivel my heart. I put my hand out.

  “Don’t touch me.” Her voice was so sharp it caught the attention of some bystanders. Roscoe appeared abruptly. Still in character, giving me a little bow, “Hello, Queen.”

  The woman turned to leave, but I caught her sleeve. “Would you take me home with you? Would you become my friend?”

  She snatched her arm away, and spat out, “You people. You people.” And walked away.

  Roscoe asked, “And pray, what was that?”

  “She’s one of our fans. She comes to the theater and allows us to curse and berate her, and that’s her contribution to our struggle.”

  Roscoe shook his head slowly. “Oh dear. One of those.”

  The subject was closed.

  CHAPTER 13

  The lipstick smudge was not mine, nor did the perfume come from my bottles. I laid Vus’s shirt across the chair and hung his suit from the doorknob. Then I sat down to wait for him to come from the shower.

  We had not discussed infidelity; I had simply never thought of it. But the third time Vus’s clothes were stained with the evidence of other women’s make-up I had to face the possibility.

  He came into the bedroom, tying the belt of his silk paisley dressing gown.

  “Dear, shall we go out to breakfast? I have a meeting downtown. We could go to Broadway and then—”.

  “Vus, who is the woman? Or rather, who are the women?”

  He turned to me and dropped his hands to his side. His face as blank as a wooden slat.

  “Women? What women?” The round eyes which I loved were glazed over, shutting me out. “What stupidness are you talking about?”

  I kept my voice low. I was asking because I was my mother’s daughter and I was supposed to be courageous and honest. I didn’t want an honest answer. I wished for him to deny everything, or to hand me any contrived explanation.

  “The lipstick. It’s fuchsia. It’s not mine. This time the perfume is Tweed. I have never worn that scent.”

  “Ah,” he smiled, stretching and opening his fine lips, allowing me a flash of even teeth. “Ah, my darling, you’re jealous.” He walked over and took my hands and pulled me up from the chair. He held me close and his belly shook against mine. He was laughing at me.

  “My darling wife is a little jealous.” His voice and body rumbled. He released me and looked into my eyes.

  “My dear, there are no other women. You are the only love in my world. You are the only woman I’ve ever wanted and all that I have.”

  That was what I wanted to hear, but as a black American woman, I had a history to respect and a duty to discharge. I looked at him directly.

  “Vus, if you fell in love with Abbey, or Rosa or Paule, I could understand. I would be hurt but not insulted. They are women who would not intend to hurt me, but love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time. But if you chippie on me, you could get hurt, and I mean seriously.”

  Vus pulled away. We were face to face, but he had withdrawn into his privacy.

  “Don’t you ever threaten me. I am an African. I do not scare easily and I do not run at all. Do not question me again. You are my wife. That is all you need to know.”

  He dressed and left without re
peating his breakfast invitation.

  I walked around the house thinking of my alternatives. Separation was not possible. Too many friends had advised me against the marriage, and my pride would not allow me to prove them right. Guy would never forgive me if I moved us one more time and I couldn’t risk losing the only person who really loved me. If I caught Vus flagrantly betraying me, I would get a gun and blow his ass away or wait until he slept and pour boiling lye in his mouth. I would never use poison, it could take too long to act.

  I hung his suit near an open window and washed the lipstick stain from his shirt.

  There was a sad irony in the truth that I was happier in the dusty theater than in my pretty apartment on Central Park West.

  Despite the clash of cultures, Guy and Vus were building a friendship. My son was making a strenuous effort to understand the ways of “Dad.” He was interested in knowing what it must have been like to be a black male growing up in Africa. Vus was pleased by Guy’s interest and accepted his free, curious upbringing, although it was alien to his own. When Guy questioned his stepfather’s announcements, Vus took the time to explain that an African youngster would never ask an adult why he had done or said a certain thing. Rather, African youths courteously accepted grown-up statements, then went off on their own to find the answers that suited them. They sat together, laughing, talking and playing chess. They were pleased with the dinners I prepared, but when I called their attention to the fresh flowers on the table or a new dress I was wearing, their reactions were identical.

  “How very nice, my wife.”

  “Lovely, Mom. Really very lovely.”

  “Guy, your mother makes a beautiful house for us.”

  They treated me as if I were the kind and competent family retainer.

  Guy had forgotten the years when I had encouraged him to interrogate me, question my rules, try to pick apart my every conclusion. There had been no father to bring balance into the pattern of my parenting, so he had had the right to question and I had the responsibility of explaining. Now Vus was teaching him to be an African male, and he was an apt student. Ambiguity stretched me like elastic. I yearned for our old closeness, and his dependence, but I knew he needed a father, a male image, a man in his life. I had been raised in a fatherless home, so I didn’t even know what fathers talked about to their daughters, and surely I had no inkling of what they taught their sons.

  I did know that Guy was treating me in a new and unpleasant way. My face was no longer examined for approval, nor did he weigh my voice for anger. He laughed with Vus, and consulted Vus. It was what I said I wanted, but I had to admit to myself that for my son I had become only a reliable convenience. A something of very little importance.

  At home, Vus read American, European and African papers, clipping articles which he later copied and sent to colleagues abroad. He spent mornings at the United Nations, buttonholing delegates, conspiring with other African freedom fighters and trying to convince the press that South Africa in revolution would make the Algerian seven-year-war appear like a Sunday School picnic. He talked to everyone he thought influential—bankers, lawyers, clergymen and stockbrokers. I decided to accept that the make-up which smudged his collars and the sweet aromas which perfumed his clothes came from brushes with the secretaries of powerful men.

  I started going to the theater early and returning home reluctantly.

  Backstage, Roscoe Lee Browne and I acted out a two-character drama which brought color into my slowly fading life. Our strongest expressions were silent, and physical touching was limited to scrupulous pecks on each other’s cheeks. More picturesque than handsome, his attentions held no threat or promise of intimacy. Although the other cast members appeared oblivious to the measure of my misery, he noticed but was too discreet to embarrass me with questions.

  When I sat in my dressing room, working the crossword puzzle, or pressing a poem into shape, Roscoe’s light step would sound beyond the door.

  “Hello, my dear. It’s outside. By the door.”

  I would jump to catch the sight of him, but the hallway was always empty, save a neat posy resting against the wall, or one flower wrapped in flimsy green paper.

  The constancy and delicacy of Roscoe’s concern made him the ideal hero for fantasy and the necessary contrast to my real life. He was all pleasure and no offense, excitement without responsibility. If we had embraced or if we once discussed the torment of my marriage, our private ritual of romance would have failed, overburdened by ordinariness. If one is lucky a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

  My controlled paranoia prevented me from realizing the seriousness of a phone call I received one evening.

  When I picked up the receiver, a man’s throaty voice whispered “Maya Make? Vusumzi Make is not coming home.”

  The statement surprised me but I wasn’t alarmed. I asked, “Did he ask you to tell me that? Why didn’t he call? Who are you?”

  The man said, “Vusumzi will never come home again.” He hung up the telephone.

  I walked around the living room trying to sort out the message. The English was labored but I could not place the origin of the heavy accent. Vus knew so many foreigners, the man could have been from any country in the world. He also knew many women, and just possibly an African diplomat suspected that his wife and Vus were having an affair. He telephoned, not so much to threaten Vus, as to awaken my suspicions. He had wasted his money and his time. When I left for the theater, Vus hadn’t returned home.

  During the play the memory of the telephone call lay just under the remembered lines. Helen Martin and I were engaged in the play’s final duel when the idea came to me that Vus might be in danger. The angry husband could have already hurt him. Maybe he had been caught with the man’s wife and had been shot or stabbed. I finished the play, and only Roscoe took notice of my distraction. Each time I looked at him, he raised an eyebrow or pursed his lips, or gave me a questioning glance.

  After the final ensemble stare into the audience, I turned and rushed for my dressing room, but Roscoe caught up with me in the corridor behind the stage.

  “Maya, are you all right?”

  The care on his face activated my tears. “It’s Vus. I’m worried.”

  He nodded. “Oh yes, I see.” He couldn’t possibly see and I couldn’t possibly tell him. We walked into the lobby en route to the dressing rooms, and Vus stepped out of the crowd of playgoers.

  “Good evening, my dearest.” He was whole and he was beautiful.

  Roscoe smiled as they shook hands. He said, “Mr. Make, our Queen is a great actress. Tonight she excelled herself.” He inclined his head toward me and walked away. I knew that Vus didn’t approve of public displays of emotion, so I hugged him quickly and went to change into street clothes.

  I couldn’t hold my relief. In the taxi I rubbed his large round thigh, and put my head on his chest, breathing in his living scent. “You are loving me tonight.” He chuckled and the sound rumbled sweetly in my ear.

  He made drinks at home and we sat on the good sofa. He took my hand.

  “You are very nervous. You have been excited. What happened at the theater?”

  I told him about the telephone call and his face changed. He began chewing the inside of his bottom lip; his eyes were deep and private.

  I faked a light laugh and said, “I thought some irate husband had caught you and his wife in flagrante, and maybe he …”

  I shut up. I sounded silly even to myself. Vus was far away.

  When he spoke his voice was cold and his speech even more precise than usual.

  “We must have the number changed. I’m surprised it took them so long.”

  I didn’t understand. He explained. “That was someone from the South African police. They do that sort of thing. Telephone the wives of freedom fighters and tell them their husbands or their children have been killed.” He grunted, “I guess I should be insulted that they are just beginning on you. It indicates that they have not been t
aking me seriously.” He turned his large body to face me. “Tomorrow, I’ll have the number changed. And I will step up my campaign.”

  The telephone incident brought me closer to the reality of South African politics than all the speeches I had heard. That voice stayed in my ear like the inane melody of a commercial jingle. When I least expected it, it would growl, “Maya Make? Vusumzi Make will never come home again.”

  I wanted to stay at Vus’s side, go everywhere with him. My concern followed him in the street, in taxis, trailed him into the U.N. Even when we were at home, I wasn’t satisfied unless we were in the same room. Vus’s attempts to reassure me were futile. Worry had come to live with me, and it sat in the palms of my hands like beads of sweat. It returned even as I wiped it away.

  The second telephone call came about two weeks later.

  “Maya Make? Do you know your husband is dead?” The voice was different but the accent was the same. “His throat has been cut.” I slammed down the telephone, and a second later I picked it up and screamed obscenities over the buzz of the dial tone. “You’re a lying dog. You racist, Apartheid-loving, baby-killing son of a bitch.” When I replaced the telephone, I had used every profane word I knew and used them in every possible combination. When I told Vus he said he’d have the number changed again. He worried that such tactics threw me. I could expect those and worse. I decided if the phone calls continued, I would handle them and keep the news to myself.

  Having a live-in father had a visible effect on my son. All his life Guy had been casual to the point of total indifference about his clothing, but under Vus’s influence, he became interested in color-coordinated outfits. Vus took him to a tailor to be fitted for two vested suits. He bought splendid shoes and button-down shirts for my fifteen-year-old, and Guy responded as if he had been waiting for such elegance all his life.

  The telephone calls resumed. I was told that I could pick up my husband’s body at Bellevue, or that he had been shot to death in Harlem. Whenever I was home alone, I watched the telephone as if it were a coiled cobra. If it rang, I would grab its head and hold on. I never said hello but waited for the caller’s voice. If I heard “Maya Make,” I would start to quietly explain that South Africa would be free someday and all the white racists had better be long-distance swimmers or have well-stocked life rafts, because the Africans were going to run them right to the ocean. After my statement I would replace the receiver softly and think, That ought to get them. Usually, I could spend an hour or so complimenting myself on my brilliant control, before worry would snake its way into my thoughts. Then I would use the same telephone to try to locate Vus.