by Maya Angelou
“Yes, Dr. Nagati?” I edged through the passage now made for me to face the great man. He looked down at me and tried a smile, which failed.
“This man handles British news. This one is in charge of European, this one is editor of Soviet news, this one American, this one Asian, and you will write about Africa. You will also look at all their copy, and they will look at yours. The Arab Observer will be a weekly, starting next week. We print in the basement of this building. You will go downstairs now with me and meet the typesetters.”
Without another word, he walked away. It only took me a second to realize that he expected me to follow.
We walked into the dimly lit and dusty room on the lower floor. Dr. Nagati raised his voice, hollering in Arabic. Men in traditional galabias appeared like phantoms out of the gloom. All at once bright lights exposed the farthest recesses.
I was introduced in English as Mrs. Make, the new associate editor. The men shook my hand and welcomed me in Arabic. I smiled and wished Dr. Nagati would stay in the building forever, or at the very least return with me to the upstairs offices. We took our leave of the printers, and he talked until we reached the door leading out of the building. The magazine must be ready for distribution next week. It must have grace and be beautiful. Its news must be timely and accurate. I must remember that although none of the men had worked with women before, except possibly secretaries, they were all cultured and capable. Speaking of secretaries, he would be sending a few over later in the week.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Make. I’m sure you’ll do well.” He pushed the door open and disappeared through it, while my mouth was hanging open wide enough to allow in a swarm of flies.
I directed myself back to my desk. At least I knew that I was expected to cover the African affairs. It would be necessary to collect all newspapers, magazines, journals and essays. A large map and a set of the Oxford English Dictionary would help. Now, now that I no longer desired Vus, I needed him. Every fact he’d ever learned was filed neatly in his orderly brain. He knew tribes, leaders, topography, weather and the political stances of all countries on the continent.
Two reporters, the coffee bearer and I reached my desk at the same time. The server set down the small cup and walked away, as both the journalists drew up chairs. When I sat down, they told me their names again, and began to chat with me, quite cozily. We agreed tacitly that our first introduction had never happened. They offered to show me the Telex machine and how I could acquire background material on any news release. They proposed that I move my desk into the adjoining room, where there was a library with hundreds of books in English. The grin began in my stomach or behind my kneecaps or under my toenails. It undulated in sweet waves, overrunning my body with warmth and well-being. I thought of Brer Rabbit. Like all Southern black children, I had heard folk tales since my early youth, and a favorite came back to me as I sat in that wide-open newsroom in Cairo.
For years Brer Rabbit had been stealing carrots from a garden, and after many attempts, after many elaborate but ineffectual snares, the owner of the plot finally succeeded in catching him.
The man was red as blood with anger. He shook the rabbit until his tail nearly fell off. He said, “Rabbit, I’ve got you now. And I’m going to do the worst thing in the world to you. I mean the baddest thing. I mean the meanest thing. I’m going to make you cry and scream and wish that God never put breath in your body.”
The rabbit started crying. “Please, Mr. Farmer. Don’t do the worst thing to me. Do anything but that. But I don’t think you know what the worst thing is. So just do me as you want to do me.” The rabbit started shuffling and grinning. “But don’t do the worst thing.”
The farmer looked at the rabbit suspiciously. He asked, “What is the worst thing?” Rabbit said, “I won’t tell you.” The farmer began to lie. “You can tell me, little rabbit. I won’t do it. I promise you.”
The rabbit began to relax. He asked the farmer. “Do you swear if I tell you, that you won’t do it to me?”
The farmer put his hand on his heart and swore. The rabbit relaxed even more.
He said, “Farmer, you’ve got a big black iron pot. You can fill it with lard and light a fire under it and cook me in boiling oil, and I wouldn’t care.”
The farmer was doubtful, but the rabbit kept talking. “You can skin me alive and use my fur to make a coat for your little girl, and that would be all right with me.” The farmer looked at the rabbit with disbelief, but the rabbit continued. “You can cut off all my feet and give them to your friends for good luck and I’d like that. But the worst thing …”
The farmer was getting excited. “Tell me, little rabbit, what is the worst thing?”
The rabbit began to tremble, his voice got so little the farmer could barely hear him. “See that briar patch over there?” He pointed to a clump of nettles, “Please don’t throw me over there.” The farmer’s face became hard. He asked the rabbit, “Are you sure that’s the worst thing?” Rabbit said, “They stick in my sides like burning needles, they pop in my eyes like thorns, they hold me like chains and lash my body like whips. Please don’t throw me in the briar patch.”
The farmer picked up the rabbit by the ears, he lifted him high in the air and he began to swing him around over his head, all the time asking, “Are you sure?” And the rabbit answered, crying, “It’s the worst thing!”
Finally, when the farmer had the rabbit turning at a fast speed, he pointed him toward the briar patch and let go. Brer Rabbit landed on his feet. His eyes were dry and bright. His ears perked up and waved. Brer Rabbit grinned at the farmer, his teeth shining white as buttermilk. He said, “Home, at last. Home at last. Great God Almighty, I’m home at last.”
I smiled sweetly as the men shoved and pulled my desk into the library. When they left, and I stood before the crowded bookshelves, reading unfamiliar titles and the names of authors unknown to me, still I felt just like Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.
CHAPTER 17
For two weeks I stayed in the room, using each free moment to cull from the shelves information about journalism, writing, Africa, printing, publishing and editing. Most of the books had been written by long-dead authors and published years before in Britain; still, I found nuggets of useful facts.
The arrival of secretaries forced me back into the larger room with my male colleagues, but by that time I had a glimmering of journalistic jargon. I began to combine a few news items taken directly from the Telex, and insert some obscure slightly relevant background information. Then I would rehead the copy and call it my own.
I stayed at the Arab Observer for over a year and gradually my ignorance receded. I learned from Abdul Hassan how to write an opinionated article with such subtlety that the reader would think the opinion his own. Eric Nemes, the layout artist, showed me that where an article was placed on a page, its typeface, even the color of ink, were as important as the best-written copy. David DuBois demonstrated how to select a story and persevere until the last shred of data was in my hands. Vus supplied me with particulars on the politically fluid, newly independent African states. I received a raise from Dr. Nagati, the respect of my fellow workers and a few compliments from strangers.
Weekdays began with a family breakfast served by Omanadia. Vus read the newspaper, Guy’s face was buried in a book and I scanned work I always brought to the table. Often after we left the house, going separate ways, I would think that we had again lost the art of talking together. We had ceased to find amusement in one another.
Guy’s life was becoming intricately complicated. He was asked to cope with adolescent sexuality, the enigmatic Arabic language, a body which seemed to be stretching to touch the clouds and another joyless home. In attempting to protect himself he withdrew into books or threw himself into the wild, raucous Cairo streets.
I offered to give parties for his Arabic friends so that he could spend more time in the house. He refused politely but coolly, saying that neither he nor his acquaintances wanted to be sh
ut up indoors. They’d rather be in the souks and back streets, the old town and the great Al Tahrir Square, and don’t worry about him, he was just fine.
Neither of us could successfully masquerade our unhappiness from the other. We had been too close, too long. We accepted with mutual respect the other’s pretense at contentment.
Vus’s work doubled.
The number of men escaping from South Africa was escalating. Some only reached Northern Rhodesia, where they stayed hidden until arrangements could be made for their further escape. A few men lodged in Ethiopia, but they had to be moved, and Vus’s responsibility was to find friendly nations where the now-homeless wanderers could stay. All needed clothes, food, housing. Some wanted military training, while others asked for medical or legal education. Vus’s concern in their behalf never wavered.
Although the romance in our marriage had evaporated, I still admired and appreciated him. I even loved him, I simply was not in love with him. There was ample evidence that he had other romantic interests anyway. Often, he returned home very late, reeking of perfume, heavy lidded and offering no explanation. On a few evenings, he didn’t return at all. I said nothing. I had my work, my house and had made two friends. A.B. Williamson, the round pretty wife of the Liberian Chargé d’Affaires, and Kebidetch Erdatchew, wife of the Ethiopian Embassy’s First Secretary. On the surface, we seemed to have nothing in common save our gender and blackness. Kebidetch was thin, small and married to a son of the royal Selassie House. She was as beautiful as antique gold and as reserved as a vault and lent credence to the common African saying that the loveliest women on the continent were to be found in Ethiopia.
Her own beauty was legendary. One day in Addis Ababa, the regal Jarra Mesfin saw her from a passing car and determined, at that hasty glance, that he would find her, woo her and wed her. The ensuing courtship and marriage became the subject of popular songs sung in the streets and cafés of Ethiopia. Seven years later, they still shared languid looks across crowded rooms. They were childless and lived in Zamalek in a quiet luxurious apartment, with an ancient manservant they had brought from Ethiopia.
A.B. (friends called her Banti) had been raised in the underdeveloped Grand Bassa region of Liberia. Her family sent her to Monrovia, the capital city, for further education. Her pert looks and witty good humor won her friends and marriage to a bright young lawyer, whose career was just beginning to rise.
The couple lived in the Ambassador’s Residence with their own three children, Banti’s younger sister, the teenage daughter of a friend, two Liberian maids, a nanny, an Egyptian laundryman, a doorman and a cook. The building shivered with sound. Noisy children played tag games on the graceful staircase. West African High Life music boomed from the large record player, young girls giggled over young-girl secrets in the ceremonial drawing room, and Banti moved her short chubby body through the house, her laughter adding one more spice to the already aromatic cacophony.
Kebi, Banti and I met several times at diplomatic receptions, and at my house during one of our costly parties, but we didn’t cross the threshold from courteous acquaintance into friendship until one night at the Liberian Residence when an overflow of visitors filled every inch of space in the building’s first floor. African, Asian and European diplomats with their wives mingled with Egyptian government officials and their wives. Waiters, hired for the occasion, prodded through the throng, shoving trays of drinks toward the crowded guests.
I was sitting with a Yugoslavian woman in the informal lounge when I heard Vus’s voice part the general murmur of the crowd in another room.
“I speak for the Xhosa, the Zulu, the Shona and the Lesotha. You are a foolish people. Foolish.” I jumped up, and remembering my manners just in time, excused myself. (Vus was cozying up the Yugoslavians at that time.) I nudged my way through the flock of people. Vus’s tone was becoming louder.
“A foolish, small-minded greedy nation. You are mean and stupid. Stupid.” I had arrived sooner than I expected, because as I pushed forward, people nearer the action pulled away, impossibly dispersing. I saw Vus standing face to face with a white man, whose red cheeks and popped eyes were his only evidence of life. He stood stone-stiff; he might have died erect, and been left on the spot to be viewed like a statue. Vus’s face, however, was alive with contempt, and his right arm was raised. He was poking the white man’s chest with his forefinger.
“Tell them, tell the savages of your country, that Mother Africa will no longer allow them to suck from her breast.”
I knew that Vus was intoxicated with either alcohol or rage or a dangerous combination of the two. All sounds had diminished to a low, steady, disapproving undertone. I felt as powerless as if I were mute or hypnotized.
“I speak for Southern Africa. For South-West Africa. For Mozambique, Angola …”
“And Ethiopia.” The sound came from the rear, and grew louder as the speaker neared Vus. “He speaks for the Amharas and the Gullas and for the Eritreans.” Jarra appeared, having pressed his way through the pack of bodies. He stood beside Vus. There was another movement, I saw another separation and Kebi appeared to stand near Jarra. Her movement gave me the courage to edge nearer Vus, but we acted with different motives. She was displaying her support of Jarra; I was hoping that my presence would provoke Vus into gathering his control. We five stood in the center of the room, like warring tribes in a forest clearing, and we had reached a stalemate. Joe Williamson’s already high-pitched voice soared over the crowd.
“Brothers. Brothers.” Joe stepped up to Vus and Jarra, daintily, like a proud bantam rooster. “Argument is one thing. Riot is another. This is not an occasion for either.”
Without changing tone he spoke in Liberian patois, “Ole man say in my country, ‘Hurry, hurry, get dere tomorrow. Take time, get there today.’ Or better yet, ‘We come to party to show our teeth. We go to war to show our arms.’ ”
Vus turned to look at Joe, and I held my breath. Joe was the doyen of the African diplomatic corps; he had been supportive of Vus and all the other freedom fighters and was highly respected in Cairo, and I liked him. If Vus turned on Joe, I could cross him off our list of acquaintances, because Vus’s tongue could be sharp as an assagai, and Joe was a proud man. Vus smiled and shook his head. He said, “Bro Joe, you should be president of this entire continent.”
Jarra, taking his cue from Vus’s relaxation, said, “Speak for the rest of Africa, Vusumzi, not Ethiopia. However, maybe the emperor will make him a ras.” They laughed.
The gathering seemed to exhale at the same time. All of a sudden, music could be heard. The knots of people disbanded. Vus, Joe and Jarra walked away together and the man who had been the object of Vus’s tirade disappeared. Only Kebi, Banti, who had been standing behind her husband, and I were left in the middle of the floor. Kebi looked at us, lifted her eyebrows and gave a tiny shrug of her frail shoulders. Banti put her hands on her hips and grinned roguishly. I thought of us as foot soldiers, bringing up the rear in a war whose declaration we had not known, left on the battlefield after a peace was achieved, in which we had not participated. I laughed out loud. Banti and Kebi chuckled. We moved nearer and, smiling, touched each other’s shoulders, arms, hands and cheeks. Brought to friendship by the frustrated lashing out of one man, a near-stranger’s defense of the first man, and by the clever, humorous mediation of a third man, we three women were to be inseparable for the next year and a half.
I never learned what fuse ignited the conflagration. At home, Vus answered my query: “He was wrong, and too cowardly to say what he meant.”
“Did he insult you? I mean us, the race?”
“Not directly. Like most white racists, he was paternalistic. I would have preferred he slap me than that he talk down upon me. Then I could retaliate in kind.”
I totally agreed. Some whites, in black company, beset by the contradiction between long-learned racism and the demands of courtesy, confusedly offend listening blacks. The stereotypical “Some of my best friends …�
�� and other awkward attempts at what they think to be civility, elicit from black people an outburst of anger whites can neither comprehend nor avoid.
—
An inability to speak fluent Arabic and the difference in cultures made friendships with Egyptian women difficult. The secretaries in my office were neither brave enough (I understood that as a six-foot-tall black American female editor, I was somewhat of an oddity) nor had the time (many had taken jobs to help their needy parents and siblings) nor were interested enough (some were already betrothed and were working to pay for their trousseaus) to respond to my friendly overtures.
I had heard of Hanifa Fathy and noted the respect with which her name was spoken. Hanifa Fathy, the poet. Then, Hanifa, wife of a judge. It was unusual to hear an Egyptian woman’s marital alliance not reported as her first accomplishment. When we finally met at a conference, I was surprised to find her pretty. I had never heard her looks described. She wore her light-brown hair long, in the manner of Lauren Bacall, and her strong feminine features reminded me of the bold American actress.
When we shook hands (her handshake was firm), she said she had been reading my work in the Arab Observer and was determined that we should meet. I accepted her invitation to meet some Egyptian female writers, scholars and teachers.
In Hanifa’s modish living room, I met Egyptian women who had earned doctorates from European universities, and serious painters and talented actresses, but I found them too trained, too professionally fixed, to welcome the chummy contact of friendship. Hanifa, however, was warm and witty. We spent gossipy Saturday afternoons on the veranda of the Cairo country club.
My marriage had shape, responsibility and no romance, and although I was working ten hours a day at the Arab Observer, my salary slipped away like sand in an hourglass. There was never enough. Vus needed more clothes, more trips, more parties. Guy needed more clothes and more allowance. I needed more of everything, or at least I wanted an increase of the things I had and the possession of things I had never owned.