by Maya Angelou
Their surprise when they were introduced made it obvious that they had expected to meet Die Negers, but not the Jew. Flushed, they sat near Dieter and spoke to me in good but halting English. After another inestimable spate of uninteresting conversation, I asked for a joke.
I said, “I collect jokes. I believe that if you know what a person eats, how and if he prays, how he loves and what makes him laugh, you can claim to understand him, at least a little. I’ll tell you a Black American story and you tell me a German one.” Immediately I began to recount a Brer Rabbit tale from my childhood which showed the hare defenseless and threatened. As always, in African and Afro-American folktales, the seemingly weak animal with the sharpest brain outwits its well-armed adversary. I left the listeners without a doubt that the vulnerable trickster represented my people and the heavily equipped opponent was the White race. The tale always drew agreeing laughter from Blacks, but the only response I got from that company was a few polite chuckles. We drank more beer and I prodded them for a story.
“Just so I can say I have really met Germans and heard their humor.”
The visitors and Dieter spoke to each other, obviously making suggestions which one or the other would reject. Dieter said, “Get Torvash to tell an Israeli joke. He must know millions. He comes from a people known for their black humor.” He smiled, “No pun intended.” Torvash spoke, looking directly at me. “I do know a story. It’s not an Israeli one, nor is it, strictly speaking, a German story, but rather German and Jewish. If that’s all right?” The air tightened in the room and there was a barely audible gasp from Dieter’s mother-in-law.
I said, “Please tell it. I’m sure everyone wants to hear it.”
When I looked at Dieter and his neighbors I knew how wrong I was.
Their faces were stricken with white surprise, but Dieter recovered. He said, “By all means. A German and Jewish story? Do tell it.”
Torvash leaned back in his chair and began in a soft voice.
“There was a Jewish man during World War II who had a sixth sense and would have premonitions whenever the Brown Shirts or SS troops were going to make a raid. He would leave the place moments before the soldiers would arrive. It was a gift he had.”
I scanned the faces at the table. They had turned mottled grey, like certain Italian marble, and their bodies were held stiffly, not unlike marble statuary.
Torvash continued smoothly as if telling a fairy tale to enchanted children. “The man had gone on like that for three years, but one day his talent deserted him and he was caught.”
It seemed that Torvash and I were the only people breathing air. The rest had their lips slightly parted, but there was no visible contracting of their nostrils or chests.
“And the soldiers took the Jew to an SS officer who began to interrogate him. The officer said, ‘I know you are the one who has been escaping us all these years. You think you are clever.’ ” Torvash had straightened up in his chair. His face was suddenly seamless and his eyes were like stones. He had become the Nazi officer. “ ‘I will see how clever you are. I shall ask you one question. If you answer correctly, I will let you immigrate. If you are wrong …’ ” The actor paused and looked at Dieter. “You know.”
I answered, surprising myself by saying, “I know. Go on.”
Torvash resumed his performance as the German. “One of my eyes is false. It was made for me by the world’s greatest false eye maker. It cost me a fortune. If you can look at my eyes and tell which one is false, you will be allowed to leave Germany.”
Then the actor’s shoulders slumped and pulled forward, his face lengthened and began to shake, his eyes opened in fear and his lips were suddenly loose. He was the terrified Jew in the clutch of fear.
“I know, sir, I know. I know because the false one looks so human.”
Torvash dropped the old man’s face as if it had been a mask and said, “My father, who survived, said that was a popular story in his concentration camp.”
It seemed to me that no one moved, or coughed, or even breathed. I know that the story had fallen from my ears, down into my chest, and I found it hard to fill my lungs.
Dieter recovered first. “Yes, I have heard that one myself. Now,” he rose, “if I could have some help we will have dessert.”
He refused his neighbor’s offer to help clear the table. “No, just family. You stay and entertain our guests.” Dieter’s wife, her face free of emotion, began to remove plates and silverware with remarkable efficiency. In moments, Torvash, the neighbors and I were seated before a table which showed no evidence of ever having been used.
“I wish you had not told that story.” The neighbor’s voice was just above a whisper. His wife nodded, her mouth grim. “Yes, you see Dieter has a false eye, but you couldn’t know that.”
The family trooped noisily back to the table smiling and bringing fruit, bowls of whipped cream, tarts, cheeses and more beer. To my surprise they seemed at ease, as if in leaving the room for a few minutes they had obliterated their own awful history.
Dieter sat down and handed out dessert while his wife poured coffee into ornate, yet fragile cups.
We all murmured appreciation for the beautifully presented sweets and the abundance of the meal. I refused to examine Dieter’s eyes. When each plate was laden and the last coffee poured, Dieter leaned back into his chair and spoke, “We have a story. A German folktale.” The pronoun hinted at collusion, and I looked at Torvash who kept a placid face.
“This story is very old and most German children hear it before they reach their teens.”
Despite the obliqueness or childishness of a folktale, I knew it could be used to serve the teller’s end. Apprehension stirred on my neck and arms.
Dieter’s face was rosy with anticipation. “Ready? Shall I tell it?” Everyone, including Torvash, agreed. I settled back hoping to enjoy the story.
Dieter coughed and began, “Once a German worker was on his way to the factory. It was a bitter, cold morning, and the worker was hurrying along when he saw a small bird on the ground, too cold to move. The worker picked up the bird and felt a small heart beat. He held the bird cupped in his hands and breathed hard, blowing warm air on the little bird.”
He mimicked the action, his face shining with concentration. “And because of the schnapps he had just drunk with coffee and the warm breath, the bird began to liven, to stir. The worker repeated blowing and blowing and the little bird opened both eyes. But just then, the factory bell rang. The worker was puzzled. What could he do? He had to get to the factory, but he couldn’t put the bird back down to finish freezing to death. He looked around, and a cow had just passed and left a large pat on the ground. Steam was rising from the pat. The worker said, ‘Oh, that’s what I will do.’ So he walked over and pushed the little bird down into the hot pat of cow dung, and went to work. That is the end of act one.”
I looked at the company and saw all the faces beaming except that of my escort, whose skin was the color of tallow.
“The second act finds the bird recovered. He sticks his head up and out of the dung and loudly, very loudly begins to peep. ‘Peep, peep, peep.’ That’s the end of the second act. Third act: A wolf in the forest has hunted for days for food and found nothing. He is starving. He hears ‘peep, peep, peep,’ and walks to the pat of cow dung, and sees the bird and opens his mouth, and gobbles the bird down like this.”
Dieter spreads his mouth open and shows how the wolf swallowed the bird.
“And that is the end of the third act, and the end of the story, except that there are three morals. One …” Dieter turns just a little to face Torvash, “Remember, he who puts you in the shit is not necessarily your enemy. And two, he who takes you out is not necessarily your friend.” Dieter stood from his chair and leaned his back against the wall. “And the most important moral of all is …” He raised his voice into a shout, “Once you find yourself in the shit, keep your big mouth shut.”
Everything began to swell at once. My
heart was too full of blood, and the blood was pounding too fast in my ears. The people at the table were suddenly huge, white papier mâché—like unpainted figures in a Mexican parade. Torvash became all Jews, and it seemed the necktie he wore was strangling him. The odors of fresh strawberries and burnt sugar mixed with the smell of beer and sausages. I almost toppled over the table as I ran for the door. The garden was as neat as a living room, and I searched for a covert corner to vomit up all the hate I had just ingested. I hung over a row of yellow flowers willing to drown them in bile, but nothing came except a salty hot water that I dribbled into the asters.
When I returned to the room, the people were sitting in their same chairs and speaking German softly. Dieter stood as I approached the table. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Angelou, I suppose your constitution is not used to such a heavy German breakfast. Do you feel better now?”
The SS officer and the Jew, the bird, the pile of cow dung, and the starving wolf had disappeared. The two men were like champion boxers who, having delivered smashing blows, had returned to their corners for relief. Dieter was again the solicitous host and Torvash had his normal look of bemusement. The others were calm.
“I’d like to go to my hotel. Thank you for everything.”
“Oh, but I must show you my collection of African art.”
“Really, I’m not feeling well. I must—” I nodded to the visitors and to Dieter’s wife. “Sorry, but I must.”
“Then we will leave through the other way. You can see some of the art on the way out. Are you ready?” Torvash shook hands around the room and we went up the few stairs to a side door through which we had entered. Dieter said, “Come this way,” and we followed.
The white walls on either side of the hall were crowded with African masks. Dieter described them as we passed. “This is Bambara, this is Fon. Here are Yoruba burial urns. This is Ashanti. I have a large collection of Ashanti gold weights in the other room. If you’d like to see …”
I mumbled, “Not this time. I must take my medicine every four hours.” The lie came so unexpectedly even I believed it.
“Well, the next time you come to Berlin …” He pointed, “Here are some Benin bronzes on that wall.”
We had reached the front door, so I opened it and walked out into the sunshine.
We sat in the car. I was again in the back seat. Dieter turned his torso around to speak to me. “Since you live in Ghana, I thought you might like to do some trade for me. Of course I have an agent here in Berlin, but his prices are very high and I am certain the Africans don’t see even one percent of that money. Maybe you could do something for me.”
“I don’t trade. I particularly don’t trade in African art.”
Torvash turned slightly, his light eyes glowing amber and his lips pulled into a smile.
Dieter said, “I am a serious collector, and if you could get some old Ashanti carvings and maybe some Bambara for me or masks from Sierra Leone … I’d pay you very well. Very well.”
I didn’t need to look at Torvash, I was certain that his smile was widening.
“I don’t trade, Dieter, and I’d really like to get to my hotel.”
There was little conversation, only some muttering from the front seat which I ignored. I sat trying to hold my mind together, trying to keep it blank.
At the hotel Dieter was still polite. He bowed over my hand and thanked me for a superb morning. He and Torvash shook hands. They were like two acquaintances who had shared a taxi. There was no admittance that each had walked uninvited into the other’s most private place, and shone a painful light.
Dieter drove away and I turned to the Israeli. “I’m sorry. I started something I didn’t expect.”
“At least we know why you were invited.”
I nodded. “He wanted me to exploit the African sculptors. I didn’t expect that.”
“I think you should examine your reason for accepting the invitation.” Torvash took my hand. “Neither you nor I can afford to be so innocent. Not here in Germany or anywhere in this world, unless we admit that we want the return of slavery and the concentration camps.” He gave me a sad smile and walked away down the street.
I told only Roscoe about the incident. He said, “Excellent stories. Exceptional and expectable. But you are the most interesting element of the tale. The Israeli knew, and you should have known what would happen. Be careful, dear girl, that Africa doesn’t take away all your cynicism. You have become dangerously young.”
The play’s exquisite writing gathered me and the actors into itself, and we, becharmed, did its bidding without protest. The script vilified all Whites, and we used each opportunity to shout profanities at the German audience which accepted each calumny as if they either didn’t comprehend our meanings, or thought of our diatribes as the insignificant mouthings of insignificant clowns.
I wondered how well another play with other actors would have fared. Would the audience have stood and thrown roses if the actors had been Jewish, re-enacting a scene in Dachau? I knew the answer and I disliked the Germans for pandering to us, and I disliked myself and the cast for being bullies.
When I realized that I wanted to apologize to my friends, all Jews and even the Germans, I knew that Africa had creolized me. I was neither meat nor fowl nor good red herring. My native sassiness which had brought me from under the heels of brutes, had been softened by contact with the respectfulness of Ghanaians, yet, unlike them I did not belong to a place from which I could not be dislodged. I had put on just learned airs along with my African cloth, and paraded, pretending to an exotic foreign poise I had not earned nor directly inherited.
In the actors’ company I laughed or shook my head or grunted because I knew the cues and sounds necessary for acceptance, but I had become something other, another kind of person. The New York actors were concerned with what plays were going into production, what roles were going to be filled, and how on earth or on any other planet could a Black actor, talented and trained, exact success from a resistance race and a difficult profession. They were quick and pretty and clever, and when the brief tour concluded they would return home where their restless striving would be not only understood, but expected. The European trip had simply taken them from the arena for a brief respite, but even as they rested they honed their reflexes and practiced their footwork.
We left Berlin for Italy, without regret or hesitation. The actors were looking forward to yet another stage, and I was eager to see Venice again.
Once we arrived in the city of canals, I learned that we were to perform in the lush Teatro La Fenice. I remembered the first time I had seen the jewel box of a theatre.
Ten years earlier when Porgy and Bess had played there and Venice was the first European city I had ever seen, I walked its narrow streets and created a fictional connection between myself and its past. I had been a lover of a doge, a sister to Othello and Correggio’s generous patron. For a short while I let my Black American history sink beneath the surface of the city’s sluggish water. All the citizens of Venice had been our friends. Gondoliers on the Grand Canal had saluted us with arias from the opera and children followed the cast singing their heavily accented version of “Summertime.”
The surface of Venice had not changed. The same birds flew their same swooping patterns over the same tourists in the unchanging San Marco Square. But when “The Blacks” arrived in the floating city, some citizens, angered by the worldliness of presentations at the Venice Biennale, had taken their protests to the streets. As we prepared to enter the theatre we met angry people shouting, “We do not want your filth in Venice.” Our Italian sponsors shrugged their shoulders and told us the demonstrators were religious fanatics and we should ignore them.
Some of my colleagues were disposed to follow that advice, but I found it hard to pretend indifference.
Raymond and Lex saw my nervousness and assured me that I had nothing to worry about.
Raymond said, “Queenie, if they touch one hair on your natural, they’
ll sing ‘O Sole Mio’ in another key and out of another hole. Come on, let’s go!” We put our heads up and marched in as if the Pope had given us the pretty little theatre just because we were so righteous.
The audience applauded Genet and the audacious cast. The next few days passed without particular interest. My thoughts had turned to Egypt. I was about to walk on the streets where a good marriage went bad, and sit in parlors where my ex-husband and I had worn veiled but angry looks.
There were no last minute tearful departures among me and the cast. Everything we had had to share had been exchanged. Their eyes were filled with excitement for the next play, or for Hollywood, for success which was waiting for them to claim it. Roscoe saw me to the launch which was the first leg of my journey to Cairo. At the wharf he held me, then pulled away.
“Be careful, sweet lady. You went to Africa to get something, but remember you did not go empty handed. Don’t lose what you had to get something which just may not work. And I have heard, ‘If it don’t fit, don’t force it.’ Bad grammar, but sound advice.” In honor of his wisdom, he raised one eyebrow and I raised two. There was nothing to add, so we embraced and left each other with a laugh.
From the airplane window sunlight on the Sahara made the sandscape look like a lumpy butterscotch ocean.
The Williamsons sent their limousine to collect me from the Cairo airport. Two of their children accompanied the driver. Although Baby Joe and Edwina, four and six years old, had grown up from infancy in Egypt with Arabic nannies and Egyptian children, they still had the manners and even the accents of the children I had come to know in Ghana. They greeted me with hugs, then sat dignified in the car seats, waiting for me to begin the conversation. They responded to my questions directly and briefly.
Yes, their parents were well. Yes, they were enjoying school. Yes, they had lots of friends. Yes, their Arabic was good. Edwina, suddenly excited, asked, “Auntie Maya, do you know the Old Man is here?”
Liberians affectionately called their president, William V. S. Tubman, “Old Man.” Edwina told me that he was “very good and smokes more cigars than Daddy and they are bigger, too.” Baby Joe explained, “But he is the President.” Once they had broken the mold of proper childish behavior, they would not put it together again. They chattered about parties and punishments, and what friends were visiting from Liberia. I was told that Edwina was reading well, and I had to listen to Baby Joe say his ABC’s. They spoke about their mother’s pregnancy with a charming naturalness. Baby Joe wanted another sister. “Edwina can be not good, you know.” Liberians rarely accuse a person of being overtly bad, but they use the opprobrium of being “not good.”