Easter shifted her eyes away from his piercing stare and shook her head. “No, no,” she answered emphatically, “I don’t do that anymore.”
A still and steady silence fell over them. It was a deep and mournful quiet usually reserved for the dead. It was appropriate.
Roi asked, “Do you know what ever became of Nella or Zora?”
Easter sniffed and shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t known Nella and had only met Zora’s acquaintance once or twice. “No, I don’t.”
Roi looked sad about that. He took Easter’s palm in his, raised it to his lips, and planted a chivalrous kiss on the back of her hand. “Miss Easter, it was my immense pleasure to have been in your company. You are an extraordinary woman, and an exceptional writer. I will remember this time with you for the rest of my days.”
Easter walked him to the door and watched as he descended the stairs.
When he reached the bottom, he snapped his fingers and spun around. “My goodness, I almost forgot!” he exclaimed. “Langston sends his regards. He says to tell you that he misses you, that Harlem misses you, and that the world of literature is a better place because of you.”
After Roi left, Easter cleared away the plate of cookies, the water glasses ringed with daises, and the napkins they had used to wipe their mouths. She brushed the crumbs from the table into the palm of her hand and dropped them into the pocket of her dress. She returned the hassock to its rightful place, fluffed the pillows on the sofa, lowered the shades in the parlor, and turned on the lamp. She prepared and served dinner, cleared and washed the dishes … She did all of this as if in a dream.
When she finally awoke, Alice was standing beside her, holding the tin in her hands. Easter looked down at the girl, down at the tin. “Oh there you are,” she breathed, and Alice didn’t know if Easter meant her or the ancient object she held.
Alice had used Ivory soap and warm water to clean away the dirt and then polished the metal to a sheen with Vaseline. Easter smiled at the care and effort.
“Did you look inside?”
Alice nodded ashamedly.
“Hmm,” Easter sounded as she took it, pried the lid off, removed the tiny bit of paper, and crushed it in her fist. “Hand me them box of matches,” she said before tossing the ball of paper into the sink.
They stood—past and future, side by side, hands linked—and watched the flame until there was nothing left but a curl of gray ash.
God balances the sheet in time.
—Zora Neale Hurston
Acknowledgments
The arrival of this book has been six years coming. The story first came to me in 2004 as I sat in my kitchen sipping tea, when suddenly I was aware of the presence of two women, who I will contend until the day I die were the spirits of Zora Neale Hurston and Nella Larsen. I listened to what they had to say and then went into my office and typed out the first twenty pages of what would become this novel.
It was no easy journey. The road from that first day to here was a long, arduous one paved with rejection letters, the death of my father, a near foreclosure, an emotional breakdown, and oceans and oceans of tears.
But we don’t do anything in this life alone, and without the love and support of my family, friends, fellow scribes, guides, readers, and God, this book would not have made it into your loving hands.
Author and educator Gloria Wades-Gayle published a book of essays entitled Rooted Against the Wind. In it she writes about cultural memory being the “root” and the “polarization of class and race” being the fierce winds.
I write to breath life back into memory to remind African-Americans of our rich and textured history. I also see myself as a “root,” and for me the “fierce winds” include the marginalization—the downright segregation—of literature written by people of color.
Whether I am unwilling or unable to conform to the requirements of mainstream publishing is not the question. My only path is to continue to produce works that contribute to the canon of literature created by those writers who came before me. It is, as the young people say, a no-brainer.
Legacies are delicate things. They must be tended to as one would tend an orchid so that it will continue to flourish and provide beautiful blooms. The legacy of African-American literature has been neglected, the works of brilliant writers both published and aspiring—ignored. But I believe that the tides are about to change.
In 1928 Wallace Thurman, the Harlem Renaissance writer and literary radical, said, “The time has come now, when the Negro artist can be his true self and pander to the stupidities of no one, either white or black.”
That time has come again.
***
The following books were invaluable to me in writing Glorious:
When Harlem Was in Vogue by David Levering Lewis
On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A’Lelia Bundles
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd
In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line by George Hutchinson
Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey by Colin Grant
As Wonderful as All That? Henry Crowder’s Memoir of His Affair with Nancy Cunard 1928–1935 by Henry Crowder and Hugo Speck
Rough Amusements: The True Story of A’Lelia Walker, Patroness of the
Harlem Renaissance’s Down-Low Culture by Ben Neihart
Look For Me All Around You: Anglophone Caribbean Immigrants in the Harlem Renaissance by Louis J. Parascandola
Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo by Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume
I would also like to thank the following individuals and organizations: the MacDowell Colony, which provided me peace, quiet, and the serenity to become one with the story; authors Donna Hill, Margaret Johnson Hodge, and Carleen Brice, who supported me on a multitude of levels and cheered the loudest when I finally found a home for this novel; the entire cast of the Harlem Renaissance and especially Zora and Nella; my publisher Johnny Temple and the staff at Akashic Books, who took the project on when others wouldn’t and offered me a publishing experience that is inclusive and collaborative; my ancestors, spirit guides, and God.
And I thank all of you, the readers who continue to support my work.
I stubbornly remain, rooted against the wind …
Glorious Page 17