A Moment in the Sun

by John Sayles

  Diosdado slips the rowboat from its painter and paddles with his hands to bring it bumping gently against the side of a junk, able to stand precariously and grab the higher gunwale with both hands to haul himself up. There are people on the deck, dozens of them, fast asleep. He steps cautiously over and around them, not a one stirring, till he reaches the port side. There is a lower sampan tied next to the junk, only a short jump across and down, but he freezes for a long moment, staring anxiously at the open spot where he wants to land. Someone coughs behind him and he makes the leap, a little too forcefully, his momentum sending him bouncing off the far side of the prow of the smaller boat and into the water, the splash rousing what must be dozens of geese held in cages under the sampan’s awning, flapping and honking an alarm that could wake the souls of drowned sailors. Diosdado swims frantically then, dog-paddling from moored boat to moored boat, finally finding the bottom rung of a weed-slimed metal ladder leading up to the wooden dock.

  There is no time to sprawl and recover. Diosdado staggers quickly out of the range of the shore lights, the geese still hysterical behind him, finally settling behind a heap of wooden pallets next to a stone warehouse. He looks around, dripping and gasping to catch his breath. He is amazed to find that he recognizes the place—it is the old Pedder’s Wharf, where he disembarked with his father the first time Don Nicasio brought him along on a buying trip. They stayed at a beautiful hotel halfway up the slope on Ice House Street, and spent an afternoon at the Cricket Grounds watching Englishmen in white uniforms swat a hard round ball and run between two pegs.

  Diosdado pulls his good clothes, soaking, out of the sack and twists the seawater out of them, draping them carefully over sections of pallet to dry. The geese are quiet now. He is in Hongkong, in the deep of the night, with a handful of silver and a head full of lies, and no idea if he’ll ever go home again.

  By the time the sun is barely peeking over the harbor and Kowloon across the way there are already too many Chinese in Hongkong. The streets are choked with them, shouting, waving their arms, making deals from opposite sides of the street, peddling food from carts, the rickshaw boys swarming like hungry gulls if they see a white man who dares to walk. Diosdado makes his way through it all in his wrinkled, still-damp suit, navigating by memory and the muttered directions of Chinese men in too much of a hurry to look him in the eye.

  There are Chinese in Manila, of course, thousands of them, the coolies in Binondo running ducklike under their burdens, the merchants haggling in their shops on the Escolta, the gamblers and opium dealers in Tondo luring the adventurous and weak of mettle into perdition. One of General Aguinaldo’s plans, when the Republic is established, is to limit the number of coolies allowed into the country as workers, hoping to leave more jobs open for the dispossessed Filipino kasamas who flock in from the provinces hoping to change their lives. It seems a hopeless idea, like building a sea wall capable of stopping a tidal wave. With decent leadership and a shared purpose, thinks Diosdado as he shakes off the trio of fan-tan parlor touts pulling at his arms, these people will rule the world.

  Statue Square seems almost deserted by comparison. A broad open ground between the Hongkong Club and the various British administration buildings, narrow walks crossing the immaculately kept lawns, all leading to Victoria Regina’s elaborately canopied pavilion and its unobstructed view of the harbor. She is cast in bronze, a portly lady with fierce eyes sitting on an angular throne, ornamented pillars supporting the dome above her head, an outsized replica of the royal scepter sticking up straight from its crest like the spike on a Prussian’s helmet. There are no soldiers guarding the pavilion, only a few British clerks strolling past and a man who looks Indian trimming the grass in front of the Hongkong Club. Diosdado sits on the third step of the granite base as he has been instructed, the Queen behind him, and watches the harbor. The traffic in the water is no more orderly than that in the market district, junks and sampans and opium traders barely missing the rickety little fishing boats as they whip past, all in a seemingly random frenzy of activity. He sits below Victoria and watches, feeling his clothes dry out in the morning sun, hungry and tired and hoping he is not a day early or a day late. It is possibly the most exposed position in all of Hongkong. At least, he thinks, if someone is coming he will be easy to find.

  Hours pass. Diosdado is able to pick out the Star Ferry boats, crossing to Kowloon and back, from the rest of the floating bedlam in the harbor. He sees the steamer from Manila, the one he is not on, ease up to Blake’s Pier and disgorge its passengers. The shadow of the royal scepter begins to lengthen across the Square.

  It is Gregorio del Pilar who appears to sit on the step above him in the early afternoon, Goyo sharply dressed in white with a skimmer tilted on his head and a walking stick with an ivory handle.

  “How was your voyage?” he asks.

  “I survived it.”

  Del Pilar smiles. “You were supposed to be here before those pictures were released. Somebody didn’t follow orders.”

  Diosdado turns to look at his hermano terrible. “Do you know if it made a stir? What did the newspapers say?”

  He feels weak to have to ask, but this blind leap, this exile, must have some value.

  Del Pilar stands, his face unreadable. “Every act of defiance,” he says, “is a nail in the Spaniards’ coffin.” And then, grinning and nodding to the doughty bronze monarch above them, “Let’s be happy we’re not fighting her. Come on—we’ll find a place to put you.”

  WILMINGTON

  If Uncle Wicklow got any second thoughts about being a colored man’s colored man, he keeps quiet about it. He’s worked for Dr. Lunceford since Royal can remember, driving, keeping Boots fed and stabled, keeping the yard up, hauling coal and ice and doing all the other chores most folks got to do on their own. Not that Royal takes anything away from the doctor.

  “Man like Dr. Lunceford,” his mother is fond of saying, “provide a aspiration for you young ones.”

  Wick is wiping clean the dash on a new carriage when Royal steps in. It is a moment before recognition creases his face in a smile.

  “Look at you.”

  “Wick. How you coming, old man?”

  “Look at you.”

  There was a crowd at the station, almost all colored, when the troop train pulled in, cheering and waving flags while brass instruments thumped out a welcome, little boys dancing alongside him for blocks calling him Mr. Soldier Man and wanting to touch his uniform.

  “They’re carrying us down to Georgia,” says Royal. “Got a few hours to stretch our legs.”

  “So Mr. Lunceford Junior be coming by?”

  Royal feels a tiny pang at the old man’s excitement. Wick is his uncle, not Junior’s.

  “He’ll come by shortly.”

  “You been to your mama?”

  “That comes next. I got business here.”

  Wick shakes his head. “You can shinny up the tree, boy, but you aint getting no peach.”

  “How is she?”

  Wick turns back to his work. “Bout like you’d expect. A fine young lady.”

  If it was somebody else’s daughter the old man would be winking and nudging, calling back on his own adventures to offer a plan of action. But this is his livelihood, and there is a part of him that cringes every time Royal steps into the Luncefords’ parlor.

  Royal makes a show of inspecting the carriage.

  “This is a new one.”

  The old man’s face brightens. “Two-seater Park Phaeton, all the way from Massachusetts.” He steps back to indicate the features. “Cut under to the reach, folding top for rain, and the springs—nephew, you roll on these springs you aint riding, you floatin. I seen Dr. Lunceford fall right to sleep on that seat beside me, coming home from a long day of visitations. Sleep through shell road, cobblestones, pot-holes, you name it.”

  “It’s smooth.”

  “Like a dream on water. Look here—” Wick runs his hand over the black leather of the front s
eat. “You ever seen polstry like this? That pattern there, that’s diamond-tucked and button-tufted is what that is. That is quality. Wherever I stop, these other old boys that’s driving, don’t matter for what kind of white people, they got to shut up and wonder. You know Preston McNary, what they call Pinkeye?”

  “Ned McNary’s daddy.”

  “That’s the one. He’s in livery for Judge Manigault, got more airs than a peacock got feathers, and even he got to say ‘Wicklow, that is a fine piece of craftmanship you settin on. A fine piece.’ ”

  Before Royal left the Doctor had an old physician’s coupe, beautifully kept by Uncle Wick but a little secondhand box-on-wheels nonetheless. Royal’s stomach tightens as he studies the coach. He is climbing, the uniform is emblem of that, but maybe the Luncefords are climbing even faster.

  “Now if I was a sporting man,” Wick goes on, always one to rhapsodize about his rides, “and Boots was still in his prime, I could make me some pocket silver racing against them young bloods as gets together Saturdays at the river run to match their wagons. Phaeton is built for comfort,” he says, patting a fender, “but that don’t mean she won’t fly.”

  Another soldier steps into the carriage house.

  “Uncle Wick.”

  Junior calls him Uncle too, but in the manner of the white people. It is supposed to be affection, maybe even respect, but it always grates on Royal.

  “Mr. Lunceford Junior!” Wick makes a show of wiping his hands clean on the chamois cloth before shaking Junior’s hand. “All turned out in blue! What is it now—Lieutenant? Major?”

  Junior smiles. “Just a private, like Roy here.”

  “We don’t go past sergeant in the regulars,” says Royal. “Commissioned officers are all white men.”

  “But that will change soon enough.” Junior has submitted letters to editors, has solicited the aid of congressmen, has made it abundantly clear he is a New Negro seeking his proper place in the Army’s hierarchy. He is not the easiest friend to have in the barracks.

  “Mrs. Lunceford gonna throw a fit. You didn’t write you was coming.”

  “Sudden orders,” says Junior. “We’re moving faster than the mail.”

  “I heard there was colored troops passing through, but they never said no regiment numbers.”

  “You’re looking well, Uncle.” Junior gives the old man a small pat on the arm, ready to move on. He turns to give Royal a once-over.

  “Are you prepared for battle, Private?”

  Royal does not feel ready, but there is no telling where the Army will take him next and it is only by chance they’ve stopped in Wilmington on the way.

  He tries to avoid Uncle Wicklow’s eyes. “I won’t say very much.”

  Junior smiles. He wears his confidence like he wears his clothes, even in Montana with the sergeants chewing you out on the training grounds. There are men in the ranks maybe got more smarts than Junior Lunceford, but none of them carry themselves so high, so sure. If colored officers ever do come in, thinks Royal, Junior be commissioned on the spot.

  “Modesty would be prudent,” says Junior. “This is only to put a new image of you in their minds. Replace the shoeless boy and stripling dockworker of their memories with a very presentable military gentlemen.”

  “And Jessie?”

  It might be hopeless. “Aint no lack of colored women in this world,” his mother likes to say. “They no sense in sniffin after what you can’t have when they plenty at hand do you just fine.” His mother never runs out of sayings, most of them made to ward off disappointment. If she ever hoped for something good in life it is a secret to him.

  Junior laughs and puts his hand on Royal’s shoulder. “My sister dwells in a romance novel,” he says. “She will swoon.”

  The performers fill the stage, strutting and singing, and Niles is late again. Harry has his skimmer on the empty seat, looking back across the crowd in the Thalian, already smiling and clapping their hands. He knows enough never to wait for his brother outside, or to expect he’ll have the twenty cents admission on his person, and so has bought the extra ticket and left it at the door.

  We’s sons of Ham from Alabam

  The slickest singin birds what am—

  And then there he is, Niles dancing down the aisle fluttering his palms in the air and rolling his eyes and mouthing along with the song—

  We’s fond o’ gin an prone to sin

  Now let this minstrel show begin!

  Niles is winking and waving to his pals scattered in the house around them as he squeezes into the row, stepping on toes, always one to make a ruckus and be forgiven for it. He stands in front of his seat after Harry pulls his hat off it, waiting for the entertainers to make their semicircle, waiting for the Interlocutor, frock-coated and without blackface makeup, to call the session to order—

  “Gentlemen,” the Interlocutor calls out in his booming voice, “be seated.”

  —and Niles hitches his pants to make a show of sitting at once with the minstrels.

  A few people in the seats behind them laugh. “I was detained on the steps,” he tells his brother, not lowering his voice all that much. “Ran into some of the Judge’s politicking comrades coming out from work.” The Thalian serves as City Hall as well as Opera House and Music Academy. “They said they’d heard I’d frozen to death.”

  Niles is one week back from the Yukon with plenty of stories and no gold. The rumors have no doubt originated from the Judge’s constant grumble.

  “If my son desires to topple off of a glacier on some fool’s pilgrimage,” he tells all and sundry who inquire of Niles’s adventures, “that is his prerogative.”

  “Mr. Interlocutor! Mr. Interlocutor!” It is Tambo, goggle-eyed in a bright orange checked suit and black fuzzy-wuzzy wig.

  “Yes, Brother Tambo?”

  “What you gets when you crosses a coon wid a octopus?”

  “What would that be, Brother Tambo?”

  “Don’t know what you calls it, but it sho can pick cotton!”

  The audience laughs, Brother Tambo and Brother Bones shake their instruments, and the other minstrels shuffle their feet in appreciation.

  “Don’t you think that’s rather demeaning?” asks the Interlocutor.

  “De meanin of what?” pipes in Bones, the other end man, in a yellow swallowtail coat and red-striped trousers.

  “Brother Bones, you are a buffoon.”

  “Nawsuh—I’s cullid on bofe sides of de fambly.”

  Another laugh, and a little undertone of discussion among the patrons. Harry wonders how far this group, down from the North, will dare to go.

  “Mr. Interlocutor,” cries Brother Bones, clacking the ribs together to grab his attention. “Did you hear I gots me a new gal?”

  “Excellent news, Brother Bones. What is her name?”

  “They calls her Dinah the Drayho’se.”

  “And why, pray tell, would they call her that?”

  “Cause when she move—”

  “—she got a waggin behind!” calls Niles along with the minstrel.

  Waiting out back in the dark makes Coop feel like a thief again. Not the high, fine feeling when you’ve cleaned a mark out, when the goods are safe from sight or already sold and you can imagine the rich people faces in the morning, no, but that nagging tug at your insides Tillis used to smoke hemp to be shed of.

  “Dulls the senses a mite,” Tillis would smile before a job, pupils wide as gopher holes, “but it don’t make you stupid.”

  These are high-tone niggers all right, the Luncefords, Nun Street swells with white folks living right next door, and Alma don’t like him skulking round their house. Skulking. She learned all kinds of polite ways to say nasty things since she started working for the Doctor, and made sure none of the family ever set eyes on him. Lunceford has laid hands on Coop more than once, of course, stitching him up at City Jail on his Sunday evening visit, but never looked him in the face.

  Alma comes to the door frowning.


  “What you want?”

  “It’s me.”

  There is no gaslight at the back door. It takes her a long moment to figure it out.

  “Lord help me. Clarence.”

  “Name Henry now. Henry Cooper. Call me Coop.”

  “Whoever you is, keep your voice down! They all in there—what’s that you wearin?”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “You joined up too? I be damn! Mr. Lunceford Junior and Royal Scott in there right now, wearin the same uniform.”

  “Big-headed darkies gummin up the works for the rest of us.”

  “Told me you was on the work gang, down South Cahlina.”

  “Well, I aint there no more.”

  Alma is round-faced and butterscotch brown, with wide shoulders and a nose that lays flat on her face. She always smells like cinnamon, even when she hasn’t been baking.

  “You glad to see me?”

  Alma cocks her head, looks him over. “Something don’t look right, you in that uniform.”

  “I got as much right to wear it as any man. Hell, on my way from the station I seen old Joe Anderson dressed out like a policeman—”

  “He is a policeman.”

  “How the white folks let that be?”

  “Cause we won the ’lection. Things took better since you was chased off.”

  “Didn’t nobody chase me nowhere. I had some opportunities to look out for down south—”

  “Draggin a chain from your ankle—”