Got to run, Bird—working this evening. Not porcupine hours, but I’ll finish this letter to you tomorrow.
All right, I’m back. Back with you and Aunt Clara. She grew up in Biloxi; Great-aunt Effie was a live-in cook for a white family called the Adairs, and Aunt Clara laundered their sheets and scrubbed floors for bed and board. Great-aunt Effie would tell her stories about the Whitmans as she worked. All stories about pulling off confidence tricks and getting in with the right people and lording it over other colored folks and getting the last laugh. Aunt Clara had to ask and ask before Great-aunt Effie admitted the unhappy endings—there was Addie Whitman, who spent her life playing servant in various cousins’ houses because she was too dark and “ugly” to be allowed to marry, Addie Whitman who got herself a black tomcat for company. But even that cat, Minnaloushe, kept scratching her and hissing at her. Since Minnaloushe wouldn’t love her, Addie Whitman thought she’d better teach him to fear her, so she forced the cat into a sack and swung the sack over Perdido Pass. She was only going to give him one good dip in the mouth of the river but she lost her balance, fell in, and drowned. Minnaloushe got away and was quietly eating dinner out of a silver dish—don’t ask me why Effie remembers the color of the dish—at a neighbor’s house later on that evening. Or there’s Cass Whitman, who hung herself to show her parents and her brothers exactly what she thought of their having run her “unsuitable” fiancé out of town, or Vince Whitman, who fell in love with a white woman and proposed to her in front of a handful of his closest friends, who were shocked and terrified. She said yes, and she also said she would’ve loved him if he were purple or green or purple striped with green, and he said: “I’m so happy. That’s all I wanted to hear.” Then he led the party in a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” half singing it, half saying it. Try it for yourself, not quite singing “The Star-Spangled Banner”—it changes the words, doesn’t it? At sunset Vince and his new fiancée went for a walk in the park and he shot her dead, then himself. One clean, accurate shot each, like he’d been practicing. Aunt Clara says he must have been out of his mind, but Effie says he was a realist. According to Effie, our dad’s the only Whitman she knows of who’s dared to actually just go ahead and marry a white person. Aunt Clara and I reminded her that it’s legal where we are, and therefore not so daring, but she’s still pretty amazed by our dad, Bird.
I’ve met Great-aunt Effie enough times to go beyond first impressions, and there isn’t a bad bone in that woman’s body. But . . . that girl you mentioned, the one who feels cheated, Great-aunt Effie is like that. She thinks there are treasures that were within her reach, but her skin stole them from her. She thinks she could’ve been somebody. But she is somebody. Somebody who’s chased bullies away with broomsticks, somebody who saved for years so Aunt Clara could go to nursing school without having to ask her mother for the money. She’s somebody who’s reached out to hold Aunt Clara whenever Aunt C felt the world was about to end. She’s somebody Aunt Clara loves, somebody she couldn’t have done without. A woman like Effie Whitman thinking she could’ve been somebody . . . that pushes icicles all the way down my spine.
Great-aunt Effie knows how to make that cobbler that no one can resist, that gratin that pursues people into their dreams and has them sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night for another bite or ten, that cake that can cause a family rift over the last slice. The Adairs were paying her wages lower than any white cook of her standard would accept, but they were pretty good wages for a colored cook. But Great-aunt Effie didn’t get too bitter about that. She says that sometimes she’d stand there watching the Adairs eat and she’d think how lucky this type of white family was that they employed cooks with a proper sense of right and wrong, conscience almost heavy enough to replace a slave collar. Without that proper sense of right and wrong, a colored cook might go astray. Such a cook—ever smiling, ever respectful, ever ready to go the extra mile—such a cook might fatten her employees up . . . not in a hurry, just little by little, fatten them and fatten them, add more and yet more cream to their coffee, add butter even (they’d say the coffee tasted too rich at first, but then they’d grow to like it), vile creatures that they were, accepting the ceaseless toil of others as their birthright. And when the family was too fat to run, this cook run astray might just take a brisk, ten-minute trip around the house, shooting every member of the family dead with the firearms they kept for their own protection. Aunt Clara and I said the exact same thing when Great-aunt Effie told us this little fantasy of hers: Jesus! And Great-aunt Effie told us in a very shocked tone of voice not to take the Lord’s name in vain.
Hey—at least you’ve got the Novaks to fall back on (as you reminded me with that “N” you threw into your last letter), but the Whitmans and the Millers are the product of generations of calculated breeding, whether they’ll admit it or not. The Whitmans have married to refine a look, they keep a close eye on skin tone and hair texture. They draw strict distinctions between degrees of color—quadroon, octoroon—darkest to lightest. But they can’t stop a face like Clara’s or Effie’s rising up every now and again to confront them. And who can speak for the Millers? My other grandma, the one I don’t share with you, sometimes says a little something about the Millers being “sensible people” who’ve made certain choices in order to remain comfortable just as any other “sensible” people would and what does any of it matter now that the world’s changing? Agnes is a silly old woman, Bird, and it’s hard for me to have any respect for her or for Olivia, it’s hard for me to even stand the sound of their voices on the telephone. I’ve grown up around people whose families have lived their lives without trying to invent advantages—some of them have marched and staged sit-ins, others have just lived with their heads held high. And what about my mom? If she was alive, would she have a cabinet full of “treatments” for her hair and skin? Would she have very delicately led me to believe that there’s something about us Whitmans that isn’t quite nice, something we’ve got to keep under control? Aunt Clara’s never said anything about how my mother might have felt about me. She’s been careful not to go down the “If only your mother could see you now” path. She doesn’t need to, anyway. It just so happens that I carry my mother around in three LP records. She sings and tells me she loves me, she’s proud of me, she’s right by my side. The records are wearing out and I’m not rushing the process or trying to delay it, I’m just letting it happen. Her voice skips and squeaks; she’s started to sound unsure of what she’s saying. All I can tell from those recordings is that my mom wanted me to remember the sound of her voice. I may or may not have hated my own face sometimes. I may or may not have spent time thinking of ways to spoil it somehow. (Maybe that answers your question about being “beautiful.”) But I’m slowly coming around to the view that you can’t feel nauseated by the Whitmans and the Millers without feeling nauseated by the kind of world that’s rewarded them for adapting to it like this. In the meantime I’m letting Agnes and Olivia think I don’t visit them because I’m scared of your mom. Are they good to you? Tell me. You can tell me.
I thought I’d finish writing to you today, but I’ve got to go to work again. I can’t be late. More tomorrow.
We live in a little suburb called Twelve Bridges. Everything’s a little broken-down, especially the bridges. People don’t make too much money around here, but what comes with that is a different definition of what it means to be well-off. You’re chairman of the board if you need twelve dollars a week and you make twelve dollars a week. If you’ve also got someone within ten minutes’ walk who can make you laugh and someone else within a five-minute walk who can help you mourn, you’re a millionaire. If on top of all that you’ve got a buddy or three who’ll feed you delicious things and paint you pictures and dance with you, and another friend who’ll watch your kids so you can go out dancing . . . that’s the billionaire lifestyle. We’re friendly toward strangers because of a general belief (I don’t know where it comes from) th
at we’re born strangers and that the memory of how that feels never really leaves us. If I’m ever in any other part of the world and I pass a house that has white fairy lights strung across its porch, I’ll think it’s likely that I’d get along with the people who live there. If it’s summer and the strangers out on the porch offer me a drink of water, an apple, the time of day, anything, then I’ll have to stop and find out if they’ve ever heard of a place called Twelve Bridges.
Bird, Bird. What a long letter this has been. But that’s what you get for wanting to be written to as if you were grown up. But also . . . I have plenty of people around me to talk to, and no one to be honest with. Write back just as soon as you can, will you, please?
Snow
Dear Snow,
First of all I don’t think you should continue to feel bad about making Aunt Clara cry that time. You learned something from it and it sounds like she’s completely forgiven you. Also . . . you know when something is so incredibly depressing that it’s actually kind of funny? I laughed when I read what you said to her.
So you were left alone with Uncle John while Aunt Clara was working her porcupine hours? That’s a Flax Hill kind of question, I’m afraid. If that had happened around here, people would talk. And having all your classes at home . . . I wish I was allowed to do that. I’ve been thinking a lot about those other Whitmans you wrote me about. There’s that blood tie, and it’s troublesome, and we don’t know what we would have done if we’d been in their place. They’re family and I still love them . . . can’t think of any other way to turn a chain into flowers . . . but I maybe wouldn’t ask Addie, Cass, or Vince Whitman for advice about anything.
There was more about them and Clara and Effie in that letter than there was about you. I’d like to know one thing about you—you choose which thing it is.
I wish I could tell you stuff about the Novaks, but they’re a mystery. What I do know is that they most probably came to Ellis Island from Hungary, which is another world (along with Russia, as you said).
I’m glad you know Brer Anansi stories. I know some too. There are quite a few spiders in my room, possibly most of the spiders in the house. Here’s something that happened a few months ago: I got curious about what the spiders in my room thought of Brer Anansi, or whether they’d even heard of him. I just wanted to know if he was a real spider to them. So one night when the house was as dark and as silent as could be, I sat up in my bed and whispered: Who speaks for the spiders?
And the president of the spiders came forward: I do.
(She didn’t speak aloud, she sort of mimed. That’s the only way I can explain it.)
I asked her if she’d heard of Anansi the Spider and she got cagey. She said: Have you yourself heard of Anansi the Spider?
I answered: Sure, sure. I can tell you a story about him if you want.
She said: Please do.
Halfway through the story about Anansi and the magic cooking pot, I got this feeling that the spiders didn’t like what I was saying. Their expressions aren’t easy to read, but they just didn’t seem very happy with me. I said: Hey, should I stop?
No, said the president of the spiders. Don’t stop now, we’re all very interested.
But have you heard this story?
Yes we have. Anansi is very dear to us.
I finished telling that story and the president of the spiders asked me how many more Anansi stories I knew. I said I knew at least fifteen, and she got openly upset.
Do a lot of people know these stories?
Uh . . . yeah. Sorry.
How? How did this happen? The president of the spiders started gliding around the walls of my room, glaring suspiciously at the poor spiders she found in the corners of each web.
This is deep treachery, she said. Since when do spiders tell tales? Since when do we talk to outsiders?
Only one spider answered her—he was gray and hairy and an elder, I think—he said: Don’t even worry about it, Chief! Let them think they know, but they don’t know! They don’t know!
Be that as it may, the president of the spiders said, someone must pay for this.
Her citizens began to beg. They swore on the lives of their mothers and grandmothers and children that the Anansi leak was nothing to do with them. I could see I’d stirred up some real trouble, and it was up to me to distract the president of the spiders while I still could.
Wait, WAIT, I said. I have another story—there are no spiders in it, but if you like it, can we forget the other one I told?
The president of the spiders folded her many arms. Very well. IF I like it, she said.
I told the spiders the story of La Belle Capuchine. The woman who told me this story was a maid employed by Grammy Olivia, and soon after she told me this story Grammy Olivia fired her. The official reason for this was that Leah wasn’t doing her job properly, but I think the real reason is because Grammy Olivia overheard parts of this story. I really liked it when Leah told me stories. She wanted to be an actress. She did voices pretty well. I hope she’s onstage somewhere right now. I’ve forgotten her exact words, but here it is as I remember it, except for the parts I’ve added because she told me that each time a story like this one gets retold the new teller should add a little something of their own:
If you wish to be truly free, you must love no one. But of course if you take that path you may also find that in the end you’re unloved. La Belle Capuchine loved no one; she was a house slave, an unusually dark one, but unusually comely. All the house Negroes were good-looking and talked nicely and some of them played the violin and could chart the movements of the planets because the master and the mistress of the house got more fun out of their hobbies when they taught them to others. But La Belle Capuchine had seen other house Negroes come and go. Some of them made the mistake of getting too good at astronomy or musicianship. It didn’t do to outstrip the master or the mistress. You weren’t supposed to take an interest in the subject for its own sake, you had to remember you were learning it to keep someone else company. You had to remember to ask anxiously whether your attempt was correct, and you had to make mistakes, but not jarring ones. Other house Negroes had been taken ill—not always physically ill, but often by sorrows of the spirit. Very few people can feel well having to make marionettes of themselves, prancing and preening and accepting affection and abuse alike as the mood of their masters and mistresses take them. Very few people can watch others endure humiliation without recognizing the part they play in increasing it. But La Belle Capuchine was a practical person. She knew that the best way to get by was to be amusing and to flatter through imitation. Save her coloring and her overabundant head of hair, she looked just like her mistress, Miss Margaux, and that worked very much in La Belle Capuchine’s favor. A visitor to the plantation caught sight of La Belle Capuchine, exclaimed that she looked exactly as Miss Margaux would if she were dipped in cocoa, and from then on everybody said it. La Belle Capuchine and Miss Margaux had the same dainty wrists and ankles, the same dazzling eyes; they even smiled in the same carefree way, though admittedly the smiling was something that La Belle Capuchine had taught herself to do. The two women had the same father, which explains some of the uncanny resemblance between them. The rest was down to La Belle Capuchine’s hard work. Miss Margaux’s tastes were La Belle Capuchine’s tastes, Miss Margaux’s opinions were La Belle Capuchine’s opinions, every now and again Miss Margaux found it entertaining to ask La Belle Capuchine, “What am I thinking right now?” and have La Belle Capuchine give her the correct answer without hesitation.
The other house Negroes had learned not to bother speaking to La Belle Capuchine. She didn’t consider herself one of them and addressed them as if she owned them—this was another way in which she amused her master and mistress and their family. But there was a footman named Michael who was pining away because of her beauty and, like dozens before him, he couldn’t stop himself from trying to win La
Belle Capuchine’s heart. His words and serenades did nothing; she returned his gifts and letters unopened, or she showed them to Miss Margaux and together the two women laughed at the inexpensive trinkets and the spelling mistakes he’d made. The man ran out of hope and confronted La Belle Capuchine. He said that he could never blame anybody for trying their best to survive, but that she was the kind of traitor he’d never known before and hoped never to see again. La Belle Capuchine simply looked over her shoulder and asked, “Is someone speaking? For a moment I thought I heard somebody speak.”
Now something had been happening on the plantation. The other house Negroes had been keeping track of what happened among the field Negroes as best they could. So far six of the field hands had killed a white man each. The punishment for this was very heavy for everybody who was even associated with any Negro who killed a white man; the master was trying to make sure everybody was too scared to try it again. But the field hands on that plantation continued to take the lives of their overseers even as the harshness of the punishments increased. There was a woman there who was a skilled fortune-teller. She’d asked her cowrie shells, “Who will set us free?” And the cowrie shells told her: “High John the Conqueror.”
Boy, Snow, Bird: A Novel Page 18