Dancing In The Dark

by Caryl Phillips

  Clyde D moves slowly. He pours another drink and then pauses as though he wishes to say something, but whatever it is that he wishes to say has momentarily slipped out of his mind. However, he knows better than to hover around Mr. Williams’s table, so he turns and moves back to the bar, where he will remain until Mr. Williams’s glass once again needs tending. These days the noise from the avenue is loud and it leaks into the place and disturbs the peace of the afternoon. In Metheney’s day a man could barely hear a raised voice in the street, but today the competing noises of vendors, automobiles, and streetcars all bully their unapologetic way into Clyde D’s bar. It’s a new, busier world, but old Mr. Williams is protected in this bar from both prying eyes and conversation.

  He looks again at his newspaper, careful to note anything that is reported from England. He never did return there, but he still tells himself that, despite the tedium of the journey aboard the SS Aurania, one day he will make it back to Buckingham Palace where the king and queen welcomed the colored players so graciously for their royal command performance to celebrate the ninth birthday of the young Prince of Wales, Edward. He remembers it was not a warm day, and he worried as to how his company would manage everything in the garden of this English palace that was guarded by soldiers who held their helmets under one arm like severed heads. First a stage had to be built, and then all the costumes and props transferred from Shaftsbury Avenue, which was a mile or so across the center of London, and then all the paraphernalia had to be laid out and made ready for the performance. George was eager to make sure that they were dressed properly, his own gemstones as big as marbles, but the actual details of the performance he left to his partner, and so for most of the morning and afternoon Bert found himself rushing from one place to the next confirming that all members of the company were aware of the significance of this day. Williams and Walker would be setting both colored elegance and colored beauty, and a little of their own “African royalty,” before this English king, and by embracing Africa they were breaking the American stranglehold on their lives and engaging with something historically and culturally unique. According to George, they were internationalizing the stereotype, and by doing so hoping to escape its harness, but George was realistic enough to admit that a royal audience might not understand this. Inevitably, when the hour for the performance finally arrived, a fatigued Bert could barely summon the strength to get into his costume, let alone cakewalk back and forth across the makeshift stage. In the end, it transpired that it was the cakewalking that proved most popular, especially with the young Prince Edward, and at the conclusion of the afternoon the prince insisted that an exhausted Bert and George, his favorite coons, give him a private demonstration of the correct cakewalking technique, laying particular emphasis on the sliding and gliding for the boy could already intuit that his young legs were too short to properly high-step. But this was a long time ago, and now George and Aida are gone, and here in this Harlem bar any thoughts of his weary body cakewalking on a makeshift stage in the garden of an English palace seem unimaginable. Perhaps the polite young man who visited him with a notepad and an eager pen already understood what he has not yet admitted to himself. That his days as a performer are at an end, for he suspects that unless he is on the glamorous playbills of Ziegfeld’s Follies, few people will relish the opportunity of witnessing old Bert Williams performing low comedy in blackface, with shuffling feet, and his raggedy clothes falling from his backside. After all, who wishes to recognize this Negro today?

  Bert falls into the habit of leaving Clyde D’s Bar late at night and wandering the streets of his city on bruised and swollen feet until the sun comes up. He observes the colored citizens of New York going about their night business, and he studies them, he looks at their posture, listens to how they speak to one another in short excitable bursts, and he observes their often flamboyant hand gestures. These days there are many who don’t recognize him, including those who have arrived fresh off the trains from the south and who might be familiar with his name, but who certainly don’t know his face. The sight of this tall, heavyset, lightskinned man ambling around the streets of Harlem shod in carpet slippers only arouses feelings of pity in the hearts of those who look on. Why is this slow-moving man not home and tucked up safely in a warm bed? What can he be looking for out here on these early-morning streets? As he passes by strangers he smiles at them, for he is a booster for New York and he loves the way the city rises toward the sky, he loves the Brooklyn Bridge, the coalpowered elevated trains, the noise, the dirt, the rivers alive with their multitude of craft; this is his city, and these are his people, and as he walks he imagines that in its perversely detached way New York City understands him, but eventually sleep invades his tired limbs and he finds himself at the top of the short flight of steep steps that lead right up to his door, and he pauses for a moment and then slowly turns around and looks out on a lamplit Seventh Avenue knowing that tonight he has once again beheld the three stages of dawn. First, he witnessed the accidental leakage of light that hardly altered the darkness. Second, he saw the blackness turn a dark, royal blue. And finally, as he entered his block, he could see green leaf against brown trunk, and he stands now and observes the door handle distinct from the door, and the individual colors of Mother’s drapes in the windows, and then the streetlamps blink off and the avenue is now once again illuminated by the reliable light of the day, and soon he will be able to ease the slippers from his swollen feet.

  When he wakes up he realizes that the sun is shining directly into his face. He levers himself upright on the sofa in the library and he notices that Mother has already placed the daily newspaper in his lap. These days this early-morning exchange represents the true extent of their intimacy, and he feels powerless to improve upon it. He has dreamt that he was back on the road leading a new company that comprised just himself, George, and Aida, and every city they played in they broke box office records. Strangely, he remembers that the audience in the stalls contained only colored folks, while the white people sat upstairs in the balcony and looked on somewhat cautiously. Of course, the most important thing of all was the fact that there was no makeup upon his face. George danced a graceful jig and looked over and smiled at him, and then he woke up and discovered that the sun was shining directly into his face and that his wife had carefully placed the daily newspaper in his lap.

  He looks from one face to another eager to ask them why they are staring down at him in this fearful manner. In fact, why are they standing over him? Their mouths are moving but he can hear nothing except the sound of the sea rushing around in his head, rising and falling, the waves lapping gently from one side of his nappy wig to the other. Every face is white. He remembers. His company is all white and they are on the road, at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, with his new production, Under the Bamboo Tree. It is 1922 and Bert has made a comeback. Bert Williams is producer, star, and leader of a new company, but without George this is futile. The box office is weak, and he is sick and incapable of dressing himself, and the door to his mind is ajar, so much so that he seems to have little control over who or what wanders in, but he understands that he must continue for without him there will be no show, yet there is an aspect of horror on the faces of those who look down at him for clearly they see something that has shocked them. He had thought seriously about formally announcing his retirement, but he finally admitted to himself that his short journey from his library to Clyde D’s and back again was disrupting his soul, and so after two years his wife was happy when against all expectation he tore up the numerous drafts of his “retirement” press release, and he announced that he would be forming a new company and touring the country with a traditional type of show. However, it quickly became clear, both to his company and to paying audiences, that Bert Williams had underestimated the pressures of leading a company, and he began to struggle through performances, and sweat cried from his armpits the moment he left the quiet of his dressing room, and his joints jerked to little purpose when
he attempted to dance for his whole rig was rusted over, and at the conclusion of each evening he could no longer bow deeply, or smile broadly, or bathe in the luxury of applause. Soon his wife was begging him to return home to New York and admit that his body and mind could no longer take this beating, but he decided to persevere, and now, above him, the circle of white faces begins to spin like a child’s top and he closes his eyes and the world fades to black. He remembers completing the matinee and so this must be the evening performance. And then he feels the staccato motion of the automobile as it picks its careful way through the dark streets of Detroit. The wind is high and it rocks them first one way and then the next, but he can hear nothing except the sea in his ears. He is cold, and his whole body begins to shiver now as he remembers that it was here in Detroit, twenty-six years ago, in 1896, that he first adopted cork and became somebody else. He laughs for he has yet to take off the same cork. Perhaps this is what they were staring at? The evidence of what he has become. A face that was put in place in the last century but that, in this new century, no longer makes much sense to either white or colored. Just who is this corkfaced colored man who claims to be their leader, yet who seems incapable of paying their wages? At the hospital the doctor feels his patient’s brow with the back of his hand, and then he takes a towel and wipes the offending makeup from himself. He plucks a watch from his vest and reaches down and lightly touches his patient’s wrist with two fingers. He shakes his head and takes a deep intake of breath. No, he says, turning to the company manager. No, this man cannot set foot on a stage again. He gestures to the company manager to move some few paces away, but he does not realize that his patient can hear nothing beyond the rise and fall of the sea that brought him to this country as an eleven-year-old boy on a saltwater voyage that has been both the making and the unmaking of him. Unless you can replace him, begins the doctor, then you must close your show for this man must immediately return to New York City. I take it you know how to contact his kin? And you should instruct the Michigan Railroad Company to send a wheelchair and blankets. The company manager nods and asks the doctor how he might settle the bill. The doctor casts a cursory glance in the direction of his patient and then he shakes his head.

  His wife lays him out in their bedroom and she does her best to keep the fire roaring. She understands how important it is that Mr. Williams achieve some peace and quiet, so she will allow no visitors apart from the small bird that sits patiently on a branch outside his window and sings all day long with a strange quiver to its voice. Her husband does not appear to mind, but he has no strength to say much about anything these days. He is far too weak to read the newspaper or to take an interest in the world about him, but behind his closed eyes, and in his tired mind, he clearly sees the black sail slowly approaching across the bright water. Sunrise brings no respite, and each day the doctor visits twice, once in the morning and again in the evening, and Mother leaves this man alone in the bedroom with Mr. Williams. When the doctor emerges the man’s deportment seldom changes for, while he has no desire to alarm Mrs. Williams, he also has no intention of misleading her. The doctor always gathers his belongings and bids her farewell having said as little as possible to Mrs. Williams beyond confirming that the pneumonia still has her husband in its grip.

  …

  My husband asks without having to spend any words. With his eyes only he makes it clear to me what he desires and I cannot refuse him. First, I approach and help him to sit upright in the bed. The doctor insists that the fresh white sheets be changed every other day, but each evening, before he sleeps, I change the sheets and then I help him into a clean set of pajamas. I look forward to this intimate part of our day when I am able to do for him what nobody else can. I often find I have to deftly shave the portions of his face where I have forgotten to apply the blade, or take a damp handkerchief and clean the sleep from his eyes or the cold from his classic nose. On this bright March morning, as impatient spring tries once more to move with a quick, short stride and leave winter behind, I help my husband to sit upright for without resorting to any words he has made it clear what he desires. When I am sure that his back is properly supported with pillows, only then do I open the bottom drawer of the bureau. I offer him the mirror, which he holds by the handle, and I watch as he is shaken into panic by the puzzled face in the glass. He eventually absorbs the initial distress of recognition, and I stand patiently to one side, but I know that once the mirror is in his hands my husband is no longer with me. I know that my husband will spend the whole day staring into the mirror, at first tormenting himself, and then comforting his spirit with happier memories, but his well-disciplined countenance will betray little of this inner drama. I watch him carefully and listen closely for in the distance I can hear mortality, like dull thunder, continuing to rumble its merciless way toward him and I take this quaking as a signal that I should withdraw for my husband’s daily performances with the handheld mirror require no audience.

  My sleeping wife lies next to me. When she opens her eyes she will discover that I have already left and entered the darkness where I search now for my father. As I look all around I realize that I can see nothing. In fact, I can no longer even see myself, but I truly lost sight of myself many years ago when my tightly shod young feet touched the shore of the powerful country to the north. I followed my father, for he said that it would be all right, and I continued to follow him, but I lost him on that New York night when, freshly arrived from the west coast, he sat upstairs in nigger heaven and looked down on me. Father! I shout now in the darkness, but I hear only the echo of my own voice. Father! The truth is, once he left nigger heaven he never seemed to find a way back to me, or to himself. Father, are you there? Father? And now I am alone in the darkness and beyond my wife, who sleeps peacefully, unaware of the fact that she has been abandoned. Father, do you really understand what they want from us in this American world? Do you? We are being held hostage as performers, and those who imagine that they are engaged in something other than entertainment should ask my wife to pass them the handheld mirror. But I must not complain for my time has been spent, and I have no more time, and I wander in this darkness that makes human beings of us all. (Father! Where are you?) Here in the darkness, beyond my wife, my journey is over and I shall perform no more. I will no longer be tormented with the anxiety of being the sole representative in the room. Never again will I be the only one onstage, wondering what they see when they look at me. I will never again be frightened to look too closely at myself. Blackbird. It is unfair to ask a man to travel his one precious life bearing this burden, and I am tired, so please leave me alone in the darkness and let me search for my father, who is also lost. Others will come after me to entertain you, and they will happily change their name and put on whatever clownish costume you wish them to wear, and dance, and sing, and perform in a manner that will amuse you, and you will mimic them, and you will make your money, but know that at the darkest point of the night, when no eyes are upon them, these people’s souls will be heavy, and eventually some among them will say no, and you will see their sadness, and then you will turn from them and choose somebody else to place in the empty room, or nudge onto your empty stage, but it will not be me for I am tired, so please excuse me and let me wander here in the darkness and search for my father, who is also lost. That is all I ask, that you please just let me be.

  Epilogue

  Scores of umbrellas raise their heads to greet the torrential rain. On this icy day the cold wind funnels down broad Harlem avenues, but this has not deterred fifteen thousand mourners from standing in silent tribute outside of St. Philip’s Church to acknowledge a forty-seven-year-old man who was, in his day, the most famous colored man in America. Mrs. Lottie Williams follows the bearers out of the church, and the crowd can now see that she has chosen to wear a somber hat and veil to match her elegant black gown. In her heart Lottie wishes that on this day she were able to stand before her husband bareheaded. She wishes to give everything, the whole tr
uth, to her husband, but decorum demands otherwise. Lottie looks on as the men carefully transfer the metallic casket, which is covered with white roses, and orchids, and lilies, into the waiting hearse, and as they do so she remembers the tall, elegant young man that she met in a photographer’s studio who seemed to possess grace and breeding that came from another world. As she shields her eyes from the driving rain, it comforts her to think that even as she looks on, her dear Bert is probably making his slow way back to the peace of his lost world.