Come On In

by Adi Alsaid

  I snooped.

  Stood in the corridor, my ear pressed to the door, while his daddy sat quietly working, ignoring them, and Joshua and his mama went mean at each other.

  “Are you saying she ain’t light enough for you?” Joshua asked. The ain’t was to poke her.

  “Joshua Percival Desmond Irving, that is not the point, and you know it. She’s country.”

  “She’s from the biggest city in Australia. She’s never seen a cow.”

  “You know what I mean. How could you have married someone who hasn’t heard of Shakespeare, of Toussaint L’Ouverture, of Frederick Douglass?”

  “She’s Australian. No Australian has heard of L’Ouverture or Douglass.”

  “That’s as may be, Joshua. How could you marry such a wretch? She’s not even pretty.”

  He hadn’t. We weren’t married. We were just wearing rings.

  Though I thought the baby in my belly counted for something.

  “To break your heart, Mama. I went out and found the ugliest, trashiest gal I could and married her. Is it working? Is your heart broken yet?”

  That’s why Joshua brought me here?

  To hurt his mama?

  I sank to the floor as if all the blood and air had left my body.

  I was nothing to him.

  He was going to throw me over. I couldn’t go back to the Hills.

  “Jesse’s country,” Joshua said. “I’ve never seen Otis so happy.”

  “Don’t talk about that woman. Not in my house.”

  “Cheer up, Mama. Think how light our children will be.”

  I heard a sound almost as loud as a gun going off. I jumped up quicksmart, acting like I was on my way from the kitchen, but I was pointed the wrong way.

  When Joshua slammed out, his mother’s handprint was red on his cheek.

  He grabbed my arm, led me to his bedroom.

  “Was that true?” I asked, though I’d sworn I wouldn’t. “You brought me here to hurt your mum?”

  “You heard that?”

  I nodded. He wasn’t denying it.

  “Do you even like me?”

  “Course I like you, Dulcie. You’re my girl.”

  He kissed me, soft and warm, his hands sliding around my waist. “You’re my girl, Dulcie. For always.”

  “Your ugly, trashy girl.”

  “No, sugar, you’re beautiful. I was messing with my mama.”

  “Tell me about Otis,” I said to stop myself crying.

  “I told you, my favourite brother. Best person in this world.”

  Joshua was my best person. Where was I on his list? Was I even above his mama?

  I pushed him away, touched my stomach. “There’s a new best person on the way. Our light-skin bub.”

  Joshua kissed me harder and whispered the sweetest things.

  He was everything to me; but to him I was a stick to prod his mama. I wouldn’t cry. I would figure out how to stay.

  He nicked off a few days later.

  * * *

  Joshua didn’t say goodbye. He left a note, on top of a pile of books he expected me to have read by the time he returned, told me to stay out of his mama’s way, what to call the baby if he weren’t back as soon as he’d like, and signed off with love.

  He wouldn’t be here for the baby?

  He wouldn’t be here for me?

  What did he think was gunna happen? His mama wanted to cut me.

  I swore I wouldn’t cry.

  I did.

  * * *

  Once my tears were dry, I went down to the kitchen to talk to Eula. It was where I spent my time when Joshua was writing, helping Eula, staying out of Mrs Irving’s way.

  I’d helped Aunt May clean and cook for her boss. I knew kitchens.

  Eula was a good ’un. She said I might as well be useful.

  Eula was who I’d asked what saditty meant.

  “That’s someone who thinks they’re better than everyone else.”

  I’d smiled. Mrs Irving surely did.

  Eula told me about the family.

  Joshua was the baby. He did whatever he wanted. He was the missus’ favourite.

  “Even now?”

  Eula nodded.

  Allen worked too hard doctoring.

  “Missus thinks his wife acts like she’s Queen of Harlem, dragging him out at all hours when he should be sleeping. No babies yet. Missus says that’s as well because she wouldn’t mother any better than a cat.”

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  Eula laughed. “Missus and Augusta got more in common than not, is what I think.”

  Eula gave me the look that meant, You didn’t hear me say that.

  Marguerite wasn’t married yet, though it wasn’t for lack of offers. Prettier than any of the nightingales at the Cotton Club. Kind too. But Eula wished she’d stop doing that dangerous lawyer work down South.

  Otis worked on the trains. He was mechanically minded. He and Joshua were thick as thieves. Eula wished the missus would forgive him.

  “What’d he do?”

  “The missus doesn’t like his wife.”

  “She doesn’t like Augusta neither.”

  “Not like that. Thinks she’s trash.”

  Just like me, but she lets me in the house. “Why though?”

  Eula shrugged. “Missus has her ways.”

  “Does Joshua nick off a lot?”

  “What now, child?”

  “Does he go away without warning often?”

  “He’s a restless one. He was that way as a child. He always comes back.”

  I wanted to ask Eula if she was sure.

  “How old are you, child?”

  I hesitated.

  “Truth,” Eula commanded.

  “I’ll be seventeen soon but I told Joshua I were twenty. I didn’t want him to think I’m a baby. You won’t tell him?”

  “Not my business.”

  I thought everything here were her business.

  Eula wouldn’t tell me about her own family. Though she asked about mine.

  “No family,” I said, deciding that life was over. “I’m an orphan, me.”

  Did I know about policy? she wanted to know. Numbers?

  I shook my head.

  “Tell me three numbers under ten.”

  “Seven, two, eight.”

  Eula wrote them down. “We’ll do a combination.”

  She taught me how to make scones. She called them biscuits, which they weren’t never. Not even a little bit sweet. Tasty though, melted in my mouth. She said the secret was grease, which looked and smelled like lard.

  * * *

  The day Joshua left, Eula told me, “You’d best be moving on, child.”

  “Not ready to go to bed.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not to bed—out of the house, out of Harlem. You’re white.”

  I wanted to contradict her but Irish didn’t mean anything here.

  “It’s not the place for you. You could get Joshua in a heap of trouble.”

  “I would never.”

  “Yes, you would. No matter what you meant to do.”

  “You want me to nick off?”

  “It would be best. Missus wants it. If you don’t go on your own she’ll make you.”

  Why had Joshua left me?

  “She doesn’t wanna see the bub?”

  “What now?”

  “The baby.”

  “You’re with Joshua’s child? Well.” Eula kept kneading. “Well, well, well.”

  I watched the muscles in her arms stand out. Kneading is hard work.

  “Tell me three numbers.”

  “Nine, one, four.”

  She repeated them.

  “G
ive the missus the news when Marguerite’s here.”

  * * *

  I avoided Mrs Irving till then.

  Eula let me know when Joshua’s sister was coming.

  I made sure I was in the hallway as Marguerite arrived. She’d been away in the South, lawyering. She had bags and a big coat but I flung meself at her before she’d undone a button.

  “I’m Dulcie, Joshua’s missus.”

  She hugged me hard. I wasn’t good at it. My ma wasn’t much for hugging.

  “Pleased to meet ya—you. Joshua says you’re the best sister.”

  He never.

  “I’m his only sister.”

  Mrs Irving glided down the stairs, icy cool like.

  “Dulcie was about to leave us,” she said.

  “You’re gunna be an aunt,” I burst out, touching the wee mound of my belly.

  “I am? A baby! Well, you can’t be leaving then, can you? I’m going to be an auntie! How wonderful.”

  “Very,” Mrs Irving said, but if her word were a knife, I’d’ve been bleeding.

  * * *

  Marguerite gave me clothes. She didn’t think Joshua had adequately provided for me. I looked that up after. Adequate. Provide.

  “Joshua thinks I can be black like you.”

  “He does, does he?”

  She put makeup on me, to give my eyes and lips some sparkle, she said. It itched.

  “What do you think?”

  “People see what they want to see.”

  “That’s what Joshua said. Tell me about Otis.”

  Marguerite smiled. “He’s dandy. Jesse too.”

  “But they never come here?”

  “Mama’s in a snit because Jesse’s not like us. Mama’s colour struck.”

  I’d no idea what that meant.

  “Mama’s been worse since the Crash. Most of our friends lost everything. She’s scared.”

  I was scared of losing all this too. Me and Mrs Irving were the same. She’d hate that.

  But unlike her, I’d been poor, I’d been hungry. Didn’t want that ever again. Especially not for the baby.

  “Is Jesse like me?”

  Marguerite laughed. “Oh, Dulcie.”

  I was getting used to it. My knowing nothing amused everyone, except Eula. “Well, is she?”

  “Yes and no,” Marguerite said.

  * * *

  Marguerite took me out on the town, said she was teaching me to be a respectable Negro woman. Seventh Avenue was crowded with Harlemites promenading, clustered on corners, laughing and gossiping, young men commenting on all the women walking by—“Pay them no mind,” Marguerite instructed—and tourists gawking—“And them neither.”

  It was dark already, the air crisp, and the neon lights glowing. There was music everywhere, dancing out open windows from gramophones, or emerging from guitar-playing men, sitting on stoops with upturned hats to collect coins.

  A grim old man with a white beard, veins pulsing on his neck, stood on a wooden box and shouted about sin. “The end is—”

  “—a long way off! Let’s party!” a young man shouted to the laughing, back-smacking approval of his friends.

  “Should we darken my skin?” I asked.

  Marguerite looked at me like Mrs Irving did. “No, we should not.”

  “So how—”

  “It’s about how we style your hair, how we dress you. How you walk, how you talk.”

  I nodded but I couldn’t never move all elegant like Marguerite or talk like her neither.

  “Look at the whites. Compare them to the Harlemites.”

  I watched a white couple weaving their way past the people lined up to buy tickets to the movies. The man in a tall hat, the woman in a satin gown. They seemed bothered.

  “Well?” Marguerite asked.

  “The whites’ve got ants in their pants.”

  Marguerite laughed. “They’re shaky in their own skins.”

  “I don’t walk like that.”

  “No, Dulcie, you walk like a farmer.”

  She slipped her arm in mine. “Match my step. Speak like I speak—how I speak out on the town, not how I speak for Mama. You talk too much like that, we might as well give up.”

  She blew a familiar kiss at two black men gliding by. “Those are Selma’s brothers. I’ve known them since they were babies.”

  Selma was Marguerite’s closest friend. I hadn’t met her yet.

  “Light steps, Dulcie. Walk lighter, walk taller.”

  Lighter, taller, I told myself. I stumbled. Marguerite giggled.

  “Girl,” she said. “Relax. Tread light. Don’t clomp. You don’t have no glide at all.”

  She waved at another couple.

  “You know just about everyone,” I exclaimed. “More than Joshua even.”

  “I’m a lawyer. Everyone needs me.”

  Marguerite smiled at young boys, running past, chasing a ball. “Their mama won’t be best pleased. Sway your hips, land softer on your feet.”

  “Why does everyone keep calling me Miss Anne?”

  She burst out laughing,

  “What?”

  Marguerite was hugging herself, crying. “I’m sorry,” she gasped.

  “I make Joshua laugh too.”

  “It’s an expression, like ofay. It means you’re a white gal.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling dim all over again. “Why are there so many white people here? I thought Harlem was—”

  “The Capital of Black America?”

  I nodded because I’d heard Joshua and his friends say so.

  “It is and it isn’t. This is Black Broadway, Seventh Avenue. This is where we promenade.”

  Marguerite nodded at three women passing, arm in arm, in fancy clobber and shiny lipstick.

  “Look at the theatres, restaurants, billiard halls, speakeasies, saloons, nightclubs. Entertainment and joy everywhere. Sparkling glass, gleaming chrome, and the hottest jazz on the planet. Negro Heaven!”

  I’d never seen folks dressed so fine, automobiles so shiny. In the Hills there were more horses and carts than motor cars. Horse dung piled high in the streets.

  “White people come to Harlem because we dance, we sing, jive and strut better than them. We’re color, they’re grey. We’re movement, they’re stasis. We’re fire, they’re ashes.”

  Marguerite’s cheeks were flushed, her hands flying. I wanted to tell her she should be a writer like Joshua.

  “Who do you think owns all this? Who owns the Renaissance? The Lafayette? The Cotton Club? Who owns Negro Heaven?”

  “Your pa?”

  “White people, that’s who. Blumstein’s is the biggest store and we can’t work there, not behind the counters, smiling and selling those fine wares. They charge us sky-high rents, won’t give us jobs, and won’t let us in the best clubs, excepting as the floor show! Black Harlem? We live here, but it ain’t ours.”

  I wanted to ask her about Mr Irving. He owned their huge house and the funeral home. Eula said he owned an apartment block and two stores as well.

  “But why—”

  A white man grabbed Marguerite’s arm hard.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What’re you doing with this one?” he said, looking at me. “Pretty little white gal like you.”

  “She’s my sister!” I said. “Let her go!”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but my sis ain’t white,” Marguerite said, being polite, even though he was hurting her.

  He wasn’t half as fancy as Marguerite. His teeth were yellow, his eyes bloodshot.

  “Look at her hair,” Marguerite said. “You know she didn’t come by those curls any place white.”

  “White people can have curly hair!” he protested.

  “No, sir. Show me a white with curls; I�
��ll show you a coloured passing.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “She sounds British.”

  “She’s from the islands, sir.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Sir.”

  Marguerite slid from his grasp, kept walking, pulling me along, kicking up her heels. I did likewise, swaying my hips.

  I snuck a peek behind. The horrible white man was staring.

  “You’ll do,” Marguerite said. “Just don’t leave Harlem. Can you imagine? Us strolling along 42nd Street holding hands? They’d quail. Are they both coloured or both white?, they’d be thinking, how can we tell the difference?”

  “I can’t,” I confessed.

  “White people can rarely tell light from white.”

  “Joshua says being white is a state of mind.”

  “Hardly. It’s a matter of law and power.”

  “And the colour of your skin.”

  “Sometimes that too.”

  * * *

  Marguerite took me to see her brother, Otis, and his wife, Jesse. They lived in a two-room apartment, up three flights of rickety stairs.

  Otis was tall and handsome like Joshua, with an even bigger smile.

  “We’ve been hearing about you.” He pulled me into a bear hug. No one in my family had ever hugged me like that. Otis was affectionate and protective mixed together. It made me want to cry.

  Jesse sat in a chair by a wall of framed photos. She was smiling, with her hands resting on her belly.

  “You’re having a baby too!” I exclaimed.

  She smiled wider than Otis. She was beautiful, with high cheekbones and big soft eyes. I wanted to tell her. Instead I touched her shoulder.

  “No need to be shy. I’ve been wanting to meet you,” Jesse said, pulling me into a hug as warm as Marguerite’s. “I hear Mama Irving hates you almost as much as she hates me. I’m too dark, you’re too white.”

  She was darker skinned than Joshua, Marguerite, Otis, than their parents. She was darker than Eula.

  Colour struck, Marguerite had said. Now I knew what that meant.

  “That’s why she hates you? Because you’re dark?”