by Paula Guran
Later, Gilda heard of those who did not believe in exchange. Murder was as much a part of their hunger as the blood. The fire of fear in the blood of others was addictive to some who became weak with need for the power of killing. Or, even worse, they snared mortals in their life of blood without seeking permission. The eyes of these killers glistened with the same malevolence she’d seen in the eyes of overseers on the plantation when she was a girl. The thud of their boot on the flesh of a slave lit an evil light inside them. Gilda avoided those with such eyes. To have escaped slavery only to take on the mantle of the slaveholders would have shamed Gilda and her mentor, Bird, more than either would have been able to bear. Instead, she thrived on the worlds of imagination that she shared with others.
We take blood, not life. Leave something in exchange. The words of that lesson pulsed through Gilda with the blood. In the exchange, it was usually easy to provide an answer to the simple needs she discovered as she took her share of the blood. In one situation a lonely woman needed to find the courage to speak aloud in order to find companionship; in another a frightened thief required only the slightest encouragement to seek another profession. Gilda enjoyed the sense of completion when she drew back and saw the understanding on their faces, even in sleep.
Gilda had lived this way for more than eighty years—traveling the country, seeking the company of mortals, leaving small seeds among those whose blood she shared. But recently, with each new town, Gilda had begun to lose her connection with mortals. She had little confidence in her ability to live in such close proximity with them and maintain her equilibrium. In the last town, she’d settled comfortably, remote enough from neighbors to avoid suspicion. Yet she’d enjoyed the life of the small black community in Missouri and been inspired by them. Their scrubbed-clean church, the farmers who distributed food from their land to people who were hungry, the women who nursed any who needed it. The burden of insults and deprivation they faced each day was only a small part of what they shared. Gilda had found herself deeply enmeshed with someone whose life was so rooted in that town, it was clear she was meant for the age in which she lived. The companionship had renewed Gilda in ways that were as important as the blood. Despite the temptation to bring someone into her life, Gilda saw that to disrupt another’s would have been disaster. Again, Bird’s lessons had helped her find her way through the confusion of power and desire.
Gilda had moved on, leaving her cherished companion behind, finding her way onto the road alone once more. In her isolation, she’d begun to feel the weight of her years.
A sound drew her back to the moment; footsteps were approaching her quickly from behind. This was a neighborhood in which the men who worked on the railroads and in the meatpacking plants often drank hard and followed their impulses. Her caution hardened into defense when she saw two white men barreling toward her. Gilda had recently read in one of the newspapers that the Ku Klux Klan was having a large resurgence across the country and these two exuded that same kind of agitation. The larger man, dark curly hair falling in his eyes, threw his arms out to envelop her in an embrace; the other was close behind. Gilda stepped aside quickly and left him empty-handed and bewildered. She realized that both were drunk, but her evasion seemed to anger the curly-haired one. The short man, more inebriated than his companion, fell to his knees laughing at the sight of his off-balance friend.
“Come on, darlin’. A little kiss, that’s what we want,” he said from his kneeling position in a thick Irish brogue.
“It’ll be more’n a kiss when I’m done,” Curly said with a nasty edge.
Gilda glanced over her shoulder at the lights of the low building from which they’d emerged. No one else seemed to be exiting; only the distant music of a stride piano punctuated the night.
“Commere.” Curly grabbed at Gilda as she easily ducked his grip.
The one on his knees found it all so funny he couldn’t get up. Gilda tried to back up to create enough room to turn away, planning to move so swiftly that they would never see the path she’d taken. Curly, now enraged by the failure to capture his prey, drew back his fist. His arm was broad under the heavy work jacket and his fist was massive as he struck out with the force of a wrecking ball.
Gilda stopped the man’s fist in the air before it reached her face and squeezed until she heard one bone break. The man on the ground sat contentedly, still laughing as if he were listening to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. Rage filled Curly’s face; then was replaced by fear as he saw first the anger and then the swirling orange flecks in Gilda’s eyes. To come all this way and still be faced with the past made Gilda dizzy with outrage. She listened to the bones snapping in Curly’s hand and in her mind saw the man who’d tracked her down when she’d escaped the plantation. A simple overseer who did not see her as human. The memory of the ease with which he’d enjoyed trapping her and his excitement as he’d anticipated raping her blazed inside Gilda’s head. The hard crackle of barn hay sticking the flesh of her back as she’d prayed not to be discovered; that light in his eyes that burned everything around him; the stink of his sweat as he’d hulked above her. The feel of the knife in her hand as it had entered his body. A sound of crying. Gilda shook her head to free herself from the images of her past that crowded in.
She held the curly-haired man with her gaze, leading his mind into a foggy place where he would rest until she was done. She let his broken hand drop, sliced the thick skin on his neck with the long nail of her small finger, and watched the blood rise rapidly. A ferrous scent filled the air and she pressed her lips to the dark red line, drawing his blood inside her. A kiss had not been all he’d had in mind. Any woman alone by the stockyards was fair game to him. And no one would ever hear a colored woman’s accusation of rape.
She pushed into his thoughts to find something she might fulfill rather than let herself enjoy his terror as she drained him of life. Inside, his insecurities flooded him like a mud broth; her rape would not have been the first. Only his camaraderie with his friend, the short one on the ground, still drunk and laughing, held any importance. As she started to pull away and leave him with his life, she probed further and saw the image of a young girl, the daughter of the woman who ran the boardinghouse where he lived. A parasitic lust clouded the space around her in his thoughts. Gilda pushed them aside and inserted a new idea: This child could be your friend, just like the short man who sat oblivious beside them. He’d never imagined women as anything other than prey, but his investment in this girl’s safety—her nurturance—might provide a renewed connection to the world around him. Gilda wiped her mouth clean and released him. He fell to the ground beside his friend, who only then looked up, puzzled. The short one who laughed almost toppled over when he tried to stand and better assess the situation.
“Hey … you … what’sa matter?” He blinked and as he swayed Gilda stepped backward away from the two, leaving them frozen in their comic tableau as she sped away.
The blood that would carry her through centuries burst inside her veins. A flush of heat rose in her body and suffused her face and neck with deepening color. Her dark skin glowed with the renewed life flowing inside her. The definition of her arms and shoulders sharpened imperceptibly with each step. Yet, even as she sighed with enjoyment of the fresh blood, she wondered why she would want all the years that lay ahead. Men of this type, of all races, filled the roads and towns wherever she went. A woman had as much chance of survival on a city street as an antelope wandering into a pride of lions. Gilda shook the image from her mind and moved away from the raw smells and animal fear.
When she was back on a main street she slowed her pace and turned to look in the shop windows, hoping to supplant the images that tried to take root. The city was growing so fast merchants barely had time to keep up with it. Elegant gowns were hung next to daytime dresses; divans reclined beside kitchen stoves. The whole city felt as if it were bursting with life.
Gilda stopped in front of a store that held tools and looked at t
he saws and lawn mowers, then pulled back to catch her image in the glass. According to superstition, she had no soul; therefore, she could cast no reflection. But those of her kind had lived long before Christian mythology permeated contemporary society. In the glass, Gilda recognized the face she’d always known. Almond-shaped eyes, never quite ordinary, even without the orange flecks of hunger, dark eyebrows that gave her face a grave intensity, full lips now firm with thought—the same West African features that she’d seen in many other faces as she’d traveled the country. Gilda smiled at her reflection, set her beret at an alluring angle, straightened her jacket, then hurried back toward the Evergreen.
Benny Green had bought the corner building where his club was located almost as soon as he saw the sign EVERGREEN. It was fate; the place was almost named for him. He’d been saving for years with one idea in mind—to own something, a place where colored people could be comfortable, some people would get work, and he’d be an easy part of the world because he’d created it. He didn’t know how long he could keep his ownership hidden from his employees and friends, but in the months since he’d opened up he’d dodged all questions. With Prohibition it was hard enough: police looking for a handout, enforcers, who seemed to work all sides of the street, demanding their cut. Rivals were always looking for an opening so they might take over the prosperous business that the Evergreen had become. Sometimes they tried to push—causing trouble in the club, harassing patrons outside. It was simpler for Benny to let everyone think he was somebody he wasn’t. He paid for protection, kept a low profile, never let his joint get in the papers, and pretended he was just a manager who reported to someone else.
The door into Benny’s flat was at the top of the stairs that led up from the street behind the club. Gilda stood on the landing in a moment of anticipation. She would be in a room full of people, her people, for the first time in decades. The colored people of Chicago liked being invited to Benny’s parties. She tapped on the door and a small woman in a maid’s apron opened it almost immediately. Her face was suffused with a smile, which she worked very hard to maintain as she examined Gilda’s austere pants and matching jacket.
“May I take your … wrap?” she said, barely belying her confusion.
“No, thank you. The ensemble wouldn’t work without it, wouldn’t you say?”
The maid laughed easily. “You can sure say that, ma’am.” She swept the door open wider to usher Gilda in as she continued to chuckle.
“Kinda cute, though. Kinda cute,” she repeated as she waved Gilda toward the living room and walked away.
His apartment above the bar was a rambling affair that Gilda had visited only once before. She’d heard how he’d hired an out-of-work friend to repaint it. Then he’d hired another club patron, who’d just lost his job, to decorate the parlor, and when one of his waitresses needed extra money, he’d hired her to redo his dining room. Eventually one friend or another had tended to the whole place. Morris always teased, “That man’ll never give you a free drink. But he always got a job for ya.” The result of Benny’s fragmented approach to decoration was a flashy blend of opulence and primitivism, each of which seemed to be evolving. An African mask was hung amid chiffon draping in the entry hall. Through the door, Gilda saw the clean, curving lines of the period in the sideboard and divan. And everywhere were stacks of books and other things that had never found their proper places. The sound of someone plunking out Bix Beiderbecke’s “In the Mist” on the piano had reached Gilda long before she entered the rooms. The pianist halted repeatedly, trying to get a grip on the snaking melody. Laughter and voices almost swallowed the sound of the effort.
In the first parlor, a long table was barely visible beneath platters of chicken, sweet potatoes, and cole slaw. Bowls overflowed with pickles and other things Gilda didn’t recognize. She did recognize Hilda, the tall, slender natural redhead who waited tables at the Evergreen. Her hair and tawny skin were shown to best advantage by her crisply tailored black silk dress, cinched at the waist with a three-inch-wide belt that matched her hair perfectly. She waved at Gilda and continued on her way toward the piano where Emory, who usually played drums, was still attacking the Beiderbecke tune. His circle of wavy, mixed gray hair had receded far back on his head but he still appeared youthful as he concentrated on the tune. Gilda walked past them, wading into the scent of perfume that hung in the air. The click of high heels and deep male voices filled the room, mingling with the piano as if orchestrated by Ellington.
Through a door, in the smaller parlor she saw Benny in the dining room playing bartender behind a short, highly polished version of the mahogany bar in the Evergreen. He’d changed into a light-colored silk jacket that hung softly on him. Morris, in a reversal of his nightly routine behind the bar, relaxed on a leather and chrome barstool, his tall frame barely contained. They appeared to be intent on their conversation as Benny served him a drink, but he glanced up and noticed Gilda among the half dozen other guests mingling near the doorway.
“Come on over here, cousin,” Benny shouted.
“Harlem ain’t got nothin’ on Chicago,” Morris was saying as she approached. “Tell this man, Gilda. What Harlem got we ain’t got?” Morris’s light brown eyes sparkled with challenge, more playful than he’d ever appeared downstairs. His ever-present white shirt was, as usual, fresh and firm across his broad shoulders.
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ against Chicago, man,” Benny answered in a soft teasing voice she’d heard often when the two men were together.
“You think we ain’t got no colored writers?” Morris went on. “We got colored writers here. And we got the music. Shit, you know that yourself!” Morris took a drink as if that ended the discussion. “What about Richard Wright? He got his chops here. And you ain’t heard of Katherine Dunham, man?” Indignation was building like a balloon over Morris’s head. “Where you think King Oliver been playing for the last five years? Same with Alberta Hunter—”
“Lemme get you something,” Benny interrupted Morris, “‘fore this man starts trying to run for mayor.”
Gilda asked for champagne and he laughed. “Girl, you need something more’n that on a night like this.”
“They may go to Harlem, but they find themselves here. In Chicago!”
“That’ll do me, Benny. Honest.” Gilda had no luck trying to appear demure and was relieved when she heard Lydia’s voice behind her.
“Aw, Benny, stop annoying the chick. Give her what she wants. You trying to get the woman drunk?” Lydia leaned in closer to the bar.
Benny, faking villainy, twirled an imaginary mustache, much larger than his own.
Gilda inhaled Lydia’s scent deeply before she turned. A light blend of cinnamon and magnolia wafted from her hair, making Gilda’s heart beat faster. She was startled to see that Lydia wore bronze satin pants that clung to her narrow hips. On top she wore a pale golden chiffon blouse that highlighted her copper skin, which shone through the filmy fabric.
“You like it?” Lydia asked as she watched Gilda, who seemed unable to catch her breath.
Gilda finally found her smile. “You look quite … chic. I believe that’s the word.”
Benny prepared another drink and held the short rock glass as if he didn’t want to let it go.
“Come on, give,” Lydia said, then took the drink.
“Lyd’s kinda handy with the sewing machine,” Morris said. “She even made them curtains that run ‘cross the stage.”
“Hey, why should you get all the gab?” Lydia teased Gilda. “Half the town’s talking about your outfits. Hell, when you walk in the club I gotta turn the lights up so they stop lookin’ at ya.” Her laughter was totally unladylike and flew into the room, compelling others to join her. It was the same sound that filtered through her singing.
She grabbed Gilda’s arm and drew her away from the bar. “Lemme show you the joint before they eject Emory and plunk me down at the piano.” Gilda followed her through the kitchen to what looked like a comf
ortable office. Gilda stepped inside and leaned against a narrow desk, watching as Lydia crossed the room sipping from her drink. Her wavy dark hair was loose around her shoulders and the vibrant red polish on her nails gleamed in the dim light. Gilda was fascinated by the way she filled the room.
“So, uh, what do you think? About me, my singing, stuff like that.” She almost sounded like a child; her enthusiasm and curiosity were unconscious and genuine.
“Your voice carries almost all the joy in the world.”
“Um.” She stopped and leaned against a bookcase to think for a moment.
“Benny likes you a lot,” Gilda said, pausing. So many thoughts were swirling in her head, she couldn’t easily choose one. Gilda felt ripples of desire expanding inside. She put her drink down and pressed her hands to the desk.
“How can you tell that?”
“He can’t take his eyes off you. If you’re anywhere in the room his body is turned in your direction as if you were the sun.”
“Ain’t you the poet?”
Gilda felt embarrassed, but there was no sign of it. Her skin remained the rich dark color it had always been.
“Ben’s like my brother.”
Gilda’s skepticism was obvious.
“No, really. He took good care of me when I needed it and I do the same.”
“Have you been friends long?”
“I was traveling with a show. ‘Blue Heaven.’ You ever see it?” Gilda shook her head.
“About a year ago we’re doing the gig and I got sick. Him and Morris got me to the hospital when the troupe moved on. Made sure I had everything. Then give me the job singing at the Evergreen. They are two right guys. Benny’s always helping somebody with something. The colored school, this church or that one. He’s gotta buck for everybody.” The description fit easily with the impression that Gilda had formed since arriving in town.