by Alyssa Cole
“You know, I used to pull some good grades before I had to leave school,” Janie said. “I guess a couple more lessons wouldn’t hurt none.”
“Good. Let’s get started.”
Later that day, Bertha sat at her desk reading through the local Negro newspapers she hadn’t had time to peruse earlier in the week. Her office was decorated in soothing colors: warm pink and yellow fabrics, souvenirs from her time spent on the road. None of the familiar objects worked to calm the tension that mounted as she read. A letter from her mother in Chicago, with news of her brothers and step-father, had already left her feeling sad, an emotion she generally pretended didn’t exist. Then she’d seen one of the regular ads from Ms. Q in The Age:
To the Black citizens of Harlem: On Tuesday, October 5, 1917, three women were beaten and robbed by officers of the law. This was carried out in plain daylight and nothing will be done because these women also sell their bodies. Those of you who look down on such things will say they deserved it, while your husbands will be wondering if it was one of the women they are stepping out on you with. Regardless of what you think of their profession, these women have rights. To the men reading this, stop spending your time scheming to get women in your bed and think on how to get them to the ballot box. Give women the right to vote against politicians who allow things like this to happen unchecked.
Bertha was glad for the ad, written in Ms. Q’s signature style, but distressed about what it reported. When she turned the page she was met with even worse news. Two more clubs in the neighborhood had been shut down over allegations of prostitution and racial mixing. One was going to reopen, and the owner of the other remained jailed. She dropped the paper down onto the pile of invoices and receipts that constituted the afternoon bookkeeping, pushing her palms into her eyes as frissons of panic ran through her body and coalesced at the back of her neck.
Why can’t they just leave us be?
When the Commission of Fourteen had started, their primary goal had been stopping “White slavery,” or what they called White prostitution. Now, seemingly bored after helping drive Negroes up the length of Manhattan all the way to Harlem, the vice squad had decided to target them, too. Not out of any desire to stop “Black slavery”—she was sure many of the men working that beat weren’t put out by that particular moral failing—but for two reasons: to shut down Negro businesses and to stop White folks from patronizing them. A couple of them had come sniffing around the Cashmere over the past few months, and unlike the beat cops, they seemed immune to bribery. Bertha could almost laugh; between the suffragettes and the vice squad, the primary function of morality seemed to be as a thorn in her side.
Most of the other clubs had already put in strict “No Whites” policies. While it should have been slightly edifying to be able to wield such power, it wasn’t done out of hatred. It was the only surefire way to avoid investigation, and for their owners to avoid jail time.
It was all so ridiculous.
Bertha, perhaps more than most, understood how subjective a thing race was. She looked up at the framed poster on the wall beside her desk and sighed.
THE RAJJAH BEN SPECTACULAR
Far Eastern mystical magic never seen on these shores! Mind reading, spirit summoning, and other acts of legerdemain! Hindoo dancing, and more!
A knock at the door cut her moment of pity short.
All for the better, she thought.
“Come in,” she called out, straightening in her seat. The door opened and Amir stepped through. He wore a simple tan shirt, tucked neatly into dark trousers paired with suspenders. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and Bertha tried hard not to stare at the sleek, dark hair that dusted over his forearms and peeked out of the neckline of his shirt.
“Can I help you, Amir?”
“May I sit?” he asked.
She nodded and he settled into the seat in front of her desk. She tried to read his expression to determine whether he was going to quit, demand a raise, or try to give her some friendly advice, as men were wont to do.
“I listened to your talk earlier,” he said, then stopped abruptly. She waited for him to go on, but he shifted in his seat and began looking around the office.
“Is there some reason you feel compelled to tell me about your eavesdropping?” Her voice came out low, flirtatious, even though that wasn’t what she intended at all. It made her feel a bit strange to know he’d been listening, which was ridiculous because performing on stage was second nature to her. But she hadn’t been performing, really. She’d let her guard down for a moment, as she joked and traded information with the women, who had by the end seemed as excited with the project as she was.
“It’s just…why are you doing this?”
She would have been offended if the expression on his face hadn’t been so direct. There was no judgment or, worse, disgust, but you never could tell. Maybe it bothered him to see women learning about politics. That would be more likely than him supporting it, given most men she’d encountered.
His dark gaze was fixed on her with the same intensity as their first meeting, but without the frustrated anger—she realized now that’s what it had been. Her face heated under his scrutiny.
“Well, I want the women to be prepared when we get the right to vote,” she said. “It may not happen a month from now, but it will happen soon.”
She didn’t mention how she knew so much about the law. As they’d traveled from state to state and city to city, her father had always made sure they knew the local and federal ordinances that could help or hurt them in case things went sideways. What was allowed for Negroes, what was allowed for women, what the local government and police forces were like.
Gotta know the lay of the land before you take the shortcut, Bertie.
“No. That was incredible. I understand why you teach the class.” He leaned forward in his seat. “I’m asking why do you do this.” He spread his arms expansively. “I admit I don’t know very much about politics here, outside of certain specific things I’ve learned the hard way, but you know so much. Why run this club? If you are interested in helping these women, why allow them to sell themselves?”
The words pelted Bertha like fruit thrown from a balcony. She pursed her lips as she tried to gauge how much she felt like explaining the ways of a woman’s world to a man, and found she didn’t feel like it at all.
She leaned back in her seat. “I won’t be questioned about my business by a dishwasher. You can go.”
She picked up the paper on her desk and stared at it, eyes blindly scanning. After a few moments of silence, she glanced up over the edge of the paper to find him watching her. His gaze swept her face, as if trying to figure her out; she’d seen him look at a clogged drain with the same pensiveness. Bertha didn’t take to being puzzled over.
“You’ve been dismissed, Amir.”
“I think perhaps there has been some misunderstanding,” he said. “I asked because I want to know, not as an insult. I apologize for hurting you.”
“You should apologize for thinking someone like you could hurt me,” she said, letting the paper flop onto her desk ever so casually and smiling at him as if that were the silliest idea she’d ever heard.
That was usually enough to put a man in his place, but Amir didn’t even flinch.
“So if I told you your dance the other day was a sad imitation of the real thing, it wouldn’t bother you in the least?” he parried, his smile just as benign. It quickly faded, as did Bertha’s brief hit of pleasure from taking a jab at him.
She’d been insulted in many ways, but never about her dancing. That had been the one thing that no one—not her father, not the racist audiences, not the theater directors who had deemed her style “unpolished” during audition after audition—had been able to make her doubt. To most people, her dance had been some exotic fantasy and she had excelled at it; Amir knew better, and he found it sad. She would have taken anything else: ungainly, graceless, lewd. Sad? Bertha had been ambivalent about her dancing
lately, but she still had her pride.
He stood up suddenly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have said that. You know, I came in here because I thought maybe we could help each other, but obviously I was wrong. I finished the repairs to those chairs like you wanted. Good day.”
“Wait.” Bertha was standing now, too, fingertips pressing into the edge of her desk. He’d apologized for his words, but that was different from saying he didn’t mean them. “It’s rude to offer a blanket critique and then run away. Tell me specifically what you found so sad.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Well, I suppose this won’t be the strangest way I’ve ever been fired,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You dance wasn’t sad. I was being spiteful because you made me angry.”
“You’ll agree that’s one thing I seem to do well.”
He let out a short laugh, and Bertha realized that he had a deep indentation in each cheek. It was the first time she had noticed, and she hoped it would be the last given the sudden flush that went through her body.
“I wanted to suggest a trade,” he said. “I know your class is for your women, but I wondered if I could listen in from the kitchen during each session. I learned a lot, things I don’t learn from my flatmates—we’re usually talking about the politics back home.”
He paused, pressed his lips together in the way stubborn people did when forced to give up something they didn’t want to. “I came to America for the opportunity. Then I got here and everything I see is oppression. I have no rights and no hope of them unless something changes. I need to learn.”
It was the yearning in his voice that got her. The hopeless desire for more that got stomped out of every American with any good sense after a while, replaced with hatred or defeat or going along to get along. Bertha had just discovered that yearning again, and she wasn’t going to be the one to kill it in Amir.
“You can listen without offering me anything in return. Good day.” She sat down, sighing around the lingering sting of his insult. It would fade, as all bruises did.
“I don’t take charity,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I can teach you some things about dance in exchange.”
He was looking down at her, a glint in his eyes that made her neck go warm, again. Being closer to Amir was the last thing she needed and dance lessons would necessitate exactly that.
“A dancer and a dishwasher, how remarkable,” she said. “No thank you.”
“For someone who just got done telling those women not to let the world look down on them, you seem very preoccupied with the position you hired me for,” he stated calmly. “I’m sure you know this, but power dynamics rooted in social status are a system designed to separate people instead of bringing them together for the greater good.”
Bertha raised a brow. She didn’t feel shame at the reprimand; derision was often the only weapon she had. She had the uncomfortable feeling that Amir might understand that.
“My very own Bolshevik,” she said, tilting her head. “Isn’t that the bee’s knees.”
“There are worse things I could be,” he said. “A Democrat. Or is it Republicans who push these restrictive laws on Colored people? If only I had someone to instruct me in such things.”
His thumbs slid behind the straps of his suspenders and he looked at her in a manner she figured was charming, if you liked dimples and full lips and raised brows.
She picked up a stack of papers on her desk and began leafing through them. “The next lesson is in two days. You can tutor me directly after.”
Chapter 4
Amir had spent the morning before the first lesson pretending it was just a regular day, but his flatmates had sensed something amiss, peering at him curiously as he sipped his cha and read letters from home, updating him on family friends, his land, and local politics.
“What is it?” Fayaz had finally asked, his dark brows drawn together as he rubbed a palm over the morning stubble covering his round cheeks. He’d pulled off a bit of the puffy wheat luchi Amir had made and dipped it into the fragrant aloo dum, using it to scoop up the potatoes, onions, and garlic that comprised their simple breakfast. “Did the Hines woman finally kick you out on your bottom? You have more than enough savings to get by, don’t worry so much.”
“No, no. It’s something else,” Syed had cut in, getting up to stand next to Amir and lean in close, examining him. “Starched shirt with a clean collar. He’s got pomatum in his hair, he’s shaved, and he doesn’t smell like a donkey’s behind for once. Hmm…”
Amir swatted at Syed, who jogged just out of reach and pointed at him, eyes wide and brows raised. “He’s going to see a woman!”
Amir downed the rest of his tea and stood up, ignoring his laughing friends as he carried his cup to the sink. “I have an assignment at work today. I criticized my boss’s dancing, see”—he waited for the groans and recriminations of his flatmates to subside— “and then I told her I could teach her a thing or two.”
There was silence behind him as he washed his cup, and he braced himself for a barrage of jibes and jokes at his expense. When he was done washing and drying and the jokes hadn’t commenced, he turned to find Fayaz and Syed staring at him.
“You’re going to dance?” Syed had asked.
“We could barely get you to dance jari last month,” Fayaz had said. “I thought you were so shy, and now you’re teaching someone?”
“A female someone, who had his brow creased like old roti the morning after he came back from his first shift,” Syed had added. He and Fayaz had chuckled conspiratorially.
“It’s nothing. She’s teaching me what she knows about politics and I’m teaching her what I know about dancing. It’s a mutual exchange of skills, nothing more. I thought you both were socialists, na?”
Both flatmates had burst out laughing and Amir had grabbed his coat and headed for the Cashmere. They were right; he was more of a wallflower than a dancer. He spent his time at festivities in clusters of likeminded people railing against British imperialism. That didn’t mean he couldn’t dance; young people dreaming of revolution were not exempt from family and religious events.
Amir had lied to Syed and Fayaz though. It wasn’t nothing; for the first time in a long while, he had found himself looking forward to a dance. And for the first time since he was a child, he was nervous about it.
Rupe Lakshmi, gune Saraswati. That’s what he had thought when he’d heard Bertha teaching the women in her employ. Beautiful as Lakshmi, learned as Saraswati. He worshipped neither goddess, but he wasn’t sure he could say the same of Bertha if he got too close to her. And he was supposed to teach her to dance.
Now he sat in the kitchen, seat pulled up to the door as Bertha circled the stage, explaining the different branches of local elected government and what their roles were. Her hair was twisted back into two rolls that met at the nape to form a bun, leaving her strong jawline and swan-like neck exposed. Her loose blue blouse was tucked into black trousers, wherein Amir’s problem laid. Her skirts were never ridiculous and frilly, but those trousers left nothing to the imagination. They clung to the curve of her behind, highlighted the flare of her hips and the taper of her thighs. Amir paid attention to her words, but while his ears were compliant, his eyes were following another course of study.
While her hips were curved, her posture was straight as a mainmast. There was no bend to her there, which was perfect for the kind of dancing he would assist her with, but his mind strayed to the more carnal ways in which she might lose that rigidity.
Thamo. He was leering after her like a pervert stalking women at market. While he was no stranger to lust, he’d thought himself better than that. He shut his eyes and exhaled.
Allah, keep my thoughts respectful and proper.
“Okay. I see some of you are falling asleep, so we’ll finish here for today,” Bertha said.
“Can we talk more about electing judges next time?” Janie asked. She was Amir’s favorite because she alway
s asked for explanations that he couldn’t ask for himself. “Because these cops are a problem, but it’s the judges who want to throw the book at you. I want to vote for someone who doesn’t pretend he don’t got a pecker.”
Amir suppressed a laugh, but he must have made a sound because Bertha glanced at him. The corners of her mouth raised by a few degrees, and the shift in latitude did something to Amir. He lost his equilibrium for a second, like those first days onboard a ship when his body hadn’t yet adjusted to the vessel riding the dips and swells of the ocean.
His will power was going to require more than a quick request for divine help, it seemed.
“Of course,” Bertha said, turning back to the women.
“When I went to night court last week, I told the judge that the cops stole from my apartment and he said I was lying,” a waitress named Eve said. “I bet they get a cut of what they steal from us.”
“Maybe. One day when you’re able to vote, you can help vote him out,” Bertha said. “Okay. Those of you working tonight, be back at eight o’clock.”
The women got up and filed out, some of them peeking through the propped-open kitchen door. When they had all gone and he could dawdle no longer, Amir stood and walked toward the stage, but Bertha had stepped down.
“Are we not going to…exchange now?” Amir asked. The possibility disappointed him more than he expected.
“We’re going to practice in my apartment,” she said.
“Don’t want to be seen cavorting with the dishwasher, eh?” That possibility disappointed him more than expected, too.
“Okay, I earned that,” she said. “My apartment will give us more privacy. Unless that makes you uncomfortable.”
Her hand went up to her earlobe to finger the pearl set in gold that hung there, and in that motion he glimpsed something incongruous with the Bertha he’d come to know over the last few days: vulnerability. She wanted privacy because she didn’t want anyone to see them, and not because of him. It did something to him, seeing that flash of uncertainty in her. It was as if she’d shared a secret with him, had revealed the soft spot she kept hidden from a world always probing for one. He cringed in memory of his arrogant appraisal of her dance.