“But—”
“If I thought me going to the police would do any good, I’d consider it, I truly would.” She took my hands, held them tight as if to impress her words on my flesh. “But it wouldn’t. They’re not going to listen to me. Believe me. I’ve been through this before.”
There was something in the intensity with which she spoke that prompted me to say, “You never told me what happened to your husband.”
“That’s right, I didn’t.”
“Will you now? I don’t know anything about him, and I would like to. Even … just his name?”
She was silent a long time.
“His name was Norman Brooks.” As she spoke, she rubbed her throat as if it ached, but saying his name out loud seemed to loosen something in her. “He wasn’t a big man, but he was handsome.” She drew out “handsome,” investing that trite word with a wealth of qualities: charm, energy, and, most of all, deep appeal for Otelia Brooks. “He just thought … higher than everybody else. That man had ten ideas for every half notion most people have. I said, A man as smart as you shouldn’t be stuck here in Mississippi. He said, Oh, you mean I should be stuck with you. Maybe, I said, but I’ll have to see.”
She stopped smiling. “He wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t told him I meant to, with or without him. My family didn’t want me to go. I couldn’t understand how they wanted to stay. But they had a business, people knew who they were, respected them. My father was going to run for office. Then the federal troops left, and they started rewriting the laws. They said, You have to pay a tax; he said, Fine, I’ll pay it. Then they said, You can’t own a gun; negroes can’t be trusted with them. So he gave up his gun. Then they shot up his store and said he better forget running for office. After that, I told Norman, I’m going. I want you to come with me, but I’ll go if you don’t. He said, Some women will go where they mean to go. I guess if I want to be with you, I have to go, too.”
“So you came to New York.”
“So we came to New York. It wasn’t bad at first. Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t good. Norman and I, we got a place in the Thirties. A few little blocks where black people could live, surrounded by Irish who thought they had more right to be there than we did. I got a job doing laundry. For Norman it wasn’t as easy. Most of the building trades, they want to hire their own, and he wasn’t anybody’s own. He was good at tinkering. You give him a wire, some nails and wood, he’d make you a radio, he had that kind of mind. Best work he could find was bussing tables. He hated the cold. But he said if I was happy, he was happy. First anniversary, he gave me a blue scarf. I asked him why he’d wasted our money. He said, You care for someone, you make them beautiful. Show the world what you see.”
She fell silent after that. Then, taking up a stretch of ribbon, she began folding it into a bow. “Do you remember what happened in summer, 1900?”
I shook my head.
“Well, why would you?” She set the bow down. “August. It was hot. Air heavy, you feel it on you like a weight. Garbage stinking in the street. You step outside, your head hurts from the glare. Everyone feels put-upon and mean.
“Where we lived, it wasn’t quiet. A lot of saloons, a lot of … well, you know what goes on in the Tenderloin. One night, a woman comes by one of the saloons, looking for her man. It’s late, she wants him home. He tells her wait, he’ll be out in a minute or two. A policeman—not wearing a uniform, mind you—sees her standing on the street, thinks she must be doing business. So he tries to arrest her. The gentleman comes out of the bar, sees a white man trying to drag his lady friend down the block. He shouts at him to stop. Policeman takes out his club, hits him over the head.”
I winced; there were patrolmen who reacted to any provocation with the use of their nightstick.
“Man gets up off the ground, head bleeding. All he knows is this man grabbed his girlfriend and clubbed him over the head. Far as he’s concerned, he’s been attacked. So he stabs the policeman. Who dies the next day. At the funeral, the policeman’s friends get good and drunk. They decide they’re going to teach some negroes a lesson. And that’s what they do. Pretty soon, it’s a party, everyone’s joining in. People got jumped on the street. Pulled out of saloons and hotels and beaten. Some of the women in the neighborhood busted into apartments, carried off anything they wanted. Norman and I were lucky in that regard; we didn’t have anything worth stealing.
“Only we still had to go to work. No one was going to say, Oh, white people breaking heads in the street, it’s fine, you stay home. So Norman said to me, I’ll meet you after work and we’ll take the trolley together. It was okay going; everyone was too hungover to move. In the evening, though, they were ready to go again. Men running through the street, grabbing anybody they could find. Everywhere you looked, people bleeding, holding their heads, legs. Glass all over the streets from broken windows. Carts overturned and wrecked. I remember being on that trolley, thinking, Just keep moving, keep on moving, we’re almost there.”
She took a deep breath. “Then the trolley stopped. Man in the next seat yelled, How come we’re not moving? I could see why. Ten, twenty men standing on the tracks. They said, Who’s riding with you? Anyone who shouldn’t be?”
Her mouth disappeared and her jaw shook. In a voice broken with tears, she said, “And that’s when they … took him.
“Those men jumped onto the car and caught hold of him, screaming, Give him to us, give us the—I was holding on to him, he was holding on to the back of the seat. I was begging the other people on the trolley to help me hold on to him or push the other men off. But they just yelled at the conductor, Keep going, keep going, like it was nothing to do with them. Driver’s scared, going too fast. We swerved, stopped short, and Norman lost hold of the seat. The men started dragging him off the back of the trolley. But I still had him, I had his arm, and I remember … I remember his eyes … he was so scared. Screaming, Keep hold. Hold on. And I did, I tried, I dug my fingers in, and I pulled with my whole body. Then the trolley started to move and I … I didn’t have him anymore. I let them have him.”
She shut her eyes against the memory of what had happened next. When she opened them, she said in a new, hard voice, “And I saw the police, I saw them right down the block, watching. And laughing.
“Afterward, there was an inquiry.” The word “inquiry” was drawn out in mockery. “I testified at that … inquiry. But they found that there were no facts to support the charge that the police had harmed anyone or neglected their duties in any way. Norman wasn’t even listed as a victim of the riots. They said he fell under the trolley in all the fighting.
“I did not take it well,” she continued, her tone oddly measured, as if she were reading a report of her own history. “I was afraid to leave my house. Even going to the front door had me shaking. I folded myself up in a corner of our bed, pulled the covers over me, and … I don’t know, waited to die.” Her forehead creased, but then she regained control. “I could not leave my house, and so I lost my job. Then a neighbor suggested I take a drink, make things a little fuzzy. That sounded good, so I took a drink. Then I took another. And it got so I could leave my house. As long as I went to the saloon. It didn’t take long for them to throw me out of the apartment. They took our things. Said we owed them for back rent. Took everything I had of his, except that little blue scarf he gave me. I kept it around my neck, hid it.”
I looked, thinking she was still hiding it. It was not around her neck.
“Man at the saloon said he knew a place I could stay. He had a friend.” She smiled thinly. “I said, I can’t pay your friend. He said they’d think of something.
“I kept that scarf until the night I met you. That animal took it from me, ripped it right off my neck. But that’s all he took. And he did give me something. When he came at me, I thought, No. You will not take one more thing from me. I’m taking myself back, even if I have to grab that knife out of your hand and cut you to do it.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Cut him?”
“I did. After he…” She gestured to her eye. “His hand was slippery with blood. So I got hold of the knife and gave him a good swipe across the wrist. Back of it, though. Didn’t get the veins. And I should have gone for his throat.
“I had heard about your uncle, seen him out walking. So I knew where to go. I nearly passed out so many times on my way. I kept hearing Norman in my head saying, I didn’t come up to that cold place so you could die. I didn’t wash other people’s dirty dishes so you could die. I let you go so you could live. So live. That’s when I realized, he was the one who let me go. Because he knew they’d pull me off along with him. And I didn’t have any business throwing away what he sacrificed to save. So I came to you. And from you to the White Rose, which sent me to one of Madam Walker’s classes where she trains her sales agents, and here I am.”
She inhaled, as if pulling all the memories deep back down inside. “And I hope now you understand why I do not believe the police will listen to a word I say.”
The long silence that followed was broken by a tentative knock at the door. Otelia Brooks glanced at the clock, then said, “Come in.” She looked at me, and I understood our conversation would stop. Now.
The door opened and a small face peeped in. From behind her, I heard an elderly woman whisper, “Say ‘Pardon me, Miss Brooks…’”
“Pardon me, Miss Brooks,” the child echoed.
Otelia Brooks bent slightly, saying, “Now, who is this coming to see me? Is this a great lady in need of a new hat?”
The child stepped into the room, swaying, hands clasped behind her back. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, I think it is. And I believe she’s brought her grandmother as well.” Miss Brooks smiled as the elderly woman followed the child into the room. Her face was remarkably unlined, her eyes long and elegant. I admired the white buttons on the turned-back collar of her dark suit, the intricate lace of her jabot. She gave me a momentary glance before she smiled and greeted me. I was not expected, but not unwelcome.
An enchanting bonnet with a yellow ribbon was for the little girl, who knew it straightaway and had to work very hard to contain her excitement as Otelia Brooks settled it onto her head. The hat with its upturned brim and tenderly tied bow created a halo around her head, at once an image of fragile innocence and a promise of loveliness that made you both mourn and anticipate the day she packed the bonnet away among her childish things.
“You must save that for your daughter,” I told her.
“This is Miss Jane Prescott,” said Otelia Brooks. “She dresses one of the finest ladies in the city.”
The child’s mouth opened with gratifying awe. Her grandmother said politely, “Would that be Mrs. Mayme Marshall? Or Mrs. Martha Anderson?”
“I work for Mrs. William Tyler.”
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” Then her gaze fell on her granddaughter and softened. “I like it,” she declared. “I think it will do.”
“That gives me great pleasure, Mrs. Cross,” said Otelia Brooks. “And Miss Cross.” Crooking her finger, she motioned the child close. “Now, not a word about who made you this hat. You are a member of a special society now, and I expect you to keep its secrets. Even if you think you recognize another member, you must not suggest you know who made their hat. The very most you may do is nod at them when no one is looking. They will probably nod back, but perhaps not. Can you remember that?”
The little girl nodded. “I’ll remember, Miss Brooks.”
With exaggerated seriousness, Otelia Brooks said, “And can you remember, Mrs. Cross? And do you so pledge?”
“I so pledge. And I thank you.”
When they had gone, I said, “Miss Dodson may notice them as they leave. She is determined to reveal you as the Hat Lady of Harlem.”
“And my secretary will show them out the back way for that reason.”
“May I ask why you don’t take credit for your work?”
“I prefer to make my hats for people I feel deserve them. Or need them. That little girl lost her mother two months ago. And her grandmother is a powerful lady, as you might have gathered. Some in the northern elite have their doubts about southerners. So if I can get Mrs. Cross into my hair salon…”
I bowed my head in tribute to her business sense. “My uncle has accounting classes now. He can’t bear to be in the room when they are taught, but he does have them, and that’s because of you.”
She smiled politely, though she knew very well what I would say next.
“If the police don’t listen to you, no one need know you were involved. And if they do—”
“If they do, I lose everything I’ve built over the past decade. Do you think Mrs. Edwina Cross is going to buy her granddaughter’s hats from a woman who stood on Minetta Lane drunk and hiking up her skirts? Do you think those ladies want their hair done by that woman?”
No, I thought, and if you were white and sold hats to Mrs. Benchley, I wouldn’t have even asked you. And there were no amends I could make for that ignorance except to say I now understood that I couldn’t ask her to sacrifice everything she—and Norman Brooks—had worked for.
“I’m sorry I troubled you.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’re fighting for your family. I understand.”
“May I ask one last question?”
A sigh of exasperation. “You haven’t changed. Go on.”
“Why do you call yourself miss?”
“Because I can’t give up his name, but I don’t feel I deserve the title. Besides, I don’t need people asking questions I don’t want to answer.”
Like all the questions I had asked her today. Trying to acknowledge defeat with some graciousness, I stood to leave.
As I did, Otelia Brooks said, “May I ask you a question?” There was surprise in her voice, as if she had not expected to be curious.
“Of course.”
“You ever get the blood out of that carpet?”
Puzzled that she would remember such a thing, I shook my head.
She smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t.” She imitated my distracted, half-hearted scrubbing motion. “Too interested in everything else going on, so you work it in even deeper.”
“I will say that you can barely see it.” And yet I had seen it only a few days ago.
“It’s there, though. Good thing you’re not a housemaid. Stain like that in one of Mrs. Tyler’s dresses, you wouldn’t let that sit. But the carpet, everybody walks on it, after a while, you stop noticing. Doesn’t feel worth the work. Always been that way, can’t be too bad.”
She took my hand to say good-bye. As she did—I couldn’t help it—I blurted, “Doesn’t it frighten you, the thought of that man still out there? If he saw you, remembered you…”
Withdrawing her hand, she patted a small embroidered handbag on her desk. “I told you how they took my father’s gun. But they’re not taking this one. No, Miss Jane, I’m not frightened. Not at all.”
12
I could not argue with Otelia Brooks’s position—much as I tried to on the ride back to the refuge. She was almost certainly right that the police would not take her account as proof my uncle wasn’t responsible for Sadie’s and Carrie’s murders. And in order to salvage his reputation in the court of public opinion, she would have to ruin her own. For several stops, I considered asking her if she would simply come to the neighborhood, cast eyes on Bill Danvers and see if the sight of him would stir any memories. But how could I ask her to revisit that nightmare when she had worked so hard to put it behind her? I couldn’t, was the simple and straightforward answer.
Letting my hands drop into my lap as a quiet admission of defeat, I fussed at the edge of my glove. As I did, I saw—still there—a small disfiguration. Many years ago, I’d burned my wrist while ironing one of Mrs. Armslow’s nightgowns. I had been making a list in my head and lost track of the distance between the point of the iron and my hand. The result: a pale disk of scar tissue that hadn’t faded o
ver time. Wrists, the cook had told me as she put salve on it, heal poorly, being close to the bone.
For several moments, I gazed at my hand until realization settled. She had cut him on the wrist. Which meant there could be a scar. A mark that would support Otelia Brooks’s story.
But how to see that scar, that was the question. Bill Danvers was not a man you could lightly take hold of. We were weeks away from the kind of weather where men rolled up their shirtsleeves, and I could hardly ask Orville Pickett if he ever noticed his associate’s wrists.
I got off the train. Walking down the street, I pondered a feigned peace offering of a sewed button or mended cuff when I heard a man cry out, “Please don’t hit me.”
I looked up and saw Harry Knowles. The Herald reporter looked no better in daylight, and his presence a few feet away from me was not welcome.
“I warn you, Mr. Knowles, I have several newspapers in my pocket.”
“I have a newspaper, too,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to read it.”
He held it out. I thought to refuse. But better, I thought to know. We were not far from the widow Pickett’s house. No doubt she had been spinning more elaborate tales for the reporter. I took the paper.
SHOCKING DETAILS OF LIFE WITH REPROBATE REVEREND!
Following the arrest of the Reverend Prescott in the murders of Sadie Ellis and Carrie Biel, reports have emerged of strange goings-on at the Gorman Refuge for Women. Many close to the refuge have suggested that his interest in the women who stay there is not solely humanitarian. At least one woman has told this paper that the Reverend is odd in his manner and at times acts in a manner distinctly un-Christian. And then there is the account of this woman.
“He’s strange about women. Sometimes he looks at me like I’m not wearing nothing. And he doesn’t know what he wants to do to me because of it.”
Death of an American Beauty Page 15