Some Sing, Some Cry

by Ntozake Shange

  Movement between the occupied zone and the Free France zone to the south was highly restricted. There were three exceptions, German and Vichy officials and the circus. Waving papers from her commandant, with her money stuffed in her undergarments, the soles of her shoes, and the lining of her hat, Lizzie said that she was on her way to the Mediterranean to develop a new review with a circus theme, “Une carnivale pour élever l’esprit des gens!” Ferrying the girls in a false-bottom truck full of circus gear, she told the patrols that Cocteau had promised her a ballet with a circus theme. The gypsy caravan of old cars and covered wagons hopscotched through Vichy-controlled southern France. After a significant conversation, Lizzie convinced Farid that a slow passage would draw less attention. Making their way to the coast, the convoy stayed with miscellaneous friends of Lizzie’s—holdouts, renegades, and leftovers from the Left Bank. Man Ray took her picture, Simone trimmed her hair, Trudy and Miss T. served the entourage cucumber sandwiches, Matisse begged her to don one of her feathered costumes for yet another speed painting. They sweltered in a hothouse, and shivered through the night hidden in a wine cellar. The meandering trip gave her time to reflect. She had lived by magic. By all rights, she should be dead by now, a few times over.

  Paris to Lyon to Marseilles was the plan. From Marseilles, they were to cross the Mediterranean to Algiers and Free France. Belying the appearance of a pastoral bucolic countryside, there were signs of war everywhere. Deserted villages, empty farmsteads, crops left unattended. The caravan ran into three nuns, their habits a colorful pink. One of them whispered hysterically that, to protect a Jewish family they had been hiding, she had killed a soldier. Lizzie calmly decided that the group would have to join their party. Just outside Avignon, they came across two children on the side of the road, squatting in a rain puddle, drinking the filthy water. Lost children, abandoned, separated from their families, Lizzie couldn’t resist. A third child, a toddler with dark, sparkling eyes, she scooped up herself. “The boat trip will be cold,” she said, “best get them coats.” Farid hit the roof when he saw this new brood. Lizzie insisted, “When the war is over, we will find their families. For now they come with us. The children can sit on our laps.”

  They were stopped again just outside of the town. Lizzie flashed her papers. The regional inspector, bedeviled by the local underground, bore no goodwill toward Von Arendt, whom he considered a decadent son of privilege lounging in Paris while he swatted at peasants in the French hinterlands. When Lizzie presented her papers, he insisted she demonstrate a preview of the show.

  Lizzie May Turner had been putting on shows since she was six, but two hours to mount a circus? “Sorry, sistuhs,” she told the nuns, “you got to lose the habit. Prepare to go to confession.” She taught the children some simple acrobatics—cartwheel, backbend into a elephant walk. She stacked them by weight in squatting positions. “Okay, on the count of three, everybody stand up. Un, deux . . .” The toddler on the top began to cry. With no way to get him down, she volunteered Farid to catch him. With a little gypsy music, a side booth for fotune-telling, and three very angelic-looking shake dancers, Le Cirque Mayfield magically appeared. Lizzie topped the show with a comedic, German rendition of her old-time signature. “Say what? Strut, Miss Lizzie, strut! Sagst was? Gehe ab, Fraulein! Gehe ab!”

  The inspector and his men were delighted. Kicking up his heels in imitation of her, the hard-nosed SS official begged Lizzie to return when the show was complete. Shortly after the entourage had set out on their way again, Farid threw down his hat. “You marry colored scarecrow, sleep with German SS, fool around with cuckoo photographer, what is wrong with me? You no like Arabs?”

  Lizzie stared at her old friend in disbelief. His lips were tight, his brow protruded. His hands were on his hips and his chin jutted out. His tawny, aquiline face was red with rage. “How are we doing with the coats for the kids?” she said slowly.

  “Kids are goats,” he replied, turning on his heel. He got a few paces away and pivoted. “You never think why I do this for you? You never think of anyone but yourself.”

  Despite massive Nazi sweeps that rounded up thousands of French Jews and hundreds of gypsies, Lizzie’s colorful caravan somehow meandered unmolested. When they reached the sea, the waves were the Aegean blue of her mother’s eyes in summer, the sky tangerine. The old fisherman who agreed to transport them was a Haitian. As he prepared the boat he sang an ancient song to amuse the children.

  I had a girl in Puerto Prince,

  I loved her so and was convinced,

  She was the only girl for me,

  Then I first saw you . . .

  The sweet merengue reminded Lizzie of Osceola laughing in the harbor breeze, his deep brown skin reflecting tints of ochre like her daughter. Cinnamon. Farid was right. Pah, Dora, Ossie, then El . . . and Cinn. People she wanted to draw near, she only managed to push away. Fresh start. No past. No ties. The skiff set sail. The boat slipped across the smooth Mediterranean waters toward the edge of the world.

  They landed safely in Oran. The drone of flyers overhead pierced the morning fog. When the plane formations came into view, they bore the ensigns of the British Union Jack and La Croix de Lorraine of the Free French. Her escapades made the cover of the Harlem Herald, “Mayfield Turner Rescues Lost Children. Stages Concert for Allied Troops.”

  In short order, Lizzie rented a spot and opened a club in Algiers. She offered Farid a partnership—“Une petite boîte, just you, me, and piano, my friend.” Imagining the lush fecund shores of Mah Bette’s Sweet Tamarind, she christened the dry dusty sand trap Le Tam-Tam. “The only joint in the quarter with an unlimited supply of ice,” she boasted and joked with the press, “Roosevelt and Churchill come here to chill.” By then, Mitch had secured passage from Spain. She gave him his old job on piano so she was free to circulate. Both Bruria and Rachel volunteered as aides at the Allied field hospital. It is there that Bruria met a young Algerian doctor, who spoke of a further resistance, a North African alliance, forming in the mountains. Rachel hung around the club, often serving as hostess for American GIs on leave. They brought her chewing gum and tales of the U.S.

  Mayfield Turner made a new recording of “Le Chanson Pleurante” and was frequently asked to sing it. The tune became a favorite on the mainland, often sung in cafés and dance halls, by peasants and shop girls, and a battle cry for fighters still holed up in the mountains, all yearning for elusive liberty. “Recherchons, n’importe comment longue pour cette chanson . . .” We search, no matter how long, for that song . . .

  Cinn had the sanctity of her own apartment, a full scholarship at Juilliard, and her choir jobs. She wanted for nothing material. With Baker’s departure she swore off any more romantic distractions. Memphis had also disappeared—out the fire escape with her suitcase. Cinn figured they were probably touring together. So be it. She awoke in the morning hearing children outside her window, a family going to school, the bustle of people going to work. How solitary she was, betrayed by her own ambition! She resisted the heartache with a near maniacal focus on her voice. For a full year she poured herself into her studies. For her final concert recital at Juilliard she prepared a grueling repertoire. She practiced relentlessly, choosing some of the most challenging selections in the classical canon. After hearing and seeing Miss Anderson, she had set an impossible standard for herself. Madame Olivetsky cautioned that, like a good wine, singers needed their time to mature, but Cinn was impatient to succeed and paralyzed at the thought of failure.

  She told her family that the graduate performance recital only allowed a few guests. She wanted no big to-do. She didn’t know how she would be received, and she wanted no witnesses in case the recital went badly. Seated in the back of the small unassuming recital hall, only Dora and Raymond, Madame Olivetsky, and Deacon. Iolanthe, who was invited, was absent. Cinn kept looking toward the door. She caught herself wondering if Baker might surprise her.

  The roster of judges included her nemesis Marintz, van Giesen, S
achse on stage technique, Vaillant to test her French, the famed conductor Bruno Walter sitting in as a guest. Her graduation and future career depended on this performance. Small consolation they would inform her of their assessment and her status that day. She breathed deeply and steeled herself as if making ready for battle. She would play no colored divas. No Carmen, no Butterfly, no Aida, no Bess. No fickle fortune-teller, no suicidal concubine, no doomed Nubian slave, no stranded whore down on her luck. Today she would dazzle them with surprise or be a disaster. Beethoven’s Fidelio provided the required German selection. In her private protest to Marintz’s dismissive treatment, as Leonore she cursed her prison tyrant in a perfectly intonated venomous German. She chose Massenet’s sacred Rêve Infini for her French melodie, imbuing the Virgin Mary’s grief for her son with the passion of one abandoned. From Mozart’s Idomeneo her Elettra descended into madness with perfectly modulated pitch. Bellini’s impossible Norma was her eleventh-hour offering, convincing everyone that she was a Druid princess standing with her people against ruthless invaders. For her English art song she chose her own arrangement of a classic in the making, Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady,” her one bow to blackness and modernity, a gauntlet to Baker. I can do this if I want to. I’m not afraid of you.

  Marintz came to her in tears. “This Hitler,” he said, “we must stand up to him like your Leonore . . . You think that I was hard on you, Miss Turner. Only to make you your best, your best. We trust you will be entering the Opera School. Consider this an invitation.”

  Despite her ardent preparation, Cinnamon couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had succeeded, and on her own terms. The Opera School was Juilliard’s pinnacle program, equivalent to a musical doctorate. Only ten percent of the graduate vocal class. In Juilliard’s rarified environment, that translated into fourteen students, and she would be the first African American. Her aunt and uncle insisted on taking her out to celebrate. Begging off, Deacon kissed her on the cheek and apologized on behalf of Iolanthe, “Some stuff with the business.”

  “Surprise!” The family greeted her as she opened her apartment door. “First in the family to go to college and now graduate school!” Elma beamed. “You didn’t think we were goin’ to let you get by with that little bit of to-do?” she teased and hugged her niece, “We’re so proud of you, baby. A model for Memphis, I pray.” Papa Ray chomping on his glory carried on, “Never let you through, build you up only to dash hopes. Going up to that school,” he said, “we gave them a piece of our minds, we did!” Madame Olivetsky clasped hands of jubilation. “Finally, emotion!” Deacon looked on, curiously silent, yet always there. Iolanthe bustled about. “I’m so sorry I missed the recital, my dear,” she quipped while refilling champagne glasses, “someone had to plan the party.” Among them Sissy and Miss Tavineer, now a fixture with the family, Iolanthe’s colleague, the social columnist from the Amsterdam News, Mrs. Dawson and some members of the Negro Opera Company, and Jesse, who drove up with their grandmother Eudora. “My first trip to New York! My grandbaby, a graduate from graduate school!” Her grandmother’s business partner Yum Lee and her cousin Roswell had come along for the ride. Jesse alone was comforting. “A gift from God the way you sing. No one can take that from you.” Cinn couldn’t take their joy.

  Dora didn’t much like the idea of having to share her prize with someone she used to feed with scraps from her table. Deacon Turner or whatever his name is now. Cinn’s father’s people. Even if they were well placed in New York society, he was still wharf trash to her. Dora was dismayed that Cinn seemed more enamored of them than herself. She thought her granddaughter might return with her to Charleston, but clearly Cinn was on her way to new and bigger thrills, leaving Dora to her loneliness. The grandmother consoled herself that she still had Jesse. At least he was loyal.

  Elma called Cinnamon to the phone. “Sweetheart, it’s for you.” The line was full of static. “I hear congratulations are in order. How’s my girl doin’?” It was Lizzie. “Got the general to put me through. Callin’ from Casablanca. Just like the movie—Hello?”

  “The line went dead,” Cinn said, holding the phone like a sleepwalker.

  “Dog bite it,” Elma fussed, taking the receiver back. “It took me two days to set up that call.” She pounded on the drop hook and held the receiver to her ear. The phone rang again. “Thank, God! Hello, Lizzie, that you? . . . Well, who is it then? . . . Lawrence, Lawrence who?” her aunt continued.

  “Mama El, let me have it.” Cinnamon took the phone from her distraught aunt and spoke into the mouthpiece. “You have the wrong number.”

  “Tell him to get off the phone. Your mama’s callin’ long distance.”

  Cinn shooshed Elma off. “I don’t know any Dr. Walker . . . Chicago?” She turned to her aunt, then back to the receiver. “How did you get my number?”

  Elma fussed in her ear with that chicken rhythm she acquired when she got nervous, “Well who is that what does he want tell him to get off your mother’s trying to call—long distance!”

  Cinn hung up the phone in a daze. “It’s a guy I met in Chicago last year, Mama El. He wants me to meet him.”

  “On a date?” Iolanthe peeked in between them. “A doctor?”

  “Isn’t he comin’ to the house?”

  “No time. I’m to meet him. Curtain’s at seven thirty,” Cinn replied, still perplexed.

  “It’s a date, Elma. Don’t quibble,” Iolanthe assured with a quick survey of the room. “If he’s worth anything, we’ll meet him later. Go, get dressed.”

  “At least let us know where you’re goin’,” Elma insisted.

  “He’s got tickets to . . . the opera.”

  Standing beneath the marquee of New York’s Alvin Theater, Cinnamon was wearing a pewter satin sheath that clung to her body, a stardust tiara, taupe gloves, gossamer shawl, and silver slippers. She was ecstatic, then worried, then panicked. He was late. She didn’t know a thing about him, not even his full name. Just as she was about to bolt, he hobbled up on crutches, his left eye swollen like a plum. “Miss Turner!” he said with a huge smile. “The last time we met, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself. I’m Lawrence, Lawrence Walker.”

  “Cinn, call me Cinn. It’s short for Cinnamon.”

  “Hmm,” he said, as if tasting something delicious.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “Social science research, University of Chicago Ph.D. I can find anything.” He had lost nothing of the confidence or fire she remembered.

  They had to excuse themselves over a whole row of people. “Got knocked out playing squash, imagine that,” he joked to a snarling patron, bumping knees. He explained as they finally took their seats, “Ran into a little union-bustin’ goon squad back home. They accepted the platform, but not without a little explanation of the fine print,” he babbled. “I would have waited to let it heal a bit, but I couldn’t wait to see you. These were the best seats I could get.” He turned to her as if the rest of the room had simply vanished. “My God, you’re beautiful.” She flipped through the program to hide the blush. A Kurt Weill piece, another side of Gershwin. “Lady in the Dark,” he said, looking at the tickets, “only thing I could get on short notice. It’s opera, right?”

  Cinnamon rolled her eyes. My, he’s nervous. “Well, it’s musical.”

  “I have to confess, the only other one I’ve seen is Porgy and Bess,” he said. “I thought it was pretty good.”

  Porgy and Bess has as much to do with Charleston as I do. I know Cabbage Row, I’ve seen Goat Man. Why do we always have to be low-down, old-time, lowlife, no-count? We have nobility, we have class. Where’s that story?

  The lights went down. The overture began. Despite her reservations, Cinnamon found herself pulled in different directions, intrigued by this man, intrigued by the music’s modern composition and characters, the concepts in the dream sequences. Danny Kaye’s recitation of Russian composers, rattling off fifty in one minute, reminded her so much of hersel
f cramming for exams she laughed out loud.

  During intermission, Lawrence escorted her to the lobby, hobbling on the one crutch. “Excuse us, sorry about that, pardon us, please,” he said with a smile to the irritated white patrons as they made their way back to their seats. The audience was not used to seeing Negroes among them, especially in the choice orchestra section. Lawrence spoke with a smile, disarming the frowning faces, “Good evening. Magnificent performance, don’t you think?” Reading her dismay, he chuckled. “Have to use every opportunity to educate these white folk. We have as much right to be here as anybody. And you! You need to be up there—center stage!”

  When the show concluded, they exited the theater. Lawrence balanced precariously on his crutches, bouncing on his foot. “May I offer you some dinner? A drink, perhaps?”

  She shook her head. “The music was meal enough. Fills you up.”

  He leaned toward her with an impish whisper. “All right, I confess, I don’t know a thing about opera, except you.”

  Walking down Broadway with no particular destination, they got quiet. Memories for her—52nd Street, where Baker used to play, the Cane Break, Mr. Jocelyn’s, an apartment above a saloon and stairwell where she used to sit waiting.

  He stopped and turned to Cinn again. “I went off and did this crazy thing,” he said, laughing. “I enlisted . . . in the air force, can you believe that? I know it doesn’t look it, but I’m supposed to report for duty in a week.”