Letter to My Daughter (4 page)

Morocco

Although I was living in the twentieth century, I still held on to the nineteenth century fanciful idea of Arabia. There were Caliphs and strong sexless eunuchs and harems where beautiful women lay on chaise lounges looking at themselves in gilded mirrors.

On the first morning in Morocco, I went walking to soak up a little more romance to fit with my fantasies.

Some women in the street wore western clothes while others kept themselves chaste behind heavy black veils. All the men looked jaunty and handsome in their red fezzes. I approached a junkyard and decided to cross the street before I was forced to look at real life. Someone yelled and I turned. There were three tents in the yard and a few black men were waving at me. For the first time, I realized that the Moroccans I had met earlier and expected to meet resembled Spaniards or Mexicans rather than Africans.

The men were shouting and beckoning to me. I saw they were all very old. My upbringing told me that I had to go to them. At that moment I became aware that I was wearing a short skirt and high-heel shoes, appropriate for a twenty-five-year-old American woman, totally unacceptable for a female in the company of old African men.

I threaded my way over cans, broken bottles, and discarded furniture. When I reached the men, they sat down suddenly. There were no stools beneath them so they did not really sit, they simply squatted on their haunches. I was raised by a southern grandmother who taught me it was rude for a young person to stand or even sit taller than an older person.

When the men stooped, I stooped, I was a young dancer and my body followed my orders.

They smiled and spoke to me in a language that I could not understand. I responded in English, French, and Spanish, which they did not understand. We smiled at each other and one man spoke loudly to a group of women who were standing nearby, looking at me with interest.

I smiled at the women who returned my smile. Young trained muscles or not, stooping so long was becoming uncomfortable.

Just as I prepared to stand and bow, a woman appeared with a miniature coffee cup in her hand. She offered it to me. As I took it, I noticed two things, bugs crawling on the ground, and the men approving of me by snapping their fingers. I bowed and took a sip of the coffee and almost fainted. I had a cockroach on my tongue. I looked at the people’s faces and I could not spit it out. My grandmother would have pushed away the grave’s dirt and traveled by willpower to show me her face of abject disappointment. I could not bear that. I opened my throat and drank the cup dry. I counted four cockroaches.

Standing, I bowed to everyone and walked out of the yard. I held the revulsion until I cleared the lot, then I grabbed the first wall and let the nausea have its way. I did not tell the story to anyone; I was simply sick for one month.

When we performed in Marseilles I stayed in a cheap pensione. One morning I picked up a well-worn
Reader’s Digest
and turned to an article called, “African Tribes Traveling from the Sahel to North Africa.”

I learned that many tribes who follow the old routes from Mali, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and other Black African countries, cross the Sahara en route to Mecca or Algeria or Morocco and the Sudan, carry little cash but live by the barter system. They swap goods for goods, but they will spend their scarce money to buy raisins. In order to honor and show respect to visitors, they will put 3 to 5 raisins into a small cup of coffee.

For a few minutes I felt that I wanted to stoop below the old men in Morocco and beg their pardon.

There, they had chosen to honor me with those expensive raisins.

I thanked God that my grandmother would have been pleased with my behavior.

I began this lifelong lesson. If human beings eat a thing, and if I am not so violently repelled by my own upbringing that I cannot speak, and if it is visually clean within reason, and if I am not allergic to the offering, I will sit at the table and with all the gusto I can manufacture, I will join in the feast.

P.S. I call this a lifelong lesson for I have not fully learned it and I am often put to the test and although I am no more or less squeamish than the next person, I have sometimes earned a flat “F” at the test, failing miserably. But I get a passing grade more often than not. I just have to remember my grandmother and those four innocent raisins, which made me violently sick for one month.

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess,
the George and Ira Gershwin opera, was still bringing audiences to their feet on its European tour. The colorful cast was still robust and welcoming to me but I was anxious to leave the tour and return to San Francisco, California.

I was riddled with guilt because when I joined the cast I had left my eight-year-old son Guy with my mother and an aunt in San Francisco.

The opera company offered me a sizeable increase in salary if I would send for him, but there were already two children traveling with their parents, who exhibited behavior that I did not want my son to see, nor imitate. I was principal dancer and sang the role “Ruby.” I received a decent salary, which I sent home, but my guilt assured me that my money was not sufficient, so I stayed in pensiones or youth hostels, or with families to save money. After the curtain came down in the theater, I doubled singing the blues in nightclubs and in the daytime I taught dance wherever I could find students and I also sent that money to my mother.

Still, I began to lose my appetite and weight and interest in everything. I wanted to go home to my son. I was told that I was obliged to pay my replacement’s fare to Europe, and my own fare home. I met that new pressure by singing in two more nightclubs and teaching dance to professional dancers and to children barely able to walk.

At last I had the money and at last I boarded a ship in Naples, Italy, for New York. I refused to fly because it occurred to me if the plane crashed, my son would only be able to lament, “My mother died when I was eight years old. She was an entertainer.” I had to get back to San Francisco and let him know that I was that and more.

After nine days on the ship I arrived in New York and took a train for three days and nights to San Francisco. Our reunion was so emotional that I confess it may have sent me over the edge. I know I loved my son and I knew I was blessed that I was not in love with him, that I would not smother him by trying to be too close and at the same time I would love him and raise him to be free and manly and as happy as possible.

After one week of living in the top floor of my mother’s big house, set on the top of a hill I became anxious again. I realized it would be difficult if not impossible to raise a black boy to be happy and responsible and liberated in a racist society. I was lying on the sofa in the upstairs living room when Guy walked through. “Hello Mom.” I looked at him and thought I could pick him up, open the window and jump. I lifted my voice and said, “Get out. Get out now. Get out of the house this minute. Go out to the front yard and don’t come back, even if I call you.”

I telephoned for a taxi, walked down the steps and looked at Guy. I said, “Now you may go in and please stay until I return.” I told the cab driver to take me to Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic. When I walked in the receptionist asked if I had an appointment. I said, “No.” She explained with a sad face, “We cannot see you unless you have an appointment.” I said, “I must see someone, I am about to hurt myself and maybe someone else.”

The receptionist spoke quickly on the telephone. She said to me, “Please go to see Dr. Salsey, down the hall on the right, Room C.” I opened the door of Room C and my hopes fell. There was a young white man behind a desk. He wore a Brooks Brothers suit and a button-down shirt and his face was calm with confidence. He welcomed me to a chair in front of his desk. I sat down and looked at him again and began to cry. How could this privileged young white man understand the heart of a black woman who was sick with guilt because she left her little black son for others to raise? Each time I looked up at him the tears flooded my face. Each time he asked what is the matter, how can I help you? I was maddened by the helplessness of my situation. Finally I was able to compose myself enough to stand up, thank him and leave. I thanked the receptionist and asked her to telephone Luxor Cab.

I went to my voice teacher, my mentor and the only person I could speak to openly. As I went up the stairs to Frederick Wilkerson’s studio, I heard a student doing vocal exercises. Wilkie, as he was called, told me to go into the bedroom. “I am going to make you a drink.” Leaving his student, he brought in a glass of Scotch, which I drank although at the time I was not a drinker. The liquor put me to sleep. When I awakened and heard no voices from the studio I went in.

Wilkie asked me, “What’s wrong?”

I told him I was going crazy. He said no and then asked, “What’s really wrong?” and I, upset that he had not heard me said, “I thought about killing myself today and killing Guy, I’m telling you I’m going crazy.”

Wilkie said, “Sit down right here at this table, here is a yellow pad and here is a ballpoint pen. I want you to write down your blessings.”

I said, “Wilkie, I don’t want to talk about that, I’m telling you I am going crazy.”

He said, “First write down that I said write down and think of the millions of people all over the world who cannot hear a choir, or a symphony, or their own babies crying. Write down, I can hear—Thank God. Then write down that you can see this yellow pad, and think of the millions of people around the world who cannot see a waterfall, or flowers blooming, or their lover’s face. Write I can see—Thank God. Then write down that you can read. Think of the millions of people around the world who cannot read the news of the day, or a letter from home, a stop sign on a busy street, or…”

I followed Wilkie’s orders and when I reached the last line on the first page of the yellow pad, the agent of madness was routed.

That incident took place over fifty years ago. I have written some twenty-five books, maybe fifty articles, poems, plays, and speeches all using ballpoint pens and writing on yellow pads.

When I decide to write anything, I get caught up in my insecurity despite the prior accolades. I think, uh, uh, now they will know I am a charlatan that I really cannot write and write really well. I am almost undone, then I pull out a new yellow pad and as I approach the clean page, I think of how blessed I am.

The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow.

Today I am blessed.

Bob & Decca

Bob Treuhaft and Decca Mitford were among the most engaging couples I had ever known. He was a radical lawyer, of steely resolve, with bones so delicate that once, after successfully defending the Black Panthers, Huey Newton gave him a grateful embrace and broke three of his ribs.

Decca was a writer whose book
Hons and Rebels
reveals her story of growing up as an English aristocrat and becoming a communist.

Her next book,
The American Way of Death,
challenged and changed the funeral business in America.

I accepted an invitation to speak at Stanford University. Since I could visit Decca and Bob, I added a weekend onto the trip.

On the first night together, Bob said that once a month a local restaurant offered a French bistro menu with only two seatings per night. He said the food was exquisite and so popular that people reserved two to three months ahead.

Decca asked Bob to call and tell the owner Bruce Marshall that they had a close writer friend visiting from New York. Bob came back with a smile and we had a booking.

As we were seated at a table a measure wider than a dinner plate, the owner came over to us.

He said to me, “My wife was so excited to know you were in town, you and she are great friends.”

I thanked him and asked first, how did he know that I was in town? He said Bob Treuhaft had told him. He had even described me.

Then I asked of his wife. Bruce said that his wife was Marilyn Marshall. I ran my mind over a list of names. I knew no Marilyn Marshall.

He saw my quandary and laughed at himself, “No, of course, she was a Greene when you knew each other, in Los Angeles.” I did know a family in Los Angeles with the last name Greene, but there was no Marilyn in the group. He laughed again and brought a wallet from his pocket. He flipped it open and handed the wallet to me. “Here is Marilyn’s photo.” Names and places may change but unless one has had extreme cosmetic surgery, the features remain the same. I gave the photo a hurried look. I had never seen that woman’s face before.

I smiled and said, “That is certainly Marilyn Marshall. She looks great.”

Bruce gave our table the grin of a proud groom.

As we were leaving, Bruce caught us at the front door. “Marilyn is on the phone and she wants to speak to you.”

I held the earphone tight on my ear, hoping that the voice would offer cognition.

I said, “Hello,” and was truly disappointed. I didn’t recognize the voice.

She asked, “What are you doing in California? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? If we didn’t live so far, I’d come to the restaurant right now.”

Hurriedly I said, “No, we are already finished. What about tomorrow? Come around one o’clock for lunch at Decca Mitford and Bob Treuhaft’s. I’ll make a quiche.”

She said, “I’ll be there.”

When I told Decca that I needed her to be present, she said, “Not for a minute.”

I asked, “What will I talk about?”

Decca said, “You have the quiche, talk about that.”

I put a quiche Lorraine in the oven and tried to imagine the next two hours.

At exactly one o’clock the doorbell rang, and I opened the door to a woman I had never seen in my life. She was petite and pretty and surprise was plastered on her face. “Hey, how are you?”

I said, “Wonderful. What about you? Come in.”

She did.

I told her the quiche was ready and she said so was she. We sat together knowing that neither had any idea who the other was, or how to extricate ourselves from the awkward situation.

After lunch we had a long conversation on making quiche Lorraine. We took our wine to the living room.

Marilyn said, “Guess who I saw up in Tahoe?”

I said I couldn’t guess.

She said, “Charles Chestnut. He acted as if he did not recognize me.”

She half expected me to know the name and also not to recognize it at all. I was not as courageous as she. I said nothing.

Marilyn continued, “I spoke to him and he kept looking at me quizzically. I thought, the bastard. As hard as you and I worked in his campaign.” Again, I had no response.

Marilyn said, “I walked up to him and said, you’re pretending not to know me now, wait until I see Louise Meriwether.”

Aha. Here was the answer to my questions.

“Marilyn, I hate to tell you this, but I am not Louise Meriwether.”

She shouted, “I didn’t think you were! I didn’t recognize your voice last night on the telephone.”

She was standing in the middle of the room. “And when you opened the door I thought, that’s not Louise unless she did something drastic to herself.”

I asked, “Why did you think I was Louise?”

Marilyn said, “Bruce told me that Bob Treuhaft told him that you, Louise, were visiting from New York and he knows how much I care about you, I mean Louise.”

She asked, “Please tell me, who are you?”

I said, “Maya Angelou.”

Marilyn said, “Oh hell, listen I’ll just go, I’m sorry.”

I said, “No, please, this is just a new way of making a friend. Let’s figure out what happened.”

She said, “Bob called Bruce, hoping to get a reservation. He said they had a friend staying with them, an African American writer from New York.”

Bruce asked, “Is she tall?”

Bob answered, “She’s six feet.”

Louise Meriwether is six-feet tall, black, and a writer.

And Bruce said, “That’s my wife’s dear friend.”

Obviously there was only one six-foot tall black female writer in New York.

Marilyn and I shared a laugh of delight at the expense of men who know everything and at ourselves who nearly pulled off a non-visit between strangers.

She was a psychologist and a writer. I saw that she was my kind of person. Smart, funny, and tough-minded, and she became a friend to me in a way I could not anticipate.

My beloved brother Bailey had fought heroin for control of his life. The battle still raged but he told me he sincerely wanted to be drug free. I offered to pay for sessions with two of the leading black male psychologists in the area, but he refused.

I talked to him about Marilyn Marshall and he picked up one of her books and read it. That was typical of Bailey—drugs or no drugs—he would do his homework. He said he would like to meet her.

I told Marilyn all of this and she agreed to see him, not as a patient, but as the brother of a friend. I spoke to Bruce Marshall and arranged for Bailey to eat lunch and dinner at his restaurant. He could bring a guest and sign the bill. Only Bruce, Marilyn, and I would know that he was not paying. Bailey made use of the restaurant and had occasional conversations with Marilyn Greene Marshall.

So, for a year my brother was able to control his life. I have given great thanks for the help of two strangers I met by comic accident. I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.