The Gilda Stories (28 page)

Gilda listened patiently to his thoughts and let them evoke the sadness that still rushed in when she thought of those she had once loved who were now dead. She opened her eyes and her arms; Julius lay in them like a child. She ran her fingers gently over his face and neck, enjoying the softness of his skin, smiling at the freckles that marked his nose and cheeks. He raised his hand to her head and thrust his fingers into the short, nappy hair that framed her face, pulling her face down to his. She encircled him with her arms, kissing his eyes and nose. She felt his pulse begin to race as she passed her hand over his chest.

She pressed her lips to his in a gesture that was full of the excitement she'd held inside herself for so long. It was a kiss both passionate and chaste, leaving Julius feeling like a child in her arms, yet still a man. When she sliced the flesh on his neck, he opened his eyes in shock but did not try to pull away. His body trembled, then lay still, as the life drained from him into her. Gilda stopped, bit her own tongue, and kissed him hard, breaking the skin inside his lip. She thrust her tongue into his mouth.

He took back his blood, now mixed with hers, gagging on its sweet texture. Gilda pulled back again—two times more—to draw the blood from the wound in his neck. Each time she took him closer to the edge of life, letting Julius feel that perimeter and the abyss beyond it. She drew out his life and waited for him to make a sign of protest. If he did she would leave him to his life and wipe these moments from his mind. But he only opened wider for her. His eyes lost their focus, and his body was limp. Gilda pulled her shirt from her chest and sliced an opening below her breast. She pressed Julius to her, waiting to feel the power of his mouth taking in the life she offered.

He began to suck at the blood insistently, finally understanding the power that moved between them. Electricity surged through him. His head pounded, blocking out all thought until he heard Gilda speaking inside of him.

And what do you leave in exchange? This is your first lesson. You must never take your share of the blood without leaving something of use behind.

Gilda felt his moment of confusion. He'd been lost in the blood and didn't yet understand their way. She repeated her question and was immediately flooded with the sense of well-being only a child can feel when lying in the arms of its parent. She opened her eyes and looked up at the snapshot of Julius' mother, feeling the complete joy he had felt as a child. He left this most exquisite feeling with her, his gift as he pulled back from Gilda's breast. She closed her eyes in joy and held his hand to his wound, letting him help heal it.

She touched her reddened lips to the bridge of his nose and his forehead as she murmured words too soft for anyone in the world to hear. Her thoughts silenced him when he started to speak.
Sleep, there is much to be done tomorrow.

With her back against a thin pillow she held him until he slept comfortably. Inside his dreams she planted calming thoughts that would hold him in peaceful sleep until she returned. She let herself out, looking up only briefly at his shrouded windows before making her way back to her own apartment. Her mind raced trying to organize the things that had to be done.

She removed two large duffels from her closet. She changed into her boots lined with her native soil and the cloak Sorel had had woven for her by the seamstress who created her new wardrobe years before. It was rare for her to actually spend so much full daylight time out-of-doors. Regular errands that required little effort weren't uncommon, but this trip would use all of Gilda's resources. Deciding not to wait for a taxi, Gilda started for the airport on foot. She could be in Virginia by noon, fill the bags with his Virginia earth, and be back in time for the half-hour call at the theater. As she moved quickly through the City, past the tunnel, the factories, the cemeteries, and shipping firms, she tried to keep her mind only on her destination, but a myriad of thoughts rumbled around inside her with the noise and disturbance of the planes roaring overhead.

She tried to remember her own response to the truth of the choice she had made and to imagine how Julius would react. No matter what he'd said about friendship there might be little solace once he really understood what world he now belonged to. She was taking him away from the life he knew, and she could not provide solid answers to what this life would be.

Words from the
Tao
came to her:
Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom .
.. The airline terminals were just ahead. The simple truth was that it was done.

They would be each other's family now. It's more important to see the simplicity. She could only hope her judgment had been correct—that it was a good choice for Julius as well. She closed the door to doubt and began to anticipate the night when she would have Julius to show the world to. They would care for each other until they returned to the source, the stillness and the movement that is the way of nature. There would be no sad past between them as there still remained with Bird. When they were ready to travel separately they would be certain it was the natural time for that to happen and not filled with shadowy anger or fear.

Her Mississippi soil lay comfortably inside her shoes, protecting her from the weakening properties of daylight. She hummed a soft tune to herself, one her mother had sung while preparing poultices and compounds for the mistress' perpetual headaches. Gilda smiled remembering her mother's dark face and began to laugh to herself as she settled in the plane. She imagined what kind of companion Julius would be—his enthusiasm and idealism just the thing she needed to face eternity. She looked below at the thousands of tiny lights that sparkled in the receding city and remembered the first time she had seen a city shine with electricity. The lights were such a gaudy imitation of the stars. Gilda strained her neck to see out the window through the clouds. But dawn was upon the City, and the stars had moved on. She wondered if Bird was also looking up at them now. She pulled down the window shade and put her head back, listening.

After a moment she heard Bird whispering in her ear. It was a soft murmur of comfort, not words, but sounds meant to elicit ease. Gilda relaxed and sent out her message:
We've finally delivered a brother for me.

Gilda left the party sure that the young girl, Effie, had been flirting with her. Although Gilda often went to parties that Ayeesha gave, she accepted the separation that stood between herself and the others. She had sought them out, eager to understand the excitement of their lives. The energy around them reminded her of times past when the smell of both the old world and the new was in the air. Ayeesha, Cynthia, Kaaren, and the others were much like those at Woodard's in their edgy wit, yet they also had the innocent spirit and toughness of the women dressed in men's breeches Gilda had met on the road when she first traveled to Sorel's.

As she sat at the piano in Ayeesha's large, spare living room, Effie stood across the room, motionless; her gaze never wavered from Gilda. It was entrancing and unnerving—much like those that passed between many of the women—and its raw enticement left Gilda wary. Still she cherished singing for those enchanting women who were so full of ideas and plans. It fulfilled her in a way that was different from the nights of singing on a bandstand amidst clouds of smoke and noisy ice cubes. The checks from the clubs in the Village or across the river in New Jersey never enriched her as much as the women's tender hands on her back or the dazzling smiles they showered on her as they had done tonight. Ayeesha, a librarian at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, lived for these weekends when she would invite groups of friends, mostly women, to her large Morningside Heights apartment to listen to music or poetry, or simply to eat together.

The rhapsodic declarations of the Black Power Movement of twenty years ago gave way to exciting variations in this setting. It was here that Gilda found the substance behind the rhetoric for which Julius had longed. Ayeesha herself wrote plays and collected musicians, poets, and painters around her like the colorful beaded bracelets from West Africa that climbed halfway up her arm. Gilda looked into Ayeesha's face and those of her friends and saw Aurelia, Bernice, her mother and sisters. It was a link she searched for in each new place she lived, one she regretted breaking when she moved on.

It was actually Savannah's look that Gilda saw in Effie's eyes-knowledge that was beyond simple experience. Effie always came to the Saturday night or Sunday afternoon gatherings. She stood apart, youthful and eager, yet somehow demanding. Her clothes were plainly designed, usually in a single color. She favored deep earth tones such as rust and maroon, accented with a piece of bright cloth or large jewelry. Her outfits seemed understated and sophisticated in contrast to her youthful appearance. Gilda glanced her way periodically but spent almost no time talking with her.

Once outside, the sound of Gilda's boot heels was muted, her movement swift as she descended the marble steps of the large, old apartment building. She started down Riverside Drive toward her apartment in Chelsea. The October air was brisk and fresh on her face. She glanced at the New Jersey skyline and sidestepped Effie's memory.

Gilda felt an almost imperceptible change in the air as the sun's rays began to push dawn into the sky. The rush of the river was unlike the placid surface of the Charles in Boston. Its roiling motion reminded her of the Gulf and how it must look and sound to one submerged in its waters. Yet its persistent rush forward deceptively implied deliverance rather than death. Walking alongside it she blocked the din of traffic and let the water's sound fill her head.

Inside her apartment she bolted the doors and undressed for a shower. She looked around the small space, so peculiarly her own. The piano she had bought once she stopped working in theaters stood in one corner, its niche barely carved out of the mountain of books surrounding it. Bright cloth draped the ceiling and walls, hiding the fake wood paneling. Heavy blue-velvet curtains covered the windows, whose panes Julius had painted over with city scenes.

The Eiffel Tower adorned the top half of one; the marketplace in Accra enlivened another. Boston's Beacon Hill wound its way up the glass door leading to the back garden. This was only one of the changes Julius had brought into her life. Just as the brilliance of the colored glass was a delightful surprise each time she drew back her curtains, his presence provided unexpected pleasures. To arrive home just before dawn and find him perched on her steps waiting to talk with her about a show he was working on, or about his newly acquired passion, painting, made Gilda understand what had been missing in her life—the demands of intimacy.

Julius had blossomed in his new life: seeing the city with Gilda or joining Sorel or Bird on jaunts around the world. She wondered where he was just now as she pulled the drapes closed and dropped her clothes on the armchair. She stood, not so tall without her boots, before the full-length mirror, while the steam from the shower filled the bathroom.

She marveled at her body's fineness. Her brown skin shone like a polished stone; the rounded stomach and full legs were unchanged from those of her ancestors. Her teeth gleamed against soft lips, and through the fog her dark eyes looked back at her as alive and sparkling as they had been when Gilda first saw herself in a looking glass 150 years before.

Gilda washed these thoughts away as she lathered the rose-scented soap over her body, rinsed clean, and turned her mind to sleep. She unlocked the sleeping room and lay down, naked except for the beaded juju bracelet, a gift from Ayeesha, that adorned her arm. She was still, looking at the shadowless ceiling for a few minutes, then closed her eyes, resolved not to think of Effie.

Instead she once again brought Julius to her mind. He had been out of the City for several weeks, and she was beginning to miss him. He had so easily become a part of her existence, always full of jokes and tricks, ready to explore. Julius traveled, learning new cultures from the people themselves, while Gilda preferred the world as it passed her by on the streets of the States. No matter how often Bird, Anthony, or Sorel extolled the virtues of travel, Gilda was never as swept up in its appeal as they were. She had ventured north through Canada and south through the Americas but realized that while an expanse of ocean was only somewhat daunting to the others, to her it was paralyzing. It was as if she were being asked to make the Middle Passage as her ancestors had done.

Julius would return soon with slides and stories; she was content with that. The languor brought on by dawn began to seep into her bones, draining away her anticipation of his return and her curiosity about Effie. She closed her eyes—locked in and safe—to sleep the sleep of the dead.

When she awoke it was Saturday. The evening would not be just another late night singing in New Jersey, but an event. Ayeesha and some of the women who spent their weekends with her were borrowing a car and coming to see her perform. She made one phone call, to ask Anthony when he expected Sorel to return, then spent the afternoon reading.

She'd finished
The Foxes of Harrow
and was anxious to discuss it with Julius. They would spend hours trying to figure out where in the canon of black literature someone like Frank Yerby fit. Gilda felt exhausted by the layers of reality that weighed down his words. She gazed at his gentle brown features on the old book jacket, hoping to glean what he might have thought of himself—a black man writing almost exclusively about white, southern society. Who was he inside those carefully constructed yet superfluous manners?

Who were the characters, really? Where could she fit him within her life, her experience of the past century? How was he of value to her, to Ayeesha and the others? She tossed the book back atop the pile beside her easy chair, then dug down toward the bottom to locate the tattered copy of the
Tao
which was never far from her.

She leafed through its pages not seeking, simply stopping at words as her eye caught them:
Precious things lead one astray.
She tossed that book aside, too. Sometimes she wanted meaning. She hungered for puzzle pieces that fit snugly with each other and pointed the way toward past or future. At such moments Lao-Tsu simply infuriated her, leaving her with expanses much too great for comfort. And even then she remembered something of it:
Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace.

She stretched out her legs and listened to the sounds of the building for a while. When the sun dropped down to the west Gilda went out into the tiny garden and looked up at Marcie's windows. He soon appeared from behind a curtain, throwing the window up exultantly.

“What you doing down there, girl? Why you rooting around in that garden at this hour?”

Gilda smiled up at his brown face enhanced by slight traces of makeup. “I'm killing time, till I go to work. What an awful phrase—
killing time!
Ugh!”

“Here, I got something for you. I bought this thing last week but honey, it's not for me.”

Marcie disappeared back into his apartment, and the brightly colored cloth at his windows fluttered. Gilda felt excitement and curiosity. He wore flashy clothes yet had a style Gilda admired. She couldn't imagine anything he'd buy that he “couldn't” wear. Except the pair of five-inch silver heels he'd pronounced deadly and tossed in the garbage two days after paying seventy-five dollars for them.

He reappeared in the window with a gossamer-thin scarf in varied shades of green. Marcie dropped it down gracefully so that it looked like a mythic bird lighting on Gilda's shoulders. She reached up and caught it, enjoying its near invisibility.

“It's exquisite, Marcie. I have to pay you—”

“Don't be a toad, girl. The thing is you. I got to run. I was just going to leave it on your doorknob on my way out. I got a date… details to follow.” He made a large kissing sound with his lips, shut the window, snapped the sash locks, and was gone.

Gilda held the scarf up to her face, sniffing the faint scent of his perfume, and listened to her own breathing. Yes, this was a closeness whose value she had relearned in the ten years they'd been neighbors. There was an easy way people could be with each other once they became accustomed to habits, likes, dislikes. It was comforting to be tossed a scarf by someone whose footsteps are part of your life. She felt even more anxious for lulius' return so they could argue over Frank Yerby.

Later, in the tiny dressing room wedged behind the club's stage, Gilda tried on her new scarf in several different ways. The shades of green came alive beside the tan silk pants and shirt she wore. The sharp and sweet sounds of the jazz trio on the bandstand invaded the room. She smiled at her recognition of their riffs, another intimacy she enjoyed. Working with musicians had become an excellent replacement for the theater, which was too demanding, requiring her to be attentive to too many people. Singing, writing words, and making them melody were central to the life she had made for herself.

Not only was it less personally consuming than doing theater work, but there were so many small nightclubs and cabarets along the East Coast that Gilda could perform regularly without having too much attention focused on her. And unlike working in the beauty parlor, moving around from club to club assured her the distance she reluctantly understood she needed between herself and others. She enjoyed shaping her own life, even though it rarely meshed with others.

Bird continued to see each continent as a challenge, although she did maintain communication much better now than she had in the past. Sorel, Anthony, and Julius were never away from the City for long, nor were they long in it. Sorel spoke often of closing his place and moving north to Canada. He had yet to make any real plans though. Each year Gilda noticed how much more difficult it was to keep the world away from her door. The small amenities that communities historically observed had fallen away; electronics made communication so swift that intimacy was expected at every turn. With increasing frequency Gilda considered living away from people. For the moment, however, the clubs suited her.

She walked to the side of the bandstand for the group's last number and saw the women sitting out in the audience, attentive but impatient for her to appear. In her head she heard Bird's voice, just as she had the first night at Woodard's. It was low and inviting yet full of the precision wrought by respect for the performance—Minta singing in her high, clear voice, or Fanny and Sarah's duets. The sound of voices and music from Bernice's kitchen had captured Gilda's imagination forever.

There was Kaaren the sleek, with her red nail polish and high-heeled shoes, sitting next to her lover, Chris, whose stern face was softened by the curls falling over her forehead. Ayeesha sat slightly apart, her thick dreadlocks tied up in a richly colored strip of Ghanaian Kente cloth. When she opened her mouth in a smile the light played off the tantalizing gap in her teeth. Cynthia, next to her, was tiny and brown, like an exquisite museum miniature of a Nigerian work of art. Laverne sat tall, looking slightly apologetic as her long legs sprawled into the narrow aisle between the tiny tables pushed together for them. Gilda was pleased to see the shy Alberta out with the group.

“Good for her,” Gilda thought as she listened to the applause for the musicians. Her friends were a responsive audience: most of them were clapping and stomping their feet. Only Marianne applauded with reserve, reluctant to give a man anything. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for danger or an exit. But the others reveled in their anticipation of Gilda and let their excitement spill over onto the trio. Leading the applause was Effie, leaning forward at the edge of her chair.

Gilda heard the pianist introduce her before he left the bandstand. She blinked several times, drawing her face into the open-eyed smile her fans expected from her. She climbed to the stage, stood looking down into the audience, and sang a cappella, “I love you for sentimental reasons. I hope you do believe me. I've given you my heart.”

For a moment they were hushed by the ringing quality of her solo voice, then they applauded wildly. When she sat down at the piano it was only she and the women—as it had so often been before.