Time Dancers (26 page)

“My father owns a painting of his, done in 1903 shortly after Balle studied with Edvard Munch. It is called
Snowblind.
My father first showed it to me when I was twelve. I’ve wanted to be a painter ever since.”

“I see,” Geaxi said. “And how did your father obtain the painting?”

“I’m not sure. I never asked. But did I just hear you correctly? Did you say you were waiting to
meet
Rune Balle?”

“Yes.”

“Rune Balle has not been seen or heard from since 1906. He is considered dead, even by his own family.”

“True enough,” Geaxi said, “until recently. I believe I now know where he has been and where he may be at the moment.”

“What—where for God’s sake?”

“The Left Bank.”

“But, but, that’s here, that’s where we are!”

“I know,” Geaxi said with a smile. “We could use your assistance, Mercy. You are familiar with the area and you know the people. We will have to ask questions. You could make it much easier for us.”

“I would be more than happy to help,” Mercy said. She shook her head, then broke into another round of boisterous, contagious laughter.

Finally, Geaxi asked, “Mercy, are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just that I can’t help thinking about something Arrosa said in her letter. It’s a bit of an understatement.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“She told me to ‘expect the unexpected.’”

Two days passed in a blur of activity. From early morning until late at night we combed the streets, shops, cafés, and bars of the fifth, sixth, and seventh arrondissements. We made countless strolls up and down Saint Germain and Saint Michel, asking questions, searching, hoping to find a connection to Rune Balle. No one seemed to know him, which was not odd since he had been considered dead for twenty years. Lindbergh’s name, however, was everywhere and on everyone’s lips. Mercy accompanied us during the day, but at night she was working at Chez Josephine. We spent both nights in Montmartre, high up on rue Florentine, loitering near two clubs across the street from each other, Bricktop’s and Zelli’s. Geaxi said they were the kind of places Rune Balle had preferred in his youth. We watched the traffic and never saw a sign of him, but Nova became completely absorbed and fascinated with Parisian street life—the personalities, hairstyles, conversation, and especially the fashion. Geaxi seemed unaffected by it, telling me,
“Il faut cultiver notre jardin,”
or “We must cultivate our own garden.”

By morning of the third day, we still had not heard from Mitch. I worried about it. It was unusual for him not to call or come by. Whatever the reason, if he had fallen down, fallen ill, or fallen in love, it was probably serious. We made our rounds anyway and then headed back to Mercy’s apartment for lunch. The telephone rang. Mercy picked up the receiver, laughed, then held out the receiver so we could hear. The voice came through loud and clear. It was Josephine Baker, laughing and shouting and telling Mercy to get those children from St. Louis over to her apartment now, faster than a pig squirms. She wanted to meet us before we went to the benefit that night. She couldn’t wait to talk about St. Louis. She was sending over her car and her chauffeur within the hour. From her place we would all go to the Theatre des Champs-Élysées together. She went on and on. Mercy finally stopped her and said we would be waiting on the front steps.

Less than an hour later we were picked up and driven to Josephine Baker’s apartment. Her chauffeur opened the door getting in and out, then ushered us inside the apartment. Mercy had warned us that Josephine loved animals, but the reality was bizarre. Between and among a cluttered, exotic, eclectic collection of things and furniture, including a bust of Louis XIV, stacks of letters and magazines, records, clothes, costumes, and furniture, she kept a parakeet, a parrot, three baby rabbits, and a snake. We were led through the apartment into a large kitchen, where half a dozen people were gathered in a small circle, each with a smile on their face and a champagne glass in their hand. In the midst, kneeling and talking rapidly, Josephine Baker was telling a story about Berlin. She was also grooming her pig. The pig’s name was Albert and he smelled of perfume. She caught a glimpse of the chauffeur and looked up, first at him, then to Mercy, then over to us. She was at eye level. She was dressed in a full-length silver gown with sequins sewn in an intricate design, platinum loop earrings, and a string of pearls around her neck. Her short hair was styled similar to Mercy’s, only the wave across her forehead ended in a spit curl. She wore heavy eye makeup and oxblood lipstick. On her head she wore a lacy skullcap covered in sequins. She was a beautiful, stunning, brown-skinned girl of only twenty-one—the rage of Paris—and yet, she looked familiar. I was certain I knew her, I had seen her before, but I couldn’t place it. Then she smiled. It was a great, wide grin, which took me back instantly to the night I met Arrosa at Mitch’s club in St. Louis. I remembered a young girl backstage, trying to sneak in and watch the dancers. Mitch called her “Tumpy,” but he said her real name was Josephine. For a second that night, the girl and I caught each other’s eye and she smiled, just before Mitch pushed her out the door.

Josephine Baker’s smile faded and she stared at me. I saw in her eyes the gradual recognition of our mutual memory, followed by the puzzling paradox that comes with it.

“I remember you,” she said. “It was St. Louis…I was a kid about your size…I remember you, but…”

“How is it possible that I appear the same now as in your memory?”

“Yes.”

“Because the true you chose to remember it that way. If you did not, I would not exist.”

Josephine Baker laughed and whistled. “That sounds almost crazy, honey.”

“You’re not the first girl to say that.”

“But that don’t explain nothin’,” she said.

Nova smiled and said, “Oh, yes it does.”

“It could explain everything,” Geaxi said.

Josephine Baker stood and waved her arms high in the air and shook her hands as if she were in church or singing in a revival.
“Tout de même,”
she said. “You must be an angel because Mitch needs some hometown cheerin’ up and I ain’t been able to help him one little bit.”

“Is this where he’s been staying since he got to Paris?” I asked.

“That’s right, and we were havin’ a swell time until this mornin’. Then Mitch came down with the blues real bad. He’s as sour and mean and quiet as a man can be.”

“Where is he?”

“In a church.”

“Church?”

“Yes, and I’m worried about him. He’s been there for hours. Why don’t you talk to him, honey? Cheer him up—talk him into goin’ with us tonight.” She pointed to a dark-haired man with a thin mustache standing near her. “Pepito will take you there.”

“I’ll go right away,” I said.

Pepito was Josephine Baker’s companion and soon-to-be husband. He was an obvious hustler, but he was nice to me and we struck up an easy conversation. He led us through traffic for several blocks until we stopped in front of an old and ornate church, Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. The facade was three-tiered and rose seven or eight stories, covered in great stone columns and arches with statues in recesses on all three levels. Pepito climbed the steps with me, saying he would wait for me under the massive stone arch of the entrance. I walked inside. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light and I found a place to sit near the aisle on the last row of pews. The cavernous cathedral was eerily silent and all the pews were empty, except for two people: a young girl in the front row who seemed to be weeping, and a black man two rows ahead of me. He sat with his head bent forward and his eyes closed. It was Mitch. As always, he was wearing his tuxedo, but the jacket had been removed, the tie loosened, and the collar unbuttoned. I stood and walked down two rows. He kept his eyes closed. I sat and moved over until I was within five feet and waited.

Thirty seconds passed. Almost whispering, I said, “Mitch, are you all right?”

He looked up slowly, not even surprised to see me. There were no tears in his eyes, but there was a deep and true sadness. “Hey, Z,” he said. His voice sounded dull and flat. “I been meanin’ to call, man. I just…I just ain’t got around to it.”

Another twenty seconds passed. I gazed around the cathedral. “I didn’t know you liked churches, Mitch.”

He smiled faintly. “I can’t say I frequent the joints, Z.”

“Any reason you picked this one?”

“It was old.”

“Sounds like a good reason to me.” I let a few more moments go by. The girl in the front row rose to light a candle at the altar. I heard her mumbling a prayer. I turned to Mitch. “What’s wrong, Mitch?”

He took a deep breath and sighed. “Nothin’ I won’t get over. Today is May 27, the same day my old man died in Ithaca. It hit me hard this time around.” He paused and looked up at the girl by the altar. “I think about him different now than I used to. I miss him.”

“I know how you feel. I miss my papa every day.”

“No, Z, that ain’t what I meant. You miss what you two had together. I miss what we never had until the very end, and then we just ran out of time. I only got to know him those last few months. Inside, I hated him most of my life, but in the end I got to know him. And I forgave him inside. Now I miss him and I can’t bring him back. It’s not fair, man.”

“I agree. There’s nothing fair about it.”

“And he died confused, Z. That ain’t fair either.”

“What do you mean, ‘confused’?”

“He never got rid of his guilt…and his regret.”

“Because he left you and your mama?”

“I think so, but you see, he’d done it before. He told me he did it twice in his life—once in Africa, and again a few years later in St. Louis. He spent several years with his family in Africa before he left, but he left St. Louis not long after I was born. He said I got a half sister somewhere. No doubt about it, he had a pile of regret. And you know what the saddest part is, Z? He never knew why. ‘I have searched my soul,’ he told me, ‘and I have never known why I did it—either time.’”

“That is sad, though he must have been happy to finally have you with him.”

“Yeah, he loved it. He had a hell of a life, Z. He was an engineer, a gambler, a preacher, and a professor. He quoted Walt Whitman all the time, and the Bible. He survived a shipwreck off West Africa and being captured by a desert warlord named El Heiba, then escaping with the daughter of a shaman. She was being held as a slave because El Heiba believed she had some kind of voodoo power. They made it out of the desert and cross-country all the way back to her village, where he lived with her and her people for years as man and wife. Wild stuff, man, but he lived it.”

Suddenly, I got a chill up my spine, not because of the story but because I’d heard it before—in Africa! The coincidence was too startling to be an accident. “Mitch, did your papa ever tell you the name of your half sister?”

“Yeah, he said it out loud one time. He whispered it. He called her ‘Emme.’” Before I could say anything, Mitch added, “I got a picture of him right here, Z. I took it myself about a week after I got to Ithaca.” He reached for his tuxedo jacket and withdrew a photograph from the inside pocket. “Here he is,” Mitch said, “that’s Cayuga Falls in the background.”

I looked at the snapshot and another strange coincidence occurred. I had seen the face in the photograph before. I had met the man in 1919, just as we were preparing to dock in New York. It was when we were bringing Star home, finally, after all those years in Africa, along with the bodies of Nicholas and Eder. I was walking the deck alone when a thin old black man asked me to watch his things while he stepped inside. I remembered the books he carried with him,
Leaves of Grass
and the Bible. His bookmark in the Bible was a train ticket to Ithaca, New York. Mitch’s father was the same man. I almost laughed out loud at the recognition, then realized where we were.

“Mitch,” I said, “you are not going to believe a couple of things I have to tell you.”

Just then, the wide doors behind us opened and I heard Josephine Baker’s voice saying, “
Merveilleux! Merveilleux!
What a church!”

Mitch and I both turned around. Mitch said, “Tumpy, what are you doin’ here?”

She wore her long silver gown with sequins and they sparkled in the half-light and shadows. She marched over to Mitch, speaking in exaggerated whispers. “Because, Mitch honey, we have decided that you need a night out and we won’t take no for an answer.” She stopped and looked down at Mitch in the pew. Pepito followed close behind her. She glanced his way. “Ain’t that so, Pepito? We all agreed, right?”

“
Sí, sí,
we all agreed,” Pepito said. He started to say more, but decided to light a cigarette instead. Josephine grabbed the cigarette out of his mouth before he could light it and stuffed it in his coat pocket without saying a word. She turned back to Mitch and flashed her biggest, widest grin. “Come on, you got to go, honey. What do you say?”

Mitch answered slowly and without much emotion. “Josephine, don’t take this personally, but I believe I’ll pass on this one.”

Josephine almost stamped her feet in frustration, then glanced at me for help.

“I think she’s right, Mitch,” I said. The sadness still filled his eyes.

Mitch looked away, toward the altar. “I just don’t feel like it, man. I just…I don’t know…I just…”

I heard the doors swing open behind us. I turned and Mercy Whitney walked through, dressed in an elegant crimson dress and wearing a skullcap similar to Josephine’s. She smiled when she saw us and hurried over. Ruby earrings dangled from her ears. Her lips were the same color as the rubies. “What a beautiful old church,” Mercy said. Mitch suddenly looked startled, as if a bell had rung. He turned in his pew instantly. His eyes found Mercy’s and Mercy’s found his. The exchange was and is one of the rarest moments in life and I was witness to it. I recognized it because I had experienced the same moment in China when Opari and I first looked into each other’s eyes. It is a split second of wonder, mystery, and magic. It is love at first sight. Unexpected and unprepared, and in the dim light of the church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, Mitchell Ithaca Coates and Mercy Whitney were given the flower of that moment. It came to them unasked and unannounced and in full bloom. I couldn’t help myself and laughed out loud with joy, despite where we were. Josephine Baker had also seen the exchange and joined in, understanding immediately what she had seen. Mitch and Mercy ignored us. Their eyes were locked. I watched Mitch’s eyes. I have never seen such a sincere and heartfelt sadness disappear so quickly. Finally, Mitch smiled and said, “I just changed my mind, Tumpy.”