XV Coming Together
1
RAIN ROARED. It washed away heat and grime, turned the air into flying, stinging gray. When lightning flashed, the hue became brief mercury, while thunder trampled down noise of motors, horns, water spurting from wheels. One bolt stabbed the new Empire State Building, but dissolved in the steel web under the masonry. Though the hour was early afternoon, headlights glimmered on cars and buses. Even mid town, pedestrians became few, trudging hunched beneath umbrellas or dodging from marquee to awning. Taxis were not to be had.
Uptown, Laurace Macandal’s street lay altogether bare. Ordinarily it bore life enough, and after dark bustled and glittered. Several night clubs had sprung up among the neighborhood’s modest tenements, small shops, and this old mansion she had renovated. Hard times or no, white folks still came to Harlem for jazz, dance, comedy, a little freedom from care such as they told each other Negroes were born to. Just now, everybody was inside, waiting out the weather.
She glanced at a clock and beckoned to one of the maids. “Listen well, Gindy,” she said. “You haven’t been long in service, and something very important will happen today. I don’t want you making mistakes.”
“Yes, Mama-lo.” Awe shivered in the girl’s voice.
Laurace shook her head. “That, for instance. I have told you before, I am only ‘Mama-lo’ at holy times.”
“I, I’m sorry, … ma’m.” Tears blurred sight of the woman who stood before the girl—a woman who looked young and yet somehow old as time; tall, slim, in a maroon dress of quiet elegance, a silver snake bracelet on her left wrist and at her throat a golden pendant whose intertwined circle and triangle surrounded a ruby; too dark to be called high yellow, but with narrow face, arched nose, hair straight and stiff. “I keeps forgettin’.”
Laurace smiled and reached to pat the maid’s hand. “Don’t be afraid, dear.” Her voice, which could be a trumpet, sang like a violin. “You’re young, with much to learn. Mainly I want you to understand that my visitor today is special. That’s why no men will be around except Joseph, and he’s to stay with the car. You will help in the kitchen. Don’t leave it. No, there is nothing wrong with the way you serve at table, and you’re prettier than Conchita, but she ranks higher. Rank must be earned, by service as well as faith and study. Your time will come, I’m sure. Mainly, Cindy, you are to keep silence. You may not speak a single word to anybody, ever, about who my guest was or anything else you might happen to see or hear. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’m.”
“Good. Now be off with you, child. Oh, and do work harder on your English. You’ll never get anywhere in the world unless you sound educated. Are educated. Master Thomas tells me you aren’t deing so well at arithmetic, either. If you need extra help, ask him for it. Teaching isn’t just his job, it’s his calling.”
“Y-yes, ma’m.”
Laurace inclined her head and half closed her big eyes, as if listening. “Your good angel hovers near,” she said. “Go in peace.”
The girl trotted off, pert in her starched uniform, radiant in her sudden joy.
Alone, Laurace prowled about, picked up objects, fiddled with them, put them down again. She had made this room Victorian, oak wainscots, heavy furniture, thick carpet and drapes, glass-fronted cabinets for carefully chosen curios, a shelf of books still more select, on top of which rested the white bust of a man who had been black. Electric bulbs in a glass chandelier were dim; rain’s twilight crowded close. The effect was impressive without being overly strange.
When, from a bow window, she saw the car she had dispatched arrive at the curb, she set restlessness aside and straightened. Most would depend on what impression she herself made.
The chauffeur got out, unfolded a large umbrella, came around to the right side and opened the rear door. He escorted his passenger to the porch, where he rang the bell for her. Laurace didn’t see that, but she heard and knew. She likewise knew of the two maids who received the visitor, took her coat, and guided her down the hall.