A Song Flung Up to Heaven Read online

  My mother’s Victorian house on Fulton Street was exactly as it had been when I left four years earlier. She had bought new rugs and added or changed some furniture, but the light still entered the tall windows boldly, and the air still held the dual scent of Tweed perfume and a slight hint of gas escaping from a very small aperture.

  I was encouraged to put my bags in my old bedroom and then to join Mother and Bailey in the vast kitchen for a sumptuous welcome-home.

  Mother told racy stories, and Bailey regaled me with Hawaiian songs and then gave me his interpretation of an island man’s hula. Mother brought out a recipe for Jollof rice that I had sent her from Ghana. She unfolded the letter and read, “Cook about a pound of rice, sauté a couple or three onions in not too much cooking oil for a while, then put in three or four or five right-sized tomatoes...”

  At this point in her recitation, Bailey began laughing. He was a professional chef in a swank Hawaiian hotel. The approximation of ingredients and cooking time amused him.

  “Dice some cooked ham in fairly large-sized pieces,” my mother continued, “and include with salt and cayenne pepper any leftover fried chicken into the tomato sauce. Heat through, then mix in with rice. Then heat quite a while.”

  We all laughed when Mother said she had followed the recipe exactly and that the dish was a smashing success.

  Bailey then told us stories about the tourists and their dining orders at his Waikiki hotel: “I’d like fried chicken and biscuits.” “Y’all have any short ribs and corn bread?”

  Mother telephoned friends, who dropped by to look at me and Bailey. Many spoke of us as if we weren’t in the room.

  “Vivian, she looks so good. I know you’re proud.” And “Well, Bailey didn’t grow any more, but he sure is a pretty little black thing.”

  The entire weekend was a riot of laughter, stories, memories awakened and relished in the bright sunlight. The specter of my distant son cast the only shadow. His arrogance and intractability were discussed, and my family put his behavior in its proper place.

  My mother said, “He’s a boy.”

  I said, “He thinks he is a man.” Mother said, “That’s the nature of the group. When they are boys, they want to be treated like men, but when they are gray-haired old coots, they go around acting like boys.” No one could argue with that. “Don’t worry about him. You have raised him with love. The fruit won’t fall too far from the tree.”

  The finality in her tone told me she was finished with the subject, but I wondered—what if the fruit fell and was picked up by a hungry bird? Wasn’t it possible that it could end up on a dung heap far away from the mother tree?

  These were the bleak moments in my homecoming that could not be brightened by Bailey’s quick wit or my mother’s hilarious homilies.

  I had been a journalist in Cairo, and Guy had finished high school there. We moved to Ghana, and when he recovered from a devastating automobile accident, he entered the university. Classrooms were not large enough to hold all of him. When I talked to him about the importance of grades, he patted my head and said, “I understand your interest, little Mother, but those are my concerns and my business. I’ll take care of them.”

  For two years, Guy weaned himself away from my nurture. He broke dates with me, and when I surprised him with an unannounced visit, he firmly let me know that I was not welcome.

  When I chose to return to the U.S. to work with Malcolm, I paid Guy’s tuition through his graduating year. I told him he could have all the freedom he required. In fact, I said I would give him Ghana.

  The paramount chief Nana Nketsi IV assured me that he would pay sharp attention to Guy; and the Genouds, who were childless, assured me that Guy would be like a son to them. They promised to give me a monthly report on how he was faring, so I should feel at ease.

  Of course I didn’t. From the moment I bought my ticket, guilt called out my name.

  Guy was nineteen, and I, who had been his shade since he was born, was leaving him under the broiling African sun. Each time I would try to speak with him about his future, he would cut me off. When I tried to talk about my departure, he curtly told me that indeed I should go home, to go and work with Malcolm. Guy was a man who was trying to live his own life.

  Three

  The golden morning was definitely a San Francisco Sunday. I dressed quickly and left the house. I had been home less than forty-eight hours, and already I had a creeping sensation that I should be moving on. My mother was comfortably encircled by her ring of friends and Bailey, who had shown me on Friday night how Hawaiian men enjoyed themselves, and on Saturday night how San Franciscans still did their weekend partying, was planning to return the next week to the Hawaiian Islands.

  The streets were empty. San Franciscans who hadn’t gone to church were sleeping off Saturday-night parties. I walked through parks and trudged up hills. At every peak, I was struck by the beauty that lay invitingly at the foot of the hill.

  I had not consciously considered a destination, but I found myself at the end of Golden Gate Park’s panhandle, and I realized that my mother’s close friend lived nearby.

  Aunt Lottie Wells had come to San Francisco from Los Angeles ten years earlier. She joined the family, became my friend and helped me to raise Guy. Her house was a smaller version of Mother’s home. Fresh-cut flowers were everywhere, reposing on highly polished tables beneath glistening mirrors.

  She said she knew I would visit her, so she hadn’t gone to church. She had a pan of biscuits in the oven and was ready to fold over one of her light-as-air omelettes. Lottie smiled, and I was glad that the spirit of wanderers, which lived with me, had brought me to her home.

  Her telephone rang as we were sitting down to the table. She answered it in the hall.

  She returned. “It’s Ivonne for you,” she said, grinning. “She called your house and your mother told her you would probably stop by here.”

  Ivonne was my first adult friend, and I knew we would spend some delicious hours talking about ourselves, the men we loved and the ones who got away. We had never been slow to give each other advice, although I didn’t remember either of us being quick to hearken to the other’s counsel.

  I picked up the phone. “Hey, girl. Where are you? How are you doing?”

  “Maya, girl, why did you come home? Why did you come back to this crazy place?”

  There was no cheer in her voice.

  “I came back because I think I have something to do.”

  She said, “These Negroes are crazy here. I mean, really crazy. Otherwise, why would they have just killed that man in New York?”

  I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it. I cradled it in my hands, looking at its dull black surface; then I laid it down on the hall table. Instead of returning to the dining room, I walked into a bedroom and locked the door.

  I didn’t have to ask. I knew “that man in New York” was Malcolm X and that someone had just killed him.

  Four

  Bailey’s anxious voice awakened me.

  “My. My. Open this door. Open it now.”

  At times when my life has been ripped apart, when my feet forget their purpose and my tongue is no longer familiar with the inside of my mouth, a touch of narcolepsy has befriended me. I have fallen asleep as an adored lover told me that his fancy had flown. When my son was severely injured in the automobile crash, I couldn’t eat and could barely talk, but I could fall asleep sitting on the straight-back metal hospital chairs beside his door.

  This time I woke up in a strange room knowing everything. I was still in Aunt Lottie’s house, and Malcolm was dead. I had returned from Africa to give my energies and wit to the OAAU, and Malcolm was dead.

  “Open this door, My. Wake up and open the damn door or I’ll break it down.”

  He would. I turned the lock.

  He looked at my face. “I’m sorry, baby. Go in the bathroom and wash up. I’m taking you somewhere. Somewhere important. Go on.”

  My bloated face and
swollen eyes told me I had cried, but I didn’t remember and didn’t want to remember.

  Bailey waited in the hall, holding my purse and jacket.

  “Here, take this. Put this on. Say good-bye to Aunt Lottie.”

  She took me in her arms. “So sorry, baby. So sorry.”

  My eyesight and my equilibrium failed me, so Bailey guided me down the hills. He always knew when and when not to talk. He remained silent as we walked out of the residential district and on to the Fillmore area. There, all the people who had been absent from the streets earlier were now very much present, but in ordinary ways. Shouts, conversation and laughter seemed to cascade out of every door. Customers left and entered grocery stores, absorbed in conversation. Men stood in front of saloons engaged in dialogue so private it needed to be whispered. I was shocked to see life going on as usual.

  I said to Bailey, “They don’t know.”

  Bailey grunted. “They know. They don’t care.”

  “What do you mean they don’t care? I can’t accept that. When they know that Malcolm has been killed, the people will riot. They’ll explode.”

  Bailey deftly steered me through the open door of the smoky Havana Bar, where the jukebox music vied with customers’ voices.

  I looked into the grinning faces and was stumped. In Ghana, I had read that the mood of unrest here was so great that the black community was like a powder keg that would take very little to detonate. But only hours after their champion had been killed, black men and women were flirting and drinking and reveling as if nothing had happened. Bailey ordered two drinks, and when the bartender slid them in front of us, my brother touched me with his elbow and asked the bartender, “Hey, man, you hear what happened to Malcolm X?”

  The bartender made a swiping gesture with the bill Bailey had laid down.

  “Well, hell, man. They shot him. You know they say, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

  He added ignorance to ignorance by pronouncing the “sw” in sword like the “sw” in the word “swear.”

  “How dare you...don’t you know what Malcolm X has done?”

  Bailey took my arm. “Thanks, man. Keep the change.”

  In seconds I was outside in the clear air, and Bailey was propelling me along Fillmore Street.

  “Come on. We’re going to Jack’s Tavern.”

  That historic saloon had been my mother’s hangout for years. The clientele tended to be older, more established, more professional. They would know the importance of Malcolm’s life and most certainly the importance of his death. I needed to be there quickly, so I began to walk a little faster.

  Bailey said, “Don’t set yourself up to be knocked down. Keep your expectations in control.”

  The night before, I had told him of my disappointment with Mother. She didn’t appreciate or even understand Malcolm and the struggle of black people for equality.

  I asked, “Does she think she’s liberated?”

  Bailey said, as if he had always known it, “Some folks say they want change. They just want exchange. They only want to have what the haves have, so they won’t have it anymore. Now, Mom is not like that. She just wants to be left alone. She thinks if no one gets in her way, she can get her freedom by herself. She doesn’t want even Martin Luther King to tell her where her liberation lies—and certainly not Malcolm X.”

  When we walked into Jack’s Tavern, we were greeted by Mother’s friends.

  “Well, Vivian’s children came from the ends of the earth to see about their old mother.”

  Another voice came from near the bar: “Better not let Vivian hear you call her old.”

  Someone answered, “If anybody tells her I said it, I’ll deny it to my dying day.”

  “How are you all doing?”

  One of the oldest regulars told the bartender, “Set them up. Their money’s no good in here.”

  I was relieved to find Trumpet still tending bar. He had been a pal of mine during the lean days when I was studying and teaching dance, trying to raise my son, keep my love affairs intact and live on one grain of rice and a drop of water. We had spent long hours as buddies, talking about the ways of the world.

  I said, “Trumpet, I know you heard about Malcolm.”

  “Naw, baby. When did you come home? Good-looking old tall long-legged girl.”

  “Trumpet, Malcolm is dead. Somebody shot him.”

  Trumpet stood up straight. “Really? No, that’s awful. Awful news. Sorry to hear that. When did you get home? How was Africa?”

  Bailey said to me, “Get your drink. Let’s sit down at a table.”

  I followed him. He must have seen that at the moment, I was quite soberly going mad.

  “You know, of course, that you can’t go back to New York. With Malcolm dead, there is no OAAU, and you can’t start one or restart his on your own. You wouldn’t know who to trust. Accusations are going to be flying thick as grits, and that is no place for you.”

  Bleakness and grief welled up in me, and I started to cry.

  Bailey said, “Stop that. What happened to you in Africa? Did you forget? You can’t let people see you cry in public. That’s like laying your head down on a chopping block in the presence of an executioner.

  “Now, you want the black people to rise up and riot. Don’t count on it. Nothing’s going to happen right away. I mean nothing. But after a while, a white man is going to step on a black woman’s toe, and we’ll have a civil war again.”

  I asked, “What can I do? I don’t want to go back to Africa. You say don’t go to New York. I hate San Francisco right now.”

  “Come back to Honolulu with me. Aunt Leah is there. You can stay with her for a while.”

  My mother’s only sister was an evangelist in Oahu, and I didn’t take much comfort in Bailey’s invitation.

  “You can go back to singing in nightclubs. A lot of new places have opened since you were last there.”

  He continued talking, but I stopped listening and began concentrating on regaining my self-control.

  “Maya. Maya.” He spoke softly, and for the first time his voice was heavy with sympathy. “Baby, let me tell you what’s going to happen. In a few years, there are going to be beautiful posters of Malcolm X, and his photographs will be everywhere. The same people who don’t give a damn now will lie and say they always supported him. And that very bartender, the one with the sword”—Bailey mispronounced the word as the bartender had done—“he will say, ‘Malcolm was a great man. I always knew he was a great man. A race man. A man who loved his people.’”

  I looked at my brother, who was always the wisest person I knew, and wondered if he could possibly be wrong this time.

  When we returned home Mother had the grace to give me her sympathy.

  “I didn’t care for his tactics, but nobody should be shot down like a yard dog. I know he was your friend, baby, and I’m sorry. I want you to know I’m sorry he was killed.”

  It took me two days to reach Ghana by telephone, and when I did, Guy’s voice was hardly audible. He spoke through the crackle of international static.

  “I hope you’ll enjoy Hawaii, Mom. I was sorry about Malcolm.” Then he said, “I am very well. I’m doing fine, and school is fine.”

  What else could or would he say?

  “I’ve been back to the hospital, and I can play football now.”

  In the automobile crash years earlier, Guy had broken his neck and spent six months in a torso cast. He healed, but I doubted seriously that he had been given medical clearance to play any full-contact sport.

  “Yes, Mother, of course I miss you.”

  He didn’t.

  “Mom.” His voice began to fade, but for the first time I heard my son’s true voice. “Mom, I’m really sorry about Malcolm. We held a vigil in Accra...Really, really sorry.”

  Thousands of air miles and millions of Atlantic waves sandwiched my son’s voice, and I could no longer hear him, but I was satisfied. We had lived so close together that through his n
ormal teenage bravado and his newly learned air of male superiority, I could translate him into my mother language fluently. Despite the static and the pauses when the line went dead, despite the faintness of his voice and the loud buzzing that never stopped, the call was, for me, a huge success.

  I learned from what he said and what he didn’t say that he was living the high life, the very high life. In fact, he was glad that he had been invited to the world party and that there was no mother around to give him curfew hours. He was going to school and enjoying the competition and the open forum for debate, because he was always eager for argument. He missed me, but not in the sense that he wished me back in Ghana. He missed me just because I had left a vacuum. He was glad for the opportunity to furnish the vacuum with his own chosen baubles.

  Generally, he was happy in his fortified city of youth. And if a cold breeze blew over the ramparts, he had his bravado to keep him warm.

  He was sincerely sorry about Malcolm. He was so near the sacred and fearful grail of black manhood that any man of color who faced the threat of life with courage, and intellect, and wit, was his hero. He included among his paladins Mahatma Gandhi, Paul Robeson, Nelson Mandela, Mao Tse-tung, Hannibal, Robert Sobukwe and Martin Luther King, Jr. However, Malcolm X topped the list. Guy himself had lost an ideal, so he felt sincere sympathy for me. He knew I had lost a friend.

  Five

  The San Francisco streets bore out Bailey’s predictions. Life was so mundane that I was plunged into despair.

  Why were black people so indifferent? Were we unfeeling? Or were we so timid that we were afraid to honor our dead? I thought what a pathetic people we were.

  American blacks were acting as if they believed “A man lived, a man loved, a man tried, a man died,” and that was all there was to that.

  Papers ran pictures of the handsome Malcolm before the assassination alongside the photo of his bloody body, with his wife, Betty, leaning over her beloved on her knees, frozen in shock.