Lester blinks, but picks up quick. He’s used to how Sadie’s mind works.
“Well, Miss Sadie, Mr. Garvey say let Europe be for the Europeans and Africa for the Africans. That way we make a home for ourselves.”
“I got a home right here,” Chef says, lighting a Chesterfield. “Bled and fought for it. Still fighting. I ain’t going nowhere.”
“Won’t argue that,” Lester says. “But we could do great things in Africa. Restore the colored race to our greatness, like in times past.”
“What you mean, greatness in times past?” Sadie asks, pouring more whiskey.
“I’m meaning the time colored people ruled the world.”
Sadie squints. “Colored folk ruled the world? When that happen?”
“You ain’t read that in your tabloids?” Chef snarks.
“Oh yes, Miss Sadie! The old Negro empires in ancient times. There’s this colored woman in Oklahoma, Drusilla Houston? She writing a book on how the Ethiopians and Cushites was the first people on Earth. She say at one time the whole world was colored and—”
“If the whole world was colored,” Sadie interjects, “how white folk come about?”
Lester looks stumped, but recovers quick. “Well, some say white folk was the first albinos. But I don’t think it so. I read that book by that fella on evolution—”
“Darwin!” Sadie exclaims. “I know him!”
“Yes! Well, Darwin say animals change over time. So I’m thinking, why not people? Maybe white folk was colored, and they got paler like they do when they get scared. Or cold. You ain’t never seen white folk pale like they got up north. Either they scared all the time or it’s the cold.”
For a while Sadie says nothing, glass held to her lips but not drinking. That means she turning something big over in her head. When she talks, it’s almost a whisper.
“You telling me, white folk is niggers?”
That leaves Lester speechless.
Chef shakes her head. “Lord, you done started something now.”
“Well, Miss Sadie … I suppose … Not how I would put it…”
“White folk is niggers!” Sadie repeats, slamming her glass hard enough to make Lester jump. “This whole time, they putting on and acting high and mighty! But they just niggers who stayed in the cold too long! Bet that’s why they so mean. Know deep down they come out that same jungle—that the nigger they made up in their heads right under they own skin! Oh, fix your face, Maryse, I’m using the small n.” She fills up Lester’s glass and thrusts it at him. “Tell me more about these Cushees—”
“Cushites,” he corrects.
“Yeah, them. I want to know all about this long-ago time when the world was colored.” She sips her whiskey slow. “Talk right and I just might break my rule.”
Lester sits straight up like his number just hit.
I’m wondering how I’m going to endure the coming conversation when the twang of a guitar sounds, chased by a harmonica’s whine. The piano man back on his keys, and a lady in a white dress next to him starts clapping and singing. Her voice rides the air strong as a current, lifting folk off their feet. Seem the whole joint is up at once, pairing off and pulling partners into a space opened up for dancing. Chef and Bessie are gone before I can blink. Sadie and Lester follow, though she come back to snatch the whiskey bottle, leaving me alone. Well, that won’t do.
Downing my whiskey, I get to my feet, maneuvering through hugged-up bodies and swaying hips, all shedding the pain, labors, and trials of their days. A few men—long past drunk—try to stop me, but I slip away easy. The one fool that grabs my arm, I set a look on him so fierce he don’t know if I’m God or the devil, and he lets go quick.
I find Michael George still near the bar, two women trying to entice him to dance. When he sees me, he excuses himself, leaving them to pout.
“You just gon’ have me sitting at that table like some old maid?”
He smiles. “You with your friends dem. I doh want to bother you.”
“I’ll let you know when you bothering me,” I answer, stepping closer. His arms slip around my waist and without another word that music snatches us up, willing us to lose ourselves to it, like it got its own magic. For a brief moment all thoughts of Ku Kluxes and bad premonitions fade away. So that there’s nothing but the music and all of us being baptized in its healing. It’s more than I can take.
I reach up to whisper, “You need somebody else to lock up.” He looks at me one time before signaling to the bartender. Love I ain’t got to tell him twice, and I’m already pulling him up the stairs.
By the time we reach his room, we done stopped to trade breathy kisses half a dozen times, hands slipping into and out of each other’s clothes, undoing things and treading across skin. Whole time he begging like a man starving.
“Maryse girl. I miss you too bad. You mustn’t leave so again. Promise me nah?”
I don’t make promises. But I plan to let him know just how much I missed him. He barely gets the door closed before I’m pulling off his vest, his shirt, trying not to break a button. Don’t recall how I end up on top the tiger oak tallboy, pressed against the mirror, marigold dress pushed to my waist. He unbuttoning his pants when I stop him.
“Been a long two weeks and a hell of a day. I need you to do that thing.”
He runs a precious tongue on his teeth. “You doh even have to ask.”
When he makes to bend down, I stop him again. “And talk that creole talk.”
That pretty smile again. “Wi. Chansè pou mwen, mwen enmen manjè èpi mwen enmen palè. Kitè mwen di’w on sigwè…”
I got no idea what he saying, but it make every bit of me tingle. I will my mind to go easy, listening to the music downstairs, whispering his name and telling him how bad I need this. When his lips start up that creole talk between my thighs, I arch my back and do my own set of singing.
* * *
I know I’m dreaming. Because I’m wearing fighting clothes—shirt, knickers, gaiters, and Oxfords. And standing in my old house. It’s always night here. All night forever. The house is a cabin outside Memphis. Year after the Civil War, white folk in Memphis went wild, lynching any colored man in blue for a soldier, burning colored houses and schools. My great-granddaddy escaped by leaving his Union uniform behind. Built a house way out here, fleeing that terror and white folks’ madness.
It just like I left it, seven years back, looking like a whirlwind passed through. Ain’t but one room, and I step over furniture and broken pots, kneeling down to lay my ear to the floor. Breathing comes, fast and deep. I trace fingers along the floorboards to catch fine grooves, lifting the almost unseen hatch.
The girl staring up at me got my eyes, though be a while before she grows into them. She shaking so hard under her nightshirt I can hear her teeth chattering, and the fear rolling off her stank enough I can taste its bitter. I push it back, studying her rounded lips, how the edges of her nose flares, the fat round her cheeks, and the way her plaited hair blends into the black of the small space. Like looking into a mirror of yesterdays.
“Not enough you bothering me when I gotta fight, now you in my dreams too?”