Josephine Baker's Last Dance Page 5

  “What about?”

  She said she didn’t remember, daring to glance at him. At the sight of his face, she relaxed: surely, those were not the eyes she’d seen last night; his was not the face that had threatened to devour her. “It might have been a ghost,” she said.

  “A ghost.” He cleared his throat. “Can I tell you a secret?” The house was haunted, he said in a low voice. He’d seen a ghost several times but had never told Mrs. Mason because he didn’t want to frighten her. He was convinced the ghost was harmless—it had never hurt him, or even tried to. There was no reason to be afraid. Okay? And remember, this was their secret. He knew he could count on her.

  After supper that night, Mr. Mason came into the kitchen, where Josephine was drying dishes.

  “I’m concerned about you, Tumpy,” he said. He stepped closer to her. His eyes narrowed, his face pointed now, like a fox’s.

  She opened a drawer and threw in a handful of silverware. Why was he looking at her that way? She felt like a small animal trapped in his hungry stare—a memory flashed—something clawed at her gut. “I’m fine,” she mumbled, then turned and sped away, him following, saying, “Remember our secret.” She made her way blindly to the bathroom, where she stared into the mirror. Big eyes stared back at her, frightened eyes.

  Premonition trickled down her spine, slow and cold. That ghost would come back tonight. It would stand by her bed again and moan her name and clutch at itself and maybe it would devour her with its mouth instead of its eyes.

  That evening, she could barely concentrate on her homework. When Mrs. Mason had asked the same question three times with no answer from Josephine, she put her hand on the girl’s forehead. Was she not feeling well?

  Josephine closed her eyes. Her dread of being sent home, to Arthur and his drunken rages, to Mama and her mood swings, to a bed filled with siblings and a house swarming with vermin, made her press her lips together and turn away. One word could break the spell of this fairy-tale life, might dissipate the sparkling mist and cause it to slip away like yesterday’s dreams. But when the mistress said good night and suggested she go to bed early—“Let me tuck you in, poor thing, you seem so tired”—Josephine found she could not move.

  “Mrs. Mason, is this house haunted?” She held her breath.

  A crease appeared, like a tiny scar, between the mistress’s eyes. “Why, Tumpy, what a question. Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “No reason.”

  She gave Josephine’s arm a squeeze. “You’re ill, honey. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  Mr. Mason poked his head into the dining room. “That’s where I’m headed. Want me to tuck you in, Tumpy?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure? I’m on my way up.”

  “I have some homework to finish.”

  He gave the mistress a peck on the cheek. “Coming up, dear?” he asked. She said she wanted to read for a little while. Mr. Mason touched the top of Josephine’s head as he passed, saying good night, and went up the stairs. Doom, doom, doom, went his heavy shoes.

  “Tumpy, you really ought to go to bed. Don’t worry about your homework. You can stay home from school tomorrow.” Mrs. Mason stood. “Come on, sweetie. I’ll take you.”

  “No!” She yanked her arm out of the mistress’s reach.

  “Tumpy! What is wrong?” She sat down again. “You can tell me, dear.”

  Josephine wavered. Would Mrs. Mason think she was crazy? Would she become frightened, as Mr. Mason had warned? Would the Masons send her home if she told what she’d seen?

  “A ghost came into my room last night,” she finally whispered.

  “A ghost!” Mrs. Mason gave a little laugh. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Tumpy. It must have been shadows that you saw. It was a windy night, remember? And a full moon outside.”

  “It was a ghost. It stood by my bed and stared down at me.”

  “It did?” Hearing a note of doubt, Josephine told her the details: how the ghost had stared at her and moaned her name and panted like a dog.

  “I thought it was Mr. Mason at first, but then it went out and closed the door, and you and Mr. Mason always leave it cracked open for me.”

  “You thought it was. . . Mr. Mason? Why?”

  “Because it looked like him. Except for the eyes. I have never seen eyes like that.”

  “It looked like Mr. Mason?” She sounded like she needed to swallow. She pressed her hand to her throat and stared at Josephine. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner about the ghost?”

  “Mr. Mason told me not to. He said you would be scared.”

  Mrs. Mason closed her eyes.

  Please don’t let them send me home, Josephine prayed. But also: I just want to go home.

  When the mistress spoke again, her voice sounded different, more like a man’s than a woman’s, low and strong.

  “Tumpy, thank you for telling me. It helps me a lot, to understand some . . . things. Now, I wonder if you will help me catch this ghost.”

  Mrs. Mason laid out her plan: she would linger, listening, near Josephine’s bedroom door. If the ghost came into her room, she was to scream with all her might, at the top of her lungs, and the mistress would burst into the room and catch it.

  “Can you be brave and do this for me?” Mrs. Mason said.

  She took Josephine up to the bathroom to brush her teeth, then into her room and helped her change into her pajamas. She tucked her in, gave her a hug, and walked out the door, leaving it cracked open. Josephine lay in the dark and waited for the creak of the door hinge, for the shuffle of shoes on the floor, for the sounds of panting and the fierce glow of mad-hungry eyes. Mrs. Mason had not talked of sending her home—was that good or bad? She felt torn inside, and clawed by yearning for her mother. She folded her arms around herself and waited. . . .

  And felt a sudden chill as the covers of her bed rose up and a dark shape slid between the sheets. “Tumpy,” it murmured, and slid its hand down her body, fingers slipping under her nightgown and pressing into her thigh. She tried to squirm away, but its other arm clamped across her chest, pressing her into the mattress as its mouth began to suck at her neck. The ghost was devouring her! A shudder ran through her body and rose to her throat in a scream that pierced the night for just a moment before the ghost’s hand stifled her mouth.

  “Don’t be afraid,” it whispered. “I’m going to make you feel good.”

  The bedroom door crashed open, revealing Mrs. Mason standing in the doorway. The ghost leaped from the bed and flew out the door without even touching the mistress, who stood like a wraith, herself, against the backlight, her hair unpinned, her body frozen. Was she dead? Josephine began to cry.

  “It will be all right,” Mrs. Mason murmured, not dead, scooping Josephine into her arms and cradling her against her breast, holding her close and rocking her on the bed. “It will be all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.” And then she climbed into Josephine’s bed next to her and held her tight while they slept, riding together the storm-tossed tides of night.

  BUT WHAT HAD bound them also tore them apart. The next afternoon, her eyes like dark holes in her face, Mrs. Mason took Josephine home, telling Mama that it wasn’t safe for her at the Masons’ house anymore.

  Mama simpered and flapped her hands as she scurried about their little place, putting a pot of water on to boil for some coffee, offering the mistress a chair. Beside her, Josephine waited for a hug or kiss or even a “Welcome home,” but her mother never even looked at her, and Daddy Arthur just lay on the couch, not even bothering to sit up when she and Mrs. Mason walked in. She supposed it was a shock, seeing her like this, two suitcases in hand full of her clothes and two more in Mrs. Mason’s grasp containing the costumes and props for her “performances,” which the mistress had said she could keep.

  “What has she done now?” Mama finally looked at Josephine, but not with the love she’d imagined, not even when the mistress assured her that Josephine had done nothing wrong.
She pulled a handful of bills from her purse and thrust them at Mama. When Mrs. Mason had given Josephine a final hug and, her eyes full of tears, gone out the door, Josephine’s mother turned to her, her eyes snapping.

  “How could you let go of such a wonderful opportunity?”

  Josephine told her about the ghost’s nocturnal visits and how she and the mistress had captured it. Mrs. Mason had promised her it wouldn’t come back, but when she got home from school the mistress was singing a different tune. She and Mr. Mason had talked it over, she said, and she now realized that she could not guarantee Josephine’s safety. “I’m sorry, but I have to take you home.”

  Josephine had all but danced her way out that door, thinking of her brother and sisters, her beautiful mother with the jasmine perfume, the bed full of kids with nowhere underneath for a ghost to hide. She would never have to sleep alone again—unless Mama sent her away to serve another white family. But she was nearly ten years old now, and tall for her age, and strong from her years of hard work, and she knew that she could make her mother glad to have her back. All she needed was money.

  Now, under the glaring light of Mama’s disapproval, she struggled to redeem herself.

  “It looked like Mr. Mason, which scared me even more, but it wasn’t him, I know. Because Mr. Mason never closes the bedroom door, but the ghost did.”

  From the sofa, Daddy Arthur snorted and sat up to laugh at her.

  “A ghost?” he said, fumbling for his bottle on the floor, twisting off the lid, and taking a big swig. “A ghost? Girl, you are a damned fool. You ain’t seen no ghost.”

  “Mrs. Mason saw it, too. She saw it in bed with me, and how it flew away when she got there.”

  “Ghost, my ass,” Daddy Arthur said. “What’s a ghost doing opening and closing doors, when it could pass right through? Why’s a ghost hiding under the bed when it can make itself invisible?”

  Her face felt hot, to be laughed at. “What was it, then?”

  “Mr. Mason, wanting some of what you’ve got.” Mama crossed her arms. “And you too stupid to see it, and here we are again. With nothing.”

  ACT II

  * * *

  Il Était Une Fois (Once Upon a Time)

  “Josephine at twelve,” as the program says, skips onto the stage, licking an ice cream cone and twirling around, smiling and carefree, looking nothing like the frizzy-haired, wild-hearted girl she used to be.

  As a girl of twelve, Josephine worked for money every minute she could, not only cleaning houses for white women in the wealthy neighborhoods but also, more often, playing with the Jones Family Band on Market Street, blowing with all her might into a slide trombone while Dyer Jones and her trumpet made the crowds fall down in bliss like the walls of Jericho. At twelve, Josephine skipped school most days to spend her time at the Booker T, where she helped the female impersonators put on their makeup and clothes, played with the dogs and cats in the animal acts, learned from the clowns how to make funny faces, and watched Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Ethel Waters, and so many other women with voices like heartache sing and wail and moan and shout audiences to their feet and to their knees.

  Thirteen, though, was when life really started happening. Thirteen was the ticket to everything.

  CHAPTER 4

  1919

  “You must be a rich girl, turning down free ice cream,” Mr. Dad would say, looking none too happy. Girls would giggle as they sat on Mr. Dad’s knee in exchange for a scoop of chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or the exotic, weirdly green pistachio, Josephine’s favorite. Even though she never had much money, Josephine always paid for her ice cream, ghostly memories keeping her far from Mr. Dad’s hands.

  Nothing was free. She knew that now. Not the pretty clothes Mr. Mason’s money had bought her, not the toys, and certainly not the affection she’d accepted like a starveling, as if love were a gift instead of something she had to earn.

  When Daddy Arthur took her and her sisters out for ice cream, he bantered with Mr. Dad and plopped Willie Mae onto the man’s lap. When she tried to squirm free, Mr. Dad’s fingers clamped down on her skinny leg, holding her in place while he asked her what flavor she wanted. Showing his crooked teeth like the big, bad wolf, he sent Josephine behind the counter to scoop some strawberry ice cream into a dish and bring it over.

  “I want some,” he said, flaring his big nostrils—like holes poked by a child’s fingers in his puffy face—when Willie Mae started licking her treat. “Give me some of that sweet stuff.” Josephine could almost hear Elvira’s snort. It ain’t ice cream he wants.

  After Willie Mae, Margaret sat in his lap for chocolate, and then he turned his eyes to Josephine. She resisted the urge to hide behind Arthur’s broad back.

  “Go on, Tumpy,” Daddy Arthur said, nudging her forward. “You love ice cream.”

  “She sure does,” Mr. Dad said. “I have never seen a child who liked it so well. Comes in three times a week and always for pistachio. Nobody else will eat it, but she laps it up like a pussy cat.” Looking at his bulging belly and creased neck, Josephine could have told him he ought to lay off the stuff, but she knew better than to sass-mouth an adult. He eased Margaret off his leg and patted his knee, his gaze telling her he knew she would refuse, the same as she had always done.

  “Stubborn child,” he said when she stood motionless, her arms folded across her budding chest. “I reckon she loves her pride more than she loves free ice cream.”

  “I brought money for mine,” she said, digging into her pocket for her last nickel. Margaret, meanwhile, had already gobbled her scoop and stood waiting by the door.

  “That girl has always got money,” Mr. Dad said to Arthur as he stood. “Where does she come by all that loot?”

  “I work for it,” she said, staring him down. The two years she’d spent performing with the Jones Family Band had shown her how to earn it—by giving people something to love you for. Their audiences swooned at Mrs. Jones’s feet as she’d played that trumpet, making them feel so good with her music that they’d showered her with coins, cheered and hollered and gazed at her with adoring eyes. Someday, folks would do the same for Josephine—but first, she had to get good at something.

  She had become a passable trombonist, but her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted to sing, but Mrs. Jones wouldn’t let her, saying they wanted to attract people, not send them away. Only when she danced did folks toss coins at her, and even then it was almost all pennies. But her mama didn’t like her performing with the Jones Family Band, saying it wasn’t “respectable.”

  “You work for it? Is that so?” Mr. Dad looked at Daddy Arthur, who said it was. “I tell you what, then. I could use somebody in my shop who can do a job, and who won’t eat up all my merchandise. Why don’t you come to work for me?”

  AND SO HERE she was scooping ice cream until her hands turned numb with cold and her arms and back got sore. Your dream job, Arthur had said, slapping her on the back as they’d left the store. Did he really believe that? And Mama, so proud: A real job, and you got it all by yourself! As if she’d done something extraordinary by getting hired when really Mr. Dad was just looking for a way to get his nasty hands on her.

  Pinching her earlobe, tweaking her nose, touching her waist as he squeezed through the narrow space behind the counter. Coming up behind her as she washed glasses and sliding his fingers down her arms. Tickling her ribs. And always, always, every time she walked past him, trying to pull her onto his lap. She pretended not to notice, because now she needed the job.

  The Joneses had gone on the circuit, performing on the “Strawberry Road,” so called because they picked up shows the way people picked strawberries: one here, one there. She’d accompanied them the previous summer, when she was twelve, traveling in Mr. Jones’s horse-drawn cart from town to flea-bitten town, “gigging to the gig,” he’d said. Mr. Jones’s horse and cart were a sweet chariot coming to carry Josephine home, which was wherever the music played. Josephine practicing on her horn while t
hey rattled along in the wagon; Doll bowing and plucking at her fiddle in the camps, sparking impromptu jams of “Shortenin’ Bread” or “Old Joe Clark,” people dancing in the sultry starlight. It was the most wonderful summer she’d ever known, music and dance and laughter every day and night until she’d fall into a ghostless dream of sleep, lullabied by the music that pulsed in her body until morning came, and it was time to get up and do it again.

  That was a dream job, not standing until her feet hurt behind a counter in a cramped, cold space and pushing a metal scoop against rock-hard ice cream until her arms ached. Making things worse was the clothing she had to wear, a shapeless uniform shirt that she’d had to buy out of her first week’s pay and that she removed as soon as she left the shop.

  “Have a cone on me,” Mr. Dad said, flashing his wolfish teeth, patting his knee. Josephine pretended not to hear him as she walked out the door, peeling off the ugly uniform to reveal her dress, drop-waisted in the new style, of navy blue with red and yellow flowers and a white collar accented with a big red bow—her Easter dress bought new with her own money, giving her such pleasure that it almost made up for Mr. Dad’s dog breath and pawing hands. He couldn’t touch her anymore today, and tomorrow she didn’t work, and now the evening beckoned, offering music and dancing and flirtations as she and her friend Helen sipped their Coca-Colas and giggled at the Concordia Club Dance Hall.

  But it was still daylight, too early for the Concordia, so they strolled down to Market Street. At Union Station, a crowd of folks cheered and waved flags in welcome to the men in military uniforms stepping off the train, home from the war at last.

  “Look at that one.” Helen pointed out a tall, broad-shouldered man with light skin and eyes like a cat’s, green and slanted. He moved like a cat, too, slithering and sleek, shoulders leading his tapering waist and legs like every step was a dance move. Josephine had never seen anyone so good-looking and he had never seen a girl like her, either, judging from the way he was looking at her now.