The Gilda Stories (18 page)

Aurelia looked puzzled but relieved to hear Gilda's strange reassurances.

Sitting before the clean sheets of writing paper, Gilda still found no words that would contain everything neatly. She held deep sorrow and fierce optimism together in her heart. Their combination with love and desire refused to be defined by the words Gilda knew. But she wanted to leave something for Aurelia to hold on to, something that made Aurelia as certain as she was of her need to move on. She wanted to leave Aurelia an understanding that stood larger than their immediate sadness and Aurelia s sense of rejection. Only the truth could do that. Gilda decided to do something she'd been warned against by both Sorel and Bird—to break silence with someone outside the family. She did this for Aurelia's sake and for her own. Trust had to follow the path cut by love.

Gilda grasped her pen tightly, spilling the legends that become reality across the page. She opened up her past as far as she could remember it, back to the dark comfort of her mother's Fulani face. She had never spoken or written these words for any but herself—words that said she was different from them all, a part of them yet apart from them. She wanted to leave Aurelia with hope, an honest hope, born of who they really were.

Gilda laid the secret open with great detail. She described her first bath, the scent of her mother's sweat, the feel of Bird's arm around her waist, the sound of laughter from the women at Woodard's, the thrill of moving beside the wind and how the smell of wind had changed in the years since she'd taken to the road. She even described the rush of life she felt as she shared the blood, leaving dreams in exchange. She told of mourning friends and family long dead. And of her fear of not dying, of not being one with the universe again.

Her secret had been kept as a protection against others' fear. The telling left Gilda lighter, ready to meet Bird again. The familiar stir inside her was not simply restlessness but anticipation. She needed no map now. Gilda folded Aurelia's letter into its envelope and looked to the east.

Gilda sat turning idly in her beautician's chair, listening to the news on the radio, waiting for her last customer. She watched the lights through the venetian blinds as cars sped frantically up and down Massachusetts Avenue and listened to the voices of women and men shouting to each other over the noise of car radios. Her shop sat at the edge of a row of stoops and row houses that tumbled up Mass. Ave.—as it was usually called—to where it arced over the B & M Railroad tracks. On this side of the tracks black barbers, morticians, factory workers, housekeepers, musicians, and prostitutes worked and lived. The South End of Boston gave way, at the railroad overpass, to the Back Bay—quieter, whiter, asleep by this time except for the university professor or doctor who slipped from his brownstone home to prowl the South End for drugs, music, or women. In the past ten years this transitional neighborhood had become her home.

Savannah rapped on the locked door, the clanging of her bangled bracelets overwhelming the simple tap of her fingers on the glass. Gilda rose and recoiled the lock, genuinely pleased to see one of her favorite people. The shiny copper color of Savannah's round face was topped by her crowning glory: a thick head of hair that she kept bleached white. She'd seen a picture of an aboriginal tribes-man in a
National Geographic
and was seduced by the dark skin in contrast to the stark plainness of sun-bleached hair. Seven years ago, when she'd pulled the photograph from her handbag, Gilda peered first at the bronze-and-white figure, then at Savannah. She smiled like an artist embarking on a masterpiece.

Savannah's impulse had been correct. The look was striking and elegant, both qualities necessary to her business. Gilda stood watch over Savannah's emerging roots like an obsessive gardener, keeping the hair white from root to tip. Even now between touch-ups it gleamed around her smooth brown face like a medieval halo. Gilda wasn't sure of Savannah's age—her use of language and the memories she shared with Gilda indicated she'd been in Boston for at least fifteen years. But her skin was that of a twenty-year-old, soft, moist, shining from an innocence that was only betrayed by the skepticism in her eyes. It was in this odd blend of youth and age that Gilda and Savannah found an immediate commonality.

“You mind if I turn this shit off? I can't stand listening to that Eisenhower. Everything he say sound like a golf score: dull!”

With that Savannah snapped the radio off, not waiting for Gilda's reply, tossed her mink jacket onto the chair in the beautician's booth across from Gilda's, and plopped her full body down as if she were coming home from work rather than just beginning her evening.

“I'ma tell you, girl, don't listen to a thing they got to say. It's all lies. I know, 'cause I see 'em up close, if you can understand me. Close up and they be lyin' and don't even know it. Politicians read it off a piece of paper like the gospel and they don't even know who wrote it. Watch what they be doin', fuck what they be sayin'! Just like Moms Mabley say: ‘Watch the cars, damn the lights. The lights ain't never hit nobody!' ”

That began an unstoppable stream of conversation as Gilda washed and massaged Savannah's head. She worked casually, shampooing and conditioning while Savannah rambled on. She never forgot any incident in her life, leaping back and forth between the latest schemes of Skip, her youthful pimp, and memories of her mother's cooking years ago in Gulfport, Mississippi.

It was another bond Gilda felt with Savannah but had never acknowledged. Although she had not been back to Mississippi since the day she'd made her escape from the plantation, she carried the soil with her, and its scent made it real to her still. Her friendship with Savannah rested on the earth from which they'd come, the place where their many mothers had first been bent beneath the yoke.

Gilda closed her eyes and felt her mother's hands combing and braiding her hair. She remembered the sharp tugs and the pull of her scalp as the hair was caught back in the thick braids running like rows of corn across her scalp. Then the touch was Bird's, who had unbraided the rows and brushed the thick dark mass into one long, tight braid ending at the back of her neck. Their hands had been hard, worker hands; self-sufficient hands that still knew how to be tender. Gilda used gentle strokes to untangle the glistening white of Savannah's hair. Its color was a profound contrast to the luminescent red that had framed Eleanor's face. Although she was sad to know she'd never see the light entangled in those curls again, Gilda found that her fondness for Savannah and others in her present began to outshine that past.

Savannah's ability to carry on conversation under any circumstance amazed Gilda. She talked while Gilda dried, straightened, and curled, rarely asking questions. A brief moment of silence was broken by a loud knock on the glass door. Gilda set the curling iron back in its cradle and turned down the flame impatiently. She hated to have her rhythm interrupted, as well as her own reverie. The knock came again, louder this time. She opened the door to a man whose face was familiar. His eyes darted around the shop with an intensity that could have penetrated the partitions separating the booths.

Although she couldn't remember his name, Gilda said, in the easy voice used in the shops and bars along Massachusetts Avenue, “So what can I do for you, my good man?”

She saw that this was not a casual visit. Gilda maintained a steady gaze and a slight smile.

“Lookin' for Toya,” the tall man said, pushing past Gilda into the shop. Savannah sat forward, her head poking out of the booth. Her hair was curled neatly in rows on one side and standing erect and straight on the other. The flash in her eyes made her resemble a rare bird in captivity as she snapped, “Why don't you leave that gal alone?”

“Why don't you mind your business, bitch!” His voice was flat, and he didn't look directly at her but around at the empty booths. “She said she was coming here to have her hair done.” The lie was clear in the air.

Gilda remembered the girl who always wore her shiny long curls tied back in a ponytail or covered incongruously with a thick blonde or red wig. Under the mass of hair there were always the wary eyes.

“Well, you can see she's not here,” Gilda said.

“If she shows up you tell her she's better off just getting her ass back up to Dale Street. Fox ain't as mad as he's gonna be. He ain't talking about breakin' nothin' yet.” He grinned with a slyness that made his face resemble a rodent's.

The chilling look made Gilda want to smash him. Instead she widened her smile and stepped closer.

Savannah drawled, “Aw, leave him alone, Gilda, he ain't nobody. Just one of Fox's punks.”

“How'd you like to end up in a hospital room? We could even make it a double for you and that junky faggot who rides you,” he sneered.

“If that happened,” Gilda said in a low, even tone, “I'm afraid your fate would not even be quite as pleasant.”

The man heard the tightness in Gilda's voice and felt an unnerving coolness in the air around her body. He retreated toward the door, the itch to strike her with the back of his hand flaring in his eyes. He settled for a glass-rattling slam of the front door as he left.

Gilda took several deep breaths before she turned back to Savannah.

“Girl, you got to be more careful with those fools,” Savannah said. “That nigger is as crazy as a jackrabbit, and that Fox, he's just plain evil. I seen him break a girl's arm out on Columbus Avenue just for meanness. If Toya's smart, she's got her skinny butt back to New Orleans by now.”

Gilda wondered what New Orleans would be like after so many years. She could imagine Toya there, the autumnal glow of her skin gleaming in the Delta sun. Hearing
New Orleans
said aloud crystalized a picture of Bird in her mind, too, sitting attentively in the room where they studied. Gilda held the red-hot curling iron in the air to cool it down.

“What does this Fox look like?”

“Real smooth skin, light eyes. Drives a dark-green Caddy with tinted glass. He don't hang out much, except at the after-hours joints. You know him if you see him. Cool as a coolin' board, I'll tell you.”

Over the years Gilda had enjoyed her relationships with the women on the avenue. In many ways they were like the women at Woodard's, but so often this world was harder, more dangerous. Their comradeship and energy always strengthened her. Savannah picked up her narrative.

It was a few moments before they realized there was a slight tapping at the window in the back alley. She put the curling iron down again and went to the door that opened into the small storeroom and the alley exit.

“Aw, shit,” Savannah muttered as she realized what was happening. She went to the front of the shop to make certain the blinds were fully closed and the door locked. Gilda unbolted the door in the back room which was crowded with boxes and supplies wedged in around a small couch, where the beauticians sometimes rested between customers. Toya was tiny in the doorway. Her dark, curly hair hung in a tight braid, making her look, for once, like the teenager she was. Her dark eyes were shadowed with fear, and she stood as if frozen by the light.

“I'm sorry, Gilda. I'm sorry. I didn't know where else to go. He been following me everywhere.” Gilda pulled her inside and rebolted the door. Once seated on the couch Toya trembled violently, as if the night air blew through her. Savannah came to the back room, her broad shoulders filling the doorframe.

“Give her some of that bottle they keep back here.”

Gilda stared, fascinated by the delicacy of the girl's quivering shoulders. Somewhere inside she remembered her last tears, the last time she had been this vulnerable: the night at the farmhouse waiting for Bird to decide whether or not she would complete the change. She had been afraid Bird would walk away, leaving her with only the mortal years ahead. Gilda pulled a bottle of gin from behind one of the cartons and poured some in a Dixie cup.

“Toya, what the hell you doing 'round here? If you mean to get out, you better get clear out!”

Although the words were harsh Savannah betrayed her tenderness as she brushed at the girl's hair. Toya sipped the gin and looked up at the two women who stood between her and Fox's rage. Gilda turned on a small lamp set atop a carton of Posner's bergamot and sat down beside Toya. When she did she saw the dark lacerations that lined the girl's cheeks.

“What's this?” she asked.

“Fox hit me.”

“With what?”

“A coat hanger. He didn't want me to leave.” She took another swallow from the Dixie cup and blinked back tears rapidly. “Then he locked me in a room. I climbed out the window and down the porch into the alley. I guess he thought I'd never leave without my stuff so he didn't worry about the window.”

Then Toya laughed a little, the scars on her face wrinkling into a tiny map. “He's so stupid, God! I been slipping things out for the last few months. Clothes and other stuff is already in a locker at the bus station. My money, too. He musta thought I was as stupid as him!” Then she started crying again.

“Yeah, you ain't no dummy. That's why you can't go to Greyhound!”

“When did you leave?” Gilda asked.

“Two days ago. He had me followed ever since. I been just barely keepin' out his way. I think he just wanna see how long I can hang on before I crawl back to him.”

“Do you want to go back?” Gilda asked.

“The only way he'll get me is in a box. I just wanna go home.”

A rage swirled inside of Gilda, flushing her skin with heat. The scars across the girl's face made Gilda hunger to feel Fox's throat between her fingers. But first she would help get Toya quietly out of Boston. Gilda didn't want a public confrontation with this Fox—the power of her anger frightened her.

The faces of the men she'd killed many years ago floated through her years of memories and surfaced. Gilda now remembered little about the circumstances except the preying eyes and the surprise when she struck, expecting only unconsciousness. She would always be angry with herself for letting her fear and rage run free. There was little comfort in knowing she had survived.

Their faces resided inside her, emptied of the ignorance and anger that had delivered them to their fate. Gilda had no desire to add another to that gallery. Somehow they seemed to merge, become one, like twin brothers. There was a sameness in death, the way that all masks resembled each other. Now, when she felt so reconnected to life, when she often sensed Bird near her, she did not want to reaffirm her partnership with death. She wanted only to be able to enjoy the laughter of the women in her shop and the sense of family she experienced with people like Savannah.

She would handle Fox simply, secretly, if possible. She felt joy at her ability to give Toya the opportunity to start life anew, just as it had been offered to her at Woodard's.

Gilda gazed into Toya's eyes and said, “You need rest now more than anything. Let go of the fear. Rest and dream of tomorrow, nothing else. I'll come in the evening.”

Toya set down her drink and curled up on the couch. Gilda covered her with a thin blanket. Then she and Savannah quietly left the room. Gilda locked the door and Savannah returned to the chair, quelling her fear and anger. She had not missed the mesmerizing effect of Gilda's look and words but could not forget the times she had seen Fox on a rampage.

“That son of a bitch, that motherfucking bastard!” she said out loud, as if the hard words would release her terror. Then she fell silent while Gilda started on her hair again.

“I'll come back in the evening, slip her out the back, and get her on a train.”

“I'm goin' with you. Just tell me what time,” Savannah asserted.

Gilda almost said
no
but realized that any woman who'd carried a picture of an aborigine around to beauty parlors and insisted on being transformed into one in Boston in 1955 would not be dissuaded.