Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (56 page)

If there was one flaw it was that he was almost too pretty, and when he played most women could not take their eyes off him. Carlos had never talked about himself or where he was from, but as such a romantic figure there had been rumors that he was probably the son of a Spanish count. Many went home and dreamed of those beautiful hands and long, delicate fingers and the way the shadow of his eyelashes fell across his cheek. But there was something else that
concerned his teacher. Without his violin, Carlos seemed unusually shy and unsure of himself. He seemed content to just play in the orchestra and to compose. But Hoffman was anxious to have such a talent exposed to the world, and took it upon himself to enter one of Carlos’s concertos in an international music competition held in Quebec.

He wanted the boy to realize his future, to build his confidence. The winner was assured of a year’s worth of concerts around the world. All he needed was this chance to tour. Then the boy would have the world at his feet. A month later, to Hoffman’s great joy and to Carlos’s great surprise, he won. But there was, shortly, another surprise waiting for Carlos.

Ida Baily Chambless gloated in her triumph. Dr. Le Guarde’s precious, lily-white son was going to be a Negro whether he wanted to or not. She had known about Theo for some time, but she had waited for the right moment. Shrewdly, she knew it was much more damaging to kick people not when they were down, but when they were up.

When Theo’s photograph, along with her press release announcing that he had been named Negro of the Year, appeared in newspapers around the country, all hopes of a classical career went down the drain. His colleagues had been stunned by the news. Some had felt betrayed. Suddenly they saw him as someone who had pretended to be something he wasn’t, an imposter who had lied to them. Others were sympathetic and said that it didn’t make any difference to them but it did. It was still the 1940s in America, and many whites had never met a Negro other than a maid or a Pullman porter. Yesterday he had been the charming and incredibly beautiful young man of obviously aristocratic Spanish descent. Today he was something of an odd curiosity. They began looking for signs, hints of Negro blood, and began to see them, even when they weren’t there. Even the young woman who had been so in love with Theo the day before looked at him with different eyes today. She felt that she had been made a fool of. His father was probably nothing more than a yard man. He had tried to push his way into San Francisco society on false pretenses. He must have been secretly going back at night and laughing about her with his Negro friends.

Of course Theo had never said he was from a wealthy family, and society had sought him out, but facts changed along with attitudes. Hoffman was devastated for him, and went immediately to his
apartment but found that Theo had locked the doors and would not let him in. He would speak to no one. The day after the article appeared Negro newspapers from all over the country sent photographers and reporters wanting interviews. Overnight, he was flooded with invitations from the leading Negro organizations wanting him to entertain and lend his name to every Negro cause and speak at every event. They were proud of him and, as the
Washington Bee
put it, “We rejoice in his victory and add a new star in the crown of Negro accomplishments.”

White newspapers took a different tack. The caption under his photograph read:
NEGRO CAUGHT MISREPRESENTING ANCESTRY.

The International Music Committee reconvened for an emergency meeting and voted to a man to stand by its decision, but there was a war in Europe, most of Carlos’s concerts had been planned for America, and one by one they began to be canceled.

After several weeks of similar telegrams and letters, and much pressure all around, this press release was sent:

His sister Marguerite was working in New York. When she read about what had happened to Theo she immediately went to San Franciso. But by the time she arrived, he had disappeared into thin air.

After he left San Francisco, Theo wandered aimlessly about the country, going from one dark, dirty bar to another, from one couch in some stranger’s place to another. He tried to work at a factory job but in a few days collapsed with what the doctors termed a nervous breakdown and spent a year in a charity ward in a hospital outside of Lansing, Michigan. After he was released, he slowly made his way back to Washington, washing dishes, sweeping floors, anything to get by. Once back, he managed to pull himself together somewhat and made a fair living giving private violin lessons to the children of the wealthy diplomats. He often thought about his sister. The last time he had written her she had been living in New York. He hoped she was safe and happy. He hoped that at least one of them was happy.

For the next four years he lived less than a mile from his father, but as far as real distance, it might as well have been a thousand miles. He wanted to see his father, but he did not want his father to see him. He had shamed his father enough, caused him enough pain, and as much as he missed him, he couldn’t face him. He sometimes bought a copy of the
Washington Bee
just to see if it had any mention of his father. It was there he learned of his father’s death. The day of the funeral, he stood in the back of St. Augustine Church in a corner
and listened to the priest eulogize his father as a great man and a great doctor. No mention was made of his two children. It was as if they had never existed.

Theo left before the service was over, shaking from head to toe with regret, sorrow, anger. He hated himself. How could he have done it? How could he have turned his back on his daddy? If only he could go back. But it was too late. He was completely alone in the world now; all he had left was his sister. But where was she?

Theo didn’t know it but there was someone else who was wondering the same thing. Word had reached Mrs. Chambless that someone who had looked like Theo had been spotted leaving the church, but the sister had not been spotted and it confirmed what she had already begun to suspect. Two days after the funeral she wrote:

That night Theo Le Guarde walked with Chambless’s column in his pocket to her house in Le Droit park. The house was dark except for a light in a room on the second floor. He went to the front door and knocked. No one answered. He tried the door and it was unlocked; in fact, it swung wide open. Mrs. Chambless rarely locked her doors. She had no fear. What man would dare to rob her? He stepped in and closed the door behind him. He could hear the sound of typing and followed the sound up the stairs to the room where she sat, enormous in a pink housecoat, completely absorbed in her work. He stood in the doorway and looked at her. She did not hear him until he was standing right in front of her. When she saw a man, pale as a ghost, appear, she almost jumped out of her skin. She grabbed at her chest and let out a “Whooo!… Good God Almighty. You nearly scared me to death. What do you mean coming in here and sneaking up on me like that? What’s the matter with you? What do you want coming here this time of night?”

She peered at the gaunt figure before her and was puzzled. “Who are you? Do I know you?”

Now that he was actually face-to-face with the woman, Theo began to shake all over and struggled to get the words out. “Why … why are you doing this … why did you ruin my life?”

Suddenly Mrs. Chambless sensed who he was and sat back in her chair with a smug, mocking smile on her face. “Well, well, well. Look who we have here. If it’s not the great Theodore Le Guarde himself.”

Then her expression changed and her eyes narrowed as she lunged forward and hissed at him with a voice filled with contempt. “Listen … if your life got ruined it was you that ruined it, not me. You and that high-and-mighty family of yours. You think you’re too good for me? Well, Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t think she is too good for me … now, you get out of here!”

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and turned back to her typing. As an afterthought, she added, “And tell that sister of yours she’s next.”

At that moment something deep inside Theo broke loose and he heard a roaring in his ears so loud that he could not hear Ida Baily Chambless’s screams as he grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. Something was erupting; a terrible, red-hot, boiling rage came rumbling out. He was choking and shaking the very life out of the woman and he could not stop it.

The next thing he remembered he was outside in the cold, wringing wet with sweat. He walked for a mile, not knowing where he was going until he was at the Lincoln Memorial. He looked up at the statue of the man and suddenly heard a woman’s screams in his ears and saw the grotesque face of Mrs. Ida Chambless, her tongue hanging out, her huge eyes bulging, and he retched and threw up in the grass until nothing was left but yellow bile. He looked down at his hands, and he began to sob.

He had to make his way to his father’s house. He had to find his sister; she would hide him. He would be safe with her.

When he reached the house every door and window was locked. The sun was coming up. Desperate, he went to the back and crashed through a basement window and crawled in. He made his way in the dark up to his father’s den. Almost everything was packed in boxes. He went to his father’s desk and broke open the lock. He could feel papers and letters still there. He lit a match and found his own letter to his father, and one more envelope. It was addressed to his father, too. Although the name on the return address was strange, he recognized his sister’s handwriting. The letter was postmarked Elmwood Springs, Missouri.

Dena’s mother, Marguerite Le Guarde, had not intended to lie about who she was. It had just happened. She had taken a trip to New York to help a friend shop for her trousseau. When she spoke to the owner of the shop in German, Lili Carlotta Steiner recognized at once that the young girl had been raised in Vienna, as she had. Delighted with the pretty young woman who obviously knew about fine clothes, Steiner offered her a job on the spot. Excited, Marguerite wrote her father and asked him if she might stay for the summer. Her father wrote back and said yes. Her mother had just died and he thought the change might be helpful.