Sapphire's Grave Read online

  “I see another girl. She is lonely. She has no words to articulate her loneliness. She is not aware of the gift her mother has discarded. She sells herself for far less than she is worth. She has a child, but the child is—” Sister paused for a moment, and opened her eyes. “Gone. The child is gone. She may be lost. Or perhaps it is her mother who is lost. At any rate, they are separated. The child knows that something has been hidden—a creative force, a capacity for love, a connection with—with God.”

  Sister stopped for so long that Prince Junior thought that she would not go on. “And I see a bridge. The bridge is a girl. She is weak, but she is holding on to the water’s edge. Her body is stretched to its length. Her back is sagging. She lacks the power of her own convictions. But she holds on. Another girl crosses over on her sagging back. When she reaches the water’s edge, she spreads her broad black wings and is taken up by a tempest. I do not know where it takes her.” Tears welled in Sister’s eyes. Prince Junior leaned forward and took his mother in his arms. “But she is carrying the others on her wings,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “I am afraid for them.”

  chapter 6

  WARRENTON, NORTH CAROLINA

  JULY, 1900

  Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.

  —Ezekiel 16:51

  Sunlight woke Vyda Rose each morning in the room without windows, sneaking through the crevices of the clapboard addition to a crude brick structure. She liked it this way—no windows, no jolting awakenings, glaring and garish and rude, but gentle rays of sunlight sneaking in between the boards to brighten, but only slightly, the small narrow room. It nudged her to half-slumber, and she lay relaxed and content, not wanting to rise or to sleep, but savoring these precious moments, alone.

  Usually, they were gone by morning, though she never let them leave as soon as they were through. Stay, she would urge, lying amorous and half-dreaming in their arms or on their chests, her fingers stroking the stubble on their faces or chins. And they stayed, more often than not, until she was asleep, then disentangled themselves, careful not to wake her, to tiptoe home to wives or mothers, allowing her the comfort of illusion: She was theirs and they were hers, if only for an evening.

  The crude brick structure had originally been intended to serve as an arsenal. Constructed during the early battles of the Civil War, it was an aggregate of red brick and mortar, thrown hastily into something closely resembling a colonial-style house. After the war, squatters had come to inhabit the structure, the first residents giving life to its austere confines.

  As the population grew around Warrenton, whorehouses had sprung up and competed, those with larger quarters accommodating more courtesans and attracting more clientele. The original proprietor of this particular establishment, one Zoe, had been a shrewd businesswoman with frightening yellow eyes, mysterious origins, and a reputed interest in witchcraft. She had discovered the structure soon after the war, evicted its residents, and set up shop as a madam.

  Zoe had soon eliminated her competitors, her brothel having gained a well-deserved reputation for prompt and excellent service. The sparsely furnished waiting room seldom held a guest for very long. Zoe’s girls were numerous as well as diverse—dark plum girls with sparkling eyes and teeth, smiling and coaxing and engaging; large-boned tan and yellow girls with loud mouths and gaps in their teeth, laughing and boisterous and lewd; long-haired mulatto girls from the coast of South Carolina, skilled and efficient, cooing and encouraging in their distinctive patois.

  The brick structure had first been divided into rooms, then enlarged, in response to the growing needs of the community, by the ungainly, windowless clapboard addition where Vyda Rose now lived and entertained her clients. Vyda Rose had always felt that the addition imparted an appropriate vulgarity to the otherwise respectable, if not admirable, construction; home to the privy parts of proper society, ugly and shameful to those who beheld it, but necessary.

  After Reconstruction, Zoe had moved on to other ventures—witchcraft and divination, it was said. The brothel had been managed ineptly by a series of halfhearted managers, finally falling into the hands of a watery-eyed white landlord who maintained that he merely rented rooms. That his tenants were all errant ladies was no business or concern of his.

  Vyda Rose had been attracted by this brothel’s hands-off approach to management. Its professionals were encouraged to develop their own clientele, and left alone. She kept eighty-five percent of what she earned, the rest going to cover her share of room, board, and administrative costs. There was no pressure here to turn over customers quickly. Vyda Rose charged them more than the standard. Her services were long-lived and well worth it. Her clients paid by the evening, and were served only one per night by appointment. If the scheduled client did not arrive within a reasonable period after the appointed time, Vyda Rose took walk-ins on a first to arrive, first-served basis.

  Her client list was limited if not exclusive. The extent of her talent as seductress was a secret. Her clients kept the secret because they wished to remain a small coterie, thereby eliminating competition for space in Vyda Rose’s appointment book. Sometimes they found it open on the table next to her bed. Vyda Rose would catch them straining in the dim-lit room to discover their rivals. She would close it firmly and gently turn their faces toward hers.

  Some girls did not kiss their clients. Vyda Rose valued the intimacy. Her customers tipped her well and never forgot her. She took her work seriously—art, not work, it was to her, requiring concentration and skill. She nurtured and indulged her clients. They provided her comfortable subsistence in return.

  Vyda Rose loved sex. She had loved it since she was a child, and men sneaked into the kitchen at the Feels Good Inn to flirt with her mother and make eyes at Vyda Rose, luring her out behind the barroom to set her on a stool, her legs held wide apart or slung over their shoulders. They gave her nickels or dimes. When she was twelve and growing breasts, three young men seduced her in a wood cart attached to a buggy, taking turns until they were exhausted. The next time, she charged them each a dollar.

  Later, she dated students from St. Augustine’s and Shaw, making their eyes wide with shock when she tackled them to the ground, or matter-of-factly removed her brassiere, earning for herself a reputation as a spirited and fun-loving evening companion. She did not ask them for money. They brought her fudge or flowers, or read to her from books of poetry. Occasionally, they paid for her visits with the local abortionist, clandestine trips across Shocco Creek where the large yellow woman with slanted eyes had been driven by popular disdain and suspicion.

  The woman gave her bottles of death that brought about spasms of her womb, and caused it to eject whatever lay therein. She returned from these trips feeling empty and exhausted, overwhelmed by the enormity of the destruction she had wrought with the assistance of the yellow woman. She always vomited for days thereafter, sickened by thoughts of lost bloodlines and life and potential; and dreams of her own babies, transparent and barely human, rising from puddles on the floor of the yellow woman’s shack to scream at her in terror and indictment, making her cringe with pain and horror at her own evil.

  So by the time anyone told her that she had been rendered impure by her countless lovers, it was too late for amends, and if there was a God who sat in righteousness and judgment, as she supposed there was, she felt herself far beyond his redemptive powers. She had chosen her god, and it was sex, powerful and bewitching and possessive.

  Sometimes, on mornings like this one, bright and warm, she went to the creek where she had been baptized as a child, to swim naked or float among the lily pads, her arms spread out in front of her, her breasts half-submerged. Young boys would come sometimes to see if the naked lady was there, floating peaceful and still, her eyes closed and her head thrown back. Ordinarily, they were ignored. She had come for solitude and
reflection, and she would not be disappointed.

  Today, as usual, she hoped they would not come. She needed the quiet. Slowly, painfully, she unbuttoned her dress, letting it drop to the ground at the bank of the creek. Last night’s client had been rambunctious, leaving her fatigued this morning, longing for the quiet and peace. Her muscles ached from the contortions she had performed. She needed the water massaging her back and calves, the throbbing of her temples silenced by the calm.

  The adolescent laughter interrupted her thoughts just as she had begun to relax. She tried, at first, to ignore them. But they began to throw pebbles that shattered the tranquil surface of the creek. She opened her eyes, annoyed but unwilling to indulge them in the satisfaction of knowing this. It was not until a small rock fell with a loud kerplunk just shy of her that she jumped to her feet. The water touched her chin as she spun around to see several boys of perhaps twelve years disappear into the shrubbery surrounding the creek.

  “Who dat?” she screamed, her eyes wild, struggling to maintain her balance on the slippery floor of the creek. “Who dat out dere? Why don’tcha get yo’ scrawny black bee-hinds out here, you wanna get mannish wit’ me! I’ll snap yo’ skinny black necks! Come on!” She waded toward the edge of the water, her henna-dyed hair wild and dripping. Her challenge was answered with silence. “Come on, ya skeerdy-cats! Scared of a woman? Come on! Be a man! You so big and—”

  He appeared suddenly, startling her into silence. His steps were tentative, and his head was bowed respectfully. She shrank into the water, his decorum making her aware of her nakedness. She could hear the shrieks and laughter of his fleeing companions. The boy licked his lips nervously, shifting a little, and uncertain.

  “Ma’am,” he began, and looked away from her, embarrassed. “We sorry, Ma’am. We ain’ mean to d’sturb you.” He looked at her again, his eyes indeed disturbing. “We jes be goin’ now, Ma’am. We sorry.” And he disappeared into the shrubbery.

  Vyda Rose stood frozen in the water for a long time after he had gone. When she came to herself, she realized that she was cold, terribly cold, and more alone than she had ever felt. In one moment, she had found and lost; exactly what, she was not certain. But the loss was certain, as certain as lost innocence, or a lost child. Vyda Rose waded toward the bank of the creek. She was sickened with loss.

  INEZ, NORTH CAROLINA

  SEPTEMBER, 1900

  The Feels Good Inn was closed on Mondays. Vyda Rose knew this. She only came on Mondays, and then only when she could not avoid it. Today, she had to talk to her mother.

  She had put it off for weeks, but when the boys never came back to meet her at the creek, she had realized that she had no choice.

  Fields was there, behind the long bar, sharing a bottle of corn liquor with several of his suppliers, who leered at her, their eyes like dirty hands on her body, making her feel nasty in her loose-fitting dress.

  “Evenin’, Vyda Rose,” Fields greeted her, coming around the side of the bar. “How you dis evenin’?”

  “Oh, I’m jes fine, thank you,” she replied. “My mama here?”

  “She back dere. You can come on ’roun’,” he replied, jerking his head toward the swinging doors behind the bar.

  She held her hips carefully still as she moved past the men seated at the bar. Steam assailed her carefully combed hair as she opened the swinging doors.

  Queen Marie had grown fat. The flesh on her upper arms shook vigorously as she washed glasses and plates in a sink full of steaming water, stacking them on a clean towel. It took her a moment to notice Vyda Rose standing just inside the doors, and even then she did not speak. She examined her daughter with the discriminating eye of a mother, confirming that Vyda Rose looked well, prosperous, and in good health, no marks or bruises evidencing a bad customer or jealous would-be suitor. Queen Marie waited for Vyda Rose to speak, and when she did not, opened her arms. “Hi-ya doin’, baby?”

  Vyda Rose fell into her mother’s arms, grateful, once again, for acceptance and acquittal. Any other mother in this town would disown her. Vyda Rose knew this, and it shamed her, making these visits both rare and brief.

  Queen Marie never came to the clapboard attachment to the redbrick house. She knew that her only child lived and practiced her profession there, but it broke her heart and filled her with guilt to visit. Vyda Rose had been sixteen when Queen Marie had been informed, by reliable sources, of her daughter’s adventurousness. Inside herself, when Queen Marie was in bed at night, with Fields sleeping soundly beside her, she knew that it was her fault. She had been preoccupied, and had failed to adequately supervise her child. Queen Marie had cried many nights because of this, while Fields held her, helpless to assuage her guilt. She had since then given up crying, and resolved to make it up to Vyda Rose, somehow.

  She took her daughter’s hands and led her to a table and tottering chairs.

  “Mama,” Vyda Rose began, as she always did. “I want you to know that I’m happy. My life is good. I make good money . . .” She studied her shoes. Her mother, she realized, would never believe this. Vyda Rose swallowed and decided it would be best to be direct—undemanding, unaccusing, but straightforward. “Mama, I saw a boy, a good lil’ while ago now, an’ he look like me. I saw it, Ma. I know you say my daddy ain’ had no people ’roun’ here, but he look like me. An’ I was jes thinkin’ maybe—” she glanced up at her mother’s impassive face. “Maybe he some kin to me. Maybe some o’ his people know my daddy.” Vyda Rose stopped to stare at her mother. Queen Marie was not sharing her excitement. “Mama? D’ya hear? He might be my daddy people.”

  Queen Marie stared back at her daughter, her expression stoic. Then she sighed. All her muscles seemed to slacken. “Dis boy. ’Bout how old you reckon he is?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. ’Roun’ twelve or thirteen, I guess. He real han’some, Ma. He got light eyes like me. An’ he tall, jes like you say my daddy was.” Her mother did not respond. “Mama, you sho’ he ain’t got no people ’roun’ here? ’Cause if he do, I mean if he might, it sho’ would be nice if I could jes, ya know like, talk to somebody, somebody who knew my daddy, and might know some o’ his kin ’roun’ here.” Vyda Rose could not interpret her mother’s expression. Queen Marie seemed suddenly to have grown old, sad, and terribly, terribly tired. “Please, Mama. I gotta know who dis boy is. Think hard who might know some kin to my daddy.”

  Queen Marie had tried hard to maintain the secret of Vyda Rose’s paternity.

  That boy of Prince’s would be grown now, probably with children, and very possibly a boy of about twelve.

  There was nothing to be gained by bringing Prince Junior into unpleasant enlightenment now.

  But Vyda Rose was so hopeful. Queen Marie had not seen her so excited since she was a child. She owed her daughter this. If she could not give her daughter the relationship with her father that had been lost, she could at least give her the knowledge of her flesh and blood. Queen Marie thought hard while Vyda Rose watched. Not Sister. She would not trouble Sister. But the girl—Lilly. She was married now, and living in Henderson.

  Lilly would see her father in Vyda Rose’s hooded hazel eyes. No doubt, she would assume that Vyda Rose was her own sister. Queen Marie sighed again. This was probably best. Prince was dead. His son, no doubt, had a family. No use in stirring up the pot, Queen Marie thought.

  She stood wearily and carried her bulk across the small steamy room. Finding a pen and paper, she wrote a name and approximate address.

  “This lady might he’p.” Queen Marie held out the piece of paper but moved no further. Vyda Rose stood and crossed the room to accept it. It was a familiar address—an old Henderson neighborhood where no one was new in town. Vyda Rose looked at her mother, who seemed to be shrinking into herself as Vyda Rose realized they had been there all along. Vyda Rose’s family, or someone who knew of her family, had been there, right there in town, all the time.

  HENDERSON, NORTH CAROLINA

  SEPTEMBER, 1900

 
; The house, it turned out, was just what Vyda Rose had expected: large but unimposing, with a dignity worthy of its inhabitants. All of the houses along this road were sturdy and well-kept, set back some distance from the road, with carefully tended gardens beside or behind them. Lilly Cheeks’ house was the one at the end, just east of William Street, closest to the white folks. It was a flat board structure painted white, with a bed of geraniums on either side of the door. Real gingham curtains, not flour sacks, graced Lilly’s windows which, Vyda Rose noted, were real glass windows, not wooden-shuttered crude holes.

  A well-behaved child sat quietly on the short steps that led to the front door. He stood as Vyda Rose approached, a boy of about ten, built as sturdily as the house, and equally as well-maintained. His hair was neatly cropped, and enormous ears stood out on each side of his well-scrubbed face. He was meticulously dressed in short pants and an open-necked shirt, and he regarded Vyda Rose solemnly.

  “Evenin’, Ma’am,” he said, his voice startlingly mature.

  “Evenin’,” Vyda Rose replied. “My name is Miss Vyda Rose. I’m lookin’ for Miz Lilly Cheeks. I reckon ’at would be yo’ mama.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” the boy answered, turning and opening the door wide. “Mama!” he called as he led Vyda Rose inside. “Miss Vi’let Rose here to see you!”

  Vyda Rose, hesitating just inside the door, surveyed the spotless room. A combination living, dining, and bedroom, it was slightly over-decorated with dried flowers in pastel painted vases, photographs in wood frames, and pillar candles decorated with lace. But everything, Vyda Rose observed, was coordinated and immaculate. In fact, she noted as Lilly entered the room, this place fairly glowed. One could easily have eaten from the gleaming wood floors.

  “Miss Vi’let Rose—” Lilly was saying, wiping her hands on her apron. Vyda Rose turned to face her. Lilly’s eyes grew wide with surprise and—fear? Vyda Rose peered at Lilly questioningly. Lilly was a tall woman, like Vyda Rose, with long hair neatly braided and piled high at the top of her head. She was wearing a brown dress—a day dress, but fancy by Negro standards—and shoes on her oiled feet, even though she was indoors and had not been expecting company. Vyda Rose glanced behind Lilly to the kitchen, which shined as Vyda Rose had suspected. Her eyes next fell upon a portrait on the wall just above Lilly’s head, a handsome portrait of a handsome man and woman, poised and unsmiling. Lilly sat erect in a high-necked dress, neutral-toned and otherwise nondescript. The man stood just behind her, his manner reserved, his enormous ears lending a certain ridiculousness to his otherwise dignified appearance. They did not touch.