The Black Rose (10 page)

“You see that?” the fish lady said. “An’ the sheriff ain’t gon’ do nothin’ ’bout it, ’cept lock up what niggers they can find an’ say they’s vagrants. No suh, they don’t want us goin’ nowhere yet. Chile, you stand out here sellin’ fish long enough, you’ll see plenty o’ blood spillin’ in these streets. An’ you know the worst of it?” At this, the woman leaned closer to Sarah and spoke to her conspiratorially, and Sarah could smell the spruce gum on her breath. “I know a fella come back from Kansas cuz he missed his mama. He say there ain’t nothin’ out there for niggers, neither. The Promised Land ain’t nothin’
but
promises, he say.”

Sarah realized her hands were shaking. Watching the Negro man lying motionless, unattended, it occurred to her that Alex might not have written to them because he’d gotten himself killed somewhere. She hoped the man on the street wasn’t dead.

“I don’t unnerstand …” Sarah whispered, near tears.

“What you don’t understand?”

“How come … they don’t want us to get nothin’?” Sarah said.

“What you said?” the woman said, cackling again. Her laugh, which had seemed pleasant to Sarah at first, had turned ugly to her ear. “Go find yo’self a mirror one day an’ take a look. You a nigger, that’s why. That’s all we ever gon’ be to white folks, cuz if we ever get sump’n, that’s less for them. You better learn that quick.”

But Miss Dunn and Miss Brown
did
have something, Sarah thought stubbornly. Miss Dunn was a schoolteacher, the smartest colored woman Sarah had ever met. And Miss Brown was a Prize Medal washerwoman with her own laundry business, and four women worked for her, including her and Louvenia. With that thought, Sarah suddenly realized that her diversion had made her late to work. Nothing made Miss Brown madder than workers who weren’t
punc-tu-al
, as she always put it. She’d told Sarah more than once that if she couldn’t make it back from school on time, she’d better stop going to school.

And nothing was going to stop Sarah from going to school. Nothing and nobody.

“I read three words today in class,” Sarah announced over her shoulder to the fish lady before she turned to run back toward Miss Brown’s house on Pearl Street.

“Good for you, chile! I read ev’ry newspaper that come out in Vicksburg,” the fish lady called after her. “You bes’ read, to keep up with the plans them white folks got for you!” Sarah could hear the woman’s cackling mingling with the seagulls’ cries and the curses of frustrated men even as she turned the corner and ran well into the next block.

America Brown was a woman with a heft to match the grandness of her name. She was the big kind of woman Sarah’s mama used to call
meaty
, with rolling thighs and a protruding backside underneath her bustles. She kept herself very neat, with a collection of two-piece, floor-length dresses called
suits
for each day of the week, the likes of which Sarah had never seen on a colored woman; her navy-and-sky-blue seersucker dress for Mondays, her rose-colored chambray dress for Tuesdays, and all through the week until she made her way to the gray cashmere dress with ornamental cords running across its length she wore on Sundays. The suits must have been special-made for her size, Sarah thought. And Miss Brown loved hats: she had a different hat to match each of her seven dresses.

Sarah was relieved Miss Brown wasn’t in sight as she slipped beside Louvenia in the oversize kitchen where the washerwomen worked. The room was steamy because of the two large cast-iron pots boiling over the stove fires, stirred by Miss Brown’s seventeen-year-old cousin, a gangly girl named Sally who worked in exchange for room and board.

Miss Janie, one of the other washerwomen, nodded at Sarah and went on with her wringing and scrubbing as water splashed in the tub and flies buzzed near her face. Miss Janie was older and had her own family, but she had trouble walking because of a bad leg; if not for that, she’d told Sarah and Lou, she’d go find her own customers instead of working for Miss Brown. Miss Janie had told them Miss Brown’s laundry business was making thirty-five dollars a month because she was so prized by her customers. Of that, Miss Janie got eight dollars a month because she had worked with Miss Brown for so long, but Sarah and Lou shared only five dollars a month between them. That was less than they would have made in Delta! But Sarah and her sister were grateful for the work, and Miss Brown had promised that if they continued to work hard, she would raise their pay soon.

There was no singing in Miss Brown’s kitchen, only work. Miss Brown prided herself on finishing her wash assignments faster than any other colored washerwoman in Vicksburg, and she promised her customers that their clothes would never be borrowed or damaged. Some washerwomen were shameless about wearing their customers’ clothes to church or Friday-night fish fries, and Miss Brown had told Sarah and Lou that they would be dismissed on the spot for that kind of foolishness. Miss Brown’s policies had made her so popular that she had more customers than anyone else, but that also meant a long day for her four employees.

“You lucky Miss Brown ain’t come back here an’ see how you was late,” Louvenia said, not looking at Sarah while she worked. “What I tol’ you ’bout that?”

Sarah ignored her sister’s rebuke. “Know what I did today, Lou? At school, I read three words. Sky, fly, and mornin’.”

At that, Louvenia glanced at Sarah sidelong. “You tellin’ the truth?”

Sarah nodded, grinning. “Miss Dunn said I ain’t made no mistakes.”

“Durn, Sarah,” her sister said, with real awe in her voice, “that real good, huh? You mus’ be learnin’ quick.”

Sarah glowed. Louvenia was usually too tired or distracted to give her many words of encouragement, so the compliment from her sister carried weight. Lately all Louvenia seemed to care about was the man she’d started meeting behind their boardinghouse in the evenings, when Sarah could hear them laughing and talking through her window. Sarah had never seen the man, but his voice sounded old to her, like Papa’s. All Sarah knew about the man was that Louvenia had met him near the dock one day. Sarah asked questions about him, but her sister usually just mumbled in response.
Ain’t nothin’ you need to worry ’bout,
Louvenia said.

“I’ma teach you, too,” Sarah said. “Soon as I learn my readin’ good.”

At that Louvenia only shrugged, but Sarah knew her sister would like to read, too. Miss Brown read newspapers just like the fish lady, and Sarah had seen Louvenia gazing at her with envy. Lou envied a lot of things about Miss Brown, especially how she had money for clothes and owned her own house. Sarah had even heard white folks who came by call her
Miss Brown
, not Auntie-this or Mama-this or by her first name the way white folks talked to colored women.

Miss Brown was a curiosity, and Sarah never tired of studying her, even if it meant stealing quick, shy glances when her back was turned or as she was instructing somebody on how long to soak the linens, which temperatures were appropriate for which clothes, how to properly make starch from wheat bran, and how to add bluing to the wash to make white clothes brighter. Oh, she knew something about washing, all right!

Anytime Sarah tried to talk to Miss Brown, her mouth threatened not to work right, but she forced herself to speak anyway because her curiosity burned so strong. Louvenia accused Sarah of trying to win favor with their boss so she wouldn’t scold her the way she did the other ladies, but that wasn’t true. There were just so many things Sarah wanted to know about her, and the only way she knew to find out was to ask.
Aft’noon, Miss
Brown. That’s a purty dress—what you call that cloth it’s made of?
(“Girl, you don’t know what cashmere is? Feel it, then.”)
Miss Brown, how long was
you washin’ clothes
’
fore you got to hirin’ these womens?
(“I was washin’ in my massa’s big house since I was younger’n you, and I opened my own business six years ago Monday.”)

After three o’clock, Louvenia and most of the other women left to make deliveries in wooden carts. Miss Brown promised customers they could have their washing back in two days, so the deliveries were as important as the washing. The clothes were pressed, folded, and covered neatly in the carts so they wouldn’t catch any dust or dirt during the journey. Louvenia was assigned to deliver to a fancy section of town in the southeastern ridge tops, which meant she had to do a lot of walking before she got home for supper. Louvenia complained Miss Brown ought to hire some men with mule carts if she wanted the customers to get their clothes back so quick. Miss Janie had laughed at that, telling Louvenia they were lucky they didn’t have to carry the bundles of clothes on their heads like most washerwomen did. Louvenia said some of the white customers’ homes were quite a sight, bigger than Missus Anna’s in Delta.

Sarah’s task in the late afternoons was to stay behind and tidy up, or to press and fold the clothes that weren’t scheduled for delivery until the next day. It could be lonely, tedious work—Sarah missed Louvenia and the other women as soon as they were gone, because at least Miss Janie was prone to make witty comments about Miss Brown or one of the customers, giving everyone a soft, secretive chuckle while they washed—but working alone gave Sarah one advantage she cherished: She could sometimes talk to Miss Brown by herself.

That afternoon, as Sarah stacked the washtubs neatly on their rims so they could dry, she heard the floorboards outside the kitchen creak and thump, which told her Miss Brown was on her way. To Sarah, Miss Brown didn’t walk, she
thundered
; she had footsteps Sarah could hear on the floorboards long before she entered a room.

In she walked, perspiring slightly beneath her heavy clothes. Still, to Sarah she looked as noble as the pictures of the white women in the pages of the outdated magazines Missus Anna used to give them to paste up on their walls to keep the cold out of their Delta cabin in winter; she’d called the magazine
Godey’s Lady’s Book
. Miss Brown’s clothes weren’t nearly as fancy as those many-layered, frilly costumes in the pictures, but Miss Brown’s presence always made Sarah feel shabby in her own rough, home-spun dress.

“I got pressin’ for you today,” Miss Brown said.

“Yes’m,” Sarah nodded, not betraying in her face how much she hated pressing. More often than not, she singed her fingertips trying to keep the iron hot enough in the stove to smooth away the wrinkles in the clothes. But pressing was better than picking cotton, she reminded herself. She thought about the cotton fields almost every day, and how much better it was to work under a roof, at least.

“You should be finished by six, and then you can go on home.”

“Yes’m.”

Then Miss Brown did exactly what Sarah had hoped: Instead of whirling back around to leave the kitchen, she sauntered inside, checking the room for neatness, making sure there weren’t any puddles of water on her floor. Watching Miss Brown’s inspection, Sarah worked up her courage to speak: “I read three words at school today,” she said.

“Glad you learnin’
somethin
’,” Miss Brown said, not turning around to look at her.

That wasn’t the enthusiastic response Sarah had hoped for. Miss Brown walked past her, her hips bumping against Sarah in the narrow opening, and Sarah inhaled the woman’s sweet scent that was part rose-scented perfume, part powdery. Miss Brown never smelled like sweat.

“Miss Brown, how long it took you to read good?”

At that, Miss Brown stopped to look at her. Her skin was so dark her Papa would have called it
blue
, and her round cheeks made her look cheerful even when she wasn’t smiling, which she usually wasn’t.

“They don’t teach y’all grammar at that school?”

“Ma’am?” Sarah said, confused.

Miss Brown shook her head as if Sarah had displeased her. “You don’t read
good
, you read
well
. There’s a difference, and I pray you’ll learn it one day. How long did it take me to read well? Years and years. Anything really worth doin’ always takes time. When the little missy where I grew up went to school, she taught me, too. When she learned, I learned. ’Course, when the master found out, that was the end of that.” Sarah saw a shadow pass across Miss Brown’s face, and she understood why. In school, her teacher had told them how much the slave owners were afraid of their slaves learning to read; then some of the grown folks in the class had told stories about things that had happened to them when they’d tried, how they’d gotten whippings or been sold away from their families. The oldest woman in Sarah’s class had said her baby
son
was sold away from her as punishment when her master, who was the baby’s pappy, found out she was learning to read from a preacher.

“That ol’ marse did somethin’ bad to you, Miss Brown?” Sarah asked.

Miss Brown shrugged. “A few licks, and I couldn’t play with the little missy after that. But by then it was too late. I already had what I wanted. An’ I went back and taught my mammy and pappy both.” At that, Miss Brown smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile; it was a smile of triumph.

“Miss Brown, how come yo’ mama name you America?”

Miss Brown laughed merrily, a sound so loud and unexpected that at first Sarah was afraid she was in pain. Miss Brown took a deep breath and steadied herself by reaching for the table behind Sarah. “Named me … ?” Miss Brown said. “My mama didn’t name me America!”

“Then, who … ?”

“Let me tell you somethin’ ’bout white folks,” Miss Brown said, still laughing in her eyes. “The last thing in the world they wanna do is give colored folks any respect. You see how they talk to men and women old enough to be their own mammies and pappies, call ’em
boy
an’
girl
, or Auntie, or call ’em by their Christian names like they were horses—
‘Whoa, Mary!’
Now after the war, when I figgered I wanted to come out to Vicksburg with the little money I’d saved an’ start takin’ in wash, I knew I had to find a way to stand out from all these other washerwomen or I’d make nary a cent. An’ you think this child was gonna keep the name of the man that owned me? No, Lord! So I said I’d come up with a name for myself folks would remember. I looked down at my skin an’ said, ‘What color is that?’ Ain’t black, it’s
brown
! An’ the Christian name …” At that, Miss Brown began laughing again. Finally she paused long enough to go on. “Well, these folks were so mad at the Union Army, the way they marched in here an’ blew things to bits an’ freed up their slaves, and I named myself America after the U-nited States of America. What happened is, white folks couldn’t cotton to a Negro named America. Seemed to them like I didn’t have the right to it. So you know what they did?”