Harlem Redux (4 page)

He loosened his collar. What kind of man had finally elicited Lilian’s love? She had made female friends quickly and maintained them easily, but men she had kept at a cool distance.

“So who was the lucky guy?”

“His name is Sweet, Mr. Jameson Sweet. He’s gone on business. He’ll be back Sunday. Maybe you know him? He works for the Movement, too.”

A light flickered in David’s deep-set eyes. Regret, anxiety, and fear rumbled like freight trains through his chest. He had known he was taking a risk in returning, but the danger was closer to home than he had anticipated. He felt Annie watching him, her eyes quick with intuitive intelligence, and forced himself to remain calm. He must take care. She was as gentle as a dove, but as sly as a fox.

“Mr. David, I got your old room waiting’ for you,” she was saying softly. “I gave it a good going over when I knew you was coming’.”

“No, it’s better if I stay in a hotel.”

“This is your home.”

Not anymore,
he wanted to say. “It’s better if I go. I can’t stay long, no way—”

“Oh, but you got to stay.”

He gazed at her. “No, Annie. I’ve got business down in Philadelphia—”

“You got business here, too.
Fam’ly business.”

“Annie—”

“Miss Lilian’s gone and Miss Gem’s ‘cross the ocean. I’m just an old woman and I got no say. You the only one left to set things straight.”

His eyes narrowed. “Set what straight?”

She measured her words. “Mr. David, you and I, we both know ... well, we both know that things ain’t always the way they seem.” She looked at him as though that explained it all.

It didn’t. As far as he was concerned, it most definitely didn’t. “Yes … and?”

Her expression became somewhat impatient. “Mr. David, I’ll put it as simple as I can. More than one fox got into this chicken coop while you was gone.”

“You mean Lilian’s husband—”

“I mean he’s sitting pretty in this here house,
real
pretty.”

A pause, then: “Just what kind of man is he?”

“A hard man, a determined man. And he ain’t the sharing kind.” She reached across the table and laid a firm hand on his wrist. “Now Miss Lilian never meant for this here house to pass outta the fam’ly. You know that.”

What she said was true. This beautiful house had been his father’s pride, the crowning glory of a lifetime. A stately, turn-of-the-century Italianate building on tree-lined 139th Street, it boasted twelve rooms, casement windows, and iron filigreed balconies. Set on Strivers’ Row, with its air of manicured exclusivity, the house was a monument to Augustus McKay’s real estate acumen. It was a coveted symbol of the McKay family’s status among Harlem’s elite—and a lightning rod for the hate and envy of others.

“Mr. David, you can’t be willing to give up your daddy’s house—-just like that.” Annie snapped her fingers. “You can’t be.”

He gazed steadily at her for a long time. She meant well, but she didn’t know. How could she? He had forfeited the right to call the house his home. He was in no moral position to reclaim his birthright. He doubted he ever would be. The small jaw muscles on either side of his face began to bunch. He had but one question.

“Did he hurt her?”

“Things ... like I said ... ain’t always the way they seem.”

He considered the matter. “I’ll stay until I’ve talked to Sweet. Maybe he and I can reach some agreement.”

She leaned toward him, her eyes burning. “Mr. David, it’s time for you to take your place. Here. You got a point to make. Make it now. Later might be too late.”

She led him up the stairway, humming a spiritual as she climbed. She moved slowly, but he moved even slower. His suitcase seemed to grow heavier with every step.

Part of him was relieved. He had been waiting for this summons for a long time. The night before, he had dreamed that by returning home, he would be walking into a trap, that his family, Strivers’ Row, Harlem—they were all bundled together—would swallow him, smother him. He had seen mocking phantoms, knowing smiles, and pointing fingers. Tossing and turning, he had entangled himself in his bedcovers, ripping the sheets as he struggled to break free. When he’d finally jerked upright, he was panting and disoriented, drenched in cold sweat. He’d stared blindly into the dark, his agitated heartbeat thudding in his ears. He had known he couldn’t run forever. Known he would be summoned back. Someday. Somehow

“It’s so nice to have you back, Mr. David.” Annie swung open his bedroom door and led him into the room. “I freshened it up for you real nice.”

She offered to unpack his bag for him, but he shook his head. He watched tensely as she bustled about, plumping pillows that had already been plumped, smoothing a bedspread that had already been smoothed. Then she glided past him with a warm smile and was gone, drawing the door closed behind her, leaving him alone with his ghosts.

He understood what people meant when they spoke of time standing still. The room seemed to be exactly as he had left it. Even the extra pair of navy blue socks he had laid out but forgotten on the dresser top was still there. He left his suitcase by the door, crossed the room, and yanked his closet door open. It too was as he had left it: empty, except for an old black suit and his army uniform. He stroked the lapels of the army greatcoat and fingered a cuff.

It had been seven long years since the war. Since the Hell Fighters marched up Fifth Avenue. Since the city had given a dinner in their honor.

Damn, we were so proud then, so proud. And so hopeful. To think of all the dreams we dreamt ...

Faces of the men he’d known flashed before him. Joshua Lewis, Ritchie Conway, Bobby Raymond ... He’d lost contact with all of them. He would have liked to believe that most had fared well, but from what he’d seen since returning in 1919, he doubted it. A week after coming back, his best friend, Daniel Jefferson, had died while still in uniform, and it was an American mob, not a German soldier, that killed him. Danny had had the temerity to tell a white woman in Alabama that he was a man who had fought for his country and deserved better than to be called “boy.” He was dead within the hour.

The war over there was nothing—nothing compared to the one over here.

David fingered his medal, still pinned to the front of his jacket. He had won the French Croix de Guerre for facing down a German raiding party on his own.

Medals are for heroes,
he thought,
heroes ...
and dropped his hand from the medal as though it suddenly burned him.

His eyes moved to the black jacket. June 1921. His father: an old man, propped up by thick pillows, dying from tuberculosis; an old man with a grasp of iron and a will of steel.

“You go finish up at Howard. Be somebody. Make a difference and fight the good fight. And always, always protect your sisters.”

Then there was his father’s funeral service at Saint Philip’s Episcopal. As befitting a man of Augustus McKay’s social and financial stature, the service was weighty, dignified. An impressive convoy of expensive cars accompanied his coffin to the cemetery. Afterward, there was a small gathering at the house “for the right people.”

When the last guest was gone, David and Lilian huddled near one another on the parlor sofa, sharing a pot of tea, relieved at the quiet. Gem flounced into the room, gay even in funereal black. She saw her brother and sister sitting together and was instantly jealous.

“Plotting, plotting. Something nifty, I hope?”

David gave her a look that silenced her immediately. She actually flinched. He was hard hit by his father’s death and showed it. He and his father had never gotten along. Whether David could admit it or not, there had been several times when he had wished his father dead. But once the old man was gone, David missed him. Gem, however, was quick to push her grief aside, assuming she felt any. Her mind was on one matter and one matter only: money. She suggested that Lilian and David buy out her share of the house. She was sure they would agree, and they did. It was the first and last time the three of them agreed to anything with alacrity. Gem took her money and vanished within days. David and Lilian supposed that Gem had gone west, since she had mentioned Los Angeles, but they couldn’t be sure. Indeed, they didn’t much care.

The day we laid Daddy in the ground marked the last day we stood in the same room together. Not that we planned it that way. Not that we would’ve ever guessed it would turn out that way.

He and Lilian returned to their respective universities: He to Howard law in Washington, D.C.; she to study French literature as a Cornell undergraduate in Ithaca, New York. She would earn a Phi Beta Kappa key. Whether or not their chauvinist father had wanted to admit it, Lilian was the family brain. Gem had had the talent to develop into a gifted and memorable if radical poet, but she had dissipated her ability. After two years of cutting the rug and doing the bumpity-bump, dancing her semesters away, she’d quit her studies at the University of Southern California.

But if Gem failed to live up to Daddy’s hopes, then so did I.

Standing in his room that March evening, he felt a familiar surge of shame. Yes, he had kept his promise to Augustus, but it had been to the letter—not in the spirit—of the old man’s wishes. Over the past four years, he’d wandered far from his father’s mansion. Could he find his way back? He had no choice. He had to, if he was to understand Lilian’s death and regain control of his father’s house.

David closed the closet door. He went to the window, parted the curtains, and looked out. The street seemed deserted, except for an old man walking his Doberman. David stood there thoughtfully for a minute or two, then let the curtain drop, went to the door, and left. A few steps to the right and down the corridor and he was in front of the master bedroom. He put his hand on the doorknob, but then hesitated. This was the room in which it had happened. He dreaded the sight of it. Yet he felt compelled to view it. Perhaps standing in this room would help him accept the reality of her death ... her
suicide.
He twisted the knob very gently and slowly pushed the door open.

The strong smell of fresh paint rushed out from the closed room, stinging his nostrils. Catching his breath, he paused on the threshold. He didn’t know what he had expected to feel, but it wasn’t the odd sensation that overcame him. He felt as though he were standing before a museum diorama set up to replicate Lilian’s room. This subdued, muted place could not be real. It lacked the familiarity, the hominess of Lilian’s room. It could not be the genuine article.
But it is,
he told himself.

In the cold light of that March evening, the room was dim. Lilian’s combs, brushes, and hand mirror were laid out on the dressing table. Her hairpins were neatly aligned on a little mirrored tray. Delicate perfume bottles by Lalique were arranged to one side. The bed’s counterpane was obviously new, as were the curtains at the windows. On the night table next to her bed lay her Bible, closed but with strips of red, yellow, and blue ribbon inside it to hold her place. Family photographs of their parents and of her with Gem and himself were artfully arranged atop the chest of drawers opposite the foot of her bed. A sad smile touched his lips. Even a picture of a stray puppy Lilian had adopted as a child was there.

He let his eyes drift over the dresser top once more and frowned. Something was missing. At first he didn’t know what it was. Then it hit him. All those photographs of Lilian and the family, but not one of her husband. Why not? Why, if she’d loved him—if they’d had a good marriage—were there no photos of him on display with the others in her room?

“Mr. Jameson moved out after it happened,” said a voice behind him. David turned. It was Annie. “He took another room,” she said.

David nodded. He could understand that. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to continue to sleep in a room in which his wife had bled to death. He took a few steps into the room. Annie followed him, and they paused at the foot of the four-poster bed.