The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (78 page)

They continued looking for their rooms and left me thinking about Lee Gershwin. She had approached me and Joy in Venice’s Saint Mark’s Square on our second day in Italy.

“Don’t you girls know you shouldn’t wear slacks in Italy? The Italians don’t like it.” Her narrow face was sour with propriety. “Be nice. Remember, we are all ambassadors.”

Joy had told her: “One, it’s cold. Two, I’m singing every night on a cold stage and changing in a cold dressing room, and three, I’m working six hours a day with the cast on their roles. Four, I shall continue to wear slacks and, if I need it, a parka!”

I simply looked at Lee. If I had given tongue to my voice, I’d have said too much. I simply continued to wear slacks when I thought it
necessary, counting on my own sense of propriety to dictate what I should wear where and when. The incident had slipped from my consciousness, but once reminded of it I had to admit that Lee’s maternalistic attitude had so infuriated me that, although she traveled with us, I had erased her from my thoughts.

I unpacked the clothes I would need for the three-night, two-day trip to Alexandria and changed into a dress for lunch.

When I walked up the stairs, stewards grinned and spoke to me in Greek, and as I entered the dining room a large, bushy-haired man in a black suit caught my arm.

“Mrs. Angelos?”

“Yes?”

“I am the purser.”

I couldn’t dredge up one idea of what to expect.

“You speak Greek?” he asked.

“Yes. A little.”

“How did you learn?”

“My husband was Greek.”

“Ah.” And he grinned a broad approval. “Mrs. Angelos, may I make a suggestion?” He turned his large body sideways and spoke out of the side of his mouth as if he were giving me the secret of building an atomic bomb.

“Yes.”

“There is a party. A champagne party.” He inclined his head toward the tables where members of the cast were already lifting glasses. “We expect a very rough trip to Alexandria. It would be better if you didn’t drink today. Or tonight. Not champagne. Not wine. Not water. Eat lightly. Bread. Biscuits. And no drinking.”

I thanked him and asked if he had warned anyone else. He smiled, pulling his lips leftward to reveal a solid gold tooth.

He said, “They are opera singers. I wouldn’t try to tell them. But you”—again he grinned—“you are nearly Greek”—he took my hand and kissed it—“and you have my sympathy. Good-bye. Remember.”

Sympathy? He thought having married a Greek made me deserving of his compassion? Strange.

My friends had saved a chair for me at their table.

“Miss Thing, hold your glass.” Martha held the champagne ready to pour.

“No, I’m not drinking.” I told them of the warning.

Lillian said, “I’ve never been seasick in my life.

Martha and Ethel seconded her. They shared the wine and giggled, paying no attention to my admonition. Every table was filled with happy flutters. Even the few nondrinkers were in a party mood. I only half believed the purser, but was glad for an excuse not to participate. I liked to pay for my own drink or at least choose the sponsor who treated me.

“Mother Afrique, your long-lost daughter is returning home …” Lillian was composing another toast and no one was waiting for her to complete it.

“Cheers.”

“Salute.”

“À votre santé.”

“Doz vedanya.”

“Skoal.”

An officer at the captain’s table stood up, kissed the women’s hands, bowed to the men and began to pick his way out of the dining room. He was tall and moved gracefully, hardly shaking the braid that looped across his wide shoulders. He turned his head and looked at our table. He had the most sensuous face I had ever seen. His lips were dark rose and pouted, and his nostrils flared as if he were breathing heavily through them. But his eyes were the most arresting feature. They were the “bedroom eyes” sung about in old blues—heavy-lidded, as if he were en route at that moment to the boudoir of the sexiest woman in the world.

“Mart, Ethel, look at that,” I said.

My friends, who usually had a high appreciation of male beauty, were so occupied with their party that they gave the officer only a cursory look.

Ethel said, “Yeah, he’s cute.”

Martha said, “I’ll check him out later. Pour a little more of the bubbly into my slipper, please, for I am Queen of the May.”

I watched the man leave the dining salon and knew that when the sexy women in our company got around to noticing him, they would take some of the arrogance out of his swinging shoulders and lessen the bounce in his narrow hips.

After lunch I returned to my cabin, leaving the party in full hilarity. By midafternoon when we were well away from the coast of Greece, the ship began to shudder under the attack of a storm. My luggage shot back and forth across the tiny space between my bunk and the wall, and had I not stood up I would have been thrown out of bed. I shoved my bags tightly into the closet and jammed a chair under the closet’s doorknob. I took a book and headed for the main deck.

In the passageway I met my suddenly sober and suddenly sick fellow singers. Those who were able to talk said the party had broken up as drinkers and players became too ill to continue; the waiters had removed all bottles and glasses and were tying the tables down.

The dining room was empty and dark, and I struggled, rolling from wall to wall, up the passageway to a small red sign which invited: BAR. The door opened on a small, empty but lighted room. I sat at a table, trying to glue my mind to the plot and away from the roiling sea. After an hour or so, a young crew member came in, saw me and was surprised. He asked if I was all right. I lied and told him in Greek that I was. He looked at me, astonished for a second, then left hurriedly. A few moments later the purser arrived.

“Mrs. Angelos, are you well?”

“Yes, of course.” My composure was paper-thin, but it covered the fear.

“You didn’t drink. I noticed.” He was proud of himself and of me.

“No. I ate bread and a piece of cold chicken.”

“Very good. It is going to be worse tonight, but tomorrow will be calmer. You are not to worry. We have a doctor, but he is very busy. Both the opera company and the movie company are sick and he is kept running between the two.”

I didn’t know about the movie company. “Who are they? From America?”

“No. They are English. Except the star is French. Brigitte Bardot. They are all in their cabins and I don’t expect to see either the singers or actors until we reach Alexandria.”

He took my hand. “Mrs. Angelos, if you want me, please ring this bell”—he pointed to a button on the wall—“and tell anyone to come for me. I will be with you immediately.” He kissed my hand and departed.

A waiter entered and said tea was being served in the dining room. I thanked him and said I wouldn’t have anything.

The ship pitched and rolled and quivered and sometimes leaped, seeming to withdraw entirely from the surface of the water. I was frightened at the violence and my inability to control any part of the experience except myself and there was no certainty that my mental discipline would outlast the physical anxiety. But at least I wasn’t ill.

The purser pushed his head in the door. “Dinner is being served. I suggest that you eat. Again the plain bread. And again a small piece of meat. No wine. No water.” His head disappeared as the vessel rolled over on its side.

Although I had no appetite I decided to continue following his suggestions. The dining room was not quite empty. The captain and his officers sat quietly in their corner; a few teetotalers from
Porgy and Bess
were at separate tables; and two men whose faces I recognized from British movies occupied a table near the wall. I joined Ruby Green and Barbara Ann and ate sparingly.

Barbara asked, “Where have you been? You haven’t been sick?”

I told her I’d been reading and I wasn’t sick because I didn’t drink the champagne.

“You ought to see downstairs. Everybody’s sick. I mean, people are moaning like they’re dying. The poor doctor no sooner leaves one room than they call him to another. That man’s got his work cut out for him. See, here he comes now. Poor thing. Just now getting a chance to eat his dinner.”

I looked up, following her gaze, and saw the voluptuous face that had startled me at lunchtime.

“That’s the doctor?” I would have more easily believed him to be a gigolo, a professional Casanova.

“Yes. And he’s very courteous. He gives the same attention to the men that he gives to the women.”

I looked at his retreating back and wondered if Barbara in her naïveté had described the man better than she could have imagined.

After a somber dinner we went below, where the groans of suffering escaped mournfully from each room. I paused before my friends’ doors, but I knew I could do nothing for them except sympathize and I could do that without disturbing their agony.

There was a soft rap on my door. When I opened it and saw the purser, I thought he expected me to compensate him for my sound health. I held the door and asked icily, “Yes, what do you want?”

He said meekly, “Mrs. Angelos, I want to show you how to strap yourself in the bed so that you won’t fall out and be hurt.”

I started to let him in and thought better of it. “No, thanks. I was planning to sleep on the floor. I’ll be all right. Thanks, anyway.”

He shot his hand in the narrow door opening and grabbed my arm.

“Mrs. Angelos, thank you. You are very sad and very beautiful.” He bowed and kissed my hand and released it. I slammed the door. How could he tell I was sad? That was a strange romantic come-on.

I made my actions fit the lie. I stripped mattress and covers from the bed and lay down on the floor to sleep in miserable fits and starts.

The morning was dreary and wet, but the sea was more restrained. The purser was waiting for me outside the dining room door.

“Mrs. Angelos, good morning. You may eat a full breakfast. We will have good weather by evening.” He looked at me lovingly, concern seeping out of his pores. “How did you sleep?”

“Beautifully, thank you. Just beautifully.”

Some members of our company who had survived the storm exchanged stories of the night before.

“Honey, I was so sick I tried to jump overboard!”

“Did you hear Betty? She prayed half the night, then she got mad and screamed, Jesus Christ, this ain’t no way for you to act so close to your birthday!’ ”

My visits to Martha’s and Lillian’s cabins were not welcome, so I made them brief, staying only long enough to see that although their faces were the color of old leather boots, they would survive. I walked around the ship, enjoying the luxury of solitude. For the first time, there was a tender behind the bar and I ordered an apéritif. The very large British movie actor and his companion came in, ordered and sat near me.

“So you’re a sailor too, are you?” The man’s gruff voice was directed to me.

“I suppose so.”

“But the rest of your company have no sea legs?” He laughed and his eyes nearly closed beneath dark, thick eyebrows.

“Some have been a little sick,” I said. The man always played friendly characters, so without knowing his real personality, I felt friendly toward him. “But they’re better now.”

“My name is James Robertson Justice.”

Of course I knew the name and had thought it fitted his giant size and huge laughter. He pointed to his smaller, quieter friend. “And this is Geoffrey Keen.”

We talked about opera and movie making and I felt decidedly international. I was on a Greek ship, talking to English movie stars, en route to the African continent.

I ate lunch and dinner alone, but joined Ned Wright and Bey in the bar after dinner. James Robertson Justice was there again and the three men exchanged stories. They all laughed together, but it was not clear if they understood each other. Ned tended to talk and snap his fingers in the air like a flamenco dancer, meanwhile wiggling his head. Bey grumbled in a bass-baritone without moving his lips. Justice spoke in all the British accents, gamboling from upper class, middle class to Welsh and Irish like a skittish lamb on the heath.

I left the men laughing and talking loudly and walked down the passageway. The doctor passed me, lips distended and full, his eyes low and dense.

“Good evening,” he said.

I said “Good evening,” and wished vainly that he would stop. The purser knocked at my door. I opened it a crack.

“Mrs. Angelos, we will dock at eleven. Everyone will be asked to come to passport control. There will be a crowd. I suggest that you meet me after breakfast, at nine o’clock, and I will see that your passport is stamped first.”

“Thank you.” I held on to the door. “Thank you very much. Good night.” I closed the door firmly.

At nine o’clock the next morning he met me outside the dining room. He took my elbow and guided me to the upper deck. An official handed me my stamped passport and medical documents. The purser led me away.

“Now, Mrs. Angelos, I suggest you get your belongings, not your luggage, but handbags and other things you want to carry. Bring them on deck and then you will not have to stand in line with the others.” He kissed my hand and gave me a lingering look.

When the two companies lined up on the main deck and on the stairs leading to the officials’ temporary office, I stood beside the rail watching the coast of Africa. The ship was being pulled into the harbor by a small, powerful tugboat.

The sea was a beautiful blue, and the tall white buildings on the shore belied the old statement that all Africans lived in trees like monkeys. Alexandria was beautiful.

I had all my hand luggage and was eager to step out on Egyptian soil. A camera swung from my right side, a shoulder bag from the left. I carried my mandolin and Mr. Julian’s heart (I was too ashamed of my treatment of him to throw the thing away), and at my feet was a makeup case and a small box of books.

As the ship neared land, streets and the details of buildings became more visible in the bright sunlight, and I fantasized the Africans who designed the houses and laid out the streets. Tall and dark-brown-skinned. Proud and handsome like my father. Bitter-chocolate black like my brother, lightly made and graceful. Or chunky and muscular, resembling my Uncle Tommy. Thick and sturdy, walking with a roll to their hips like boxers or gandy dancers. The fantasy was mesmerizing, and before I knew it men were lashing the ship to the dock.