My neighbor, Saraswati, was born in Mauritius. Her mother called her poulet noir (“black chicken”) because she was darker than her siblings. She treated her daughter like a servant. Saraswati left home at a young age, traveled to India, and joined an ashram where she met and married an American. I was told they were Hari Krishnas although I never heard her chanting or saw religious markings on her face.
Saraswati was an extremely friendly woman in contrast to her husband. “My husband is an excellent man,” she frequently told me, shaking her dark, pretty head. “His studies require him to go away.”
Saraswati operated a day-care center in a two-storey, brown shingled house. Weekdays, weekends, days, nights, she was busy with other people’s children and her own. Despite the traffic, the house and yard were immaculate. In the late afternoon, she could be found sweeping the street with a short, handleless broom, reporting the latest neighborhood gossip.
“This morning a couple stopped by the fence at a devilishly early hour to admire my roses,” she confided to me.
The tall, tangerine rose trees that lined her front yard were perfect. No black spot or rust. As she spoke, I conjured dawn meanderings with a lover.
“They had a basket and shears,” she shrilled, changing gears and thrusting her small head into my face. “I yelled at them from the window, ‘You get the fuck away from my roses.’ Then, I called the police.”
Saraswati was always calling the police. Last spring, after a terrorist was arrested, local news crews appeared seeking photos of the cottage where the culprit once lived. Several handmade NO TRESPASSING signs were posted on her fences, gates, and doors. She told me a TV anchorman threatened her when she refused to let him enter her yard.
“He made a disgusting gesture at my crotch. He shouted that he wanted to fuck me in the ass.” She repeated “in the ass” several times as her tiny, slack-jawed daughters clung to their mother’s skirt.
When she finally lowered her voice, it was to point out a black youth with an Afro who had recently moved in next door. “He’s dealing drugs from the car,” she said.
I glanced at the sedate Honda parked in front of Saraswati’s house. She had already called the police.
The next time I saw her, I simply waved. I was too tired to walk over and listen. I could no longer sort out vigilance from paranoia. However, a wave sufficed for friendship. That evening, Saraswati telephoned to ask if I would drive her to the hospital when she went into labor. Her excellent husband had already been away many months and was not scheduled to return until after their baby’s due date.
A week later, she called again with news that labor had started. Half-asleep, I prepared to drive to the hospital and hold Saraswati’s hand. She never called me back.
A few days later, when I saw her, she was sweeping the street. “Hey!” she cried excitedly. “My excellent husband arrived just in time.”
I hugged Saraswati and introduced her to my mother, in town for a visit.
Saraswati hugged and kissed my mother, too. “Your daughter is my good friend,” she said. My mother, not easily moved to affection, was charmed by the embrace of such a vivacious woman.
“You must come see the baby,” Saraswati sang, ushering us into her tidy house and seating us on the plush velveteen sofa below a gallery of Hindu gods.
Her little daughters flitted about like fairies while she ordered them in French to settle down. The lovely baby lay sleeping in his crib. All the children were fairer than their “black chicken” mother. The boy was fairest of all.
Saraswati handed me the infant.
“What’s his name?” my mother asked.
“Marvin,” Saraswati beamed.
“Marvin?” my mother repeated incredulously. She had few inhibitions, a characteristic now exaggerated by age. “You named your baby, Marvin?”
“Perhaps, we chose strangely,” Saraswati admitted.
Mother nodded sympathetically. “Can you use his middle name?”
Something unpronounceable was mumbled in Sanskrit. “Marvin is my father-in-law’s name,” she explained. “He is an excellent man.”
Later, I mentioned to mother that her comment might have hurt Saraswati’s feelings. “Marvin, the baby’s name is Marvin?” I imitated her perfectly.
“It was an honest response,” she smiled.
Indeed, I understood the range and velocity of that honesty. It had fueled a list of grievances about my skin, hair, clothes, and friends. Especially skin.
“The sun will turn you swarthy,” mother uttered with contempt. “Swarthy” like “black chicken” prompted me to go far away and never return.
Every week, Elaine and I were driven to dancing class by Noble (her grandmother’s chauffeur). He drove us in a Fleetwood Cadillac, spit-polished and waxed, from the outskirts of Buckhead to The Temple, the oldest, most reformed and prestigious of Atlanta’s synagogues (founded in 1867), domed and columned (like Monticello), and located on a flourishing section of Peachtree Street near the city’s most elegant churches.
For dancing class, my mother bought me a brown velvet dress with a scalloped lace collar and a pair of matching Capezio flats. It was a fussy, childish outfit that would never attract the attention of Terry Vatz, the only handsome (and pimpled) boy in the class. His pimples gave him allure, making him look sexy and mature. The DA haircut was a sign of rebel, and his black pegged slacks showed off his slippery hips as he spun Miriam Blum around. I desperately envied Miriam who wore slinky dresses. The best dressed were the best dancers, and I was neither.
Noble drank as he drove from a flask that he said was filled with root beer. We sat next to him, inhaling Wild Turkey. During dance class while he waited, he proceeded to get loaded. One evening he asked us, “Y’all know about nookie?”
“No!” we chorused, holding our breath and waiting for enlightenment.
“I gets fired for telling y’all,” he slurred. “All I gonna say is if y’all don’t know now, gonna know someday.”
As soon as we reached Elaine’s house, we raced to the dictionary. We searched for nookie, nukey, knooky, and other variations. The word itself connected to the mysteries of Terry Vatz’s hips and Noble’s promise of someday.
By the end of the year, Elaine and I had mastered the fundamentals of ballroom dancing: jitterbug, fox trot, waltz, and cha-cha-cha. Now we were ready to attend The Temple’s teen dances in the fall.
I begged mother for a new, sophisticated, grown-up dress. That was a hopeless request. I consulted with my cousin, Peggy, guru of fashion. She had a dozen party dresses she wore when she dated college boys. She said I could borrow any dress I wanted.
The lavender satin sheath had a deep sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves. I took her gold heels (half-size too big) and a boxy gold evening purse, too. Peggy showed me how to sweep up my hair in a French twist and smudge my eyelids with lavender shadow. She lent me a Merry Widow and a white rabbit fur cape.
The night of the dance, I put on my brown velvet dress and velvet flats. “What a pretty picture!” my mother cooed. She made me turn and twirl. “At least, you won’t look like a slut,” she said.
At Elaine’s house, I metamorphosed into a womanly package. When Noble arrived, he concurred. His eyes rolled up and down my stockinged legs. For the first time, Elaine and I sat in the back of the Cadillac.
The hall behind the sanctuary was crowded with teens. Everyone in the young set looked nervous except Terry and Miriam. They were in control. When the music started, he winked at her, and they spun, hip to hip, over the dance floor.
Our instructor tapped Sandy Weber (older by two years) for the first dance and pulled him out into the center. When the music stopped, she led Sandy to me. I was terrified, but when he held out his hand for Belafonte’s “The Banana Boat Song,” I followed him.
“Step, one-two-three,” my lips commanded and feet followed. Soon, I stopped counting. I melted into the music. After three dances with Sandy, I kicked Peggy’s gold heels into a corner.
At evening’s end, the instructor dimmed the lights for the last dance. The lubricated chords of Johnny Mathis soared. Terry and Sandy each tugged on my hand. Choosing between them would prove emblematic of my romantic future: danger and desire versus loyalty. I chose Sandy.
Limping barefoot from the hall, I rested on Elaine’s arm, strands of French twist falling, stockings ruined, my cousin’s lavender dress stained, the rabbit cape askew. It had been the sweetest night of my life.
Noble jumped from the car to open the door, grunting happily (no doubt, anticipating we’d soon be drinking Wild Turkey with him).
Late that night, a bomb exploded at The Temple. Part of the sanctuary building was blown out. No one was hurt, but that was the only good news.
“They bombed The Temple!” my panicked mother called in the morning. “They bombed it!”
“Bombed?” I repeated in disbelief. “Why?”
“Negroes,” she said. “It’s because of Negroes.”
A few hours later, my family went to The Temple. Hundreds of bystanders were on the street and sidewalk, viewing the damage. We had to pass through a ring of policemen. As the rabbi, in his dark robe, stepped onto the bema, the human buzz in the sanctuary grew absolutely silent.
“We are here,” the rabbi said. He asked us not to be deterred by threats of violence. He likened the Negro struggle to that of the Jews, and the color line of segregation to the Red Sea.
I stared at the cavernous hole, praying that whoever planted the bomb would be sucked into the middle of the earth. Their hate scared me more than anything. I knew it firsthand. I had seen the parades of the KKK, marching by Leb’s (Atlanta’s large downtown Jewish delicatessen). Marching were girls and boys (all ages), dressed in white robes and conical hats, their eyes burning “Jew! Jew! Jew!” on my forehead.
After services, we filed outside and talked with other families on the sloping lawn. Terry, Miriam, Sandy, Elaine, their families stood nearby.
“What if the bomb exploded during the dance?” Miriam’s mother wept into a handkerchief.
“Sue,” a voice called over to me.
I turned to see my dance instructor. She was walking towards me with Peggy’s gold heels.
“They were blown out the door by the explosion,” she said.
“They aren’t hers,” my mother replied. “We’ve never seen them.”
I took the shoes by their straps and skipped ahead to the parking lot.
“Noble!” I tapped the glass, leaned through the window, and shoved the shoes under his seat. I sent him a pleading look and ran to our car.
“You don’t have to talk to Negroes like that,” my mother reprimanded. “Up close like he’s your friend.”
“Marguerite, please,” my father said.
“It’s the reason for the bomb,” mother insisted. “Jews and Negroes, they think we’re the same.”
My father leaned into my ear and whispered, “Garbage.”
“That’s the reason,” my mother sobbed. “That’s the reason.”