up—talk him into goin’ with us tonight.” She pointed to a dark-haired man with a thin mustache standing near her. “Pepito will take you there.”
“I’ll go right away,” I said.
Pepito was Josephine Baker’s companion and soon-to-be husband. He was an obvious hustler, but he was nice to me and we struck up an easy conversation. He led us through traffic for several blocks until we stopped in front of an old and ornate church, Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. The facade was three-tiered and rose seven or eight stories, covered in great stone columns and arches with statues in recesses on all three levels. Pepito climbed the steps with me, saying he would wait for me under the massive stone arch of the entrance. I walked inside. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light and I found a place to sit near the aisle on the last row of pews. The cavernous cathedral was eerily silent and all the pews were empty, except for two people: a young girl in the front row who seemed to be weeping, and a black man two rows ahead of me. He sat with his head bent forward and his eyes closed. It was Mitch. As always, he was wearing his tuxedo, but the jacket had been removed, the tie loosened, and the collar unbuttoned. I stood and walked down two rows. He kept his eyes closed. I sat and moved over until I was within five feet and waited.
Thirty seconds passed. Almost whispering, I said, “Mitch, are you all right?”
He looked up slowly, not even surprised to see me. There were no tears in his eyes, but there was a deep and true sadness. “Hey, Z,” he said. His voice sounded dull and flat. “I been meanin’ to call, man. I just…I just ain’t got around to it.”
Another twenty seconds passed. I gazed around the cathedral. “I didn’t know you liked churches, Mitch.”
He smiled faintly. “I can’t say I frequent the joints, Z.”
“Any reason you picked this one?”
“It was old.”
“Sounds like a good reason to me.” I let a few more moments go by. The girl in the front row rose to light a candle at the altar. I heard her mumbling a prayer. I turned to Mitch. “What’s wrong, Mitch?”
He took a deep breath and sighed. “Nothin’ I won’t get over. Today is May 27, the same day my old man died in Ithaca. It hit me hard this time around.” He paused and looked up at the girl by the altar. “I think about him different now than I used to. I miss him.”
“I know how you feel. I miss my papa every day.”
“No, Z, that ain’t what I meant. You miss what you two had together. I miss what we never had until the very end, and then we just ran out of time. I only got to know him those last few months. Inside, I hated him most of my life, but in the end I got to know him. And I forgave him inside. Now I miss him and I can’t bring him back. It’s not fair, man.”
“I agree. There’s nothing fair about it.”
“And he died confused, Z. That ain’t fair either.”
“What do you mean, ‘confused’?”
“He never got rid of his guilt…and his regret.”
“Because he left you and your mama?”
“I think so, but you see, he’d done it before. He told me he did it twice in his life—once in Africa, and again a few years later in St. Louis. He spent several years with his family in Africa before he left, but he left St. Louis not long after I was born. He said I got a half sister somewhere. No doubt about it, he had a pile of regret. And you know what the saddest part is, Z? He never knew why. ‘I have searched my soul,’ he told me, ‘and I have never known why I did it—either time.’”
“That is sad, though he must have been happy to finally have you with him.”
“Yeah, he loved it. He had a hell of a life, Z. He was an engineer, a gambler, a preacher, and a professor. He quoted Walt Whitman all the time, and the Bible. He survived a shipwreck off West Africa and being captured by a desert warlord named El Heiba, then escaping with the daughter of a shaman. She was being held as a slave because El Heiba believed she had some kind of voodoo power. They made it out of the desert and cross-country all the way back to her village, where he lived with her and her people for years as man and wife. Wild stuff, man, but he lived it.”
Suddenly, I got a chill up my spine, not because of the story but because I’d heard it before—in Africa! The coincidence was too startling to be an accident. “Mitch, did your papa ever tell you the name of your half sister?”
“Yeah, he said it out loud one time. He whispered it. He called her ‘Emme.’” Before I could say anything, Mitch added, “I got a picture of him right here, Z. I took it myself about a week after I got to Ithaca.” He reached for his tuxedo jacket and withdrew a photograph from the inside pocket. “Here he is,” Mitch said, “that’s Cayuga Falls in the background.”
I looked at the snapshot and another strange coincidence occurred. I had seen the face in the photograph before. I had met the man in 1919, just as we were preparing to dock in New York. It was when we were bringing Star home, finally, after all those years in Africa, along with the bodies of Nicholas and Eder. I was walking the deck alone when a thin old black man asked me to watch his things while he stepped inside. I remembered the books he carried with him,
“Mitch,” I said, “you are not going to believe a couple of things I have to tell you.”
Just then, the wide doors behind us opened and I heard Josephine Baker’s voice saying, “
Mitch and I both turned around. Mitch said, “Tumpy, what are you doin’ here?”
She wore her long silver gown with sequins and they sparkled in the half-light and shadows. She marched over to Mitch, speaking in exaggerated whispers. “Because, Mitch honey, we have decided that you need a night out and we won’t take no for an answer.” She stopped and looked down at Mitch in the pew. Pepito followed close behind her. She glanced his way. “Ain’t that so, Pepito? We all agreed, right?”
“
Mitch answered slowly and without much emotion. “Josephine, don’t take this personally, but I believe I’ll pass on this one.”
Josephine almost stamped her feet in frustration, then glanced at me for help.
“I think she’s right, Mitch,” I said. The sadness still filled his eyes.
Mitch looked away, toward the altar. “I just don’t feel like it, man. I just…I don’t know…I just…”
I heard the doors swing open behind us. I turned and Mercy Whitney walked through, dressed in an elegant crimson dress and wearing a skullcap similar to Josephine’s. She smiled when she saw us and hurried over. Ruby earrings dangled from her ears. Her lips were the same color as the rubies. “What a beautiful old church,” Mercy said. Mitch suddenly looked startled, as if a bell had rung. He turned in his pew instantly. His eyes found Mercy’s and Mercy’s found his. The exchange was and is one of the rarest moments in life and I was witness to it. I recognized it because I had experienced the same moment in China when Opari and I first looked into each other’s eyes. It is a split second of wonder, mystery, and magic. It is love at first sight. Unexpected and unprepared, and in the dim light of the church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, Mitchell Ithaca Coates and Mercy Whitney were given the flower of that moment. It came to them unasked and unannounced and in full bloom. I couldn’t help myself and laughed out loud with joy, despite where we were. Josephine Baker had also seen the exchange and joined in, understanding immediately what she had seen. Mitch and Mercy ignored us. Their eyes were locked. I watched Mitch’s eyes. I have never seen such a sincere and heartfelt sadness disappear so quickly. Finally, Mitch smiled and said, “I just changed my mind, Tumpy.”
“I can see that, honey,” Josephine said.
I noticed an older priest walking up the aisle from the altar. He was not pleased or amused. “I think it’s time to leave,” I said, nodding in his direction.
“Time indeed, the car is waitin’ for us,” Josephine added.
Outside, there were two limousines lined up against the curb. We climbed in the open door of the lead car
