“But I always told you and Dots that today Mistress Hunter, or Mistress Burrmann is going to smile with you or with Dots, but be-Jesus Christ, tomorrow morning that smile may turn into a blasted skin-teet and a sneer! I know what I was talking about then. So, Bernice, I don’t see what the hell you’re depressing yourself over. You’re damn lucky you come outta that mess whilst you’s relatively still a young woman, with strength left back to start scratching out a livelihood in your own behalf.” Boysie put half of the large pork chop into his mouth; and much of the gravy was left outside. He used his tongue expertly to wipe it away; and then he gripped the white lily-white Irish linen napkin from somewhere in his lap, and wiped his mouth and his face and the corners of his eyes clean; and then he said, “Bernice, pour yourself a next wine, man.”
“Gal, stop this damn crying in my apartment!” Dots said, and then laughed. She went to Bernice, and gave her a playful slap on her behind. “You should be ashamed, damn ’shamed to let me and Boysie, two black people, see you shedding tears over a white woman!”
“All white people is bitches, if you ask me. And we, as black people, ain’t much different, neither. But we have one thing that they ain’ got, and never will get. And that is love. It may be all we got, but be-Christ, it is still something. So, gorblummuh, we have to love. We have so much love in our heart for them bitches and bastards, that you see with your own two eyes, right now, a black woman, Bernice, look! here is a black woman, Bernice, gorblummuh and she is crying because Mistress Burrmann …”
“No, Boysie! No no no!” Dots said, and she had to stand up to make her point. “Not all white bitches is bitches. Agaffa is white, but she is one exception to that rule. Agaffa is a lady in any colour.”
“But Agaffa isn’t white no more! I regard Agaffa as a black woman now, because tomorrow morning bright and early, Agaffa will be going up that aisle with that black bastard Henry, and when she walk down, be-Christ, her fate will be sealed as a black woman. There ain’ half dozen white women I know, in all my days in this city, who would do a thing like that for a man like Henry, unemploy’, gorblummuh, for the past year and a half! A woman like that can’t be white. She bound to be a black woman. ’Cause that is love to the heights.”
“You talked a mouthful.”
“ ’Course, I just said a mouthful.”
“Come, Bernice, sit down, gal. We can’t be leaving back this food. We ain’t servants now, so we can’t throw away all this food. We ain’t white people neither that we could afford the luxuries and the wastages of throwing this good food into a garbage can. Sit down, sit down.”
Bernice did that. And instantly, she felt she was among friends. She ate the second plateful before her, and before she could be honest and ask for more, Dots, who was reading her mind, refilled the plate. Bernice was halfway through this one when a great belch escaped her. She looked round, frightened; embarrassed because had this happened in Mrs. Burrmann’s presence, she would have had to beg pardon many times, to hope for forgiveness, with the many “pardons” calculated to hide the fact that she had belched. But Mrs. Burrmann “burped” many times in Bernice’s presence, and she didn’t say, “Excuse me, Bernice.” Bernice saw the difference in her life. A simple thing like this had changed it. She was among friends. Not that she didn’t have to say “pardon” among these friends, but saying “pardon” was not the same as it had been in Forest Hill. Could there be many more things she had been forced to do because of her nearness to the Burrmann’s and the Gasstein’s and to Brigitte, and the children all over the streets in Forest Hill, and other places and other people all over Marina Boulevard? Did Dots have to force herself to do certain things in Rosedale, when she was close to white people? Could there be things about her behaviour, which because of her proximity through employment, though not through social equality, in Forest Hill that she had sacrificed or had forgotten to do through lack of practice? When was the last time, even in her room eating alone, had she had the guts to put down a fork and pick up a pork chop in her hand, and eat it and chomp on it, and suck out all the juices, holding it in her greasy fingers as Boysie was doing now? When was the last time she really laughed, like she was people, as Dots always used to say? When was the last time she could sit down comfortably, in a streetcar or in
