For All Time Page 6

  Tears well up in my eyes but I refuse to blink. I should be used to him speaking to me like this, but as hard as I try to steel myself against it, it still stings. The car drowns before me.

  “I thought I told you to have your traveling suit tailored for the trip.”

  “I did,” I whisper.

  He grunts. He’s scrutinizing me. All of me. As always, I’m coming up short. We never converse about it. He never says it out loud, but I know what he’s thinking. My weight, my color—the richness of it, the depth, like good sleep and dark liquor. I look too much like Granny, his mother. Too much like who he really is, the person he tried so hard to run away from when he got accepted to Lincoln University. It was Granny’s moonshine and juke-joint money that put him through college, but he’d never admit that to anyone who didn’t already know. It’s Mama’s family that had the status, if not the money. My mother’s mother, Grandmother Dawson, can trace her family back four generations before the end of slavery, not that any of that matters to her brother’s creditors. He invested most of the family money and lost it. They’re old Philadelphia, high status and high yellow. It was Grandmother Dawson who got Daddy his first interview at Mercy Hospital, and she’s never let him forget it. I can’t play this game anymore. I don’t want to.

  Patience knows it too. She takes after Mama, thin-boned and golden, and sweet as ripe strawberries. She was never as good at her studies as I was, but maybe she is smarter. She watched Daddy, learned how to play into his hands, and maybe he let her. I, on the other hand, am sour rather than sweet. I’m not going to change who I am so that he can feel more comfortable slicing off parts of me to fit some notion of the ideal daughter. I guess my sister reminds Daddy of where he’s going; I look too much like where he’s been.

  Patience, and Mama, even, kept their gazes low, nodded meekly when he exploded. But Granny was a tobacco-chewing, loud-talking, wild-mouthed, wide-hipped woman who let no man keep her from doing exactly what she wanted to do, especially her self-hating son. Her approach is infinitely more appealing.

  10 FAYARD

  THE WHISTLE BLOWS AND EVERYTHING moves like it’s been electrified. The radio crackles over the dishwashing station, and Bessie Smith’s “Downhearted Blues” winds its way through the chaos as I enter the kitchen. The cook waves over a guy named LJ, as per the name tag on his jacket, who can’t be but a few years older than me. His hair is shaved almost to the scalp and he’s got a gap in his teeth that makes it sound like he’s whistling when he talks.

  “You know how to serve?” he asks me.

  I shake my head. I don’t know anything but running numbers, which made me perfect for luggage service, straightforward labor, but I’ve never waited a table a day in my life.

  “No worry, all you really need to know is to do what you’re told. Think you can do that?”

  I nod.

  “Good, ’cause you just lucked into the best-paying job on the line. Now, hip this, I didn’t say it was the best job on the line, just the one that pays the most. Most fellas wait years for their chance at service. If you’re good, you can put that sweet thing you got at home in a nice apartment and them kids you don’t like into fine shoes with steak dinners every night. Keep your mouth shut and it won’t get you into trouble. That’s the first thing that’ll steal this job from under you. Sass. No matter what the passengers tell you to do or how they tell you to do it, you hop to and you do it with a smile. You got a name?”

  “Yeah, Fayard, but everybody calls me Big Time.”

  “Not anymore. Now your name is George.”

  I like to say I’ve got a poker face, but sometimes I falter. My jaw ticks, but I don’t move.

  “Don’t look so put out, kid. My name’s George too, and so’s his and his over there. When you’re on the floor, that’s who you are. When you get off the floor, you’re Big Time again. Got it?”

  I nod. I do get it. We’re not paid to be people with hearts, feelings, and dreams of our own. We’re paid—no, tipped is more accurate—we’re tipped to be buckets, willing to take whatever the customer pours out. No matter how bad a white man’s day goes, he can always rest easy if it was better than the day of the colored man next to him.

  I shadow LJ as I try to get my bearings. He’s quick but thorough and explains everything twice so he knows I got it.

  Right before we’re done for the night, a couple of drunk white boys, not much older than us, try to get LJ to cluck like a chicken for a dollar. I feel every bit of the train wobble and shake as goose bumps ripple across my skin, and I’m waiting to see how he’ll react—will he need a brother to go to war with him? Will this end in a fight or worse? I swallow hard. When he does it—chooses shame instead of pride—I close the book on him. You can’t trust a man who’ll give up his dignity for spare change. A guy like that will trade your life for his, or worse.

  I don’t ask any questions, though. I catch his eye after his little performance, and I think he knows he’s lost me. His lips turn down just a bit at the corners and he doesn’t meet my gaze again. For four hours I keep my head down; I smile; I hustle. At the end of dinner I shake off the snide comments, the rudeness, the casual and common inhumanity of well-heeled white folks, and take my pocketful of tips back to the laundry car for the real work. I haven’t been on the train a full day yet and I already know there’s no fighting who you really are.

  Now there’s only two things on my mind—policy and that girl I saw on the platform. It takes nothing but a whisper to get a numbers game going. Policy is like the lottery—well, not like, is—and every colored man with some change in his pocket plays. In Harlem, the New York Clearing House sets the numbers for the winner of the day at ten a.m. on the dot. I hear in Detroit they pick balls from a machine. And right now, on Mr. Pullman’s train, I’m the only man with a plan.

  For the remainder of the night, I slide in and out of each car like a pocket of air. Coins jingle so bad in my pockets that I sound like Christmas in July. I inhale big gulps of smoke-laced air, let it settle in my lungs and mark my journey. Soon my only wish is that I had a bit of mistletoe to take with me. I’ve got a date with destiny.

  11 FAYARD

  UNCLE MAX’S FACE IS SET, his body a solid wall at the back of the smoking car.

  “No.”

  “But Uncle Max,” I whine.

  “You’re too green and you got your daddy’s blood in you. Ain’t nothing you love more than chasin’ a skirt.”

  I place a hand on my chest with pretend shock. “I am offended, Uncle Max. I would never do anything to jeopardize my new job here or to embarrass you. Besides, like you said, I’m green. You can put me in one of the other cars where I’m liable to make a mistake, or you can put me in the private car and all I have to do is take care of two people. It’s like baby steps, easing into the job.”

  “No dice. Sharp’s already turned down the beds and delivered the good doctor his dinner.”

  “Sharp? Even I know Sharp ain’t the best.” I met him while working luggage earlier. You had to watch him or you’d find yourself hauling everything alone, with him hiding behind a trunk with a cigarette.

  “I don’t need him to be the best. I just need him to babysit till we let ’em off in Atlanta.”

  I’ve got more argument in me, but Uncle Max turns and leaves.

  “Uncle Max!”

  The whip of the wind snatches my voice and tosses it along the tracks, but Fats always said an obstacle ain’t nothing but an opportunity in disguise.

  * * *

  “Sharp?” I whisper. “Sharp?”

  He groans and turns over in bed. With a near-empty car available, there’s no reason to try to make up a bed in the smoking car like the other porters; he just picked the farthest sleeping compartment from the guests and claimed it as his own.

  “Sharp!” This time I wedge a knuckle into his spine.

  “Ow!”

  “Shhhh!” I hiss.

  “Man, are you crazy? What are you doing in here?”<
br />
  “I’ll give you two dollars if you let me take this assignment.”

  Sharp’s lips bunch and slide to the side in suspicion. “You ain’t got it to give.”

  I dig into my vest pocket and pull out a double eagle worth twenty dollars. His eyes bulge and he shoots up so quick his head cracks against the ceiling. Sharp winces and rubs the spot while reaching out to inspect the coin. I snatch it back.

  “You stole it.”

  “I’ve never stolen anything in my entire life outside of a kiss. I’m just letting you know I’m good for it.”

  He’s silent for a minute and then nods. Attending porters are required to stay close to their guests, and I want to be as close to the girl as possible. It might be the only joy I get on this job.

  “All right,” he sighs as he flops back down on the bed. “Ain’t no point in me working this one anyway. Big-time coloreds don’t tip worth a damn.”

  He slides off the bunk and disappears down the hallway as quiet as death. I guess it’s one of those skills you learn over time. I don’t even bother to undress, just pull off my jacket and unbutton my shirt before I hop into bed.

  After the hardest day of work in my life, I thought I’d go out like a light, but my mind turns to sweeter things, like the girl asleep in the next room, her smile, the longing in her eyes, like she’s looking for something she just can’t find.

  12 Gao Empire, Mali, 1325

  FAYARD

  EVERY DUMB ANIMAL HAS EYES, even me, but hers… there are no appropriate words to describe them. Subtle and searing? No, it was more than that. Wide-set and wistful? It was only a few moments, but I see the girl from the market everywhere and nowhere. Her eyes staring into mine from around corners, and in my sleep. I’ve never been smitten like this before.

  I bow low to one of the sultan’s senior wives at the gate of the compound, removing my shield and smiling broadly so that she can see me clearly as a royal guest despite her rheumy and clouded vision.

  She nods, and one of the guards lets me inside the wooden gates. While the city isn’t protected by much more than the river and a few military outposts, the sultan does keep his family well-guarded, and as members of Mansa Musa’s noble retinue, we are his guests.

  “And where have you been all day dressed like that?” my father asks as he waves disdainfully at my borrowed foot soldier’s attire.

  “Nowhere.”

  “Ah, and with no one, I’m sure.”

  I laugh. Father knows I pretend to be a warrior so I can move freely in the villages, and chooses to look away. A title can be a burden, a fact he’s well aware of.

  “You are too predictable, son,” he says as he gathers his prayer mat from the corner and hands me mine. “I wanted to wait until we returned home from the hajj to find you a wife, but you have forced my hand with this carousing. You are getting too old for this. Did you at least win anything this time?”

  I blink hard. I thought he’d given up on the marriage talk after what happened with my last betrothal, or at least put it on hold so that we could travel in peace.

  “I am seeing the world. Is it not my privilege to do so as the son of one of the most respected Mandinka chieftains, living or dead?”

  “You flatter too easily, and that is your main failing. Marriage will center you, or at the very least occupy your days so that you don’t risk defiling my good name or Mansa Musa’s. Maybe we can outrun your bad luck.”

  “That silly old witch is senile,” I say with irritation. Father is overly superstitious. Only a fool leaves his fate in the hands of some blind old woman in our home village who spins tales to earn her bread each night. Yet, he clings to the old ways and seeks out the advice of soothsayers and such for every big decision.

  His eyes soften. “Forget luck, then. We will outrun your poor decisions.”

  I realize too late that his mind is made up and this is not idle conversation. I grasp at straws.

  “B-but it was you, Baba, who insisted that I marry a Senufo girl like Mother.”

  He draws in a deep breath, no doubt taking the moment to remember Mother, her smile and her quiet spirit.

  I lean into my argument.

  “How would it look for your only son to return home with a foreign bride?”

  He blinks hard and shakes his head. “It would look like a brazen attempt to get into the good graces of Mansa Musa, who is desperate to solidify alliances inside and outside his empire and among all the tribes of this land,” he says calmly.

  “So, this is political, then?” I ask, letting the deference fall from my tone. Father’s ambitions are far worse than anything I do when the moon rises.

  He releases a huff of air and leads me out into the courtyard and toward the mosque with the other men, lowering his voice so that we cannot be overheard.

  “I am not immortal, Fayard, and this journey wears me thin. You are my only son, and I must see some things settled before I die.”

  I nearly throw up my hands in frustration. Father is legendary for his theatrics. “You are not dying, Baaba.”

  “We are all dying, my son, some of us a bit faster than others. I will tell you what my father told me when his time had come. He said, ‘Love gives a man purpose. When we are in love, we are most like Allah.’ It is time for a wife, children, and responsibility,” he says soberly.

  One of the palace guards greets Father warmly as we walk, and they begin talking, effectively sealing Father’s edict. The conversation is over. I will be married before the rains come, and I will have no say in the matter. He speaks of love as if he can gift it to me like a candle waiting to be lit on his command. I know better. He will choose someone meek, dull, not too pretty, and very well connected. I don’t have a year. All I have is a few weeks. And if I can only live for that time, I intend to do so for myself and not for political gain.

  * * *

  The next day I make it my business to find the girl in the market, and I know just where to start.

  “As-salaam ’alaykum, Khala Farheen,” I say, smiling broadly. For good measure I wave my hand over the auntie’s fabric and beckon a few passersby to take a look.

  She crosses her arms across her large bosom and squints her eyes in disapproval. “Wa’alaykum salaam. My answer is the same as yesterday evening. She is not here.”

  “But you must know something.”

  She laughs. “And why would I tell you? There are plenty of little birds hidden in every dark corner of the market whose time you could waste for the right price. The girl is a good customer. A respectable girl, and you are a brute,” she teases. She likes the banter, but I am running out of time.

  Tired of the pretense, I drop a small bag heavy with gold dinars in front of her. She nearly faints when she pries it open with a henna-covered finger. The intricate floral design is no doubt in preparation for one of the many weddings taking place every day.

  “I knew you were a scoundrel, but now I see you are a thief. I will not take it.”

  “I am no thief. I am no soldier, either. There is enough money there to secure the transport of your grandson to Niani and with a recommendation to set him up as an apprentice to one of the city’s scribes,” I say quietly.

  She claps her hands, then covers her mouth and eyes as her head shakes from side to side in surprise. Or is it despair? I cannot tell. When she does open them, they dart from one side of the stall to the other, making sure no one overheard. She even goes so far as to look under the tables.

  Satisfied we’re the only two in earshot, she leans forward. “I do not know who you have been talking to, but they lie.”

  I lean farther still and lower my voice as far as will go without losing its power altogether. “Even if the little bird is your lost daughter? Now, before you get too upset, please hear me out. I know what you thought you had to do to protect your reputation. A fallen daughter is hard to stand by, but the boy has no future here. He has no father who will claim him, and a mother who struggles daily to feed him. Do him th
is kindness. Save him from a life of poverty.”

  She closes her eyes, considering. I’ve played her a dirty hand, but what I’m offering is worth far more than the few coins I’ve tossed her way. The lies I’ll have to tell to get the boy instated in Niani may cost me quite a bit in favors, but I’m willing to pay it; besides, it is a kindness. The boy will be better off.

  She nods, snatching the bag of coins and whispering a string of curses in her native tongue. I exhale in relief and smile. I’ve got the better end of the deal, in any case. I would have paid three times that to see the girl just one more time.

  “Give me your hand,” she says, and I slide it forward. She shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “If I had paid close enough attention, I would have known these hands had not seen a day’s worth of good hard labor. I will not make that mistake again.”

  And then, without warning, she slices my palm with a small dagger. I bite my tongue and taste blood. She grips my hand too tight for me to pull away, but instead of hurting me further, she wraps my hand in a strip of linen.

  “Go and see the midwife. Tell her that I sent you to get a dressing for your wound. She will tell you where to find your girl.”

  “You could have just given me directions,” I say, biting back the pain.

  “This way is much more convincing and, for me, much more fun.”

  13 FAYARD

  THE MIDWIFE LIVES IN A round mud hut with a thatched roof at the southernmost tip of the city. I draw more attention than I want to when I arrive. I can feel several pairs of eyes, like the brush of fingertips, as I get closer to the entrance. There’s a chorus of dogs and chickens that seem eager to nip at my heels and perhaps should, as they loudly bark and cluck, “Impostor!”