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By Root 259 0

you tell him we wouldn't bite? Of course; only because he's not cute enough.” With the mention of men, Martha and Ethel and I fell into an old conversation which had never concluded and was interrupted only by sleep, performances and forced separation on journeys. The value of men. Their beauty. Their power. Their worth, excitement and attractiveness. Were American Negro men better than Africans? Better companions, better lovers? Yes. No. Whoever had a story to substantiate her point of view told it in detail. Were white American men sexier than French or Italian? Yes. No. We told secrets to each other on trains, ships, in hotel rooms and backstage. I was never loath to exaggerate a tale to make my point, and I'm certain that some of the accounts that were told to me were as fictitious as my own. We were all in our mid-twenties, and given that my two friends had spent ten years cloistered in vocal studios and secreted in institutes of music and I had had fewer romantic experiences than most college coeds, our imaginations got more exercise than our libidos.

Ethel slept in the middle and Martha beside the night table. She jumped when the telephone rang.

“Who on earth, what time is it?” The telephone and Martha's outrage awakened Ethel and me. Something must have happened and Bob Dustin or Ella Gerber wanted the company together at once.

Martha sweetened her voice. “Good morning.” She sang the greeting.

“Mistress who?” We were all sitting upright in bed. “Mistress Maya Angelou?” Her voice revealed her disbelief. “And you are Mr. Julian? Hold on.”

She put her hand over the receiver. “Mr. Julian wants to speak to Mistress Maya Angelou. At eight o'clock in the damned morning. Now, ain't that something?” The phone wire wouldn't extend across the bed. I had to get up in the cold and pad around to the other side.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mistress Maya Angelou?” The question was asked by a voice I had never heard.

“Yes. I am Maya Angelou.” I answered to a background of disgruntled noises and curious looks from my roommates.

“Mistress Maya, I am being Mr. Julian. It's that last night I am seeing you dance. I am watching you leap across the stage and looking at your legs jumping through the air and, Mistress Maya, I am loving you.” The words ran together like dyes, and it was difficult for me to separate them into comprehension.

“I beg your pardon?”

Martha groaned. “Oh, my goodness, can't he call you after the sun rises? Or does the sun never rise in Yugoslavia?”

“It's I am loving you, Mistress Maya. It's that if you are hearing a man is throwing his body into the Danube today, and dying in the icy water, Mistress Maya, that man is being me. Drowning for the love of you. You and your lovely legs jumping.”

“Just a minute. Uh, what is your name?”

“I am being Mr. Julian, and I am loving you.”

“Yes, well, Mr. Julian, why do you want to drown? Why would loving me make you want to die? I don't think that's very nice.”

Ethel and Martha were both leaning on their elbows watching me.

Martha said, “Would he promise to die before sundown? Do you think he'll do it in time for us to get a little sleep?”

Ethel said serenely, “Now Maya sees what her saintly lifesaving attitude has brought.”

“Look, mister.”

“It's being Mr. Julian.”

“Yes, well, Mr. Julian, thanks for the telephone call—”

“May I please be seeing you? May I please be taking you to one expensive café and watching your lovely lips drinking down coffee with cream?”

“No, thank you. I am sorry, but I have to hang up now.”

Martha grumbled, “Hang up, or down. Just let me go back to sleep.”

“Miss Maya, if you're not seeing me, if you're not letting me see your lips drinking down coffee with cream, then today, I am sending you my heart.”

Oh, my God. The woman who gave me Serbo-Croatian lessons in Paris was a Yugoslavian émigré. After my last class she told me solemnly, “Don't ever in the warmth of passion tell a Yugoslav that you can't live without him. You will find him, his trunks and his family at your door. Ready to move in and improve your life.” I had thought she was