The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [101]
She tried to keep a straight face, but her eyes danced. “How much, madame? But Mr. Make would not like me to say. He is the man, madame.”
“How much, Omanadia?”
She made her fingers an abacus. We had only paid a tenth of the price on the rugs. We owed over half the cost of the bedroom furniture. We had not paid anything on the embroidered bed linens or towels. The two living rooms and the dining-room set were way overdue for payment, and our rent was two months in arrears. I thanked her and told her to take the rest of the afternoon off.
The specter of the New York City deputy sheriff stood in the doorway hid just behind the heavy drapes, waited nearly visible in my well-tended flower garden. Eviction in New York was bad, but at least I was at home, where my friends would have helped if I called on them. And always there was Mom. I could have gathered my son and flown back to San Francisco. But if we were thrown out into the streets of Cairo … along with the other homeless waifs, whom could I ask for help? When I was young, poor and destitute I had resisted welfare in the U.S. I certainly wasn't about to ask for assistance in a country which was having trouble feeding its own nationals.
I had to get a job.
David answered his telephone and when I said I had an emergency, he agreed to meet me at a tearoom in downtown Cairo.
The restaurant was luminous with crystal chandeliers, polished mahogany counters and jeweled women drinking Turkish coffee from dainty china cups. It was the wrong setting for my pitiable tale.
David had chosen a table in the center of glitter, and when he held out a chair for me, I decided to lie—to tell him the emergency was contrived, that I just wanted a chance to get out of the house. Or that I was planning a banquet and couldn't decide on a menu. He ordered whiskey and I prattled about embassy parties, and dinner near the pyramids, and how well I was learning Arabic, and how Guy was settling down in his new school.
I noticed he hadn't smiled once. When I finally stopped chattering, he asked quietly, “The emergency. What is the emergency?”
“Nothing really.” We had had no time to build a friendship. I was about to use him simply because we were both black Americans. My mother's saying, “We're colored but we're not cousins,” echoed in my mind. I shouldn't presume that our uniqueness gave me license to ask him for a favor.
“Does it have to do with Vus?” He looked at me directly and I thought, Doesn't everything have to do with Vus?
I said, “I'm getting a little bored sitting at home. I've worked all my life. So really, I thought maybe you might know how I could get a job. Just to have something to do.”
He relaxed and grinned. “You want a job? Nice women don't work in Cairo. I thought you knew that. Why don't you join one of the women's organizations? Or set up a club among the wives of African diplomats. You could write some articles for black American newspapers. The Amsterdam News or something. Nothing to do?” He laughed. “Girl, I thought you were serious.”
I was more than serious, I was desperate. And putting on silly airs, I had appeared to David like the frivolous women I scorned.
“David, I'm broke. Every piece of furniture in that house was bought on installment. The rent is past due, and Guy's school fees are in arrears. I don't have enough money to go back home and I can't stay here unless I get a job.” The smile faded from his face and he nodded. “O.K., O.K. I figured it was something like that. Maybe. Maybe, I can get something for you. I'll do what I can. What about Vus? Will he let you work?”
“If I can get a job, I'll handle the rest of it. I've been through too much to turn back now. I've been a frycook, a waitress, a strip dancer, a fund-raiser. I had a job once taking the paint off cars with my hands. And that's just part of it.”
David shook his head. “Black women. Huh, huh. O.K. Let's have another drink. I'll call somebody I know this afternoon.”
I left the restaurant emboldened by alcohol and a lot of boastful conversation and I felt as secure as the cared-for women