The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [104]
The man standing over me venting his fury, employing his colorful vocabulary was no longer my love. The last wisps of mystery had disappeared. There had been physical attraction so strong that at his approach, moisture collected at every place where my body touched itself. Now he was in hand's reach, and tantalization was gone. He was just a fat man, standing over me, scolding.
His anger was finally spent, his energy flagged. I waited until he backed away and sat down in the chair facing me. He was exhausted from the outpouring of reproach and I was benumbed by the loss of love. We sat looking at each other, at the floor, at the tapestries, at each other again.
He was the first to speak. His voice was soft.
“You must call David and explain that you acted as an American woman, but that I returned home and reminded you that now you are an African wife.”
I knew that neither threats nor inducements would cause me to give up the job.
I made my voice silken soft. “I have given my word. Not only to David but to Dr. Zein Nagati. He is a friend of Gamal Abdel Nasser and he knows that I am your wife. He said they need me. It might reflect badly on your name if I withdraw now.”
Vus stood again. “You see? You see how your foolish headstrong American ways have endangered the struggle?”
He tried to build up to the earlier anger but was too tired to do so. He went back to the bedroom and reappeared dressed. He walked past me and out of the house, slamming the door.
I stayed in the pretty living room, thinking. I had a son to raise, and a lovely house. I had a job for which I was unqualified. I had an angry husband, whom I no longer loved. And I was in Cairo, Egypt, where I had no friends.
The doorbell rang, and thinking Vus had stalked out leaving his keys, I opened it. David DuBois stood smiling in the dim light. I grinned because he looked like Deliverance itself.
“Girl, I thought you might be getting nervous about tomorrow. So I came 'round to tell you everything's going to be all right.”
We sat in the living room talking lightly about journalism and expectations. I wanted to unburden my aggravation. To tell him that I not only didn't know how to be an associate editor, but that my husband was bitterly opposed to my being anything but his obedient wife.
Vus walked in on our inane chatter. When he saw David his face lightened, the heavy cheeks lifted and he smiled delightedly.
They embraced as he called David “My brother.” David must have noticed that he didn't speak to me.
“Vus, you must be proud of your wife. I mean about the job.”
Vus cooled, and drew himself inward. “Job?” He said the word as if he had never used it before.
David looked at me, caught the misery which I didn't try to hide. He turned back to Vus. “When you were away she telephoned me. I took her out to tea and she said you were working so hard, stretching yourself so thin, that she was beginning to worry about your health. She said that as your wife she had to carry some of the load. That no one man could continue to do all you do without help.”
Vus's body began to relax. His shoulders eased down to their natural position, a slow smile began to slacken his tightened features.
With words David was stroking away his hostility. “She said that most African men, in your position, would never allow their wives to work, but that you were a revolutionary, and that the success of the African conflict was your goal. And you meant to reach it by any means necessary.”
Vus nodded. “True. True.”
David was persuasive, convincing and a liar. He was also my supportive, fast-thinking inventive brother.
I was surprised to find when Vus and I went to bed, that being in the arms of