The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [110]
In Hanifa's modish living room, I met Egyptian women who had earned doctorates from European universities, and serious painters and talented actresses, but I found them too trained, too professionally fixed, to welcome the chummy contact of friendship. Hanifa, however, was warm and witty. We spent gossipy Saturday afternoons on the veranda of the Cairo country club.
My marriage had shape, responsibility and no romance, and although I was working ten hours a day at the Arab Observer, my salary slipped away like sand in an hourglass. There was never enough. Vus needed more clothes, more trips, more parties. Guy needed more clothes and more allowance. I needed more of everything, or at least I wanted an increase of the things I had and the possession of things I had never owned.
On the face of it, things looked bad, but I couldn't escape from a cheeriness which sat in my lap, lounged on my shoulders and spread itself in the palms of my hands. I was, after all, living in Cairo, Egypt, working, paying my own way. My son was well. Then there were David DuBois, Banti, Kebi and Hanifa.
I had the possibility of a brother and three sisters. It could have been much worse.
Banti gave a hilarious party, to which only women were invited. The occasion was a celebration of the birthday of a great Liberian female doctor. Elaborate food and a variety of drinks were served by uniformed attendants. The living room was decorated as if for a supreme embassy function, and a trio of musicians played familiar melodies.
Wives and secretaries from the African embassies and a sprinkling of Egyptian women and I felt deliciously important. We ate, talked, drank and half the invitees finally danced, moving individually, across Banti's polished hardwood floor. Each woman observed the steps of her own country. Kebi, with her hands on her hips, slid her feet in tiny patterns, meanwhile raising first one shoulder, then the other, and rotating the shoulders in sensuous undulation. Banti and Mrs. Clelland from the Ghanian Embassy danced High Life, stepping lightly, with knees slightly bent, pushing their backsides a little to the left, a little to the right and directly behind themselves. I combined some Twist with the Swim and received approving laughter and applause from the nondancers who sat on the sidelines.
The party was nearing its end when a young woman took the floor. She wore West African national dress. The long printed skirt and matching blouse hugged a startling body. She had wide shoulders, large erect breasts, billowing hips and the waist of a child. All the dancers backed away and found seats, as the beautiful woman moved to the music. She swiveled and flourished, jostled and vibrated, accompanied by the audience's encouragement and laughter.
“Swing it, girl. Swing it.”
“Show that thing, child. Show it.”
“Whoo. Whoo.”
She made her face sly, knowing, randy, and her large hips fluttered as if a bird, imprisoned in her pelvis, was attempting flight.
The viewers' delight reminded me of the pleasure older black American women found in other women's sexiness. Years before when I had been a shake dancer, some ladies used to pat my hips and exclaim, “You've got it, baby. Shake it. Now, shake it.” Their elation was pure, sensual and approving. If they were old they looked on female sensuality as an extension of their own, and were reminded of their youth. Younger women recollected the effects of their last love-making or were prompted by womanish sexuality into pleasant anticipation of their next satisfying encounter.
I was tickled that African women and black American women had the custom in common.
When the music and dancing were finished I joined the women who crowded around the dancer, patting, stroking her and laughing.
“I am from Northern Nigeria.” Her voice was soft and she kept her eyes lowered, respecting the age and positions of the older women.