The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [56]
At dawn Thomas answered the telephone. He said he would pick me up from the office and collect the wedding gifts. We would stop at my house and after dinner with Guy, we would go back to his apartment for “a little you-know-what.”
The day jerked itself to evening in stops and starts. Time either wouldn't move at all or it raced like a whirlwind.
At last, and too soon, Thomas stood in my office doorway, smiling, showing his death-white teeth.
“Hey, baby, where's the stuff?”
I said “Hi” and pointed him to the cartons against the wall. While I was saying good night to the office staff, he carried the gifts downstairs, and when I joined him on the pavement he was loading them in the trunk of his car.
He was still smiling. I wondered how could anybody say goodbye to a smiling man.
“You like the luggage, baby?”
“Yes. Where did you buy it?”
The question wiped the smile from his face. “Why?”
“Oh, in case I want to add to the set.”
He relaxed and the smile returned as full as it was before. “I got them from a fellow I know. And if you want some more, I'll get them for you.”
I had suspected that the bags were stolen when they appeared in my office in supermarket cardboard boxes, and Thomas now confirmed my suspicions. I needed all the hurt feelings I could muster for the imminent farewell scene, so I kept quiet and waited.
At home, Guy watched television and Thomas read the sports pages while I cooked dinner. I knew that but for my shocking plans, we were acting out the tableau of our future. Into eternity. Guy would be in his room, laughing at I Love Lucy, and Thomas would be evaluating the chances of an athelete or a national baseball team, and I would be leaning over the stove, preparing food for the “shining dinner hour.” Into eternity.
We ate without excitement and Guy said good night, going back to his room.
Thomas rose to bring in the luggage but I stopped him.
“I have some talk for you. Why don't we have a drink?”
I began talking slowly and quietly. “I've met a South African. He escaped over the desert. He kept himself alive by eating worms. The whites sent him out to die but he survived. He has come to the United States and he deserves our support.” I looked at Thomas, who had become a terrapin, his large head withdrawn into his shoulders, his eyes steady and unblinking.
I continued my story, saying that the man was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King and had come to petition the United Nations on behalf of his people. I used small words and short sentences as if I were telling a fairy tale to a child. Thomas was not enthralled.
I said, “A large conference is going to be held in London, where other people who have escaped from South Africa will meet and form a joint freedom-fighting organization.” So far I was telling the truth. But since I didn't have the courage to tell Thomas I was leaving him, I knew I was building up to a lie.
The man in front of me had turned into a big red rock, and his freckles blotched dark brown on his face.
“Indians from the South Africa Indian Congress and Africans from both South Africa and South-West Africa will take two weeks to work out an accepted charter. As we know, ‘In unity there is strength.’”
There was no light in Thomas's eyes.
We sat in dangerous silence.
I balled up my nerve. “They … Anyway, this African I've just met has asked me to attend the conference. They want a black American woman who can explain the philosophy of nonviolence.” I was getting there.
Thomas twitched his shoulders, raised his body an inch, then slid deeper into the chair. His eyes still reflected nothing.
“I have decided to accept the invitation and deliver a paper on Martin Luther King.”
The invention came as a wonderful surprise. I had been searching all day and during the preparation of dinner in vain for a way to say what I had to say and nothing had come to me. Obviously apprehension had sharpened my imagination.
“I don't know how long I'll be gone, but I may go to Africa after that.”
Thomas, in an unexpectedly fast move, sat up straight.