The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [79]
I had already refused Glanville's invitation, but Vus's reaction sizzled in my thoughts. I was a good actress, not great but certainly competent. For years before I met Vus, my rent had been paid and my son and I had eaten and been clothed by money I made working on stages. When I gave Vus my body and loyalty I hadn't included all the rights to my life. I felt no loyalty to The Blacks, since it had not earned my approval, yet I chafed under Vus's attitude of total control. I said nothing.
Abbey had been asked to take a role in the play. I told her that Vus had said he wouldn't allow me to. She said Max thought the play was important, and since Vus respected Max, maybe they ought to talk. Abbey hung up and in moments Max called, asking for my husband.
I heard Vus hang up the telephone in the living room. He walked into the kitchen. “I'm meeting Max for a conference.” Every meeting was a conference and each conversation a discussion of pith. I nodded, and kept on washing dishes.
Vus came home and asked for the manuscript. I recovered the play from the back of the closet and gave it to him. Guy and I played Scrabble on the dining-room table while Vus sat under a lamp in the living room. He would rise from time to time and pass through to the kitchen getting a fresh drink. Then he would return silently to the sofa and The Blacks.
Guy went off to bed. Vus still read. I knew he was going back and forth through the script. He hardly looked up when I said good night.
I was in a deep sleep when he shook me awake. “Maya. Wake up. I have to talk to you.” He sat on the side of the bed. The crumpled pages were spread out beside him.
“This play is great. If they still want you, you must do this play.” I came awake like my mother—immediately and entirely aware.
I said, “I don't agree with the conclusion. Black people are not going to become like whites. Never.”
“Maya, you are so young, so, so young.” He patronized me as if I were the little shepherd girl and he the old man of Kilimanjaro.
“Dear Wife, that is a reverse racism. Black people are human. No more, no less. Our backgrounds, our history make us act differently.”
I grabbed a cigarette from the night stand, ready to jump into the discussion. I listed our respectfulness, our mercy, our spirituality. His rejoinder stopped me. “We are people. The root cause of racism and its primary result is that whites refuse to see us simply as people.”
I argued, “But the play says given the chance, black people will act as cruel as whites. I don't believe it.”
“Maya, that is a very real possibility and one we must vigilantly guard against. You see, my dear wife”—he spoke slowly, leaning his big body toward me—“my dear wife, most black revolutionaries, most black radicals, most black activists, do not really want change. They want exchange. This play points to that likelihood. And our people need to face the temptation. You must act in The Blacks.”
He continued talking in the bed and I fell asleep in his arms.
The next morning Abbey and I went down to the St. Mark's Playhouse on Second Avenue. Actors sat quietly in the dimly lit seats, and Gene Frankel paced on the stage. Max Glanville had seen us enter. He nodded in recognition and walked to the edge of the stage. He stopped Gene in mid-step and whispered. Frankel lifted his head and looked out.
“Maya Make. Maya Angelou Make. Abbey Lincoln. Come down front, please.” We found seats in the front row.
Glanville came back and sat down.