The Book of Harlan. Bernice L. McFadden
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know Lucille, she’s just fine. Sends her love to you. Says she’s sorry she couldn’t make the funeral, but she was on the road. She did send flowers, though. Do you remember getting them?”
Louisa nodded. “And the husband?”
“She got a good man,” Sam responded.
“Aww, Sam just likes him ’cause he let him drive his fancy car!” Emma laughed. “But he seems nice enough, I guess.”
Louisa reached over the sofa table, plucked a white-and-red-striped peppermint ball from the glass jar, and handed it to Harlan. “And her parents? How they like living in New York City?”
“They seem to like it just fine.”
Steadily eyeing Emma, Harlan rolled the mint ball across his tongue.
Emma smirked at him. “So how’s school, Harlan?”
“Fine,” he gurgled.
Louisa rubbed his head affectionately.
“Me and Emma got news,” Sam croaked suddenly.
“Oh?”
“Go on, tell her, Emma.”
Emma straightened her back, planted smiling eyes on Louisa’s anxious face, and squealed, “We bought a house!”
“A house?” Louisa sputtered. “Where?”
“In Harlem. Well, not a house like this one, a row house. Brick. Three floors.”
“Three floors? My goodness, it sounds like one of those mansions in Vineville.”
“No, Mama, this house ain’t quite as big as those—”
“Got a tenant on the top floor,” Sam interjected.
“To help pay the mortgage,” Emma added quickly. “A mother and her two children—a boy and girl.” She looked at Harlan. “I believe the boy is just about your age.”
Harlan peered down at the floor.
“Sounds very nice,” Louisa said, casually crossing her ankles. “And what about work? Any one of you got a job?”
“Yes ma’am,” Sam replied proudly. “I snagged me a job with Applebaum and Sons Construction Company.”
“Yep, he starts in two weeks,” said Emma, reaching down to squeeze Sam’s knee.
“Ain’t that nice,” Louisa sighed with relief.
“Anyway,” Emma waved her hand, “our place is not as grand as Lucille’s, but it’s perfect for us. It’s got a backyard and a bedroom for Harlan.”
“A backyard? Ain’t that something,” Louisa offered.
“And a room for Harlan,” Emma repeated, before prattling on.
Harlan looked at his grandmother, anticipating the moment Louisa would raise her hand and bring Emma’s foolish talk to an end. He waited and waited, but Louisa just sat there nodding and smiling as if she didn’t have a brain in her head.
Finally, Louisa uncrossed her ankles and spoke: “Sounds to me like Harlan will be very happy there.”
Harlan’s jaw dropped—the peppermint candy rolled off his tongue and onto the floor. “What?” he blurted.
Harlan was not a child prone to fits of outrage, but on that day, he stood, screeched his disapproval and contempt, and then dropped to his knees and locked his arms around Louisa’s legs.
“I hate you and I ain’t going nowhere with you!” he wailed at his parents.
The adults looked on, stunned.
Her feelings decimated, Emma fled from the room in tears. For a moment, Sam forgot Harlan was his seed and glared at the boy like a bully sizing up his victim. Mouth twisted in anger, he rose, walked over to Harlan, and caught him roughly by the collar.
“Get your black ass up off that floor right this minute,” he sneered.
Louisa’s eyebrows furrowed. Speaking softly and gently patting Sam’s clenched jaw, she said, “No need for all of that, Sam. Just leave him be.”
After Sam had gone upstairs to check on Emma, Louisa uncoiled Harlan from her legs, pulled him onto her lap, and rocked him against her bosom the way she used to when he was a chubby baby. “You carrying on as if New York is as far away as the moon!” She laughed and tweaked his nose. “Us will visit all the time. You’ll come here and I’ll go there. And in between, we’ll write letters.”
Harlan remained defiant.
“Look here, Harlan,” Louisa continued, “this is just the way things are. You have to stop all this crying and showing off and behave like the big boy your grandpappy and I raised you to be.”
Water sprung from Harlan’s eyes.
“You remember what the Good Book says about your parents, don’t you?”
Harlan nodded his head.
“Lemme hear it.”
“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
“That’s right. Now, you dry those tears and go upstairs and apologize to your mama and daddy.”
“But Grannie, ain’t you gonna miss me when I’m gone?”
“Sure ’nuff. I’ll miss you like a hooked fish miss water.”
PART III
Harlem
Chapter 20
To Harlan, New York City was as chaotic and thrilling as the three-ringed circus that came through Macon each spring.
No matter which direction his head spun, there was something new and exciting to behold: white men with long beards and black hats as tall as chimney stacks; poor people begging for money; rich people walking white poodles tethered to long leather leads; blind people tapping walking sticks; fat people munching soft, salted pretzels; and middle-of-the-road people like themselves.
Harlan had never seen an Oriental, so he gawked openly as six Chinese men—mandarin-collared and skullcapped—bore down on him. Sam jerked Harlan out of the way, rescuing him from being trampled beneath their slippered feet. The group hurried along, leaving Harlan gazing at their long, inky-colored braids, swaying like tails against their backs.
In the checkered cab Harlan sat with his forehead pressed to the window, silently ogling the tall buildings, trollies, and fancy automobiles.
His new home was a three-story brick row house on East 133rd Street, between Fifth and Madison avenues, right near the Harlem River. The house was resplendent with wood moldings, parquet floors, and fireplaces. Harlan’s bedroom was on the second floor, in the rear of the house, just down the hallway from his parents’ bedroom. It was small and made smaller by the mountain of toys and games heaped in the center of the floor.
The backyard was a disappointment—just a rectangle of dirt enclosed by a short wooden fence. No matter, all playing—stickball, catch, hide-and-seek, hot peas and butter, tag—happened out front on the sidewalk or in the middle of the street.
When Harlan first arrived, the tenants—the mother and her two children—came down to make his acquaintance. The family paraded into the parlor, brother and sister flanking their mother like bookends.
“Harlan, this is Miss Mayemma Smith,” Emma said, stringing the woman’s two first names together like harlot beads. “And her children, John and Darlene.”
All three had identical beak-shaped noses, slanted eyes, and full lips. Mother and son were the color of coconut husks. The girl was much darker, as