I pressed her hand in mine before releasing it. We wandered along the sandy aisles in the direction of the Louvre. The fog had lifted, and the sunlight bathed the plain trees in a whimsical green glow. Scores of pigeons cluttered the lanes. They strutted and cooed in front of us as we walked along.
“I was raped as a girl, as a child, you know. Many black girls are. Luckily, I never got pregnant. A white man on Carl’s father’s place raped me. He did it repeatedly and threatened to kill me if I told. Then one day, Carl happened to come by in an old Ford and heard me crying. I was standing by the door of the barn. The man had just stepped out and was brushing the straw off his shirt and overalls. Carl must have put two-and-two together. He got out of his car and ran toward the man. Carl caught him by the collar and threw him to the ground. ‘You son-of-a-bitch!’ he hollered at him. ‘She’s just a child. You get your freakin’ ass off this land as fast as possible, or I’ll kill you dead.’ Carl was about twenty-two. He was big and strong and didn’t wear glasses. He had just come home from Boston. His red hair was long and shiny with sweat. He kicked the man in the butt. The man got up and slapped the dust off his sleeves. ‘You damned Sullivans ain’t nothing but a pile of shit, nohow,’ he said. He left. I never saw him again.”
Sunlight peeped through the leaves overhead and filled the aisle with a luminous yellow-green tint. “How does your being cousins fit in to all this?” I asked.
“Oh, Lord. I knew I’d blow it. We’re not cousins.” She threw her head back and smiled. “Carl’s my uncle. His brother was my father. The man’s dead now, but I fell in love with Carl that day in the barnyard. He was my knight in shining armor. He’d come to check on my mother and me. Carl’s own father was dying of alcoholism and emphysema, and Carl didn’t have many friends, anyway. His father was schizophrenic and mistrusted everyone. Even his own doctor, Dr. Silverton. I once heard him tell Carl. ‘Stay away from that nigger woman,’ meaning my Mamma. ‘She got your brother in trouble, and she’ll do the same to you. The Sullivans have always cared for their black people, but we’ve suffered enough. If you mess with her, or that girl, I’ll disown you down to your socks. Do you understand?’ ‘Yes sir,’ Carl answered. ‘By God, if I won’t!’ the old man threatened.”
“Is the old man dead now?”
“Yes. Died six years ago. But he put it in a will. ‘If my son ever marries a Negress woman, mulatto, or quadroon, he shall thereby forfeit all rights and privileges appertaining to this estate, its investments, lands, houses, buildings, and orchards, and the same shall be awarded to the State of Alabama.’”
She looked away, up through the tress and out across the lane and the big red geranium bushes that bordered the walkway. “I love him, and he loves me. But he knows what would happen if we marry. The law doesn’t seem to mind our cohabitating, and Carl knows his father’s will wouldn’t stand up in court. But I know I can’t marry him, because we couldn’t have children. And I want him to have children, and I want children, too. I think every black woman wants children. Just something deep down inside our natures, like slaves longing for their children to be free and legal and become something they couldn’t. It’s been all so confusing lately. Carl doesn’t even touch me any more, except to put his hands on my thighs, and he knows I’m crazy about him.”
“I’m sorry I’ve looked at you so hungrily. I didn’t mean to compromise your affection.”
“Oh, Professor, you haven’t and won’t. Don’t worry about that. I’m just a needy black girl, and I need you to be a friend, that’s all.” She clutched my hand in hers. “Maybe I’ll change my mind if we stay here long. But I love that man.”
I felt hopeful and sorrowful at the same time. Indeed, she was comely to look upon and obviously bright and wholesome. But I had done enough compromising in the past, especially with the woman I had told her about. I held firmly to her hand, as we approached the Louvre.
“Let’s go to the Impressionist Museum. I’m not up to visit the Louvre,” she said. She looked at me with a deep tiredness that had sunk to the bottom of her rich blackness and had washed away her earlier ebullient cheerfulness.
So we returned: down the sandy aisles, parallel to the Rue de Rivoli, and made our way to the museum. Once inside, we walked thoughtfully by each painting.
“How can anyone select a favorite?” Julene whispered.
“I tend toward Manet,” I pointed to his Blonde Woman With Bare Breasts. “Look at her features, her eyes, her gentle face and nose, her breasts. Even the nipples are perfect. And see how the breasts are soft and fleshy and slightly upturned,” I nodded toward the painting. “And look at the gold straw of her hat, and the way she tilts her head. She must have been one of Manet’s mistresses. Look how pink and lifelike here skin is against that green background. He had to know her well. How he must have loved her arms and kisses!”
Julene looked at me with her dark brown eyes and smiled. She pulled on my hand and led me toward Pissarro’s Red Roofs. “Those houses so remind me of old slave cabins on an Alabama plantation in the winter,” she offered.
I stared at the chalky white buildings, their tall chimneys and red and purple roofs, and at the hill above the town. The bare trees in the foreground provided a demure screen, behind which the artist had enclosed his houses. A distinctive grandeur defined the work, without flamboyance or artificiality. As I peered closer, I could see where Pissarro had painted the hill’s meadows different colors, some red, some green, some a pale citron hue, and others blue. There were even blue doors and shutters on the houses. I squeezed her hand, and we walked on.
“You know there are some black artists whose works are comparable to these.”
“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I can’t name a single black artist.”
“No harm,” she laughed. “Most Whites can’t. But if you ever come across any works by Thomas Benton, buy them if you can. His July Hay is brilliant. Black harvesters with graceful sickles are mowing a field of flaxen hay, bowed in the wind. There is a sweetness of breadth and color about it that only a black person can feel about our race and unending labor. The same is true of Charles Alston’s Deserted House, with its despair of the old South in every brush stroke. Or John Wilson’s Elevated Street Car Scene. It’s a product of World War II. White women on their way home, or to work, are busy chatting in the background. They appear frivolous and distracted; but seated, and starring at you, is a Black man, on his way to his job. His eyes stare at you. They give you no quarter for compromise or distraction. You can only imagine his sufferings, the prejudice he has endured, but he looms amidst those women as a man of greater character than all the city’s Whites, who have never had to suffer, or nurse their hungry children to bed at night.”
“Julene! Listen! Segregation is over. Your life is still ahead of you: a bright and shining future, if you choose it. How old are you, anyway? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?”
“Twenty-eight! And here I am in Paris, in the city I love. With the man I love, but who can’t make love the way I want. Or need him to. And I’m fighting it all the time.”
“Pity does no one good, Julene. And self-pity is even worse. And black, self-pity must be the cruelest embodiment of all. If you want to be an artist, strike out on your own. I hate to say it, but the world is indifferent. It doesn’t care one wit. It knows nothing of purpose. Nor does it fashion our dreams. We are simply on our own.”
“I know that!” she winced. Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes. “You don’t need to tell me that, friend or no friend. Even if it’s true. And my blackness has nothing to do with that.” She stopped and suddenly stared at me with her large soft eyes. “Have you ever had sex with a black girl?” she whispered. “With a real black woman? I mean ‘real.’ Hot, sweaty, panting, and all? Do you know what that’s like? Have you ever felt her heart beating through her back or chest when lying up against her? Or listened to her breathe? Or understood her hunger and desire to be caressed and loved, treated like a lady, even if a whore? Black men understand that, even if they’re worthless, or run away and behave like