The Minstrel's Melody (9 page)

“Counting Lillian, me, and Bertha—the one in St. Louis—usually three women. Sometimes four or five when we're really busy. It can get crowded in here, but I can't afford a private coach for me and Othello. You can take Lillian's bed there if you need to rest on the way.”

Madame Meritta banged on the wall, and the coach began to move.

Your railroad coaches and private dining cars are in St. Louis, huh?
Orphelia wanted to ask, but she didn't.

As if Madame Meritta had read her mind, she said, “I do travel by rail from time to time. I have a lot more room in boxcars, but trains are expensive. I've had to patch together the coaches we're using right now. This is a hard life, Orphelia.”

“Well, I've been meaning to ask how come you don't have a Mr. Interlocutor. Why's your main man called a Grand Master instead?”

“A Grand Master is almost the same thing, but he doesn't have to play the straight man and be the butt of the other actors' jokes. I want my master of ceremonies to be taken seriously, not made out to be some kind of fool. I don't have a Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, either. They're the ‘end men' in minstrel shows—you know, the comedians who poke fun at Mr. Interlocutor. And I don't have female impersonators or jugglers, the way most minstrel shows do. In fact, Orphelia, I don't really have a true minstrel show. I'm a musician, and I want pure music and dance. My core group is pretty much with me now, except for some folks still in St. Louis.

“It seems like minstrel shows are evolving anyway,” Madame Meritta continued. “There's vaudeville and music theater. New people are coming in and forming all kinds of shows that they don't even call ‘minstrel' anymore. But it's exciting, too, Orphelia. I met a girl down in the heel of Missouri singing a sad, sad song in a tent show, but with that old Missouri stomp beat. A woman I was sitting by said that kind of music was going to be as big as ragtime in a few years. She said that now they're calling it ‘the blues,' and colored women blues singers are gonna hit it big. You don't see many colored women playing ragtime, but this blues—it just makes you pull your heart out your mouth and show it to everybody.”

“I've never heard of blues music. I think I've felt that way a lot, though,” said Orphelia.

“If I had my dream come true, I'd buy a building in St. Louis, turn it into an opera house, and bring in all those first-class music shows like Black Patti's Troubadours and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.”

“I've heard of them!” Orphelia said. She leaned forward, eager to know more about Madame Meritta's plans. “What else would you do?”

Madame Meritta began to dig around in a trunk. “I wouldn't be out on the road like this, that's for sure. I've been out here since I was twelve, and I'm tired.”

“But don't you want to still travel around the world?” This person sitting by Orphelia was sounding less and less like the fabulous Madame Meritta, star of the Traveling Troubadours, and more and more like an ordinary woman. Orphelia hunched over, put her chin on her hand, and looked out the window at the fields of wheat and corn passing by.

“People change, my dear.” Madame Meritta paused in her searching. “I want to settle down and give music lessons to aspiring singers.”

“Like me?” Orphelia sat up straighter. Madame Meritta shrugged and went back to digging without answering.

Orphelia knelt beside her and peered into the trunk. She pulled out a gray uniform coat with brass buttons. It reminded her a little of the one Uncle Winston had on in his portrait. She had to fight off a wave of homesickness. “My uncle, my momma's brother, played a cornet. He's dead now, though.” She sighed. “Do you think maybe I could wear this in the show?”

“Oh, chile, no, that's way too big for you. It used to be one of Robert's costumes—I guess that thieving scoundrel didn't make off with everything after all. Maybe I'll give it to Reuben. He has one like it, but it's pretty old and tattered.”

At the mention of Reuben's name, Orphelia shuddered, suddenly recalling his crazy outburst the night before and the look on his face this afternoon. Should she tell Madame Meritta about it? Yesterday Othello had been singing Reuben's praises. Would Madame Meritta get mad at Orphelia now, accuse her of upsetting him? But what if Reuben really was dangerous?

“That Reuben is pretty strange,” she began. “Last night while you all were gone, I was singing in the wagon. He got real upset all of a sudden.”

“Upset how?” Madame Meritta stopped rummaging through the trunk but didn't look up.

Orphelia told her what had happened. Then she waited to be scolded.

But Madame Meritta only said, “Yes, he does act in odd ways sometimes.”

“How did he end up here with you all?” asked Orphelia.

Madame Meritta explained that they'd found Reuben some years ago. They were returning from Keokuk, Iowa, and were coming through northeast Missouri. They were camped near the Mississippi River not far from Hannibal.

Madame held up a shirt, shook her head, and held up another. “Way late that night I was doing something—I forget what—at the edge of the camp. And I felt this wet, slimy hand on my shoulder. I screamed! Othello and everybody came running. Here was this man, so dirty and raggedy and skinny he looked like he'd crawled out of a grave in the backwaters. The man collapsed as soon as Othello grabbed him. We fed him and cleaned him up. He could barely talk. Had scars and scabs all over him. When we left to go on to St. Louis, he followed us—on foot—for so many miles that Othello took pity on him. He's been with us ever since.”

Orphelia shivered, remembering the long, ropelike scar that stretched from one side of his neck to the other. “He was doing all right till I was singing the melody to ‘Lewis County Rag.' Then he got the hysterics.”

“He has some sort of mental problem,” Madame explained. “After we took him in, we tried to find out where he was from and what had happened to him that put him in such a terrible state, but he never could tell us. We just made up the name Reuben for him.”

Orphelia sat back on her heels. How kind and generous Madame Meritta and Mr. Othello were for taking Reuben in. They didn't seem to mind his odd behavior or his hideous appearance or his mysterious past. As far as Othello was concerned, Reuben was hardworking and loyal. Orphelia began to feel a little ashamed for being so suspicious of him. Maybe he really wasn't a bad man after all. Still, Orphelia couldn't help feeling uneasy about him.

Madame Meritta took out a package wrapped in white linen and pulled out a boy's blue jacket, white silk shirt, cummerbund, trousers, and derby. “Oh, dear,” she said softly. Then, to Orphelia's amazement, Madame Meritta's face crumpled up. She pressed the jacket to her heart.

Orphelia reached out and touched her on the arm. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” Madame Meritta sniffed a couple of times, straightened, then briskly shook the coat in the air. “See if you can make these fit. They're not doing anybody any good molding away in this trunk.”

Orphelia examined the jacket, richly embroidered in white at the cuffs and collar, on both panels, and on the back. “It's beautiful. Whose is it?”

“Well, if you must know, it belonged to my son, Ralston. He would have been fifteen years old this year.” Madame Meritta fell silent.

Orphelia was stunned. “What happened to him?” she asked.

“He died of smallpox two years ago. He's buried in a small cemetery in New Orleans. He went everywhere with me, but he never performed. And then that August we were in New Orleans. He fell ill, and there was nothing I could do to save him. I've always felt that had I not been on the road, he never would have gotten sick, and he'd still be with me now.”

Orphelia peered up at Madame Meritta. The older woman's eyes were large and wet. “Othello never got over it, either.” She glanced down at Orphelia. “Well, come on, Orphelia, try it on,” she said, all business again. “We've still got to get your act together.”

Orphelia saw Madame Meritta's eyes glisten as she turned away. Quickly Orphelia removed her dress and drew on the clothes. Everything was too big, but before Madame Meritta could tell her to remove them, Orphelia rolled up the shirt and pant cuffs and pushed back the jacket sleeves.

“Look, Miz Madame. This will work all right, won't it? Please say it will!”

Orphelia couldn't tell if Madame Meritta was gazing at her or just at the clothes. How would Momma react if she knew her daughter was wearing boys' clothes! And Pearl would have to talk about the old-fashioned cut of the jacket, but she would love the needlework. After what seemed like forever, Madame Meritta spoke. “All right. It's just this one time, anyway.”

C
HAPTER
6

A C
LOSE
C
ALL

Orphelia's heart pounded. “The Grand Extraordinaire”—which was what Madame Meritta's Pitchfork Creek gala was entitled—was under way. Orphelia stood at the back of the tent. She swallowed nervously and adjusted the derby on her head again. She pulled at the cummerbund, the wide belt around her waist.

In a few minutes Othello, who would serve as Grand Master in place of Robert, would give her the signal. Then she was to run down the center aisle to the stage, hurry up the steps to the piano, and sing “Ballad of a Homeless Child.”

She wiped her face with the back of her hand and tried to calm herself. The tent was the biggest she'd ever seen or been in—bigger even than the one at Hannibal's Emancipation Proclamation program. And the people! It seemed like a thousand folks, mostly Negro but many whites, too, had crammed into the tent. She bet they came from as far away as Clarksville, Little Paradise, and maybe even St. Louis! Her heart was beating faster than it ever had.

This would be Orphelia's first and last chance to perform before a real audience. They had passed a tiny train station on their way into Pitchfork Creek. True to his word, Othello had dropped Reuben off there to give a message to the telegraph man for Orphelia's parents. The note said that first thing in the morning, she would be carted back by train to Canton, where her parents were supposed to pick her up. The note also requested that they pay for the ticket.

By this time tomorrow she would probably be back in Calico Creek. For the rest of her life, she would be forced to play only on her pretend piano. Momma would rope her to the washtub, where she would wash clothes forever and die an old maid. Pearl would marry Cap, have ten children, and continue to tell lies, and Poppa would just smoke himself to death in the outhouse. She tried not to be mad at Poppa, but she was, a little.

Was doing this performance a mistake?
What if I trip on these pants and fall flat on my face in front of everybody? What if I forget the words to the song? What if—

There! The signal! Othello had just swept his arms high into the air. The band struck up the opening bars of “Homeless Child.” Orphelia gulped and froze.

He raised his arms again, but she still couldn't move.
Have I had a heart attack and died standing on my feet?

Othello stepped closer to the edge of the stage. The music faded. “Ladies and gentlemen … Orville, our Musical Orphan Boy Prodigy, will capture your hearts with a most sorrowful, heart-wrenching song. Please prepare yourselves with handkerchiefs. Orville, my child, please come forward to the stage now!
Please come forward now!
”

At the sound of his voice, Orphelia came out of her trance.
Perform with passion,
she told herself. She doubled up her fists and rushed through the aisle between the rows of red and brown and yellow and black and white faces and gaping mouths, up the steps and to the piano. The band, which had swung into the chorus of “Homeless Child,” played softer now, waiting.

As soon as Orphelia's fingers touched the piano keys, she relaxed. She began singing the first mournful stanza. Gaining confidence, she moved into the chorus and quickened the beat, tapping her foot and bobbing her head. She looked out at the crowd. The people were nodding, and some began clapping in time to the faster beat. They liked it!

When she came to the last stanza, she stood up and sang, “With a loving mother, I'll never be homeless again.” She strutted around at the edge of the stage, then faced the audience with her hands poised on her hips, singing. The audience was right there with her, standing, smiling, and applauding. A woman near the back of the tent waved her green and white handkerchief in time to the music.

They like me! They like me! Miz Madame will have to let me stay now.

At the end of the song, Orphelia threw her hands up in the air and struck a pose. Remembering the boy who had portrayed Abe Lincoln in the talent show, she folded her arm across her waist and bowed deeply, like he did. But her hat fell off—just like his had—revealing her braided hair. The derby rolled to the end of the platform, dropped off, and wobbled down the center aisle.