Scarlet Carnation: A Novel Read online

  They were fortunate that the largest and most respected newspaper in Oakland was willing to have a Negro, and a woman at that, contribute, but sometimes Naomi felt as if they were Sisyphus. It was good there were many of them rolling that stone uphill. Together they might not get crushed by the weight, but would they ever succeed?

  After the meeting concluded, Mrs. de Hart reminded Naomi of their plan to see the house next door. As they walked to the west, Naomi admired the well-kept lawns and bright flowers growing in the surrounding yards. The neighborhood exuded a simple and clean spaciousness. Each detached house was painted a unique color and had a long driveway—some even had private automobiles parked in them. It was lovely.

  A young white man, not more than thirty years old, opened the door painted in Willie’s favorite color—deep green.

  Mrs. de Hart introduced Naomi to him: “Mr. Thomas, this is my good friend Mrs. Smith. She might be interested in buying your home if the terms are right. Are you willing to show it to her?”

  “Come in!” he declared, looking pleased.

  The living room was an exact reversal of Mrs. de Hart’s, but felt entirely different. Though these homes weren’t custom built they could be personalized through their decor. He walked through an archway into a dining room with dark redwood paneling. She could see the kitchen through an opening in the built-in cabinet. It was one of those modern pass-throughs that made serving so simple.

  Past the swinging door, the kitchen was filled with light from two sides. A small table in the nook had a lovely view of the backyard. Naomi imagined serving breakfast to her three children in such a bright space.

  “Gas stove and water heater are included,” he explained. “My wife says they are a dream come true.”

  Mrs. de Hart asked, “And the icebox?”

  “Certainly, if you wish,” he replied, smiling at Naomi.

  He moved to the modern bathroom. Bright-pink tile rose most of the way up the walls around the bathtub. A single thick stripe of shiny black tiles ran around at eye level. Willie would laugh at such dramatic colors, and Naomi would love the ease of cleaning.

  “The bedrooms are one to each side. They have built-in closets so you don’t need wardrobes,” Mr. Thomas explained, but didn’t move toward them. It would be strange to see such a personal space.

  He led them back through the kitchen, down a few stairs, and into the backyard.

  It was small, but private. Her current yard had four separate gardens, one for each unit in the building. Naomi found it insufficient for their needs. But this yard would be all hers.

  “Our lemon tree has been so prolific this year,” he explained as he crossed to it. He pulled two off and asked, “Would you like these?”

  “Thank you,” Naomi replied.

  “As you can see”—he pointed to the low fence—“Mrs. de Hart keeps a lovely yard.”

  Mrs. de Hart smiled and said, “We are going to miss you and your family, Mr. Thomas. You have been wonderful neighbors.”

  “Likewise,” he said. “We will be fortunate if our new neighbors in Stockton are half as gracious as you are.”

  Naomi smiled at Mrs. de Hart. It would be most amazing to live next to her. She allowed herself to imagine sharing lemons, recipes, and kindness.

  Naomi asked, “Do you know how much you are selling it for?”

  “If we can avoid using an agent and their high fee,” he replied, “we believe a fair price is $3,800.”

  Naomi’s heart dropped like a stone down a well. Their savings account was just over $1,200—nothing close to that number.

  “Can you take payments over time?” Mrs. de Hart asked.

  He scrunched up his face and shook his head. “Unfortunately, we cannot as we need to invest in a new home in Stockton.” He looked at Naomi. “I understand some banks are extending home loans with five- or even ten-year terms.”

  Willie would be reluctant to go into debt. Still, she did a quick calculation. Even without interest that amount of money divided by 120 payments was more than she was comfortable taking on. And with only two bedrooms there really wasn’t adequate space for the five of them. Even though Cedric was away most of the time, and Joseph would probably be doing the same soon, she wanted them to have a bed in her home, whenever they were in town, for as long as they wished.

  Naomi forced a smile and told a half truth. “I will bring this to my husband’s attention when he is home and get word back to you if he agrees. I fear he will not be willing to live this far from downtown.”

  “Please let me know should you decide you would like to make the purchase. I’m sure the de Harts would love you as their new neighbors.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Naomi agreed.

  Naomi was near to tears as they walked back through the house. It was a lovely dream.

  She rubbed the green door before she stepped onto the front porch. She sighed. This house was beyond their means, but it didn’t mean they would never own their own home.

  Naomi prayed, Lord, send me the residence you want me to have.

  CHAPTER 3

  MAY

  June 1915

  It was a glorious day to be on a ferry headed to San Francisco. They traveled to the Panama-Pacific Exhibition with the newlyweds, Dr. and Mrs. Thomas King. There was so much to celebrate—the two men graduating, Thomas and Judith’s wedding, and a fabulous job for John. He’d been offered and accepted a position at Dominican in Marin County—only a ferry ride away from San Francisco. Now that everything was falling into place, May was confident that the formal proposal would come.

  Mrs. John Barrow. May wished he would use Jonathon. It sounded more mature to her ear, but he insisted it made him feel like a child to be called Jonathon, as his parents used for him.

  May stood at the boat railing, her arm hooked around John’s, watching the tower of the ferry building grow closer. She leaned her cheek against him. He kissed the top of her head.

  A line from the hymnal came to mind.

  All things are mine, since I am His—how can I keep from singing?

  His in the hymn referred to God, but for May, it was John. She looked up at him and smiled. Humming the tune, sheer joy filling her heart and mind. She was so very fortunate. In a matter of weeks she would be starting her true life—moving out of her mother’s house and establishing a home of her own.

  The exhibition was as grand as the accounts in the newspaper reported. Blocks and blocks of the city of San Francisco were transformed into a walled fortress along the waterfront. Dome-topped buildings in art deco designs anchored the four corners. The city was declaring to the entire world: we are recovered from the 1906 earthquake, ready to be an important city of the future.

  The two couples strolled through the Joy Zone, a midway lined with games, rides, and attractions. It spread blocks and blocks from Fillmore Street to Van Ness Avenue, making what had been a familiar neighborhood entirely unrecognizable. Each booth’s distinct and dramatic façade broadcast the attraction in order to draw customers.

  “Oh dear!” May exclaimed as she tapped John’s arm and pointed.

  Ahead was a grotesque caricature of an African man. His chin rested on his hands and a large ring passed through his nose. The words African Dip filled in the space between his arms. It was one of those horrid dunk tanks that were supposedly an improvement over the African Dodger game. But May disapproved of anything that encouraged white men to hurl abuse at colored men. Dropping a man in a tank of water was scarcely better than throwing baseballs at his head.

  She teared up. “I believed San Francisco was better than stooping to such degradation for profit.”

  John patted her hand. “We certainly have our work cut out for us, showing there is value in primitive cultures.”

  John sounded as if he were agreeing with her, but May somehow felt insulted. She didn’t know why, so she didn’t respond. Instead she pushed away her feelings, not wanting to let her sour mood taint the day.

  They cont
inued strolling, past the Ostrich Farm and candy stand, until they came to the Chinese Village. They’d been told to have lunch there if possible. The cuisine wasn’t different from what they could eat in a Chinese restaurant, but the setting was a charming replica of an authentic rural Cantonese village. The four of them shared several plates of food. The garlic shrimp was the best May had ever eaten and the mushroom mushu was a new, and delicious, taste.

  After lunch they parted ways with Judith and Thomas, who had already seen Ishi’s skills and were not interested in using their time here visiting his booth at the hall of science and culture. May suspected the newlyweds actually wanted privacy. As she hugged Judith goodbye May was surprised to feel a lump in her own throat. They would likely never see one another since Thomas’s family was in Monterey and Judith’s family had moved to the Central Valley. May hadn’t realized she’d grown so fond of Judith.

  “I’m truly going to miss them,” May told John as they walked arm in arm to find Ishi.

  “You are a sentimental one, aren’t you?” he replied.

  “Am I?” she asked. “More than most?”

  “I can’t say if you are more than most, but more than my mother at least. I’m not too familiar with women.”

  She smiled at him. “I say I am just the right amount of sentimental. Agreed?”

  He laughed. “Agreed.”

  A small crowd gathered at the railing of the display. Ishi, dressed only in a loincloth, looked vulnerable and exposed. May felt protective toward him, but he seemed comfortable revealing most of his body in his traditional clothing.

  Ishi said “hello” to John directly, speaking one of the few words of English he’d mastered in the four years he’d lived in San Francisco. The fifty-six-year-old man gave a small, silent bow in May’s direction. She smiled, hoping he caught a glimpse of her face, but she didn’t speak to Ishi out of respect for his cultural taboo against unrelated men and women talking to one another.

  He crouched over a piece of shiny obsidian. With a large hammerstone in one hand and a buckskin in the other for protection, he struck the obsidian on alternating sides, over and over until it was the right size. Then he switched to the flint flaker, a deer antler attached to wood with skin, and alternately struck the left and right sides with a quick, quiet force that seemed to do nothing until suddenly a small flake dropped off. He repeated the motion over and over, panting with the exertion, until he was satisfied with the sharpness.

  He held it up and the crowd clapped. The arrowhead was passed from hand to hand through the audience.

  “Careful!” parents cautioned their children, for good reason. It was as sharp as any knife that May had ever held.

  He then moved to the stone where he would kindle a fire. He placed a stick in the well-worn hole and put moss around the base. He crouched down and spun the stick back and forth between his palms, sweat beading up on his forehead from the exertion. After a few minutes smoke spiraled up from the moss. Ishi continued at a constant pace, the sound of his hands making a fast and steady beat. The moss turned into tiny pieces that looked like black ash. Suddenly a bright spark glowed and Ishi placed dried grass over it. He leaned over and blew a whisper of encouragement. The grass burst into flame. The crowd gasped and he was rewarded with clapping once again.

  He looked tired, but pleased.

  May declared, loud enough for Ishi to hear, “That was very impressive!”

  Most likely he didn’t understand her words, but she hoped her tone conveyed her respect and enthusiasm to the gentle man who survived the massacre of his people.

  John nodded and replied, “I’m grateful so many visitors from around the world can see him demonstrate his humanity. All of us were like that once. There is no reason to disregard our primitive origins—even though we have moved past them.”

  John pointed to the Race Betterment booth. “I want to pop into here to see the public arguments from the eugenicists for myself.”

  May nodded with a lopsided smile that probably looked like a grimace.

  They turned into the large corner exhibit that took up at least four spaces. There were chairs stationed around a table with pamphlets and brochures. Frescos of classical Greek statues were painted high up on the walls.

  May picked a brochure up and read about the dangers of race mixing. Another brochure advocated for forced sterilization for “lunatics, idiots, paupers, epileptics and criminals.” It said these “unfit persons” have reached a vast multitude—“500,000 lunatics, 80,000 criminals, 100,000 paupers, 90,000 idiots, and 90,000 epileptics”—that were a drain on the “sounder population.” They argued that in one generation there would be no need for hospitals or prisons if people with “superior genetics” were the only people allowed to have children.

  She felt her bile rise.

  “I don’t understand why people are so cruel. It is just vile nonsense,” May declared.

  “They do have some valid points—though there is much I disagree with or find detestable.”

  Her heart filled with an inexplicable rage. Her emotion must have shown on her face because he responded as if she’d expressed her feelings.

  “You agree that we want healthy babies,” he said, pointing to a passage in a pamphlet about nutrition. “Their arguments are very much in line with Margaret Sanger’s. Women not having more babies than they can afford to rear . . . and all that.”

  “How can you equate their goals with Mrs. Sanger’s?” she challenged.

  John replied, “The betterment of all of humankind is a noble goal—that is all that I am saying.”

  “Mrs. Sanger wants women to have the freedom that comes from choosing motherhood,” May argued. “These people want to create a master race.”

  John shrugged. “They do take it too far, I agree. They are well funded, but I don’t see them as dangerous.”

  Again, John sounded as if he agreed with her, but she felt as if he hadn’t. May stewed as they walked away from the booth. John seemed to be making light of her heartfelt views. It was hard to explain to him why it mattered so. She supposed having relatives of another race made her more aware of the offensive nature of this line of thinking.

  “Do you remember my story about the colored nurse who attended my birth on the train? I was so premature that we are certain I would have died without her skills.”

  John nodded.

  “I don’t believe I told you she married Willie Smith, my mother’s cousin,” May said, her heart pounding hard though she didn’t fully understand why. John should be forward thinking.

  John’s brow furrowed. Then his eyes opened wide in understanding.

  “They are extended family. We visit only a few times a year, but Naomi is a genuine heroine to me.”

  “I understand.” John nodded. “For you this is personal, not an academic debate.”

  Relief rushed through May. She smiled at him. “Yes.”

  They walked in silence. May wondered what John was thinking.

  Eventually he asked, “Your family is from Oberlin?”

  “Momma lived there until she was ten or so. Nana Lisbeth grew up . . .” May hesitated, then continued, “Nana Lisbeth was raised on a plantation, the daughter of the owners.”

  John stopped and stared at May, his eyes wide in surprise. “Your family were . . . slaveholding?!”

  “Not my family. It was long before I was born.”

  “Not that long,” he replied.

  May’s head spun.

  “And then your mother’s first cousin married a colored woman?”

  Was he judging her family negatively?

  “Yes,” May said.

  “Your family is very progressive!” he responded, admiration in his voice.

  “We are?”

  May thought about Nana Lisbeth, who always said what was best in her—courage, faith, compassion—came from Mattie. Their family was tied to Auntie Jordan and to Cousin Naomi by blood and by marriage—but also by Mattie and Nana’s love for each o
ther. May hadn’t sorted through the web that connected their families. Mattie had taught Nana Lisbeth who taught May. Like Grampa Matthew, May felt Mattie’s presence in her life though she’d never met her. Progressive. She’d only ever thought of her family as adequate. She liked to think of them in a more interesting light.

  Then she agreed out loud: “We are progressive!”

  John kissed the top of May’s head. “I think it is dear that you care about all kinds of people. You know that, right?” He squeezed her hand. She smiled at him, relieved to have his understanding and support.

  “Would you like to stop by my home before we cross the bay? My parents are likely to be there, so I can tell them the news about Dominican.”

  May’s heart leapt at the idea. It would be her first visit to John’s childhood home, having only met Mr. and Mrs. Barrow twice at large, more formal gatherings such as John’s graduation last week. May nodded.

  “I should like that very much,” she agreed.

  They got off the cable car at Mason and headed up Russian Hill. Arm in arm they walked up the steep incline, past the mansions of Nob Hill, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. Just a block or two to the east was a world apart: San Francisco’s Chinatown, a favorite tourist destination and lively commercial district. The decor, the street signs, and the smells made it seem as if you’d actually traveled to China, especially on the main thoroughfare, Grant Avenue. In contrast, Oakland’s Chinatown was lively, with great markets and delicious restaurants, but not an attraction like the one in San Francisco.

  At the top of the peak a glorious view of the bay and Oakland delighted May.

  “It is beautiful,” she whispered.

  “As a professor, I will never be paid well enough to afford this view. Hopefully I can find one close to it.”