All those Shades of White

Tanangachi Mfuni

Wela-a-nia, wrapped in liquid, sat on the number three train to Harlem. She sweated through every strand of her white blouse. The sticky train car, despite having only a few other people in it, now seemed unbearably cramped since she boarded the train at Nevins. She looked restlessly at the other passengers whose only sign of discomfort was the beaded moustache of perspiration under their noses. Otherwise they pretended to look blankly about their own business, but with invisible eyes stared at the braided woman in white wetting herself before them.

It must be the wedding, Wela-a-nia thought. It was three days before the ceremony. Early that morning she had masturbated for the first time since eleven. Since the year her father had left their brownstone Brooklyn house for shame and peace sake. She had woken up feeling unraveled and ashamed. She tightened the white sheets over her body, to absolve and secure herself somehow, but it was within her body that these feelings had incubated and remained for sixteen years.

It must be the wedding: Why she sweated though her clothes. But she would not allow herself to explore the slight misgivings she had about marrying Chi. She clumsily hunted for some non-existent tissue to sop the sweat, to maintain some ancient front of decorum. She jerked up anxiously as the three made its final set of contractions, groaning into the 125th street station. The doors broke open and Wela-a-nia swam into the underground darkness of the subway station. She made her way to the subway entrance and rushed head first into cool April Harlem air.

Khadijah’s African House of Style was located on the second floor of a building on the corner of 124th street, above Queen Pokoo’s Braids, which never could seem to deny a black woman a tight braid job. As Wela-a-nia climbed the creaking steps, the aroma of fried plantain, oxtail and fufu merged with the sounds of hearty laughter and intimate conversation. She hungered. After Slim Fasting for the last seven days, she hoped the dress fit well.

“Here comes the bride,” She heard Amena sing-say say to their mother, when Wela-a-nia walked through the front door of the small dress shop. Both had arrived at Khadijah’s early as to not miss a moment of Wela-a-nia’s final fitting.

“Give me seven minutes,” called a voice, the steel bands of Trinidad tinkling though it.

Wela-a-nia’s pupils centered on the mahogany cross exalted above Khadijah’s workspace at the back of the room even before she saw Khadijah, seated regally at her ancient machine, locks swept off of her neck, wearing one of her originals. Wela-a-nia’s mind wandered to one of her first fittings with Khadijah nearly three months ago, when her eyes first wandered to the mahogany cross.

“You always seem to be gazing at that cross. You like it?” Khadijah asked.

“I do,” Wela-a-nia responded.

“I bought it a few months ago on one of my trips to southern Africa. I have always wanted to give it as a gift to somebody who wanted it. Do you want it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You a Christian?” The innocence and forthrightness that filled her question demanded reciprocity: an equal measure of innocence and forthrightness.

“Well…” Wela-a-nia’s thoughts were slow to gather into words.

“It’s either you are, or you aren’t.” She said like a crisp breeze.

“I was baptized in a Christian church—my mother, sister and I have been members of a church since I was a little girl. But I don’t go to church. No, I don’t know if I would consider myself a Christian anymore.”

“Did you ever believe in Christ? That He is the way to God the Father?”

Wela-a-nia smiled tightly, “When I was younger I guess I believed in Jesus and the Father but now I can’t believe in that anymore.”

After several seconds of silence, Khadijah said in her insouciant way, “Well, my offer still stands, if you want the cross, you can have it, just say the word.”

“Really Nia, is that how you’re going to wear your hair for your wedding?” Her mother’s question reeled Wela-a-nia’s mind back into the present.

“Yes Ma’am.” Wela-a-nia responded, taking the seat next to Amena.

“I think it looks lovely,” Amena chimed, buffered between her sister and mother.

“What—you don’t like it mom?” Wela-a-nia already knew the answer.

“I don’t see why my opinion should matter now, seeing as to how you’ve already done it, and seeing as to how the wedding is days away.” Her mother’s voice strained with exasperation.

Silence.

Khadijah’s machine sputtered away.

“Oh Nia, before I forget,” Amena chirped. She fished in the large knockoff brand name bag, Wela-a-nia loathed more each time she saw it, and pulled out an envelope, “Ms. Edwards from church asked me to give you this.”

Wela-a-nia unsealed the envelope; inside was a white card, CONGRATULATIONS embossed on the front. As she opened the card, a hundred dollar bill slipped out.

“If I were you I would be ashamed to take that money since you didn’t even invite her to your wedding.”

“Ma, don’t make me feel bad.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m just saying that there are people who should be at this wedding that you and Chi chose not to invite.”

“We already discussed this. ”

“Yes we have, and I still don’t understand why you want to get married like this.”

“Like what?”

“Outside of the church… no pastor… no bridal party… out somewhere in a park barefoot…with a handful of witnesses…and I don’t know what else you and Chi have decided since you have never involved me in any of the wedding plans.”

“Ma, you know Chi is an atheist. You know he refuses to be married in Brooklyn Tabernacle— or in any church for that matter. And I respect that.” Wela-a-nia rehearsed.

All the while Khadijah’s machine spluttered and paused, spluttered and paused, loudly engaging in every syllable of the exchange. Now it stopped completely at Khadijah’s command.

“Nia, you can try it on now,” Khadijah handed Wela-a-nia the white form-fitting gown embroidered with gold and silver detail that gave the dress a uniquely African look. Wela-a-nia had abandoned many of the pearls of the wedding she had oystered in her imagination since seven: her father guiding her down the isle…the pastor…the church…the vows…but not the dress. Not the white dress. And nobody, not even Chi himself, with all his unconventionality, could convince her otherwise.

Dress in hand, Wela-a-nia escaped to the backroom of the shop, with walls of mirrors on all sides.

“Nia, I’ll come to help you zip up,” Amena said rising from her seat and following her older sister.

In the fitting room Wela-a-nia doffed her shirt and jeans and stepped into the soft white fabric. Amena leaned on the closed door of the fitting room observing Wela-a-nia who, as she pulled on the dress, was a girl lost in blissful reverie.

“I’d been waiting for a chance to tell you...” Amena started stiffly, “Father’s back from Malawi.”

Upon hearing “Father’s back,” Wela-a-nia, dressed halfway in white, froze as if caught stealing.

“He called yesterday. I didn’t tell mom, you know how she’d be. But he heard that you were getting married and he wants to meet with you before you do.”

“O...” Her lips did not move, the sound rolled from her gut. It was accompanied by the nausea of mixed emotions gurgling inside of her.

“He seeks forgiveness. When he came the last time and you would not see him, he was disappointed. Meet with him: for both of your lives.” Amena did not say this critically, persuasively or even with her usual off beat levity: Even though she had long since reconciled with the man enough to call him father. Amena spoke with acute understanding that she had never understood why Wela-a-nia could not forgive him, even though she could.

“I don’t think so,” Wela-a-nia said, quickly adding, “I mean I have so many things to do, to get ready for Sunday, you know?”

While she said this she finished putting on dress. She looked ahead into the mirror there she saw a legion of white-clad women coming behind her. Though they were merely reflections of her reflection, the sight and thought of them in their white dresses haunted her.

“Zip me up, Amena,” she turned her back to her sister.

But even before Amena zipped up the dress, Wela-a-nia knew it was too big.

¨¨¨

He had told Amena that he would wait for Wela-a-nia at The Cradle, the Senegalese café on Flatbush Avenue, at 9:00 a.m. This information Amena told to Wela-a-nia, just in case she had a change of heart. On Saturday morning Wela-a-nia rose from a restless bed, decidedly not going.

She had planned to go to Conrad’s Bakery, the caterers on Utica Avenue, but found herself transferring to the B35 when Utica intersected with Church Avenue. Wela-a-nia’s heart throbbed the whole way as the B35 made its way up the street. How can I even face him? She had no strength to support her. If she allowed them to, her emotions would paralyze her. Only adrenaline edged her on. The Cradle sat on the corner of the colorful Flatbush-Church intersection with its many stores and street vendors. The B35 stopped in front of a bookstore directly across the street from The Cradle. After Wela-a-nia exited the bus, she could not cross the street. She went inside the bookstore; from there she could see into the cafe.

The Cradle sat in the long shadow of Christ Cathedral. Looking at the café from behind the bookstore windows, only subconsciously had it registered that this was not a random meeting place. The Cradle was the place where she had made the decision to love Chi nearly nine months ago. In that café he had sat, the long shadow of Christ on his back, and denied the existence of God.

“So you don’t believe in Jesus, The Father. The Holy Spirit?” She was intrigued and curious.

“No. Neither do I believe in Allah, Yahweh, Buddha or Saibaba for that matter.” He smiled.

“How interesting, you are a student of religion and an atheist?”

“You could call me a religious atheist. I practice atheism religiously. ” He laughed at his own joke.

“But you must believe that you were created by someone…something…that there is an originator of life?”

“No, I don’t,” he said, with his back to the shadow of Christ Cathedral.

“So what do you believe?”

“That there is no God but man. Each person is their own creator or destroyer.”

“So you believe everybody is God?”

“If you want to think of it in that way. I think there is a god inside us all.” His ideas wooed and petrified her.

“But what about child molesters and rapists and murderers, surely they aren’t gods?”

“Haven’t you read Greek mythology? The Greeks told stories of gods that were very human and had both good and evil attributes. I like to think that the Greeks were actually telling stories of themselves: these gods were the Greeks themselves. Greek mythology shows how it is possible for gods to be good and bad.”

“I don’t know about that Chi.”

“Well, doesn’t the Christian God you believe in have positive and negative attributes?”

“No. He is a God of complete love.”

“Well then why does he allow children to be molested?”

She couldn’t answer him. She had asked herself the same question for sixteen years. Chi continued:

“ You should re-examine what they’ve been teaching you. These past six years I have spent nearly $100,000 at NYU trying to find God, only to find out man is his own God. He is solely responsible and accountable for his fate.”

“O…” she said. As Chi continued talking she listened and considered him: He’s just like white. This rootless man who lived without accountability, without origin, without God, without bank…just like the color white. And it was then she decided she wanted to love him.

There he was. Her thoughts were interrupted. Wela-a-nia’s eyes of stone and water stalked a proud man with African skin and hair so grayed it looked white, walking into The Cradle. He took a seat in the café, with his back turned to her, so all she saw was the back of his white head. It was the first time in sixteen years that she had seen him: The first time since he fled Brooklyn because he loved his daughters and was afraid of himself.

The tears wetting her face were furious. She was going to walk out of the bookstore, cross the street and face him in The Cradle. She walked out of the bookstore. From the sidewalk she saw him rise from his seat, his back turned towards her. She walked across the street. At the door of the café, she looked inside just a few inches away from the white-haired man who stood in The Cradle with his back towards her. Nausea poisoned her entire body.

¨¨¨

The rain was unexpected. Wela-a-nia sat on the mattress of the hotel bed looking outside the window at the falling rain. She thought about yesterday, her father’s white head, her fury, her cowardice. She could not face the man she once called father. It was nearly 1:00 p.m. The wedding was scheduled to be across the street from the hotel in Prospect Park at 2:00 p.m. She was alone. Her mother, not understanding that the wedding would take place in Prospect Park “hail or shine,” as Chi had vowed, had for the past half hour taken it upon herself to find an alternate location. Amena was running behind her trying to convince her that it was not her wedding after all.

These moments Wela-a-nia spent alone before the wedding reflecting were precious. Her wedding dress—which Khadijah had hand delivered early that morning with a reminder: “You can have the cross, just say the word”—lay lonely on the opposite side of the bed. Wela-a-nia looked into the rain, across the street where the last group of people exited a Catholic Church at the close of Sunday mass.

She thought on the white-haired man she chose not to love sitting for hours alone in The Cradle. She thought on Chi, the man just like white, whom she had chosen to love, who had sat in the exact same place with his back to God.

She looked at her white wedding dress, that, after everything, she could not persuade herself to wear today. Rising from her bed she exited the room and did not bother to close the door behind her. She made her way quickly down, though the hotel lobby and into the rain. She now ran into the street, in the middle of green-light traffic. By the time she made her way up the stone steps of the church she was wet, but felt every right to enter the sanctuary. She stood for a moment there in the sanctuary looking up at the larger-than-life crucifix that dominated the altar. She then turned quickly and made her way into the cramped 24-hour confessional booth, where the priest waited.

“Father,” she confessed, and for the first time in years, the word did not choke in her mouth.

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