Read Online Josephine Baker by Jean-Claude Baker, Chris Chase - Free Book Online Page B

from the living than from the dead, child.”
    Now living with Elvira and the boarder, Josephine began to suspect that the man was stealing money. Elvira had inherited Caroline’s little pension, and some life insurance, but it was disappearing fast. “Grandmother would have had enough for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t count,” Josephine said. “This man . . . became her secretary. He spent her money with other women.” Josephine went to Carrie and reported that the boarder was a thief. Carrie “fired the man,” and took her mother into the Martin household.
    Naturally, Josephine came home too. According to her, Elvira still had some funds, “and with that small amount, the whole family was happy . . . as long as it lasted. Then life got hard again.”
    Especially for someone who was forced back to school by a mother weary of arguing with the truant officer. Carrie laid down the law: The choice was school or a correctional institution. But even in school, there were good days. Josephine didn’t mind going to Sally Henderson’s class, because Miss Henderson praised Josephine’s imagination, her creativity. Miss Henderson also kept a turtle in a box.
    Once a week, short, plump, sweet-natured Sally Henderson would read aloud to the class the latest news of black Americans fighting in France. The
Argus
printed the letters they wrote home. “The people here are good to us. They don’t know anything about color prejudice.” “Many places, the people met us with flowers.” “No wooden houses here, all are made of stone, with beautiful lace curtains at the windows.”
    Josephine had heard of Joan of Arc, she knew there was a country where a girl dressed as a boy had saved her king, and even if she died in the fire, they made a movie about her, which almost made the sacrifice worthwhile, and now it turned out the people in this amazing land loved the colored people of America. (The Booker had advertised “
Joan of Arc
, a Wonderful Picture of the Historical French Revolution,” so how do you expect Josephine Baker to know about history?)
    Until she died, Sally Henderson talked about Josephine’s ability to shake off the yoke of reality. “After the Thanksgiving holidays,” Miss Henderson said, “the kids stood up and described what they had for Thanksgiving dinner. And Josephine Martin told about the fabulous meal at the Martin house, she described a feast fit for a king, and the other kids were young enough that some of them believed it. She never backed down. She said that’s what they had.”
    At the age of thirteen, Josephine was tall and thin with a long face, light brown eyes that seemed to burn, and kinky hair that she hated to have to comb. It must have been just about that time that she encountered Mr. Dad. Her version of their relationship was filled with melodrama:
    â€œThere was a fifty-year-old man who liked to have little girls live with him. He was called Mr. Dad. . . . Mummy let me clean his house. . . . He clothed me, gave me money. Then one day he asked me to spend the night with him.
    â€œI left. He was very upset and drank cider. He came to the house,spoke with Mama. Then she was upset and insisted I stay with Mr. Dad. I refused. She took off my clothes and beat me until the skin came off. . . . I ran in the street, naked. . . . Soon I came to the courtyard of a house and I went into the coal cellar. I hid.
    â€œIt was night. I prayed to God: ‘Father, help me . . . let me die, I beg you! . . . I am so unhappy on earth.’ ”
    Waking, Josephine says, she covered her nakedness with a “mouldy” coat she found in the coal cellar and took off for the Booker Washington. “When I arrived at the theatre . . . Mr. Bob Russell, the director of the company working there