Sapphire's Grave (19 page)
epilogue
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
JUNE, 1995
She preached vindication, redemption. she danced as if possessed across daises. Her feet bare, her head thrown back, she sang with the voice of rapture. She spoke in another tongue. When she parted her ceremonial robes, women rediscovered themselves beneath, neither angry nor mournful, but beautiful, graceful, human.
She preached freedom, salvation from the god of Judgment, the god of Propriety. When she opened her long and obscuring white robes, women discovered the distortions of their pasts. They saw their grandmothers’ silences explained, their characters recast. They heard their foremothers’ stories retold with compassion and love.
Time
magazine called her Fresh. New. The face of the future of ministry. But Rae’ven smiled knowingly, her teeth bright white against blue-black skin. She was the past, and she was not ashamed.
Tall and arresting, proud and defiant, she paced the pulpit as though it were a runway, arms spread wide, head held high, with the grace of her forebears advancing a gospel infused with self-love.
Lesbian,
they called her.
Heretic.
Shedding the mantle of silence. Baring her soul. Honoring her mothers. Kneeling to mourn at the grave of Sapphire, extending her hands, letting the mourning go.
Her sisters-only colloquiums drew millions from worldwide. The doors closed in the faces of her critics. Cameras flashed.
Regal wraps and the skins of animals came to life on her slender frame, something primitive, elemental in her wearing of them. Jewels dangled from her forearms, her ankles—topaz, ruby, emerald—her eyes onyx, her skin blue flame like sapphire. The paparazzi loved her. In New York and Chicago, in Atlanta and L.A., they asked her to pause and to posture, her head wrapped in the colors of the earth, or piled high with serpentine braids.
Flamboyant. Ostentatious,
the faultfinders said. When she parted the robes of ignominy and shame, they looked away.
Shameless,
they said, drawn in spite of their discomfort.
Scan’lous.
But Rae’ven laughed, as wanton women laugh.
I am my mother’s
daughter,
she proclaimed,
and the daughter of her mother; sister of all sisters.
People drew back, nervously. Fearfully, they moved away.
She spoke in mysteries:
Relinquish the gods constructed by others, fashionedof fallible things.
Rapt audiences stood mute in contemplation, their mouths open, their eyes wide, not a sound in the mammoth hall but the voice of the messenger. Ushers left their posts, drawing nearer to hear the soft and commanding voice.
Serve God only. Love is the only true power.
Newsweek
named her THE MOST CHARISMATIC MINISTER IN AMERICA. But Rae’ven shook her head. She was not a “minister.” She was the past, releasing the present.
The presbyters sought to revoke her license. She had none. The establishment disparaged her. She would not be silenced:
Lift your heads. Wipe your tears. Do not appease those who would see you
craven and remorseful. Do not bow in humility before their gods.
When she opened again the long and obscuring white robes, the graves were opened. The departed arose.
From Maine to Texas, women discovered the dead in their mothers’ pasts, in the shame and the silence and rejection of themselves, their judgments of each other. They woke up to find bones and teeth and hair in bed with them, the stench of an open grave polluting their nostrils, unacknowledged pain and guilt eating at their entrails, boiling their blood to a pressure unbearable. Ghosts and secrets with their chains and dust mimicked silently their every motion, every step. And they had not known that they were there.
In Miami, Seattle, they finally understood who they were and what they had done and why. And throughout the diaspora, they loved and forgave themselves. In Spain and Haiti and Brazil, they loved and forgave Sapphire.
In Charleston, the dying embers of a woman’s rage evaporated her tears, and she sighed with relief.
And Sapphire, satisfied that they understood, began the slow journey back to her grave. Perhaps, she thought, she could begin the process of finally dying. Perhaps the shame would die with her. The sting of death was anticipated from Sierra Leone to Warren County to Paterson. The waiting grave prepared to share its victory.
God and Self were exhumed to make space for Sapphire—celebrated at last, no apologies offered.
once
we understood
it was neither the Lord’s doing
nor our own
now
we have worn the scarlet garment
far too long
danced the dance
as the daughters of Herodias
and as unnamed sinners
who cry at the master’s feet
we have emptied our basins
to sin no more
but we are the daughters of Hagar
who shameless knew
it was neither the doing of Sara’s God
nor her own
and she wore the scarlet garment
as did Rahab
whose faith saved a people from ruin
as our faith has brought us to this place
once
we understood
but they took away our God
gave us others to impress
and a robe of pure white
they asked us to deserve
no saving grace
for the daughters of Sapphire
no flowers for her
grave
no mourners there
but a contempt-laden epitaph
to young women buried beneath the loam
her sons did not understand
once
we knew
of places where the women never cried
or ’pologized
for never crying
or thought it unusual
to never cry
we have known those places within us
Sapphire still lives
there
eyes anxious heart racing in the
dark
hands groping for her empty
grave
reading group companion
Who or what does the title character, Sapphire, represent, and what is the significance of the title, Sapphire’s Grave? The book ends with a poem that describes Sapphire’s grave as “empty.” Why is the grave empty?
Sapphire and Sister both become known for being eloquently caustic. Are some people just born this way? How did each woman’s circumstance and experience shape her personality?
Why does Prince become Queen Marie’s sole ambition? Why does he, in fact, become her God?
Queen Marie speaks briefly to Vyda Rose after reading a newspaper article about Vyda Rose’s demise. Does Vyda Rose drown in the Hudson River? Does she survive and visit Queen Marie before going into hiding, or is Queen Marie experiencing an alcoholic hallucination?
Was Jewell naïve to believe that she could raise Clovey in her home alongside her other children without consequence? Could she have predicted the effect her choice would have on Covey? What accounts for Jewell’s actions in this regard?
After her experience at the High Point School for Girls, Clovey returns home and begins sculpting bridges. What do Clovey’s bridges represent?
How does societal racism, specifically its effect of valuing whiteness in general while devaluing black women in particular, shape Aldridge’s perception of, and relationship with, his mother? His wife, Clovey?
When Rae’ven is born, she is said to be, “rising, on great black wings bearing without shame the scarlet past.” What is the significance of this character to all women who live beneath the shadow of a shame-filled history?
Sapphire’s Grave
was inspired by the often contradictory stereotypes still applied to black women today. In Sister, Queen Marie, Vyda Rose, Jewell, and Clovey, the reader sees aspects of the Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and Tragic mulatto stereotypes. How does each character differ from these formulaic images?
For the most part, the women of
Sapphire’s Grave
live unapologetically, making the choices they believe best for themselves with little regard for the effect on others. How does this square with the cultural mandate of black women to be self-sacrificing and to “uphold the race”? To what extent did Clovey take on this burden that was rejected by her foremothers?
Sapphire’s Grave
hints that Sapphire’s mother understood something crucial about God that was eventually lost by her ancestors. Each character in
Sapphire’s Grave
perceives her relationship to God differently. How do these perceptions shape their lives?
Published by Harlem Moon, an imprint of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
SAPPHIRE’S GRAVE. Copyright © 2003 by Hilda Gurley-Highgate.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address: Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
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First Harlem Moon trade paperback edition published 2003
PS3607.U55 S36 2003
813’.6—dpc21
2002073871
eISBN: 978-0-307-41921-7
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