(Editor’s Note: Over the course of three issues, we have presented excerpts from Jewelle Gomez’s groundbreaking novel, The Gilda Stories, in which the protagonist is a black lesbian vampire. The premise allowed Gomez to craft a timeless American odyssey addressing everything from 1850s slavery to 1960s lesbian life. It is little wonder that the book has become a modern classic since it was first published 25 years ago. This is the third and final entry in our series of excerpts. We encourage you to read the entire book, which was recently rereleased in an expanded anniversary edition. To purchase the book and to learn more, including about upcoming related events, please go to: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100095910&fa=details Please also check out the April 7 issue of the San Francisco Bay Times, which highlighted Gomez and The Gilda Stories: https://issuu.com/sfbt/docs/bt_4.7.16_1-32_issu)
Rosebud, Missouri 1921
In which Gilda must force herself to have the courage to move on from a place and a woman she’s grown to love.
Gilda did not dare turn back toward Aurelia but continued out onto the road, Aurelia’s declaration ringing in her head: “Why would I look to anyone else? I’ve got you.” Once away from the farm, Gilda’s trembling began to lessen. She was certain that any restlessness she felt would be quieted if Aurelia joined with her. Although Aurelia was not fully sure what that meant, she was willing to take the step into a new life. Gilda looked for the key to her hesitation. She had never changed anyone, but was certain she knew the process: exchange of blood, two times taken, at least once given. She knew the method and the timing, but she drew back from the idea of bringing Aurelia into her family. Why?
Gilda quickened her pace away from her anxiety, arriving in town without remembering anything she’d passed. The swirl of life almost swallowed her. She stopped beside a bustling bordello whose sounds unfurled like a tapestry above her head. She leaned into the music wafting from the windows, letting it wash over her like a spray of water. Her confusion and her hunger were not forgotten. For that moment, however, she was simply fed by the sound of the horn. The thinning blood inside her moved languidly, seduced by the tide of sound. Its abrupt ending left a piano tinkling in the silence, then applause. Beneath it all Gilda heard a quiet sob so close that, for a moment, she thought she had made the sound herself. Above her, to the left at the corner of the building, a slightly open window was dark with a sadness that seeped out from under the curtains.
Gilda felt disoriented. Then her body was released from its stupor and spoke to her of its need. The fire of hunger ran through her veins. The muffled sob reached not just her ears now, but all of her senses. A woman lay immobile, sunk deeply into her pillow; the smell of sex clung to her linen.
In the girl’s head was a jumble of thoughts awash in resignation. Gilda rummaged through them, picking at each: the lost child, the need for companionship, shame, uncertainty about her status in this house. There was little protection around her, simply guileless perseverance. But most amazing was that the woman was devoid of dreams. She had no fantasy on which to affix her daily life: today barely existed.
Gilda pushed into the room with her own thoughts infinitely more directed than those of the younger woman. She massaged her spirit, loosened the bonds that wound tightly around the woman’s chest to help her breathe easier then dropped a veil of sleep over her.
Gilda entered the back door of the establishment and heard the patrons and business girls in the front parlor still praising the piano player and cornetist. She slipped into the deserted kitchen and up the back stairway. Following her line of control holding the young woman in sleep, she passed the closed doors of the corridor. Behind some of them she heard grunts of impending and expended passion. Behind one she heard silence, no thoughts or dreams. She entered and was stunned by the loose air of defeat. The mirror was smudged, clothes were strewn carelessly and the coverlet betrayed days of filth. It was a room in which no one really lived, not even the one who slept here.
She was a girl, really; she lay on her back, a mass of auburn curls plastered to her damp head. Her face was set in grimness, her fists clenched by her side as if prepared to do battle with a world she cared little for. Gilda peered into the creamy white features, wondering where along the short path this one had traveled she’d lost her ability to dream. Even in the fearful hours of dawn, before Gilda could be certain there would be another night of life, dreams crept into her rest to stimulate her mind and heart.
Gilda held the young woman in sleep and pulled her gently into her arms. A small incision at the side of the neck. Blood seeping out slowly. It reminded her of the wounds she and her sisters suffered on their tiny hands as they’d wrenched the cotton from its stiff branches on the plantation almost 100 years before. Lines of blood covered them until the flesh was hardened by experience.
Gilda put her lips to the trickle of blood and turned it into a tide washing through her, making her heart pump faster. Her insistent suckling created a new pulse and filled her with new life. In return she offered dreams. She held the girl’s body and mind, letting the desire for future life flow through them both. The woman absorbed Gilda’s desire for family, for union with others, for new experience. Through these she perceived a capacity for endless life.
As the blood left her body the woman’s psyche responded with a moment of terror, which Gilda used to further suffuse her dreams with urgency. She wrapped the fear around the edge of the dream, making it all the more compelling. Gilda did not stop taking the blood until she felt parts of her dream become the girl’s own. The young woman began to cling to life and experience the urge to project into a future. Her mind filled with thoughts of the other women who lived and worked in the house—the smiles she had not acknowledged, the endearments and angry words yet to be shared, the music to be heard.
Gilda pulled back, comfortable with rooting a dream inside the girl. She loosened her hold so that the young woman’s breathing returned to normal. She then backed away from the bed looking down at the face now full of expectation. Her fists had relaxed; she’d reached one hand up to cover her own small breast, where it rested as if giving assurance to a lover.
The girl sighed, and Gilda slid the window open wider, slipped through, and silently dropped the two stories to the back alley. The sounds of Saturday nightlife continued to reverberate as she walked out to the street. She maintained a slow pace, moving south then west to the edge of the city, enjoying the evening air and the memory of the girl’s soft, pale skin.
She thought about an evening she sat with Sorel and Anthony before their fireside long ago. Sorel had quoted Lao-Tsu: “The bright path seems dim; going forward seems like retreat; the easy way seems hard.”
In that moment she understood. Aurelia’s life was not as empty as Eleanor’s had been. And unlike the sleeping girl above, Aurelia was full of dreams and plans. She’d made a place among people she cared for; people she sustained with her charitable work and love. To pull Aurelia away from the ties she’d made, the commitment she felt would be cheating her. To claim Aurelia’s life—even for reasons of love—would be thievery.
The sleeping girl’s world was shifted on its axis, as was Gilda’s. The resurgent dreams cast a new glow on Gilda’s life: in giving dreams, Gilda had recaptured her own.
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