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

shoes,” Helen says. “Tumpy would go to the neighbors, ask for a potato, a carrot, or an onion, and she would cook them. Then while she performed, my three brothers and Brothercat would eat what she had cooked, and afterward, Tumpy would have a fit and cry. Mama would laugh and say, ‘Come on, Tumpy, I’ll cook you some more food.’ We didn’t have much in those days, but we shared what we had.”
    Listening to this, I got goose pimples. Here are the beginnings of Josephine, the entertainer. Didn’t Molière say, “What is theater but two boards and a passion?”
    Josephine had three passions—theater, animals, and little children. “Animals interest me,” she said, “because they are as simple and as uncomplicated as babies.”
    She, however, was not simple or uncomplicated. Often, she was difficult and uncontrollable, and at a wake for a local man known as Uncle Joe, she made a memorable scene.
    A kind neighbor, wanting to give Carrie a peaceful Sunday at home, had offered to take the hyperactive Josephine to the vigil. They found Uncle Joe ensconced in his coffin, supported by four chairs, in the living room. Mrs. Joe was serving booze, coffee, and cake to the mourners, and all the children were sent out to play. In the yard, a snake wriggled by, and Josephine, picking it up, rushed into the house. She had a present for Uncle Joe.
    Seeing the snake, women screamed, and one in her fright kicked achair out from under the coffin, which fell. Uncle Joe rolled onto the floor, whereupon Josephine dropped the snake, and a man stomped on it. Josephine ran to the man and beat at him. “You killed my friend!” she howled.
    Eventually, Uncle Joe was put back in place, but the damage had been done. When the tired neighbor lady restored Josephine to her mother, she said, “Carrie, I feel sorry for you! She’s such a monster, you can’t take her nowhere.”
    Soon, Carrie banished the monster again. “I know someone who’s looking for a child to work for them, and they’ll provide room and board,” she told Arthur. “I’m going to send Tump, she’s a burden on us and she’s the oldest. What do you think?”
    Arthur never argued with Carrie. “Do what you want, she’s your daughter,” he said.
    For Josephine, it was a double betrayal—her mother, as always, ready to forsake her, her stepfather too weak to say no. She was seven years old, and her childhood was over.

Chapter 4

CHILDHOOD IN ST. LOUIS
“There are no bastards in my family!”
    Mrs. Kaiser had no heart. She lived out in the country, and viewed her small scullery maid as a beast of burden. “She gave me cold potatoes and sent me to bed,” Josephine said. “At 5 A.M ., she got me up to work. At nine, I went to school because she was required by law to send me, but it made her furious. . . . After I returned . . . I had a dish of cold corn bread and molasses. Then the work began again.
    â€œI was forced to carry coal for the night to each room, chop wood, clean and trim the lamps, wash the meal dishes and clean the kitchen. . . . I slept in the basement. . . . In the corner was a large box where the dog slept: he had to move over to make room for me.”
    Josephine shared her food with the dog; the dog shared his fleas with Josephine. But Mrs. Kaiser didn’t like to see the child scratching herself in the house, “and she beat me terribly, completely naked, because she said that clothes cost too much and beatings wore them out.”
    Comfort came from the dog and Tiny Tim, a chicken Josephine feduntil he got fat. Then Mrs. Kaiser ordered her to kill him. It’s normal for a farm animal to be killed for food, but Josephine was traumatized by the terrified warm body between her knees, the squawking, the feathers drowned in blood when she cut Tiny Tim’s throat.