Harlem Duet

The same sound loop from Scene 4’s opening plays at the start of Scene 5. Magi and Canada are sitting on boxes, with one large box between them as a dining table. Magi is serving a large homemade meal to Canada. She gets up and checks on Billie, who is sleeping in her bedroom.

Magi tells Canada that she found Billie in an unimaginable state: “I checked on her when I got back from church. I thought she was speaking in tongues” (94). Canada tells Magi how much he is enjoying the meal, and she responds with a brief history of how she learned to cook from her mother. She also shares that she has lived in the apartment building all her life. Her great-grandmother, who worked at the house, became the property’s owner’s mistress and bore him two children. His wife never suspected, as “One brown baby looks just like another to most White folks” (95). When she died, Magi’s great-grandmother became the lady of the house, even though outsiders assumed she was the maid. When the man died, he left everything to his white children except the house, which stayed in Magi’s family ever since.