The Women of Brewster Place

Kiswana lives in a studio apartment on the sixth floor of Brewster Place. Looking out the window, she is surprised to see her mother entering the building. She quickly circles a few classified ads in the newspaper and rushes to tidy the apartment while her mother climbs the stairs. She closes the pullout sofa bed, still rumpled from the night before, and removes evidence of her boyfriend from the bathroom. As she does so, she thinks about how her boyfriend likes to make love “from the bottom up” (77), so Kiswana has taken to keeping her toenails painted. Her mother knocks, calling her “Melanie.” Kiswana is annoyed that her mother won’t use her new name, but when she opens the door, Mrs. Browne immediately asks about the apartment and the broken elevator.

Her mother points out that Kiswana has a view of Linden Hills, the upscale neighborhood where her parents live, but she pretends not to have noticed. They talk briefly about Kiswana’s father and siblings, and Mrs. Browne tells Kiswana that her brother, Wilson, came to visit. Kiswana recently borrowed $20 from her brother to get her coat out of layaway, and she worries that her brother has tattled. She admits that she borrowed the money, hoping to head her mother off, but Mrs. Browne says that Wilson only wanted to tell them that his wife was expecting another baby.

Annoyed, Kiswana thinks about her brother. She resents his lack of participation in their college’s Black liberation movement. He has dark-skin and thick-hair but refuses to grow a “good ’Fro” and made fun of the thin one that Kiswana tried to wear. Now, he works at a law firm and has a family. Mrs. Browne picks up on Kiswana’s defensiveness and insists that she doesn’t want to start a fight; she only wants to see her daughter’s new home and ensure that she is safe. Kiswana begins to relax when her mother compliments the apartment’s decor, even though she mentions that a busty Yoruba goddess statue might be too “suggestive” and might give Kiswana’s male visitors the wrong impression.

Mrs. Browne insists that she worries about Kiswana living in Brewster Place along with “[those] people” and wants to lend her daughter the $75 she needs to install a telephone. This makes Kiswana angry. She says that all the tenants in Brewster Place are Black people like her, and she accuses her mother of forgetting who “[her] people” are because she has spent too much time in the upper-class neighborhood across town. Kiswana tells Mrs. Browne that she isn’t rich like her parents, and this sparks an argument about Kiswana’s decision to drop out of college. Kiswana claims that her school was “counterrevolutionary” and that “[her] place” was marching in the streets fighting for equal rights. Mrs. Browne counters, that the “revolution” hasn’t amounted to much; the “country [is] still full of obstacles for black people to fight their way over” (84). She urges Kiswana to get an “important job” where she can have real “influence.” The argument escalates until Kiswana accuses her mother of being “ashamed of being black” (85).

Mrs. Browne regales Kiswana with the achievements of her Black ancestors. She named her daughter after her grandmother and was heartbroken when Kiswana changed it, feeling like Kiswana didn’t recognize the history and pride in her own bloodline. Kiswana fights back tears and hugs her mother. Then, she notices that her mother has her toenails painted. Kiswana asks, and Mrs. Browne blushes and tells her daughter that Mr. Browne talked her into it. Shocked, Kiswana realizes that she and her mother are not so different after all. Mrs. Browne takes her leave, and as she walks out of the building, Kiswana finds an envelope with $75 stuffed between the couch cushions.

Ben, the janitor and handyman of Brewster Place, is outside on a cold spring morning drinking wine. He is interrupted by a man named Eugene, who reminds Ben about an upcoming funeral for Eugene and Lucielia’s baby daughter, Serena. (Lucielia is the now-grown granddaughter of Eva Turner, who helped Mattie in Chapter 1.) Eugene tells Ben that he won’t be going because Ciel blames him for the child’s death and refuses to see him.

The narration flashes back in time to the recent past. In this earlier time frame, Mattie sits at the table with baby Serena while Ciel tells her that Eugene has come back and has changed for the better. He now has a new job and excuses his past behavior with explanations of depression and unemployment. In her mind, Ciel doesn’t understand why she is giving Eugene another chance. There is something about him that “became one […] with her actual being” (92), and she does not know how to explain this to Mattie. Things between her and Eugene are good for a while, but then they start to go wrong for the second time.

The narrative goes back a bit further in time and relates events leading up to Ciel’s meeting with Mattie. During this time frame, Ciel soon becomes pregnant again, and Eugene often comes home banging his keys and looking for a fight. One day, he comes home angry and announces that he has lost his job. He complains that Ciel is only good for “[b]abies and bills,” and laments that he will soon have another mouth to feed. To placate Eugene, Ciel decides to have an abortion. She keeps the procedure and everything associated with it “completely isolated” in her brain, “as if belonging to some other woman” (95). Afterward, however, everything feels strange, and Ciel struggles to reengage “with her own world” (95). She is suddenly “terribly possessive” of her daughter and refuses to let the child out of her sight.

The narrative returns to Ciel’s meeting with Mattie. Eugene opens the apartment door and tells Ciel that he needs to talk to her, indicating that Mattie should leave. The older woman offers to take Serena, but Eugene, who dislikes Mattie, refuses. After Mattie leaves, Eugene announces that he has a new work opportunity and needs Ciel to help him pack. Ciel gives Serena some blocks to play with, and she and Eugene talk in the bedroom. He tells her he has been offered a job working on the docks in Maine. For now, he will go by himself to see the situation before sending for Ciel and the baby. He refuses to give her details of the job and changes the location from Maine to Newport as they argue. She begs him to stay, thinking of her abortion and everything she has endured for him. He refuses, and she sees the “arrogance and selfishness” (100) in his face and knows that she will “start to hate [him]” (100). Meanwhile, Serena plays with her blocks alone in the kitchen. When she sees a cockroach run across the wall, she abandons the blocks and chases the insect. The roach crawls into an electrical socket, and the baby tries to stick her fingers in after the insect. When they don’t fit, she sees a fork lying abandoned on the floor and sticks the tines into the outlet. Her scream interrupts her parents’ argument.

The narrative flashes forward in time to Serena’s funeral. Ciel doesn’t cry, and afterward, she stops speaking, eating, and even drinking water; she is ready to die. Her friends and neighbors bring food and condolences, but Ciel stays in bed, silent and unbathed. When Mattie sees Ciel, she knows that she is dying. She sits on the bed and rocks the younger woman until Ciel begins to moan. Mattie continues to rock her, moving through time and space until they find “the nadir of her hurt” (103) deep inside her and wrench it out. Ciel rushes to the bathroom and vomits, “exorcising the evilness of pain” (104). Then Mattie bathes her, slowly and gently, like “a newborn.” Wrapped in a towel as Mattie changes the sheets, Ciel finally begins to cry. Mattie knows that Ciel will heal.