Moses Ascending

by Sam Selvon

  ‘The stairway is okay,’ I say, ‘but what I’d like to do is check a tenant’s room.’

  The first door we chance to knock at was the Pakis. Oriental melodies and talk was going on in there, but from the moment I knock, all sounds cease, like if we throw off a switch.

  I look at Bob significantly. We knock again. No answer. I try the lock; it lock.

  ‘Now I cannot even enter my own rooms,’ I say bitterly.

  ‘Tenants have rights,’ Bob say. ‘They are not in arrears with the rent.’

  ‘In my days the landlord used to come and go as he please.’

  Bob was starting to get vex. ‘Break down the door, then,’ he say.

  ‘That’s pointless, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘We will have to repair it.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s come over you this morning,’ he say gloomily, ‘let’s go back upstairs and give you a chance to cool off and come to your senses.’

  ‘I want a complete dossier on these two Pakis,’ I tell him, ‘and further more you had better start keping an inventory of our stock.’

  ‘You can hire a detective,’ Bob say. ‘That’s not my job. This is just a waste of time.’ And so saying, he left me and went away.

  I thought that maybe he was right about disturbing the tenants on the Sabbath, but I was worried about these two men from the East. I try to peep through the keyhole but it was block.

  I rap loudly and say in my stentorian, landlord voice, ‘I say, you chaps. Open up, it’s your landlord.’

  No answer.

  I say, in a nice, friendly tone, ‘Come on boys, it’s only me, Moses.’ No answer.

  I went back upstairs in a thoughtful mood, sit down with a cold beer, light up a cigarette, and ponder the situation. You does read in the newspapers about how some tenants don’t know who their landlord is, and vice versa. And you does read about how the police unearth a den of prostitutes, and the opulent, top bracket landlord disclaim all responsibility, saying, ‘Good lord, I never knew my premises were being used for immoral purposes.’

  Mark you, as Bob remark, as long as the rent was coming in, I shouldn’t of worried. And besides that, having been victimized and harassed and hounded myself, I was not altogether unsympathetic to unfortunates in similar circumstances. But after we is weevil, and I had to look after my own interests. I just could not afford to have my house under suspicion of harbouring illegal immigrants and Black Power militants. If to say I was living somewhere else myself, I could pretend like them social landlords that I didn’t have a clue what was going on. But living under the same roof make me guilty of conniving and condoning. Ensconced in my penthouse and enjoying my hard-earned retirement, I had allowed my affairs to get out of hand. If things continued at this rate, I would soon be on the downward path, fetching and carrying, back to the old basement room in Bayswater and pigfoot and neck-of-lamb, and what-happening Moses.

  I had a sudden feeling to get out and take the air. I did that, dressing and going out and catching a bus 88 (as the Continentals say), and I hop off in Trafalgar Square because the traffic was jam and it was as good a place as any as I had no destination. It might of been that I had it in the back of my mind that I might meet one of the old timers, see a friendly face and coast a old-talk and forget my worries. The experience of that policeman coming and knocking at my door and asking all them rarse questions had me depress. I don’t know if I can describe it properly, not being a man of words, but I had a kind of sad feeling that all black people was doomed to suffer, that we would never make any headway in Brit’n. As if it always have a snag, no matter how hard we struggle or try to stay out of trouble. After spending the best years of my life in the Mother Country it was a dismal conclusion to come to, making you feel that one and one make zero. It wasn’t so much depression as sheer terror really, to see your life falling to pieces like that.

  I couldn’t see nobody I know in that melee of blacks at the rally. All I could see is fists in the air, and all them placards waving, and two chaps holding up a real pighead, and I wonder who would be the lucky militant to get it afterwards to make a souse. Not that the pigs wasn’t represented, they was there in full force, only waiting for someone to step out of line to make a grab. Everybody was facing the plinther of Nelson, where the rally leaders was making subversive speeches on the loudspeakers; I spy with my little eye Galahad and Brenda ‘mongst them. On top of the column the one-eye sailor was looking over the Houses of Parliament, as if he didn’t want to have nothing to do with these black reprobates slandering the fair country, and perhaps wondering why the arse a regiment of artillery don’t just sweep across the square and wipe them off the face of Brit’n.

  ‘Blood will run!’ a rally leader was shouting. ‘Black Power is here to stay. We will slaughter the pigs because there is no other remedy. Brothers and Sisters, I say blood will run!’

  And the whole mass cheering and making various sounds of approval, as if they ready to make blood flow instantaneously and slaughter a few pigs as an example. In fact, the incensement was so powerful that a fracas start up right where I standing. Sudden-so men was fighting. It appear that a chap was raising his fist to make the power sign, and he accidentally cuff another in front of him, who turn round and cuff him back. Pandemonium break loose in the square. You know like how you see in those cowboy films how two chaps start a fight in the saloon, and suddenly everybody fighting? Is so this thing was. I find myself in the middle of the milling and confusion. Woman was screaming, men was just thumping out left and right with kick and cuff, and a white supporter went down and disappear, and God alone knows what happen to he.

  As I was scrambling to get out of the brew, I feel a heavy hand ‘pon my shoulder: it was the arm of the law.

  If I had had time I would of said, ‘Unhand me, knave,’ but instead I say, ‘Let me go, man, I ain’t done nothing.’

  A set of blacks was being towed, propelled, and dragged across Trafalgar Square. The place like it was full up of police, as if the whole Metropolitan force was lurking in the side streets waiting for a signal. Blue lights flashing, radio-telephones going, sirens blowing. Alsatians baring their teeth for the kill, and Black Maria waiting with the doors fling wide open in welcome.

  I was in one panic as I find myself in this doomed company.

  ‘Galahad!’ I scream, as we pass the plinther, ‘Galahad! Tell these people I am not a brother!’

  Galahad recognize me and shout, ‘Moses! You are in the thick of things, too!’

  ‘Galahad!’ I scream, and now I was almost in the arms of Black Maria, ‘follow me to the station! Bring bail!’

  ‘No fear!’ he shout, ‘you will go down in history as one of the martyrs. Tell the pigs that we shall overcome.’

  The two policemen – it was two to every one black – dump me on top of the other martyrs and slam the doors: it sound like the knell of doom for true.

  I do not know about you, but it is a shuddering thought for a black man to be lock up by the police. Once you are in, it is a foregone conclusion that they will throw away the key. There was no protests from any of the passengers saying that they was innocent and shouldn’t be here, nobody struggling to get out like me, nobody saying anything at all. Like we was in the hold of a slave ship. I remember them stories I used to read, how the innocent starboy get condemned to the galleys. Next thing you see him in chains, with beard on his face, wrestling with one of them big oars like what stevedores have in Barbados when they loading the ships.

  Any minute now the timekeeper was going to crack a whip in the Black Maria. I wonder if I play dead if they would jettison me in the Thames as we passing, and I could make my escape.

  I will spare you the harrowing details of my brief martyrdom, the disgrace and ignobility and shame of finding myself in a cell. Suffice it to say that late in the evening Galahad came to see me, and I was never so happy to see somebody in my life before.

  ‘Let us get out of here,’ I say.

  ‘Hold a key,’ Galahad say, e
mploying an antiquated Trinidad phrase meaning cool it. ‘It is not as simple as that.’

  ‘You didn’t bring the bail?’

  ‘Listen, Moses,’ Galahad say earnestly, ‘there is more in the mortar than the pestle. This is a big thing.’

  ‘We will discuss it outside,’ I say. ‘Pay the bail and let’s go.’

  ‘You are a hero,’ Galahad say. ‘You are a martyr like Joan of Arc and them other fellars.’

  I wasn’t only exasperated. I start to see red. ‘Look, man, leave all that rarse and pay the people the money and let’s blow this scene.’

  ‘We want you to go through with the whole thing,’ Galahad say. ‘We want you to stay here until the case comes up. We are planning a mass demonstration on the day.’

  I refused to believe my ears. I actually laughed. ‘Stop making joke, Galahad. This is serious.’

  ‘You don’t see what an opportunity this is?’ he went on. ‘Imagine what a feather it will be in our caps when the mark bust that an innocent man has been held incarcerated by the pigs! The way I see it, you are here already, right? You might as well hold on for a few days, right? We will get the best laywer in town, and your name will go down in the annals of black history for the sacrifice you make.’

  I was really getting vex now. ‘Just get me out of here, Galahad,’ I say, ‘I do not want to be a hero. You have had your fun, now go and pay the bail.’

  ‘I want to take some notes,’ Galahad say, as if he didn’t hear me. ‘What unmentionable brutalities have you suffered so far? They beat you up? They push your head in the toilet bowl and pull the chain?’

  I began to have the uneasy fear that Galahad wasn’t going to get me out of jail. ‘For the last time,’ I say, ‘are you getting me out of this place or not?’

  ‘Take courage,’ Galahad say. ‘I will make friends with the turnkey and see that you get some water to drink when you thirsty. Meantime consider what a blow you will be striking for the Party.’

  It was not until the following morning that Bob appear on the horizon with the bail, and I was released from prison. I took a deep breath of the sweet London air, and start to cough and couldn’t stop until Bob hit me on the back. Up to now I didn’t say a word to him, I was so overcome with the experience.

  ‘I came as soon as I could,’ Bob say. ‘You have a good case against the bastards. Galahad says the party will stand behind you and see that justice is done.’

  ‘Fuck you, fuck Galahad, and fuck the Party,’ I say bitterly.

  ‘From now on I am a different man.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound as if you’re different,’ Bob say.

  ‘Action will speak louder than words,’ I tell him.

  ‘You’re going to slaughter a pig?’ Bob ask.

  ‘I will slaughter the whole herd,’ I say.

  Writing my Memoirs in retrospective, I cannot remember all the welter of emotions that I feel at the time of my stretch. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t so much vex with the police as I was vex with myself for going to that fucking rally. I remember lying on my bunk in my cell the night and thinking that if I did keep my arse quiet and stay at home, having a cold beer and looking at the church service on TV, I would not of got myself in this shit. It just goes to show how right I was all the time to have nothing to do with the black brotherhood. And imagine how Galahad had the gumption to propose that I stay there cooling my heels to put a feather in the Party cap! You see how black man different from white man? Look how, in Tale of Two Cities, when that chap was in the Bastille destined for the guillotine, how his friend went and take his place! You think you will ever get a black brother to give you his place in the bus-queue, much less rescue you from the clutches of the law? I think that if Galahad did only do me that little favour, the whole course of my life would of taken a turn, and I might of been in the vanguard of our struggle for freedom. But my brush with the law only make me realize that I had no friends in the world, that I had to peddle my own canoe for survival.

  For two days I stay up in my penthouse, not talking to anybody, only concentrating on my Memoirs. Batman Bob would tiptoe in with a cup of coffee, or empty the ashtray, and keep all callers away from my door. He maintain a vocal silence, but I do not know if it was through respect for my literary aspirations, or if he realize that the moment he utter a word I would erupt like Etna.

  I lost myself in my work, knowing that if I did not keep myself occupied I would really commit some violent crime in truth.

  And then, when I was in the midst of a powerful descriptive passage, Bob come to me, like the head butler taking a visiting card on a silver platter to Sir or Madam. Only it was a dirty saucer instead, and a scrap of paper was in it. Silently he put it down on the table in front of me, and withdrew slightly, waiting for orders.

  I deign to look at the paper without touching it. ‘I have to see you, Moses,’ the note say, and it was signed Galahad.

  I could not get on with my work after this irritating interruption. Before I could tell Bob to throw him out, the door burst open and Galahad come in.

  ‘I told you to wait outside,’ Bob say sternly, talking in my presence for the first time in two days.

  ‘Shit,’ Galahad say.

  ‘All right, Bob,’ I say wearily. ‘You can leave us now.’

  Bob went out, giving Galahad a hard look.

  ‘What shit is that you writing,’ Galahad say, sitting down.

  Another point I would like to make in passing, is the lack of social graces in Galahad. Note the invasion of my castle, note the intrusive, aggressive entrance, the brash, vulgar greeting, the annexing of a seat without invitation. But note, way and above his ill manners – note, I say, the stab at my Achilles heel! I actually wince.

  ‘State your business and go,’ I say coldly.

  ‘You should be glad to see me,’ he say. ‘I got some good news for you.’

  ‘You are immigrating to Africa?’

  ‘No. The Party has influenced them pigs to drop all charges against you.’

  ‘What charges, pray?’

  ‘Boy! They come up with assault and battery, affray, breach of the peace, obstruction, drunk and disorderly, and they even swearing that they find grass on some of the boys.’

  ‘In other words, they fling the book at you?’

  ‘They didn’t fling nothing at me,’ Galahad say easily. ‘It’s you they were after. The Party committee wanted the whole set of you to stay inside until the day of the trial, to strengthen our case, but I convince them that a man like you could be more useful on the outside.’

  ‘You make it sound as though your Party had me lock up, not the police.’

  ‘It’s just that they play right into our hands with them unlawful arrests,’ he say. ‘But they underestimate us. They ain’t have the faintest idea how powerful and big the Party is. Every black man in Brit’n is behind us.’

  ‘Not every one.’

  Galahad laugh. ‘Modesty does not become you. I know in your heart of hearts you are longing to join our ranks. I don’t blame you for playing it cool.’

  Bob open the door and poke his head in.

  ‘Coffee?’ he ask.

  ‘Two sugars,’ Galahad say. ‘Brown.’

  ‘I was not addressing you,’ Bob say stiffly.

  ‘Bring him a coffee Bob,’ I say. ‘Let’s observe a little social grace, even if it’s pouring water on a duck’s back.’

  ‘As you like,’ Bob shrug, and went off to perform the chore.

  ‘Listen Moses,’ Galahad say earnestly. ‘I not talking to you as a Party man now, but as an old friend.’

  I laughed harshly. ‘I would rather you shelter behind the Party,’ I say, ‘at least that way I can excuse you.’

  ‘After what happen, you got to see that things in Brit’n have changed radically for blacks. You shouldn’t let this house and easy life lull you into a sense of false security. Things are heaving and boiling and it going to have a BIG explosion, and we going to come out on top. You just canno
t afford to ignore what is happening before your very eyes.’

  ‘Aye, and what is happening in my very basement,’ I say meaningfully, but the subtlety escape Galahad.

  ‘There is a rumour in town that you are a traitor, that you have turned your back on your own people.’

  ‘You know better than that,’ I say sarcastically. No use. The ploy of innuendo doesn’t work with people like Galahad.

  ‘Though the boys want to send you to Coventry, I have defended your attitude time and again. Witness how you is the onlyest one I get them to drop charges against. Why you think I chose you and not any of the other brothers?’

  ‘You probably hope to get something from me.’

  ‘Right! I admit it! You see how honest I am!’

  ‘Admitting the truth isn’t honesty,’ I say.

  ‘I am trying to show you that the Party don’t need you, but you need the Party.’

  I laugh harshly again. Men will try all kinds of chicanery and bamboozlement to trap you. Note how the argument turn vice versa: he is now trying to persuade me that it will be to my everlasting benefit to attach myself to the band wagon. He must of thought I fall off a tree!

  ‘You don’t notice how all the workers belong to a union? Why you think that is so? Because each man stand to gain when he have the whole union behind him. The bosses fire one man, and the whole staff go on strike! You understand?’

  ‘Your puerile reasoning? Of course. That is why the country is in such a mess.’

  ‘Don’t talk like a Capitalist, man! If it wasn’t for the Party, you would have all them charges hanging on your head.’

  ‘Galahad,’ I say, ‘I will tell you one thing that I have learnt in this life. It is that the black man cannot unite. I have seen various causes taken up and dropped like hot coals. I have seen them come together and then scatter like when you pitching marbles and you hit a set of them in the rings and they fly off in all directions.’

  ‘The old days, the old days,’ Galahad say patiently. ‘It is just as I thought. You don’t know that the black man these days is a different creature. He realizes that if he doesn’t co-operate and cling together, all is lost.’