NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF BROOKLYN

by Harvey Swados

  This was fun. I felt a bit of a celebrity and I enjoyed watching Bobby, his arm casually draped across the back of Nita’s chair, his face wreathed in a genial smile of self-satisfaction.

  Evan Jones, I learned, was a bacteriologist from Barbados, now working at the Gorgas Hospital in Ancon, from which he and his quiet but very sweet wife had come up for this night on the town. As yet they had no children, and they shared one great dream: to get away from the artificially imposed restrictions of this colonial outpost, steaming with prejudice and tropical lassitude, and to make a new start either in New York City or in Rio de Janeiro.

  Their chances were very slight indeed. Evan and Maria were painfully realistic about this—yet still they dreamed. They had no notion at all of the rank slums and isolated provinciality of Rio, about which I tried to tell them a little; but maybe they were right in not taking me seriously, for they had both already forgotten more than I could ever learn about such matters, and they were concerned not with those familiar miseries but with escaping the abomination of the color label.

  I got through a little better about New York; but even here they opposed me with a stubborn disbelief that I just couldn’t understand, until they pointed to the reason for their willful infatuation.

  “Harlem, like the upper East Side, is exciting only for the rich,” I remarked sententiously. For the first time Concepcion was following me, at least when Maria bent over and whispered rapidly into her ear. “The limitations the whites impose on you are still there, for the few rich Negroes too.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Evan replied. “I see the evidence against it.”

  “Evidence?” I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Where?”

  He nodded toward the dance floor, where Bobby and Juanita, the most attractive couple on the floor, were executing a nifty tango.

  “There is a different kind of Negro.” Evan’s hands were clasped tautly, dark against the expanse of white tablecloth. “You can’t know what that means to us.”

  Unexpectedly, Maria leaned forward, her face alive with excitement, and placed her delicate fingers on my arm. “You see, none of us is like Bobby. He has self-assurance. He walks in with us where we would never go. He looks not to one side or the other. He has no fear, he does not lower himself. You see?”

  To my amazement Concepcion, after listening to a machine-gun burst of translation, slowly turned to me and nodded. Her black face glistened in the dim glow of the torches around us; she was perspiring heavily. Had I been wrong about her also?

  “Yes,” I said at length, “I think I do.”

  There was no point in my adding that now I understood too their real hopes, which were not for themselves hut for their little sister, who was still young enough and for whom now a golden door had been opened by the bold young American. Even if they did not admire him so, they would have been duty bound to flatter him and to encourage her.

  “Well,” Evan said, “if you’ll excuse us. I want to give Maria a whirl.”

  We arose and he took her in his arms and twirled her off in the direction of Bobby and Nita. I said to Concepcion, “Would you like to dance? To dance?” and pointed toward the floor, now quite crowded with gliding couples. To my relief, she shook her head slowly and gravely.

  So I sat down. With my planter’s punch in one hand and my good cigar in the other, I leaned back grandly and surveyed the scene before me. Those who had been staring at our table, at me and Concepcion, lowered their eyes or glanced too quickly in another direction, but I felt no triumph. I felt instead rather sick for Nita.

  If I didn’t share the Joneses’ admiration for Bobby, it wasn’t because I was censorious of his past. I could even understand why he enjoyed romancing gullible girls with vague hints of a life together under the shelter of the American flag. But now, having met one of these girls and her family… How crushed these gentle people would be!

  I determined to take Bobby aside to tell him that I wouldn’t be a party to this game any more, even though I knew he’d persuade me not to spoil the fun for the others. But I had no opportunity for even this much conscience-salving; instead I was thrust almost immediately into a posture of solidarity not just with Evan Jones and the three sisters but with Bobby too.

  What happened was that after the dance set Bobby and Nita returned to our table, hand in hand and glowing. As Evan and his wife came up too, Bobby, driven either by pity for Concepcion or by a belated readiness to relieve me of my burden, bent gallantly over Concepcion’s chair and demanded of her the privilege of the next dance. I was astonished to see Concepcion smile slowly at him, then hoist herself out of her chair by pressing down hard on the arms with her palms, as heavy people will. I stood there for a moment, transfixed.

  Partly to cover my confusion, I asked Juanita to dance with me. We all moved off—Nita and I, Evan with Maria, and Concepcion solemn as ever, but flexing her great haunches with surprising grace as she followed the tricky steps executed by Bobby, who grinned shamelessly.

  I didn’t have a tenth of his deftness, even though I was a little drunk, which is ordinarily helpful. So, although I was anxious to talk with Nita about her sister and Bobby, I didn’t open my mouth once during the three numbers we danced together for fear (or so I told myself) of losing count before all the watching eyes.

  One thing I was bent on, however, was testing Concepcion. As soon as the dancers had drifted off the floor, I accosted her and Bobby.

  “My turn,” I said. “How about us switching partners?”

  “Como?”

  Bobby laughed. “The mate wants to navigate with you, baby.”

  Nita whispered rapidly to her sister, who shook her head and finally smiled broadly, showing me two gold incisors, then, murmuring something, placed the palm of her hand approximately over her heart, on her massive black-draped bosom. Juanita turned back to me. “She says she’s tired, she’s out of breath.”

  Bobby took Nita by the hand. “Tell her she’ll sleep better. Greatest thing in the world for her.” And he clapped me fraternally on the back and sailed off with Nita as the music started once again. Perhaps Conception’s spirit had toughened. She presented herself to me, and as the tourists and naval officers gaped—she dark, looming and indomitable as an aircraft carrier, I skinny, lost and tense as a sailor on his first encounter with a woman of the streets—we worked our way somehow around the floor, not bumping into the other couples only because they carefully cleared a path for us.

  After the first number Concepcion detached herself from me with absolute firmness. Once more her hand went to her bosom; this time, having gained my little victory, I was willing to concede. At our table we were shortly joined by Evan and Maria, too considerate to leave us trapped with each other, and later, when the music had stopped, by Nita and Bobby, who summoned our waiter with an upraised forefinger.

  “Repeat for everybody, man.”

  When the waiter had returned with the drinks, Evan raised his glass. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, then paused while his wife translated for her older sister, “I should like to propose a toast. To Bobby and to—”

  He stopped abruptly. The waiter had been leaning over Bobby’s shoulder, whispering urgently. Suddenly Bobby straightened in his chair, took the startled waiter by the lapel of his mess jacket and spoke out in a perfectly audible voice.

  “Put that in writing.”

  The waiter stared at him in dismay. “I can’t hardly write.”

  “Go tell the captain what I said. And if he can’t write, let him deliver the message in person instead of sending you to do his dirty work.”

  Evan jerked about to stare at the retreating waiter, then returned his gaze to Bobby. “What is this?”

  “Never mind. Drink up.”

  “Please tell us what it’s all about.”

  Bobby ground out his cigarette in the conch shell ashtray and looked us over almost disdainfully. “They want to put conditions on our staying here.”

  “Conditions?” Eva
n placed his hand to his mouth as if to hide his lips, thumb to one corner, index finger to the other. “Of what sort?”

  “Let the captain tell you when he comes.”

  We all drank then, without a toast, in a newly oppressive silence. Evan gave his wife a light; she had to steady his hand with her fingers in order to draw flame to the tip of her cigarette.

  After a long moment the headwaiter hove into view, with our waiter tagging wretchedly behind. The headwaiter, who minced as he moved, was a Negro too, but many shades lighter and many years older than our original waiter.

  He worked his way around the table, skillfully, so that he could stand between Bobby and me. “If I could see you two gentlemen alone …”

  “Knock it off, Jack,” Bobby replied coldly. “Spit it out loud and clear.”

  “I only wished to explain the management’s wishes in regard to your pleasure. If you gentlemen—” he indicated Bobby and Evan—“wish to dance with the ladies you are escorting, or with this lady, that is fine. And if this gentleman—” he inclined his head in my direction—“wishes to dance with either of your young ladies, there is no objection.”

  Bobby jabbed his thumb at Concepcion and me. “But you don’t want her to dance with him. Right?”

  “We would prefer not.”

  “Why not?”

  The headwaiter stared at us miserably. He did not answer.

  Bobby repeated the question. “Why not?”

  The waiter extended his pink palms pleadingly. It was as if he were demonstrating the evidence of his color. “Maybe if we step into the lobby… There is no need to disturb the other patrons.”

  Evan picked up his wife’s wrap. “Bobby, I do not enjoy being where my family is not welcome. Nothing will be gained by making a scene.”

  “That’s what you think.” Bobby showed his teeth.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m the one whose behavior is questioned.”

  “I assure the gentleman …” the headwaiter muttered.

  I stood up. “I’ll sit with whom I please and dance with whom I please.” At last. I felt virtuous.

  “Don’t waste your breath on this joker,” Bobby said. “We’ll talk to the manager. Period.”

  The headwaiter was trembling. “He will speak to you by the door.”

  “Never mind that jive. If he can’t come here there’s only one place I’ll meet him, and that’s the kitchen.” Bobby put both hands on the table and stood erect. “Clear? Now shove off.”

  Evan Jones shepherded the sisters, stunned by the abruptness of it all, away from our table and toward the kitchen, which opened off the lobby. He touched Bobby’s elbow. “None of us will enjoy prolonging this. Can’t we leave quietly? Why the kitchen?”

  “Just let me do the talking.”

  Head up, Bobby marched into the kitchen leading all of us, and the two waiters, as smartly as though he had earned his uniform at Annapolis. He paused at the great chopping block and allowed the headwaiter to scuttle before him with his funny crablike gait. There we found the manager, a fat Panamanian with an octagonal diamond that glittered on his little finger, and an eye both sad and greedy.

  The manager extended his hand to Bobby and nodded gravely. “I’m afraid we have inconvenienced you.”

  Bobby ignored the hand. “I bet this is the first time you ever had Gold and Silver dancing together on your floor.”

  “You understand, to me it makes not a particle of difference.”

  “Oh sure.”

  “But we simply cannot afford to disrupt our guests.”

  “Maybe we educated them a little tonight. But I’m not concerned about them.” Bobby raised his voice. “I’m concerned about my own people.”

  He aimed his finger at Evan, at Maria, at Concepcion, at Juanita—and then at the kitchen help, the cooks, the pearl divers, the busboys, the waiters, the musicians, all dark-faced, all beginning to grin and whisper. Suddenly we had an audience of over a dozen; and it grew every second, as more waiters came through the swinging door and pressed against each other in order to see and hear. Then I knew what Bobby was up to.

  “We proved tonight,” he said, “that if you are determined, you can do things that were never done before. We proved that you can be a man, if you really want to.” He snapped his fingers at our waiter, who stared at him openmouthed. “What do you think about it, man?”

  “I guess that’s right.”

  “You guess? Don’t you want to be a man before it’s too late, before you’re nothing but bones in a box? Black man can be just as much man as white man.”

  “That’s right!” a voice called out.

  “You tell them, Yankee man!” cried a squat black dishwasher in an ankle-length rubber apron, in accents as British as those of Evan Jones.

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” Bobby shouted above every kitchen noise, above splattering faucets, clattering dishes, rattling silverware. He waved aside the enraged manager.

  “I’ll tell you that I wouldn’t work in a place where my black brothers were insulted. I wouldn’t work where my black brothers weren’t served. I wouldn’t work—” he dropped his voice to a virtual whisper, now that he had us—“where I had to be the one to tell a black man or a black woman to sit in a corner.

  “I know you’ve all got mouths to feed. But you can refuse to degrade yourself or your people. Right?”

  “Right! Right, man, right!” They pronounced it mahn, mahn, but I knew what it meant.

  They pressed on him from all sides to shake his hand, to clap him on the back, to touch his gold-ribboned arm, laughing and shouting with pride and delight. I found myself jammed against the great wooden door of the meat locker, with Evan and Maria squashed breathless against me, gasping and shining-eyed.

  “You see?” Evan demanded. “You see? He’s champion, simply champion!”

  I looked down into his little wife’s glowing eyes. Yes, I had to see. I looked across, beyond Bobby and his cheering admirers, to Juanita, who stared with silent adoration at her laughing, perspiring hero, and to Concepcion, who, despite the monumental impassivity with which she stood, arms folded across her vast bosom, now exuded an air, almost an aroma, of justification, like a mother who has lived to see her maligned boy vindicated at last. If I had known a little less, I too would have been wholehearted in my admiration for the way in which Bobby—a live symbol of the intoxicating possibilities of freedom—had so swiftly engendered this renewal of faith and self-confidence.

  Then the manager, after a tense and voluble consultation with his headwaiter, came up, his fury reined, and asked us please to consider that we had all been his personal guests. Cheap at that if it would get Bobby out of the kitchen and his help back on the job. But Bobby capped the evening.

  “We don’t want any free rides. You know what we want? To be treated exactly the same as anyone else. That shouldn’t be too hard to understand, should it?” And he draped his arm almost paternally around the manager’s pudgy shoulders. “Now if you’ll just let us square our bill, we’ll be on our way.”

  Out in the street five minutes later, Evan and the three sisters were still hardly able to believe that they had been a part of Bobby’s feat. I whistled up a cab; this time Concepcion insisted on hoisting herself into the front seat, obviously to let Bobby ride in state between Maria and Nita, who held his hand in quiet rapture while Evan and I perched on the jump seats.

  Evan could not contain himself. “This has been one of the greatest evenings of my life. How rare to find a man who is personable, charming and brave. One of our own! With fifty, a hundred, a thousand men like that, what couldn’t we accomplish?”

  At the sidewalk in front of the girls’ home, we chatted for a few moments more, in order that Bobby and Nita might have their parting embrace alone in the shadows. It was just getting to be uncomfortable when Bobby came bounding out, dancing a little soft-shoe routine and patting his lips with his handkerchief.

  “Let’s go man, go,” he called to our cab driver
; and we took off with a jolt.

  Bobby dragged deeply, with a contented exhilaration, on his cigarette as he drummed his fingers rapidly against the window. He turned to me, bright-eyed. “Maybe we ought to dig up a couple chicks to finish off the evening.”

  “Not tonight. Let’s sack in. I stand watch in the morning. Tell me something, Bobby: You set up the whole show tonight, didn’t you?”

  He looked at me blandly. “Son, I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. How could I know they’d kick up such a breeze?”

  “You knew damn well Negroes don’t go dancing at the Jockey Club.”

  “Maybe they will now. And maybe the help will be a little more aggressive.” He looked me over challengingly. “Is that bad?”

  “Not for Evan. But is it good for the sisters?”

  “Are you going to turn preacher on me now?”

  “I suppose you’re going to marry her.”

  “I could do worse. She’s neat and clean, and she loves me. I wouldn’t be the first cat to keep two households going. I’m really a family man at heart.” He winked at me. “I can’t bat around night in and night out like you single guys.”

  “You know something, Bobby? You stink.”

  He laughed out loud. “If I thought you meant that, I’d poison your cornflakes. I do want to thank you for coming along tonight. You helped me out of a spot with Concepcion.”