by Claude McKay
Alamaya appeared and Seraphine captured his arm and said it was time for them to go. But before he left Alamaya discovered that the Emperor’s letter was missing. Instinctively he had thought of it and found the thick envelope empty in his pocket. Mrs. Witern was very upset by this new incident. She and her guests looked everywhere under chairs and cushions, but there was no letter. She could only promise to make a thorough search the following day. But everyone there felt that someone had impishly appropriated the most precious souvenir of the evening.
On their way home Seraphine tried to offer some consolation: “Is it awfully serious, Tekla? Can’t you get another one?”
“Such documents should never be lost. When a man loses a letter like that, he disqualifies himself—”
“Then you should have left it at home, you shouldn’t have shown it around.”
“Yes, you’re right. Let’s not talk about it.”
“Poor Tekla!” Seraphine drew closer and leaned against him. He was thinking about the party. Would he be invited to any more like it? A crowd of people coming together to drink and amuse themselves as best they could. And a few phrases spoken about Ethiopia, his country—ten million people fighting with medieval weapons against a nation of over sixty million, with colonials, with modern war machines, planes and tanks and gas. How long could they stand it, his people? In Menelik’s days it was different—the rifle and the spear were mighty weapons.4 But Haile Selassie was not Menelik. He had tried to modernize Ethiopia, but the time was too short . . . The Italians were killing off his people, overrunning his country . . . And he was drinking cocktails at a party in New York. But people must amuse themselves to keep from going insane. Even under the terror, the soldiers at the front and the civilians behind the lines, both getting bombed and gassed just the same, they had their relaxation: cards, jokes, laughter, music, wine, women . . .
“I like you a lot, Tekla,” said Seraphine. “Do you like me?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then show it,” she said, pouting her mouth to his. They kissed. He caressed her hand.
“That is better than worrying,” she said. “Is that Gloria Kendall really very much like an Ethiopian girl?”
“H’m, yes.”
“And you like her?”
“I haven’t even thought of her again.”
“And who’s that Maxim Tasan who brought her to the party, your friend?”
“He is the big man of the White Friends of Ethiopia. What he says goes.”
“Did you know him abroad?”
“No, I met him here in New York at the ‘Friends’ office.”
“Is he a foreigner? He seems to have a strange accent.”
“I don’t know. All Americans are foreigners and strange to me.”
“We are not strange to you. Father and Mother like you like their own son. And when Father likes anybody he stands up for him.”
She thought of the brief altercation she had overheard between Alamaya and Maxim Tasan, but she did not mention it. She felt happy that Alamaya had spoken in favor of her father.
6
THE BRANDING OF A BLACK FASCIST
Mrs. Peixota hovered over her husband in the office and brushed an imaginary fleck of something from his shoulder and remarked: “Sirrie said she had a perfectly lovely time with Lij Alamaya at the party. He seems to be a nice sort, charming manners.”
“He’s a diplomat,” said Peixota. “But he is a nice person, the people will like him.”
“Sirrie’s head is completely turned. I’ve told her to beware of heartache.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t be so stony and slow to understand when you don’t want to. I can’t help it if they happen to like each other.”
“Nonsense, Seraphine couldn’t be that silly. Alamaya is here just on a brief mission.”
“Yes, but he is a bachelor and eligible and Sirrie is of age. Besides, he is a prince! If they were married Sirrie would be a princess.”
“He doesn’t want to be called a prince and maybe he is right. Titles are cheap nowadays. The Emperor and Alamaya and the Rasses may all soon be exes. Mussolini is moving fast. What would Seraphine do with an empty title?”
“She wouldn’t be the first American girl to marry an ex-something.”
“Would be better if Seraphine thought about getting herself an American husband.”
“Chut! Surprised at you, Pab. You’re not American-born, either. And do you believe I made a mistake when I married you?” She tapped his shoulder playfully and he rustled some papers on the desk, suppressing a laugh.
“I’d advise you, Kezia, to discourage Seraphine as tactfully as you can. You know how mean and vile our people can talk about one another. Lij Alamaya is our special guest. If anything should go wrong with his mission, they would blame it on our family.”
“I don’t care about colored folks’ spiteful gossip. You don’t want her to marry a no-count anymore than I do and I trained her to aim high. Our black young men are wriggling and slippery like eels. Duster Boley got married to a white girl last week.”
“Did he? It might ruin his father.” Duster was a dentist, not established in practice yet. His father was a successful medical doctor and skillful Tammany politician.1 “I guess it’s another of those radical entanglements,” added Peixota.
“I don’t know what kind of a tangle it is—interracial I should think. Anyway, Alamaya and Seraphine belong to the same race, and if they are interested in each other, I won’t put any obstacle in their way.”
The bell rang. Mrs. Peixota went to the door. It was Alamaya. She greeted him with rare cordiality and said that Mr. Peixota was in the office. She went down to the kitchen.
Alamaya told Peixota that he had come directly from the office of the White Friends of Ethiopia. His demeanor was not very prepossessing and Peixota was concerned.
“Maxim Tasan of the White Friends is opposed to Mr. Flagg accompanying me on tour,” said Alamaya.
“That’s none of his goddam business,” said Peixota. “And I won’t stand for any of his interference. We are running our show and the White Friends are running theirs. We’ve never attempted to tell them who they should work with and why. We decided to work along parallel lines without crossing one another. Dorsey Flagg is my friend and he is an honest man. I think he’s worth a hundred Newton Castles. I won’t let any Maxim Tasan tell us what colored persons we should have as officials. What does he know about colored people anyway?”
“What Newton Castle tells him,” said Alamaya in a sarcastic manner.
“Do you have any objection to Dorsey Flagg?” asked Peixota.
“None at all. I rather like him.”
“Then, when you start on your tour this Saturday, he will go with you.”
Dorsey Flagg was not in the least agitated about the attempt to oust him from the Hands to Ethiopia committee. When Peixota told him of Newton Castle’s threat and the opposition to his membership, he declared that he was not worried and that no intrigue of unscrupulous Communists could scare him to resign or prevent him serving the cause of Ethiopia. Aside from their personal friendship, Peixota desired Flagg to serve on the committee precisely because he could be influential in allying the reluctant intelligentsia to support the Hands to Ethiopia organization. Even without his actually doing anything, the name of Dorsey Flagg on the committee meant a lot. His father had been a prominent Republican office-holder, a friend of Frederick Douglass and also of Booker T. Washington; a maternal uncle was a well-known bishop of the African Methodist Church. And so besides being a college professor, Dorsey Flagg was of real importance in those Aframerican circles that cherished every item, even the dead straws of traditional value. And although he was called a rough-neck intellectual on account of his propensity often to imbibe too much and show the effects of it, he was nevertheless welcome in e
xclusive Aframerican circles. However, he had drawn the fire of the Communists and the powerful Popular Front because, in an article widely publicized in the colored press, he defended some students who were formerly Soviet-minded but had come out against the Soviet Dictatorship and the Communist International. And worse, he declared that Leon Trotsky was a ruthlessly honest man and one of the greatest intellects of his time, even though he did not partake of his views.
A Trotskyite group2 asked him to address them; the meeting was widely advertised. And ever since, unexpectedly unpleasant things began happening to Dorsey Flagg. He was surprised when he spoke even at non-political meetings, to be heckled and called a Fascist. Even at purely social gatherings some gin-fizzing fuzzy-minded woman of the Bunchetta Facey type might exclaim at some statement of his: “That sounds a little like Fascism, Professor.”
“I hope we don’t split with the ‘Friends,’” said Alamaya. “If we could only arrive at some solution. I told Mr. Tasan quite emphatically that he was damaging our cause with this Stalin-Trotsky issue. My God, I can’t see what it has to do with Ethiopia.”
“Lij Alamaya,” said Peixota, “who is this Maxim Tasan?”
“He seems to be the most important person among the White Friends of Ethiopia, but who he is and what he is, I don’t know.” His manner was slightly confused, evasive.
“I would like to meet him,” said Peixota.
“That can be arranged. When do you want to meet him?”
“Today, now if possible.”
Alamaya picked up the telephone and called the office of the Friends of Ethiopia. “It’s all right, he will meet us there at the office,” he said.
• • •
If Alamaya did not know the commonplace things about Maxim Tasan, such as where he was born, nationality, married or single, he knew the essential thing, what he represented, and of that he did not inform Peixota. Tasan was a frequent visitor in the Aframerican quarter. He attended lectures, mass meetings, street meetings, church affairs and the dances at the Savoy,3 especially those that were held under the auspices of Communists. He was a constant companion of Newton Castle. Some people thought that he was studying the community to write a series of articles or a book. There was nothing strange about his interest in the community—not to Harlemites at least. The community was one of the showplaces of New York. And other persons were as assiduous as Tasan in their interest: Hindus, Jews, Nordics and Native Americans, students, social workers, radicals, bohemians. Among dissident Communists it was said that Tasan was a key international organizer of the Popular Front.
Tasan was a small man in his late thirties or early forties. His appearance was youthful and it was not easy to guess his age. There was something about him of a furry little animal, a ferret that one might like to stroke or not, according to one’s taste.
The office of the Friends of Ethiopia was on the eleventh floor of a building in Madison Avenue near Forty-Second Street. It was not elaborate like the spacious floor which Pablo Peixota had donated to Lij Alamaya and the executive work of the Hands to Ethiopia. The Friends’ office consisted of two rooms containing typewriters, large and small desks, steel filing cases, a bookcase and chairs.
When Alamaya and Peixota arrived, they found Prudhomme Bishop, the president of the Equal Rights Action, in conference with Maxim Tasan. Peixota was slightly acquainted with Prudhomme Bishop, and Lij Alamaya, who had not met him before, was introduced. Peixota said that he would withdraw and wait, but Tasan said that that was unnecessary, as he and Prudhomme were also discussing the Ethiopian situation in which the latter was also interested. Tasan set two chairs for the guests.
Muscular yet quietly reserved in demeanor, Pablo Peixota was an impressive type compared to Prudhomme Bishop, who was a dark-brown man with a bulging body and short fat hands which contrasted strangely with his small coconut-round head and excessively small feet. As he was fussy in his manner and addicted to gesticulation, he gave one the impression of being a comical figure. Yet he was the leader of a considerably influential portion of the Aframerican intelligentsia. The “ERA,” the organization of which he was the thirteenth president, was founded in Boston after the sudden collapse of the Reconstruction period and the rise to power of the Ku Klux Klan. The ERA’s motto was “Equality under the Law.” Its programme was the Right of all the people, including Aframericans, fully to enjoy the fruits of American Civilization and to participate in the pursuit of life and happiness. For three decades it was eclipsed by the Tuskegee Idea of Special Group Development of Aframericans.4 But it still retained its powerful hold on the imagination of the Aframericans of the North.
The orthodox Marxists with whom Maxim Tasan worked were for many years the avowed enemies of the ERA. But the profound universal social change of recent years had brought about limited sympathy between them. Prudhomme Bishop had refused to work with the Harlem Hands to Ethiopia organization, but he was an executive member of the White Friends of Ethiopia. Newton Castle was the other Aframerican member.
Clapping and wringing his hands Tasan said: “Mr. Peixota, I am glad that Mr. Bishop is here, for he might help us over our little snag.” (His tone was intended to indicate that Prudhomme Bishop’s being there was accidental.) “Mr. Bishop was recently appointed an executive member of the White Friends of Ethiopia. And we are working excellently in harmony together.”
“But Mr. Bishop is not white,” Peixota facetiously remarked.
“Now, Mr. Peixota, that’s a funny thing to say, but our work is a serious affair. It isn’t prudent that leaders of the people should emphasize too much the differences of race and color. Not in these times when the Fascists and Nazis are using them to feed their raging fires.”
“But people were divided up by race and color from the beginning of the world,” said Peixota. “I know that the Fascists are taking race and color to turn the world into a hell. But we cannot pretend that they don’t exist.”
“But we can set an example by demonstrating the spiritual unity of the civilized world, Mr. Peixota,” said Prudhomme Bishop. “The spirit is the grandest handiwork of man and a house divided against itself shall fall. The Fascists and the Nazis will live to learn that.”
“The Soviet state has abolished race and color,” said Tasan, “and by that we are implacably, historically and eternally in the service of humanity opposed to the Fascists and the Nazis. The people are still ignorant and all the leaders who are opposed to Fascism must educate them. But, of course it must be done gradually. That is one reason why I supported an all-colored organization like the Hands to Ethiopia and agreed that it was necessary to have a separate White Friends of Ethiopia organization. The chauvinistic imperialists are responsible for the crisis of race. Their actions have put the colored world on the defensive against the white.”
“But we cannot tolerate the destruction of our spiritual welfare,” said Prudhomme Bishop. “That is why I couldn’t support the Hands to Ethiopia, Mr. Peixota, although I admire your work. But I believe in the symbol of unity. Man is the Lord of creation and we are all men.”
“You see, Mr. Peixota,” said Maxim Tasan with a shrug, “your own influential leaders are opposed to a separate organization. But I don’t see eye to eye with them, just as I can’t see eye to eye with you. Mr. Bishop has just been discussing with me a new idea which I consider extremely original, if it doesn’t endanger the unity of your group.”
“And what is that, may I ask?” Peixota spoke coldly. He thought it was an idea that had something to do with his organization.
“It’s an idea that the white people should appreciate as much as a bull moose is protected,” said Prudhomme Bishop. “I am launching a campaign of national magnitude and its purpose is a predication of the security and unity of the nation. I propose to put a white person in every colored organization, great and small, as a symbol of the oneness of this wonderful nation. And I am putting into this campaign the ent
ire administrative energy and membership loyalty of the ERA.”
“Mr. President Prudhomme Bishop,” said Peixota, clearly articulating each word with a little pause in between, “with your kind permission, I should like to make a suggestion.”
“With pleasure, with pleasure indeed, Mr. Peixota. I have never considered my position to be such that I could not learn from experience by disciplining myself to listen to proposals from others who are not so advantageously placed as myself.”
Alamaya kept his eyes fixed on the floor and Maxim Tasan stroked his face with his palm in order to conceal a faint smug smile.
“It is not much of a proposition,” said Peixota. “I want to say that I imagine your campaign might be of greater national significance and symbolic effect, if you made it a campaign to put a colored person in every white institution. You might take the government first. Begin with the cabinet and then switch to the Supreme Court, the federal judiciary, and the other government departments, right down the line: Colleges and Schools, Libraries, Newspapers, Radio, Banking, Shipping, Railroads, Airplanes, Buses, Hotels, Cinemas, Theatres, Orchestras, Trade Unions. There are more I guess.” Peixota counted the number on his fingers as he spoke.
“I think that’s an original idea, all right, President Bishop,” said Tasan. For the first time he imitated Peixota in addressing Prudhomme Bishop as “President Bishop” and his manner was sarcastic.
“But it is not co-efficient in the practical realm of the higher manifestation of human application,” said Prudhomme Bishop.
“Yet, I believe that you could make it serve the ERA or a ‘New ERA,’” said Peixota. “Looking ahead I have an idea that the ERA or Equal Rights Action has served its purpose and that our people need instead a RAGLAW (Right of All Groups to Life and Work).”
“Not feasible, not feasible,” said Prudhomme Bishop, rising. “My campaign will be explosive with the cannon of idealism, which is the basis of the altruistic principle of achievement.”