by Claude McKay
Seraphine had quit the Friends of Ethiopia and Montague Claxon had taken her back at the Interlink on a full-time assignment. Her husband was so indifferent about a decent paying job and a place to live in, she was faced with the realization that she might have to become the responsible partner. Yet she would not entertain the idea of giving him up. For he was white. If she did, it would be proof that her parents were right. And Harlem would have a glorious gossip holiday. It gave her a little consolation that if Dandy was impractical, he was at least presentable, but nevertheless her heart was heavy.
Meanwhile Tasan kept his eye on Newton Castle and Lublu Lubov. As Delta Castle had wavered, fearful that her social prestige was endangered by Newton’s Popular Front antics, Tasan had discovered the buxom Lublu to divert Newton and assist in holding him steadfast. The relationship between Castle and his wife was in a precarious state. He had become a byword in Harlem’s elite circles because of his habit of using every occasion to sloganize: “Defend Soviet Russia and achieve the second emancipation of the Aframerican race.” Like a zealous missionary, he was a frequent visitor to poolrooms, barbershops and bars, in which he distributed free five- and ten-cent pamphlets on various aspects of the Comintern and the Aframerican. His public school briefcase was always bulging with propaganda material. And it was rumored in Harlem that in his classroom he injected something of the history of Soviet Russia into every subject. To more effectively proletarianise himself, he started to wear soiled collars and old down-at-the-heel shoes when he made the rounds of the poolrooms and barbershops. Desperate Delta gathered up all his old shoes and old clothes and asked the superintendent to give them to the junk man.
As the crisis between Castle and his wife increased, he found more relaxation among his downtown friends. However, he always dressed neatly when he went downtown. He and Lublu Lubov often went joy-riding in his car, sometimes with other friends. Lublu was a W.P.A. teacher1 and lived with an aunt in an old house in the Chelsea district. Castle was the first Aframerican that the aunt got to know intimately. She admired him, especially because of his social-political affiliations.
Tasan was pleased with himself for arranging to bring his guests from the gallery to his apartment. They all showed their appreciation, some saying that the evening’s treat was the tonic to the afternoon session. He was an expert fixer of little as well as big things. His arrangement of the little affair of Newton Castle and Miss Lublu Lubov to checkmate the rebellious Mrs. Castle was perfecting itself as planned.
When all the guests had departed, except Lublu and Newton, Tasan exhibited a couple of bottles of fine Caucasian wine which, he said, he had received as a present from a friend attached to one of the Russian missions visiting America. Tasan fetched clean glasses, extracted the cork and the three sipped the delicious strange wine as if it were reserved for special communion.
“Ah, Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia.” Tasan smacked his lips. “Blessed land of perpetual promise and proletarian opportunity. Dear Fatherland of Lenin and Stalin. How I long to touch thy soil and breathe thine air again.”
“Amen,” responded Newton Castle.
They emptied the bottle and Tasan offered to take Lublu and Newton to dinner. But flushed by the excellent liquor and wine and the exquisitely stimulating freshness of the spring night, Lublu insisted that she had no appetite; what she wanted was a nice spin in the car.
“You should eat,” said Tasan. “All the others went home to dinner. And remember you have a weak heart.”
Lublu shrugged. “What do I care?” And pirouetting on her toes like an overweight ballet dancer, she sang, “Tra la la, tra la la, la la.” She popped a large olive into her mouth, saying, “That’s enough for my dinner. Come on, Newton, take me for a ride.”
“Be good, children,” said Tasan. “I am going to eat.”
“We’ll be as good as the angels in Harlem,” said Newton.
With Lublu sitting beside him Newton Castle drove over to Broadway and on the West Side Driveway. With no pedestrians to watch and no traffic lights to heed, the car spun along as smoothly as the unraveling of a silken thread. Lublu snuggled against Newton and declared she was enchanted.
“New York could be made as beautiful as a jewel,” she said. “When they finish the East Side Driveway the city will be like a great big unending escalator with broad silver bands. This city could be beautiful, eh, Newton?”
“It will be, when we change the system,” said Castle.
“When we change the system and the world too. Then instead of ‘All the World Aboard the Popular Front,’ our slogan will be, ‘The Beautiful Life for All.’ Then the purpose of governments will be to make life beautiful for all. No more fostering of prejudice and hate between people. All the world will be one united humanity.”
Castle eased away a little from Lublu. He was more than ever a victim of nerves as his estrangement from Delta increased. The firm strands that had held him physically balanced to a person stronger than himself and kept him performing a perpetual St. Vitus dance2 were loosening one by one. And the psychological elation which he experienced from being a member of the Communist Party and a partisan of the Popular Front did not wholly compensate for that special loss. Yet being an esteemed member of a mass organization was the more powerful influence, for he was always more of a mental than a physical case. He was haunted by a sensation of a person suspended afraid in the void between heaven and hell, yet deriving a certain gratification from the sensation. His association with Lublu did make him feel that his destiny was more closely linked up with the Movement, but not exactly in the way Tasan expected. Lublu was no substitute for the Aframerican Delta, whose sharp consciousness of holding a superior place within the barriers of Harlem society was tempered with bitterness. To Newton Castle Lublu was a sprite of the Movement whose body was tattooed with slogans of inspiration.
They drove along the Hudson Parkway. Lublu’s voice kept running along like a brook babbling about life and beauty. At last Newton decided to return by way of Harlem. As the car zoomed along the speedway, Lublu suddenly uttered a sharp cry and, clutching her breast, she slumped down. Newton stopped the car and gripped her around the waist, asking, “Are you ill?”
She replied with a nod and a long sigh. He adjusted the cushion and she listed back as if life were going out of her. He held her wrist and said: “Is it very bad?” She gave only another and weaker sigh.
He remembered she had told him of previous attacks. He thought it was the best thing to drive straight to the Harlem Hospital. He was alarmed and kept touching her, endeavoring to get her to speak as he drove along, but Lublu did not reply. He turned into Seventh Avenue and, waiting for the light, he desperately tried to rouse her. But she gave no sign of life.
Panic gripped him. She can’t be dead, he thought. What could kill her? A few glasses of liquor? It wasn’t poisoned. I drank it myself and more than she. Good God! What a mess I’ve got myself into.
He drove into Lenox Avenue towards the hospital. But he stopped before he reached the hospital and parked against the curb. I can’t go in there, he thought. Lublu is not sick, she is dead. And she is WHITE. I’ll be arrested. They will jail me. And how will I ever get out of it? She is WHITE! Once when he was an errand boy he had surprised a white woman in the nude and had never quite recovered from the shattering effects of that encounter.
He propped up Lublu as if she were sleeping and stepped out of the car. He walked quickly away. Midway down the block he ran into a strapping black fellow with whom he had become slightly acquainted one afternoon, when he was distributing proletarian pamphlets. The young man was usually employed in a downtown theatre, but he was not working, as the theatre was not running that season.
“Hello there,” said Newton, and then, as if immediately enlightened about his problem, “will you do me a favor?”
“Sure, if I can,” said the porter.
Newton went back with
the porter to the car and asked him if he would watch it until he returned. “See that girl in there? She is dead drunk,” he said, “and I don’t like to leave her alone, as she is white. Some of our bad boys might want to act funny. I’m just going down the block to get the rest of the crowd who are at a party.” He gave the porter fifty cents.
“Why thank you, mister,” said the porter. “This is no favor you’re asking. You’re paying me.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Newton. “When I come back with the others, they’ll give you a dollar or two. White folks like to get drunk and spend money like lords when they come to Harlem to amuse themselves.”
And Newton Castle hurried off. Oh, what shall I do, he thought, as he was seized with the feeling of a person who had swallowed an enormous purge, which was beginning to aggravate his colon. Tasan, Tasan! I will telephone Tasan. It was his fault, forcing his white slave of the movement on me against my desire. Lord, but I dare not telephone, for the whole police department might be listening in and the fire department besides. Fire, Lord, fire! Fire, I’m a going to burn! Flesh and body burning and it’s never going to save my soul! Lord of the jungle of my dreams! Lord of the slave plantation, have mercy upon me! Why did I do it? Why did I stray? If I could only drive her home to her aunt! But she may have the posse there waiting for me with the rope and faggot.
Thus pursued by the wild terror of his imagination, Newton Castle wandered in a confused circle through the streets of Harlem. Meanwhile the porter was waiting and waiting, faithfully watching the car. Lenox Avenue was not brightly animated. People passed by and none paid any special attention to the car. The subway admitted and discharged its scanty after-midnight passengers, who quickly vanished into the side streets.
But the man said he was just going down the block, thought the porter, and it’s a hellavo long time. Why, it’s two o’clock. And all the time the gal has never moved, not even a wink. She’s some drunk. Lemme see. He opened the door of the car and shook her. “Seems lak to me she’s more dead than drunk,” he said. He reached over and touched her face. “She’s daid,” he said.
But the porter felt not the slightest sensation of fear. He had been asked to watch on a car in which a helplessly drunk young woman was sitting. He discovered that the woman was dead. She was white, but that circumstance did not make him afraid any more than if she were black. He could easily prove his innocence. The car had its license plate. The worst the police could do would be to take him into custody, pending enquiries. So the porter calmly reasoned and he decided to drive the girl to the nearby Harlem Hospital.
But at that moment Maxim Tasan came along and, recognizing the car and Lublu apparently asleep in the front seat, he asked the porter if he knew where the driver was. The porter informed him of what had occurred and said he believed that the young woman was not drunk but dead, adding that he did not know the name of the owner of the car. Tasan was startled by the probability of Lublu’s death, but his composure was perfect. He examined Lublu, aware that she was subject to swooning spells. He realized that the porter had apparently guessed correctly.
“No, she’s just dead sick,” said Tasan. “She’s a friend of mine and the owner of the car too. He was looking for me when he asked you to watch. It’s all right now, I’ll take charge of this.” He gave the porter a dollar and he said, “Thank you, Colonel,” saluted and walked off.
Tasan climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. As he curved the corner he saw one of the cleverest reporters of the most sensational of New York’s newspapers approaching the scene. He was nicknamed “the Bloodhound.” “I beat him to it,” said Tasan. “I’m always here, there and everywhere, just at the right time.”
He was not expert at driving and so he drove slowly, thinking of the unusual exit of his strange passenger and the blundering jeopardising action of Newton Castle. Thought Tasan, “The despicable coward, the yellow cur, ridden by the nightmare of fear, scared of a white shadow, screwy and jerky and jumpy like a rabbit. Trying to get an ignorant black working man in a mess of trouble. What an utter fool! Who would ever believe that such a man was mixed up in an obvious bohemian mess? Educated chut! Of what use his education when he carries his brain in the seat of his pants? Repulsive yellow louse.”
Thus thought Tasan as he drove to the house of a doctor who lived in his neighborhood. The doctor was a comrade and friend. He was annoyed to be wakened at that late hour when he was snuggled in the lap of sleep. But his vexation vanished at the sight of Tasan. For he knew that there was a princely fee in anything Tasan wanted to be done. He invited Tasan to enter, but Tasan informed him that he had an urgent case just outside in the car. The doctor wrapped himself in a heavy robe and went out. He confirmed the fact that Lublu had been dead about four hours, from heart failure.
Tasan explained the circumstances under which she had died, filling in with his theory of what happened during the joy-ride, and informed the doctor that Lublu had had such attacks before. He enlisted the doctor’s aid to liquidate the matter and keep Newton Castle’s name out of it. They placed Lublu’s body on the backseat. Then Tasan telephoned Lublu’s aunt, informing her that the girl had had one of her frequent attacks, which was perhaps fatal, and he was bringing her home. The doctor got dressed and rode with Tasan to Lublu’s apartment. The aunt, who was prepared for the worst, received them. They said what they could to console her. She was a “fellow traveler” along the party line and held Tasan in high estimation. He reassured her and promised to return at daybreak to arrange and defray all the costs of the funeral.
“Well, that’s settled,” Tasan said to the doctor as they drove away. “And I wish I was near a high cliff with that African jackass in this car; I’d send him hurtling over.”
Meanwhile Newton Castle had wandered like a somnambulist through the streets of Harlem and finally arrived at home. Without removing his clothes or his shoes he threw himself facedown on the couch in the sitting room, lying motionless like a person in a heavy trance.
Towards dawn Delta called to him from the bedroom: she had heard him enter. “Newton, Newton! What have you brought into the apartment? It stinks as if it was flooded with all the sewers of Harlem.”
Newton Castle gave no reply. Delta slipped into her kimono and went into the living room. She grasped Newton’s kinks and vigorously shook him: “Newton, I am suffocating. What have you done to the place?”
He stirred without changing position and groaned: “She’s DEAD!”
“Who’s dead?” cried Delta. “What d’you mean, dead?!”
“She’s DEAD, I say. I killed her!” He groaned again.
“Are you crazy?” Delta said. “Who did you kill? Who is dead?”
Again Newton Castle groaned: “Dead! Dead! DEAD!”
“I don’t care who is dead,” Delta cried hysterically, “but I won’t stand this deadly stench and you like a helpless baby without its diaper. You’re full of filth and more offensive than a skunk. You come on into the bathroom and clean yourself.”
Delta prodded him up and into the bathroom, ripped off his clothes and pushed him in the tub. She turned the cold water on and he quickly added the hot himself. While she was scrubbing him, the telephone rang. It was Tasan calling.
“What is it?” snapped Delta. Tasan said he wanted Newton on the telephone.
“You can’t get him,” she said. “He’s acting like a crazy man and won’t see or talk to anybody. Said he killed somebody.”
“Tell him that he didn’t kill anybody,” said Tasan. “The doctor pronounced the person dead from heart failure and his car is safe in my hands.”
Delta delivered the message. Newton Castle leaped from the tub and, dashing naked into the sitting room, started singing, “I am free! I am free!” and dancing exactly as he had danced on the day when he invited his friends to convive at the death party for his sister.
“When you’ve finished your S
alome number,” said Delta, “you can throw out all the Russian rubbish that nearly landed you in jail and then I’ll disinfect the house.” She began by calling the elevator runner to take away Newton’s filthy clothes. “You can burn them,” she said.
22
ALAMAYA LANDS A REAL JOB
“Now that I’m no longer Princess Benebe Zarihana and a party member,” said Gloria Kendall, “but only a member of the millions of unemployed, I guess I’ll have to go on the block.” She was conversing with Lij Alamaya in her one-room apartment in the Edgecombe Avenue section of Sugar Hill.
“What do you mean by ‘go on the block’?” said Alamaya. “I thought that that was associated with some form of white slavery.”
“I never could understand the nice distinction that was made,” said Gloria, “unless it was a white euphemism to ignore the black side of the game, but what I meant was nothing more or less than the good old-time slavery of the block, which exists today in the Bronx Slave Market, almost as it does in Ethiopia.”
“I wonder if I understand you rightly,” said Alamaya. “Slavery in the Bronx, New York, in the most highly civilized city in the world? One of the main charges the Italians made against Ethiopia was that the Emperor had abolished slavery by decree only, but that it still existed in reality. And now you’re trying to tell me that the same situation exists here. Do I look like a joke?”
“I will take you to see it with your own eyes,” said Gloria. “There are over half a dozen blocks in the Bronx where starving colored women sit and wait for white women to come and buy them to work at ten cents an hour. Ten hours of lugging and scrubbing down on their knees to make one dollar. We call it the Bronx Slave Market, for the black women line up there and wait for the white mistresses just as the slaves down South waited for the masters to come and buy them. There are coolies in Asia and peons in Mexico, share-croppers in the South and slaves in the Bronx.”