The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen

by Nella Larsen

  Her definite decision to go was arrived at with almost bewildering suddenness. It was after a concert at which Dvořák’s “New World Symphony” had been wonderfully rendered. Those wailing undertones of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” were too poignantly familiar. They struck into her longing heart and cut away her weakening defenses. She knew at least what it was that had lurked formless and undesignated these many weeks in the back of her troubled mind. Incompleteness.

  “I’m homesick, not for America, but for Negroes. That’s the trouble.”

  For the first time Helga Crane felt sympathy rather than contempt and hatred for that father, whom so often and so angrily she had blamed for his desertion of her mother. She understood, now, his rejection, his repudiation, of the formal calm her mother had represented. She understood his yearning, his intolerable need for the inexhaustible humor and the incessant hope of his own kind, his need for those things, not material, indigenous to all Negro environments. She understood and could sympathize with his facile surrender to the irresistible ties of race, now that they dragged at her own heart. And as she attended parties, the theater, the opera, and mingled with people on the streets, meeting only pale serious faces when she longed for brown laughing ones, she was able to forgive him. Also, it was as if in this understanding and forgiving she had come upon knowledge of almost sacred importance.

  Without demur, opposition, or recrimination Herr and Fru Dahl accepted Helga’s decision to go back to America. She had expected that they would be glad and relieved. It was agreeable to discover that she had done them less than justice. They were, in spite of their extreme worldliness, very fond of her, and would, as they declared, miss her greatly. And they did want her to come back to them, as they repeatedly insisted. Secretly they felt as she did, that perhaps when she returned—So it was agreed upon that it was only for a brief visit, “for your friend’s wedding,” and that she was to return in the early fall.

  The last day came. The last good-byes were said. Helga began to regret that she was leaving. Why couldn’t she have two lives, or why couldn’t she be satisfied in one place? Now that she was actually off, she felt heavy at heart. Already she looked back with infinite regret at the two years in the country which had given her so much of pride, of happiness, of wealth, and of beauty.

  Bells rang. The gangplank was hoisted. The dark strip of water widened. The running figures of friends suddenly grown very dear grew smaller, blurred into a whole, and vanished. Tears rose in Helga Crane’s eyes, fear in her heart.

  Good-bye, Denmark! Good-bye. Good-bye!

  Seventeen

  A summer had ripened and fall begun. Anne and Dr. Anderson had returned from their short Canadian wedding journey. Helga Crane, lingering still in America, had tactfully removed herself from the house in 139th Street to a hotel. It was, as she could point out to curious acquaintances, much better for the newly married Andersons not to be bothered with a guest, not even with such a close friend as she, Helga, had been to Anne.

  Actually, though she herself had truly wanted to get out of the house when they came back, she had been a little surprised and a great deal hurt that Anne had consented so readily to her going. She might at least, thought Helga indignantly, have acted a little bit as if she had wanted her to stay. After writing for her to come, too.

  Pleasantly unaware was Helga that Anne, more silently wise than herself, more determined, more selfish, and less inclined to leave anything to chance, understood perfectly that in a large measure it was the voice of Robert Anderson’s inexorable conscience that had been the chief factor in bringing about her second marriage—his ascetic protest against the sensuous, the physical. Anne had perceived that the decorous surface of her new husband’s mind regarded Helga Crane with that intellectual and aesthetic appreciation which attractive and intelligent women would always draw from him, but that underneath that well-managed section, in a more lawless place where she herself never hoped or desired to enter, was another, a vagrant primitive groping toward something shocking and frightening to the cold asceticism of his reason. Anne knew also that, though she herself was lovely—more beautiful than Helga—and interesting, with her he had not to struggle against that nameless and to him shameful impulse, that sheer delight, which ran through his nerves at mere proximity to Helga. And Anne intended that her marriage should be a success. She intended that her husband should be happy. She was sure that it could be managed by tact and a little cleverness on her own part. She was truly fond of Helga, but seeing how she had grown more charming, more aware of her power, Anne wasn’t so sure that her sincere and urgent request to come over for her wedding hadn’t been a mistake. She was, however, certain of herself. She could look out for her husband. She could carry out what she considered her obligation to him, keep him undisturbed, unhumiliated. It was impossible that she could fail. Unthinkable.

  Helga, on her part, had been glad to get back to New York. How glad, or why, she did not truly realize. And though she sincerely meant to keep her promise to Aunt Katrina and Uncle Poul and return to Copenhagen, summer, September, October, slid by and she made no move to go. Her uttermost intention had been a six or eight weeks’ visit, but the feverish rush of New York, the comic tragedy of Harlem, still held her. As time went on, she became a little bored, a little restless, but she stayed on. Something of that wild surge of gladness that had swept her on the day when with Anne and Anderson she had again found herself surrounded by hundreds, thousands, of dark-eyed brown folk remained with her. These were her people. Nothing, she had come to understand now, could ever change that. Strange that she had never truly valued this kinship until distance had shown her its worth. How absurd she had been to think that another country, other people, could liberate her from the ties which bound her forever to these mysterious, these terrible, these fascinating, these lovable, dark hordes. Ties that were of the spirit. Ties not only superficially entangled with mere outline of features or color of skin. Deeper. Much deeper than either of these.

  Thankful for the appeasement of that loneliness which had again tormented her like a fury, she gave herself up to the miraculous joyousness of Harlem. The easement which its heedless abandon brought to her was a real, a very definite thing. She liked the sharp contrast to her pretentious stately life in Copenhagen. It was as if she had passed from the heavy solemnity of a church service to a gorgeous carefree revel.

  Not that she intended to remain. No. Helga Crane couldn’t, she told herself and others, live in America. In spite of its glamour, existence in America, even in Harlem, was for Negroes too cramped, too uncertain, too cruel; something not to be endured for a lifetime if one could escape; something demanding a courage greater than was in her. No. She couldn’t stay. Nor, she saw now, could she remain away. Leaving, she would have to come back.

  This knowledge, this certainty of the division of her life into two parts in two lands, into physical freedom in Europe and spiritual freedom in America, was unfortunate, inconvenient, expensive. It was, too, as she was uncomfortably aware, even a trifle ridiculous, and mentally she caricatured herself moving shuttlelike from continent to continent. From the prejudiced restrictions of the New World to the easy formality of the Old, from the pale calm of Copenhagen to the colorful lure of Harlem.

  Nevertheless she felt a slightly pitying superiority over those Negroes who were apparently so satisfied. And she had a fine contempt for the blatantly patriotic black Americans. Always when she encountered one of those picturesque parades in the Harlem streets, the Stars and Stripes streaming ironically, insolently, at the head of the procession, tempered for her, a little, her amusement at the childish seriousness of the spectacle. It was too pathetic.

  But when mental doors were deliberately shut on those skeletons that stalked lively and in full health through the consciousness of every person of Negro ancestry in America—conspicuous black, obvious brown, or indistinguishable white—life was intensely amusing, interesting, absorbing, and enjoyable; singularly lacking in that to
ne of anxiety which the insecurities of existence seemed to ferment in other peoples.

  Yet Helga herself had an acute feeling of insecurity, for which she could not account. Sometimes it amounted to fright almost. “I must,” she would say then, “get back to Copenhagen.” But the resolution gave her not much pleasure. And for this she now blamed Axel Olsen. It was, she insisted, he who had driven her back, made her unhappy in Denmark. Though she knew well that it wasn’t. Misgivings, too, rose in her. Why hadn’t she married him? Anne was married—she would not say Anderson—Why not she? It would serve Anne right if she married a white man. But she knew in her soul that she wouldn’t. “Because I’m a fool,” she said bitterly.

  Eighteen

  One November evening, impregnated still with the kindly warmth of the dead Indian summer, Helga Crane was leisurely dressing in pleasant anticipation of the party to which she had been asked for that night. It was always amusing at the Tavenors’. Their house was large and comfortable, the food and music always of the best, and the type of entertainment always unexpected and brilliant. The drinks, too, were sure to be safe.

  And Helga, since her return, was more than ever popular at parties. Her courageous clothes attracted attention, and her deliberate lure—as Olsen had called it—held it. Her life in Copenhagen had taught her to expect and accept admiration as her due. This attitude, she found, was as effective in New York as across the sea. It was, in fact, even more so. And it was more amusing too. Perhaps because it was somehow a bit more dangerous.

  In the midst of curious speculation as to the possible identity of the other guests, with an indefinite sense of annoyance she wondered if Anne would be there. There was of late something about Anne that was to Helga distinctly disagreeable, a peculiar half-patronizing attitude, mixed faintly with distrust. Helga couldn’t define it, couldn’t account for it. She had tried. In the end she had decided to dismiss it, to ignore it.

  “I suppose,” she said aloud, “it’s because she’s married again. As if anybody couldn’t get married. Anybody. That is, if mere marriage is all one wants.”

  Smoothing away the tiny frown from between the broad black brows, she got herself into a little shining, rose-colored slip of a frock knotted with a silver cord. The gratifying result soothed her ruffled feelings. It didn’t really matter, this new manner of Anne’s. Nor did the fact that Helga knew that Anne disapproved of her. Without words Anne had managed to make that evident. In her opinion, Helga had lived too long among the enemy, the detestable pale faces. She understood them too well, was too tolerant of their ignorant stupidities. If they had been Latins, Anne might conceivably have forgiven the disloyalty. But Nordics! Lynchers! It was too traitorous. Helga smiled a little, understanding Anne’s bitterness and hate, and a little of its cause. It was of a piece with that of those she so virulently hated. Fear. And then she sighed a little, for she regretted the waning of Anne’s friendship. But, in view of diverging courses of their lives, she felt that even its complete extinction would leave her undevastated. Not that she wasn’t still grateful to Anne for many things. It was only that she had other things now. And there would, forever, be Robert Anderson between them. A nuisance. Shutting them off from their previous confident companionship and understanding. “And anyway,” she said again, aloud, “he’s nobody much to have married. Anybody could have married him. Anybody. If a person wanted only to be married—If it had been somebody like Olsen—That would be different—something to crow over, perhaps.”

  The party was even more interesting than Helga had expected. Helen, Mrs. Tavenor, had given vent to a malicious glee and had invited representatives of several opposing Harlem political and social factions, including the West Indian, and abandoned them helplessly to each other. Helga’s observing eyes picked out several great and near great sulking or obviously trying hard not to sulk in widely separated places in the big rooms. There were present, also, a few white people, to the open disapproval or discomfort of Anne and several others. There too, poised, serene, certain, surrounded by masculine black and white, was Audrey Denney.

  “Do you know, Helen,” Helga confided, “I’ve never met Miss Denney. I wish you’d introduce me. Not this minute. Later, when you can manage it. Not so—er—apparently by request, you know.”

  Helen Tavenor laughed. “No, you wouldn’t have met her, living as you did with Anne Grey. Anderson, I mean. She’s Anne’s particular pet aversion. The mere sight of Audrey is enough to send her into a frenzy for a week. It’s too bad, too, because Audrey’s an awfully interesting person and Anne’s said some pretty awful things about her. You’ll like her, Helga.”

  Helga nodded. “Yes, I expect to. And I know about Anne. One night—” She stopped, for across the room she saw, with a stab of surprise, James Vayle. “Where, Helen did you get him?”

  “Oh, that? That’s something the cat brought in. Don’t ask which one. He came with somebody, I don’t remember who. I think he’s shocked to death. Isn’t he lovely? The dear baby. I was going to introduce him to Audrey and tell her to do a good job of vamping on him as soon as I could remember the darling’s name, or when it got noisy enough so he wouldn’t hear what I called him. But you’ll do just as well. Don’t tell me you know him!” Helga made a little nod. “Well! And I suppose you met him at some shockingly wicked place in Europe. That’s always the way with those innocent-looking men.”

  “Not quite. I met him ages ago in Naxos. We were engaged to be married. Nice, isn’t he? His name’s Vayle. James Vayle.”

  “Nice,” said Helen throwing out her hands in a characteristic dramatic gesture—she had beautiful hands and arms—“is exactly the word. Mind if I run off? I’ve got somebody here who’s going to sing. Not spirituals. And I haven’t the faintest notion where he’s got to. The cellar, I’ll bet.”

  James Vayle hadn’t, Helga decided, changed at all. Someone claimed her for a dance and it was some time before she caught his eyes, half questioning, upon her. When she did, she smiled in a friendly way over her partner’s shoulder and was rewarded by a dignified little bow. Inwardly she grinned, flattered. He hadn’t forgotten. He was still hurt. The dance over, she deserted her partner and deliberately made her way across the room to James Vayle. He was for the moment embarrassed and uncertain. Helga Crane, however, took care of that, thinking meanwhile that Helen was right. Here he did seem frightfully young and delightfully unsophisticated. He must be, though, every bit of thirty-two or more.

  “They say,” was her bantering greeting, “that if one stands on the corner of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue long enough one will eventually see all the people one has ever known or met. It’s pretty true, I guess. Not literally of course.” He was, she saw, getting himself together. “It’s only another way of saying that everybody, almost, sometime sooner or later comes to Harlem, even you.”

  He laughed. “Yes, I guess that is true enough. I didn’t come to stay, though.” And then he was grave, his earnest eyes searchingly upon her.

  “Well, anyway, you’re here now, so let’s find a quiet corner if that’s possible, where we can talk. I want to hear all about you.”

  For a moment he hung back and a glint of mischief shone in Helga’s eyes. “I see,” she said, “you’re just the same. However, you needn’t be anxious. This isn’t Naxos, you know. Noboby’s watching us, or if they are, they don’t care a bit what we do.”

  At that he flushed a little, protested a little, and followed her. And when at last they had found seats in another room, not so crowded, he said: “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you were still abroad.”

  “Oh, I’ve been back some time, ever since Dr. Anderson’s marriage. Anne, you know, is a great friend of mine. I used to live with her. I came for the wedding. But, of course, I’m not staying. I didn’t think I’d be here this long.”

  “You don’t mean that you’re going to live over there? Do you really like it so much better?”

  “Yes and no, to both questions. I was awfully glad to g
et back, but I wouldn’t live here always. I couldn’t. I don’t think that any of us who’ve lived abroad for any length of time would ever live here altogether again if they could help it.”

  “Lot of them do, though,” James Vayle pointed out.

  “Oh, I don’t mean tourists who rush over to Europe and rush all over the Continent and rush back to America thinking they know Europe. I mean people who’ve actually lived there, actually lived among the people.”

  “I still maintain that they nearly all come back here eventually to live.”

  “That’s because they can’t help it,” Helga Crane said firmly. “Money, you know.”

  “Perhaps, I’m not so sure. I was in the war. Of course, that’s not really living over there, but I saw the country and the difference in treatment. But, I can tell you, I was pretty darn glad to get back. All the fellows were.” He shook his head solemnly. “I don’t think anything, money or lack of money, keeps us here. If it was only that, if we really wanted to leave, we’d go all right. No, it’s something else, something deeper than that.”

  “And just what do you think it is?”

  “I’m afraid it’s hard to explain, but I suppose it’s just that we like to be together. I simply can’t imagine living forever away from colored people.”

  A suspicion of a frown drew Helga’s brows. She threw out rather tartly: “I’m a Negro too, you know.”

  “Well, Helga, you were always a little different, a little dissatisfied, though I don’t pretend to understand you at all. I never did,” he said a little wistfully.

  And Helga, who was beginning to feel that the conversation had taken an impersonal and disappointing tone, was reassured and gave him her most sympathetic smile and said almost gently: “And now let’s talk about you. You’re still at Naxos?”