The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen

by Nella Larsen

  He looked up and said: “Clare? That must be the girl you told me about meeting the last time you were out home. The one you went to tea with?”

  Irene’s answer to that was an inclination of the head.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  They were going downstairs, Brian deftly, unnecessarily, piloting her round the two short curved steps, just before the center landing.

  “You’re not,” he asked, “going to see her?”

  His words, however, were in reality not a question, but, as Irene was aware, an admonition.

  Her front teeth just touched. She spoke through them, and her tones held a thin sarcasm. “Brian darling, I’m really not such an idiot that I don’t realize that if a man calls me a nigger it’s his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”

  They went into the dining room. He drew back her chair and she sat down behind the fat-bellied German coffeepot, which sent out its morning fragrance, mingled with the smell of crisp toast and savory bacon, in the distance. With his long, nervous fingers he picked up the morning paper from his own chair and sat down.

  Zulena, a small mahogany-colored creature, brought in the grapefruit.

  They took up their spoons.

  Out of the silence Brian spoke. Blandly. “My dear, you misunderstand me entirely. I simply meant that I hope you’re not going to let her pester you. She will, you know, if you give her half a chance and she’s anything at all like your description of her. Anyway, they always do. Besides,” he corrected, “the man, her husband, didn’t call you a nigger. There’s a difference, you know.”

  “No, certainly he didn’t. Not actually. He couldn’t, not very well, since he didn’t know. But he would have. It amounts to the same thing. And I’m sure it was just as unpleasant.”

  “U-mm, I don’t know. But it seems to me,” he pointed out, “that you, my dear, had all the advantage. You knew what his opinion of you was, while he—Well, ’twas ever thus. We know, always have. They don’t. Not quite. It has, you will admit, its humorous side, and, sometimes, its conveniences.”

  She poured the coffee.

  “I can’t see it. I’m going to write Clare. Today, if I can find a minute. It’s a thing we might as well settle definitely, and immediately. Curious, isn’t it, that knowing, as she does, his unqualified attitude, she still—”

  Brian interrupted: “It’s always that way. Never known it to fail. Remember Albert Hammond, how he used to be forever haunting Seventh Avenue, and Lenox Avenue, and the dancing places, until some ‘shine’ took a shot at him for casting an eye towards his ‘sheba’? They always come back. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.”

  “But why?” Irene wanted to know. “Why?”

  “If I knew that, I’d know what race is.”

  “But wouldn’t you think that, having got the thing, or things, they were after, and at such risk, they’d be satisfied? Or afraid?”

  “Yes,” Brian agreed, “you certainly would think so. But the fact remains, they aren’t. Not satisfied, I mean. I think they’re scared enough most of the time, when they give way to the urge and slip back. Not scared enough to stop them, though. Why, the good God only knows.”

  Irene leaned forward, speaking, she was aware, with a vehemence absolutely unnecessary, but which she could not control.

  “Well, Clare can just count me out. I’ve no intention of being the link between her and her poorer, darker brethren. After that scene in Chicago, too! To calmly expect me—” She stopped short, suddenly too wrathful for words.

  “Quite right. The only sensible thing to do. Let her miss you. It’s an unhealthy business, the whole affair. Always is.”

  Irene nodded. “More coffee?” she offered.

  “Thanks, no.” He took up his paper again, spreading it open with a little rattling noise.

  Zulena came in, bringing more toast. Brian took a slice and bit into it with that audible crunching sound that Irene disliked so intensely, and turned back to his paper.

  She said: “It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.”

  “Instinct of the race to survive and expand.”

  “Rot! Everything can’t be explained by some general biological phrase.”

  “Absolutely everything can. Look at the so-called whites, who’ve left bastards all over the known earth. Same thing in them. Instinct of the race to survive and expand.”

  With that Irene didn’t at all agree, but many arguments in the past had taught her the futility of attempting to combat Brian on ground where he was more nearly at home than she. Ignoring his unqualified assertion, she slid away from the subject entirely.

  “I wonder,” she asked, “if you’ll have time to run me down to the printing office? It’s on 116th Street. I’ve got to see about some handbills and some more tickets for the dance.”

  “Yes, of course. How’s it going? Everything all set?”

  “Ye-es. I guess so. The boxes are all sold and nearly all the first batch of tickets. And we expect to take in almost as much again at the door. Then there’s all that cake to sell. It’s a terrible lot of work, though.”

  “I’ll bet it is. Uplifting the brother’s no easy job. I’m as busy as a cat with fleas, myself.” And over his face there came a shadow. “Lord! how I hate sick people, and their stupid, meddling families, and smelly, dirty rooms, and climbing filthy steps in dark hallways.”

  “Surely,” Irene began, fighting back the fear and irritation that she felt, “surely—”

  Her husband silenced her, saying sharply: “Let’s not talk about it, please.” And immediately, in his usual slightly mocking tone, he asked: “Are you ready to go now? I haven’t a great deal of time to wait.”

  He got up. She followed him out into the hall without replying. He picked up his soft brown hat from the small table and stood a moment whirling it round on his long tea-colored fingers.

  Irene, watching him, was thinking: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair.” After all these years to still blame her like this. Hadn’t his success proved that she’d been right in insisting that he stick to his profession right there in New York? Couldn’t he see, even now, that it had been best? Not for her, oh no, not for her—she had never really considered herself—but for him and the boys. Was she never to be free of it, that fear which crouched, always, deep down within her, stealing away the sense of security, the feeling of permanence, from the life which she had so admirably arranged for them all, and desired so ardently to have remain as it was? That strange, and to her fantastic, notion of Brian’s of going off to Brazil, which, though unmentioned, yet lived within him; how it frightened her, and—yes, angered her!

  “Well?” he asked lightly.

  “I’ll just get my things. One minute,” she promised and turned upstairs.

  Her voice had been even and her step was firm, but in her there was no slackening of the agitation, of the alarms, which Brian’s expression of discontent had raised. He had never spoken of his desire since that long-ago time of storm and strain, of hateful and nearly disastrous quarreling, when she had so firmly opposed him, so sensibly pointed out its utter impossibility and its probable consequences to her and the boys, and had even hinted at a dissolution of their marriage in the event of his persisting in his idea. No, there had been, in all the years that they had lived together since then, no other talk of it, no more than there had been any other quarreling or any other threats. But because, so she insisted, the bond of flesh and spirit between them was so strong, she knew, had always known, that his dissatisfaction had continued, as had his dislike and disgust for his profession and his country.

  A feeling of uneasiness stole upon her at the inconceivable suspicion that she might have been wrong in her estimate of her husband’s character. But she squirmed away from it. Impossible! She couldn’t have been wrong.
Everything proved that she had been right. More than right, if such a thing could be. And all, she assured herself, because she understood him so well, because she had, actually, a special talent for understanding him. It was, as she saw it, the one thing that had been the basis of the success which she had made of a marriage that had threatened to fail. She knew him as well as he knew himself, or better.

  Then why worry? The thing, this discontent which had exploded into words, would surely die, flicker out, at last. True, she had in the past often been tempted to believe that it had died, only to become conscious, in some instinctive, subtle way, that she had been merely deceiving herself for a while and that it still lived. But it would die. Of that she was certain. She had only to direct and guide her man, to keep him going in the right direction.

  She put on her coat and adjusted her hat.

  Yes, it would die, as long ago she had made up her mind that it should. But in the meantime, while it was still living and still had the power to flare up and alarm her, it would have to be banked, smothered, and something offered in its stead. She would have to make some plan, some decision, at once. She frowned, for it annoyed her intensely. For, though temporary, it would be important and perhaps disturbing. Irene didn’t like changes, particularly changes that affected the smooth routine of her household. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Something would have to be done. And immediately.

  She took up her purse and, drawing on her gloves, ran down the steps and out through the door which Brian held open for her and stepped into the waiting car.

  “You know,” she said, settling herself into the seat beside him, “I’m awfully glad to get this minute alone with you. It does seem that we’re always so busy—I do hate that—but what can we do? I’ve had something on my mind for ever so long, something that needs talking over and really serious consideration.”

  The car’s engine rumbled as it moved out from the curb and into the scant traffic of the street under Brian’s expert guidance.

  She studied his profile.

  They turned into Seventh Avenue. Then he said: “Well, let’s have it. No time like the present for the settling of weighty matters.”

  “It’s about Junior. I wonder if he isn’t going too fast in school? We do forget that he’s not eleven yet. Surely it can’t be good for him to—well, if he is, I mean. Going too fast, you know. Of course, you know more about these things than I do. You’re better able to judge. That is, if you’ve noticed or thought about it at all.”

  “I do wish, Irene, you wouldn’t be forever fretting about those kids. They’re all right. Perfectly all right. Good, strong, healthy boys, especially Junior. Most especially Junior.”

  “We-ll, I s’pose you’re right. You’re expected to know about things like that, and I’m sure you wouldn’t make a mistake about your own boy.” (Now why had she said that?) “But that isn’t all. I’m terribly afraid he’s picked up some queer ideas about things—some things—from the older boys, you know.”

  Her manner was consciously light. Apparently she was intent on the maze of traffic, but she was still watching Brian’s face closely. On it was a peculiar expression. Was it, could it possibly be, a mixture of scorn and distaste?

  “Queer ideas?” he repeated. “D’you mean ideas about sex, Irene?”

  “Ye-es. Not quite nice ones. Dreadful jokes, and things like that.”

  “Oh, I see,” he threw at her. For a while there was silence between them. After a moment he demanded bluntly: “Well, what of it? If sex isn’t a joke, what is it? And what is a joke?”

  “As you please, Brian. He’s your son, you know.” Her voice was clear, level, disapproving.

  “Exactly! And you’re trying to make a mollycoddle out of him. Well, just let me tell you, I won’t have it. And you needn’t think I’m going to let you change him to some nice kindergarten kind of a school because he’s getting a little necessary education. I won’t! He’ll stay right where he is. The sooner and the more he learns about sex, the better for him. And most certainly if he learns that it’s a grand joke, the greatest in the world. It’ll keep him from lots of disappointments later on.”

  Irene didn’t answer.

  They reached the printing shop. She got out, emphatically slamming the car door behind her. There was a piercing agony of misery in her heart. She hadn’t intended to behave like this, but her extreme resentment at his attitude, the sense of having been willfully misunderstood and reproved, drove her to fury.

  Inside the shop, she stilled the trembling of her lips and drove back her rising anger. Her business transacted, she came back to the car in a chastened mood. But against the armor of Brian’s stubborn silence she heard herself saying in a calm, metallic voice: “I don’t believe I’ll go back just now. I’ve remembered that I’ve got to do something about getting something decent to wear. I haven’t a rag that’s fit to be seen. I’ll take the bus downtown.”

  Brian merely doffed his hat in that maddening polite way which so successfully curbed and yet revealed his temper.

  “Good-bye,” she said bitingly. “Thanks for the lift,” and turned towards the avenue.

  What, she wondered contritely, was she to do next? She was vexed with herself for having chosen, as it had turned out, so clumsy an opening for what she had intended to suggest: some European school for Junior next year, and Brian to take him over. If she had been able to present her plan, and he had accepted it, as she was sure that he would have done, with other more favorable opening methods, he would have had that to look forward to as a break in the easy monotony that seemed, for some reason she was wholly unable to grasp, so hateful to him.

  She was even more vexed at her own explosion of anger. What could have got into her to give way to it in such a moment?

  Gradually her mood passed. She drew back from the failure of her first attempt at substitution, not so much discouraged as disappointed and ashamed. It might be, she reflected, that, in addition to her ill-timed loss of temper, she had been too hasty in her eagerness to distract him, had rushed too closely on the heels of his outburst, and had thus aroused his suspicions and his obstinacy. She had but to wait. Another more appropriate time would come, tomorrow, next week, next month. It wasn’t now, as it had been once, that she was afraid that he would throw everything aside and rush off to that remote place of his heart’s desire. He wouldn’t, she knew. He was fond of her, loved her, in his slightly undemonstrative way.

  And there were the boys.

  It was only that she wanted him to be happy, resenting, however, his inability to be so with things as they were, and never acknowledging that, though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way and by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so. Nor did she admit that all other plans, all other ways, she regarded as menaces, more or less indirect, to that security of place and substance which she insisted upon for her sons and in a lesser degree for herself.

  Two

  Five days had gone by since Clare Kendry’s appealing letter. Irene Redfield had not replied to it. Nor had she had any other word from Clare.

  She had not carried out her first intention of writing at once because, on going back to the letter for Clare’s address, she had come upon something which, in the rigor of her determination to maintain unbroken between them the wall that Clare herself had raised, she had forgotten or not fully noted. It was the fact that Clare had requested her to direct her answer to the post office’s general delivery.

  That had angered Irene and increased her disdain and contempt for the other.

  Tearing the letter across, she had flung it into the scrap basket. It wasn’t so much Clare’s carefulness and her desire for secrecy in their relations—Irene understood the need for that—as that Clare should have doubted her discretion, implied that she might not be cautious in the wording of her reply and the choice of a posting box. Having always had complete confidence in her own good judgment and tact, Irene couldn’t bear to have anyone seem to question th
em. Certainly not Clare Kendry.

  In another, calmer moment she decided that it was, after all, better to answer nothing, to explain nothing, to refuse nothing; to dispose of the matter simply by not writing at all. Clare, of whom it couldn’t be said that she was stupid, would not mistake the implication of that silence. She might—and Irene was sure that she would—choose to ignore it and write again, but that didn’t matter. The whole thing would be very easy. The basket for all letters, silence for their answers.

  Most likely she and Clare would never meet again. Well, she, for one, could endure that. Since childhood their lives had never really touched. Actually they were strangers. Strangers in their ways and means of living. Strangers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness. Between them the barrier was just as high, just as broad, and just as firm as if in Clare did not run that strain of black blood. In truth, it was higher, broader, and firmer; because for her there were perils, not known or imagined by those others who had no such secrets to alarm or endanger them.

  The day was getting on toward evening. It was past the middle of October. There had been a week of cold rain, drenching the rotting leaves which had fallen from the poor trees that lined the street on which the Redfields’ house was located, and sending a damp air of penetrating chill into the house, with a hint of cold days to come. In Irene’s room a low fire was burning. Outside, only a dull grey light was left of the day. Inside, lamps had already been lighted.

  From the floor above there was the sound of young voices. Sometimes Junior’s serious and positive; again, Ted’s deceptively gracious one. Often there was laughter, or the noise of commotion, tussling, or toys being slammed down.

  Junior, tall for his age, was almost incredibly like his father in feature and coloring; but his temperament was hers, practical and determined, rather than Brian’s. Ted, speculative and withdrawn, was apparently less positive in his ideas and desires. About him there was a deceiving air of candor that was, Irene knew, like his father’s show of reasonable acquiescence. If, for the time being, and with a charming appearance of artlessness, he submitted to the force of superior strength, or some other immovable condition or circumstance, it was because of his intense dislike of scenes and unpleasant argument. Brian over again.