Infants of the Spring

by Wallace Thurman

  “But that’s not telling me anything about your drawings.”

  “Unless you’re dumber than I think, I’ve told you all you need to know.”

  There was a timid knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Raymond shouted.

  Pelham sidled into the room. He was short, fat and black, and was attired in a green smock and a beret which was only two shades darker than his face.

  “Hello, everybody” His voice was timid, apologetic. “I didn’t know you had company.”

  “That’s all right,” Raymond reassured him. “Mr. Jorgenson, this is Pelham Gaylord. He’s an artist too.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Stephen proffered his hand. Gingerly Pelham pressed it in his own, then quickly, like a small animal at bay, stepped back to the door, and smiled bashfully at all within the room.

  “Pelham’s the only decent person in the house,” Samuel said.

  “You mean he’s the only one you can impress.” It was Paul who spoke. “But I’m tired of sitting here doing nothing. There’s no life to this party. We need to celebrate Steve’s arrival. We need some liquor. Let’s go to a speakeasy.”

  “Who’s going to pay the bill?” Raymond asked.

  ”Who?” Paul repeated. “Why, Steve of course. It’s his celebration, and he’s bound to have some money.”

  “But… “ Samuel started to protest.

  “But hell. .. .” Paul interrupted. “Get your hat and coat, Steve. You, too, Ray and Eustace. Let Sam stay here with Pelham. Other-wise he’ll spoil the party.”

  “But suppose I wish to go with you?”

  “And leave Pelham alone? Nothing doing, Sam. I’m sure you have lots to say to one another. And Pelham must have written some new poems today. Can’t you see the light of creation in his eyes?”

  All during this barrage of banter, Paul had been helping first Stephen and then Raymond into their coats. And before there could be further protest, he had ushered Stephen, Eustace and Raymond out of the room, leaving Samuel gaping sillily at the grinning Pelham.

  II

  Samuel Carter had migrated from a New England college to Greenwich Village intent upon becoming a figure in the radical movement. He had been seduced into radicalism by a Jekyll and Hyde professor of economics, who mouthed platitudes in the class room, and preached socialism in private seances to a few chosen students. As a rule, these students were carefully chosen. Samuel was one of the professor’s mistakes. How they became attracted to one another in the first place is one of those minute, insoluble mysteries which can only be attributed to fate’s perversity. However, the fact remains that Samuel became a member of the professor’s private lecture group, and was innocently conscripted into the radical movement, although nature had stamped him an indelible conservative.

  He had been obsessed, during his first days in New York, with the idea of becoming a martyr. His professor had inflamed his anemic mind with biographical yarns of radicals who had sacrificed their lives for their principles. Samuel was going to do likewise. He was going to be a rebellious torchbearer, a persecuted spirit child of Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman, subject to frequent imprisonment, and gradually becoming inured to being put on the rack by the sadistic policemen who upheld the capitalistic regime.

  To prepare himself for his future glory, he dived recklessly into the many cross currents of the radical movement. He ultimately allied himself with every existing organization which had the reputation of being red or pink, no matter how disparate their aims and policies. He was thus able to be in sympathy both with anarchists and pacifists, socialists and communists. He went to the aid of any who called, and was unable to understand his universal unpopularity.

  But Samuel was not destined to be a martyr or even a leader. He had to content himself with carrying banners in protest parades, or braving a picket line, and being general utility man to the officers and members of all the various organizations to which he belonged. When there were placards or throwaways to be distributed, it was Samuel who did the honors. When there were to be meetings, it was Samuel who arranged for extra chairs, Samuel who provided water for the speakers of the evening, Samuel who was called upon to open windows, find lost articles, and importune the superintendent for more heat. He had become a letter perfect prop man for the theater in which he longed to play a leading rôle.

  Samuel became depressed. And concurrent with the realization that he was and probably would remain a mere nobody in the radical movement, he also became aware of a duality in his nature, a clash between his professed beliefs and his personal sympathies. More often than not he considered his capitalistic opponents in a more favorable light than he did his radical allies. Strikers, paralyzing the efficiency of some commercial machine, became, to Samuel, silly fools who did not know when they were well off. In short, his natural conservatism began to assert itself. It became obvious that he was one of God’s elect, and that he would find neither fame nor riches among the disciples of the devil.

  Samuel grew restive and resentful. He absented himself from his usual haunts, took to brooding, and was on the verge of crawling penitently back to the wealthy uncle who had offered to set him up in business, when he became aware of a new cause in which he might possibly realize his earlier ambitions. He entered the lists in an arena in which his mediocrity was overlooked because he had a pale face, and because he had assumed the rôle of a belligerent latter-day abolitionist. He became a white hope, battling for the cause of the American Negro.

  No Negro ever had the welfare of his race so much at heart as did the alien Samuel. News of a lynching upset him for days. He would excitedly buttonhole everyone with whom he came into contact, and be apoplectic in his denunciation of lawless southern mobs. Apprised of isolated cases of racial discrimination in restaurants or theaters, Samuel would go into a rage, write letters to all the daily newspapers and to city officials, excoriating the offending management, asking for a general boycott, and demanding police and legislative action.

  As a reward for all this vigorous crusading, Samuel soon found himself vociferously acclaimed by Negroes. His mail was tremendous. Grateful darkies from coast to coast sent him letters of appreciation or appeals for help. The Negro press eulogized him both in the news columns and on their editorial pages. Negro leaders were proud to be associated with him, and to grant him any assistance he might need. And what made the rôle eminently satisfying was the vilification and abuse visited upon him by certain cliques of his fellow whites. At last Samuel had become a martyr.

  Raymond and Paul were the only Negroes he knew who openly ridiculed both him and his cause. Despite this, he was attracted to them. After all, they were outstanding personalities, and Samuel felt that it was part of his duty to remain friendly with them. Pelham Gaylord, though, was a Negro who pleased Samuel. Pelham was servile, deferential, and quite impressed by Samuel’s noisy if ineffectual crusade. And it soothed Samuel’s rankled vanity somewhat to talk to Pelham about his work after the others had so unceremoniously carted Stephen off to a nearby speakeasy. He monopolized the entire conversation, talking about the trials and tribulations of the misunderstood and mistreated Negro, and outliningwhat he intended to do about it. His monologue was ended only by the boisterous reëntry of the four truants.

  “So here you are,” Paul shouted, “in dear old Pelham’s atelier. How do you like his new poems?”

  “He ain’t heard ’em yet,” Pelham said as he busied himself taking Stephen’s coat and hat.

  “I bet Pelham ain’t hadda chance to say one word. Didn’t you co-nopolize the monversation, Sam?” Eustace grinned at the scowling Samuel.

  “Steve likes our speakeasy, Sam,” Raymond said.

  “But not our licker,” Eustace added.

  “At last I know what firewater is.”

  “Don’t you think we’d better go now?” Samuel asked.

  “Pull down your hair, Sam, and be yourself,” Paul said. “Steve’s just beginning to enjoy himself. We may go to a cabaret later.
”

  “But… ”

  “Shut up, Sam,” Raymond said. “We promised Steve another thrill. He wants to see Pelham’s pictures and hear some of his poetry. Get busy, Pelham.”

  Pelham was flustered but ambitious. He was always childishly eager to exhibit his pictures or to read his poems. With many superfluous hand movements, he pointed to the various pictures on the wall.

  “That there,” he announced proudly, “is a portrait of Paul Robe-son. I copied it from a newspaper photograph.”

  Stephen looked, gaped, then hurriedly shifted his gaze. His face became flushed. His eyes sought the faces of his companions. He could see that, with the exception of Samuel, all were having difficulty suppressing their laughter. Once more Stephen glanced at the charcoal monstrosity, and then looked ceilingward as Pelham jauntily pointed out the portrait he had done of Raymond.

  III

  Stephen had been in New York for a month now, and most of that month had been spent in company with Raymond. Their friendship had become something precious, inviolate and genuine. They had become as intimate in that short period as if they had known one another since childhood. In fact, there was something delightfully naïve and childlike about their frankly acknowledged affection for one another. Like children, they seemed to be totally unconscious of their racial difference. It did not matter that Stephen’s ancestors were blond Norsemen, steeped in the tradition of the sagas, and that Raymond’s ancestors were a motley ensemble without cultural bonds. It made no difference between them that one was black and the other white. There was something deeper than mere surface color which drew them together, something more vital and lasting than the shallow attraction of racial opposites.

  Their greatest joy came when they could be alone together and talk … talk about any and everything. They seemed to have so much to say to one another, so much that had remained unsaid all of their respective lives because they had never met anyone else with whom they could converse unreservedly. And no matter how often these conversational communings occurred, no matter how long they lasted, there always seemed to be much more to say.

  Stephen was absorbed in learning about Harlem and about Negroes. Raymond was intrigued by the virile Icelandic sagas which Stephen read in the original and translated for his benefit. And both of them were eager to air their thoughts about literature

  Ulysses was a swamp out of which stray orchids grew. Hemingway exemplified the spirit of the twenties in America more vividly than any other contemporary American novelist. To Raymond, Thomas Mann and Andre Gide were the only living literary giants. Andre Gide was not on Stephen’s list, but Sigrid Undset was. Neither liked Shaw. They agreed that Dostoievsky was the greatest novelist of all time, but Stephen had only contempt for Marcel Proust whom Raymond swore by, but didn’t read. Stendhal, Flaubert and Hardy were discussed amicably, but the sparks flew when they discussed Tolstoi or Zola. And at the mention of Joyce’s Dubliners and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man both grew incontinently rhapsodic. “And Hamsun: You mean you haven’t read Hunger, Ray? God’s teeth, man, that’s literature.”

  Their likes and dislikes in literature were sufficiently similar to give them similar philosophies about life, and sufficiently dissimilar to provide food for animated discussions. It was only when their talk veered to Harlem that they found themselves sitting at opposite poles.

  Raymond prided himself on knowing all the ins and outs of Harlem. He had been resident there for over three years, during which time he had explored every nook and cranny of that phenomenal Negro settlement. It had, during this period, attained international fame, deservedly, Raymond thought. But he was disgusted with the way everyone sought to romanticize Harlem and Harlem Negroes. And it annoyed him considerably when Stephen began to do likewise. Together they had returned to the spots which Raymond had ferreted out before. They visited all of the cabarets, the speakeasies, the private clubs, the theaters, the back street rendezvous. Stephen was uncritical in his admiration for everything Negroid that he saw. All of the entertainers, musicians, singers, and actors were … marvelous. So were all the other Negroes who seemed to be accomplishing one thing or the other. Stephen, like all other whites who had only a book knowledge of Negroes, seemed surprised that a people who had so long been enslaved, and so recently freed, could make such progress. Raymond tried to explain to Stephen that there was nothing miraculous about the matter.

  “Can’t you understand, Steve,” he would say, “that the Negro had to make what progress he has made or else he wouldn’t have survived? He’s merely tried to keep the pace set by his environment. People rave about the progress of the Negro. It is nothing near as remarkable, that is generally, as the progress made by foreign immigrants who also come to this country to find freedom from a state of serfdom and illiteracy just as stringent as that of the pre- and post-Civil War Negro. And as for Harlem. It’s bound to be a startling and wondrous community. Is it not part and parcel of the greatest city in the world? Is it any more remarkable than the Ghetto or Chinatown or the Bronx? It has the same percentage of poverty, middle class endeavor, family life, and underworld, functioning under the same conditions which makes city life a nightmare to any group which is economically insecure. New York is a world within itself, and every new portion of it which gets discovered by the sophisticates and holds the spotlight, seems more unusual than that which has been discovered before.”

  “Jesus Christ, Ray, you don’t appreciate the place. You’re too much a part of it.”

  “Me a part of Harlem? How come?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Well, you live here. You’ve always lived here.”

  “Three years isn’t always, Steve, even though it may seem like a lifetime.”

  “You’re quibbling now.”

  “I’m not quibbling. The fault lies with you. Just because you’ve overcome your initial fear of the place and become fascinated by a new and bizarre environment, should you lose your reason? Harlem is New York. Please don’t let the fact that it’s black New York obscure your vision.”

  “You’re both cynical and silly.”

  “Granted. But if you had lived in Harlem as long as I have, you would realize that Negroes are much like any other human beings. They have the same social, physical and intellectual divisions. You’re only being intrigued, as I have said before, by the newness of the thing. You should live here a while.”

  “That’s just what I’d like to do.”

  “Well… why not?”

  “By jove, that’s an idea. I’ll move in with you.”

  “Move in with me?”

  “Sure. I much prefer this room to the one I have now, and certainly prefer your company to that of those nincompoops at the International House.”

  “White people don’t live in Harlem.”

  “Why not?”

  “It just isn’t done, that’s all. What would your friends say?”

  “You’re the only friend I give a damn about. If you want me, I don’t see why I shouldn’t live here.”

  “There isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t, but… ”

  “But hell, I’m moving in tomorrow. O. K.?”

  “I’ll be damn glad to have you, Steve.”

  Twenty-four hours later, Stephen had moved to Harlem.

  IV

  There were four people in Eustace’s basement studio. All held glasses in their hands, glasses containing gin and gingerale.

  “We’ve got a name for the house,” Eustace announced as Stephen and Raymond entered.

  “What is it?” Stephen asked.

  “Niggeratti Manor.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Paul’s, of course.”

  “Niggeratti Manor,” Stephen repeated. “I don’t quite get it.”

  “You wouldn’t, Steve.”

  “All of us can’t be as clever as you, Paul.”

  “I bet Ray gets itDon’t you?”

  �
��Niggeratti Manor … hmmm … quite appropriate, I would say. God knows we’re ratty enough.”

  “Here’s your drinks.”

  Pelham handed both the newcomers a gingerale highball.

  “But how does Steve fit into that?”

  “Easy enough, Eustace. Isn’t he Raymond’s roommate?”

  “Are you really going to live in Harlem, Steve?” Samuel inquired incredulously.

  ”Certainly. Why not?”

  “Oh, nothing. Naturally, I’m surprised.”

  “You mustn’t let so many things surprise you, Sam. It’s a sign of adolescence.”

  “As you were told before, Paul… ”

  “Yes, I know everyone can’t be as clever as I am, but for one who is so frequently among clever people, you are one dumb white man.”

  Everyone laughed except Samuel, whose lean, pale face became suffused with pink.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Who in the hell asked?”

  “You, Ray.”

  “Fiderk you, Paul. I’m not Sam, you know.”

  “O. K., Colonel.”

  There was a knock on the window. It was the usual signal. Pelham rushed to the outside door. He was heard greeting Bull, who almost immediately strode into the room.

  “Everybody sober?” he inquired.

  “I should hope to tell you. It’s obscene for artists to get drunk before midnight.”

  “Cut the highbrow stuff, Paul. Gimme a drink, Pelham. There’s another quart in my overcoat pocket.”

  “Hooray for Bull.” Eustace, the host, pulled the cord of his ubiquitous green dressing gown tighter around his waist, and made a curtsey. Bull made an awkward attempt to reciprocate, but his clumsy, bulky body did not respond gracefully. For Bull was the personification of what the newspaper headlines are pleased to call a burly Negro. He was short for his weight and his head nestled close to broad shoulders. His physique was not attractive, but it exuded strength and vitality, and made everyone else in the room appear to be puny, inferior.