“Roland Hayes sings them,” Samuel announced as if this should put an end to all objections.
“Yes, as a sop. He throws them to his audience because they want them, because they are unwilling to listen to a Negro sing an entire program of classical music. I’m no slave and I won’t sing slave music if I never have a concert.”
He sat down abruptly at the piano and began striking haphazard chords.
Samuel appealed to Raymond.
“Isn’t there anything you can say? These people are most willing to help him. Can’t you make him understand that he must make some compromise?”
Raymond shrugged his shoulders. He had done his bit, and he now had little interest in the matter. He was conversant with Eustace’s objections to singing spirituals, and to him, these objections were silly, unintelligent, and indefensible. He had no sympathy whatsoever with Negroes like Eustace, who contended that should their art be Negroid, they, the artist, must be considered inferior. As if a poem or a song or a novel by and about Negroes could not reach the same heights as a poem or a song or a novel by or about any other race. Eustace did not realize that by adhering to such a belief, he also subscribed to the theory of Nordic superiority. Yet there was nothing to be done about it. Eustace by refusing to sing spirituals was only hurting himself. And the world would miss nothing if he should die unheard. He had the urge to sing, and he also had a good church choir voice, but on the concert stage he could be at best only one of the mediocre also rans.
Samuel was irate.
“I think you’re a damn fool.”
“All artists are considered damn fools by Philistines,” was the withering retort.
“This argument gets you nowhere,” Raymond said. “Both of you are being childish.”
“Who wouldn’t be childish?” Samuel shouted. “These people have promised to give Eustace an audition. I tooted his horn good and plenty. It may mean the making of him. What I can’t make him understand is that he can sing all the Schubert, Schumann, Handel, Brahms, Beethoven or anything else he wishes, but he must expect a request for spirituals. And if he isn’t prepared, the whole thing will be called off.”
“I have no further interest in the matter. I will not sing spirituals.”
And having thus firmly declared himself, he resumed his striking of harmonic chords. These darky folk songs had become his bête noir. On several different occasions now, he had been asked to sing before informal gatherings, and each time the crowd had snickered when he had loftily refused to sing spirituals. Moreover, the snickers had continued throughout his repertoire of Schubert, Mozart, Friml, Herbert and Strauss. And even his spirited denunciation of Dvorak’s inclusion of a Negro folk song in the New World Symphony had provoked not only argument but ridicule. The white people now entering the social world of Negroes were bringing about disturbing changes. Eustace wished to leave these old mammy songs alone; he also wanted to sing in an auspicious downtown auditorium, but it seemed as if no one would back him unless spirituals were listed on the program.
He must, it seemed, capitulate, although in his opinion there was a sufficient number of darkies already shaming contemporary Negroes by singing these barbarous, moaning shouts and too simple melodies. If Robeson, Taylor Gordon, Rosemond Johnson, Roland Hayes, Service Bell, the Hall Johnson Choirs, and many others were all acquiescing to this new demand, why should he not be different and remain the singer of classics he innately was?
Raymond motioned to Samuel. They left the room together and went to Raymond’s studio.
“What am I to do, Ray?”
“Leave him alone for a few days. Meanwhile I’ll post everyone in the house to keep harping on his good luck in finally finding down-town backing. He’ll give in. He’s just about at his rope’s end now.”
“But why should he be so stubborn?”
“Because he was probably brought up to despise anything which reminded his elders of slavery.”
“I have no patience with him.”
“You should have. That’s part of your calling. It is funny, though and exasperating. I can just picture his family. They’re New En-glanders, like you. There was probably a grandfather who had been a slave. Perhaps he was a free Negro and had migrated north. He probably raised his children to despise anything reminiscent of his days of servitude. Dialect stories were an abomination. Spirituals only to be regarded as unfortunate echoes from the auction block and the whipping post. Came Eustace on the scene. He was destined to become a singer after his primary voice experiments as an adolescent. They probably found him some high-toned white teacher with musty ideas. This teacher probably filled young Eustace’s musical craw with pseudo-classical ideals, ideals essentially saccharine and sentimental. Which accounts for what we now have on our hands.”
“But he has the audacity to want to sing opera.”
“And you know as well as I that he could hardly make it on the concert stage. Negroes, though, have rated him high, higher than Hayes or Robeson. Why? He strives to be a carbon copy of Caruso. He sings at a church or lodge benefit. What does he sing? The aria from Pagliacci. And as an encore renders all the other flashy bits from turgid operas he can learn. You better leave Eustace to me, Sam. You lack tact. I bet you three dinners, I’ll have him downtown in time for that audition.”
“The bet’s on, Ray, but I think you’re cuckoo.”
XI
Niggeratti Manor was in a ferment. It seemed as if everyone in the house on this particular day was unusually active. From the basement came the lugubrious wailings of Eustace as he finally began the serious practice of spirituals. His conversion had been slow. It had necessitated much cajoling, flattery and diplomatic argument, but he had finally been won over. His piano was now cleared of his beloved classic music which he had tenderly wrapped in luxurious packets of green velvet and laid away in a cedar chest. The time for his audition was approaching rapidly.
Eloquently had he announced his plans to Raymond.
“Yes, I’ll sing spirituals. And I’ll also astound them with the rest of my repertoire. I’ll make them appreciate my talent. And FU sing the classics so much better than spirituals that they’ll realize which is my metier.”
Then with a grimace of distaste he had set about learning Ezekiel Saw the Wheel.
Raymond was busy writing a magazine article. He had locked his door and dared anyone to interrupt him. Paul remained downstairs with Eustace, amusing himself by conceiving a series of designs to illustrate Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven. Stephen was away from home, working at the library, collecting data for his doctor’s thesis.
Pelham meanwhile was putting the finishing touches on his magnum opus, a portrait of two girls, daughters of the lady who lived in the rear room on the third floor. This lady professed to be an actress, but so far her appearances had been confined to Harlem church socials and lodge benefits. She took her histrionic career quite seriously, so seriously in fact that she refused to do any other type of work and somehow managed to support herself and her two daughters on the small weekly pittance she received from her estranged husband.
No one in the house, except Pelham, ever had much traffic with the lady, outside of the conventional greeting should they happen to meet either her or her offspring on the stairs. She had made overtures of friendship and had even crashed certain of their parties, but they had always treated her like a complete outsider. She made no appeal to any of them either as a person or as an artist. Consequently they ignored her.
Pelham was different. He was always giving her a portion of the cakes or pies he constantly made. He would also cut out paper animals and color them for the adolescent girls. Hardly a day passed that they did not invade his room to watch him work. It was inevitable that he should finally suggest painting their portraits, for Pelham was eternally in search of new models, and having used Raymond, Stephen, Eustace and Paul again and again, he was eager for fresh subjects.
There also lived on the third floor a mysterious, witch-like perso
n, labeled the Pig Woman by Raymond, because of her resemblance to an outstanding character in a contemporary cause celebre. She was aged, wrinkled and black. Her torso was the shape of an arc, and she limped as she walked along mumbling to herself. It was not known how long she had been living in the house. Euphoria had found her there. She still remained. Three times per week she left home at six in the morning and she always returned exactly twelve hours later. The other days she remained at home, unheard, unseen—a silent mysterious person who held converse with no one in the house except herself. Nor was she ever known to have visitors.
Raymond remembered vividly his first glimpse of her. He had just moved into the house. He, Paul, Eustace and Pelham were arranging the furniture in his room and hanging pictures on the wall. Suddenly their ears had been ravaged by a series of hoarse, guttural shrieks as if coming from the throat of a wounded parrot. Frightened, they had rushed into the hall, where they had seen the Pig Woman leaning over the banisters wildly gesticulating. They had run up the stairs, eager to know the cause of the disturbance. With palsied fingers she had pointed to a stray bat blindly beating itself against the ceiling. Pelham had run for a broom. Eustace had leaned back against the wall, gathering the folds of his green dressing gown tightly about him. Raymond had tried to silence the old lady. Paul had stood by and laughed.
In a few moments Pelham had returned with the broom and after a wild scurry succeeded in knocking the blind intruder to the floor. Paul had wrapped it tightly in newspaper and, taking the parcel to the cellar, burned it in the furnace.
The Pig Woman had been distraught.
“Evil spirits, I tell you. Evil spirits. Dat’s bad luck. Dis house is doomed. De people in it are damned.”
And she had stumbled into her room eerily sobbing to herself.
Before nightfall of this singularly hard-working day, Pelham had completed his masterpiece. So elated was he over what he declared to be a remarkable resemblance to his subjects, and a crafty blending of colors, that he bounced around the house like a rubber ball, exhibiting his canvas to all within. The picture was atrocious, but no one was heartless enough to disillusion him. No one told him that there was not even the slightest resemblance between portrait and subject. No one winced openly at the blurred features, or at the hideously colored and highly incongruous background. Neither did anyone, save the girls and their mother, praise his handiwork. Being used to the reticence of the others, he accepted it as suppressed appreciation.
His joy was complete when the mother of the girls asked him to give her the picture and also to pen her an accompanying poem. Anxious to make the poem a fitting complement to the portraits, he announced that he would be unable to prepare dinner that night. The muse must function this one time uninterrupted by menial duties. He then shut himself up in his studio, and the eavesdropper could hear the scratch of his pen and the occasional crumpling of unsatisfactory sheets of paper.
It fell to Paul to cook the dinner. Raymond had not expected him to volunteer, but he had, and had asked only that he be left alone. He was to prepare meat balls and spaghetti and a lettuce and tomato salad. This he did in a surprisingly short time, and his announcement of the meal was eloquent.
Three times Eustace went for Pelham before he could be persuaded to come to dinner, and, when he did arrive, he brought his manuscript to the table, ignoring the food placed before him while he continued to work. Even the uproar occasioned by Stephen’s asking why the spaghetti was sweet and Paul’s admitting that he had poured the contents of the sugar bowl into the kettle, failed to divert Pelham from his chosen creative task. The poem must be finished and it must be good. The lady had promised to present both the poem and the portrait of her daughters to her art club, and she was certain that many of her friends would commission him to do their portraits, and that the club would request him to design and write verses for Christmas cards, programs and reception favors. The cognoscenti might scoff or remain enviously silent. The public would acclaim, and he would at last reap the fruit of his sowing.
George Jones, for that was Pelham’s real name, did not remember either his father or his mother. He remembered only a woman he called grandmother and with whom he had migrated from Virginia to New Jersey with a family of white people while still an infant. This grandmother had been a servant in the house since her birth in slavery. Her parents before her had served the same family. They were the type of Negro who had refused freedom and who had remained with “ole miss” and “ole master” until their death. Grandmother Mack had lived, too, only to serve the children of her parents’ master. And when one of the younger girls had married and moved north, Grandmother Mack had come, too, determined to see that her mistress’ daughter did not suffer for want of care.
George was not her grandson, nor was he any relation to her whatsoever. He was a stray pickaninny whom no one claimed and for whom she had developed an affection because, as she phrased it, “he was so consarned black.” No one objected to her adopting the apparently parentless pickaninny, nor had her white folks objected when she brought him north with her.
In his youth, George knew nothing but the kitchen, the backyard, the basement and the alleyway He ran errands for his white folk and for Grandma Mack. He also assisted the old lady in the kitchen and in the laundry room, and, as he grew older, he was promoted to waiting upon the table, making up the beds, washing the windows, sweeping the floors, dusting the furniture, and ironing the flat work.
He went to school only because his white folk insisted upon it. Grandma Mack had no patience with those hifalutin’ niggers who tried to emulate white folks. Niggers were made to be servants. God had willed it. And only through a life of servitude could they hope to obtain an entry into heaven. They were the sons of Ham who had been cursed for looking upon his father’s nakedness. They were also the children of Cain who had been cursed and made black for murdering his brother, Abel. Schools were for white folk. These modern niggers made Grandma Mack angry, always talking about education, prating about social equality, criticizing the superior pale face. If they remained in their places, accepted the menial positions to which they were entitled instead of trying to usurp the parlor, they would not have to worry about being lynched, jim-crowed and otherwise put in their place. Grandma Mack had never forgiven Abraham Lincoln for freeing the slaves. Nor could she forgive him for sending hordes of uncouth Yankees into the Southland to rape, pillory and otherwise molest the only truly genteel folk in the United States. Venomously did she regard northern whites, and savagely did she denounce northern blacks.
In this atmosphere had George continued his enforced schooling. His home work always remained undone, because his home duties were so numerous. Grandma Mack was older now, almost too old and infirm of limb to do much else besides cook and supervise George. It was amazing the amount of work her diminutive black charge managed to do.
When George was fourteen an older son of the house had been sent to Europe. He was going to be an artist, a portrait painter. After a year abroad he had returned home, laden down with lithographic reproductions of the old masters, and almost daily he received copies of art magazines from continental capitals. These latter items eventually became George’s property. He mulled over them constantly, and was stirred by the brilliant colors and voluptuous figures which decorated some of the pages. George also took great pride in cleaning up his young master’s attic studio. He would linger there under pretense of being busy, finger the brushes, the paint pots, the canvases, and, when he was certain of not being interrupted, would often posture in front of a mirror with a palette.
He was going to be an artist. Taking toilet paper he would place it over the pictures in the various magazines and use it for tracing paper, later transferring the copied reproduction on to smoothed out sheets of wrapping paper or maltreated paper bags.
He was going to be an artist. His school books were defaced with malodorous pictures of his fellow students, all of whom, according to their delineator, were possessed of
well-rounded bodies, prominent nostrils, slit eyes, and perpendicular ears. At home he formed fantastic designs in his soapy dish water. When he washed windows he used Bon Ami so that he might trace figures on the surface of the glass as he rubbed it clean. And the peeling of potatoes or apples was a constant exercise in fancy carving.
When he was twenty years of age, Grandma Mack had died. Her white folks had her savings account transferred to one for George. They also deposited to this account the small sum she had coming from a Metropolitan Life Insurance policy which they had taken out for her. George obtained his bank book by stealth, withdrew the money, and boarded a ferry boat bound for New York. He had decided to risk all in order to gain fame and fortune as an artist.
Native intuition saved him from immediate disaster. Promptly upon arriving, he sought a job, and obtained one as valet to an actor. In this position he was most happy, being able congenially to combine his two professions. He lived in his employer’s apartment, attended to all his wants, and continued the painting of pictures and the writing of verse in his spare time. All was well until he happened across Euphoria Blake’s advertisement in the Harlem News announcing “congenial studios for Negro artists.” That was what he wanted. He telephoned Euphoria immediately, reserved a studio, stocked up with paints, charcoal, modeling clay, brushes, scalpels, palettes, easels, water colors, and everything else the clerk in the art store suggested he might need, changed his name to Pelham Gay-lord, and dedicated his life to the serious business of being an artist.
He was overjoyed when Raymond moved into the house. For it had been bruited about that he was soon to emerge as one of the black hopes of Negro literature. George also knew that most of Raymond’s friends were in some measure known to the public for their poems, stories or drawings. Their names were often mentioned in magazine and newspaper articles. This was just the group he needed to know, just the people he should cultivate. To be in such company was Pelham’s conception of heaven. He considered them as gods far up the Mount Olympus he himself was trying to scale. After knowing them, he was frankly ill at ease in their company, quite often shocked by their conversation, and obviously disturbed by the presence of their white friends whom they accepted so casually. Nevertheless he was determined to learn, determined to observe and assimilate. He must be like them.
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