Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone

by James Baldwin

  “Well,” I said, “that’s happened more than once, though—friendship—wasn’t the usual result. But I’ve never even seen Kentucky. I rather hope that I never do. I was born in New York. In Harlem.”

  For reasons securely hidden from me, the mention of Harlem created in Lola’s husband a comparative vigor, a stunning hint of life. “We lived there long ago,” he said. He looked at nothing and no one as he said this, and I concluded that he was seeing the streets of Harlem. “Oh,” I said, quickly, “where?”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said. He then lapsed, as it were, out of our sight, and then again was shaken with a brief convulsion. This one reached his lips and caused the corners—nearly—to turn up. “Did you know Ethel Waters?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “but, of course, I know who she is.” I didn’t like Saul, but he had the power—how the years were to prove it!—of bewildering me, of throwing me off-guard, of distracting my attention to him when it should have been on the terrain. “She’s a wonderful singer,” I said inanely, and felt, at once, with a sharp and furious resentment, that this nerveless, wormy little man had somehow carried me beyond my depth. I stared at him. I felt Barbara concentrating on her plate in order the more deliberately and totally to concentrate on me. And I also felt—and this, too, I resented, feared—that my immediate affection for Lola and my unshakable love for Barbara—for it was love—had created, with the speed of flame, a deep, speechless communication between them. And this communication had to do with Saul and me—they were exchanging signals over our heads, quite as though my quality, far from nerveless, and my value, were to be equated with that of this unspeakable refugee from the garment center. I had worked in the garment center, pushing trucks, and indeed I was to work there many times again, and Saul San-Marquand was the very distillation of my foremen and my bosses. I choked on my food, which now seemed, as, in a way it was, stolen, and my Scotch burned me. But of course I was going to be cool, and, in any case, I needed time to calculate, and so I used my sputter and my cough to make my statement impeccably ingenuous and juvenile: “I hear she’s a marvelous actress, too, but I’ve never seen her.”

  “But, my dear boy,” cried Lola, leaning forward, and with something very genuine in her face now—perhaps it was a genuine affection—“how could you possibly have seen her? You’re far too young. I am old enough to be your mother, and I have seen her very seldom—Saul, my dear”—leaning forward again, beautifully interrupting herself, and moving a compassionately nerveless hand toward her magnificent brow—“she never acted, did she, at the Lafayette Theater—which is before your time, my dear youth,” turning now to me, “though it’s in your territory. I don’t,” she said portentously, leaning back, “think that she did. But your memory is so much better than my own.”

  Saul’s obsessive perusal of the streets of Harlem elicited, “No. We saw Rose McClendon there. Before we met.”

  “Of course! Wasn’t she superb. What was the play? Oh. My memory. I do not know what I would do without Saul. And he does me the honor of pretending not to know what he would do without me. Do you remember the name of the play, my dear?”

  “Ethel Waters,” Barbara interrupted, “couldn’t possibly have acted in the Lafayette Theater. I don’t think. She wasn’t considered an actress then, she was only, as Leo says, known as a singer. Isn’t the first thing she did as an actress”—she leaned into Lola San-Marquand’s quite incredible breasts—“the play called Mamba’s Daughters? Which I didn’t see. I was still doing penance in Kentucky then.”

  Lola threw back her head and laughed—that oddly genuine, girlish sound. “My dear. If you had seen it, I assure you that your penance in Kentucky would have been perhaps more painful, but certainly more brief. I assure you—”

  “The play in which we saw Rose McClendon,” said Saul, with what I was now beginning to recognize as the unanswerable firmness of the totally infirm, “was a play by Paul Green—you remember Paul Green—it was called In Abraham’s Bosom.”

  “Of course!” said Lola. “About the schoolteacher. Neither of you, of course, could possibly have seen—”

  “But I read it,” I said. I was beginning to find my feet again. “I’m not sure I really liked it.”

  “If you were older,” said Lola San-Marquand, with assurance, “it would be a very good role for you. Miss King has confided in us that she wished—aspired—to become an actress. Are you also tempted toward the sacred flame? I must tell you—and Saul will tell you that I am never wrong about these things—these elements—he likes to pretend that I was really born to be a medium”—and now she laughed again, not as long as it seemed, not as loud as it sounded, with her marvelous head thrown back—“and, truly, I never am wrong. In these matters.” She looked at her husband roguishly; he had not yet looked at her. “And I must tell you—my beamish boy—that, whether or not you are tempted toward the sacred flame, the flame”—she raised her hand, she spread her fingers wide; the lights flashed, like flame, like flame, on her abjectly jeweled fingers: it was as though, with the same gesture, she were warding off and abjectly awaiting the mortal blow—“the flame has very definite intentions toward you. The flame demands you. The flame will have you. You are not handsome. You are not, really, even, very good-looking. But you are—haunting. If you are capable of discipline—and I know that you are, it shows in the way you carry yourself, it shows in ways that you do not see—which you will never see—my dear, you will go far. Much further than you imagine. I know. I am gifted in these matters. In fact,” and now she leaned toward Barbara; they had been continually exchanging signals—over our heads; now Lola hurled her deadliest, most crucial flare, which was also her vow, to Barbara, of fidelity. “Miss King will also go very far—very far indeed. Her fame will be greater than yours, and it will certainly come sooner. But she will not have had to cross your deserts. And she will have to pay for that. And so will you.” And then she leaned back, mighty, exhausted.

  Barbara said, much to my surprise, “I hear you. I hear you. I think you’re right. I’m very glad you’ve said it. I’ve never known how.”

  I was amazed. I was flattered. I was frightened. I looked at the two women, who looked neither at each other nor at either of us. Barbara leaned back and put her empty plate behind the sofa, on the floor. “I still don’t like,” I said, with a certain, very deliberate obstinacy—deliberate, but far from calculated—“In Abrahams’ Bosom. I’d like—if you think I can act—to try The Emperor Jones—”

  “You’re much too thin for that,” said Lola, with finality, “and, frankly—I hope you aren’t inordinately sensitive—much too young—”

  “Leo,” said Barbara—she looked at Lola—“I think the play we should try to do is All God’s Chillun Got Wings.”

  Lola clapped her hands. “Of course,” she said. She smiled at Saul. “And Rags could direct it. Rags would love to do it.”

  “We are,” said Saul, sounding far more definite than he had sounded all night, “the artistic directors of The Actors’ Means Workshop.”

  “Rags—Rags Roland—was once, I believe, a good friend of the actress who did that play in London. With great success.” Lola spoke now with a bright, matronly vagueness which impressed me as being a way of stalling for time. “You’ve heard of Rags Roland? You know who she is?”

  “Oh, of course,” said Barbara, “she’s a very successful producer.”

  Lola leaned back, raising one finger, closing both eyes. “She is not only that, my dear. She is also a most interesting director. Most interesting. The world does not yet know it, but we do—and many of the actors she has worked with are very aware of who really directed them in some of their greatest performances—oh, there is far more to Rags Roland than her mere function as producer. She is part of our staff at the Workshop. She is one of our oldest friends. And invaluable.”

  “Is there really any hope of our being allowed to study at the Workshop?” Barbara now asked. She asked this of Saul. Lola, continu
ing to smile, now looked very steadily at Barbara in order, I felt, not to look too directly at her husband, on whom Barbara’s effect was now, critically, practically, to be tested. “I’ve heard marvelous things about it, but, of course, we both also know that it’s virtually impossible to be accepted there.”

  Barbara had decided that she wished to be accepted, had decided, indeed, that she was going to be accepted, on terms, whatever these might prove to be, which she would simply have to prepare herself to meet. I was undecided. Events seemed to be moving rather faster than I liked. But I struggled to be ready with my answer when the moment for my answer would be ripe.

  “Well, of course,” said Saul, and he looked very briefly at me—he liked me no more than I liked him—“we would be derelict in our duty, in our responsibility to the theatrical community at large and to the American theater in particular, if we didn’t insist that those who wish to work with us meet the very highest standards. Many people feel that our standards are ridiculously high, I have even heard us accused, in some quarters, of cruelty. This has never dismayed us for a second, we have steadfastly gone on with our work, and we have achieved what we consider, and not only we, if we may say so, some exceedingly fine results. Our harvest has not been negligible, we are very much encouraged, and we intend to continue in the great light which our long experience has permitted us to achieve.” He paused. I watched him; I think my mouth was open. “Now, you,” he said, “and your friend, Mister—?”

  “Proudhammer,” I said.

  “Yes. You are both very interesting young people. You impress us very much. Your own quality,” and he favored Barbara with a meek, shy smile, “is something like a—stormy petrel, so to say. We don’t yet have, honestly, as clear an impression of your—uh—friend. Proudhammer. As we do of you. But this is not to say that we find him less interesting,” and he attempted a smile in my direction which failed, quite, to reach me. “But our methods at the Workshop are extremely severe and not everyone can bring to the Workshop the necessary background, the background which will enable them to achieve the necessary discipline. We have a responsibility, as we have said, not only to the theatrical community at large, but to all those who work with us and who try to learn from us.” I was silent, for Barbara’s sake. I finished my drink and, only for Barbara’s sake, did not immediately leave the sofa to pour myself another. But I leaned forward, with my empty glass in my hand, deliberately in the attitude of imminent departure. “You are an exceedingly attractive young lady, but what makes you feel that you are qualified to become an actress?”

  “You have asked me that question,” Barbara said, very coolly and distinctly, “only to set a trap for me. Or to give me a kind of test. I refuse to fall into your trap and so you’ll have to give me good marks for passing my first test. I am an actress because I know it, and I intend to prove it, and I shall prove it. I’ll prove it, yet, to you. To you, I may prove it late or early, but, actually, that’s your option—that’s for you to decide.”

  “That’s my girl,” I said. Saul looked slightly stunned, but not displeased. Lola now watched Barbara with something in her enormous, her brilliantly blue and candid eyes, which made them seem hooded, which darkened the blue with what I could only read as patience. I rose. Saul looked up at me.

  “And what,” he asked me, “do you consider your qualifications to be?”

  I said, “I think you’re looking at them.” Then I smiled. “I need another drink. But I’m sure you realize already that I can’t be as definite as Miss King because of the great difference in our backgrounds.”

  “My,” said Lola, mildly, “you are young. But spirit you have.”

  “That’s how darkies were born,” I said, and walked back to the whiskey bottle.

  I was bitter, I was twisted out of shape with rage; and I raged at myself for being enraged. I dropped ice recklessly into my glass, recklessly poured Scotch over the rocks, took too large and swift a swallow, and, trying to bring myself to some reasonable, fixed place, to turn off the motor which was running away with me, I lit a cigarette and turned my back on the company to stare out of the window. I knew that I was being childish, and, in the eyes of the company, perhaps definitely and inexcusably rude; but I could not trust myself, for that moment, to encounter a human eye or respond to a human voice. It did not help, and it could not have, to recognize that I really did not know—assuming that I aspired to walk in the light of clarity and honor—what had triggered this rage. I refused to believe that it could truly have been Saul San-Marquand: how could it have been if it was really true that I held him in such low esteem? But the measure of my esteem had, fatally, to reveal itself in the quantity of my indifference—which quantity was small and shameful indeed. Here I stood at the Manhattan window, seething—to no purpose whatever, which was bad enough: but it was worse to be forced to ask myself, abjectly, now, for my reasons and find that I did not have any. Or, which, really, I think, caused the cup of my humiliation to overflow, to find that I had no reasons which my reason—by which, of course, I also mean that esteem in which I hoped to earn the right to hold myself—did not immediately and contemptuously reject. I was not—was I?—stupidly and servilely to do the world’s dirty work for it and permit its tangled, blind, and merciless reaction to the fact of my color also to become my own. How could I hope for, how could I deserve, my liberation, if I became my own jailer and myself turned the key which locked the mighty doors? But my rage was there, it was there, it pretended to sleep but it never slept, the merest touch of a feather was enough to bring it howling, roaring out. It had no sight, no measure, no precision, and no justice: and it was my master still. I drank my Scotch, I stared at the stars, I watched the park, which, in the darkness, was made shapeless and grandiose, which spoke of peace and space and cooling, healing water—which seemed to speak of possibilities for the bruised, despairing spirit which might remain forever, for me, far away, a dark dream veiled in darkness. A faint breeze struck, but did not cool my Ethiopian brow. Ethiopia’s hands: to what god indeed, out of this despairing place, was I to stretch these hands? But I also felt, incorrigible, hoping to be reconciled, and yet unable to accept the terms of any conceivable reconciliation, that any god daring to presume that I would stretch out my hands to him would be struck by these hands with all my puny, despairing power; would be forced to confront, in these, my hands, the monstrous blood-guiltiness of God. No. I had had quite enough of God—more than enough, more than enough, the horror filled my nostrils, I gagged on the blood-drenched name; and yet was forced to see that this horror, precisely, accomplished His reality and undid my unbelief.

  I was beginning to apprehend the unutterable dimensions of the universal trap. I was human, too. And my race was revealed as my pain—my pain—and my rage could have no reason, nor submit to my domination, until my pain was assessed; until my pain became invested with a coherence and an authority which only I, alone, could provide. And this possibility, the possibility of creating my language out of my pain, of using my pain to create myself, while cruelly locked in the depths of me, like the beginning of life and the beginning of death, yet seemed, for an instant, to be on the very tip of my tongue. My pain was the horse that I must learn to ride. I flicked my cigarette out of the window and watched it drop and die. I thought of throwing myself after it. I was no rider and pain was no horse.

  I was standing near a piano. A strange girl, with real eyes in a real face, was watching me with a smile. “You’ve been very far away,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. Somehow, she cheered me; my heart lifted up; we smiled at each other. “Yes. But I’m back now.”

  “Welcome,” she said. “Welcome!”

  I felt like a boy. I wanted to please her. I touched the piano keyboard lightly. “Would you like me to try to play something for you? Would you like that?”

  “I’d love that,” she said.

  I sat down. She took my glass and set it on top of the piano for me. She leaned there, smiling on me like
the sun. I felt free. “I don’t play very well,” I said, “and I don’t sing very well any more—my voice changed, you know, when I got to be a big boy”—and she threw back her head, like a very young horse in a sun-filled meadow, and laughed, and I laughed—“but I like to try it from time to time. It—helps—to—keep me in touch with myself.” I stared at her. She nodded. I struck the keys. “I’ll try to sing a blues for you,” I said, “and, after that, even if I’m asked to leave, if you’ve liked it, I won’t mind my exile at all.”

  “You won’t,” she said, “be exiled. And I’m sure you know it.”

  “All right,” I said. “Well, all right, then,” and I jumped into a song which I remembered Caleb singing, which Caleb had loved, and when I reached the lines, Blues, you’re driving me crazy, what am I to do? Blues, you’re driving me crazy, what am I to do? I ain’t got nobody to tell my troubles to,” I looked up and found that the entire room had gathered around the piano. I looked into Barbara’s face—she was smiling. She was proud of me. I looked at the nice girl, the girl who had said, “Welcome!” She was smiling, too. Then I looked at Saul and I struck the keys again. “What,” I asked Barbara, “do you think of my qualifications now, princess?”

  “We are still,” said Lola, “looking at them. And you can’t stop now.”

  “If I were you,” said Barbara, “I’d just keep on keeping on.”

  “Well, then, all right,” I said, and I sang some more. We all got drunk. Barbara borrowed some money from Mr. Frank, and also extorted from him an unopened bottle of Scotch. He was too drunk to care—or, rather, too drunk to help himself, for he certainly cared about his money and his liquor. Saul and Lola, and Barbara and I, were the last to leave the party; and Barbara and I had sufficient genuine elegance and enough borrowed money to drop the San-Marquands, in style, at their stylish Park Avenue apartment. It had been decided that we would work at the Workshop, that summer, in New Jersey, in effect, as student handymen. Barbara and I were to prepare, for Saul’s inspection, one or two improvisations, the nature of which he would dictate, and one or two scenes, which we were to choose ourselves. And, depending on what the summer revealed of our qualifications, we would be accepted into the Workshop. We were very confident and we were very happy. The sky was purple and the sun stood ready, behind this curtain, waiting for her cue, as we reached falling-down Paradise Alley. I had held Barbara in my arms all the way home, and I think that we would surely have slept together that night—or that morning—but Jerry was asleep in Barbara’s quarters, and Charlie was snoring in mine. So we woke them up, and opened the whiskey, and told them of our triumphs. And that summer, in fact, for one night, Barbara and I both appeared in Of Mice and Men. Barbara played Curley’s wife, and I played Crooks.