PYRRHIC VICTORY
V
PYRRHIC VICTORY
It was two years later. “Cabaret Gal,” which had been on the road for
one year, had returned to New York and the company had been disbanded.
Arline was preparing to go to Europe and had decided not to take a
maid with her. However, she determined to get Emma Lou another job
before she left. She inquired among her friends, but none of the active
performers she knew seemed to be in the market for help, and it was
only on the eve of sailing that she was able to place Emma Lou with
Clere Sloane, a former stage beauty, who had married a famous American
writer and retired from public life.
Emma Lou soon learned to like her new place. She was Clere’s personal
maid, and found it much less tiresome than being in the theater with
Arline. Clere was less temperamental and less hurried. She led a rather
leisurely life, and treated Emma Lou more as a companion than as a
servant. Clere’s husband, Campbell Kitchen, was very congenial and
kind too, although Emma Lou, at first, seldom came into contact with
him, for he and his wife practically led separate existences, meeting
only at meals, or when they had guests, or when they both happened to
arise at the same hour for breakfast. Occasionally, they attended the
theater or a party together, and sometimes entertained, but usually
they followed their own individual paths.
Campbell Kitchen, like many other white artists and intellectuals,
had become interested in Harlem. The Negro and all things negroid
had become a fad, and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish
pilgrimages were in order. Campbell Kitchen, along with Carl Van
Vechten, was one of the leading spirits in this “Explore Harlem; Know
the Negro” crusade. He, unlike many others, was quite sincere in his
desire to exploit those things in Negro life which he presumed would
eventually win for the Negro a more comfortable position in American
life. It was he who first began the agitation in the higher places of
journalism which gave impetus to the spiritual craze. It was he who
ferreted out and gave publicity to many unknown blues singers. It was
he who sponsored most of the younger Negro writers, personally carrying
their work to publishers and editors. It wasn’t his fault entirely that
most of them were published before they had anything to say or before
they knew how to say it. Rather it was the fault of the faddistic
American public which followed the band wagon and kept clamoring for
additional performances, not because of any manifested excellence, but
rather because of their sensationalism and pseudo-barbaric _decor_.
Emma Lou had heard much of his activity, and had been surprised to find
herself in his household. Recently he had written a book concerning
Negro life in Harlem, a book calculated by its author to be a sincere
presentation of those aspects of life in Harlem which had interested
him. Campbell Kitchen belonged to the sophisticated school of modern
American writers. His novels were more or less fantastic bits of
realism, skipping lightly over the surfaces of life, and managing
somehow to mirror depths through superficialities. His novel on
Harlem had been a literary failure because the author presumed that
its subject matter demanded serious treatment. Hence, he disregarded
the traditions he had set up for himself in his other works, and
produced an energetic and entertaining hodgepodge, where the bizarre
was strangled by the sentimental, and the erotic clashed with the
commonplace.
Negroes had not liked Campbell Kitchen’s delineation of their life
in the world’s greatest colored city. They contended that, like
“Nigger Heaven” by Carl Van Vechten, the book gave white people a
wrong impression of Negroes, thus lessening their prospects of doing
away with prejudice and race discrimination. From what she had heard,
Emma Lou had expected to meet a sneering, obscene cynic, intent upon
ravaging every Negro woman and insulting every Negro man, but he proved
to be such an ordinary, harmless individual that she was won over to
his side almost immediately.
Whenever they happened to meet, he would talk to her about her life in
particular and Negro life in general. She had to admit that he knew
much more about such matters than she or any other Negro she had ever
met. And it was because of one of these chance talks that she finally
decided to follow Mrs. Blake’s advice and take the public school
teachers’ examination.
Two years had wrought little change in Emma Lou, although much had
happened to her. After that tearful night, when Alva had sworn at
her and stalked out of her room, she had somewhat taken stock of
herself. She wondered if Alva had been right in his allegations. Was
she supersensitive about her color? Did she encourage color prejudice
among her own people, simply by being so expectant of it? She tried
hard to place the blame on herself, but she couldn’t seem to do it. She
knew she hadn’t been color-conscious during her early childhood days;
that is, until she had had it called to her attention by her mother
or some of her mother’s friends, who had all seemed to take delight in
marvelling, “What an extraordinarily black child!” or “Such beautiful
hair on such a black baby!”
Her mother had even hidden her away on occasions when she was to
have company, and her grandmother had been cruel in always assailing
Emma Lou’s father, whose only crime seemed to be that he had had a
blue black skin. Then there had been her childhood days when she had
ventured forth into the streets to play. All of her colored playmates
had been mulattoes, and her white playmates had never ceased calling
public attention to her crow-like complexion. Consequently, she had
grown sensitive and had soon been driven to play by herself, avoiding
contact with other children as much as possible. Her mother encouraged
her in this, had even suggested that she not attend certain parties
because she might not have a good time.
Then there had been the searing psychological effect of that dreadful
graduation night, and the lonely embittering three years at college,
all of which had tended to make her color more and more a paramount
issue and ill. It was neither fashionable nor good for a girl to
be as dark as she, and to be, at the same time, as untalented and
undistinguished. Dark girls could get along if they were exceptionally
talented or handsome or wealthy, but she had nothing to recommend her,
save a beautiful head of hair. Despite the fact that she had managed
to lead her classes in school, she had to admit that mentally she was
merely mediocre and average. Now, had she been as intelligent as Mamie
Olds Bates, head of a Negro school in Florida, and president of a huge
national association of colored women’s clubs, her darkness would not
have mattered. Or had she been as wealthy as Lillian Saunders, who had
inherited the millions her mother had made producing hair straightening
commodities, things might have been different; but here she was,
commonplace and poor, ugly and undistinguished.
Emma Lou recalled all these things, while trying to fasten the blame
for her extreme color-consciousness on herself as Alva had done, but
she was unable to make a good case of it. Surely, it had not been her
color-consciousness which had excluded her from the only Negro sorority
in her college, nor had it been her color-consciousness that had caused
her to spend such an isolated three years in Southern California. The
people she naturally felt at home with had, somehow or other, managed
to keep her at a distance. It was no fun going to social affairs and
being neglected throughout the entire evening. There was no need in
forcing one’s self into a certain milieu only to be frozen out. Hence,
she had stayed to herself, had had very few friends, and had become
more and more resentful of her blackness of skin.
She had thought Harlem would be different, but things had seemed
against her from the beginning, and she had continued to go down, down,
down, until she had little respect left for herself.
She had been glad when the road show of “Cabaret Gal” had gone into
the provinces. Maybe a year of travel would set her aright. She would
return to Harlem with considerable money saved, move into the Y. W. C.
A., try to obtain a more congenial position, and set about becoming
respectable once more, set about coming into contact with the “right
sort of people.” She was certain that there were many colored boys and
girls in Harlem with whom she could associate and become content. She
didn’t wish to chance herself again with a Jasper Crane or an Alva.
Yet, she still loved Alva, no matter how much she regretted it, loved
him enough to keep trying to win him back, even after his disgust had
driven him away from her. She sadly recalled how she had telephoned
him repeatedly, and how he had hung up the receiver with the brief,
cruel “I don’t care to talk to you,” and she recalled how, swallowing
her pride, she had gone to his house the day before she had left New
York. Alva had greeted her coolly, then politely informed her that he
couldn’t let her in, as he had other company.
This had made her ill, and for three days after “Cabaret Gal” opened
in Philadelphia, she had confined herself to her hotel room and cried
hysterically. When it was all over, she had felt much better. The
outlet of tears had been good for her, but she had never ceased to long
for Alva. He had been the only completely satisfying thing in her life,
and it didn’t seem possible for one who had pretended to love her as
much as he, suddenly to become so completely indifferent. She measured
everything by her own moods and reactions, translated everything into
the language of Emma Lou, and variations bewildered her to the extent
that she could not believe in their reality.
So, when the company had passed through New York on its way from
Philadelphia to Boston, she had approached Alva’s door once more. It
had never occurred to her that any one save Alva would answer her
knock, and the sight of Geraldine in a negligee had stunned her. She
had hastened to apologize for knocking on the wrong door, and had
turned completely away without asking for Alva, only to halt as if
thunderstruck when she heard his voice, as Geraldine was closing the
door, asking, “Who was it, Sugar?”
For a while, Alva had been content. He really loved Geraldine, or so he
thought. To him she seemed eminently desirable in every respect, and
now that she was about to bear him a child, well ... he didn’t yet know
what they would do with it, but everything would work out as it should.
He didn’t even mind having to return to work, nor, for the moment, mind
having to give less attention to the rest of his harem.
Of course, Geraldine’s attachment of herself to him ruled Emma Lou out
more definitely than it did any of his other “paying off” people. He
had been thoroughly disgusted with her and had intended to relent only
after she had been forced to chase him for a considerable length of
time. But Geraldine’s coming had changed things altogether. Alva knew
when not to attempt something, and he knew very well that he could not
toy with Emma Lou and live with Geraldine at the same time. Some of the
others were different. He could explain Geraldine to them, and they
would help him keep themselves secreted from her. But Emma Lou, never!
She would be certain to take it all wrong.
The months passed; the baby was born. Both of the parents were bitterly
disappointed by this sickly, little “ball of tainted suet,” as Alva
called it. It had a shrunken left arm and a deformed left foot. The
doctor ordered oil massages. There was a chance that the infant’s
limbs could be shaped into some semblance of normality. Alva declared
that it looked like an idiot. Geraldine had a struggle with herself,
trying to keep from smothering it. She couldn’t see why such a
monstrosity should live. Perhaps as the years passed it would change.
At any rate, she had lost her respect for Alva. There was no denying to
her that had she mated with some one else, she might have given birth
to a normal child. The pain she had experienced had shaken her. One
sight of the baby and continual living with it and Alva in that one,
now frowsy and odoriferous room, had completed her disillusionment. For
one of the very few times in her life, she felt like doing something
drastic.
Alva hardly ever came home. He had quit work once more and started
running around as before, only he didn’t tell her about it. He lied
to her or else ignored her altogether. The baby now a year old was
assuredly an idiot. It neither talked nor walked. Its head had grown
out of all proportion to its body, and Geraldine felt that she could
have stood its shrivelled arm and deformed foot, had it not been for
its insanely large and vacant eyes which seemed never to close, and for
the thick grinning lips, which always remained half open and through
which came no translatable sounds.
Geraldine’s mother was a pious woman, and, of course, denounced the
parents for the condition of the child. Had they not lived in sin,
this would not be. Had they married and lived respectably, God would
not have punished them in this manner. According to her, the mere
possession of a marriage license and an official religious sanction
of their mating would have assured them a bouncing, healthy, normal
child. She refused to take the infant. Her pastor had advised her not
to, saying that the parents should be made to bear the burden they had
brought upon themselves.
For once, neither Geraldine nor Alva knew what to do. They couldn’t
keep on as they were now. Alva was drinking more and more. He was also
becoming less interested in looking well. He didn’t bother about his
clothes as much as before, his almond shaped eyes became more narrow,
and the gray parchment conquered the yellow in his skin and gave him a
deathlike pallor. He hated that silent, staring idiot infant of his,
and he had begun to hate its mother. He couldn’t go into the room
sober. Yet his drinking provided no escape. And though he was often
tempted, he felt that he could not run away and leave Geraldine alone
with the baby.
Then he began to need money. Geraldine couldn’t work because some
one had to look after the child. Alva wouldn’t work now, and made
no effort to come into contact with new “paying off” people. The old
ones were not as numerous or as generous as formerly. Those who hadn’t
drifted away didn’t care enough about the Alva of today to help support
him, his wife and child. Luckily, though, about this time, he “hit”
the numbers twice in one month, and both he and Geraldine borrowed
some money on their insurance policies. They accrued almost a thousand
dollars from these sources, but that wouldn’t last forever, and the
problem of what they were going to do with the child still remained
unsolved.
Both wanted to kill it, and neither had the courage to mention the word
“murder” to the other. Had they been able to discuss this thing frankly
with one another, they could have seen to it that the child smothered
itself or fell from the crib sometime during the night. No one would
have questioned the accidental death of an idiot child. But they did
not trust one another, and neither dared to do the deed alone. Then
Geraldine became obsessed with the fear that Alva was planning to run
away from her. She knew what this would mean and she had no idea of
letting him do it. She realized that should she be left alone with the
child it would mean that she would be burdened throughout the years it
lived, forced to struggle and support herself and her charge. But were
she to leave Alva, some more sensible plan would undoubtedly present
itself. No one expected a father to tie himself to an infant, and if
that infant happened to be ill and an idiot ... well, there were any
number of social agencies which would care for it. Assuredly, then she
must get away first. But where to go?
She was stumped again and forced to linger, fearing all the while that
Alva would fail to return home once he left. She tried desperately
to reintroduce a note of intimacy into their relationship, tried
repeatedly to make herself less repellent to him, and, at the same
time, discipline her own self so that she would not communicate her
apprehensions to him. She hired the little girl who lived in the next
room to take charge of the child, bought it a store of toys and went
out to find a job. This being done, she insisted that Alva begin taking
her out once again. He acquiesced. He wasn’t interested one way or the
other as long as he could go to bed drunk every night and keep a bottle
of gin by his bedside.
Neither, though, seemed interested in what they were doing. Both were
feverishly apprehensive at all times. They quarrelled frequently, but
would hasten to make amends to one another, so afraid were they that
the first one to become angry might make a bolt for freedom. Alva drank
more and more. Geraldine worked, saved and schemed, always planning
and praying that she would be able to get away first.
Then Alva was taken ill. His liquor-burned stomach refused to retain
food. The doctor ordered him not to drink any more bootleg beverages.
Alva shrugged his shoulders, left the doctor’s office and sought out
his favorite speakeasy.
* * * * *
Emma Lou was busy, and being busy, had had less time to think about
herself than ever before. Thus, she was less distraught and much less
dissatisfied with herself and with life. She was taking some courses
in education in the afternoon classes at City College, preparatory to
taking the next public school teacher’s examination. She still had
her position in the household of Campbell Kitchen, a position she had
begun to enjoy and appreciate more and more as the master of the house
evinced an interest in her and became her counsellor and friend. He
encouraged her to read and opened his library to her. Ofttimes he gave
her tickets to musical concerts or to the theater, and suggested means
of meeting what she called “the right sort of people.”
She had moved meanwhile into the Y. W. C. A. There she had met many
young girls like herself, alone and unattached in New York, and she had
soon found herself moving in a different world altogether. She even
had a pal, Gwendolyn Johnson, a likable, light-brown-skinned girl, who
had the room next to hers. Gwendolyn had been in New York only a few
months. She had just recently graduated from Howard University, and was
also planning to teach school in New York City. She and Emma Lou became
fast friends and went everywhere together. It was with Gwendolyn that
Emma Lou shared the tickets Campbell Kitchen gave her. Then on Sundays
they would attend church. At first they attended a different church
every Sunday, but finally took to attending St. Mark’s A. M. E. Church
on St. Nicholas Avenue regularly.
This was one of the largest and most high-toned churches in Harlem.
Emma Lou liked to go there; and both she and Gwendolyn enjoyed sitting
in the congregation, observing the fine clothes and triumphal entries
of its members. Then, too, they soon became interested in the various
organizations which the church sponsored for young people. They
attended the meetings of a literary society every Thursday evening, and
joined the young people’s bible class which met every Tuesday evening.
In this way, they came into contact with many young folk, and were
often invited to parties and dances.
Gwendolyn helped Emma Lou with her courses in education and the two
obtained and studied copies of questions which had been asked in
previous examinations. Gwendolyn sympathized with Emma Lou’s color
hyper-sensitivity and tried hard to make her forget it. In order to
gain her point, she thought it necessary to down light people, and
with this in mind, ofttimes told Emma Lou many derogatory tales about
the mulattoes in the social and scholastic life at Howard University
in Washington, D. C. The color question had never been of much moment
to Gwendolyn. Being the color she was, she had never suffered. In
Charleston, the mulattoes had their own churches and their own social
life and mingled with darker Negroes only when the jim crow law or
racial discrimination left them no other alternative. Gwendolyn’s
mother had belonged to one of these “persons of color” families, but
she hadn’t seen much in it all. What if she was better than the little
black girl who lived around the corner? Didn’t they both have to attend
the same colored school, and didn’t they both have to ride in the same
section of the street car, and were not they both subject to be called
nigger by the poor white trash who lived in the adjacent block?
She had thought her relatives and associates all a little silly,
especially when they had objected to her marrying a man just two or
three shades darker than herself. She felt that this was carrying
things too far even in ancient Charleston where customs, houses and
people all seemed antique and far removed from the present. Stubbornly
she had married the man of her choice, and had exulted when her
daughter had been nearer the richer color of her father than the
washed-out color of herself. Gwendolyn’s father had died while she was
in college, and her mother had begun teaching in a South Carolina Negro
industrial school, but she insisted that Gwendolyn must finish her
education and seek her career in the North.
Gwendolyn’s mother had always preached for complete tolerance in
matters of skin color. So afraid was she that her daughter would
develop a “pink” complex that she wilfully discouraged her associating
with light people and persistently encouraged her to choose her friends
from among the darker elements of the race. And she insisted that
Gwendolyn must marry a dark brown man so that her children would be
real Negroes. So thoroughly had this become inculcated into her, that
Gwendolyn often snubbed light people, and invariably, in accordance
with her mother’s sermonisings, chose dark-skinned friends and beaux.
Like her mother, Gwendolyn was very exercised over the matter of
intra-racial segregation and attempted to combat it verbally as well as
actively.
When she and Emma Lou began going around together, trying to find
a church to attend regularly, she had immediately black-balled the
Episcopal Church, for she knew that most of its members were “pinks,”
and despite the fact that a number of dark-skinned West Indians, former
members of the Church of England, had forced their way in, Gwendolyn
knew that the Episcopal Church in Harlem, as in most Negro communities,
was dedicated primarily to the salvation of light-skinned Negroes.
But Gwendolyn was a poor psychologist. She didn’t realize that Emma Lou
was possessed of a perverse bitterness and that she idolized the thing
one would naturally expect her to hate. Gwendolyn was certain that Emma
Lou hated “yaller” niggers as she called them. She didn’t appreciate
the fact that Emma Lou hated her own color and envied the more mellow
complexions. Gwendolyn’s continual damnation of “pinks” only irritated
Emma Lou and made her more impatient with her own blackness, for, in
damning them, Gwendolyn also enshrined them for Emma Lou, who wasn’t
the least bit anxious to be classified with persons who needed a
champion.
However, for the time being, Emma Lou was more free than ever from
tortuous periods of self-pity and hatred. In her present field of
activity, the question of color seldom introduced itself except as
Gwendolyn introduced it, which she did continually, even to the extent
of giving lectures on race purity and the superiority of unmixed racial
types. Emma Lou would listen attentively, but all the while she was
observing Gwendolyn’s light-brown skin, and wishing to herself that it
were possible for her and Gwendolyn to effect a change in complexions,
since Gwendolyn considered a black skin so desirable.
They both had beaux, young men whom they had met at the various church
meetings and socials. Gwendolyn insisted that they snub the “high
yallers” and continually was going into ecstasies over the browns and
blacks they conquested. Emma Lou couldn’t get excited over any of them.
They all seemed so young and so pallid. Their air of being all-wise
amused her, their affected church purity and wholesomeness, largely a
verbal matter, tired her. Their world was so small--church, school,
home, mother, father, parties, future. She invariably compared them to
Alva and made herself laugh by classifying them as a litter of sick
puppies. Alva was a bulldog and a healthy one at that. Yet these sick
puppies, as she called them, were the next generation of Negro leaders,
the next generation of respectable society folk. They had a future;
Alva merely lived for no purpose whatsoever except for the pleasure he
could squeeze out of each living moment. He didn’t construct anything;
the litter of pups would, or at least they would be credited with
constructing something whether they did or not. She found herself
strangely uninterested in anything they might construct. She didn’t see
that it would make much difference in the world whether they did or did
not. Months of sophisticated reading under Campbell Kitchen’s tutelage
had cultivated the seeds of pessimism experience had sown. Life was
all a bad dream recurrent in essentials. Every dog had his day and
every dog died. These priggish little respectable persons she now knew
and associated with seemed infinitely inferior to her. They were all
hypocritical and colorless. They committed what they called sin in the
same colorless way they served God, family, and race. None of them had
the fire and gusto of Alva, nor his light-heartedness. At last she had
met the “right sort of people” and found them to be quite wrong.
However, she quelled her growing dissatisfaction and immersed herself
in her work. Campbell Kitchen had told her again and again that
economic independence was the solution to almost any problem. When
she found herself a well-paying position she need not worry more.
Everything else would follow and she would find herself among the
pursued instead of among the pursuers. This was the gospel she now
adhered to and placed faith in. She studied hard, finished her courses
at Teachers College, took and passed the school board examination,
and mechanically followed Gwendolyn about, pretending to share her
enthusiasms and hatreds. All would soon come to the desired end. Her
doctrine of pessimism was weakened by the optimism the future seemed to
promise. She had even become somewhat interested in one of the young
men she had met at St. Mark’s. Gwendolyn discouraged this interest.
“Why, Emma Lou, he’s one of them yaller niggers; you don’t want to get
mixed up with him.”
Though meaning well, she did not know that it was precisely because he
was one of those “yaller niggers” that Emma Lou liked him.
* * * * *
Emma Lou and her new “yaller nigger,” Benson Brown, were returning from
church on a Tuesday evening where they had attended a Young People’s
Bible Class. It was a beautiful early fall night, warm and moonlit,
and they had left the church early, intent upon slipping away from
Gwendolyn, and taking a walk before they parted for the night. Emma
Lou had no reason for liking Benson save that she was flattered that
a man as light as he should find himself attracted to her. It always
gave her a thrill to stroll into church or down Seventh Avenue with
him. And she loved to show him off in the reception room of the Y.
W. C. A. True, he was almost as colorless and uninteresting to her as
the rest of the crowd with whom she now associated, but he had a fair
skin and he didn’t seem to mind her darkness. Then, it did her good to
show Gwendolyn that she, Emma Lou, could get a yellow-skinned man. She
always felt that the reason Gwendolyn insisted upon her going with a
dark-skinned man was because she secretly considered it unlikely for
her to get a light one.
Benson was a negative personality. His father was an ex-preacher turned
Pullman porter because, since prohibition times, he could make more
money on the Pullman cars than he could in the pulpit. His mother was
an active church worker and club woman, “one of the pillars of the
community,” the current pastor at their church had called her. Benson
himself was in college, studying business methods and administration.
It had taken him six years to finish high school, and it promised to
take him much longer to finish college. He had a placid, ineffectual
dirty yellow face, topped by red mariney hair, and studded with gray
eyes. He was as ugly as he was stupid, and he had been as glad to have
Emma Lou interested in him as she had been glad to attract him. She
actually seemed to take him seriously, while every one else more or
less laughed at him. Already he was planning to quit school, go to
work, and marry her; and Emma Lou, while not anticipating any such
sudden consummation, remained blind to everything save his color and
the attention he paid to her.
Benson had suggested their walk and Emma Lou had chosen Seventh Avenue
in preference to some of the more quiet side streets. She still loved
to promenade up and down Harlem’s main thoroughfare. As usual on a warm
night, it was crowded. Street speakers and their audiences monopolized
the corners. Pedestrians and loiterers monopolized all of the remaining
sidewalk space. The street was jammed with traffic. Emma Lou was more
convinced than ever that there was nothing like it anywhere. She tried
to formulate some of her impressions and attempted to convey them to
Benson, but he couldn’t see anything unusual or novel or interesting in
a “lot of niggers hanging out here to be seen.” Then, Seventh Avenue
wasn’t so much. What about Broadway or Fifth Avenue downtown where the
white folks gathered and strolled. Now those were the streets, Seventh
Avenue, Harlem’s Seventh Avenue, didn’t enter into it.
Emma Lou didn’t feel like arguing. She walked along in silence,
holding tightly to Benson’s arm and wondering whether or not Alva was
somewhere on Seventh Avenue. Strange she had never seen him. Perhaps
he had gone away. Benson wished to stop in order to listen to one of
the street speakers who, he informed Emma Lou, was mighty smart. It
seemed that he was the self-styled mayor of Harlem, and his spiel
nightly was concerning the fact that Harlem Negroes depended upon white
people for most of their commodities instead of opening food and dress
commissaries of their own. He lamented the fact that there were no
Negro store owners, and regretted that wealthy Negroes did not invest
their money in first class butcher shops, grocery stores, et cetera.
Then, he perorated, the Jews, who now grew rich off their Negro trade,
would be forced out, and the money Negroes spent would benefit Negroes
alone.
Emma Lou knew that this was just the sort of thing that Benson liked to
hear. She had to tug hard on his arm to make him remain on the edge of
the crowd, so that she could see the passing crowds rather than center
her attention on the speaker. In watching, Emma Lou saw a familiar
figure approach, a very trim, well garbed figure, alert and swaggering.
It was Braxton. She didn’t know whether to speak to him or not. She
wasn’t sure that he would acknowledge her salute should she address
him, yet here was her chance to get news of Alva, and she felt that she
might risk being snubbed. It would be worth it. He drew near. He was
alone, and, as he passed, she reached out her arm and touched him on
the sleeve. He stopped, looked down at her and frowned.
“Braxton,” she spoke quickly, “pardon me for stopping you, but I
thought you might tell me where Alva is.”
“I guess he’s at the same place,” he answered curtly, then moved away.
Emma Lou bowed her head shamefacedly as Benson turned toward her long
enough to ask who it was she had spoken to. She mumbled something about
an old friend, then suggested that they go home. She was tired. Benson
agreed reluctantly and they turned toward the Y. W. C. A.
* * * * *
A taxi driver had brought Alva home from a saloon where he had
collapsed from cramps in the stomach. That had been on a Monday. The
doctor had come and diagnosed his case. He was in a serious condition,
his stomach lining was practically eaten away and his entire body
wrecked from physical excess. Unless he took a complete rest and
abstained from drinking liquor and all other forms of dissipation,
there could be no hope of recovery. This hadn’t worried Alva very
much. He chafed at having to remain in bed, but possibility of death
didn’t worry him. Life owed him very little, he told Geraldine. He was
content to let the devil take his due. But Geraldine was quite worried
about the whole matter. Should Alva die or even be an invalid for any
lengthy period, it would mean that she alone would have the burden of
their misshapen child. She didn’t want that burden. In fact, she was
determined not to have it. And neither did she intend to nurse Alva.
On the Friday morning after the Monday Alva had been taken ill,
Geraldine left for work as was her custom. But she did not come back
that night. Every morning during that week she had taken away a bundle
of this and a bundle of that until she had managed to get away most
of her clothes. She had saved enough money out of her earnings to pay
her fare to Chicago. She had chosen Chicago because a man who was
interested in her lived there. She had written to him. He had been glad
to hear from her. He ran a buffet flat. He needed some one like her to
act as hostess. Leaving her little bundles at a girl friend’s day after
day and packing them away in a second hand trunk, she had planned to
leave the moment she received her pay on Saturday. She had intended
going home on Friday night, but at the last moment she had faltered and
reasoned that as long as she was away and only had twenty-four hours
more in New York she might as well make her disappearance then. If she
went back she might betray herself or else become soft-hearted and
remain.
Alva was not very surprised when she failed to return home from
work that Friday. The woman in the next room kept coming in at
fifteen-minute intervals after five-thirty inquiring: “Hasn’t your wife
come in yet?” She wanted to get rid of the child which was left in her
care daily. She had her own work to do, her own husband and child’s
dinner to prepare; and, furthermore, she wasn’t being paid to keep the
child both day and night. People shouldn’t have children unless they
intended taking care of them. Finally Alva told her to bring the baby
back to his room ... his wife would be in soon. But he knew full well
that Geraldine was not coming back. Hell of a mess. He was unable to
work, would probably have to remain in bed another week, perhaps two.
His money was about gone, and now Geraldine was not there to pay the
rent out of her earnings. Damn. What to do ... what to do? He couldn’t
keep the child. If he put it in a home they would expect him to
contribute to its support. It was too bad that he didn’t know some one
to leave this child of his with as his mother had done in his case. He
began to wish for a drink.
Hours passed. Finally the lady came into the room again to see if he
or the baby wanted anything. She knew Geraldine had not come in yet.
The partition between the two rooms was so thin that the people in one
were privy to everything the people in the other did or said. Alva told
her his wife must have gone to see her sick mother in Long Island. He
asked her to take care of the baby for him. He would pay her for her
extra trouble. The whole situation offered her much pleasure. She went
away radiant, eager to tell the other lodgers in the house her version
of what had happened.
Alva got up and paced the room. He felt that he could no longer
remain flat on his back. His stomach ached, but it also craved for
alcoholic stimulant. So did his brain and nervous system in general.
Inadvertently, in one of his trips across the room, he looked into the
dresser mirror. What he saw there halted his pacing. Surely that wan,
dissipated, bloated face did not belong to him. Perhaps he needed a
shave. He set about ridding himself of a week’s growth of beard, but
being shaved only made his face look more like the face of a corpse.
It was liquor he needed. He wished to hell some one would come along
and get him some. But no one came. He went back to bed, his eyes fixed
on the clock, watching its hands approach midnight. Five minutes to
go.... There was a knock on the door. Eagerly he sat up in the bed and
shouted, “Come in.”
But he was by no means expecting or prepared to see Emma Lou.
Emma Lou’s room in the Y. W. C. A. at three o’clock that same morning.
Emma Lou busy packing her clothes. Gwendolyn in negligee, hair
disarrayed, eyes sleepy, yet angry:
“You mean you’re going over there to live with that man?”
“Why not? I love him.”
Gwendolyn stared hard at Emma Lou. “But don’t you understand he’s just
tryin’ to find some one to take care of that brat of his? Don’t be
silly, Emma Lou. He doesn’t really care for you. If he did, he never
would have deserted you as you once told me he did, or have subjected
you to all those insults. And ... he isn’t your type of man. Why, he’s
nothing but a ...”
“Will you mind tending to your own business, Gwendolyn,” her purple
powdered skin was streaked with tears.
“But what about your appointment?”
“I shall take it.”
“What!” She forgot her weariness. “You mean to say you’re going to
teach school and live with that man, too? Ain’t you got no regard for
your reputation? I wouldn’t ruin myself for no yaller nigger. Here
you’re doing just what folks say a black gal always does. Where is
your intelligence and pride? I’m through with you, Emma Lou. There’s
probably something in this stuff about black people being different
and more low than other colored people. You’re just a common ordinary
nigger! God, how I despise you!” And she had rushed out of the room,
leaving Emma Lou dazed by the suddenness and wrath of her tirade.
* * * * *
Emma Lou was busier than she had ever been before in her life. She had
finally received her appointment and was teaching in one of the public
schools in Harlem. Doing this in addition to nursing Alva and Alva
Junior, and keeping house for them in Alva’s same old room. Within six
months she had managed to make little Alva Junior take on some of the
physical aspects of a normal child. His little legs were in braces,
being straightened. Twice a week she took him to the clinic where he
had violet ray sun baths and oil massages. His little body had begun
to fill out and simultaneously it seemed as if his head was decreasing
in size. There was only one feature which remained unchanged; his
abnormally large eyes still retained their insane stare. They appeared
frozen and terrified as if their owner was gazing upon some horrible,
yet fascinating object or occurrence. The doctor said that this would
disappear in time.
During those six months there had been a steady change in Alva Senior,
too. At first he had been as loving and kind to Emma Lou as he had
been during the first days of their relationship. Then, as he got
better and began living his old life again, he more and more relegated
her to the position of a hired nurse girl. He was scarcely civil to
her. He seldom came home except to eat and get some pocket change.
When he did come home nights, he was usually drunk, so drunk that his
companions would have to bring him home, and she would have to undress
him and put him to bed. Since his illness, he could not stand as much
liquor as before. His stomach refused to retain it, and his legs
refused to remain steady.
Emma Lou began to loathe him, yet ached for his physical nearness. She
was lonesome again, cooped up in that solitary room with only Alva
Junior for company. She had lost track of all her old friends, and,
despite her new field of endeavor, she had made no intimate contacts.
Her fellow colored teachers were congenial enough, but they didn’t seem
any more inclined to accept her socially than did her fellow white
teachers. There seemed to be some question about her antecedents. She
didn’t belong to any of the collegiate groups around Harlem. She didn’t
seem to be identified with any one who mattered. They wondered how she
had managed to get into the school system.
Of course Emma Lou made little effort to make friends among them. She
didn’t know how. She was too shy to make an approach and too suspicious
to thaw out immediately when some one approached her. The first thing
she noticed was that most of the colored teachers who taught in her
school were lighter colored than she. The darkest was a pleasing brown.
And she had noticed them putting their heads together when she first
came around. She imagined that they were discussing her. And several
times upon passing groups of them, she imagined that she was being
pointed out. In most cases what she thought was true, but she was being
discussed and pointed out, not because of her dark skin, but because of
the obvious traces of an excess of rouge and powder which she insisted
upon using.
It had been suggested, in a private council among the Negro members of
the teaching staff, that some one speak to Emma Lou about this rather
ludicrous habit of making up. But no one had the nerve. She appeared
so distant and so ready to take offense at the slightest suggestion
even of friendship that they were wary of her. But after she began to
be a standard joke among the pupils and among the white teachers, they
finally decided to send her an anonymous note, suggesting that she
use fewer aids to the complexion. Emma Lou, on receiving the note, at
first thought that it was the work of some practical joker. It never
occurred to her that the note told the truth and that she looked twice
as bad with paint and powder as she would without it. She interpreted
it as being a means of making fun of her because she was darker than
any one of the other colored girls. She grew more haughty, more acid,
and more distant than ever. She never spoke to any one except as a
matter of business. Then she discovered that her pupils had nicknamed
her ... “Blacker’n me.”
What made her still more miserable was the gossip and comments of the
woman in the next room. Lying in bed nights or else sitting at her
table preparing her lesson plans, she could hear her telling every one
who chanced in----
“You know that fellow in the next room? Well, let me tell you. His
wife left him, yes-sireee, left him flat on his back in the bed, him
and the baby, too. Yes, she did. Walked out of here just as big as you
please to go to work one morning and she ain’t come back yet. Then up
comes this little black wench. I heard her when she knocked on the door
that very night his wife left. At first he was mighty s’prised to see
her, then started laying it on, kissed her and hugged her, a-tellin’
her how much he loved her, and she crying like a fool all the time. I
never heard the likes of it in my life. The next morning in she moves
an’ she’s been here ever since. And you oughter see how she carries
on over that child, just as loving, like as if she was his own mother.
An’ now that she’s here an’ workin’ an’ that nigger’s well again, what
does he do but go out an’ get drunk worse than he uster with his wife.
Would you believe it? Stays away three and four nights a week, while
she hustles out of here an’ makes time every morning....”
On hearing this for about the twentieth time, Emma Lou determined to
herself that she was not going to hear it again. (She had also planned
to ask for a transfer to a new school, one on the east side in the
Italian section where she would not have to associate with so many
other colored teachers.) Alva hadn’t been home for four nights. She
picked Alva Junior from out his crib and pulled off his nightgown,
letting him lie naked in her lap. She loved to fondle his warm,
mellow-colored body, loved to caress his little crooked limbs after
the braces had been removed. She wondered what would become of him.
Obviously she couldn’t remain living with Alva, and she certainly
couldn’t keep Alva Junior forever. Suppose those evil school teachers
should find out how she was living and report it to the school
authorities? Was she morally fit to be teaching youth? She remembered
her last conversation with Gwendolyn.
For the first time now she also saw how Alva had used her during both
periods of their relationship. She also realized that she had been
nothing more than a commercial proposition to him at all times. He
didn’t care for dark women either. He had never taken her among his
friends, never given any signs to the public that she was his girl.
And now when he came home with some of his boy friends, he always
introduced her as Alva Junior’s mammy. That’s what she was, Alva
Junior’s mammy, and a typical black mammy at that.
Campbell Kitchen had told her that when she found economic
independence, everything else would come. Well now that she had
economic independence she found herself more enslaved and more
miserable than ever. She wondered what he thought of her. She had never
tried to get in touch with him since she had left the Y. W. C. A., and
had never let him know of her whereabouts, had just quit communicating
with him as unceremoniously as she had quit the Y. W. C. A. No doubt
Gwendolyn had told him the whole sordid tale. She could never face him
again unless she had made some effort to reclaim herself. Well, that’s
what she was going to do. Reclaim herself. She didn’t care what became
of Alva Junior. Let Alva and that yellow slut of a wife of his worry
about their own piece of tainted suet.
She was leaving. She was going back to the Y. W. C. A., back to St.
Mark’s A. M. E. Church, back to Gwendolyn, back to Benson. She
wouldn’t stay here and have that child grow up to call her “black
mammy.” Just because she was black was no reason why she was going to
let some yellow nigger use her. At once she was all activity. Putting
Alva Jr.’s nightgown on, she laid him back into his crib and left him
there crying while she packed her trunk and suitcase. Then, asking the
woman in the next room to watch him until she returned, she put on her
hat and coat and started for the Y. W. C. A., making plans for the
future as she went.
Halfway there she decided to telephone Benson. It had been seven
months now since she had seen him, seven months since, without a word
of warning or without leaving a message, she had disappeared, telling
only Gwendolyn where she was going. While waiting for the operator to
establish connections, she recalled the conversation she and Gwendolyn
had had at the time, recalled Gwendolyn’s horror and disgust on hearing
what Emma Lou planned doing, recalled ... some one was answering the
’phone. She asked for Benson, and in a moment heard his familiar:
“Hello.”
“Hello, Benson, this is Emma Lou.” There was complete silence for a
moment, then:
“Emma Lou?” he dinned into her ear. “Well, where have you been.
Gwennie and I have been trying to find you.”
This warmed her heart; coming back was not going to be so difficult
after all.
“You did?”
“Why, yes. We wanted to invite you to our wedding.”
The receiver fell from her hand. For a moment she stood like one
stunned, unable to move. She could hear Benson on the other end of the
wire clicking the receiver and shouting “Hello, Hello,” then the final
clicking of the receiver as he hung up, followed by a deadened ...
“operator” ... “operator” from central.
Somehow or other she managed to get hold of the receiver and replace it
in the hook. Then she left the telephone booth and made her way out of
the drugstore into the street. Seventh Avenue as usual was alive and
crowded. It was an early spring evening and far too warm for people to
remain cooped up in stuffy apartments. Seventh Avenue was the gorge
into which Harlem cliff dwellers crowded to promenade. It was heavy
laden, full of life and color, vibrant and leisurely. But for the first
time since her arrival in Harlem, Emma Lou was impervious to all this.
For the moment she hardly realized where she was. Only the constant
jostling and the raucous ensemble of street noises served to bring her
out of her daze.
Gwendolyn and Benson married. “What do you want to waste your time with
that yaller nigger for? I wouldn’t marry a yaller nigger.”
“Blacker’n me”.... “Why don’t you take a hint and stop plastering your
face with so much rouge and powder.”
Emma Lou stumbled down Seventh Avenue, not knowing where she was
going. She noted that she was at 135th Street. It was easy to tell
this particular corner. It was called the campus. All the college boys
hung out there when the weather permitted, obstructing the traffic and
eyeing the passersby professionally. She turned west on 135th Street.
She wanted quiet. Seventh Avenue was too noisy and too alive and too
happy. How could the world be happy when she felt like she did? There
was no place for her in the world. She was too black, black is a
portent of evil, black is a sign of bad luck.
“A yaller gal rides in a limousine
A brown-skin does the same;
A black gal rides in a rickety Ford,
But she gets there, yes, my Lord.”
“Alva Jr’s black mammy.” “Low down common nigger.” “Jes’ crazy ’bout
that little yaller brat.”
She looked up and saw a Western Union office sign shining above a
lighted doorway. For a moment she stood still, repeating over and
over to herself Western Union, Western Union, as if to understand
its meaning. People turned to stare at her as they passed. They even
stopped and looked up into the air trying to see what was attracting
her attention, and, seeing nothing, would shrug their shoulders and
continue on their way. The Western Union sign suggested only one thing
to Emma Lou and that was home. For the moment she was ready to rush
into the office and send a wire to her Uncle Joe, asking for a ticket,
and thus be able to escape the whole damn mess. But she immediately
saw that going home would mean beginning her life all over again, mean
flying from one degree of unhappiness into another probably much more
intense and tragic than the present one. She had once fled to Los
Angeles to escape Boise, then fled to Harlem to escape Los Angeles,
but these mere geographical flights had not solved her problems in the
past, and a further flight back to where her life had begun, although
facile of accomplishment, was too futile to merit consideration.
Rationalizing thus, she moved away from in front of the Western Union
office and started toward the park two blocks away. She felt that
it was necessary that she do something about herself and her life
and do it immediately. Campbell Kitchen had said that every one
must find salvation within one’s self, that no one in life need be a
total misfit, and that there was some niche for every peg, whether
that peg be round or square. If this were true then surely she could
find hers even at this late date. But then hadn’t she exhausted
all possibilities? Hadn’t she explored every province of life and
everywhere met the same problem? It was easy for Campbell Kitchen or
for Gwendolyn to say what they would do had they been she, for they
were looking at her problem in the abstract, while to her it was an
empirical reality. What could they know of the adjustment proceedings
necessary to make her life more full and more happy? What could they
know of her heartaches?
She trudged on, absolutely oblivious to the people she passed or to the
noise and bustle of the street. For the first time in her life she felt
that she must definitely come to some conclusion about her life and
govern herself accordingly. After all she wasn’t the only black girl
alive. There were thousands on thousands, who, like her, were plain,
untalented, ordinary, and who, unlike herself, seemed to live in some
degree of comfort. Was she alone to blame for her unhappiness? Although
this had been suggested to her by others, she had been too obtuse to
accept it. She had ever been eager to shift the entire blame on others
when no doubt she herself was the major criminal.
But having arrived at this--what did it solve or promise for the
future? After all it was not the abstractions of her case which at the
present moment most needed elucidation. She could strive for a change
of mental attitudes later. What she needed to do now was to accept her
black skin as being real and unchangeable, to realize that certain
things were, had been, and would be, and with this in mind begin life
anew, always fighting, not so much for acceptance by other people,
but for acceptance of herself by herself. In the future she would
be eminently selfish. If people came into her life--well and good.
If they didn’t--she would live anyway, seeking to find herself and
achieving meanwhile economic and mental independence. Then possibly, as
Campbell Kitchen had said, life would open up for her, for it seemed
as if its doors yielded more easily to the casual, self-centered
individual than to the ranting, praying pilgrim. After all it was the
end that mattered, and one only wasted time and strength seeking facile
open-sesame means instead of pushing along a more difficult and direct
path.
By now Emma Lou had reached St. Nicholas Avenue and was about to
cross over into the park when she heard the chimes of a clock and was
reminded of the hour. It was growing late--too late for her to wander
in the park alone where she knew she would be approached either by some
persistent male or an insulting park policeman. Wearily she started
towards home, realizing that it was necessary for her to get some rest
in order to be able to be in her class room on the next morning. She
mustn’t jeopardize her job, for it was partially through the money
she was earning from it that she would be able to find her place in
life. She was tired of running up blind alleys all of which seemed to
converge and lead her ultimately to the same blank wall. Her motto from
now on would be “find--not seek.” All things were at one’s finger-tips.
Life was most kind to those who were judicious in their selections, and
she, weakling that she now realized she was, had not been a connoisseur.
As she drew nearer home she felt certain that should she attempt to
spend another night with Alva and his child, she would surely smother
to death during the night. And even though she felt this, she also
knew within herself that no matter how much at the present moment she
pretended to hate Alva that he had only to make the proper advances in
order to win her to him again. Yet she also knew that she must leave
him if she was to make her self-proposed adjustment--leave him now even
if she should be weak enough to return at some not so distant date.
She was determined to fight against Alva’s influence over her, fight
even though she lost, for she reasoned that even in losing she would
win a pyrrhic victory and thus make her life less difficult in the
future, for having learned to fight future battles would be easy.
She tried to convince herself that it would not be necessary for her to
have any more Jasper Cranes or Alvas in her life. To assure herself of
this she intended to look John up on the morrow and if he were willing
let him re-enter her life. It was clear to her now what a complete
fool she had been. It was clear to her at last that she had exercised
the same discrimination against her men and the people she wished for
friends that they had exercised against her--and with less reason. It
served her right that Jasper Crane had fooled her as he did. It served
her right that Alva had used her once for the money she could give
him and again as a black mammy for his child. That was the price she
had had to pay for getting what she thought she wanted. But now she
intended to balance things. Life after all was a give and take affair.
Why should she give important things and receive nothing in return?
She was in front of the house now and looking up saw that all the
lights in her room were lit. And as she climbed the stairs she could
hear a drunken chorus of raucous masculine laughter. Alva had come
home meanwhile, drunk of course and accompanied by the usual drunken
crowd. Emma Lou started to turn back, to flee into the street--anywhere
to escape being precipitated into another sordid situation, but
remembering that this was to be her last night there, and that the new
day would find her beginning a new life, she subdued her flight impulse
and without knocking threw open the door and walked into the room. She
saw the usual and expected sight: Alva, face a death mask, sitting on
the bed embracing an effeminate boy whom she knew as Bobbie, and who
drew hurriedly away from Alva as he saw her. There were four other
boys in the room, all in varied states of drunkenness--all laughing
boisterously at some obscene witticism. Emma Lou suppressed a shudder
and calmly said “Hello Alva”--The room grew silent. They all seemed
shocked and surprised by her sudden appearance. Alva did not answer
her greeting but instead turned to Bobbie and asked him for another
drink. Bobbie fumbled nervously at his hip pocket and finally produced
a flask which he handed to Alva. Emma Lou stood at the door and watched
Alva drink the liquor Bobbie had given him. Every one else in the room
watched her. For the moment she did not know what to say or what to do.
Obviously she couldn’t continue standing there by the door nor could
she leave and let them feel that she had been completely put to rout.
Alva handed the flask back to Bobbie, who got up from the bed and said
something about leaving. The others in the room also got up and began
staggering around looking for their hats. Emma Lou thought for a moment
that she was going to win without any further struggle, but she had not
reckoned with Alva who, meanwhile, had sufficiently emerged from his
stupor to realize that his friends were about to go.
“What the hell’s the matter with you,” he shouted up at Bobbie, and
without waiting for an answer reached out for Bobbie’s arm and jerked
him back down on the bed.
“Now stay there till I tell you to get up.”
The others in the room had now found their hats and started toward the
door, eager to escape. Emma Lou crossed the room to where Alva was
sitting and said, “You might make less noise, the baby’s asleep.”
The four boys had by this time opened the door and staggered out into
the hallway. Bobbie edged nervously away from Alva, who leered up at
Emma Lou and snarled “If you don’t like it--”
For the moment Emma Lou did not know what to do. Her first impulse was
to strike him, but she was restrained because underneath the loathsome
beast that he now was, she saw the Alva who had first attracted her
to him, the Alva she had always loved. She suddenly felt an immense
compassion for him and had difficulty in stifling an unwelcome urge to
take him into her arms. Tears came into her eyes, and for a moment it
seemed as if all her rationalization would go for naught. Then once
more she saw Alva, not as he had been, but as he was now, a drunken,
drooling libertine, struggling to keep the embarrassed Bobbie in a
vile embrace. Something snapped within her. The tears in her eyes
receded, her features grew set, and she felt herself hardening inside.
Then, without saying a word, she resolutely turned away, went into the
alcove, pulled her suitcases down from the shelf in the clothes-closet,
and, to the blasphemous accompaniment of Alva berating Bobbie for
wishing to leave, finished packing her clothes, not stopping even when
Alva Junior’s cries deafened her, and caused the people in the next
room to stir uneasily.
Transcriber’s Notes
In the .txt version, surrounding characters have been used to indicate
_Italics_.
Minor typographical and formatting errors have been silently
corrected.
p. 245 changed “Geraldine” to “Gwendolyn” in “Gwendolyn in negligee”
and “Gwendolyn stared hard”.