McCall was walking impatiently back and forth in front of the hotel,
smoking a cigarette, when Robert and Freeman arrived.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Oh, we’ve met before. Trick
Track Tribe. I mean Dearborn Publicity Bureau.”
Freeman grinned sheepishly.
“Yes, we’ve met.”
Robert’s attention was diverted by the appearance of a taxi, driving up
to the curb. The door opened and a black man stepped out. A black man!
“There’s Williams!” cried Robert.
“Who?”
“Williams. You know, Mac, the hospital--France.”
It was Williams and suddenly, somehow, Robert found himself shaking his
hand--the first time in his life that he had ever grasped the hand of
any colored man, except George, the chauffeur, and Sam, the gardener.
“You’ve changed.” The colored man was smiling.
“Yes, I’ve got a new view of things. I--I’ve read your articles in _The
Torch_ and I want to tell you that I agree with your stand against the
Trick Track Tribe. It must be fought through education, not by stirring
up a new and stronger prejudice against it, even if we are stronger.”
Williams was pleased. He paid off the driver and explained that he was
attending a meeting of state officials, of representative white and
black citizens to discuss the race riots.
The taxi pulled away. And suddenly Williams, Ph.D., Harvard, wearer of
the _Croix de Guerre_ and editor of _The Torch_, stood revealed to the
white world. The hated color had suddenly reappeared.
“Yeh, look at the nigger! Skunk! Skunk!” the shrill voice of an office
boy, a pink-cheeked lad of perhaps thirteen, cried out, as he darted
across the crowded street. A stone struck the black man on the arm.
Robert saw what was coming. The world which had drifted by a moment
before had suddenly become electrified. “Nigger! Get the coon! Get the
damn murderer! Nigger! Nigger!” A hundred angry voices, cursing.
A broker’s clerk came yelling. A bank teller followed. Two law
students. Salesmen. Shop managers. Men. Boys. Women. Men in work
shirts. Men in jazz ties. Men in silk shirts. Black! Black! Black!
Black raged through their hearts. They screamed and whooped and ran
forward with faces distorted and arms raised.
“Quick, the door!”
Robert started toward the entrance. A white man barred the way. Robert
pulled him to one side. The man raised his arm, but Freeman and McCall
had sprung forward and were holding him helpless. The black man leaped
through the doorway and to safety. McCall and Freeman ran after him,
for to aid a Negro then was a crime in the eyes of the mob which hated
blackness.
Robert started to follow. Something struck him on the forehead. The
cries of the mob and the sound of their footsteps, a man’s laughter,
the traffic clangs and noises, the far-off whistle of a patrolman,
whirled about him. The world turned red and went spinning round and
round--then black, in circles, closing, closing. A confused roar,
fainter and ever fainter in his ears. A sensation of being carried, of
floating, finally of resting.
Somewhere Robert presently was aware of a light, a flame that was at
the same time himself. The flame grew outward and shattered into other
flames. The light expanded, throbbing. He was running forward through
a grotesquely flaring night, with lights and rockets that screamed
overhead and exaggerated every irregularity of the ground, that sent
ghastly shadows staggering across the field.
No. He was running down a football field with a leather ball tucked
under his arm, a smell of earth and blood and leather in his nostrils
and the roar of voices in his ears. No. He tried to remember and found
that he was conscious. His eyes fluttered open. Eyes strangely familiar
were resting on them.
“Where am I? What’s happened?”
Soft hands were patting him. He felt the pressure of a bandage around
his head and a dull pain. He saw a doctor and a woman bending over
him. He knew that he was in a hospital. He heard a familiar voice, the
woman’s voice, consoling him.
“Robert, Robert, you’re all right now?”
There was a hum of voices. There were tears in her brown eyes. Oh,
Dorothy! His heart was racing. Dorothy. No. Yes, it _was_ Dorothy.
Dorothy of the hospital. Dorothy who had wept once before, in Paris.
Dorothy who had kissed him then. Yes. His head was clear. He raised
himself to a sitting position.
She was holding his hand. His own eyes were wet.
“Why? Why?--”
“Robert, Robert.” She was bending over him. Her hair was brushing
against his face. He felt a glow of warmth. Then her lips against his.
Her eyes were closed. He closed his own.
“Dorothy.” His head was clear. He remembered everything. “But why are
you here?”
“I heard you had been hurt. I thought--I thought it was serious. But it
isn’t. I’m so glad,” she sobbed.
“But why did you come?”
“Because--because--” She looked full into his eyes and he could see
little sparks of light dancing in them. “I love you, Robert.”
His heart gave a bound.
“But--” He remembered. Oh, yes, McCall. “But I thought that Jack
Levin--”
“No.” She shook her head. “We are of different faiths. We--”
“But--you told me--your ideas--”
“No, we decided it was better not--”
“Because--”
“Because we are of different faiths--and because--” Was she laughing or
sobbing?--“because I loved you--yes, it was you--all the time.”
“Dorothy! and--”
“Yes, I knew it from the beginning.”