Nigger Heaven/Book 1/Chapter 8
You can't catch me!
I'll bet I can!
Mary sprinted down a path with Byron following hot after her. At the moment he was about to capture her, she made a swift turning to elude him, lost her balance, and fell. Stumbling over her prostrate form, Byron sprawled too. Lying prone on the cold ground, they screamed with laughter.
When they had recovered from their merriment, they walked hand in hand down the path until they discovered a bench on which they seated themselves. A squirrel, scrambling out of the dead leaves, crossed the path, pausing an instant in his passage to sit on his haunches and listen apprehensively, and scampered up a slender tree-trunk. A sparrow hopped up and down the gravel, pecking for worms. Now and then he cocked his head, chirped, and regarded the pair inquisitively.
Can you Charleston? Byron inquired unexpectedly.
Not very well, Mary replied. Can you?
For reply, he flung aside his overcoat, and leaped to the centre of the path where he began to execute a series of wild steps. Mary clapped her hands rhythmically.
You might have been on the stage! she applauded him.
I don't do it very well.
Where did you learn?
He laughed. You'd never guess. <A couple of white fellows at college taught me. Sometimes I think that's how I got my degree.
It's nice here in the Park, isn't it?
I love it. Resuming his coat, he seated himself beside her and closed his palm over her hand.
How many days is it that we've been coming here together?
It must be several weeks, but every time seems like the first time to me.
Mary began to sing softly:
I jes' can't help but sigh,
Seems lak to me,
A tear stays in my eye,
Seems lak to me,
I doan know what to do,
Seems lak to me,
Dat everything wants you,
Since you went away.
That's a good tune, but a bad sentiment. I'm not going away.
I'm not going away either, said Mary, so you won't have any occasion to sing it. I wonder if you would, she mused aloud.
Would what?
Feel that way if I went away.
I'd follow you.
She squeezed his hand.
After a moment she said, I've been walking in this Park for many months. When I get through my work at the library it's what I always want to do first. I think of it as my Park, and now I've led you into it.
We're just two babes in the woods, he exclaimed. Let's roll in the leaves and cover ourselves up and get lost together for ever.
I'd adore it, Mary responded. What would we eat?
Squirrels and sparrows.
Oh, not those cunning squirrels.
Nuts.
I don't believe there's a nut-bearing tree in the Park. I've never seen one.
Well, we'll have our meals sent in from Flo's!
That's better . . . and use the leaves for a tablecloth!
And blankets!
Mary sighed. I wish life were as simple as all that! Why isn't it?
It's wonderful anyway, Mary.
It's wonderful now.
Baby duck! It'll be even more wonderful later, after we are married. He began to sing: But mah baby don't love nobody but me,
Nobody but me-eeee!
How do you know?
Tease! Unfaithful already?
What about you?
Cross my heart. Yours till death do us part, he asseverated with mock solemnity. He went on with his song:
But mah baby don't want nobody but me,
That's plain to see.
She's got a form like Venus,
Honest, I ain't talkin' Greek,
No one can come between us,
She's mah sheba,
I'm her sheik . . .
Some sheik! she interrupted him, continuing in song:
An' when he speaks his music ease mah troublin' min'.
You darling!
Byron, there's a big dance next week for the United Coloured Charities.
Let's go.
I was waiting for you to ask me.
As if you ever had to wait for me!
Well, it seems to me I'm always waiting for you. If we go to the dance we'll make the appointment for the night before and then perhaps we'll get there.
Don't scold me.
I'm not scolding you. Ah'm jes' nacherly lovin' you, mah honey.
I adore you when you talk like that. Makes me feel I'm your daddy!
Honey, you is, fo' sho'.
Where did you learn that delicious lingo?
Out of Jezebel Pettyfer and Porgy.
Glancing hastily up and down the path to be sure no one was approaching, he kissed her.
That was nice, Mary assured him.
Say thank you!
I didn't get enough to be thankful for.
He kissed her again.
Byron, don't please! Not so hard, dearest. You're mussing me all up.
I like to!
You talk like a savage!
I am. I'm an African cannibal! Son of a king! Going to eat you up for my dinner! Growling, he exposed his even, white teeth.
She shouted with laughter. I'm so happy, Byron, so very happy! Let's make it last always.
He responded with another tune:
As long as a leaf grows on the bamboo tree,
My love and devotion
Will be deep as the ocean. . . .
Permitting her head to fall against his shoulder, she silently enjoyed the ecstasy of this position for a time before she suggested, It's growing dark, dear. I think we'd better start home.
I thought we were going to make this our home, he protested.
Well, I will if you want to, but I thought maybe you'd like some of Ollie's biscuits.
Tempter! You coax me with hot bread!
You're easily coaxed.
One more kiss!
No, you've had enough. Rising quickly, she dashed away from the bench, crying over her shoulder, Catch me then!
He captured her easily and claimed his reward.
They walked on rapidly, hand in hand, their faces radiant with happiness. Presently their way lay parallel with the bridle-path. On horses, a man and woman were slowly approaching. A brilliant arclamp overhead illuminated the faces. Mary regarded the woman who, in a severely cut, black riding-habit, sat astride her mount. The face was beautiful, but cold and haughty, tortured, too, Mary thought.
Suddenly her voice cut the silence, clear and chill. Every syllable could be distinctly heard.
Disgusting, she remarked to her companion, that they should permit Niggers in the park!
The pair, without looking back, rode on together.
Mary clutched at Byron's arm and bowed her head.
We were too happy, she moaned. It's a judgment.
Byron's lip was quivering. Mary, he stammered, I haven't told you all the things that have happened to me.
What do you mean?
Things like that.
Oh, she moaned. Why can't they leave us alone or take us in? Can't we live? Can't we breathe without being subjected to these insults? Looks! Words! I'd prefer the lash. Slavery! Well, we knew where we were then!
They started to walk away.
Mary, Byron said quietly, this sort of thing happens to me every day.
Poor boy! I was afraid to ask you.
I answer advertisements for clerks, for secretaries. I'm insulted by office-boys, even, he added bitterly, by our own people: porters, elevator boys. You's puttin' on ahs, you shine, one of them said to me the other day. Why doan you git down an' work where you belongs?
That's the worst, what our own people do, Mary said. Do you know that the Underwoods dined downtown with white friends last week, and the next morning the coloured servants left? They said they wouldn't wait on Niggers!
Sometimes they laugh! Byron went on, his voice choking.
They don't know, Mary consoled him, these others, they don't know what they're doing.
That makes it worse still, Byron cried passionately. I go into an office where a white boy or a white girl is sitting at the desk. What do you want? they demand superciliously. He won't see you. He don't want Niggers!
I went through it when I tried to get into the library, Mary confessed. At first no one would even see me. Not a single member of the board would grant me an appointment. Eventually, a letter which Mr. Sumner wrote to an influential friend won me a hearing. Now, to be perfectly frank, they're lovely to me, but they don't promote me. They promote the white girls.
What can we do? Byron demanded, clasping and unclasping his hands. Here we are in an alien world. We think, we feel. We do our best to fit in. We don't want them. All we want is to be let alone, a chance to earn money, to be respectable.
I believe, said Mary, that they actually prefer us when we're not respectable.
They walked up Seventh Avenue in silence. The streets were crowded with pedestrians, white and coloured, scurrying home from work. As they approached One hundred and twenty-fifth Street, the blacks began to predominate. Almost immediately after they had passed that thoroughfare they met only Negroes. They had crossed the line.
Nigger Heaven! Byron moaned. Nigger Heaven! That's what Harlem is. We sit in our places in the gallery of this New York theatre and watch the white world sitting down below in the good seats in the orchestra. Occasionally they turn their faces up towards us, their hard, cruel faces, to laugh or sneer, but they never beckon. It never seems to occur to them that Nigger Heaven is crowded, that there isn't another seat, that something has to be done. It doesn't seem to occur to them either, he went on fiercely, that we sit above them, that we can drop things down on them and crush them, that we can swoop down from this Nigger Heaven and take their seats. No, they have no fear of that! Harlem! The Mecca of the New Negro! My God!