Nigger Heaven/Book 2/Chapter 5
How he got out of that office, out of that building, Byron never knew. He was only conscious that he was striding rapidly up Sixth Avenue. His head was whirling with a confusion of emotions; disappointment dominated them, cruel heartbreaking disappointment. He began to feel sorry for himself. Self-pity surged into his heart. Why should he, who had talent and energy, he who had tried to do something worth while, be made to suffer, to eat mud? He treated me that way because I am a Negro! was his subsequent passionate conclusion. He wouldn't dare talk like that to a white man. His fury was a flame that scorched him.
Suddenly he stood still. Should he go back? Should he tell Durwood what he thought of him? What good? He realized his impotence. They wouldn't let him in the office. He was a Negro and he was alone. Groaning, he burned to summon up a mob to stamp out this proud, haughty white world. He yearned to tear New York apart stone by stone, to level the houses one by one, to trample these white fiends under foot.
Stumping along the sidewalk, an old Negro with a long white beard approached with the aid of a cane. Uncle Tom! Old Black Joe! One of those damn conciliatory Niggers who "knew their places," who conformed.
He became aware that his hand still grasped the envelope containing his story. Should he destroy it? What was the use of his writing? No chance. No opportunity. Nothing but work on an elevator for such as he!
When he thought of Mary, fiery demons danced before his eyes: she had been the first to try to discourage him. She had told him first what this swine in a swivel-chair had just thrown in his face. He had promised to telephone her. He'd be damned if he would keep that promise. He'd be glad to rot in hell if he ever wanted to see her silly Madonna face again, always so superior. She sneered, that's what she did, she sneered. He was through.
He strode on, automatically, knowing neither where nor why. Faster and faster he paced up the Avenue. What could he do next? He was no manual labourer. He had proved himself a failure at that. Why, no one would even give him a job. Too damn swell to be a longshoreman and not swell enough for any position for which his education fitted him. Wrong colour.
Just another Nigger, and so they push, and buffet, and kick me about. Go live somewhere else and do something else! Where? What? Mary wanted him to know the Sumners. God damn snobs, that's what they were! God damn snobs! He hated them all, black and white alike. All conspiring to effect his downfall. All ready to give him one more hard knock. No help, no hope, anywhere. Just another Nigger!
At Fifty-ninth Street an altercation between two street-vendors arrested his attention. Their carts were drawn up one behind the other close to the kerb, and the great white horse attached to the inferior cart was placidly munching the bright crimson heads of the potted geraniums on the forward cart. The florist, an Italian, was screaming with rage, hurling unintelligible epithets at the little Jew who owned the white horse. The Jew laughed and made no effort to back his cart. Suddenly the Italian drew a long knife from his belt and plunged it to the hilt into the breast of the animal. The beast groaned sickishly and shuddered, but did not fall. The blood gushed out in a great red stream, like water from a hydrant. Blood! Blood! It flooded the pavement. The sheeny was screaming. A crowd collected. They were pounding the dago.
Byron stumbled on. The day, though bright with sunshine, was cold, the air brisk and stiffening, but Byron was so hot that he removed his overcoat. Blood! He thought he was going to vomit. Blood and cruelty.
He was in an impasse. He could think of no solution save to go back home and confess himself a failure and that in itself would be no solution. That meant that he had to begin all over again somewhere else in this heartless world of blacks, near whites, and whites. This world where they stabbed horses who were eating geraniums. Flinging himself on a Park bench, he buried his face in his hands.
He was awakened by a cry which his subconsciousness warned him was addressed to him. He looked up to stare at a halted automobile. In the open doorway eyes flashed under a sable toque and a gloved hand beckoned. He did not recognize what he could see of the face: the great collar of a sable coat protected the chin and caressed the cheek. Nevertheless, he responded to the summons.
You! he exclaimed.
Yes, Lasca replied. Jumpin. I'm chilled to the bone and I want to close the door.
He obeyed her. The chauffeur drove on.
What on earth are you doing in the Park at this hour in the morning? she demanded. Have you become a forester or a landscape gardener?
I must have been waiting for you! His spirits were rising. As he sank back into the grateful luxury of the soft cushions next to this lovely animal swathed in sables, she tucked the robe of leopardfur around his legs.
I've telephoned you several times, he announced.
I've been out of town, amusing myself until my apartment was ready. I can't stand too much of Sylvia; she gets on my nerves. Do you know her?
Not very well.
I'm about fed up with her. She whines. So I went to Atlantic City.
But your apartment?
Oh, that was all arranged while I was away. I merely told a decorator what I wanted, et voila! She made such a gesture with her hand as, on the stage, Jane Cowl would have made after such a phrase. He had seen the actress do this. With the grand manner in real life he was more unfamiliar.
Directly've done an errand, she went on, I'm going back there. Will you come with me?
Ask me!
Byron felt soothed, smoothed the right way, for the first time in weeks. Luxury, as a matter of fact always soothed him when he did not resent its implications. Somehow with Lasca he resented nothing. She was rich, amusing, soft to the touch, beautiful, sympathetic, fragrant with what he supposed to be the latest perfume from Paris.
When the motor stopped before a smart dressmaker's on Fifty-seventh Street, Lasca got out of the car and entered the shop. She returned in exactly ten minutes.
They've just received some new importations from Paris. I've found two gowns that will do.
But don't you have to try them on?
Oh, I'll do that at home. I can't be bothered taking my clothes off here. Nobody in that shop sufficiently interests me. Just a bunch of sissies!
You're wonderful! was all that it occurred to Byron to say.
She regarded him quizzically. Seems to me I've heard that before, somewhere, she remarked, and then, You're more cheerful now.
How did you know . . . ? he demanded in astonishment.
I ordered the car stopped a full thirty seconds before I called to you, and even so I had to call twice. You appeared to be extremely despondent, almost as if you had made up your mind to throw yourself into the lake.
I was despondent. I never thought of suicide before, but . . .
What's the trouble?
I've had a rotten deal all around. It's hell to be a Negro in this world.
She stared at him fixedly as if she were about to reply to this statement, but apparently she changed her mind. Presently she said, You dance well. I particularly remember your dancing.
So do you. I've thought of nothing else since. I've called you up . . .
So you told me. Let's dance together again. Ever go to the Winter Palace?
No. Can't afford it.
Never been to the Winter Palace! But, boy, you must come, you must come as my guest.
I'd love to.
Through her cloak, under the leopard-skin robe, he was conscious of her nearness. The physical vitality of the woman was electric.
What's become of that funny girl you were with the night I met you—Mary what's her name?
She's all right, I guess. I don't see her.
Snooty, little prig, I thought. Ugh! I detest the type. They've done nothing—always been protected and sheltered—and they're so damn superior.
This statement of the case exactly coincided with Byron's present opinion, but curiously he was annoyed to hear it from Lasca's lips.
She's all right, I guess. I don't see her, he repeated dully.
Let's forget about her, Lasca said, as she drew his hand into hers. She was staring squarely into his eyes and he observed, to his amazement, that her own lustrous eyes were wet with tears.
God, but you're wonderful! he cried, returning the pressure of her fingers.
She immediately withdrew her hand, at the same time shifting the position of her leg.
Atlantic City is lovely, she remarked in a cold, distant tone. I have so many friends there.
Do you like it as well as New York?
Oh, I don't care where I am, or, very often, with whom. I find what I want everywhere.
You're rich, Byron remarked, with a tinge of bitterness. It's easy for you.
I haven't always been rich, Byron, but I've always found what I wanted—even money.
You're luckier than most—than most Negroes anyway.
Negroes aren't any worse off than anybody else. They're better off, if anything. They have the same privileges that white women had before the bloody fools got the ballot. They're considered irresponsible like children and treated with a special fondness. Why, in Harlem one is allowed to do thousands of things that one would get arrested for downtown. Take the game of Numbers; everybody plays Numbers, and yet it is just a lottery and consequently against the law. . . . Of course, she continued, after a slight pause, I've never bothered very much about the fact that I'm coloured. It doesn't make any difference to me and I've never thought very much about it. I do just what I want to.
But how can you? What about discrimination? Segregation?
They just don't exist for me. I wouldn't tolerate such a thing. I live in New York exactly as I live in Paris. I do just what I want to and go where I please—to any theatre or hotel—and get what I'm after. You see, most Negroes are so touchy and nervous that they obey the unwritten im Crow laws—you must remember that any form of discrimination is quite illegal in New York—to escape getting hurt. Nobody can hurt me, and so, of course, nothing unpleasant ever happens to me.
Don't you ever get bored?
Unmercifully. Sometimes, I think I'd like to die, I get so bored. It's so tiresome to be uniformly successful. I get so fed up with life that I could scream, but something—well, something always happens to bring me back, a new thrill, a new dress, a new dog—something. I've never been bored long and I never will be. . . . She tapped on wood with her gloved hand. . . . I won't permit myself to be bored, she announced, almost sternly. It's a weakness, my only one, she muttered under her breath.
You're a wonderful woman! Byron apparently could muster up no alternative approbatory phrase.
So you've said, and you're quite right. I don't know any other who is quite so wonderful. Fortunately, she continued, there are wonderful men too.
She gave vent to a hearty laugh. Her mirth proved infectious. Without much knowing why, without much caring why, Byron yielded to her mood. This time, it was he who sought her hand.
He had never before seen a chamber so magnificent as Lasca's drawing-room. The walls, tinted an apple-green, were bare of pictures, save the representation of a nude woman in a silver frame which hung over the white marble fireplace. The French furniture was upholstered in rich brocades of lemon and old rose. Over the Steinway, a black Spanish shawl, embroidered in huge vermilion and orange flowers, was held in place by a rock-crystal lamp in the form of a Chinese goddess. Strewn on the tables, the desk, the mantelpiece, were more Chinese objects, birds, fish and animals, scent-bottles, carved out of ivory, jade, malachite, and moss-agate. On one of the tables stood a blue porcelain bowl filled with yellow roses, roses with so few petals that they resembled wild flowers. They had a strangely naïve air in this artificial environment. Transparent curtains of lemon yellow hung at the windows and sprawled on the jade-green carpet like the trains of ladies' dresses in 1896, and behind them, towards the light, depended further curtains of rose and deep-blue. Although the sun was shining brightly outside, only a soft light filtered through them into the room.
Byron completed his admiring appraisal by lifting the cover of a heavy, Russian cigarette box of silver, and extracting a cigarette. As he lighted a match, Lasca returned. The cigarette dropped from his nervous fingers. He stooped to recapture it.
That's right! Don't burn my carpet, she urged.
You're so beautiful!
She was wearing a dressing-gown of soft, filmy golden-brown chiffon, adorned with bands of ostrichfeather filaments which graduated in colour from a pale yellow near her throat to a fiery orange about her ankles. Her golden-brown arms were bare; her feet were shod in golden mules.
She was followed almost immediately by the maid, bearing a tray containing glasses and a silver bucket of ice in which two bottles were chilling.
Bring the table over here, Lasca commanded, sinking back into a divan banked with lemon and rose cushions.
Sit down, she invited Byron as she lighted a cigarette.
He obeyed her while the maid, lifting one of the bottles, tenderly wrapped a napkin around its belly, and coaxed the cork out. It emerged with a lusty pop to strike the crystal chandelier, causing a great jangling among the pendents.
Brava, Marie! Lasca laughed.
When the maid had departed, Lasca proposed a toast: To crime and punishment!
Crime and punishment?
Yes. Our crime and the punishment of the innocent. They should always be punished. It's so easy not to do anything. But the guilty! . . . Her eyes sparkled. . . . I'm for them!
They drank the toast.
You haven't kissed me yet, she remarked in a perfectly casual tone.
It seemed to Byron that his blood would burst from his arteries. Clasping her in his arms, hold ing her tightly pressed against his body, almost reclining now, he sought her lips.
After a little she pushed him gently away.
You kiss very well, she remarked.
Lasca! I adore you! I want you always!
I'm not going to leave you, she assured him, and now, for the first time he noted a strange, musical throbbing in her voice, and I'm not going to let you go. Didn't I tell you that I always get what I want.
But why do you want me? What can I give to you?
She poised his head between her palms and spoke in a voice raucous with passion: I want you to possess me, to own me. I want to be your slave, your Nigger, your own Nigger!
As Lasca drew her body a little apart from Byron, she inquired. Aren't you hungry?
I don't know. I'm much too happy to know. I love you!
He kissed her throat reverently; it was almost as if it were a ceremony.
So you'd better. You'll never find any one like me for love. I'll spoil all the others for you.
You have already. Oh, Lasca, I want you and nobody but you.
Well, you have me—now.
Promise me it will be for ever. Yes, yes, of course it will, she replied impatiently, as she pressed the button on her bed-table. She did not shift her position when the maid entered. While she ordered lunch Byron's head lay cushioned on her shoulder.
They reclined under a spread of grey and silver and rose Spanish brocade, with a deep flounce of silver Spanish lace. The room itself was delicate and fragile, all silver and grey silk and crystal pendents, with here and there a note of rose. The heavy curtains were drawn. The chamber was lighted by side lamps softened by rose shades.
Where do you live? Lasca demanded unexpectedly.
He told her.
I'll send Harry for your clothes.