Passing Fancies (A Julia Kydd Novel)

by Marlowe Benn

  He glanced at the dusty clock on the wall above the door. Twelve minutes had elapsed. “I’m sorry for her. I am. But all along she let everyone know she didn’t need anything from us. She just started announcing that, oh, by the way, she was writing a novel—in her spare time, on top of being a big glamorous star at Carlotta’s, making more money in a week than I make in a month. Then she waltzed straight to Pablo, straight to his power and purse strings, to sell him exactly what he wants—his precious finger-snapping tell-all of low-down jigaboo life.”

  He turned to face Julia, forehead creased. “Why do you care?”

  Before she could answer, he began transferring the ordered books into one of the emptied baskets. He brushed Julia’s hands away. “Just please, please don’t tell me you fancy yourself one of those rich white lady patronesses. Another sweet little Miss Anne swooping in to rescue deserving Negroes.” He paused. “For one thing, Eva’s the last person who needs that kind of help. For another”—he glared at his feet—“I thought you had better sense.”

  Rich white lady patronesses? It took Julia a moment to figure out what he meant. Then it incensed her. When he lifted the basket, taking her silence for guilt, she gripped his wrist. “How can you possibly think I’m out to collect writers, like some pompous dowager?”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “She’s my friend and I want to help her. That’s all.”

  “That’s never all.” He gave a bitter smile. “There’s always something more when white folks say they want to help. Pablo wants to plant his flag smack in the center of all things Negro. Arthur Goldsmith wants profit and prestige. Austen Hurd hopes some of it comes Liveright’s way. Martin Wallace is real helpful, as long as he gets to be the big man calling the shots around here. What’s in this for you?”

  His accusation stung. When Philip had posed the question, it had been cautionary; Logan’s was suspicious. What was in it for her? It was an appalling question. She saw again Bernice being led away in a rage of tears as the others said nothing. In part that was what was in it for Julia—the need this time to not be one of those silent watchers. They could have stepped forward. Only they could have intervened. Would it matter less if it had also helped them sleep better that night?

  “I’m a publisher,” she said. “Not much of one yet, and not in it for profit like Goldsmith or Liveright, but all publishers need writers. Does that make me selfish and insincere? I thought we were friends, Logan, and not simply because I’d like to publish your poems someday.”

  Logan looked down. “Would I have a say in the matter?”

  Julia still clutched his wrist. Without thinking, she’d jerked it back and forth in her agitation. She dropped it and tucked her arm against her waist, mortified.

  “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I would, though—want to publish your work. You’re a promising New Negro poet.”

  “Poet. Just poet. No modifiers.”

  He was too modest. “That’s not what Pablo says.”

  “Pablo’s nothing but modifiers. New and Negro say it all for him.”

  “He means it as a distinction, something to be proud of.”

  “Does he? Tell my friends upstairs. You have no idea what it is to be a Negro, often the Negro, in a white world. It qualifies everything. I’m a Negro student, a Negro poet.”

  “You’re a Negro and a poet. Isn’t that the point? Negroes can be poets—and doctors and scientists and lawyers and such.”

  “Of course we can and are. But what do I know about Africa? Pablo thinks colored skin means you hear drumbeats in your blood. That you can’t help but hoof the Charleston while you’re cleaning your teeth. No matter what you do, it’s doing it as a Negro that interests him. Phi Beta Kappa with jazz in your belly—that’s Pablo’s perfect Negro.

  “Now he thinks he’s discovered us. It’s better than having doors slammed in our faces, but not much. Now editors want only our Negro poems and stories. Now the door slams if they’re not colored enough.”

  “Isn’t it good more editors want your work? That they want to publish your perspectives, your experiences? It’s recognition, Logan. Publication. I thought all writers jumped at that. I don’t understand.”

  “Because you’re white. You can be just you. But if an editor knows I’m colored and I send him a regular poem, about some regular thing like sunsets or daffodils or a Grecian urn, he turns it down and asks for something colored. He means something about last night’s rent party or my people’s struggle. Even platitudes of racial uplift will do. Especially those.” He watched the clock’s minute hand jump forward. “I want to be just me. All me. A poet. Full stop.”

  He took a sharp breath. “It’s the same for Jerome. Whatever he writes, it’s never colored enough. We have better luck with pseudonyms.” Logan’s cheeks puffed with the brittle joke. “He’s Jervis Carter, and I’m Leopold Lenox—just a plain old pair of buckras from Boise or Omaha or anywhere other than Harlem.” His humor faded. “He could really be something. He has a letter from T. S. Eliot saying his poem was very good. From Eliot.”

  Julia had once met the proud and proper Tom Eliot at a party in London. She could understand how he and Jerome would share literary tastes.

  “If I’m not a poet, I’m nothing,” Logan said. He raised a hand to stay her objections. “Forget the fancy education, the damn foreign languages. I’m colored, and that’s all anyone can see. We thought big changes were coming after the war and all. A new day, right? Yeah, well, what’s new is how fast the doors slam shut when we come knocking. Ballot box? Union hall? ‘Sorry, boy. You’re not eligible.’ There’s always another fee you can’t pay, another requirement you can’t meet, all of it perfectly legal. Those shiny new office buildings shooting up all over town? The ones looking for lawyers and accountants and brokers and all? ‘Not hiring today, boy. Try the custodial office. The kitchen might need help.’ ‘You think your money’s good enough to live in our neighborhood? We’ll burn your house down before letting you set foot in it.’ It goes on and on and on.”

  Julia swallowed. She traced a line of perspiration blooming along her scalp. Tears pricked her eyes, which Logan pretended not to notice. They weren’t tears of sympathy, though she felt that, but of shame. Shame at her own proud eagerness to embrace the modern new world, believing it bright with promise and possibilities. She’d thought that was what modern and new meant.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. She had known, vaguely, but thought those things were the backward remnants of the old world, the world that had died in the great slaughter. Wasn’t a new society meant to rise from the war’s rubble? That promise of a more wise and just future was the only thing that made memories of the war bearable.

  “So what’s left?” Logan said. “If Negroes want to show we contribute to this country too, on a par with whites, the only place left is Culture, with a big C. Art, music, theater, literature. For me it’s poetry. On the same level, just as good, period. Not good ‘for a Negro.’”

  “But you are on the same level. Those prizes prove it. Jerome’s letter from Eliot.”

  Logan thumped the table. “And look what the fool did with it. When someone like that says you’ve got talent, wouldn’t you leap at a fellowship to Chicago? That’s where Jerome should be, not hiding in some hellhole. Instead he follows Eva around like a lapdog. Her book’s shim-sham compared to his, and they both know it. But she waltzes to the bank while he sweeps floors for a snake. Just to hang around her.

  “If they get out of this thing alive, I’m afraid Eva will ditch him,” he said more quietly. “She’ll decide poetry is boring and breeze off to write more Hot Harlem hooey. It’s all about Eva. Now he’s going down with her ship. And for what?”

  The clock ticked. Dust sifted through the jaundiced light. Eva would never abandon Jerome. Wise or foolish, she’d stick by her man. Julia thought of that fateful manuscript page. If Eva hadn’t wanted to embellish her dedication to Jerome, Goldsmith would have the book now, Timson would be a
live, and Eva and Jerome would be strolling the sidewalks of Paris.

  “Where is she?” Julia said.

  Logan sucked his lips. “I told you. I have no idea.”

  Julia listened with every muscle, but she heard only truth. He didn’t know. Her one friend who knew these neighborhoods, Logan had been her last hope, and he didn’t know.

  That left dread. The sole remaining route to finding Eva was through the person Julia most feared, Jerome Crockett. He too had vanished. He too had powerful reasons to take Eva’s manuscript. Despite Eva’s denials and Logan’s regard, Julia saw violence beneath the man’s stony countenance. Give him a gun and time alone with Timson—Julia could almost hear the shot. Why else had he disappeared that morning? Chances were good he was hiding somewhere in a nearby warren of back alleys and back rooms. If anyone knew where Eva was, Jerome would. Possibly they were together.

  “Jerome, then. Do you know where he is?”

  She waited.

  “Logan?”

  He hoisted a basket of books onto his hip.

  “No one’s seen him since the murder,” she said. “He looks more guilty than Eva.”

  “Jerome is not a killer.”

  “The cops are looking for him. If I can talk to him, I may be able to help them both.”

  Logan shifted the heavy basket to his other hip. “He’s dead if they find him.”

  “Maybe not, if I reach him first.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Help him, Logan. Where is he?”

  “I got a note last week.”

  It was so low she could barely hear.

  “He’s holed up backstage over on Seventh Avenue. At a joint called the Half-Shell.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The entrance to the Half-Shell was a short flight of stairs down from the noisy pavement on Seventh Avenue. Smaller and more intimate than Carlotta’s, it was unremarkable in its plain decor. No paper-and-glue jungle vines, no white plantation pillars. The dim stage was barely large enough for seven or eight performers. A dozen or more round tables, each with four chairs, filled the dining room. A few musicians at the rear of the stage played a muted melody, making just enough noise to blur conversations.

  Julia led Philip and Jack to a table at the far side of the room, where the shadows suited her purposes. She’d have rather come alone, but an unaccompanied woman would attract too much attention. Philip had agreed, and Jack was content to spend an evening anywhere that promised his good friend’s company. The Half-Shell was a far cry from the pair’s usual haunts—recital halls, art galleries, theaters, followed by brandies in Philip’s library or at one of their clubs. But they’d accepted the outing without a murmur.

  Dispatching a waiter for glasses and soda, Philip produced his flask. At least they knew what they would be drinking. Whatever liquor the Half-Shell was likely to offer might be dubious. Julia was dismayed at the conventional look of the place and the tedious loop of music. Unless the place filled soon and a show began, the men would begin fidgeting for a speedy departure, and she would have to think quickly to disguise her intentions for the evening. She nursed her drink in exact proportion to Philip’s restlessness. She ought to have told him what she hoped to do here, but even Philip—not one to fuss without good reason—would make a powerful case against her plan. And he’d be right. It was foolhardy. Possibly futile, possibly even dangerous. Julia needed all her wits and courage to grapple with her own misgivings. Facing Philip’s too would defeat her for certain, and she had to do this. It was her only remaining idea.

  A familiar-sounding commotion at the entrance turned her head. Sure enough, Pablo Duveen stood in the open doors, his West Indian poet friend tucked like a child under his arm. Another pair of men tumbled in behind them, clinging together in an unsteady mix of affection and alcohol. Searching for a table, Duveen saw Julia. “Butter my asparagus! Look who’s here. Quelle surprise.”

  They descended with a clatter on the adjacent table. Duveen introduced his friends: Carl Sweeney—remember?—and Edwin and Jay, visiting from Miami. He pushed his chair close to Sweeney’s and yipped small bites at his ear. R-r-ruff, r-r-ruff.

  “Are we too boisterous, Miss Kydd?” Duveen leaned across the narrow space between the tables. “Boys, boys, boys, boys—these are boisterous times.”

  “You’re drunk, Pablo.”

  “I’ve been drunk since 1922. True, true, Cruel Sweet Pea?” He nuzzled Sweeney’s chin. “I’m obscenely happy tonight. I’m celebrating!”

  Julia’s hoisted eyebrow was inquiry enough.

  “Fortunes have shifted,” he exclaimed. “Harlem Angel flies again. We’re publishing a murderess! Even if she’s not.”

  “What?” Julia’s voice sailed on a gust of wild hope. “You’ve found her?”

  Duveen’s white head rolled backward, and he belched a laugh that might have danced plates in the kitchen. “No, no, no, no. Not Eva.”

  “You said Harlem Angel flies again. You have the manuscript?”

  Another blast of merriment. “Not flying, not yet.” He stretched his lips across his protruding teeth in an effort to smile mysteriously. With a trill of fingers he teased, “But a flutter of wings.”

  A clarinet’s high yowl extinguished the house lights. At the show’s first raucous notes, amid scraping chairs and hectic orders for fresh ice and soda, Julia bent toward Philip. “I’m off to the ladies’. I may be a while.” She tapped his sleeve—Enjoy the show—and hurried away.

  In the service hallway she twisted to smooth her skirt and look behind her. No one. She strode past the entrances to the toilets, past the telephone table, and past another closed, unmarked door. She squinted in the deep murk of a second corridor: unlit, drab, unfurnished. She edged forward, toward the low light and bustle that came from the opening at its far end. Backstage, she hoped.

  She slid along the shadowed wall until she could see. Bodies moved back and forth through the smoky haze. A couple of musicians strolled past, peeling off their jackets. Boxes, cartons, and odd chairs and other furniture were piled haphazardly, leaving no clear path for performers and stagehands. They moved in all directions like insects, sidestepping obstacles and each other.

  “Hey-ya, lady. You lost?” A boy sat smoking on a nearby crate, watching her. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

  “I’m looking for someone. Can you help me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is a man named Jerome Crockett here?”

  He shrugged, peering hard at her handbag.

  Of course. She drew out a quarter. The boy hopped up, stubbed out his cigarette, and laid it carefully in the center of the crate.

  “Jerome Crockett?” she asked again.

  His nose wrinkled. He wanted that quarter but shook his head.

  For heaven’s sake. Not ten hours ago Logan had said Crockett was here. He had to be somewhere in this backstage hive. And if she was lucky—please, God—so was Eva.

  She had an idea. “How about Jervis Carter?”

  His eyes sparked, fastened on the coin between her fingers.

  “Take me to him and it’s yours.”

  The boy dashed away.

  “Wait!” She mustered the closest thing to a run her shoes would allow. Their course churned up a colorful wake of expletives and catcalls, but no one tried to stop her. She glanced about as best she could, scouting for signs of places to hide. In the dim congestion, possibilities abounded—but not opportunities to explore.

  “There.” The child skated to a halt at the end of another unlit corridor. He pointed through an open doorway at a solitary figure bent over a newspaper spread across a table. She could see him only in silhouette, backlit by a yellow light from behind a brick chimney. It was hot. Some kind of laundry room, Julia thought, as the boy snatched the quarter and fled.

  She waited until the commotion swallowed the sound of his footsteps. Cautiously she retraced her steps, dipping into the shadows when someone passed nearby. There were jumbled crate
s and a few rusty racks holding costumes, but no other doors or even alcoves where someone could hunker unseen for more than a few hours. If Eva was sheltering in this building, it wasn’t here. Damn. Julia couldn’t simply poke around, not without raising suspicions. She needed some clue, some direction.

  Confronting Jerome was her only option. She had to return to that stifling laundry room. If she kept her distance, he couldn’t hurt her, at least not before she could get off a good scream. She crept back along the dark corridor to the door propped open by a rusty iron. The stooped man was still there. He didn’t notice her. She was only half-certain it was Jerome. His once-white undervest was wet with perspiration and stained from several soakings. He was thinner than she remembered. Brown trousers, rolled at the top, sagged from his waist. Barefoot and bent over as he was, she couldn’t gauge his height. This man could be anyone—anyone with reason to cower in a backstage oven.

  She had no choice. She gripped her handbag, metal clasp facing out, preparing to swing it with all her strength if he came at her. A dozen people were close enough to hear her scream. “Jerome?”

  The man turned. His eyes were veined with pink, and his stubbled cheeks seemed to sink into his face. He backed away, scrabbling across the table for something. One hand braced against the bricks behind him; in the other he wielded a dull pencil stub like a knife. “What the hell?”

  His voice was ragged, harsh and then cracking, as if he’d just woken from a deep sleep.

  But it was Jerome’s voice: low and wary.

  Julia edged into the doorway. The room was hot, the air congested and thick. “I’m Julia Kydd. Eva’s friend.”

  “Back off.” He waved the pencil stub. A colony of pimples swarmed across his neck and chest, beneath the filthy cotton vest plastered to his skin. When had he last bathed? This poet, this promising scholar with a letter from Eliot? Two weeks ago he’d carried his future high on confident shoulders, shoes shone to glass. If this squalor was now his shelter, how much more noxious was the place where Eva—the greater quarry—hid?