The Stone Face

by William Gardner Smith

  Simeon felt extremely uncomfortable. He said, “This man was with a girl and, I don’t know, I suppose I interfered when I shouldn’t have. A fight started, that’s all.”

  The man who had fought Simeon said, “Sergeant, can I talk? Can I explain something?”

  The sergeant frowned and looked at his papers. “Go ahead,” he said indifferently.

  “Sergeant, I was holding the girl to keep her from running. Her name is Thera. I know her, I knew this man wasn’t her fiancé because she was my girl. She come to my room several times, I took her to bars, spent money on her, she was my girl. But listen, Sergeant, I work hard for my money, you know how it is with us here, I work not for me, you understand; I send it to my family in Algeria.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “All right. Last Friday I take this girl to my room on payday, when I haven’t mailed my money to my family yet. And when I wake up in the morning the girl is gone and my pay is gone! Sergeant, you know what it’s like for my family in Algeria without money I send them for one month? I got three kids, I got wife, mother, all kinds of sisters and cousins, they live from money I send them every month. And this bitch walks off with my month’s pay! So tonight, when I’m walking down the street, I see her. She wants to run, I hold her against a wall, and I say, ‘Look here, you filthy bitch, where’s my money! I want my money!’ She cries, saying she’ll bring me the money some other time, but I don’t want to let her out of my sight. Then this guy comes and butts in where it ain’t his business and tells a lie that he’s her fiancé. This make me mad. Voilà.”

  “That’s all you got to say?”

  “But, Sergeant, you realize what it’s like in Algeria, with no pay for a whole month? You realize?”

  The sergeant said, “Listen. Moi, I don’t feel any pity for you. If you are telling the truth it serves you right for taking that girl home with you. You got no right to molest tourists in this country, you should have stayed in Algeria where you belong.” He turned to the police. “Lock him up. And the others, too. A night in jail will do them good.”

  A policeman said, “The American too?”

  “No, not Monsieur.”

  Simeon looked at the Algerians with a plea for forgiveness. They did not return his glance.

  He protested to the sergeant, “But I’m not lodging charges. I didn’t know his pay was stolen. They shouldn’t be locked up, everything was my fault.”

  The sergeant frowned. “Listen, are you telling us how to run our own country?”

  “No . . .”

  “Okay. Get out of here.”

  A policeman led Simeon to the entrance. Simeon looked back at the Algerians, who were being pushed roughly through a door in the rear. The policeman put his arm on Simeon’s shoulder and said, “You don’t understand. You don’t know how they are, les Arabs. Always stealing, fighting, cutting people, killing. They’re a plague; you’re a foreigner, you wouldn’t know. A night in jail is letting them off easy.”

  Simeon wandered through the streets before going home at dawn. Maria had not come, but now he was glad to be alone. He lay awake a long time.

  3

  Just a few months ago in Philadelphia Simeon had left the newspaper office late, and Charlotte, one of the young reporters, said: “Would you mind going with me to the subway? I don’t like walking alone at night.”

  Some people stared as they passed. Charlotte did not notice this. She was new to the paper and was telling Simeon how exciting she found reporting. Simeon could not help resenting her, as he resented all white friends so secure in their own world as to be blind to the countless storm warnings so acutely detected by the Negro. Charlotte could not see the hatred and threats in the eyes that saw him with her. “It’s what I always dreamed of being,” she said. “Maybe it comes from the romantic notions about reporting you get from the movies.” She had an infectious laugh and was likable, but Simeon was irritated that she was enjoying life so fully in the nation that made life so difficult for him.

  “Thanks,” she said when they got to the subway. “Do you have a minute? Let me buy you a drink.” Simeon nodded and they went into a bar. Charlotte continued: “But what I really like is feature writing. I’m doing some free-lance stuff. Maybe you’ll read it for me one of these days.”

  There was a group of white sailors at a table in the bar. They were looking at Simeon and Charlotte and whispering among themselves. Their eyes were not friendly. “Sure,” Simeon said. “Although I haven’t done much magazine work myself. The main thing for magazines is to write anecdotes. Fill your article with a lot of anecdotes, nothing but anecdotes.” A couple of the sailors stood up and moved in the direction of the door behind Simeon. “Yes, anecdotes,” Charlotte said. “A magazine article is like a string of beads: each bead is an anecdote, and the string is the connecting idea.” As they passed, one of the sailors suddenly whirled and hit Simeon on the jaw with all his strength. Charlotte screamed. The other sailors rushed forward, cursing and swinging at Simeon. Rage burned with the pain in Simeon’s head, and as he looked at the nearest sailor, the hallucination returned: It was the stone face! It was Chris-Mike. He leaped free of the sailors and drew the pistol he always carried now. He looked at them, at their suddenly frightened faces, smiled, and pulled the trigger.

  The gun jammed. The sailors, the barman, and all the customers stared at him in amazement. “Let’s get out of here,” Charlotte whispered. She ran to the door while Simeon, the gun pointed toward the sailors, backed swiftly out of the bar.

  On the street he ran as he had never run before. He jumped onto a moving bus. He could hardly breathe. He was so weak that he almost collapsed, and his hand trembled violently as he paid. The conductor stared at him curiously, and Simeon got off the bus before his stop. He walked down a small dark street, took the pistol from his pocket, wiped it carefully with his handkerchief and tossed it into a sewer. He stood in the street a moment, shaking. I almost committed a murder.

  In bed that night he forced himself to be calm. But the face—of Mike, of Chris, of the sailor—would not leave his mind. “You’re going off your rocker,” he told himself. Murder in a bar, then the electric chair, what a ridiculous way to end life! To die for a cause, that would be one thing. But in a barroom brawl!

  He told himself slowly and lucidly: I’m going to kill a man someday. In a moment of anger, humiliation, an instant of illusion, of hallucination. No! Not that waste, not kill himself through his own irrational act!

  He would go away, leave America. Go where? Anywhere. Europe, for example. France.

  Simeon slept fitfully, aware of the Paris street sounds. At four in the afternoon he got up and went to a bar. He ordered a beer, then another. He did not feel like eating, and started to wander aimlessly along the Boulevard St. Germain. He was passing near the Metro Odéon when he heard a voice shout in thickly accented English: “Hey! How does it feel to be a white man?”

  Simeon knew somehow that the words were for him and, turning, saw four Algerians sitting at a table of the Odéon Café. Confused and humble, Simeon walked over to them.

  “Sit down,” one man said, studying Simeon with a bitter mocking smile. Two of the other men stared at Simeon with open hostility while the fourth, who looked younger than the rest, looked at him with curiosity, even sympathy. “What’re you drinking?”

  “Coffee,” Simeon answered.

  The man who spoke English ordered the coffee, then turned to Simeon. “Well? How does it feel?”

  Simeon shrugged. “I didn’t realize.”

  The man leaned toward Simeon and said angrily, “You didn’t realize! Listen, I was with the Free French during the war. Got a decoration. For a time, I was with the Navy and I went to the States. Where you from?”

  “Philadelphia.”

  “Yeah, I been to Philadelphia. Baltimore, too. New York. Went with the Free French, I believed the stuff t
hey were saying during the war, you know; that afterward the world would be different, it was a war for democracy, we were all fighting for democracy and freedom. Big words. Stupid, huh? Nice, the States. I saw how they treated people like you there, black people. Went to neighborhoods where Negroes lived, had Negro friends. Fine how they treated black people, huh? What was the word they used? Niggers. That’s what they called you, ain’t it? Niggers! Yeah, I saw. And guess what—in the States, they considered me and people like me white! But I wasn’t fooled, I went to the black neighborhoods anyway.”

  He chuckled, then went on. “Well, how do you feel now? Feel fine, huh? Over here in the France, land of the free. Far away from the stuff back in the States, huh? Can go anyplace, do anything. That’s great. I remember how it was back there. If a white man fought a black man, the black man was guilty, the white man was innocent. Just like that. I remember. How does it feel to have the roles reversed, eh? How does it feel to be the white man for a change?”

  Simeon shook his head, wanting to get up and walk away, but the Algerian was relentless: “We’re the niggers here! Know what the French call us—bicot, melon, raton, nor’af. That means nigger in French. Ain’t you scared we might rob you? Ain’t you appalled by our unpressed clothes, our body odor? No, but seriously, I want to ask you a serious question—would you let your daughter marry one of us?”

  The torrent of words was suddenly stopped by the man’s harsh laughter. Then he said wearily: “It’s okay. You didn’t know, maybe. It’s okay. But think next time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t let there be no next time.”

  “There won’t be any next time.”

  “Okay. Take off. Take off. We don’t want you with us. Take off.”

  “Let’s . . . have a drink.”

  “No, no, take off.”

  He hesitated, but they had slammed the door in his face. He stood up. “See you around,” he said.

  As he walked off, the Algerian shouted: “You hear? No next time, white man!”

  V

  1

  SIMEON dreamed he sailed the ocean, crossed the sea to visit the Folks, Them Folks and Our Folks, and parents of soft harsh distant caresses. Native land. Once there he was broke, he did not have enough money to return to Paris.

  “It’s wonderful,” his mother said, “you’ll be with us longer. And if you work hard, in a few years you’ll save enough money to make a trip back to France.”

  He doubled up like a fetus on the floor and wailed as though his heart would explode, while his three brothers and two sisters and his cousins and aunts and uncles patted him on the shoulder and said, “You can go see Frances, your old girlfriend. She hasn’t married yet, maybe she’ll have you.” He wailed like a baby, like Arab music.

  Words, spoken by an old, old man with beard: “Son, wherever racism exists, wherever oppression exists, anybody who lives complacently in its shadow is guilty and damned forever!”

  Wailed, until the doctors came and carried him away to the police station. Chris smiled, brushing a speck from his uniform. “Them French are dirty,” he said soothingly. “Besides, they’re nigger-lovers. Ain’t you glad to be back among us?” The eye socket screamed as acid flowed.

  He tossed and turned, between sleep and consciousness. His father said, “Ain’ no son of mine supposed . . .”

  What was his father like? Warm summer evenings when morale was good, his father was a tall broad man with black skin and narrow eyes and a jagged scar on his cheek. Silent and fierce. “Tell us what it was like, Papa.” Stories of the old days, how it was. How he revolted with the slaves, revolted with Denmark Vesey and Gabriel and Nat Turner, fought them Crackers, saw the blood flow, saw his brothers fall, but fought all the same. Ain’ gonna let no white folks hold us down! Lynchings. Riots. They had to form the Ku Klux Klan to hold us down, son. Had to hide their faces behind masks, had to come sneaking in the night, armed with guns, while we was there naked with our bare hands, son. Still couldn’t hold us down, son. Nobody can’t hold us down.

  “Tell us how it was, Papa.” Cold winter nights when morale was low, Papa was a small man with soft, hurting eyes. Reed bending in the wind. Ole darky with bowed head, smiling white teeth and red gums, humiliated, smiling despite the humiliation, in order to survive. How was it, Papa? Singing songs to ole Massa, singing songs to put ole Massa to sleep. Waiting and watching. To survive.

  “Sons,” the old man said, leaning back from his throat-burning drink and looking with old eyes toward the ceiling, “I was riding a bus in the South, riding a Jim Crow bus, and I was young then, and I was proud. And there wasn’t no seats in the colored section, so I stood at the borderline between the colored section and the white section, and a white man come in and took the seat in the white section next to where I was standing. He looked at me. His eyes was tired and there was blood in them. He looked at me and said, ‘Nigger, what you doing standing here in the white section?’ I said, ‘Sir, I’m not standing in the white section, I’m standing on the borderline.’ ‘Move back a step,’ the white man said, and I did. Now, the man’s eyes was tired, and there was blood in them. He looked at me and I saw the blood and the tiredness, and I saw the pain and the fright, and he saw me looking and he reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Nigger,’ he said, ‘open this pack of cigarettes for me.’ He held the cigarettes up toward me. The bus was quiet; everybody was looking to see if I’d open the cigarettes. I looked at the cigarettes and I didn’t move. I was young, then, and I was proud, and I decided it was time to die. The man’s face got red. ‘Nigger, you hear a white man telling you to do something? Open them cigarettes!’ I didn’t move. I saw the white folks and the colored folks looking, waiting. Through the mirror, I saw the bus driver grin and slip his hand back to touch the handle of his pistol, waiting.

  “Now, there was an old, old colored woman with proud eyes and proud head sitting on the seat just in front of me. She looked at me with a smile, and said softly, ‘Son, open the man’s cigarettes for him. Go ’head,’ she coaxed gently. I was mad, but I did what she said. The white man grinned. ‘That’s a good nigger.’ The white folks on the bus looked peculiar, the bus driver sort of frowned. The old lady looked at me and patted my hand and winked, and suddenly I knew. The colored folks on the bus had their jaws set and their eyes were mad; they were mad again, but they looked at me and smiled and winked. They knew. That ole Jim Crow bus drove on.”

  When his mother worked as maid for white people on Chestnut Street, she used to sleep in and come home only on Tuesdays, her day off. Simeon always looked forward to that day. One Tuesday she didn’t come home. He tried to be brave but he couldn’t help it and cried. Papa said, “Ain’ no son of mine supposed to cry.” But Papa was sad, too. She came home on Wednesday instead, and explained: “See, Tuesday was voting day. And Mrs. Delaney (that was the rich white woman she worked for), Mrs. Delaney, she asked me, ‘Sarah, you gonna vote?’ ‘Yes ma’am,’ I said. ‘Who you gonna vote for, Sarah?’ And I said, ‘Why, I’m gonna vote for Mister Roosevelt, Mrs. Delaney, he done done a lot for my people.’ Mrs. Delaney looked real mad. She said, ‘Well, tell you what, Sarah, me and Mr. Delaney, we don’t like Roosevelt, and we don’t want him to have no votes, so you won’t vote today. You’ll work, you hear me, you won’t have no time to go to the polls and commit no foolishness. Shouldn’ta give the vote to colored anyway!’”

  Simeon listened, amazed. He listened, eyes big and round, astonished. Then he swore on his honor: “Mama, when I’m big, I’m gonna change things, I’m gonna have a lot of money and I’m gonna change things so you won’t never have to take orders from no white people no more. You hear?”

  “Hello, white man,” his brother said, driving a pick into the soil. All of his brothers were there.

  He, Simeon, was dressed in a tuxedo, wearing a bow tie and a red carnation in his lapel. The brothers were in rags, smelling
of stale sweat. All of them were blind, their pupils rolled back into their heads, only the whites of their eyes showing. Motionless, blind, yet they all seemed to see him.

  He saw his own face, that of a pale zombie, in the mirror. He had two eyes again. The brothers swung picks, working the soil, sweating, breathing hard.

  One of his brothers was tied with a hangman’s rope to a tree in their yard. A tiger circled the brother. The brother watched in horrified fascination. The tiger bared its fangs and hissed and leaped. The brother cried to Simeon: “Die with me!”

  2

  One day at the Touron, Simeon asked Raoul and Henri, two French students he knew: “Is there racism in France?”

  Raoul said quickly, “Of course not. The French don’t believe in racist theories; everybody knows that. Africans feel perfectly at home here. The French don’t understand racism. Why do you ask?”

  “What about Arabs?”

  Raoul hesitated, frowning. Then his smooth voice said, “That’s different. The French don’t like the Arabs, but it’s not racism. The Arabs don’t like us either. We’re different.”

  “It’s a difference with you on top and them on the bottom.”

  “That’s a historical accident.”

  “It’s always a historical accident in the beginning. Why do you say you’re different?”

  Raoul waved his hands helplessly. “They’re a closed people. You can’t really get to know them. They scowl when you laugh; you never know what they’re thinking. And if you turn your back, they’re liable to stick a knife in it.”

  “I’ve heard that kind of argument before.”

  “It’s different. I assure you it’s not racism.”

  Henri shook his head. “Cut it out, Raoul. That’s nonsense. The French are racists as far as the Algerians are concerned, no doubt about it.”