The Blacker the Berry

by Wallace Thurman

  “Don’t you worry about Emma Lou. She’s got sense.”

  “But, Joe, suppose she does forget herself with this man? He is studying to be a doctor and he may not want a wife, especially when. . . .”

  “Damnit, Jane!” her brother snapped at her. “Do you think every one is like you? The boy seems to like her.”

  “Men like any one they can use, but you know as well as I that no professional man is going to marry a woman as dark as Emma Lou.”

  “Men marry any one they love, just as you and I did.”

  “But I was foolish.”

  “Well?”

  “That’s right—Be unconcerned. That’s right—Let her go to the devil. There’s no hope for her anyway. Oh—why—why did I marry Jim Morgan?” and she had gone into the usual crying fit which inevitably followed this self-put question.

  Then, without any warning, as if to put an end to all problems, Weldon decided to become a Pullman porter. He explained to Emma Lou that he could make more money on the railroad than he could as a hotel waiter in Boise. It was necessary for his future that he make as much money as possible in as short a time as possible. Emma Lou saw the logic of this and agreed that it was the best possible scheme, until she realized that it meant his going away from Boise, perhaps forever. Oakland, California, was to be his headquarters, and he, being a new man, would not have a regular run, It was possible that he might be sent to different sections of the country each and every time he made a trip. There was no way of his knowing before he reported for duty just where he might be sent. It might be Boise or Palm Beach or Albany or New Orleans. One never knew. That was the life of the road, and one had to accept it in order to make money.

  It made Emma Lou shiver to hear him talk so dispassionately about the matter. There didn’t seem to be the least note of regret in his voice, the least suggestion that he hated to leave her or that he would miss her, and, for the first time since the night of their physical union, Emma Lou began to realize that perhaps after all he did not feel toward her as she did toward him. He couldn’t possibly love her as much as she loved him, and, at the same time, remain so unconcerned about having to part from her. There was something radically wrong here, something conclusive and unexpected which was going to hurt her, going to plunge her back into unhappiness once more. Then she realized that not once had he ever spoken of marriage or even hinted that their relationship would continue indefinitely. He had said that he loved her, he had treated her kindly, and had seemed as thrilled as she over their physical contacts. But now it seemed that since he was no longer going to be near her, no longer going to need her body, he had forgotten that he loved her. It was then that all the old preachments of her mother and grandmother were resurrected and began to swirl through her mind. Hadn’t she been warned that men don’t marry black girls? Hadn’t she been told that they would only use her for their sexual convenience? That was the case with Weldon! He had taken up with her only because he was a stranger in the town and lonesome for a companion, and she, like a damn fool had submitted herself to him! And now that he was about to better his condition, about to go some place where he would have a wider circle of acquaintances, she was to be discarded and forgotten.

  Thus Emma Lou reasoned to herself and grew bitter. It never occurred to her that the matter of her color had never once entered the mind of Weldon. Not once did she consider that he was acting toward her as he would have acted toward any girl under similar circumstances, whether her face had been white, yellow, brown, or black. Emma Lou did not understand that Weldon was just a selfish normal man and not a color-prejudiced one, at least not while he was resident in a community where the girls were few, and there were none of his college friends about to tease him for liking “dark meat.” She did not know that for over a year he had been traveling about from town to town, always seeking a place where money was more plentiful and more easily saved, and that in every town he had managed to find a girl, or girls, who made it possible for him to continue his grind without being totally deprived of pleasurable moments. To Emma Lou there could only be one reason for his not having loved her as she had loved him. She was a black girl and no professional man could afford to present such a wife in the best society. It was the tragic feature of her life once more asserting itself. There could be no happiness in life for any woman whose face was as black as hers.

  Believing this more intensely than ever before Emma Lou yet felt that she must manage in some way to escape both home and school. That she must find happiness somewhere else. The idea her Uncle Joe had given her about the provinciality of people in small towns re-entered her mind. After all Los Angeles, too, was a small-town mentally, peopled by mentally small southern Negroes. It was no better than Boise. She was now determined to go East where life was more cosmopolitan and people were more civilized. To this end she begged her mother and uncle to send her East to school.

  “Can’t you ever be satisfied?”

  “Now Jane,” Joe as usual was trying to keep the peace—

  “Now Jane, nothing! I never saw such an ungrateful child.”

  “I’m not ungrateful. I’m just unhappy. I don’t like that school. I don’t want to go there any more.”

  “Well, you’ll either go there or else stay home.” Thus Jane ended the discussion and could not be persuaded to re-open it.

  And rather than remain home Emma Lou returned to Los Angeles and spent another long, miserable, uneventful year in the University of Southern California, drawing more and more within herself and becoming more and more bitter. When vacation time came again she got herself a job as a maid in a theater, rather than return home, and studied stenography during her spare hours. School began again and Emma Lou re-entered with more determination than ever to escape should the chance present itself. It did, and once more Emma Lou fled into an unknown town to escape the haunting chimera of intra-racial color prejudice.

  Part 2

  Harlem

  Emma Lou turned her face away from the wall, and quizzically squinted her dark, pea-like eyes at the recently closed door. Then, sitting upright, she strained her ears, trying to hear the familiar squeak of the impudent floor boards, as John tiptoed down the narrow hallway toward the outside door. Finally, after she had heard the closing click of the double-barreled police lock, she climbed out of the bed, picked up a brush from the bureau, and attempted to smooth the sensuous disorder of her hair. She had just recently had it bobbed, boyishly bobbed, because she thought this style narrowed and enhanced the fulsome lines of her facial features. She was always trying to emphasize those things about her that seemed, somehow, to atone for her despised darkness, and she never faced the mirror without speculating upon how good-looking she might have been had she not been so black.

  Mechanically, she continued the brushing of her hair, stopping every once in a while to give it an affectionate caress. She was intensely in love with her hair, in love with its electric vibrancy and its unruly buoyance. Yet, this morning, she was irritated because it seemed so determined to remain disordered, so determined to remain a stubborn and unnecessary reminder of the night before. Why, she wondered, should one’s physical properties always insist upon appearing awry after a night of stolen or forbidden pleasure? But not being anxious to find an answer, she dismissed the question from her mind, put on a stocking-cap, and jumped back into the bed.

  She began to think about John, poor John who felt so hurt because she had told him that he could not spend any more days or nights with her. She wondered if she should pity him, for she was certain that he would miss the nights more than he would the days. Yet, she must not be too harsh in her conclusions, for, after all, there had only been two nights, which, she smiled to herself, was a pretty good record for a newcomer to Harlem. She had been in New York now for five weeks, and it seemed like, well, just a few days. Five weeks—thirty-five days and thirty-five nights, and of these nights John had had two. And now he sulked because she would not promise him another; because she had, in
fact, boldly told him that there could be no more between them. Mischievously, she wished now that she could have seen the expression on his face, when, after seeming moments of mutual ecstasy, she had made this cold, manifesto-like announcement. But the room had been dark, and so was John. Ugh!

  She had only written home twice. This, of course, seemed quite all right to her. She was not concerned about any one there except her Uncle Joe, and she reasoned that since he was preparing to marry again, he would be far too busy to think much about her. All that worried her was the pitiful spectacle of her mother, her uncle, and her cousin trying to make up lies to tell inquiring friends. Well, she would write today, that is, if she did not start to work, and she must get up at eight o’clock—was the alarm set?—and hie herself to an employment agency. She had only thirty-five dollars left in the bank, and, unless it was replenished, she might have to rescind her avowals to John in order to get her room rent paid.

  She must go to sleep for another hour, for she wished to look “pert” when she applied for a job, especially the kind of job she wanted, and she must get the kind of job she wanted in order to show those people in Boise and Los Angeles that she had been perfectly justified in leaving school, home, and all, to come to New York. They all wondered why she had come. So did she, now that she was here. But at the moment of leaving she would have gone any place to escape having to remain in that hateful Southern California college, or having to face the more dreaded alternative of returning home. Home? It had never been a home.

  It did seem strange, this being Harlem when only a few weeks before she had been over three thousand miles away. Time and distance—strange things, immutable, yet conquerable. But was time conquerable? Hadn’t she read or heard somewhere that all things were subject to time, even God? Yet, once she was there and now she was here. But even at that she hadn’t conquered time. What was that line in Cullen’s verse, “I run, but Time’s abreast with me”? She had only traversed space and defied distance. This suggested a more banal, if a less arduous thought tangent. She had defied more than distance, she had defied parental restraint—still there hadn’t been much of that—friendly concern—there had been still less of that, and malicious, meddlesome gossip, of which there had been plenty. And she still found herself unable to understand why two sets of people in two entirely different communities should seemingly become almost hysterically excited because she, a woman of twenty-one, with three years’ college training and ample sophistication in the ways of sex and self-support, had decided to take a job as an actress’ maid in order to get to New York. They had never seemed interested in her before.

  Now she wondered why had she been so painfully anxious to come to New York. She had given as a consoling reason to inquisitive friends and relatives, school. But she knew too well that she had no intentions of ever re-entering school. She had had enough of that school in Los Angeles, and her experiences there, more than anything else, had caused this foolhardy hegira to Harlem. She had been desperately driven to escape, and had she not escaped in this manner she might have done something else much more mad.

  Emma Lou closed her eyes once more, and tried to sublimate her mental reverie into a sleep-inducing lullaby. Most of all, she wanted to sleep. One had to look “pert” when one sought a job, and she wondered if eight o’clock would find her looking any more “pert” than she did at this present moment. What had caused her to urge John to spend what she knew would be his last night with her when she was determined to be at her best the following morning! O, what the hell was the use? She was going to sleep.

  The alarm had not yet rung, but Emma Lou was awakened gradually by the sizzling and smell of fried and warmed-over breakfast, by the raucous early morning wranglings and window to window greetings, and by the almost constant squeak of those impudent hall floor boards as the various people in her apartment raced one another to the kitchen or to the bathroom or to the front door. How could Harlem be so happily busy, so alive and merry at eight o’clock. Eight o’clock? The alarm rang. Emma Lou scuttled out of the bed and put on her clothes.

  An hour later, looking as “pert” as possible, she entered the first employment agency she came to on 135th Street, between Lenox and Seventh Avenues. It was her first visit to such an establishment and she was particularly eager to experience this phase of a working girl’s life. Her first four weeks in Harlem had convinced her that jobs were easy to find, for she had noticed that there were three or four employment agencies to every block in business Harlem. Assuring herself in this way that she would experience little difficulty in obtaining a permanent and tasty position, Emma Lou had abruptly informed Mazelle Lindsay that she was leaving her employ.

  “But, child,” her employer had objected, “I feel responsible for you. Your—your mother! Don’t be preposterous. How can you remain in New York alone?”

  Emma Lou had smiled, asked for her money once more, closed her ears to all protest, bid the chagrined woman good-bye, and joyously loafed for a week.

  Now, with only thirty-five dollars left in the bank, she thought that she had best find a job—find a job and then finish seeing New York. Of course she had seen much already. She had seen John—and he—oh, damn John, she wanted a job.

  “What can I do for you?” the harassed woman at the desk was trying to be polite.

  “I—I want a job.” R-r-ring. The telephone insistently petitioned for attention, giving Emma Lou a moment of respite, while the machine-like woman wearily shouted monosyllabic answers into the instrument, and, at the same time, tried to hush the many loud-mouthed men and women in the room, all, it seemed, trying to out-talk one another. While waiting, Emma Lou surveyed her fellow job-seekers. Seedy lot, was her verdict. Perhaps I should have gone to a more high-toned place. Well, this will do for the moment.

  “What kinda job d’ye want?”

  “I prefer,” Emma Lou had rehearsed these lines for a week, “a stenographic position in some colored business or professional office.”

  “’Ny experience?”

  “No, but I took two courses in business college, during school vacations. I have a certificate of competency.”

  “’Ny reference?”

  “No New York ones.”

  “Where’d ya work before?”

  “I—I just came to the city.”

  “Where’d ya come . . . ?” R-r-ring. That telephone mercifully reiterated its insistent blare, and, for a moment, kept that pesky woman from droning out more insulting queries.

  “Now,” she had finished again, “where’d ya come from?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “Ummm. What other kind of work would ya take?”

  “Anything congenial.”

  “Waal, what is that, dishwashing, day work, nurse girl?”

  Didn’t this damn woman know what congenial meant? And why should a Jewish woman be in charge of a Negro employment agency in Harlem?

  “Waal, girlie, others waiting.”

  “I’ll consider anything you may have on hand, if stenographic work is not available.”

  “Wanta work part-time?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Awright. Sit down. I’ll call you in a moment.”

  “What can I do for you, young man?” Emma Lou was dismissed.

  She looked for a place to sit down, and, finding none, walked across the narrow room to the window, hoping to get a breath of fresh air, and at the same time an advantageous position from which to watch the drama of some one else playing the role of a job-seeker.

  “R-r-ring.”

  “Whadda want? Wait a minute. Oh, Sadie.”

  A heavy-set, dark-brown-skinned woman, with full, flopping breasts, and extra-wide buttocks, squirmed off a too narrow chair, and bashfully wobbled up to the desk.

  “Wanta’ go to a place on West End Avenue? Part-time cleaning, fifty cents an hour, nine rooms, yeah? All right? Hello, gotta girl on the way. ’Bye. Two and a half, Sadie. Here’s the address. Run along now, don’t idle.”
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  R-r-ring. “’Lo, yes. What? Come down to the office. I can’t sell jobs over the wire.”

  Emma Lou began to see the humor in this sordid situation, began to see something extremely comic in all these plaintive, pitiful-appearing colored folk, some greasy, some neat, some fat, some slim, some brown, some black (why was there only one mulatto in this crowd?), boys and men, girls and women, all single-filing up to the desk, laconically answering laconic questions, impertinently put, showing thanks or sorrow or indifference, as their cases warranted, paying off promptly, or else seeking credit, the while the Jewish overseer of the dirty, dingy office asserted and re-asserted her superiority.

  Some one on the outside pushed hard on the warped door. Protestingly it came open, and the small stuffy room was filled with the odor and presence of a stout, black lady dressed in a greasy gingham housedress, still damp in the front from splashing dishwater. On her head was a tight turban, too round for the rather long outlines of her head. Beneath this turban could be seen short and wiry stands of recently straightened hair. And her face! Emma Lou sought to observe it more closely, sought to fathom how so much grease could gather on one woman’s face. But her head reeled. The room was vile with noise and heat and body-smells, and this woman—

  “Hy, Rosie, yer late. Got a job for ya.”

  The greasy-faced black woman grinned broadly, licked her pork chop lips, and, with a flourish, sat down in an empty chair beside the desk. Emma Lou stumbled over three pairs of number ten shoes, pulled open the door, and fled into the street.

  She walked hurriedly for about twenty-five yards, then slowed down and tried to collect her wits. Telephone bells echoed in her ears. Sour smells infested her nostrils. She looked up and discovered that she had paused in front of two garbage cans, waiting on the curbstone for the scavenger’s truck.