Immediately they were seated, a waiter came to take their order.
“Three bottles of White Rock.” The waiter nodded, twirled his tray on the tip of his fingers and skated away.
Emma Lou watched the dancers, and noticed immediately that in all that insensate crowd of dancing couples there were only a few Negroes.
“My God, such music. Let’s dance, Arline,” and off they went, leaving Emma Lou sitting alone. Somehow or other she felt frightened. Most of the tables around her were deserted, their tops littered with liquid-filled glasses, and bottles of ginger ale and White Rock. There was no liquor in sight, yet Emma Lou was aware of pungent alcoholic odors. Then she noticed a heavy-jowled white man with a flashlight walking among the empty tables and looking beneath them. He didn’t seem to be finding anything. The music soon stopped. Arline and her brother returned to the table. He was feigning anxiety because he had not seen the type of character Arline claimed to be portraying, and loudly declared that he was disappointed.
“Why there ain’t nothing here but white people. Is it always like this?”
Emma Lou said that it was and turned to watch their waiter, who with two others had come dancing across the floor, holding aloft his tray, filled with bottles and glasses. Deftly, he maneuvered away from the other two and slid to their table, put down a bottle of White Rock and an ice-filled glass before each one, then, after flicking a stub check on to the table, rejoined his companions in a return trip across the dance floor.
Arline’s brother produced a hip flask, and before Emma Lou could demur mixed her a highball. She didn’t want to drink. She hadn’t drunk before, but....
“Here come the entertainers!” Emma Lou followed Arline’s turn of the head to see two women, one light-brown skin and slim, the other chocolate-colored and fat, walking to the center of the dance floor.
The orchestra played the introduction and vamp to “Muddy Waters.” The two entertainers swung their legs and arms in rhythmic unison, smiling broadly and rolling their eyes, first to the left and then to the right. Then they began to sing. Their voices were husky and strident, neither alto nor soprano. They muddled their words and seemed to impregnate the syncopated melody with physical content.
As they sang the chorus, they glided out among the tables, stopping at one, then at another, and another, singing all the time, their bodies undulating and provocative, occasionally giving just a promise of an obscene hip movement, while their arms waved and their fingers held tight to the dollar bills and silver coins placed in their palms by enthusiastic onlookers.
Emma Lou, all of her, watched and listened. As they approached her table, she sat as one mesmerized. Something in her seemed to be trying to give way. Her insides were stirred, and tingled. The two entertainers circled their table; Arline’s brother held out a dollar bill. The fat, chocolate-colored girl leaned over the table, her hand touched his, she exercised the muscles of her stomach, muttered a guttural “Thank you” in between notes and moved away, moaning “Muddy Waters,” rolling her eyes, shaking her hips.
Emma Lou had turned completely around in her chair, watching the progress of that wah-wahing, jello-like chocolate hulk, and her slim, light-brown-skin companion. Finally they completed their rounds of the tables and returned to the dance floor. Red and blue spotlights played upon their dissimilar figures, the orchestra increased the tempo and lessened the intensity of its playing. They swaying entertainers pulled up their dresses, exposing lace trimmed stepins and an island of flesh. Their stockings were rolled down below their knees, their stepins discreetly short and delicate. Finally, they ceased their swaying and began to dance. They shimmied and whirled, charlestoned and black-bottomed. Their terpsichorean ensemble was melodramatic and absurd. Their execution easy and emphatic. Emma Lou forgot herself. She gaped, giggled and applauded like the rest of the audience, and only as they let their legs separate, preparatory to doing one final split to the floor, did Emma Lou come to herself long enough to wonder if the fat one could achieve it without seriously endangering those ever tightening stepins.
“Dam’ good, I’ll say,” a slender white youth at the next table asseverated, as he lifted an amber-filled glass to his lips.
Arline sighed. Her brother had begun to razz her. Emma Lou blinked guiltily as the lights were turned up. She had been immersed in something disturbingly pleasant. Idiot, she berated herself, just because you’ve had one drink and seen your first cabaret entertainer, must your mind and body feel all aflame?
Arline’s brother was mixing another highball. All around, people were laughing. There was much more laughter than there was talk, much more gesticulating and ogling than the usual means of expression called for. Everything seemed unrestrained, abandoned. Yet, Emma Lou was conscious of a note of artificiality, the same as she felt when she watched Arline and her fellow performers cavorting on the stage in “Cabaret Gal.” This entire scene seemed staged, they were in a theater, only the proscenium arch had been obliterated. At last the audience and the actors were as one.
A call to order on the snare drum. A brutal sliding trumpet call on the trombone, a running minor scale by the clarinet and piano, and umpah, umpah by the bass horn, a combination four-measure moan and strum by the saxophone and banjo, then a melodic ensemble, and the orchestra was playing another dance tune. Masses of people jumbled up the three entrances to the dance square and with difficulty, singled out their mates and became closely allied partners. Inadvertently, Emma Lou looked at Arline’s brother. He blushed, and appeared uncomfortable. She realized immediately what was on his mind. He didn’t know whether or not to ask her to dance with him. The ethics of the case were complex. She was a Negro and hired maid. But was she a hired maid after hours, and in this environment? Emma Lou had difficulty in suppressing a smile, then she decided to end the suspense.
“Why don’t you two dance. No need of letting the music go to waste.”
Both Arline and her brother were obviously relieved, but as they got up Arline said, “Ain’t much fun cuddling up to your own brother when there’s music like this.” But off they went, leaving Emma Lou alone and disturbed. John ought to be here, slipped out before she remembered that she didn’t want John any more. Then she began to wish that John had introduced her to some more men. But he didn’t know the kind of men she was interested in knowing. He only knew men and boys like himself, porters and janitors and chauffeurs and bootblacks. Imagine her, a college-trained person, even if she hadn’t finished her senior year, being satisfied with the company of such unintelligent servitors. How had she stood John for so long with his constant defense, “I ain’t got much education, but I got mother wit.” Mother wit. Creation of the unlettered, satisfying illusion to the dumb, ludicrous prop to the mentally unfit. Yes, he had mother wit all right.
Emma Lou looked around and noticed at a nearby table three young colored men, all in tuxedos, gazing at her and talking. She averted her glance and turned to watch the dancers. She thought she heard a burst of ribald laughter from the young men at the table. Then some one touched her on the shoulder, and she looked up into a smiling oriental-like face, neither brown nor yellow in color, but warm and pleasing beneath the soft lights, and, because of the smile, showing a gleaming row of small, even teeth, set off by a solitary gold incisor. The voice was persuasive and apologetic, “Would you care to dance with me?” The music had stopped, but there was promise of an encore. Emma Lou was confused, her mind blankly chaotic. She was expected to push back her chair and get up. She did. And, without saying a word, allowed herself to be maneuvered to the dance floor.
In a moment they were swallowed up in the jazz whirlpool. Long strides were impossible. There were too many other legs striding for free motion in that overpopulated area. He held her close to him; the contours of her body fitting his. The two highballs had made her giddy. She seemed to be glowing inside. The soft lights and the music suggested abandon and intrigue. They said nothing to one another. She noticed that her partner’s face seemed a
live with some inner ecstasy. It must be the music, thought Emma Lou. Then she got a whiff of his liquor-laden breath.
After three encores, the clarinet shrilled out a combination of notes that seemed to say regretfully, “That’s all.” Brighter lights were switched on, and the milling couples merged into a struggling mass of individuals, laughing, talking, overanimated individuals, all trying to go in different directions, and getting a great deal of fun out of the resulting confusion. Emma Lou’s partner held tightly to her arm, and pushed her through the insensate crowd to her table. Then he muttered a polite “thank you” and turned away. Emma Lou sat down. Arline and her brother looked at her and laughed. “Got a dance, eh Louie?” Emma Lou wondered if Arline was being malicious, and for an answer she only nodded her head and smiled, hoping all the while that her smile was properly enigmatic.
Arline’s brother spoke up. “Whadda say we go. I’ve seen enough of this to know that Arline and her stage director are all wet.” Their waiter was called, the check was paid, and they were on their way out. In spite of herself, Emma Lou glanced back to the table where her dancing partner was sitting. To her confusion, she noticed that he and his two friends were staring at her. One of them said something and made a wry face. Then they all laughed, uproariously and cruelly.
Alva had overslept. Braxton, who had stayed out the entire night, came in about eight o’clock, and excitedly interrupted his drunken slumber.
“Ain’t you goin’ to work?”
“Work?” Alva was alarmed. “What time is it?”
“’Bout eight. Didn’t you set the clock?”
“Sure, I did.” Alva picked up the clock from the floor and examined the alarm dial. It had been set for ten o’clock instead of for six. He sulked for a moment, then attempted to shake off the impending mood of regretfulness and disgust for self.
“Ah, hell, what’s the dif’. Call ’em up and tell ’em I’m sick. There’s a nickel somewhere in that change on the dresser.” Braxton had taken off his tuxedo coat and vest.
“If you’re not goin’ to work ever, you might as well quit. I don’t see no sense in working two days and laying off three.”
“I’m goin’ to quit the damn job anyway. I been working steady now since last fall.”
“I thought it was about time you quit.” Braxton had stripped off his white full-dress shirt, put on his bathrobe, and started out of the room, to go downstairs to the telephone. Alva reached across the bed and pulled up the shade, blinked at the inpouring daylight and lay himself back down, one arm thrown across his forehead. He had slipped off into a state of semi-consciousness again when Braxton returned.
“The girl said she’d tell the boss. Asked who I was as usual.” He went into the alcove to finish undressing, and put on his pajamas. Alva looked up.
“You goin’ to bed?”
“Yes, don’t you think I want some sleep?”
“Thought you was goin’ to look for a job?”
“I was, but I hadn’t figured on staying out all night.”
“Always some damn excuse. Where’d you go?”
“Down to Flo’s.”
“Who in the hell is Flo?”
“That little yaller broad I picked up at the cabaret last night.”
“I thought she had a nigger with her.”
“She did, but I jived her along, so she ditched him, and gave me her address. I met her there later.”
Braxton was now ready to get into the bed. All this time he had been preparing himself in his usual bedtime manner. His face had been cold-creamed, his hair greased and covered by a silken stocking cap. This done, he climbed over Alva and lay on top of the covers. They were silent for a moment, then Braxton laughed softly to himself.
“Where’d you go last night?”
“Where’d I go?” Alva seemed surprised. “Why I came home, where’d ya think I went?” Braxton laughed again.
“Oh, I thought maybe you’d really made a date with that coal scuttle blond you danced with.”
“Ya musta thought it.”
“Well, ya seemed pretty sweet on her.”
“Whaddaya mean, sweet? Just because I danced with her once. I took pity on her, ’cause she looked so lonesome with those ofays. Wonder who they was?”
“Oh, she probably works for them. It’s good you danced with her. Nobody else would.”
“I didn’t see nothing wrong with her. She might have been a little dark.”
“Little dark is right, and you know when they comes blacker’n me, they ain’t got no go.” Braxton was a reddish brown aristocrat, with clear-cut features and curly hair. His paternal grandfather had been an Iroquois Indian.
Emma Lou was very lonesome. She still knew no one save John, two or three of the Negro actors who worked on the stage with Arline, and a West Indian woman who lived in the same apartment with her. Occasionally John met her when she left the theater at night and escorted her to her apartment door. He repeatedly importuned her to be nice to him once more. Her answer only was a sigh or a smile.
The West Indian woman was employed as a stenographer in the office of a Harlem political sheet. She was shy and retiring, and not much given to making friends with American Negroes. So many of them had snubbed and pained her when she was newly emigrant from her home in Barbados, that she lumped them all together, just as they seemed to do her people. She would not take under consideration that Emma Lou was new to Harlem, and not even aware of the prejudice American-born Harlemites nursed for foreign-born ones. She remembered too vividly how, on ringing the bell of a house where there had been a vacancy sign in the window, a little girl had come to the door, and, in answer to a voice in the back asking, “Who is it, Cora?” had replied, “monkey chaser wants to see the room you got to rent.” Jasmine Griffith was wary of all contact with American Negroes, for that had been only one of the many embittering incidents she had experienced.
Emma Lou liked Jasmine, but was conscious of the fact that she could never penetrate her stolid reserve. They often talked to one another when they met in the hallway, and sometimes they stopped in one another’s rooms, but there was never any talk of going places together, never any informal revelations or intimacies.
The Negro actors in “Cabaret Gal” all felt themselves superior to Emma Lou, and she in turn felt superior to them. She was just a maid. They were just common stage folk. Once she had had an inspiration. She had heard that “Cabaret Gal” was liable to run for two years or more on Broadway before road shows were sent out. Without saying anything to Arline she had approached the stage director and asked him, in all secrecy, what her chances were of getting into the cabaret ensemble. She knew they paid well, and she speculated that two or three years in “Cabaret Gal” might lay the foundations for a future stage career.
“What the hell would Arline do,” he laughed, “if she didn’t have you to change her complexion before every performance?”
Emma Lou had smiled away this bit of persiflage and had reiterated her request in such a way that there was no mistaking her seriousness.
Sensing this, the director changed his mood, and admitted that even then two of the girls were dropping out of “Cabaret Gal” to sail for Europe with another show, booked for a season on the continent. But he hastened to tell her, as he saw her eyes brighten with anticipation:
“Well, you see, we worked out a color scheme that would be a complement to Arline’s makeup. You’ve noticed, no doubt, that all the girls are about one color, and . . .”
Unable to stammer any more, he had hastened away, embarrassed.
Emma Lou hadn’t noticed that all the girls were one color. In fact, she was certain they were not. She hastened to stand in the stage wings among them between scenes and observe their skin coloring. Despite many layers of liquid powder she could see that they were not all one color, but that they were either mulatto or light-brown skin. Their makeup and the lights gave them an appearance of sameness. She noticed that there were several black men in the ensemble,
but that none of the women were dark. Then the breach between Emma Lou and the show people widened.
Emma Lou had another inspiration. She had decided to move. Perhaps if she were to live with a homey type of family they could introduce her to “the right sort of people.” She blamed her enforced isolation on the fact that she had made no worthwhile contacts. Mrs. Blake was a disagreeable remembrance. Since she came to think about it, Mrs. Blake had been distinctly patronizing like . . . like . . . her high school principal, or like Doris Garrett, the head of the only Negro sorority in the Southern California college she had attended. Doris Garrett had been very nice to all her colored schoolmates, but had seen to it that only those girls who were of a mulatto type were pledged for membership in the Green letter society of which she was the head.
Emma Lou reasoned that she couldn’t go on as she was, being alone and aching for congenial companionship. True, her job didn’t allow her much spare time. She had to be at Arline’s apartment at eleven every morning, but except on two matinee days, she was free from two until seven-thirty P.M., when she had to be at the theater, and by eleven-thirty every night, she was in Harlem. Then she had all day Sunday to herself. Arline paid her a good salary, and she made tips from the first and second leads in the show, who used her spare moments. She had been working for six weeks now, and had saved one hundred dollars. She practically lived on her tips. Her salary was twenty-five dollars per week. Dinner was the only meal she had to pay for, and Arline gave her many clothes.
The Blacker the Berry Page 8
