So Emma Lou began to think seriously of getting another room. She wanted more space and more air and more freedom from fish and cabbage smells. She had been in Harlem now for about fourteen weeks. Only fourteen weeks? The count stunned her. It seemed much longer. It was this rut she was in. Well, she would get out of it. Finding a room, a new room, would be the first step.
Emma Lou asked Jasmine how one went about it. Jasmine was noncommittal and said she didn’t know, but she had heard that The Amsterdam News, a Harlem Negro weekly, carried a large “Furnished rooms for rent” section. Emma Lou bought a copy of this paper, and, though attracted, did not stop to read the news columns under the streaming headlines to the effect “Headless Man Found In Trunk”; “Number Runner Given Sentence”; “Benefit Ball Huge Success”; but turned immediately to the advertising section.
There were many rooms advertised for rent, rooms of all sizes and for all prices, with all sorts of conveniences and inconveniences. Emma Lou was more bewildered than ever. Then, remembering that John had said that all the “dictys” lived between Seventh and Edgecombe Avenues on 136th, 137th, 138th, and 139th Streets, decided to check off the places in these streets. John had also told her that “dictys” lived in the imposing apartment houses on Edgecombe, Bradhurst, and St. Nicholas Avenues. “Dictys” were Harlem’s high-toned people, folk listed in the local social register, as it were. But Emma Lou did not care to live in another apartment building. She preferred, or thought she would prefer, living in a private house where there would be fewer people and more privacy.
The first place Emma Lou approached had a double room for two girls, two men, or a couple. They thought their advertisement had said as much. It hadn’t, but Emma Lou apologized, and left. The next three places were nice but exorbitant. Front rooms with two windows and a kitchenette, renting for twelve, fourteen, and sixteen dollars a week. Emma Lou had planned to spend not more than eight or nine dollars at the most. The next place smelled far worse than her present home. The room was smaller and the rent higher. Emma Lou began to lose hope, then rallying, had gone to the last place on her list from The Amsterdam News. The landlady was the spinster type, garrulous and friendly. She had a high forehead, keen intellectual eyes, and a sharp profile. The room she showed to Emma Lou was both spacious and clean, and she only asked eight dollars and fifty cents per week for it.
After showing her the room, the landlady had invited Emma Lou downstairs to her parlor. Emma Lou found a place to sit down on a damask-covered divan. There were many other seats in the room, but the landlady, Miss Carrington, as she had introduced herself, insisted upon sitting down beside her. They talked for about a half an hour, and in that time, being a successful “pumper,” Miss Carrington had learned the history of Emma Lou’s experiences in Harlem. Satisfied of her ground, she grew more familiar, placed her hand on Emma Lou’s knee, then finally put her arm around her waist. Emma Lou felt uncomfortable. This sudden and unexpected intimacy disturbed her. The room was close and hot. Damask coverings seemed to be everywhere. Damask coverings and dull red draperies and mauve walls.
“Don’t worry any more, dearie, I’ll take care of you from now on,” and she had tightened her arm around Emma Lou’s waist, who, feeling more uncomfortable than ever, looked at her wrist watch.
“I must be going.”
“Do you want the room?” There was a note of anxiety in her voice. “There are lots of nice girls living here. We call this the ‘Old Maid’s Home.’ We have parties among ourselves, and just have a grand time. Talk about fun! I know you’d be happy here.”
Emma Lou knew she would, too, and said as much. Then hastily, she gave Miss Carrington a three dollar deposit on the room, and left . . . to continue her search for a new place to live.
There were no more places on her Amsterdam News list, so noticing “Vacancy” signs in windows along the various streets, Emma Lou decided to walk along and blindly choose a house. None of the houses in 137th Street impressed her, they were all too cold-looking, and she was through with 136th Street. Miss Carrington lived there. She sauntered down the “L” trestled Eighth Avenue to 138th Street. Then she turned toward Seventh Avenue and strolled along slowly on the south side of the street. She chose the south side because she preferred the appearance of the red-brick houses there to the green-brick ones on the north side. After she had passed by three “Vacancy” signs, she decided to enter the very next house where such a sign was displayed.
Seeing one, she climbed the terraced stone stairs, rang the doorbell, and waited expectantly. There was a long pause. She rang the bell again, and just as she relieved her pressure, the door was opened by a bedizened yellow woman with sand-colored hair and deep-set corn-colored eyes. Emma Lou noted the incongruous thickness of her lips.
“How do you do. I . . . I . . . would like to see one of your rooms.”
The woman eyed Emma Lou curiously and looked as if she were about to snort. Then slowly she began to close the door in the astonished girl’s face. Emma Lou opened her mouth and tried to speak but the woman forestalled her, saying testily in broken English:
“We have nothing here.”
Persons of color didn’t associate with blacks in the Caribbean Island she had come from.
From then on Emma Lou intensified her suffering, mulling over and magnifying each malignant experience. They grew within her and were nourished by constant introspection and livid reminiscences. Again, she stood upon the platform in the auditorium of the Boise high school. Again that first moment of realization and its attendant strictures were disinterred and revivified. She was black, too black, there was no getting around it. Her mother had thought so, and had often wished that she had been a boy. Black boys can make a go of it, but black girls . . .
No one liked black anyway....
Wanted: light-colored girl to work as waitress in tearoom....
Wanted: Nurse girl, light-colored preferred (children are afraid of black folks)....
“I don’ haul no coal. . . .”
“It’s like this, Emma Lou, they don’t want no dark girls in their sorority. They ain’t pledged us, and we’re the only two they ain’t, and we’re both black.”
The ineluctability of raw experience! The muddy mirroring of life’s perplexities. . . . Seeing everything in terms of self. . . . The spreading sensitiveness of an adder’s sting.
“Mr. Brown has some one else in mind. . . .”
“We have nothing here. . . .”
She should have been a boy. A black boy could get along, but a black girl....
Arline was leaving the cast of “Cabaret Gal” for two weeks. Her mother had died in Chicago. The Negro Carmen must be played by an understudy, a real mulatto this time, who, lacking Arline’s poise and personality, nevertheless brought down the house because of the crude vividity of her performance. Emma Lou was asked to act as her maid while Arline was away. Indignantly she had taken the alternative of a two weeks’ vacation. Imagine her being maid for a Negro woman! It was unthinkable.
Left entirely to herself, she proceeded to make herself more miserable. Lying in bed late every morning, semi-conscious, body burning, mind disturbed by thoughts of sex. Never before had she experienced such physical longing. She often thought of John and at times was almost driven to slip him into her room once more. But John couldn’t satisfy her. She felt that she wanted something more than just the mere physical relationship with some one whose body and body coloring were distasteful to her.
When she did decide to get up, she would spend an hour before her dresser mirror, playing with her hair, parting it on the right side, then on the left, then in the middle, brushing it straight back, or else teasing it with the comb, inducing it to crackle with electric energy. Then she would cover it with a cap, pin a towel around her shoulders, and begin to experiment with her complexion.
She had decided to bleach her skin as much as possible. She had bought many creams and skin preparations, and had tried to remember the various bleaching aids s
he had heard of throughout her life. She remembered having heard her grandmother speak of that “old fool, Carrie Campbell,” who, already a fair mulatto, had wished to pass for white. To accomplish this she had taken arsenic wafers, which were guaranteed to increase the pallor of one’s skin.
Emma Lou had obtained some of these arsenic wafers and eaten them, but they had only served to give her pains in the pit of her stomach. Next she determined upon a peroxide solution in addition to something which was known as Black and White Ointment. After she had been using these for about a month she thought that she could notice some change. But in reality the only effects were an increase in blackheads, irritating rashes, and a burning skin.
Meanwhile she found her thoughts straying often to the chap she had danced with in the cabaret. She was certain he lived in Harlem, and she was determined to find him. She took it for granted that he would remember her. So day after day, she strolled up and down Seventh Avenue from 125th to 145th Street, then crossed to Lenox Avenue and traversed the same distance. He was her ideal. He looked like a college person. He dressed well. His skin was such a warm and different color, and she had been tantalized by the mysterious slant and deepness of his oriental-like eyes.
After walking the streets like this the first few days of her vacation, she became aware of the futility of her task. She saw many men on the street, many well-dressed, seemingly cultured, pleasingly colored men and boys. They seemed to congregate in certain places, and stand there all the day. She found herself wondering when and where they worked, and how they could afford to dress so well. She began to admire their well-formed bodies and gloried in the way their trousers fit their shapely limbs, and in the way they walked, bringing their heels down so firmly and so noisily on the pavement. Rubber heels were out of fashion. Hard heels with metal heel plates were the mode of the day. These corner loafers were so carefree, always smiling, eyes always bright. She loved to hear them laugh, and loved to watch them, when, without any seeming provocation, they would cut a few dance steps or do a jig. It seemed as if they either did this from sheer exuberance or else simply to relieve the monotony of standing still.
Of course, they noticed her as she passed and repassed day after day. She eyed them boldly enough, but she was still too self-conscious to broadcast an inviting look. She was too afraid of public ridicule or a mass mocking. Ofttimes men spoke to her, and tried to make advances, but they were never the kind she preferred. She didn’t like black men, and the others seemed to keep their distance.
One day, tired of walking, she went into a motion picture theater on the avenue. She had seen the feature picture before, but was too lethargic and too uninterested in other things to go some place else. In truth, there was no place else for her to go. So she sat in the darkened theater, squirming around in her seat, and began to wonder just how many thousands of Negroes there were in Harlem. This theater was practically full, even in mid-afternoon. The streets were crowded, other theaters were crowded, and then there must be many more at home and at work. Emma Lou wondered what the population of Negro Harlem was. She should have read that Harlem number of the Survey Graphic issued two or three years ago. But Harlem hadn’t interested her then for she had had no idea at the time that she would ever come to Harlem.
Some one sat down beside her. She was too occupied with herself to notice who the person was. The feature picture was over and a comedy was being flashed on the screen. Emma Lou found herself laughing, and, finding something on the screen to interest her, squared herself in her seat. Then she felt a pressure on one of her legs, the warm fleshy pressure of another leg. Her first impulse was to change her position. Perhaps she had touched the person next to her. Perhaps it was an accident. She moved her leg a little, but she still felt the pressure. Maybe it wasn’t an accident. Her heart beat fast, her limbs began to quiver. The leg which was pressed against hers had such a pleasant, warm, fleshy feeling. She stole a glance at the person who had sat down next to her. He smiled . . . an impudent boyish smile and pressed the leg harder.
“Funny cuss, that guy,” he was speaking to her.
Slap him in the face. Change your seat. Don’t be an idiot. He has a nice smile. Look at him again.
“Did you see him in ‘Long Pants’?”
He was leaning closer now, and Emma Lou took a note of a teakwood tan hand resting on her knee. She took another look at him, and saw that he had curly hair. He leaned toward her, and she leaned toward him. Their shoulders touched, his hand reached for hers and stole it from her lap. She wished that the theater wasn’t so dark. But if it hadn’t been so dark this couldn’t have happened. She wondered if his hair and eyes were brown or jet black.
The feature picture was being reeled off again. They were too busy talking to notice that. When it was half over, they left their seats together. Before they reached the street, Emma Lou handed him three dollars, and, leaving the theater, they went to an apartment house on 140th Street, off Lenox Avenue. Emma Lou waited downstairs in the dirty marble hallway where she was stifled by urinal smells and stared at by passing people, waited for about ten minutes, then, in answer to his call, climbed one flight of stairs, and was led into a well-furnished, though dark, apartment.
His name was Jasper Crane. He was from Virginia. Living in Harlem with his brother, so he said. He had only been in New York a month. Didn’t have a job yet. His brother wasn’t very nice to him . . . wanted to kick him out because he was jealous of him, thought his wife was more attentive than a sister-in-law should be. He asked Emma Lou to lend him five dollars. He said he wanted to buy a job. She did. And when he left her, he kissed her passionately and promised to meet her on the next day and to telephone her within an hour.
But he didn’t telephone nor did Emma Lou ever see him again. Then she went to the motion picture theater where they had met, and sat in the same seat in the same row so that he could find her. She sat there through two shows, then came back on the next day, and on the next. Meanwhile several other men approached her, a panting fat Jew, whom she reported to the usher, a hunchback whom she pitied and then admired as he “made” the girl sitting on the other side of him; and there were several not very clean, trampy-looking men, but no Jasper.
He had asked her if she ever went to the Renaissance Casino, a public hall, where dances were held every night, so Emma Lou decided to go there on a Saturday, hoping to see him. She drew twenty-five dollars from the bank in order to buy a new dress, a very fine elaborate dress, which she got from a “hot” man, who had been recommended to her by Jasmine. “Hot” men sold supposedly stolen goods, thus enabling Harlem folk to dress well but cheaply. Then she spent the entire afternoon and evening preparing herself for the night, had her hair washed and marcelled, and her fingernails manicured.
Before putting on her dress she stood in front of her mirror for over an hour, fixing her face, drenching it with a peroxide solution, plastering it with a mudpack, massaging it with a bleaching ointment, and then, as a final touch, using much vanishing cream and powder. She even ate an arsenic wafer. The only visible effect of all this on her complexion was to give it an ugly purple tinge, but Emma Lou was certain that it made her skin look less dark.
She hailed a taxi and went to the Renaissance Casino. She did feel foolish, going there without an escort, but the doorman didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps it was all right. Perhaps it was customary for Harlem girls to go about unaccompanied. She checked her wraps and wandered along the promenade that bordered the dance floor. It was early yet, just ten-thirty, and only a few couples were dancing. She found a chair, and tried to look as if she were waiting for some one. The orchestra stopped playing, people crowded past her. She liked the dance hall, liked its draped walls and ceilings, its harmonic color design and soft lights.
The music began again. She didn’t see Jasper. A spindly legged yellow boy, awkward and bashful, asked her to dance with him. She did. The boy danced badly, but dancing with him was better than sitting there alone, looking foolish. She did
wish that he would assume a more upright position and stop scrunching his shoulders. It seemed as if he were trying to bend both their backs to the breaking point. As they danced they talked about the music. He asked her did she have an escort. She said yes, and hurried to the ladies’ room when the dance was over.
She didn’t particularly like the looks of the crowd. It was well-behaved enough, but . . . well . . . one could see that they didn’t belong to the cultured classes. They weren’t the right sort of people. Maybe nice people didn’t come here. Jasper hadn’t been so nice. She wished she could see him, wouldn’t she give him a piece of her mind?—And for the first time she really sensed the baseness of the trick he had played on her.
She walked out of the ladies’ room and found herself again on the promenade. For a moment she stood there, watching the dancers. The floor was more crowded now, the dancers more numerous and gay. She watched them swirl and glide around the dance floor, and an intense longing for Jasper or John or any one welled up within her. It was terrible to be so alone, terrible to stand here and see other girls contentedly curled up in men’s arms. She had been foolish to come; Jasper probably never came here. In truth he was no doubt far away from New York by now. What sense was there in her being here. She wasn’t going to stay. She was going home, but before starting toward the check room, she took one more glance at the dancers and saw her cabaret dancing partner.
He was dancing with a slender brown-skin girl, his smile as ecstatic and intense as before. Emma Lou noted the pleasing lines of his body encased in a form-fitting blue suit. Why didn’t he look her way?
“May I have this dance?” A well-modulated deep voice. A slender stripling, arrayed in brown, with a dark brown face. He had dimples. They danced. Emma Lou was having difficulty in keeping track of Alva. He seemed to be consciously striving to elude her. He seemed to be deliberately darting in among clusters of couples, where he would remain hidden for some time, only to reappear far ahead or behind her.
The Blacker the Berry Page 9
