Romance in Marseille

by Claude McKay

  “But how is it La Fleur hasn’t a Titin?”

  “Because she’s different from most of us. She doesn’t go crazy over men. She hates men and goes with them only to make money. Her Titin is that Greek girl.”

  “Oh, that’s why she’s so haughty cold.”

  “She attracts lots of men,” said Aslima. “Because they think she’s got something hidden in her to give up, when she really has nothing at all. Nothing for men.”

  “While you have everything—but for Titin only,” Lafala laughed.

  “Let’s finish chatting and be loving pigs,” said Aslima.

  “I can’t be as piggish as in my able-bodied days,” said Lafala.

  “Pigskin!” Aslima exclaimed. “Forget about your feet now and thank God it wasn’t something worse that was cut off.”

  “Alright, piggy.”

  “I’ve been a pig all my life,” said Aslima. “But with you I don’t feel that it’s just a mud bath. I feel like we’re clean pigs.”

  * * *

  • • •

  In the morning Lafala again offered Aslima money, but she refused it.

  “Think what you want and do what you will but I don’t want your money.”

  “Look here, don’t hand me that stuff. I have money and I know you’ve got to love to make money. That’s your living. I want to be with you as long as I remain in Marseille so take the dough and don’t hand me a lot of crap.”

  “Listen,” said Aslima, “we’ll be happy pigs together as often as I am free. I want to convince you that I am human at bottom. That I really think more about your accident than about your money. And when you go away from here this time you will think differently of me from what you did the last time.”

  Now at last Lafala thought his revenge was perfect and complete. Such words coming out of the mouth of Aslima, the Tigress. When she robbed him and escaped that time of their first liaison he had had his thoughts of revenge. But after his illness and the amputation of his legs, lying there in the hospital, the idea of a little revenge had faded away before the contemplation of the enormous tragic joke of himself. Then when he received the compensation for damages all that remained in his mind of Aslima’s little joke was the desire to see her again and show himself, even though physically half a man, in spirit a stronger, new man.

  “Are you satisfied now, pig?” Aslima asked after a silence.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet with one person who is not out and out right after my money,” said Lafala in a suspicious accent.

  “I’m not better than the rest,” said Aslima quickly. “But I did play you a rotten trick once. And now I want to show you I have a heart.”

  “Look out! Titin will carve it up if you start fooling with it that way.”

  Aslima shrugged. . . . And then an idea entered Lafala’s brain. A mixture of mischief and humor and a desire to test Aslima. And he said, “Why don’t you quit Titin and come with me?”

  “Me!” exclaimed Aslima. “Where? Quit Titin to go where?”

  “Back to Africa with me for a change. Wouldn’t you like to go back? Think you could stand the life there again?”

  “Sure! See me quitting Quayside to go and be your Lalla14 in Africa. That’s very fine! What a chance! What happiness!”

  “I mean it.”

  “Now you’re trying to make a fool of me. Getting even, eh? Go on!”

  “No, I really mean it. I think it would be a good thing if you went back with me. I don’t like the idea of going alone.”

  Aslima spat a common love word: “Big pig! Now it’s your turn to take your revenge on me. See me quitting Quayside to go back with you to the bush to live on palm wine and cane juice, bananas and nuts.”

  “All of that,” Lafala laughed. “We’ll be happy wild pigs over there.”

  “The pork-eaters rooting in the bush might get us,” said Aslima.

  “No. We’ll hide deep down in the bushes and only come out when we’re dirty to swim every day in a warm, blue river.”

  “And what about the crocodiles?” asked Aslima with a pretty singing shriek.

  “We’ll climb high up on the banks when they open their traps. And we’ll go to sleep and dream that Quayside is Paradise.”

  “Well, I’m willing to take a chance if you don’t change your mind, big-money pig.”

  “And suppose I change my mind?”

  “I should worry. We’ll just treat it like a joke. One can go far on a joke and with money. Money will lead a woman to the devil and a man to hell.”

  “We’ll take it as a serious joke,” said Lafala.

  “I’m all excited now,” said Aslima, sitting down on the bed again with a tantalizing air.

  “Want to make a day of it too?” said Lafala.

  “Why not, big pig? It’s the life.”

  “Especially when one has money,” agreed Lafala, sitting down against her.

  “Oh, pig-pig-pig, piggy-pig,” Aslima chanted in an ecstatic fit. . . . “We are all pigs.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Aslima was a child of North Africa out of Marrakesh,1 that city of the plain where savagery emerging from the jungle meets civilization. Marrakesh, that amazing city that excites to wonder—a city like jewels of wild tropical extravagance set at the feet of majestic encircling snow-capped peaks.

  Aslima’s mother was a robust Sudanese who had been sold a slave to the Moors. Aslima was born a slave. She retained a shadowy remembrance of her mother, recalled running by her side clutching her voluminous skirt when she went upon errands. She held in the child’s chamber of her mind a picture of the Djemaa el-Fna,2 the great wild square of Marrakesh: the elegant white-robed-and-veiled women exhibiting the margin of their rich colored dresses, the dainty shuffle of their painted feet in bright embroidered slippers; the merchants and peddlers and purchasers haggling over a thousand odds and ends; the storytellers, the snake charmers and boy dancers clapping hands and chanting to the unceasing monotonous beat of the drum; the muezzin3 calling, the marabouts4 praying and the weird noisy rituals of religion-frenzied groups. . . .

  And one day she was separated from her mother, confused with many things in that strange place where child stealing is practiced and secret hawk-eyed slave dealers are ever looking out for little victims. . . .

  Next we find Aslima among the hetairai5 of Fez6 growing up a pretty little girl, a decorative thing in the house of a wise old courtesan.

  Aslima grew to girlhood in Moulay Abdallah,7 that alluring quarter of Fez full of strange antique interest where affairs of love are conducted in an atmosphere of almost otherworldliness.

  Aslima’s mistress had a nice house bright with Moorish rugs8 and curtained walls and gleaming bronze trays and candlesticks. And Aslima performed little tasks such as making a fire in an earthenware bowl, serving tea and running errands to the grocer’s. And she wore pretty clothes.

  Her mistress brought her up in a fine spirit of materialistic interest. The girl was worth a little prize and someday a nice little sum could be realized on her virgin beauty. Aslima’s first personal adventure was with a colored sub-officer from one of the French West Indies who, taking a liking to the girl, made a bargain with her mistress and paid a few hundred francs to take her away and live with him.

  The soldier took Aslima to Casablanca.9 And when after some months he went to Algeria, Aslima accompanied him. At the end of two years the soldier was transferred to a Far Eastern regiment. And he was obliged to leave Aslima. He gave her a sum of money.

  After the soldier’s departure Aslima carried on transient love affairs with native and white. And one day she was approached by a young Corsican.10 He was a tout who went to sea sometimes when business was slack. He obtained a passage to Marseille for Aslima. There he got her into a house of love and received money for her.

  It was Aslima’s first experience with a
protector. From one house of love she passed to others. She never remained very long in a loving house. For she was always having trouble with the management and with clients. They said she was a savage girl. She was vigorous, rough-tongued and reckless. And being quick-tempered and brown she was outstanding among the white girls in Quayside and soon became notorious as the Tigress.

  It was more congenial for her to have an independent lair in Quayside. No one would have recognized in the Tigress the little demure brown child of the house of love in Fez. Indeed there were moments when Aslima wondered herself if she were the same person.

  Her lair was a poor little affair but cleverly arranged to suggest the exotic. There was no bedstead. A small mattress in a corner with a gay coverlet. A water pitcher sat on the ground before the mattress and in the center of the lair was a bowl.

  The water pitcher was made in Spain and the bowl in France but nevertheless the atmosphere they created was effectively African. And many were the African and Oriental seamen who stopped to look in at the open door at the little savage curled up on the mattress regarding them with mischievous half-closed eyes.

  It was that pose and that atmosphere that had magnetized Lafala when he first arrived in Marseille.

  * * *

  • • •

  And now half-jokingly, half-seriously, Lafala had proposed to Aslima that she should return to his tribal Africa with him. And the idea had grown upon him. After so many years of drifting along European ports he was half-civilized in a Quayside way. And he rather dreaded returning home to his native bush alone.

  He had grown accustomed to a vagabond way of life and love. And it was hard for him to wrench himself away from that. But with Aslima companioning him the new life might be tolerable. He might be able to adjust himself to it more easily and happily. . . . And of all the ways of loving he had experienced, none had ever wrought such delicious havoc on his senses as Aslima’s.

  One evening Lafala treated Aslima to the cinema up in the respectable part of the town. It was a romantic sheik picture.11 Aslima and Lafala held each other’s hands following the quickly developing action. They were excited and looked like happy lovers.

  During the intermission Aslima leaned her head upon Lafala’s shoulder. When she looked up again she saw La Fleur staring at her from the opposite side. La Fleur’s Greek girlfriend was with her.

  Aslima became uneasy. She had no money. She was going to spend the night with Lafala and did not intend taking any money from him. She would have nothing to give Titin in the morning. And La Fleur might tell Titin about her being with Lafala and looking so happy.

  Aslima decided not to stay with Lafala that night and told him so. But Lafala was displeased: “Why, that’s why I took you to the picture, so we should feel sweeter pigs together.” Aslima went with him.

  Titin was waiting for Aslima when she returned to her lair behind Number One Quay the next morning. La Fleur had seen him at the Tout-va-Bien after the theater and told him mockingly that she had seen Aslima and Lafala at the cinema looking just like two innocent young lovers.

  “Where in hell were you last night?” Titin greeted her.

  “Try and guess.”

  “Won’t try a damn thing. I’m not kidding.”

  “But you know who I was with. Didn’t that La Fleur tell you?”

  “Yes. With Pied-Coupé.12 Give me that money.”

  “Ain’t got more than twenty francs.”

  “Twenty francs, you cheapest slut for all night. Show me a hundred francs or I’ll cut your throat.”

  Aslima laughed as Titin advanced on her menacingly.

  “What’s the matter with you acting the fool!” she exclaimed. “I’ll never get away with anything if you keep on interfering and listen to those covetous cats spying on me. That Fleur is just crazy jealous since I made her look anything but a queen that night in the Tout-va-Bien when she was right after Lafala for a hundred francs and I just cut in and took him away. . . . What is a hundred francs when a guy is rich? I am playing a deep game for a big stake.”

  “Explain yourself!” Titin commanded.

  Aslima hesitated. “Promise not to whisper a word to anybody,” she said. Titin promised. And Aslima told him that Lafala had asked her to go to Africa with him.

  Titin started. “Did he? That damned Pied-Coupé!”

  “Keep your shirt on,” said Aslima. “And who’re you kidding with that open knife, yourself or me?”13

  She told Titin that she had promised to go with Lafala. And for that reason she was not taking any money from him. In fact Lafala had very little money in his possession. He received money only from the official agent who was looking after his affairs. He was waiting in Marseille for the final settlement and payment. And she was waiting too and working herself into his confidence. She had to be very clever and sincere-like because of the first trick she had turned on Lafala. For this was not a matter of a few hundred francs but thousands . . . and as soon as Lafala got his, she meant to get hers.

  Titin was amazed at the plan. “Fine! Fine!” he said. “You’re a brick, a born whore. My God, you might get enough out of him for us to buy us a bar in Marseille.”

  That was the highest ambition of all the Quaysiders. To own a bar over and under which passed a thousand intrigues and upon which flourished the savage anarchy of Quayside.

  Titin believed in Aslima with a certain reservation—as much as his type of mind could believe in anybody. He knew all about the slick trick that Aslima had pulled on Lafala before he stowed away. That was before he became her protector. And it seemed like madness to him that Lafala should take up with Aslima again and have confidence in her. But no doubt Lafala was just like all the rest of the Quayside Negroes. They were just a band of savage children, flaring up like fire when they were badgered and angered and as quickly subsiding again, forgetting their injuries and those who inflicted them, thoughtless and changeable. They did not know how to organize revenge like the white Quaysiders.

  Titin discussed with Aslima the different plans they might use in mulcting14 Lafala. As they talked together and he warmed up to the idea of raiding Lafala and buying a bar he felt finer towards Aslima than he ever did. She became more important and desirable to him than ever. His blood mounted and he embraced her feeling like loving her. But Aslima said she was tired and found a way out of it.

  When Aslima saw Lafala again, she did not tell him what had passed between her and Titin. She had reasoned that Lafala who had grown as suspicious as a fox under the responsibility of money might become more so. Things were complicated enough already and among men as well as women the law of Quayside was “Never trust a woman.”

  And as for Titin, walking into the Tout-va-Bien one afternoon when it was full of clients, he bawled loudly at La Fleur, asking her if it were because business was so dull that she should spend her time spying on his woman. Ashamed and unable to stand the jeering faces of the habitués, La Fleur left the café without a retort.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Since the battle with Aslima over Lafala and her defeat and the public rebuke administered by Titin, La Fleur’s popularity was on the wane in Quayside. The Quaysiders were turning their interest to Aslima who had Lafala, the money man, in hand. And La Fleur felt very spiteful towards Lafala, considering him the cause of her setback.

  One week Marseille was all beflagged and gay with colors and music for its yearly festivities.1 Quayside had cleaned and polished its front for the event and the Quaysiders were all in contagious holiday mood. The square was fenced in and an orchestra installed on a stand. And the fishermen and dockers came with their sweethearts to dance and mingle with the girls let out of the houses of love with their lovers for the occasion.

  The sailors from the boats along Quayside turned out in full force and many of them were attracted to the sweethearts of the dockers and fishermen charming in their homely dress, some we
aring aprons. But those girls would not dance with them. And so they had to be contented with the girls out of the houses of love dolled up in the latest fashion.

  The Tout-va-Bien had its little flags out and the proprietor and his paramour were as busy as could be. Midweek of the festivities one evening during an intermission in the program on the square, many of the habitués crowded into the bar on the quay to drink.

  There were some Quayside girls in the bar who had not been dancing in the square. And they were not so very happy over the festivities, for it interfered with the routine of their lives. They were the café girls and the bars during the festive week were monopolized by honest working folk: docile dockers and fine fishermen with their sweethearts. The girls were elbowed aside and out. There was no room and no chance for them to pose and vamp. The men who wanted a little loving in a hurry went to the shuttered houses.

  Lafala had been wistfully watching the fun in the square remembering how he had danced himself sweating tired during the festive week that was held in Marseille before he stowed away. He had stood around so long that his corks began to hurt him and so he went around to the Tout-va-Bien to rest himself.

  The discontented girls were playing the pianola and dancing listlessly with their lovers. La Fleur was there with her Greek friend and another white girl. Lafala entered, greeted them cordially and hobbled to the WC. But he was followed by loud derisive laughter, started by La Fleur, in which the other girls joined.

  Lafala was nonplussed by the laughter which he felt was directed against him. Then he heard La Fleur’s high mocking voice shrieking “Pied-Coupé! Pied-Coupé! Watch him strutting!” He cracked the door of the WC a little ajar and saw La Fleur giving an exaggerated imitation of his walking. And the entire café was amused and laughing.

  Rock was there and did not appreciate La Fleur’s joke. And he said to her, “Him’s got a fortune foh them feet all the same. Theah’s other gals don’t mind them pieces a feet. Aslima likem.”