Romance in Marseille

by Claude McKay

  The mention of Aslima was like a prick in La Fleur’s flesh. She was tortured by the memory of Lafala allowing Aslima to wrest him right out of her arms. “It’s because she’s a cheap slut,” cried La Fleur. “Everybody knows she’ll love for five francs. She’s acting up to Lafala as if she was loving him. I saw them at the picture the other night. They were a scream.”

  “Maybe Aslima’s really got the beguine2 for Lafala,” said the white girl, “for he’s one handsome black man.”

  “It’s because you don’t know Aslima,” said La Fleur. “When he was here the first time with his two sound feet, she didn’t love anything in him but the purse she snatched. And you think it’s any different now? He’s waiting for his money and she’s waiting too. Aslima is one wonderful actor.”

  “He looks better now than before,” said the white girl. “Then he was nobody, but now he’s somebody with good clothes and good money.”

  “Why don’t you try your luck?” asked La Fleur.

  “I’d like to stick an iron pole into that thing,” Lafala said to himself, “and set her up in the square for everybody to mock at her.”

  He went from the WC to the bar where Rock and Diup were standing with a group and he stood them drinks, telling them to have whatever they wanted with a swaggering gesture.

  “You’re the prince of Africa,” said Rock, caressing Lafala’s shoulder.

  “And you’re the clown of the Congo,” replied Lafala.

  “No pardner, Ise original American.”

  “What? You think you’re a redskin?” asked Lafala.

  “No, but Ise as good as them with some real red in mah skin. Don’t you know, pardner, when them redskins wouldn’t stand being good an’ native them ofays had to import us to implace them?”3

  The African boys laughed spaciously to the echo as if they were camping in the Sahara.

  “We all sold you to the Yankees so we could have more room in the jungles,” said Diup.

  “Monkey nuts!” replied Rock.

  The girl that had been defending Lafala spoke up: “Can’t you pay me a drink too?”

  “Have one,” said Lafala with a princely gesture.

  Lafala drew his chair towards her. He had taken the café by surprise. He had never been in such a spending mood before. Others clamored for a treat and soon all the old habitués were drinking at his expense.

  La Fleur looked quite discomfited and her girlfriend said loudly “Why, it seems we’re out of it!”

  “You can have a drink too, if you want,” said Lafala.

  “Oh, what we want you can’t afford!” said La Fleur quickly.

  “I can afford anything in this place,” said Lafala. “Money is no object to me.”

  “My faith! What style!” exclaimed La Fleur. “Well, give us champagne.”

  Lafala ordered champagne. All the proprietor had was Vin Mousseux4 which he always served as champagne.

  La Fleur looked proudly over the crowd, threw her head back and drained her glass at a draught.

  “I thought you’d treat Aslima only to champagne,” she said mockingly.

  “I am one independent cuss,” said Lafala. “I treat who I want to when I want to. Tonight I feel like treating you.”

  La Fleur laughed and shook her head vigorously. She extracted a tube and pad from her vanity bag and began fooling with her face. Her big bright eyes seemed more spiteful than ever as she stroked the lids. As soon as the champagne was finished she said she would like some more. Lafala ordered another bottle.

  La Fleur called to the little boy who always operated the pianola. “Here, pigling, put this coin in the piano and start it going.”

  La Fleur stood up castaneting her fingers5 and went to dance the beguine with her girlfriend. When she returned to her seat Lafala said, “No more dancing for me. Poor Pied-Coupé.”

  La Fleur felt a little embarrassed. “Don’t pity yourself. You’re alright. If you can’t dance you can do something else.”

  “Sure. Like paying for champagne. . . . Or—invite you to my hotel tonight.”

  La Fleur giggled happily. “The last time you were going to, you changed your mind for a cheaper party. I’m not changed any. Indeed I feel a little dearer after champagne.”

  “That’s all right. Don’t think about the price. Money is nothing to me.”

  La Fleur whispered to her girlfriend: “I think it’s going to be black tea tonight.”

  “Save the sugar for us,” her friend whispered back.

  “That goes without saying,” said La Fleur.

  Lafala was preparing to leave with La Fleur when the proprietor brought him the bill.

  “Chalk that up to my account,” Lafala said without looking at it.

  “It’s a big one,” said the proprietor.

  “You worried?” asked Lafala.

  “Never in my life, Grand Duke of Dakar.”

  “I’m not a Senegambian,” said Lafala.6

  “No difference. You’re just like one of them.”

  “One of us, you mean, Yaller.”

  And with a swagger as much as his feet would allow him Lafala departed followed by La Fleur who imitated his walking a little as she went, winking at her friends.

  They taxied to the hotel. Arriving, La Fleur threw her gaudy Spanish shawl on the back of a chair and went to the lavatory. When she went out Lafala quickly removed his corks and got into bed covering himself. He was sensitive about being seen without the artificial feet.

  La Fleur returned and looked around the comfortable room. She glided to the window, drew aside the curtain and looked out. Many cats were amusing themselves noisily on the roofs.

  “The cats are carrying on terribly on the roofs,” she said.

  “And the two-footed ones are just as bad under the roofs,” said Lafala.

  “It’s the same life everywhere,” La Fleur giggled.

  Lafala’s black head stood out conspicuously among the white bed things, his bright eyes following La Fleur’s movements. She was like a lizard, a tropical green lizard that is beautiful but cold among the hot colors and sensations of the tropics.

  She sat down in the easy chair and examined the artificial legs, thrusting her hands into them. And after a while she glanced speculatively at Lafala and smiled faintly.

  “Well, here we are, all set,” he said.

  “All set,” La Fleur repeated. But she showed no eagerness about undressing. She went over instead to the wardrobe mirror with her beauty pad and began dabbing her face.

  “Your color is alright,” said Lafala. “Undress and get into bed.”

  “I know my color is all right,” replied La Fleur, “but I don’t know if the color of your money is. I’d like to see it first right there on the night table.”

  “The money is alright,” Lafala said in an evasive tone.

  “Then where is it? I’ll feel better with it in my stocking than in your pocket.”

  “Well, I have no more than five francs on me now. You’ll get it Saturday when I draw money.”

  “Me wait three days! I’m not on the credit system. What the devil did you mean by bringing me here tonight?”

  “The barkeeper waits, you saw it yourself. And the hotel manager. Aslima—.”

  “Don’t mention the name of that no-count slut to me. You had your nerve bringing me here when you didn’t have enough money to pay.”

  “What’s the difference?” Lafala said indifferently. “My credit is good and everybody in Marseille is glad to give me credit.”

  “Except me. I am not everybody, you dirty black block of a swine,” said La Fleur viciously.

  “You don’t mean what you say, do you?”

  “I mean more and I’ll say more. Why did you bring me here when you hadn’t the money? Do you think I’d trust any man? If you don’t pay m
e after you’ve satisfied yourself, can I force you? Can I go to the police and say ‘This man loved me all night and refused to pay?’ You think I’m a fool, don’t you? Or perhaps you brought me here to play a trick on me.”

  Lafala grinned a little.

  “Don’t laugh at me, you miserable Pied-Coupé. You think I’m Aslima pretending to be in love with your withered stumps of legs, because you’ve got money? You look like a mess to me. You’re strutting like a monkey and crowing over everybody because you got money. But you can’t crow over me, Pied-Coupé, though you think you’re such a nice cock.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that in my own place. If I could stand on my feet I’d slap your messy mouth shut.”

  “Go love yourself or get somebody to. You got a block as good as mine.”

  And La Fleur continued to abuse Lafala. Loads and loads of filth falling from her orchid-like mouth and piling up a pyramid until Lafala felt as if he were buried under the stinking heap and could not crawl from under it, until he was sorry he had brought her there to revenge himself upon her.

  “Now I know what you really are,” he said. “Nothing but filth. A sewer full of filth. I wouldn’t want to touch you at any price. Get out of here, you dirty piece of tail.”

  “You give me the money to pay the taxi back home,” she said.

  “Not a damned cent. You can walk on all fours, bitch that you are.”

  “The idea of bringing me here to mess with me. I am not Aslima.”

  “Aslima is a thousand times better than you. I’d give any money for Aslima, but I wouldn’t give a cent for you. Aslima is rough but she isn’t WC. You’re nothing else.”

  “Don’t, don’t compare me with that Aslima,” cried La Fleur. “I don’t want to hear any more. You pay the taxi to take me back and I’ll go.”

  “Pay nothing, you rotten stinker. Get out! You’re nothing but a load of filth. I can’t stand the awful smell of you. Get out, I say!”

  “I won’t go unless you pay the taxi,” said La Fleur.

  She sat down, and began thinking. It was late. She did not want to walk all the way down to Quayside. And she had no money. She hated to go back to her Greek friend like that. Soured and empty-handed after she had left the Tout-va-Bien so triumphantly with Lafala. The champagne was having its effect and she felt a little drowsy. She was also piqued because Lafala had said he would not love her even for nothing and called her a load of filth. It would relieve her to make him eat his words.

  I’ll sleep with him for the night, she thought.

  She began undressing. “You shouldn’t have brought me here to play such a trick on me,” she said. “But I’ll sleep with you since I’m here and you can do anything you want with me.”

  Lafala did not reply. But La Fleur continued to undress until she had nothing left but her stockings and shoes. She minced to the bed and bent to caress Lafala but before she could achieve the gesture he shot his stump into her belly. Quickly he pressed the button by the bed and before La Fleur could gather her senses together the night man entered the room. Hastily La Fleur grabbed her shawl to cover herself.

  “Put that slut out!” Lafala said.

  The man hesitated. He knew La Fleur. He himself once had a girl at Quayside.

  “It’s alright. It’s nothing. I am going,” said La Fleur.

  She dressed hastily, the man standing by. As she was making for the door he saw her vanity bag on the window sill and arresting her with a gesture, he picked up the bag and handed it to her. La Fleur took it without meeting his eyes and ran down the stairs.

  * * *

  • • •

  Left alone, Lafala felt that he did not want to see another woman in his life. He felt sticky, slimy, sorry that he had invited La Fleur to his room for the sake of revenge.

  He had gone through some nasty things, but in all his experience he had never had such a filthy feeling. He made a resolve to keep away from Quayside. He turned out the light and tried to sleep, but sleep refused to be wooed. And very soon something stronger than his resolve began to assert itself. His body was aching for love. He thought of Aslima. There was a time when she was the only person in Marseille who stirred in him a feeling of hatred and revenge. Yet now he felt closer to her than anybody. How changing were the emotions!

  He got up and dressed, put his feet on and hobbled out of the hotel. He took a taxicab down to Quayside. The Tout-va-Bien, now closed, looked like a comfort station with an “Out of Order” sign up. Lafala went past it navigating the intricate arteries towards Aslima’s lair.

  Titin was there and, annoyed at being awakened at that hour, he opened the door in an unfriendly fashion to Lafala’s knock. But when he recognized Lafala he greeted him with a smile. Then he half-closed the door and turned to tell Aslima that Lafala was there.

  Aslima dressed quickly and joined Lafala outside. They strolled along to Number One Quay where there was a little open-all-night bar. There were not many clients. They sat off in a corner by themselves. Aslima asked Lafala why he had come to see her at that hour. He told her what had happened between him and La Fleur.

  “She’s finished down here now,” she said.

  “I don’t care about that. I feel rotten.”

  “Don’t feel rotten because of that La Fleur. It would have been fine if you had been in a fit state to throw her out naked into the street.”

  “Tigress!”

  “No. I’m just a chummy pig. Scratch me and see how I’ll lie down at your feet.”

  Lafala laughed. “I won’t do any such thing. Not here.”

  “Alright then. Pay up and let’s go where we can be scratching pigs.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Titin turned out of bed on the wrong side of life with a sore soul. Money had been getting scarcer and scarcer with him for too uncomfortably long a time. It appeared as if Aslima’s liaison with Lafala was incapacitating her as the hardiest hustler of Quayside. There was something gone wrong there. It was alright to work-and-wait on Lafala. He was entirely in agreement with that and always ready to give Aslima good advice. But there was no reason why that should change the good old way of Aslima’s life and deprive him of his regular daily bread and pocket money for apéritifs and the indispensable after-dinner cigar which was the protectors’ trademark at Quayside. And it was about time he should be getting a new suit. He had been feeling a little seedy of late among his comrades in arms. And now he was wondering—there was a possibility that Aslima might be betraying him with Lafala.

  Things had come to such a pass that he had not even money to pay for his meals and was eating on credit at the Pig’s Tail—a little clan restaurant on Number One Quay. Formerly he used to be accompanied by Aslima, but now she was taking most of her meals with Lafala.

  There was a subtle change in Aslima which did not escape him. However much she tried to be the same girl externally, she was a different person in their intimate relations. He did not feel in her body that desire and dependence upon him as a protector that had formerly been psychically communicated to him.

  Today he was having lunch with Aslima. They went together to the Pig’s Tail and removed from a nail their serviettes1 knotted together and covered with flies and flyshit. They ate in silence. They had had an ugly dispute and for a couple of days there was acute nervous tension between them.

  After lunch Titin went to a café where a group of his colleagues usually met to gamble. All he possessed was ten francs which he lost playing French poker. It was much the worse for his temper to sit there impotently hearing the clink and rustle of money and watching coins and notes piling up under the palms of his colleagues.

  Late in the afternoon when he looked in on their lair Aslima was getting ready for a rendezvous with Lafala. From outside he had heard her humming an African melody, reiterating the monotonously wistful notes, and that increased his irritation.

&nb
sp; “Where are you going?” he said.

  “Why, you know I’m going to see Lafala,” Aslima replied shortly.

  “It would be better you go and hustle some money elsewhere,” said Titin. “You’re wasting too much time with that guy.”

  “I’ve got to jolly him along. It’s the only way to do. I promised him I’d come tonight.”

  “But listen to me! I don’t think you’re playing the game right. You’re too easy. You ought to keep him guessing and worrying over you.”

  “If you think you know this game better than me,” said Aslima, “you’d better put on a skirt.”

  “Don’t you try to crap on me because of that Pied-Coupé, you snotty slut. You spend every evening with him and eat a swell meal and drink good liquor. And you don’t care a screw if I starve—if I can’t buy a drink.”

  “I’ll stop going then if you don’t want me to,” Aslima said in a cold metallic tone.

  “I didn’t say you should stop. But I don’t think you should be with him so often and not hustle on the side at all.”

  Aslima shrugged and again began humming the African melody.

  “You’re acting in such a way as to make me think you are in love with that damned stump,” said Titin.

  “Suppose I am,” Aslima laughed mockingly. “It isn’t impossible.”

  “Oh, it isn’t, eh? What would you do with it? Go and nurse him in the jungle? Guess it would be nice to go naked again. Just get rid of all your silk shifts and stockings and wear a banana leaf. Say goodbye to Quayside and all of us and be a good and naked squaw to Pied-Coupé in a hut in the bush!”

  “You dirty rat!” Aslima cried, “Lafala is a better man than you although he has no feet. Do you think I am afraid of the jungle? I’d rather go back there than live like a dog here.”

  “You would, eh?”

  “Yes I would and I’m going.” And Aslima flung herself out of the room.

  But instead of taking the way along the quay that led towards Lafala’s hotel, Aslima turned up an alley. The alley sloped up to a terrace which overlooked the beautiful bay. The terrace was shored up by a fine wall from which the main road dropped sheer down from a height of some fifty feet and ran for miles and miles along the waterfront.