Romance in Marseille

by Claude McKay

  “Oh, it’s Lafala!” said St. Dominique. “He was scared, I remember. He thought he being followed, but I didn’t take it seriously. Perhaps . . . perhaps . . . but I don’t know.”

  St. Dominique told them that Lafala had left him and his friend in the Big Square, and that was the last he had seen or heard of him.

  “Nobody here’s going to believe that tale. I think you’re a liar,” said the proprietor. The mulatto felt convinced that St. Dominique was a scoundrel. He had referred to St. Dominique as a poor mischievous blackbird who instead of finding an honest job was an agitator against Government and Society. Such people were not to be trusted. And he had warned the little robbers and cut-throats of the Tout-va-Bien against St. Dominique whom he called a dangerous type.

  “You call me a liar?” said St. Dominique.

  “Yes, you’re lying. You’re a liar!” shrieked Aslima. “You just made that up. You were the last person with Lafala and you must know what’s happened to him.”

  Babel pushed his way up to St. Dominique and growled in his face: “Come on you proper-speaking strutter an’ jest tell us where Lafala is or I’ll whip the trute outa you.”

  By now the entire café was worked up and shouting against St. Dominique. And although he was not a fighter of any skill he was determined to stand his ground.

  “Look here,” he said, “I’m not going to stand all this from a set of swine like you all.”

  “Call us swine again and I’ll break you’ face, you yaller bastard!” Babel cried. “I dare you open you stinking mouth again, you cat-eater.”

  St. Dominique felt that he was in for a fight, perhaps a good beating, and that his work would be ruined at Quayside. The seamen had always been respectful to him despite the hostility of the proprietor. But at that moment a white Quaysider known as Big Blonde barged in.

  “What you all have against this man. It’s not fair. He’s a good friend to all the colored fellows.”

  The appearance of Big Blonde turned Babel aside from his purpose. Big Blonde had been one of his best friends before he stowed away from Marseille and Babel was so happy to see him. He slapped his shoulder and they embraced.

  “They say he’s a double-crosser,” Babel said looking at St. Dominique.

  “Traitor hell! Does he look like a traitor to you? All this crazy talk about Lafala is just so much crap. The police will soon find out where he is—if the rats of Quayside didn’t drag him into some hole.”

  The proprietor of the bar looked meanly at Big Blonde out of his lizard’s eyes. He had wanted so badly that Babel should beat up St. Dominique. He never got into a fight himself. But he would stand quietly by and watch a quarrel, even quietly abetting it until the antagonists got to blows. Then he would step in and call the police to arrest the one he didn’t like. The police would always take his word and arrest the one he indicated. He was sorry to miss getting St. Dominique and thus putting a stop, maybe, to his activities among the seamen in Quayside.

  He did not like Big Blonde either. Twice he had had the police put him out of the Tout-va-Bien. For Big Blonde had nothing in common with the real Quaysiders who had a kind of sacred regard for the proprietors of Quayside and their establishments.

  Big Blonde was like a hero straight out of Joseph Conrad, an outstanding enigma of Quayside.1 A big, firm-footed, broad-shouldered man, splendidly built but with the haunting eyes of a lost child. He worked on the docks, a happy worker, active like a madman reckless with his strength, making it hard for his fellow workers to keep up the pace. But he had no interest in the workers’ unions and in spite of his natural roughness there was a singular and foreign air of refinement about him.

  It was gossiped that he had once held a respectable position in the merchant service, but he never talked about his past life. Because of his quixotic habit of getting into difficulties, he was often in trouble with the police. Sometimes he was jailed for a short term; sometimes he went into hiding.2 He knew the Seamen’s Club and frequented it sometimes ostensibly to read, but really to hide from the police in that district after he had got into trouble at Quayside. And so Big Blonde had come to know St. Dominique and understand his work in which he was not interested.

  Once Big Blonde broke up the furniture in the saloon of the loving house of La Créole, because a boy companion of his was insulted there. But afterwards he became a good friend of Madam, the proprietress, and of the boy of the house, Petit Frère.3 Madam tried to induce Big Blonde to work with her as a bouncer, but naturally without success.

  Big Blonde invited Babel and St. Dominique to a wine cellar where wine was kept in barrels and demi-johns4 only. There they discussed Lafala while drinking. Babel related how they had stowed away together and that he had seen Lafala being taken off the ship to the hospital. He omitted to tell, however, that he had escaped as a stowaway prisoner on his return to Marseille. St. Dominique said he was sorry he did allow Lafala to get out of the taxicab alone when he said he was being followed. But he and his West African friend had not taken the matter seriously, as they felt convinced that the men of whom Lafala was afraid were political secret police.5 Big Blonde felt certain it would turn out all right.

  From the wine cellar they went to La Créole. La Créole was one of the most popular of the loving houses of Quayside. It was Big Blonde’s favorite as his little friend worked there. It was much frequented and touted by the colored Quaysiders and they always recommended it to colored newcomers. Madam, the proprietress, a European, had a partiality to colored folk. Aslima was once engaged there and was a good attraction. But she was too savage and Madam couldn’t hold her in check and regretfully had to let her go.

  There were seven girls in the place, among them a tall mulattress who claimed to be an Egyptian. St. Dominique was surprised to recognize in the assistant mistress a gay girl he used to know at a bal-musette6 near the Seaman’s Club and who was very popular among the seamen, some of them even taking her to dances at the club. She whispered to St. Dominique not to gossip to Madam about her former doings because she had a serious position.

  There were not many visitors. A middle-aged man was sitting with a girl and two sailors were drinking beer with the girls waiting on them. The player piano was started. The Egyptian was always teasing Big Blonde. And now she pulled him up to dance with her. The two sailors did not get up to dance. One of the girls pulled at the fairest sailor to dance. The dark one put his arm upon his companion’s arm and said, “Wait.” But the girl playfully gave him a vicious slap in the face and went dancing with the fair sailor.

  When the dance was finished the Egyptian said to Big Blonde, “Always the same. You don’t dance good with me. I’m going to dance with my tribesman now.” (She meant St. Dominique.) “You go and dance with Petit Frère. Maybe it’s more exciting.” Petit Frère giggled. He was wearing a new blue cache-col7 knotted around his neck and pushed into the waist of his pants. It was a gift from Big Blonde and it matched well his pale color and expressionless eyes.

  St. Dominique refused to dance with the Egyptian girl. He was a little uneasy in the loving house. He preferred to make friends with girls at a popular dance or among his comrades. He continued to talk with the assistant mistress while the Egyptian began a belly-wobble with Babel and Big Blonde danced with Petit Frère.

  Two girls in pajamas were dancing together and continually getting in the way of Big Blonde and Petit Frère. “We’re dancing the loving omelettes,”8 one of them said. Petit Frère shrieked and slapped her on the flank.

  “I’ll cook your omelettes,” said the dark sailor and he rushed in and parted the girls to dance with one of them.

  Madam the proprietress had heard about Lafala’s case and expressed her sympathy, listening to St. Dominique as he told the assistant mistress about it. She asked St. Dominique if he knew whether Lafala had got back to his hotel after he left the taxicab in the Big Square. St. Dominique did not know and though
t finding out might furnish a clue. He said he would go to the hotel right then, thus finding an excuse to leave Big Blonde and Babel to their enjoyment.

  The loving house was depressing to St. Dominique. He liked Quayside, forever smelling of raw fish, and the contacts with the seamen. But he had radical ideas about the loving houses and often told the seamen that they and all forms of prostitution would be abolished under Communism. And the seamen wondered what their beloved Quayside would be without them. St. Dominique felt sorry for the assistant mistress feeling so important because she had a place of authority in one of the houses. She had been much more interesting to him as a free bal-musette girl.

  Late that night, or rather towards dawn, Madam, the proprietress of La Créole, was standing in the portal of her palace watching the human shadows hurrying through the dim narrow alley and saw Babel passing in the company of two white men who seemed strange to her as not the type of white men who could be friends of Babel. She called to Babel. He replied, “I’m under arrest. Tell Big Blonde if you see him.”

  She sent Petit Frère to find Big Blonde. Petit Frère found him in the wine cellar taking a final drink before retiring. Big Blonde went to the police station of Quayside, presenting himself as Babel’s friend and asking the nature of the charge against him. He was told that no exact information could be given until the next morning.

  In the morning Big Blonde took a holiday from the docks and went to the police station. There he was informed that Babel had already been transferred to the local jail. Big Blonde was baffled. He knew that it was very difficult to see a prisoner in jail unless one was a relative and as his own record was not so pretty he did not like to nose in too much among the police. He thought the best thing he could do was to see St. Dominique and so he waited until noon when the Seamen’s Club was open. St. Dominique was not there. Big Blonde waited until he arrived at two o’clock.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There were many little obstacles to overcome before St. Dominique could get to Babel in jail. At the prison he was referred to the police. The police sent him to the judge’s office. The judge wanted to know whether he was a near relative of Babel. St. Dominique said he was just a dear friend. He was told to make a written request to see Babel but there was no certainty that it would be granted.

  Against all these formalities St. Dominique remembered his white friend who held an important position in a municipal department. This friend had occasionally visited the Seamen’s Club. Not as a sympathizer. But only to see St. Dominique. They had attended the same college. The municipal clerk was sorry that St. Dominique had not completed his college course and had swung way over to revolutionary social propaganda.

  However, the aesthetic movement towards modern art excited him and even made him curious about the Negroid colony in Marseille and St. Dominique’s work. And through St. Dominique he had obtained a few pieces of African wood sculpture and carved masks and sticks from some West African seamen.1

  St. Dominique went to see his friend about Babel. The friend talked over the telephone to a functionary of another department. This functionary in turn talked to a friend of his who was an official at the prison in which Babel was confined. . . . And so the way was opened for St. Dominique to see Babel.

  St. Dominique taxied to the prison and was passed through the gates into a kind of reception building and out into a large court, then into another building and down a corridor ending in a somber place before a wire netting. There Babel was brought to talk to him from the other side of the netting. Babel’s black face was invisible because of the obscurity of the place and St. Dominique recognized him by his voice only.

  “Lafala is here” was the first thing Babel said. St. Dominique learned that Lafala and Babel had been arrested for the same offense—stowing away. But Babel’s detention was apparently incidental to his having been accessory to Lafala’s stowing away and his foolhardy return after his escape by diving from the boat. Babel said that when he was taken to the police station on the night of the arrest, there was an officer there from the boat on which he had stowed away and the officer tried to have him admit that Lafala had sick feet before he boarded.

  “I couldn’t admit no such thing,” said Babel, “for all I knowed them Lafala’s feet was sound feet and he was one dancing fool at Quayside. So here I is and here I stays tell they let me out.”

  So St. Dominique saw now that the Quaysiders were righter than he in their conjecture. He wanted to see Lafala then and there, but the order had been given for him to see Babel and the minor official would not make it include Lafala. St. Dominique left the prison and went to a café to telephone his friend, but was informed that the person who had favored him with the first permission could not be reached until the next day.

  It occurred to St. Dominique that the afternoon might be well spent if he could get in contact with the shipping company. But he hesitated because he thought that it would probably hinder the thing immediately desired (the liberation of Lafala and Babel) if the nature of his work among the seamen and his connection with the Seamen’s Club were known.

  There was no doubt that both Lafala and Babel were liable to arrest for the misdemeanor of stowing away. He learned that they could be imprisoned for about six months; besides, they might be held for an indefinite length of time before being brought to trial.

  How should he approach these people who had the black boys in their power? It was his functionary friend who suggested the way. . . . After the unhappy ending of his college days, St. Dominique had among other things flirted with the literary muse. And once he had written for a magazine called the Aframerican2 a colorfully descriptive account of Quayside. As Negroid talent usually has an effect in the close colored world entirely out of proportion to its general significance, St. Dominique had been hailed as the dark star rising in the European literary horizon and achieved a full-sized photograph of himself in the Aframerican magazine.

  St. Dominique’s friend, aware of the respect of local public opinion for the literary mind, which was generally upon a higher level than in any other country, had counselled St. Dominique to present himself with his credentials as a man of letters in the respectable tradition. He added jokingly that St. Dominique’s color might help in providing an element of surprise and conviction.

  St. Dominique had some express visiting cards printed. And the next morning he got Falope to go with him to the office of the company. The guardians of the outer offices were reluctant about admitting St. Dominique—even in taking his card. But they did finally.

  The manager was very courteous. He was acquainted with the different phases of Lafala’s case and wanted to know what was the relationship between the young men and Lafala and Babel. At first it seemed he was under the impression that their interest was as practical as that of the New York lawyer who had created the case. He asked St. Dominique if he knew about the circumstances of Lafala’s stowing away and the consequences.

  St. Dominique said he knew as much as Lafala had informed him and that Lafala’s arrest was legal. But he hoped that he would be set free. He didn’t want to think that the company was directly responsible for Lafala’s imprisonment but even if it were so he believed that a word from the manager might effect his release.

  Thereupon the manager explained that his company had no bad intentions towards Lafala. They carried on a big trade with West Africa and were always just in their dealings with Negro traders and benevolent to their Negro employees. Lafala’s case had been a very unfortunate one for the company. He had boarded the boat clandestinely. Some officer of the ship might have been careless of attention towards him. But he was sure no one meant to be deliberately cruel to Lafala and lock him up in a cold latrine to freeze to death. They had accidentally forgotten him. The officer was recognized in the wrong, of course, but it was possible that something had been wrong with Lafala’s feet before he stowed away. Nothing had happened to his pal, Babel, who h
ad stowed away with him. . . . Nevertheless the company would have granted Lafala adequate compensation by installment payments for his lifetime. But instead he had preferred to institute proceedings against them in the courts which had cost them an enormous amount of money and trouble.

  St. Dominique said that Lafala was an ignorant uneducated savage and that in the despairing condition in which he was after the amputation of his legs it should not be held against him that he permitted a lawyer to act for him! He had suffered so much from his illness and confinement in the hospital and irreparable loss of his legs, he might go insane if he were to be imprisoned now again.

  The manager asked St. Dominique if he happened to have any writings of his there. In anticipation St. Dominique had brought that description of Quayside accompanied by his photograph, which he exhibited. The manager looked at the all-Negro magazine and the article with drawings of Quayside done by a colored artist and remarked that it was of special interest to him to see the Negro race developing along intellectual lines and that he wished St. Dominique success in his work. Finally, he promised to use his influence to have Lafala and Babel released.

  He cordially bowed the young men out, saying to St. Dominique with a smile, “Now don’t go away and write anything bad about the company.”

  “I couldn’t now,” replied St. Dominique, smiling back.

  Outside, Falope said, “You Bolshy pig. You’ve missed your vocation. What you really need is a black kingdom with a vast court, shaded with palms and ferns and a black king sitting on his ivory throne with his people around him, and you a mediator between the people and the king.”

  “I’d prefer this or any other Mediterranean port to any kind of black kingdom,” said St. Dominique. “Barcelona, Genoa, Naples, even Constantinople.”

  “You’re not Negro anyway. You’re half here and half there and never will be a whole anywhere,” said Falope facetiously.