Amiable with Big Teeth

by Claude McKay

  And so the committee voted to sustain Dorsey Flagg. Infuriated, Newton Castle had stamped out of the room. It was a disagreeable surprise to Castle, finding Flagg at the table upon his return. And if Mrs. Witern and Professor Makepeace were not there he might not have stayed. At that time Mrs. Witern and Professor Makepeace were not yet fanatic anti-Trotskyites. They were intellectually stimulated by the grand duel that was being fought between Stalin and Trotsky and as intellectuals they admired Trotsky’s destructively incisive style, although they considered it a little morbid with the fury of futility. But their real exalted respect went to Stalin, the strong, silent leader who had captured the Soviet State and was slowly but surely directing the movement of the Russian steam-roller.

  Professor Koazhy’s interest was excited by a knobkerry that was hanging behind the bar.11 And he had asked Buster’s permission to look at it. Buster explained that it was a gift from one of his titled patrons, who had brought it back among his trophies from a hunting trip to South Africa. Carrying the knobkerry to the table, Professor Koazhy became lyrical over its exquisite workmanship. He passed it around for the guests to scrutinize and wondered how many of the Aframericans who visited the Airplane had shown any interest in the knobkerry as a work of art.

  Although pooh-poohed by the intelligentsia, Koazhy in his curiously dogmatic way was also a local authority on artistic things. There were artists among his students of history, archeology, fetishism and anthropology. He lectured to them on Art and said they could be good artists only by serious research in African anatomy and Aframerican form and figure. When colored artists painted Aframericans, he said, they turned out to be white people dyed in dark tints. Some white artists did a better job with Aframerican material. And once he made pointed reference to a successful Aframerican artist who executed excellent portraits of white persons but could do only caricatures of colored ones.

  He had collected in his house a fairly interesting assortment of African material, mats and masks and beads and carven sticks and bowls, photographs extracted from books and newspapers and reproductions of ancient Egyptian figures. When a critic once pointed out to him that West African crafts were as different from those of the Congo as Hungarian music from Irish, Koazhy replied: True, but Ireland and Hungary were European nevertheless, just as Egypt and the Congo were African, and there was closer affinity between Egypt and the Congo than between Ireland and Hungary and that was all.

  Addressing Lij Alamaya, Koazhy said: “I have some Ethiopian objects, pictures and fabrics and metalware, and I’d like you to come to my house and inspect them and tell me whether they are genuine.”

  Alamaya accepted the invitation and Mrs. Witern, who kept pace with all the trends in modern art, asked if she could not anticipate the pleasure of a visit to Professor Koazhy’s. Koazhy stood up and bowed to her and said: “I should appreciate the honor, Madam. I should like you to come some evening when I am lecturing to my class of Senegambians.”

  “How very interesting! Are there really Senegambians in Harlem?” said Mrs. Witern. The Tower girls giggled.

  “Not in my class, although there are some native Africans in Harlem,” said Koazhy. “My students appropriated the name of Senegambians for its artistic and historical quality.”

  “I think the whole business is futile and silly and it’s a pity that this Harlem should be an incubator for a lot of crazy artificial ideas,” said Newton Castle. “Aframerican students must go forward, keeping time with the radical movement, they cannot go back to the primitive forms of savage Africa.”

  “You are more savage in Harlem, Mr. Castle,” said Koazhy, “and it seems to me you need a lot of education yourself. You should join my Senegambians and let me teach you something.”

  Dorsey Flagg guffawed and everybody was tickled. Although Flagg considered Koazhy a sort of pedantic eccentric, he delighted in his putting something over so neatly on Castle. He preferred a thousand Koazhys to one Newton Castle, who ate and slept hugging the radical movement and was always ready glibly to explain everything by Marxist theory. He said: “So Professor Koazhy thinks that the radical paragon, Dr. Newton Castle, with all his degrees, should sit at his feet and learn again. You said something there, Koazhy, shake hands!” He extended his long arm across the table and vigorously shook Koazhy’s hand.

  “It isn’t a laughing matter,” said Castle. “Who are the white people who are interested in so-called primitive African art? They are the rich, reactionary, anti-Soviet crowd. Here they buy and sell African art at fancy prices. But the savages who made them get nothing. And our own artists never get a chance. Who but the radicals and a few liberals care anything about the work of our young artists and writers? What newspaper pays any attention to them except the Labor Herald? It is only through the radical movement that our young artists and writers can express themselves. The powerful rich art cliques prefer the primitives of the African savages, because they don’t have to recognize them as human beings as they’d have to recognize the poor artists here.”

  “They recognize Dixon Davis Lee,” said Koazhy.

  “That is merely an exception to the general rule,” said Castle. “And Dixon Davis Lee is not a great artist, he’s merely a clever opportunist.”

  “If there is one exception there will be others when they learn their stuff and how to take advantage of opportunity,” said Koazhy. “And that’s why I insist they must learn that stuff from the foundation.”

  “There is no opportunity for our artists unless they can follow the Soviet example,” said Castle.

  “What Soviet example?” said Flagg. “The best Soviet literature was written when Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, Turgenev, Chekhov, Gorky and the rest of them expressed themselves under the Czarist regime.12 Also the best dramas were written and the best pictures painted. Today the Soviet writer is just a prostitute of the pen for the Communist Party. They have reverted to the practice of the Oriental writers producing panegyrics for the party and persons in power to make a living. That’s what the thousands of well-paid writers and the millions of books mean in Soviet Russia. I would rather there were no colored artists and writers than for such a travesty of art and literature to exist in America.”

  Newton Castle jumped from his seat as if a pin had pricked him, and pointing in Flagg’s face said: “You’re a fool and a Fascist. You’re a disgrace to humanity and a traitor to your race. You have no place in any people’s movement and shouldn’t be a member of the Hands to Ethiopia Committee. When we Marxists take the POWER, I hope they make me Commissar of Education and I’ll clean out the stinking academic niggerati renegades like you.”

  Flagg said: “The Hands to Ethiopia business is settled and I want to hear no more about it from you.” He rose from the table and strode towards the bar.

  But Castle followed him: “You think it’s settled but it isn’t. We will find a way of blocking you, you degenerate anti-Soviet reprobate, you academic cad, you stiletto-up-your-sleeve Fascist.”

  Bantam-sized Castle was right up against the powerfully built Flagg and beating his fists against his breast. Flagg said: “You’re making an ass of yourself and taking advantage of your size. Please go away or I’ll give you a swift kick in your rear.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” cried Castle at a hysterical pitch. “The power of the party will protect and give me strength to fight you murderous Fascists.” His high voice went higher and higher.

  With a sudden gesture Flagg reached down and grabbed Castle by the seat of his pants and held him up in the air: “Your power, fool, is in my hands,” he said.

  “Put me down, you Fascist! Put me down!” cried Castle.

  “All right, I’ll put you down,” said Flagg. And he dropped Castle to the floor and walked out.

  • • •

  “Well, here is Tekla’s car,” said Seraphine. “Who wants to be taken home?”

  Mrs. Witern’s car was waiting too. She told
the Tower girls she thoroughly enjoyed the evening, reminded Professor Koazhy of his promise to have her at his house and drove off with Professor Makepeace.

  Delta Castle said she preferred to walk: “Come along, Newton, a little walk might have a sobering effect on you.” And her face and her voice appeared as if she would like to give him a spanking on the way. Seraphine and Alamaya drove Bunchetta Facey and Iris Marlow home on the hill. They were relieved that Delta and her husband did not take a ride with them, as they were embarrassed by Castle’s creating too much of the wrong kind of excitement.

  The two girls were driven to the Sugar Hill mansion.13 Seraphine said: “Tekla, I don’t feel the least bit like going home. What about a spin or something?”

  Alamaya replied: “Anything you like makes me happy.”

  “Let’s take a swing up the Parkway then,” and she instructed the chauffeur to drive into the country.

  “Are you sentimental, Tekla?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “I’m always sentimental,” she sighed charmingly. “And you have hardly arrived before you will be gone again.”

  “Yes, I must go among the people in other cities and tell them about Ethiopia and get them to help.”

  “And Mr. Flagg is going with you. What luck. He’s a big strong fellow and will look after you. Father likes him a lot. It was so silly for Newton Castle to start that nonsense at the Airplane. Since he became inoculated with the Soviet system, he’s no good in society.”

  “He was very excited.”

  “And rude. Three years ago he was just a harmless tea-hound skipping with his sister from one tea party to another. Then his sister died and he got Communism, although he says he isn’t a Communist. And now he’s like a man who never started to drink liquor until he was old and stays intoxicated all the time.”

  “That’s a neat way of fixing Mr. Castle,” said Alamaya.

  “Wouldn’t life be a glorious thing, if there weren’t so much wickedness in the world! People fighting and killing one another just for the love of it.”

  “The Europeans say we Africans are savages,” said Alamaya, “and it is their destiny to civilize us. They said the tribes were always fighting among themselves and it was necessary to bring peace among us. But our tribal wars were like bright fireworks compared to the Europeans’ annihilating wars. We never fought to exterminate one another. The Europeans fight to exterminate us and call it civilizing us.”

  “Poor Tekla! Poor unhappy Africa. But Tekla, did Father show you those revolting pictures of what the Ethiopians do to the Europeans in war? They were so hot he was ashamed to let me see them, but Mother said I was of age.”

  “That is Italian propaganda against us. But even if a few Ethiopian warriors conform to an ancient tribal rite and do that when their victims are dead, there are many Europeans who practice it among the living. And to us that is a greater shame.”

  “Yes, there is savagery and barbarity everywhere among uncivilized as well as civilized people. Tekla, supposing Mussolini wins in the war against Ethiopia, would you stay in America?”

  “May God save Ethiopia,” he said. “It is the last torch of national independence and native aspiration left in Africa.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. You don’t like America?”

  “Oh yes I do. They are a strong new people and everyone likes newness and strength.”

  “And would you like to live here?”

  “If I had no country to return to and the authorities permitted it, I would be glad to live here.”

  “And you would become an American citizen and marry—you are not married, are you?”

  “No, I’m just starting my career as a diplomat.”

  “Do you imagine I could qualify as a diplomat’s wife?”

  “Perfectly!”

  “You darling! Do they marry in Ethiopia the same as we do here?”

  “There are four or five different ways of marrying.”

  “Yes, what are the marriages like?”

  “Oh, we have trial marriage, religious marriage, civil marriage, transient marriage and permanent marriage. And the women have more freedom than the men.”

  “Oh yes! Then you’re all just as modern as we are in America. I thought you followed the Oriental pattern, but I am always forgetting that Ethiopia is African.”

  Seraphine called to the chauffeur and asked where they were. He said they were passing through Bronxville. And she told him to turn back to the city. She switched off the light, saying: “It is cosier without it.”

  8

  SAYING IT WITH KISSES

  Schoolteacher Newton Castle came to New York from Chicago. He came with his only sister, Annabella Castle, who was older than he, and who presided over their home. Castle took the examination to enter the New York City schoolteaching system. And after thirteen months on the waiting list he was appointed to teach in a junior high school. He was a proficient pedagogue, a doctor of philosophy. He was progressive in his profession and had taken post-graduate work at Chicago, Wisconsin and Columbia, besides special summer studies in Paris, Berlin and at Cambridge, England. He might have had a superior professor’s position in any of the high-standard Aframerican universities in the South. But he said he preferred to be a schoolteacher in the great metropolis, where there were social and educational privileges which he could not obtain in another place. Besides, the remuneration was high.

  He was a meticulous type of person and his sister was prim and punctilious. Theirs was a perfect hand-and-glove association. They lived in one of the best Harlem houses. Every Friday afternoon a few friends were invited to tea and one evening every week they indulged in a card party. Their tastes were similar and together they visited the art galleries and attended concerts. They never missed a concert downtown, when any outstanding Aframerican artist was featured.

  Annabella Castle was more strong-willed than her brother, and although it appeared as if she were devoting her life to serve, she also managed him. Yet despite their exemplary way of life in Harlem, they never moved in the inner circle of the professional world of doctors, lawyers, musicians, teachers and other city employees. Perhaps because their emphatic propriety irked a little the exclusive members of the professional set, who considered them to be Westerners from what Carl Sandburg dubbed the “hog city.”1

  The Castles got a little deeper in, when they became close friends of Delta Buckton. For Miss Buckton was “in” in the right way and not even her straitened circumstances could keep her out. She was the grand-niece of one of the famous Jubilee Singers.2 She retained in her possession the cameo brooch that was presented by Queen Victoria to her grand-aunt, the celebrated mocking-bird of the Jubilee Singers. And that distinction opened the best doors to her in Aframerican Philadelphia, Durham, Charleston, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

  Miss Buckton, on becoming attached to the Chicago Castles, carried them along with herself through those difficult doors. The Castles often visited Europe during the summer vacation and once they had taken Miss Buckton along, paying all her expenses. Miss Buckton’s companionship influenced the Castle pattern of living, which became more elastic and informal. She substituted cocktail for tea and convinced them that gin should not be taboo, because white folk believed that it was black folk’s indispensable tonic.

  But suddenly in the midst of their charming change of life, the inseparable brother and sister were divided by death claiming the latter. The change that Delta Buckton was gradually bringing about in the Castles’ life must have been more revolutionary than she realized, for the occasion prompted Newton Castle to stage an original unforgettable performance.

  He invited his friends to a cocktail party and when they arrived they found his sister arrayed in one of her finest dresses and laid out on a couch. Newton informed each guest that the occasion was a final tribute to his beloved sister and that they shoul
d drink, eat and be happy, for thus she would have liked it. He was an amateur piccolo player and, taking his instrument from its case, he entertained with snatches of gay operatic airs. He finished the party by playing dance tunes on the phonograph and, standing before the couch upon which lay his sister’s corpse, he strenuously danced an extravagant modernistic combination jig-and-shimmy.

  Broken like an egg by his sister’s demise, Newton Castle might have remained in a protoplasmic state if he had not been saved by Delta Buckton offering to marry him. “Annabella would have desired it,” he said, and acquiesced. And so he was enabled to come back to a semblance of his normal self again and to continue teaching.

  But he was never quite the same to the ultra-sophisticated set that was coming round to acceptance of him when his sister went out of his life. His marriage to Delta patched him up a little and made him externally presentable, but he was not cured inside. For a while he was fascinated by fetishism and secretly consulted Harlem’s occultists. But his delicately refined sense could not be long deceived by the manifestations and crude evocations of illiterate occultists.

  A new world opened before him when he was invited to attend a meeting for Scottsboro’s boys and accepted.3 His name appeared on the programme among other prominent names. For the first time he was associated with Marxists. His state of mind was purely emotional when first he felt the proselytizing power of the Marxists. Clearly he saw the Scottsboro boys as a persecuted lot and vaguely he felt that he was being persecuted by unkind fate in the death of his irreplaceable sister.