by Claude McKay
Jean Danou was the son of an industrialist who was an extreme Rightist. He visited Russia in 1934 and had arrived in America by way of Japan and China. America was a puzzling phenomenon to Jean Danou. In spite of the Great Depression and mass unemployment that he had read about, the inhabitants, unlike Europeans, did not appear to be profoundly agitated by the social catastrophe. The social tension in France had been destructive to governments and political parties, while refugees were pouring across the border from Germany. The lights of Montmartre and Montparnasse were dim in La Ville Lumière, while the Broadway façade of New York was as scintillant as ever.
Maxim Tasan and his guests had dinner in a Broadway bright spot. Tasan had arranged to see a Soviet film showing in Forty-Second Street. It was specially for the benefit of Danou, who had not seen the film when it was first released in Europe, because until 1935 France had maintained a ban against Soviet motion pictures. The picture was entitled A Song of Lenin.2 It portrayed Lenin more as a social crusader with emphasis on his love of children than as a lion-hearted revolutionist. It was saccharine sentimental and soaked in sanctimonious music.
In the middle of it Seraphine exclaimed: “Why, it’s just like the gospel story for kids.” She spoke loudly enough and drew reproving sh-h-h-h-h’s from members of the rapt audience. The Frenchman whispered: “It is very good propaganda for the Popular Front.”
When they left the theatre, Maxim Tasan said that it was an educational picture and it had been one of the most successful Soviet films among the backward peoples in the distant provinces of Russia.
Jean Danou said: “We should make a film like that in France about the life of Jean Jaurès.3 He was a great good man. If he had not been assassinated at the outbreak of the war in 1914, the history of France might have been different today. He was our greatest leader and statesman.”
“Yes, Jaurès was a big man,” Tasan agreed, “but I’ve often wondered if he would have been big enough to support the Bolsheviks.”
“I believe he would have been big enough to understand and support Lenin and prevent the split in the Socialist Party,” said Jean Danou.
“The night is still young and inviting,” said Bunchetta, “and what shall we do with it?”
“I imagine Danou would like to visit Harlem,” said Tasan. “You haven’t been there yet, have you?”
“That’s precisely what I want to do,” said Danou.
The party proceeded to Harlem and went directly to the famous Lindy Hop Rendezvous. It was a mammoth hall enlivened by twinkling bands of eurythmic adepts who demonstrated the Lindy Hop in its exhilarating variations to the clashing artillery of two orchestras, a black and a white, which galloped over the course like two racehorses in hot competition for a grand prize.
Those who could not make the extravagantly fantastic paces enjoyed from the sidelines the performance of the more proficient, who essayed to follow the promptings of the galaxy of professionals. During the interlude of a waltz Tasan danced with Seraphine and Jean Danou with Bunchetta. And when a one-step followed the waltz, they changed partners.
From the Lindy Hop Rendezvous they went to a cabaret which specialized in elaborate floor shows. Jean Danou was not particularly impressed. “I don’t like the evolution of the cabaret into a kind of variety show,” he said. “I prefer the theatre for that. It was introduced in Paris after the war by the Americans and the Russian émigrés. But the best cabarets are still the small intimate ones in which one good performer excels.”
“The Russians who could afford it were always ostentatious and prodigal in their amusement,” said Tasan. “When they fled from Moscow and Petrograd they carried the style to Berlin and Paris, Istanbul and Shanghai. You pampered too many émigrés in France; they should have been sent back to Russia.”
“The Nazis have sent us their émigrés, besides swamping us with refugees. Now we are almost demoralized with émigrés and pitiful refugees on our hands who are more of a hindrance to the operating of the Popular Front. New York is lucky with business and amusement going on as usual. While those Lindy Hoppers were performing with such wonderful agility and élan, sans souci, I was thinking of the week when the Camelots du Roy spread havoc4 in Montmartre and Montparnasse, breaking up the amusement places and insulting the performers and the guests, especially foreigners.”
“And did they insult the Aframericans too?” said Bunchetta.
“Everybody,” said Danou. “They didn’t show any discrimination.”
“Civilization is in a sweet mess,” said Bunchetta, “like a big jar of assorted sweet pickles.”
She suggested their going to her favorite place, the Airplane, where they could relax as if it were a house party. “I don’t care much for cabarets. A bar is better.”
There was one other party at the Airplane when they arrived there. It consisted of Dorsey Flagg and two members of the Executive Committee of the Hands to Ethiopia, Elks Exalted Ruler William Headley and the taciturn Dr. Phineas Bell, who was active in working out the details of the ambulance unit. Dorsey Flagg had imbibed copiously and was still at it, but his hefty coeur-de-lion body was capable of absorbing an enormous amount of alcohol without deleterious effects. He was talking when Maxim Tasan and his guests entered and he did not respond to the casual greetings of Bunchetta and Seraphine. Apparently he intentionally ignored them.
“Ethiopia was sold from the source of the Nile down the river,” he was saying. “And the world knows it. Europe has no use for a native nation in Africa. They can pull wool over black folks’ eyes, but they can’t fool me.”
“I can’t see any sense in taking sanctions against Italy and not allowing arms to be shipped to Ethiopia,” said Dr. Bell.
“Why, Italy has enough war materials and supplies to lick ten Ethiopias,” said Dorsey Flagg. “Besides, the sanctions aren’t real. Soviet Russia, the goddam viper, is sending Italy all the oil and other supplies she needs.”
“But I thought it was Soviet Russia that started the Popular Front to fight the Fascists and the Nazis, isn’t it?” said Headley.
“The Popular Front!” Flagg sneered. “Take it from me, Soviet Russia started the Popular Front in the interest of Soviet Russia. The Popular Front is an instrument designed by the crafty Stalin and his fellow conspirators to confuse the nations and take Democracy on a grand ride of destruction. I have opposed it and will continue to oppose it. But who wants to listen to the voice of a black man in America unless it is trained to sing spirituals or blues?”
Tasan grunted and looked fixedly and grimly at Jean Danou. Impulsively Danou got up and went over to Dorsey Flagg’s table and said: “Pardon me, my friend, but what you’re saying is very important. I’m a stranger, a Frenchman and I’m an ardent supporter of the Popular Front. Perhaps if you had recently lived in Europe like me, if you had seen the Fascists and Nazis organizing and marching in the heart of Democracy, if you had seen their bullets whiz by to drop your comrades dead, and frightened refugees, men and women and children, fleeing from their vengeance, you might have thought differently about the Popular Front. I am not a Communist. I am a Socialist, but we Socialists were convinced that we could stop the Nazis only with Soviet Russia.”
Flagg was astonished when the Frenchman accosted him. The unwelcome sight of Maxim Tasan had stimulated him in his attack on the Popular Front, but he was a little touched by the emotional intensity of Jean Danou and inclined to listen. “You have great faith,” said Flagg, “but I also am convinced that Stalin and the Communists will never be loyal allies of the Socialists and Democracy. The only decent Communists who might have kept their pledged word with Socialists and Democracy have been assassinated or otherwise liquidated by the Stalinists. You talk about the Hitler purges and the desperate condition of the refugees. I know they are frightful beyond description. But the Stalin purges and system are just as bad. Besides, it was the Soviet Dictatorship that destroyed German Social Democr
acy, when it ordered the German Communists to war against the Social Democrats and open the road to conquest for the Nazi Dictatorship.”
“That is the Trotskyite point of view, comrade,” said the Frenchman. “I too used to think that Trotsky was right in his attacks upon Stalin as an unscrupulous and diabolical dictator. But I am convinced now that Trotsky is wrong. He is too purely intellectual, too much of a theorist. Trotsky is not a practical statesman.”
Flagg excitedly thumped the table. “I am not a Trotskyite. Trotsky is a Communist. I am not a Communist. Trotsky believes in the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, even though it is crucifying him. I don’t believe in any dictatorship. But Trotsky is a great intellect and I believe he should have the right to speak to the world. Jerusalem had its Jeremiahs and Troy its Cassandras. But the Stalinites are making use of the Popular Front to silence and persecute all those who are opposed to them. They make tools of the near-sighted liberals to do their dirty work. They have revived the Inquisition; they have a blacklist of organizations and individuals: teachers, ministers, labor leaders, ordinary workers, doctors, publishers, editors, artists and writers—all those whom they cannot dominate or influence. My dear Sir, the Popular Front is a fraud and the prostitute of Stalin. God save the world from the Popular Front.”
The Frenchman said: “You are emotional, but—”
“Pardon me, but I am not,” said Flagg. “I have to use my head against the Stalinite hyena.”
“I regret, my friend,” said the Frenchman. “Once upon a time we French Socialists felt just like you about the Communists. But now there is no middle way. It is a clear-cut issue of choosing between the Fascists and Nazis on one side and the Communists on the other. A few years ago we used to sneer at the Fascists purging the Italians with castor oil; today they stand with the Nazis ready to purge the world with bayonets. We cannot oppose guns and bayonets with razor-edged, lightning-flash words like Trotsky—”
“But why Trotsky, always Trotsky!” shouted Flagg.
“Because he is the spearhead of the opposition to Stalin,” said the Frenchman. “But you should understand the Popular Front is not merely a movement. It is a world organization with nations backing it. The French government has a defensive treaty with Soviet Russia. The French Socialist Party is allied with the French Communist Party in the Popular Front. Spain, Czecho-Slovakia, and China are in it. But we need Britain and the United States—especially the United States. We need all the people and the people are coming fast. You are lost if you are not in the Popular Front.”
“I think France is lost if she stays in the Popular Front,” said Dorsey Flagg. “What is a pact with Stalin worth? It is worth no more than the lives of the Old Bolshevists who made a sacred pact among themselves to overthrow the Czarists. Any government or people who put their trust in Stalin will be betrayed.”
“I hope you are wrong,” said the Frenchman, “but I admire your courage. Won’t you shake my hand? They call me Jean Danou.” He gave his hand and Flagg grasped it, saying: “And I am Dorsey Flagg.” He introduced his companions.
When Jean Danou returned to his table, Buster, the boss of the Airplane, had served ginger ale, which was flavored by Tasan with the liquor he had previously purchased at Bunchetta’s suggestion.
Tasan said in an undertone: “You shouldn’t have shaken hands with that Trotskyite scoundrel.”
“He pleases me somehow in spite of that,” replied the Frenchman. “He is brave, with a mind of his own. Most of those of his race I have met from our African colonies are bright parrots echoing undigested ideas.”
“The Aframericans do not have a native colonial mentality,” said Tasan. “They are very American, more than some of the white groups, and their intelligence just as high on the average and higher in many individual cases, according to my observation. Their weakness is their not having consolidated any economic assets as a group. And because of that they have no political power that is worth a damn. But you should beware of taking them for exotics, the way you French regard your colonials. That kind of romanticism is only a miserable democratic bitch.”
“Every intelligent Frenchman knows that true romanticism was the herald of modern individualism,” said Danou. “But individualism is in a state of agony today. And that is why that colored man is so very interesting. His is the real rugged individualism. A rare thing to find in any person today. I am convinced that he is neither a Trotskyite nor a Stalinite.”
“And that makes him even more dangerous,” said Tasan. “He stands alone and may succeed in commanding a following. No influential man must be allowed to stand alone. For these are times when people must be converted or compelled to mass thinking so that the engineers of the new world order can obtain the maximum of mass action. As you said, the era of individual thought is ending. The modern age of mass production and social revolution also demands mass thinking. We have correlated both in Russia and are developing it far and wide in the Comintern. We have a secret admiration for the Nazi bastards, because they stole our blueprints to develop a wonderfully successful totalitarian organization.”
“I hope we can overtake and beat them with the Popular Front,” said Danou.
“We can do it, but only if the Comintern can control and eradicate the disease of international democracy,” said Tasan.
For a moment Danou was a little more thoughtful. Then he said: “Democracy is diseased, it’s true. But it can be cured, if the Socialists become the dominant partner in the Comintern. We are closer to the middle classes, who are the backbone of the Popular Front.”
Tasan hunched his shoulders and laughed with his tongue between his teeth, hissing like a snake.
Sitting together between their escorts, Seraphine and Bunchetta conducted a whispering conversation between them, chiefly gossiping about Harlem and the Tower group. Sometimes Bunchetta cocked her ears to catch an important statement from the men talking. But Seraphine drank a lot, which unfitted her to fix her mind on serious topics, so she relaxed into her regular ways and claimed most of Bunchetta’s attention.
Dorsey Flagg had heard that Seraphine had moved from her parents’ house and was living with Bunchetta downtown. When he was leaving with his friends Seraphine waved at him and said in a tipsy tone: “Don’t go yet, Dorsey, come and sit with us.” Flagg gave her a sharp unfriendly “no” and went to the bar to square his account with Buster.
Seraphine giggled and leaning on Tasan she put up her hands around his neck, agitating her shoulders and amorously rubbing her back against him. She giggled all the time and as Flagg was going out she cried at him: “Don’t be so high-hat and nasty, Dorsey, because you can’t have everything your own way. You and Father make a nice pair and I hope you two will save Ethiopia. G’bye, Dorsey dear, I’m in the Popular Front now.”
Flagg turned back and bending over he whispered in her ear. Seraphine instantly straightened up: “You pig!” she shouted, and, as Flagg lumbered out, “Pig! Black pig!”
17
A PRE-NUPTIAL NIGHT
In the afternoon of the following Monday, Seraphine went to Harlem to get some personal belongings which were left behind when she departed from her parents’ house. Her mother went to the door when she rang, coldly responded to her greeting and let her in. Seraphine said she had come to get her things and went up to her room, carrying a suitcase.
While she was packing her things, Mrs. Peixota entered the room. She had resolved at first not to say anything to her daughter, when she opened the door. But Seraphine’s coming had started a fire of tumultuous feeling which she could not put down. Seraphine’s impulsive action had struck like a grave-digger’s shovel into an old coffin and pitched her mother back into the Gethsemane1 of her maidenhood, overwhelming her with agony. And wrestling with the heavy thoughts of unhappy memories more sharply remembered than ever, Mrs. Peixota felt that she must speak to her daughter.
“So you’ve completely m
ade up your mind, I guess,” she said. “You’re making a final move.”
“Yes, Mother, I’ve made up my mind to go for good.”
“You may go for good and find bad and live to regret it. There is still time for you to beg your father’s pardon and stay under this roof.”
“But why should I ask Father’s pardon, Mother? I have not done him any wrong—I don’t think. And if he has done me any wrong I forgive him. I’ve moved because it is best for me. Downtown I have more freedom.”
“Freedom!” Mrs. Peixota cried contemptuously. “You had too much freedom here and that’s the real trouble. Your father and I gave you a ninety-nine-year lease of freedom and the means to enjoy it more than any other girl in Harlem. But it was my mistake to encourage you too much to fool with Lij Alamaya—”
“Lij Alamaya, Mother! I have more important things to worry about. I moved because I want more room to live in. Harlem is suffocating. But downtown I can breathe. Down there life has more meaning.”
“Nonsense! Life may be full of meaning anywhere, if you have eyes to see and a heart to feel and a mind to understand. But you have been spoiled by comfortable living with so much misery around you in Harlem. And you’re blinded by the bright lights of Broadway.”
“That’s so old-fashioned and funny, Mother. The lights of Harlem are just as bright. I am not living on Broadway of the bright lights. I am living way down on Second Avenue, which isn’t as nice a street as Harlem’s Strivers’ Row. But it’s different and that means a lot. I’m not playing downtown, I’m working.”
