Amiable with Big Teeth

by Claude McKay

  “I know. With the White Friends of Ethiopia. You know how your father detests them. But I’d guess you went to work for them to spite him.”

  “I didn’t, Mother. Why should I worry my young life with Father’s hates and prejudices?”

  “They are prejudices that were forced upon your people by the whites that you adore. You will come to understand that much.”

  “I have no people. Why should I be limited to any special group of people? I believe in the Popular Front.”

  “So that’s it!” said Mrs. Peixota. “You’re crazy like all the rest about the latest fad. And you may be the most ‘popular front’ downtown for all I know. And that may be the freedom you like so much. But let me tell you this, if you get mixed up in that Communist comradeship with a lot of free-loving and easy-riding white men, you’re no daughter of mine, you understand?”

  “Mother!” Seraphine whined.

  “I mean what I say. I have heard enough about your free and easy carrying on with white men. And let me tell you: no decent colored girl can afford to be careless with a white man. For she isn’t protected by the law or by public opinion. Our black mothers paid the price in servitude and concubinage so that we could learn and acquire a little self-respect. You chits imagine you’re modern and can teach your elders. White men are modern and ready to make a ‘popular front’ of you all right, but they won’t marry you. They’ll use you—”

  “Mother, please!”

  “I’ll say what I want to say even if the truth hurts. I’m warning you about white men and if you’re crazy about them, it is better for you to pass white than remain a disgrace to the colored race.” Mrs. Peixota flung out of the room and the bang of the door startled Seraphine like the shooting of a gun.

  • • •

  Upset by the encounter with her mother, Seraphine did not go to work that afternoon. At five o’clock, before leaving the office, Maxim Tasan telephoned Seraphine at her apartment. She informed him that she had not worked because she was upset and worried after a visit to Harlem. She was not sure she could continue on the job. Tasan was concerned. Perhaps Peixota was trying to influence Seraphine to quit. He said he would go to see her that evening. But remembering that Bunchetta and Seraphine stayed together and that Seraphine might be handicapped in talking he telephoned again and invited her to dinner at his apartment.

  Tasan lived in the Seventies, off Central Park West. Previously he inhabited an apartment in one of the palaces of Central Park West. But there were complaints from the tenants, because of the various assortment of visitors of all types. And he had moved to avoid complications. His new place, situated in a private house renovated and made over into apartments, was exactly suited to his needs. He had an entire floor of four rooms, which assured him enough freedom and privacy.

  When Seraphine got there Tasan was preparing cocktails. Another visitor was cooking the dinner. Tasan introduced him as his friend, Augustus Nordling. He was a hulking big young fellow with a shock of hair that stood up flaming like a cluster of dandelions. Perhaps it was because of this that he was called Dandy. He was excessively ruddy, as if the blood had burst his veins and flooded over the dam of the epidermis. He was bubbling urbanity and greeted Seraphine as if he had known her all her life.

  All three drank a cocktail each. And Dandy, saying the dinner was nearly ready, went into the kitchen, while Tasan proceeded to set the table. Meanwhile he appeased Seraphine’s curiosity about Dandy. He had a job with the Labor Herald, and was often a visitor at Tasan’s place. He was an excellent cook and on rare occasions when Tasan ate in his apartment, Dandy volunteered to cook the meal.

  The dinner was solid fare, an enormous juicy steak with fried potatoes, peas and creamed onions, lettuce and tomatoes. From a cabinet Tasan took two bottles of imported French wine, a Sauternes and a Pommard, and placed them on the table. Seraphine said she preferred Sauternes. Tasan pulled the cork from both bottles. “Let us drink a toast to la belle France,” he said, “who leads all the nations in the Popular Front. Long live the alliance between the French Republic and the Soviet Republic—the greatest achievement in Soviet diplomacy since Lenin died.”2

  “Do you imagine that that was a greater victory for the Soviets than obtaining United States recognition?” said Dandy. “Many of the comrades believe that that is the biggest feat of Soviet diplomacy in ten years.”

  “You Americans are too provincial, Dandy,” said Tasan, “and American Communists have the same faults as the rest of their countrymen. They imagine that everything American is the biggest and the best, because their thinking is dominated by skyscrapers and tractors and steel spans. The America that recognized Soviet Russia in 1934 is an entirely different nation from the America that did not recognize her in 1924, when Lenin died.”

  “And Europe in 1934 is a vastly different place from Europe in 1924,” said Nordling. “In 1924 Germany was a Social-Democratic vassal state. In 1934 it became the Nazi terror of Europe. I appreciate your political insight, but I can’t see that it is provincial or chauvinistic to recognize the fact that for ten years since the World War, Europe was economically dependent upon America.”

  “That is true, but it wasn’t practical economics and the result was financial collapse and social chaos. To be of constructive value economic dominance must be accompanied by superior cultural influence. But culturally America is dependent on Europe and even industrially, if you take a long view of the international setup. America is big and brawny, but Europe has the best brains. And France’s is the subtlest and supplest. That is why the Soviet alliance with France is more important than the biggest deal it could make with America. It is the big beginning of a grand new era in Europe.”

  Nordling was profoundly impressed. “And the world,” he said. “I agree with you that Europe dominates the mind of the world. It will be wonderful, if the Soviet does not encounter a setback, if France doesn’t double-cross her.”

  “France cannot even if she wanted to. We’ve got the cock moulting in the chicken coop,” Tasan chuckled. “If France double-crosses Soviet Russia, she’ll be cutting her own throat and ending her national existence. The advent of Nazism was God’s gesture in favor of Soviet Russia. We’ve got the number of bourgeois democracy and the key to its future. As for the Socialists, for fifteen years they’ve been calling us bloody assassins and refusing to shake our hands. Now we’ll make them eat out of our bloody hands.”

  “But Jean Danou thinks the alliance will help the Socialists,” said Dandy. “Make them the dominant partner in the Popular Front and give them control of France.”

  “Jean Danou is an idealist sentimentalist and hopelessly confused,” said Tasan. “A sentimental Frenchman is something awful, like a dose of sugared castor oil. It is easier to take the platitudes of an Englishman, because he is a sentimental realist. The Socialists will either be wiped out in next month’s elections in France or have a temporary minority success. But they won’t be in a position to do anything Socialistic without the power of the Communists. The Popular Front is a Soviet ship and the officers and crew are all Soviet. The passengers are the bourgeois elite, but we’ve got the Socialists jailed in the hold.”

  Seraphine had kept up interest in the drift of the conversation, not altogether understandingly, but considering it a social necessity to function at the table otherwise than as a mere wine-bibber, she said: “Tell me, Maxim, how will Aframericans figure in the Popular Front? What place will they get? My father says that the Popular Front will help them about as much as the League of Nations helped Ethiopia.”

  Tasan looked indulgently at Seraphine as a distinguished dinner guest might turn a complimentary eye upon the decorative monogram of his serviette. “Mr. Peixota is a cynic,” he said. “The League of Nations is the instrument of imperialist nations. Only Soviet Russia tried to make it serve the needs of the people. But alone Soviet Russia could not change an imperialistic instrument int
o a people’s weapon. Ethiopia has served the world, for it will be the grave of the League of Nations and the Popular Front will triumph. The Popular Front will give Aframericans their second emancipation and end all prejudice and discrimination.”

  “Bravo!” said Dandy. “We’ll have to intensify the drive to convert the Aframericans, even against their will. During the Civil War thousands of them sided with their oppressors.”

  “Let’s drink to the Aframerican minority and its conquest by the Popular Front,” said Tasan.

  They stood up and drank and Tasan started singing unmelodiously:

  All hail the power of the Popular Front,

  Which all the people of the world unite,

  Armed with Democracy we march to hunt

  And slay the dragon, Fascist-Trotskyite.

  “Let’s dance it too and be happy,” said Tasan. And he and Seraphine and Dandy held hands and danced into the sitting room. It had the appearance of a spacious study, with many pieces of small and low bookcases set between little tables, chairs, and other furniture, against the wall. They were stacked with books in many languages: Russian, English, German, French, and there were a few in Italian and Spanish. The majority of the books were new and mainly about politics, sociology and travel. Magazines and newspapers were set on end tables and leather cushions and a lot of them were piled up unkemptly on a chest in a corner.

  “Let’s mix the drinks and make a punch,” said Tasan. “It’s easier than cocktails and more fun.”

  Dandy fetched a bowl from the kitchen and they dumped the rest of the cocktail in it, adding lemon juice and orange juice and more whiskey and wine. Seraphine made herself comfortable on the broad couch-bed.

  “Have you seen Newton Castle recently?” said Tasan. “He didn’t keep an appointment with me last Saturday.”

  Seraphine said she hadn’t seen Newton, but that Mrs. Castle had visited their new apartment the first week she and Bunchetta moved downtown.

  “He’s having trouble with her, I believe,” said Tasan, “ever since he led the pickets against the Rev. Trawl’s church. She thought his action was too extreme and that his position as a teacher will be in danger if he keeps it up. Newton is very worried and we might have to find him another woman.” Tasan laughed and scratched his thigh.

  “Delta was always a pretty good sport,” said Seraphine. “But the last time I saw her she did say that Newton was getting on her nerves. Life is a messy business anyhow and Harlem is a big mess.”

  “But you’re out of Harlem now,” said Tasan. “You’re out of the mess.”

  “I wish I was, but actually I’m not,” said Seraphine. “I’m a Harlemite, even if I am living downtown.”

  From a cabinet which contained a set of modernistic old-fashioned tumblers, Tasan took two and filled them with punch. He handed Seraphine one and sat down beside her.

  “Where is Dandy?” she suddenly asked.

  “He went out,” said Tasan. “I suppose he had a date.”

  “But he didn’t even tell us he was going!”

  “That’s nothing. He’s informal like all of us, but you’ll see him again. Now we can talk more freely about yourself.”

  “Yes, that’s really why I am here,” said Seraphine. “But it’s a nice evening and it’s a shame that it should be spoiled with my troubles.”

  “Nothing that you say could make an evening unpleasant,” said Tasan. “Besides, I am really concerned about your troubles, when they interfere with your work. I was more worried than you perhaps, when you said that you might have to quit the job.”

  “Were you? That’s real nice of you,” said Seraphine. “I wish my mother was a teeny bit as sympathetic and understanding as you are. But she’s as hard as nails and annoying as a horsefly all because of that old man Peixota and his crazy ideas about Ethiopia.”

  “What did she have to say?”

  “I guess Dorsey Flagg must have told them about my being with you at the Airplane. You remember when Dorsey whispered in my ear and I called him a pig and you wanted to know why and I wouldn’t tell you? Well, Mother said the same thing to me except that her language was not so filthy—she didn’t make an obscene rhyming pun on the Popular Front like him, the pig!”

  Tasan was excitedly curious: “But what did he say exactly?”

  “Oh, I won’t repeat it. It isn’t funny and yet it is in a way. Life is full of nastiness. But what Mother said hurt me more. She put a curse on me. She said if I go with a white man, she will disown me, I will be no more daughter of hers, o-o-oh!” Tears sprang to Seraphine’s eyes and she hid them with her handkerchief.

  “Don’t be upset by that,” Tasan spoke soothingly. “Why should you be colored? You’re colored because you imagine you are. But you are whiter than I—as white as Dandy Nordling. Maybe I’ve got a lot more colored blood than you, and I am white. I am not certain what I am, except that I’m an internationalist. There are millions of white-colored people who imagine they are pure white, whatever that absurdity is. Southern Spain and Southern Italy, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Turkey and the rest of the Near East have been absorbing the gulf stream of colored blood for hundreds of years. South America too and also these United States with their childish ideation—their damnable ludicrous reiteration of white! White! WHITE! Idiotic braggarts! Acting as if they know their corpuscles are tainted and are trying to hide the fact.”

  “But American culture and science is based on that,” said Seraphine. “This thing you call ‘ideation of white.’ Americans are cradled in it. It is the basis of their moral code, out of which they have created laws like those of the Medes and Persians.”

  “The United States have no culture and no science beside engineering,” said Tasan contemptuously. “Americans are merely the wandering tribes of Europe, who accidentally discovered a kingdom of marvelous natural resources. They possessed the skill to exploit these natural resources to build the biggest industrial system in the world. But the achievement dwarfed them intellectually. We Europeans have a sense of the cultural unity of Europe. We think of ourselves as Europeans. There are Europeans who are almost as swarthy as Africans. We could not think of ‘race’ and ‘white’ in the provincial American way.”

  “But how can that be with so many European nations asserting their independence and always fighting one another? I can’t see any unity in that,” said Seraphine.

  “But in spite of the conflict, they are all European nations,” said Tasan. “Under the ancient Roman Empire, a citizen of the Empire was a Roman whether he was born in Africa or Asia. And the Holy Roman Empire was based upon the unity of Europe and the oneness of humanity. And though Europe retrogressed and was split up by national rivalries, the basic cultural unity remains. We have no ideological ‘race or color’ conflicts such as create an infernal cleavage in the cultural unity of the United States.”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Seraphine. “Europe has the Nazis and the Jewish problem; America has the Ku Klux Klan and the Aframericans, but the Ku Klux Klan is not the government.”

  “The Jewish problem is not a race problem,” said Tasan. “It is a problem of religion and rooted in primitive mysticism. The Nazis have copied the methods of the Ku Klux Klan and the ideas of pseudo-scientists—Hitler specially exalted the false American conception of race in his Mein Kampf. He got ideas from a mad Englishman named Chamberlain and Frenchman called Gobineau.3 We are fighting the Nazis with the Popular Front. And they will be defeated. If the democratic nations refuse to follow the leadership of Soviet Russia, then the Nazis may conquer Europe, but they cannot win out with their wild racial theories. Europe will finally tame them. Europe will never accept the Nazi ideas of race, for Soviet Russia is the biggest and greatest European nation and it is half Asiatic.”

  “Your ideas sound very fine,” said Seraphine. “But in reality there are black people and white, yellow people and brown. And
they are divided into races. God willed it to be so, whatever He may be.”

  “Don’t be such a fatalist,” said Tasan. “God made you white and you imagine you are black. Did you ever hear of Pushkin?”4

  “Yes,” said Seraphine. “Aframericans claim him as a great colored genius.”

  “Pushkin was a Russian,” said Tasan. “And he was the father of Russian literature. His grandfather was black, an Ethiopian slave. Czar Peter the Great made him his personal attendant. The Czar was a mighty Russian and a great European. He valued men for what they were worth and not by the texture of their skin or the quality of their birth. He discovered big potentialities in his Ethiopian and made him an officer. And he married him to a Russian noblewoman. Today the descendants of Pushkin are scattered over Europe; they marry into the best European families; they are proud of their paternity, which is generally known. But they are Russians, not Russafricans.”

  “In America, they would have been Aframerican like me,” said Seraphine.

  “Yes, and that is why I insist that European values are sounder, in spite of the eruption of the diabolical Nazis.”

  “And you imagine I could be like the descendants of Pushkin?”

  “Yes, you should not hog-tie your life. You should dare to do and do, get every ounce of living you can out of the scale of life. Be venturesome and pioneering out of the blackness of Harlem. Look at me. I have gone around and across the world, kicking bourgeois prejudice in its fat face.”

  “But you are a man,” Seraphine cried. “I’m a woman and colored—while your parents are alive, it isn’t easy to cut yourself loose. I thought I could be as free among white as among colored. Mother was always broad-minded and encouraged me to flirt with colored men. But she called me a whore for acting the same way with white. And Father was worse—he threatened to stick the cops on me if I went around in the company of white men. And Father has political power. He could fix it and have me arrested and disgraced, even if nothing came of the charges. Just like his case.”