Amiable with Big Teeth

by Claude McKay

  Pablo Peixota had not seen or spoken to Seraphine since she walked out of his house. Yet deliberately she concocted this lie about him. Regarding him in her resentment as the principal cause of her troubles, her misunderstanding with Lij Alamaya and her quarrel with her mother, she endeavored to represent him as the embodiment of evil.

  “The damned scoundrel,” said Tasan. “I always felt that in his blind hatred and distrust of all whites he was capable of the vilest act. He ought to be lynched. I tell you, Seraphine, you ought to marry a white man.”

  “You think so? But I hate the idea of ‘passing.’”

  “Passing hell. You should never imagine that you are ‘passing.’ How much more can I explain that to you? Only imbeciles play at the game of ‘passing.’ Just be yourself, sure of yourself and proud of being what you are. Any so-called white would be glad to marry you—any goddam son of a Nordic would go down on his knees to you.”

  “Oh, do you really mean that?” said Seraphine, leaning heavily and warmly against Tasan.

  He adjusted himself to accommodate her. “Sure I do, and I would even include myself if I were handsome and a Nordic. But I guess I’m only good for propaganda.”

  “You’re as fine as the handsomest,” said Seraphine, “and you’re even finer because you have a real heart.”

  Tasan fondled Seraphine’s face. “In my work there is little time for sentimentality,” he said, “but you are not like other women. You’re a jewel. I knew it the first time I set eyes on you.”

  Tasan seemed to be undergoing a miraculous transfiguration by the magic of the moment and he appeared like a tropical chameleon tautened from head to tail and strangely gradually changing the color of his skin.

  Seraphine whispered: “You’re a darling.”

  They remained silent for some time, Tasan brooding-like over the relaxed figure of Seraphine. Suddenly she started up and cried: “Oh, it’s late, I’ve got to go home.”

  “You haven’t got to go home,” said Tasan. “We have just finished arguing about daring to be yourself and living venturesomely. Let us relax now and forget about problems, you and I. We both need the tonic of relaxation. Let’s drink some more and forget.” Seraphine replied with only a long sigh.

  Tasan went to the electric ice box to get fresh cubes of ice for the bowl. And then he poured an assortment of liquor in it.

  18

  SERAPHINE DISCOVERS THE LETTER

  In Maxim Tasan’s apartment the following day at high noon Seraphine stirred and sighed and opened her eyes to gaze wonderingly at a flaming head resting on the cushion against hers. Two strange eyes, pale-purplish like April violets, looked archly at her and she gasped: “Dandy!”

  “Sokay,” said Augustus Nordling.

  “But where is Maxim?”

  “Gone to Chicago, I guess to see Princess Benebe.”

  “And how did you get here beside me?”

  “Oh, I’ve been here all the time. You don’t like it, you hate me?”

  “Why should I hate you? But it’s all so strange—I’m afraid—I feel kind of lost.”

  “You don’t need to feel that way. We’ll be married right away.”

  “Married?” Seraphine started and sat up.

  “Why, sure! Don’t you want to? I thought I shouldn’t compromise you and I didn’t intend to. Unless you have any objection to me.”

  Seraphine made no answer.

  “Have you any objection?” Dandy reached up and grasped her shoulder and she eased back against the cushions.

  “But Maxim—”

  “So you prefer Tasan, you like him better,” said Dandy.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It’s me then. I’m so happy, darling.” He kissed her on the forehead.

  “Oh, I feel as giddy as a chicken with its head cut off,” said Seraphine. “I wonder where my head is gone?” She clapped her palm upon her forehead.

  Dandy smiled and said: “I’m sorry, let me get you some aspirin. And I’ll make you a cup of strong coffee. I’m sorry, but I never guessed you were so innocent.”

  And while Dandy was preparing the coffee, reacting from the effects of a prodigal night, Seraphine’s head was swimming in an agitated sea of confused thinking: I guess it is better to marry him and get it over. It’ll fool Mother and Father and prove that a white man will marry a colored girl. And I won’t have to “pass.” Yet I thought it was Maxim, but it turned out to be Dandy. Maybe I’ll like him better, though I couldn’t say it right away. He’s so blond and big—yet nice and handy at everything. Maxim is so like a little monkey and I don’t like the color of his skin—it’s so dead. Yet he has brains—big brains—but brains isn’t everything. Mrs. Seraphine Nordling! Nicer than Alamaya or Peixota, both of them so foreign-sounding and un-American. Always having to tell people how to pronounce Peixota. Mrs. Nordling—I’ll be the same Seraphine in Harlem and downtown—no cause to cover up my origin. But won’t Alamaya be flabbergasted, though! Damned Ethiopian nincompoop—just a regular sissy—always belly-aching about “my country”—like a sniveling kid with the whooping cough. I’m glad I’m American—where it’s easy as a snap to get a man and a license—sweet lady of liberty. . . . Gee, but won’t Bunchetta be jealous! She’s been a ballyhooing Balinese downtown for ever so long and never did get anywhere with it and pretending to be so over-intellectual. I’ll tell her it was an elopement—love at first sight.

  Dandy brought the coffee. “Remember when we get the license, you’re white,” he said. “I don’t care a whoop about it, but we’re not going to let them get away with murder and draw any color line.”

  “All right,” said Seraphine, “I leave all the details to you.”

  “There’s another little item. I want you to sign this card.”

  “What is it for?”

  “Your membership in the Communist Party. I’m a disciplined member and it’s preferable that I should marry a person who is a comrade.” He had the pen ready.

  “All right,” and Seraphine wrote her name.

  They obtained the license and were married that same afternoon. Dandy had influential friends and a magistrate was found to waive the time limit and perform the ceremony. When it was over, Seraphine asked: “And where are we going to live?”

  “In Tasan’s apartment of course, until we furnish our own,” said Dandy. “I guess Tasan will make us a wedding present of one. He’s a regular fairy god-father. We’ll take a week off.”

  “But I’ll have to stay in the office, as he isn’t here,” said Seraphine.

  “I’ll telegraph Tasan in Chicago. The office will feel better after closing a week in honor of our honeymoon.”

  Mrs. Lela Witern entertained the newly-weds at dinner in a reserved room of a large downtown catering establishment. The invitees were Director of the Interlink, Montague Claxon, and his fiancée, Iris Marlow, who had replaced Seraphine at the Interlink; Bunchetta Facey; Newton Castle, unaccompanied by his wife Delta; and Professor Banner Makepeace. Mrs. Witern was a perfect hostess for the occasion. She made a little speech. She said that the occasion was exceptionally unusual and that the marriage of Seraphine and Augustus Nordling was not simply a private affair, but that it should be regarded as one aspect of the movement of humanity against the inhuman Nazi theories of race. Mrs. Witern said that she had never been merely a blindly sentimental advocate of mixed marriages. Because she was aware that mixed marriages, like morganatic and international ones, even if they were conceived in heaven, had to go through the test of hell on earth. For such couples cannot create an isolated island for themselves: they must often live their lives in an unsympathetic or hostile environment. In her opinion mixed couples were the martyrs of the social system of today and the pioneers of the social system of tomorrow. They were courageous couples who dared to challenge the social taboos, much braver than the great majority who lived accord
ing to the established patterns. But she did not believe in martyrdom: it was too vicarious. The world has grown hypocritical and mean under the symbol of man upon the cross. And so, said Mrs. Witern, she hoped that Seraphine and Augustus would make their marriage not a martyrdom but a challenge to the world.

  Seraphine made little changes here and there, which transformed the mussy bachelor’s haven of Maxim Tasan into a place more suitable even for a brief honeymoon. While she was rearranging the nuptial couch, she discovered a tiny leather case which had worked its way down between the cushions. It was stamped with the initials “M.T.” and contained three keys. Two Seraphine immediately recognized as the keys to the apartment and the building respectively; the other probably belonged to a suitcase or cabinet.

  Seraphine was always curious about Tasan, his work, his connections, his real origin. She was aware that his activity with the Friends of Ethiopia was only one small phase of the work in the Popular Front. But to her mind the Popular Front was vague, like a vast multitude of people assembled without leadership to gaze at a comet. She had no idea of it as an international organization with active agents scattered throughout the world. She knew that Tasan had real influence among influential people and that he disposed of considerable funds, but as his business was not something tangible like Pablo Peixota’s he remained to her a man of mystery.

  The idea impinged on her mind that the key in her hand might be sesame to a secret. She tried it in one of the locked drawers of the dining room buffet and in a box in the unused alcove-like room, which contained a couple of suitcases and discarded shoes and clothes and a pile of books. It didn’t work. Then she tried the chest in the corner parallel to the studio couch. It fitted. She pushed off the pile of magazines and pamphlets and opened it. In the top drawer there were a lot of canceled cheques, many letters and various business papers fastened together with clips.

  Seraphine glanced hastily at some of the letters and examined the cheques and business papers. She lifted the drawer and the first thing she saw underneath was a large thick envelope marked “Ethiopia.” Seraphine pounced on it. She pried up the fastener and drew out a set of photographs held together by a rubber band. There were half a dozen photographs of Princess Benebe in different costumes and poses and four of Gloria Kendall, the young woman to whose job Seraphine succeeded at the office of the Friends of Ethiopia. The resemblance between Gloria Kendall and Princess Benebe was obvious; the elaborate costume of the latter could not conceal the close facial resemblance. Gloria Kendall and Princess Benebe Zarihana were the same person. Am I crazy? thought Seraphine. Princess Benebe is a fraud?

  But the evidence was right there. Looking at the back of one of the photographs, Seraphine read: “This costume is Persian—unsuitable.” The handwriting was Alamaya’s and on one of Gloria Kendall’s in ordinary clothes there was written: “I like you more as Gloria than Princess Benebe.” A sensation of jealousy jabbed Seraphine. But the astonishing discovery did not contribute to her comprehension of the mystery. Why such an elaborate trick? Why should Alamaya, who was an authentic Ethiopian and patriot, become an accomplice to such a fantastic imposture? And what was Tasan’s game? How could he, with all his lofty ideas and noble utterances, lend himself to such a cheap deception? Of Gloria Kendall masquerading as an Ethiopian princess, Seraphine was merely contemptuous. Harlem was infested with many such as she, Seraphine thought: individuals who indulged the vicarious pretence of being African princes and princesses, sheiks and sharifs of Araby, Balinese and Javanese, Red Indian and East Indian, Angels and Gods—anything but plain Aframerican. But the role of Lij Alamaya and Maxim Tasan was inexplicable. She shook the envelope and a smaller one fell out. It was sealed but she opened it and found the Emperor’s letter which Alamaya had lost at the Witern party. So it was Maxim Tasan who had stolen the letter. Seraphine was convinced now that Alamaya was the victim of a vile frame-up.

  Into her bosom she thrust the Emperor’s letter and the two photographs with Lij Alamaya’s penciled comments. She locked the chest and heaped the magazines and newspapers upon it. She put the leather case with the keys on the mantel. And she wondered what she should do next. She felt a warm sympathy for Alamaya and a desire to help him. And she felt ashamed of herself for her failure to understand him. Perhaps her father was right. If she could only bring herself to go and see him. But it was impossible now that she was Mrs. Augustus Nordling.

  Perhaps her mother would soften and see the situation with a woman’s understanding. She would telephone her mother. She sat down to the telephone and fingered the number. She got the response. “Mother, it’s me, Seraphine. I want to come up and see you. It is very important.”

  “Well, have you changed your mind?” said Mrs. Peixota.

  “I want to tell you I’m married, I want to see you.”

  “Who did you marry?”

  “It’s a nice person—he’s white and—”

  “You can keep him to yourself. I don’t ever want to see you or him.” Mrs. Peixota clamped down the receiver.

  Seraphine put her hands upon her bosom, feeling the envelope: What shall I do? she thought. I wonder if I was right or wrong to marry him. Can I tell him? Lord no! Maxim Tasan is like a god to him. But I must talk to somebody. I can’t carry this thing alone in my bosom.

  “I’ll hide it!” she said aloud.

  She dashed out and hurried to her apartment on Second Avenue and locked the letter and photographs in her trunk. When she returned to Tasan’s apartment, her husband was just arriving there. “Tasan telegraphed asking if his keys are anywhere about,” he said.

  “I saw them on the mantel, where he left them I guess,” she said.

  “Seen this?” said Dandy as they entered the apartment. It was the early edition of an evening paper, with the banner headline: “Italians Converging on Addis Ababa: Emperor Flees Ethiopian Capital.”1

  Seraphine had been too excited about her find to pay any attention to the newsstands.

  “What a strange little coincidence,” she said, thinking about the Emperor’s letter.

  “What?” asked Dandy.

  “I mean it’s so sudden, the Emperor’s flight, so unexpected. Well, that’s the end of the Ethiopian Empire. I guess all the little mock fights between the Aid to Ethiopia organizations will stop, now that the real big fight is ended over there.”

  “The Fascists may conquer Ethiopia, but they cannot win in the end,” said Dandy. “The Popular Front will finally defeat them.”

  Seraphine giggled, slightly hysterically: “All the same, I’m out of a job.”

  “It’ll be easy to find another for you, even though there is an army of unemployed. You’ll see,” said Dandy.

  “What will become of Lij Alamaya and Princess Benebe Zarihana?” said Seraphine.

  “I wonder,” said Dandy. “They must be speeding back here from Chicago.”

  “H’m.” Seraphine had been pondering over the idea of a trip to Chicago. “I don’t want to live here any longer,” she said. “Can’t we move to your place?”

  “It’s just a lousy room on Fourteenth Street,” said Dandy. “You couldn’t live in it.”

  “I could clean it up.”

  “I’ll show it to you, but we can’t live there. Why can’t we stay here until we find a nice place?”

  “I don’t want to, and I don’t want Maxim Tasan to furnish a place for us. I believe it’ll be better if we are independent.”

  “Anything to please you,” said Dandy. “I haven’t any money right now, but I’ll have enough in a couple of weeks. If you’re determined to leave here, couldn’t we stay in your Second Avenue apartment for a couple of weeks?”

  “I don’t like the idea of moving in on Bunchetta with a husband—it’ll be kind of crowded. And you’re white. You see, colored persons have a fixed idea about white people, which is difficult for a type like you to understand. If you were a Souther
n white man, you’d understand. They expect you to keep up a white standard of living. If we moved in on Bunchetta, it would soon be known in Harlem. And they’d be gossiping about Peixota’s daughter marrying a no-count white man who couldn’t even furnish an apartment for her to live in. I don’t want Mother and Father to hear that kind of thing. I’d prefer to stay in your place, even if it is just a cubby-hole, until we can furnish an apartment. If you only knew my people—you see—oh, I’m so unhappy!”

  “Oh, please don’t say that, Seraphine,” said Dandy. “I see your point perfectly. I was a fool, just a stupid bohemian bum. But I’ll do better for your sake. I’ll hunt up a place right away, don’t worry. I know where I can borrow money. Gee, Seraphine, you’re a pure diamond.”

  He took her in his arms and she dissolved limber like a branch in the breeze against his blond bigness.

  19

  PRINCESS BENEBE AND GLORIA KENDALL

  On Friday Seraphine went back to work. She was inexorably pushed to go, so that she should be occupied with something else besides love. She could not make herself contented, could not suppress a psychic revolt against purely physical sensations, which were adulterated by the dismal feeling that she might have made a false step.

  And also she was tormented by an increasing resentment against Maxim Tasan and the fraud he had perpetrated. The burden of the crisis was too heavy for a person of Seraphine’s disposition to carry alone. In the excitement of first finding the revealing documents, she had decided against this course when she reflected that it could do irreparable harm to many people and especially Lij Alamaya, whom she no longer hated but pitied. She did not even imagine then how difficult it would have been for her to get any such item published.