by Claude McKay
“The slaves don’t starve in Ethiopia,” said Alamaya, “for only wealthy people have slaves. But I’ve always thought that in the modern civilization, it is something of a luxury that a few people should starve. You know the Moslems starve themselves from dawn to twilight during the month of Ramadan and that is a luxury of faith. Luxury is like a warm bunch of beautiful orchids in cold New York which only the rich can afford.”
“Tekla, I’m talking about bread and you’re thinking about orchids. You’re a born prince alright, but you might feel differently if you had to face starvation, or you might not. Life is so full of contradictions. When I was investigating the Bronx Slave Market for the Comintern, I had to look up some of these employers who were paying the black slaves ten cents an hour. And I discovered a lot of comrades among them: persons who live in two- and three-roomed apartments and can’t afford a regular servant. So they hire one by the hour to clean up. Most of these comrades are well-paid workers. But they must pay party dues, buy tickets for party affairs, contribute to so many and plus more party drives from this and that cause and keep up with radical café society. When I rebuked them for hiring the black slaves at ten cents an hour, they were angry and said that they hired servant labor in the cheapest market according to the law of supply and demand. And it was the fault of the black slaves of the Bronx not to organize!”
“I’d like to go with you to see the slave blocks of the Bronx,” said Alamaya, “but even though the comrades boycott you, you won’t need to go there to sell your labor. Tasan gave you a pretty name and you have a nice voice. He can’t file an injunction against your using the name Princess Benebe with your voice. You can put them to work yourself and make them produce for you.”
“I never thought of that,” said Gloria.
“Ah, but you should,” said Alamaya. “All your people should think more about doing things on their own initiative. Otherwise the Tasans among the whites will seek to hamstring your initiative and control your thinking. If Tasan used his imagination to create a Princess Benebe Zarihana out of Gloria Kendall, why not try to use your own to profit from Tasan’s hoax? Go and see the impresario who wanted so badly to get you in the regular theatre. Tell him you are free to turn professional now that there’s no Emperor of Ethiopia to object.”
“But, Tekla,” said Gloria, “you’re full of bright ideas like any American salesman! How did you get that way?”
“One learns fast in America,” he said.
“Yes, but not all the bright ideas turn out brilliantly. For instance, I may not be worth a bright new dime to the impresario now that Ethiopia is conquered by the Fascists. Haven’t you noticed how quickly and easily the newspapers have changed their tone? They say the Fascists may modernize Ethiopia. And what the newspapers say today reflects the attitude of the democratic nations tomorrow: ‘Ethiopia is an embarrassing subject. Let’s try to forget it.’”
“To put it plainly,” said Alamaya, “you mean that while Ethiopia was still fighting the Fascists, it was a good racket and easy to fabricate princes and princesses and excite people to contribute to help Ethiopia.”
“That’s just it,” said Gloria. “All the fakers, whether they are individuals or organizations, must fold up now. Then the genuine people may have their break. You, for example, Tekla, you’re worried about me, but what about yourself?”
“Me? Oh, I was thinking I could become the manager of Princess Benebe,” said Alamaya. “As an Ethiopian princess you would be as genuine an article as myself as a Lij. ‘Ethiopian’ is a generic word and you are entitled to be called ‘Ethiopian’ exactly as you are called ‘colored’ or ‘Aframerican.’ And as for being a princess, well, you’re lovelier than any of the princesses of Ethiopia.”
Gloria crossed over to Alamaya and, sitting on the broad arm of his chair, she cuddled against him. Her face was warm against his and he kissed her.
“I love you, Gloria,” he said.
“And what about Seraphine?”
“She’s married in the Comintern church, but we are free, FREE!”
“To be each other’s slave?” said Gloria.
“Why not?” said Alamaya. “Better to be the individual slave of love that is human than to be the mindless slave of a movement.”
• • •
Gloria and Alamaya agreed that she should essay the perpetuation of the role of Princess Benebe as a professional performer. But when Alamaya, as her representative, tried to promote her, he discovered that Gloria was more correct in her estimation of the situation. Where Maxim Tasan with his large experience and influential contacts was expertly successful in selling a fraudulent alloy, Alamaya was a failure in separating the pure metal from the dross and trying to sell the genuine article.
The impresario who previously was so eager to flash the spotlights on Gloria parading in her gorgeous costumes was now haughtily indifferent. He rudely informed Alamaya that Ethiopia defeated was nothing but an unimportant and worthless “back number” and that princes and princesses of Ethiopia were less important to the public than Harlem porters and scrubwomen. Alamaya was told that the only Ethiopia now that might prove a profitable attraction as entertainer was the Emperor Haile Selassie himself. And he was offered a splendid commission as an agent if he could use his influence to persuade Haile Selassie to leave Palestine for the United States. The impresario was confident that the Emperor could make up for the fortune he had lost to Italy, if he would consent to appear in a dervish dance on the American stage.
Alamaya was exceedingly angry. The high-powered salesman of modern amusement had humiliated him even more than Tasan had ever done. Apparently he took a clown’s delight in getting over a cheap joke at the expense of the defeated Ethiopian nation. However, Alamaya tried to conceal his anger under a mask of dignity. He had invited the affront, he reflected, in his naïve attempt to enlist the professional help of this man, who, a friend of Tasan, was also his counterpart in the world of entertainment.
“I’m sorry,” said Alamaya quietly, “but I’m afraid that the Emperor of Ethiopians could not be persuaded to perform a dervish dance for the American stage, even though there’s a fortune in it. He may prefer to remain a poor exile in Jerusalem.”
The impresario rubbed his enormously fat fingers together and champed his fine cigar, which appeared in his mouth like a fetish of smug self-satisfaction. “Don’t stand so pat on your Ethiopian dignity, my good fellow,” he said. “We have had the Queen of Romania,1 the granddaughter of Queen Victoria herself doing her stuff on the vast American stage. Your Emperor has a chance to make his now, while Ethiopia is still half alive. Colored people are all natural-born actors. Better for Haile Selassie to become a dancing dervish making good money in America than to stay in Jerusalem, where he may eventually be reduced to the status of a street Arab hanging around the Mosque of Omar.”2
“I suppose I should show my appreciation of your counteroffer and thank you,” said Alamaya. He picked up his hat and walked out.
• • •
As the excitement leading up to the execution of a man ends with a public sigh of respite when the deed is done, so a wet blanket of silence had descended heavily upon the defeat of Ethiopia. Like a fall of late hoar upon the verdant earth quickly dissipated by the rising sun, Ethiopia had suddenly evaporated from the headlines and disappeared from the front page and the sidewalk forums of conversation.
Going to Harlem alone, Lij Alamaya had a feeling of an unknown, unnoticed visitor in a strange indifferent country. In that territory which conveys such a warm impression of insouciant general intimacy of everybody knowing one another, Alamaya explored the blocks in bright daylight and nobody recognized him. The grand acclamation that was accorded him upon his first visit to Harlem appeared now as unreal as the extravagantly glittering armor of Professor Koazhy. Ethiopia is as remote and strange now as the Einstein Theory3 to these people, thought Alamaya. When they were stirred u
p about it, it was like a sudden collective flare-up, like one of our tribes running amok.
One morning Alamaya was making preparations to leave his hotel, when Pablo Peixota called on him. Alamaya was surprised and expressed his gratification for the visit of his former colleague and friend.
“I can see that you are surprised,” said Peixota, “but I hope you will not be displeased. As you would not come to see me, I made it my business to come to you.”
“I wanted to come to see you,” said Alamaya. “I made more than one attempt, but I literally fell by the wayside—I could not go through with it. I was ashamed, because I was a failure.”
“The shame is on our side,” said Peixota. “And if your mission is a failure, it is because we failed you. I think you acted your part with distinction. It was a difficult job. You were the representative of the government of a nation of people, accredited to a people with vague nationalistic group yearnings but with no actual experience of what it means to be a nation. Between the white wire-pullers who understood the significance of the movement and their colored stooges who could not understand, you were like a man dancing on a tightrope and I think your performance was excellent.”
“You are very generous, Mr. Peixota,” said Alamaya, “but I know that my performance was indifferent. I might have done better. You believed in me, you had faith in the cause of Ethiopia, but I was never entirely frank with you.”
“That’s nothing and we may do better forgetting it,” said Peixota. “You were a diplomat and must have had diplomatic secrets. I know enough of the game from my experience with the diplomats and fixers of what they call the underworld.”
“But I was not as genuine a diplomat as I pretended to be,” said Alamaya. “I may just as well be frank with you. I did not tell you the whole truth about the Emperor’s letter.”
“Oh, I know all about the letter,” said Peixota. “I heard that you found it on that dirty rascal Tasan. We ought to find a way to make him pay for it. I think I can help you get a good lawyer to sue him and get your share of the Comintern dollars.”
“I wish I could,” said Alamaya, “but I’m not in a position as favorable to prosecute Tasan as he is to persecute me. I must confess I did not tell you all the truth about myself. I joined the Communists when I was in France.”
“I am not really surprised to hear that,” said Peixota. “I always thought that there was some secret you did not want to reveal, but in spite of that I was convinced that you were fundamentally sincere and honest and patriotic.”
“I joined when the idea of the Popular Front was sweeping up the world,” said Alamaya. “It appeared then as if the world were divided between the Liberal Left (including the Communists) and the Conservative Right with the Fascists. Every decent-minded man sided with the Left if he believed in the traditional ideas of freedom and liberty and self-determination and tolerance for minority groups and small nations. And it was exactly that time when the world was fermenting with the new idea, that the Fascists chose to launch their war in Ethiopia.”
“I understand perfectly,” said Peixota. “If I was young like you, I might have been tempted to take the same stand. The young impressionable mind believes in miracles. It believes that if the rod of Democracy is transformed into a serpent, it can swallow the Communist snake and become the same good old rod again. Like Aaron’s rod, eh?4 You don’t need to explain anymore. I understand everything, except why Tasan should have so much power over you.”
“Because I haven’t explained everything,” said Alamaya. “The Emperor’s letter was not genuine.”
“Not genuine!” Peixota cried. “Impossible! That seemed to me the most authentic thing of all.”
“It was authentic, but it was not genuine,” said Alamaya. “I’ll tell you all about it. The letter was written about twelve years ago, when the government of Ethiopia had made arrangements to send a mission to the Aframericans. Some prominent Africans, Haitians, Cubans, Aframericans and others who were identified with the Pan-African movement of that period had interested the Ethiopians in the idea of sending a mission. But the plan was abandoned just before it was put into execution, because powerful states of the League of Nations disapproved of it. The letter in my possession belonged to one of the originally designated members of the postponed mission. It was alright as an exhibition, when so few people can read the official Amharic language of Ethiopia, but it couldn’t stand close scrutiny, and Maxim Tasan knew that.”
“Then you were not a representative of Ethiopia?” asked Peixota.
“Yes, I was—I am,” said Alamaya. “But I am more representative of the secret organization of the progressive Youth of Ethiopia than of the official moribund Ethiopia. I am a patriot. I believe in the future of my country and of my people. And that is why I would not follow the lead of the Comintern, when my eyes were opened to see that it was no good for my country or my people or Aframericans.”
“That is all I want to hear,” said Peixota. “My confidence in you is not shaken. Indeed it is greater, for you have had your baptism of fire and you are stronger. I came here to find out if I could be of any help in your future plans. I don’t know just what your plans may be, but I know that you must need help now that Ethiopia is defeated and deserted as much as you did when Ethiopia was fighting with thousands cheering from the sidelines. Perhaps your need is greater now.”
Alamaya informed Peixota that he had not formulated any plans. He had broken decisively with the Friends of Ethiopia. He considered himself an ordinary refugee and would start looking for a job.
“You are not any ordinary refugee,” said Peixota. “You’re an important refugee. And I am here to offer my help. There’s a place in my office for you, the place that Seraphine had. I will give you a better salary and you will learn something about one phase of the American housing system. Someday you may need the experience, if Ethiopia should ever regain her independence.”
“Do you mean that you are giving me a responsible place in your office, even though I have no experience?” said Alamaya. “How will I find words to express my gratitude for your help—for your confidence in me?”
“It is enough appreciation when you accept my offer,” said Peixota. “The white people are taking care of all their important refugees and even the unimportant ones. Yet they have so many big talents among themselves, they could afford to neglect a lot without losing anything. But we Aframericans—we have so few in comparison—nothing compared to the whites. Yet we neglect the few persons of talent in our midst. If it were not for the whites recognizing and giving them a helping hand, we would have nothing at all to show.”
“Mr. Peixota, I shall work like a fellah5 and live like an ascetic to show my appreciation of your kindness,” said Alamaya. “You say I should not thank you, but I must—”
“Don’t thank me, I beg you,” said Peixota. “If you must show your feelings that way, you should thank the young woman who came to see me yesterday. If I were young like you with such a girl who believed in me, to stand up with me, I would be the happiest man in the world.”
“Gloria Kendall!” said Alamaya. “She went to see you about me?”
“Indeed she did,” said Peixota. “And a wonderful advocate you have in her. She told me everything, except about the technical details of the Emperor’s letter. And so I was prepared for your revelations.”
“She’s a lovely lovable girl,” said Alamaya, “with a splendid head on her shoulders.”
“And her wonderful heart in your hands,” said Peixota. “Be careful how you handle it, Alamaya. Hearts like hers are the reservoirs of the pure lifeblood of the manhood of our group.”
“She will always be enshrined in my heart as Princess Benebe,” said Alamaya. “Maxim Tasan planned the role for her as a cheap masquerade to ridicule Ethiopia and Aframericans. But she fooled him. She made a beautiful part of it and she inspired me to have hope and confiden
ce in myself.”
“Neither Ethiopia nor Aframericans can be ridiculed,” said Peixota. “The Aframerican comedy is the big tragedy of American Civilization. And I firmly believe that Ethiopia—the oldest Christian nation—must rise again, if Christianity continues to be the religion of modern Civilization.”
“I predict that Ethiopia will be the jinx of the League of Nations,” said Alamaya. “I am a mystic, for Ethiopia is half African and half Asiatic. It will jinx the world. I remember early last year when the crisis became acute and Ethiopia was finding it extremely difficult to get her case before the League of Nations. The Czecho-Slovak minister was the president of the League Council. And when the Ethiopian envoy to Paris kept right on worrying him like a gadfly, one day the Czecho-Slovak minister said, resentfully, that Europe was too busy with important problems to attend to the affairs of backward Africa. The Ethiopian envoy said to the Czecho-Slovak minister: ‘Africa is Europe’s backyard and if an epidemic starts there and Europe ignores it, it will spread to the front yard.’”
“The Ethiopian envoy said exactly the right thing,” said Peixota. “It excites me to think how closely the problem of Ethiopia and Europe parallels the Aframericans in America. When we organize and protest many liberal whites warn us that we are better off than Jews in Germany. That’s the attitude of the big guns of the Popular Front. Well-meaning whites are weighing Aframerican minority problems by a European standard. They quite forget that our group position has never approached the high estate of the Jews in Germany. Short of exile or extermination, what the Nazis are attempting in Germany is to reduce the Jews socially and politically to the level of colored people in America. I often wonder if the Nazis have made a secret comprehensive study of the laws and customs covering the status of the Aframerican minority.”
