Emperor of Gondwanaland

by Paul Di Filippo

  One of the Americans approached the podium, and the murmuring Africans fell quiet.

  The man spoke in the legendary New York accent (still recalled by elderly survivors of the Great Return), but larded with Southernisms. His countenance displayed unease barely masked by professional civility. Sweat dotted his brow.

  “Ahem, I—that is, all of us here extend a big welcome to our visitin’ nig—free negroes. As mayor of Noo Yawk, the greatest city in the world, I’m downright proud to play host to this delegation from the upstandin’ country of Pan-Africa, which has come so far from such humble beginnins. I’m sure y’all gonna have a helluva time here. We’ve got some great activities lined up for y’all—”

  “Harlem!” yelled a black voice. “We want to see Harlem!”

  A chant went up among the Africans. “Harlem! Harlem! Harlem!”

  The mayor’s air of nervousness visibly increased. He held up his hands for silence and was eventually rewarded, whereupon he resumed his set speech without acknowledging the interruption.

  “But before then, I just wanna innerduce a little ol’ down-home boy who has a few words to say. Ladies and gentiemen and Negroes, the leader of these here United States, President Coughlin!”

  The Africans applauded politely as the eldest figure on stage creakily stood and shuffled to the lectern, clutching a handful of papers. When he spoke, his age-stricken voice hinted at what must have once been a remarkably resonant instrument.

  “Thank you, Mayor Duke. Good afternoon, my fellow Amero-Africans, if I may be so bold as to claim kinship with such a splendid collection of bucks and hoochie-coochie girls as I see here before me. Considering the centuries when we lived side by side, there’s probably a tiny touch of the tar brush in all of us here on this stage.”

  The president paused, obviously expecting his own chuckle to be echoed. Receiving only stony silence, he squinted with a touch of irritation, at the same time shuffling his speech as if to skip over a large part.

  “Well, I realize that after the rigors of your long journey you’re all eager to rest up a tad, so I won’t protract this occasion, however pleasant it might be. Let me just conclude by saying I hope America and Pan-Africa can put the past behind us and resume a fruitful relationship of long standing after an unfortunate interregnum. And now, with your permission, I’ll ask Reverend Billy to lead us in a short prayer.”

  Another indistinguishable old man changed places with the president and was greeted with polite applause.

  “Thank you. Let us please bow our heads. Holy Father, grant us victory over our enemies, Papist, furrin, heathen, or otherwise, and let us see them crushed into the dust and relegated to the outermost blackness of your ass-smitin’ disdain.”

  Rufus withdrew a fetish of Unkulunkulu hanging from a leather cord beneath his shirt. Gazing at his compatriots, he saw many of them doing likewise, with their own particular deities.

  Praying along in his own way with Reverend Billy, Rufus felt he and his countrymen could use all the celestial help they could get.

  After Ambassador Jimiyu Hendricks received a golden key to the city from Mayor Duke, the Africans were reloaded onto the buckboards and transported crosstown to their lodgings at the Waldorf-Astoria.

  Soon, Rufus found himself alone in what he had to admit was a luxurious and spacious room. If it had had running water, it would have been perfect.

  Gazing out his window at Park Avenue, where sheep grazed on the median, Rufus fell into a reverie that was interrupted by a knock on his door.

  “Come in,” said the professor, half expecting Banga Johnson.

  But the visitor was an American.

  The sight of him, framed in the open doorway, riveted Rufus to the spot.

  Barefoot, shirtless, wearing a straw hat with attached artificial cornrow braids, dressed in patched bib overalls with one suspender strap dangling, a red bandanna hanging from a back pocket, the young man was smeared with burnt cork or some similar substance all over his exposed skin.

  “Dey calls me Virgil,” said the apparition. “Virgil Cane. I’se gwine ter be yer guide.”

  Rufus found his outraged voice somewhere deep down in his socks.

  “What in the name of all that’s sacred are you rigged out like that for?”

  Virgil looked down at himself wonderingly. “Why, Lawdy, we done figgered dis way ob dressin’ would put y’all at ease, make y’all feel at home.”

  “Well, it doesn’t. Anyone in Lusaka dressed like you would be hauled off for a mental exam.”

  “Lawdy, how was we’all to know—”

  “And quit speaking that abhorrent patois!”

  Virgil scrunched up his features. “You mean I can talk normal?”

  “That’s precisely what I mean. Now, why don’t you use that pitcher and basin over there and wash that insulting makeup off?”

  Fear took up residence on Virgil’s face. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. I was ordered to— I mean, if I ever dared—-”

  Rufus sighed. “You may as well just go. I don’t need a guide anyway.”

  Virgil’s terror jumped an order of magnitude. “No, please, you have to use me. They won’t let you out on the streets alone, and if I fail, then—”

  The boy—he was hardly more than that—began to sob, and Rufus walked over to comfort him.

  As he endeavored to assure the lad he could remain as guide, Banga Johnson emerged from the room across the hall. With him was a woman. Also in blackface, she wore a gingham outfit and headrag. Voluminous padding endowed her with an enormous rear end.

  “Ah, professor, I see you’ve met your guide. Mine was identical, but I pulled a few strings and exchanged him for his female equivalent. May I introduce you to the beautiful Pearl—”

  The woman tittered. “Lawdy, you gwine ter make a gal go all ober shibbers.”

  Banga smirked. “Charming, is she not?”

  Emboldened by Banga’s amiability, Virgil stopped sniffling and spoke up. “If y’all be ready, dere’s fried chicken and chitlins and watermelon waitin’ downstairs.”

  Somehow, Rufus got through the dinner and the “entertainment” that followed.

  But it was neither easy nor pleasant, nor anything like what he had once envisioned back in faraway Lusaka.

  The buffet was as Virgil had promised. As Rufus tried to enjoy the foreign food, he was approached by a middle-aged white man, balding and bespectacled. The man wore a small gold pin in the shape of a noose on his lapel.

  “Professor Sexwale?”

  Rufus extended a hand. “Yes, sir. And you are—?”

  The man took Rufus’s hand gingerly, as if it were a rotten fish. “Professor Jefferson Davis Hurt. Columbia History Department. We’re looking forward to establishing contacts with your school.”

  “At last, a fellow scholar! I can’t tell you, Professor Hurt, how glad I am to find higher learning represented amidst all these political and mercantile types. I trust Columbia fares well these days? The campus is still flourishing?”

  Hurt looked nervous. “Ah, well, our circumstances are somewhat reduced. We had to abandon the Harlem campus because of the—for various reasons. Nowadays, we occupy the tenth floor of a very nice midtown building.”

  Rufus thought of the shady, sprawling grounds of Lusaka University, of the spanking new Kamau Clay History Building and his office therein. “I see. Your department has the tenth floor—”

  Hurt looked at the carpet. “No, that’s the whole school.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Columbia University rents the tenth floor. It’s quite reasonable, really.”

  After this embarrassing incident, Rufus kept to the company of his fellow Africans for the rest of the meal.

  Soon, a general exodus from the Waldorf-Astoria was organized. The Africans piled into the buckboards—which were already becoming as familiar and tedious as the splinters they inflicted—and headed toward Sixth Avenue. At the doors of a large wooden barnlike structure whose sputte
ring multibulb sign spelled out radio city music hall they disembarked and went inside.

  Rufus found himself seated—not accidentally, he reckoned— next to his guide, Virgil. The boy took pleasure in pointing out the various dignitaries assembled.

  “Dat’s Mistuh Clark, he’s a membuh ob de Order ob de White Rose. Next ter him is Colonel Groopman. He’s a Grand Titan in de Men ob Justice. Up in the balcony dere, you can see Mistuh Lee. He owns half of Charlotte, Nort’ Caroliner—”

  “The inhabitants?”

  Virgil was shocked. “Mistuh Sexwale, I’se ‘prised at you! You know dere ain’t no sech thing as slayberry here no more.”

  At that moment the house lights went down. Virgil whispered excitedly, “We’se gwine ter see a bunch of willrogers, den some jennylinds, den a moobin’ pickture. Finally, dey’se gwine ter be a play!”

  “I can hardly wait,” said Rufus wearily.

  First on stage was a succession of cowboys, all of whom told tiresome cracker-barrel jokes while ineptly spinning lariats. Following them came one female singer after another, their faces caked with white makeup so that Rufus imagined he was watching a Kabuki performance. The ladies all warbled sentimental and lugubrious ditties with names such as “Down by the Old Mill Stream” and “Father, Whither Goest Thou?” Rufus longed for the jit-jivers.

  After the departure of the last coloratura, a movie screen was lowered manually in fits and starts. A projector sprang to life, and the screen filled with grainy, scratchy black-and-white images. There was no sound.

  “I’se seen dis pickture a hunnerd times!” whispered Virgil. “It’s great!” the birth of a nation, read Rufus resignedly.

  A black man in the row ahead turned around. Rufus was unsurprised to see his nemesis, Banga Johnson. Banga had his arm well around Pearl’s neck, his hand down her collar.

  “I wager it’s the only film they own, professor. Take me up on it?”

  “No thank you.”

  Banga returned to fondling Pearl, and Rufus settled resignedly in.

  When the film was finally over, the screen was lifted. Behind it, the stage had been set for the play.

  A placard on an easel stood stage-left.

  “an american cousin”

  as enacted in ford’s theatre

  on the night of april 14, 1865

  Rufus buried his head in his hands.

  A short time later, despite his muffled ears, he heard the pistol shot, followed by a sea of uproarious applause and an island of black silence.

  That night, his dreams were not pleasant.

  The next few days were spent in what soon became a boring routine. Accompanied by Virgil, Rufus was allowed to meander both solo and with groups of his fellows and their guides anywhere he wished on the isle of Manhattan, so long as he stayed south of Central Park. Beyond this point, the authorities refused them permission to go.

  Naturally, being forbidden to enter Harlem—the ancestral territory one and all had traveled so far expressly to see—caused great irritability and many complaints. But the American government was adamant. Harlem was not fit to be visited yet. It needed cleaning. It was unsafe.

  And many other similar excuses.

  Nothing the Africans said, no promises not to hold the United States liable for any accidents, could shake the determination of the implacable officials.

  Barred from doing hoped-for on-site research, Rufus turned to the main city library on Fifth Avenue.

  The stone lions—African animals, after all—were smashed and headless.

  Rufus and Virgil ascended the broad steps. All doors save one were well barred with planks.

  At the lone entrance, an old caretaker greeted them. He appeared well advanced into senility, yet touchingly attentive.

  “Yes, yes, the stacks are not all they once were, I fear. And the pigeons—nasty birds!—have made a mess of the Reading Room. But I’ll try to find what you request. If only the card catalogue hadn’t gone for fuel during the winter of ’fifty-nine! But where there’s a will, there’s—something or other. I forget precisely what—”

  Needless to say, results were less than stupendous.

  One morning thereafter, Rufus stood at the Waldorf-Astoria’s lobby souvenir stand, eyeing for the fiftieth time the replicas of Lady Liberty for sale, complete with paint spatters and hemp necklace, and shaking his head ruefully.

  A hand on his shoulder caused him to turn.

  It was Banga.

  Eagerly, Rufus turned and clasped the auto magnate’s hand.

  “I never thought I’d be glad to see you, Mr. Johnson. I confess this city is getting me down. I trust your negotiations have been more successful than my researches.”

  “Hardly, professor. In fact, they’re damn well stalled. These Americans possess an inflated notion of their worth and stature. They’re holding out for ridiculous concessions. I understand the ambassador is having no greater luck with his treaties. In fact, I’m thinking of taking today off. Would you like to accompany me on a little expedition?”

  “Where to?”

  “Ah, to tell would spoil the surprise. Are you game?”

  “At this point, I’d follow the devil into hell and call it a vacation.”

  Banga smiled in his sardonic manner. “Remember those words, professor. Let’s go.”

  “What of our guides?”

  “I’ve arranged a little concert for all the Pearls and Virgils. The jit-jivers are playing in the ballroom right now. The whites love it, but I fear their attempts to dance along are truly pathetic.”

  Banga conducted Rufus out to the hotel’s stables, where they secured a pair of horses. Banga slung a mysterious saddlebag over his horse’s rump. Mounted, they rode first west as far as Fifth Avenue, then north.

  Before long, they reached Central Park South, where guards armed with Great War-era rifles accosted them.

  Banga flashed a pass. They were permitted to continue.

  Although burning with questions, Rufus kept silent. He fixed his thoughts on Harlem, assuredly their destination.

  Harlem the beautiful. Harlem, the throbbing heart of pre- Exclusionary Negro culture. There, legendary artists had painted, sung, and written. There, churches, taverns, and theaters had flourished. There, First President Garvey, from his offices on 135th Street between Lenox and Fifth, had dreamed of his liberation of Africa, mustered his forces, avoided jail and assassination and duplicity, and eventually won through to victory.

  Rufus could hardly wait. This would make up for all the earlier indignities.

  They entered a buffer zone of rubble-strewn untenanted acres. Rufus smelled Harlem at the same time he saw the wall around it. A ripe stench as of gangrenous flesh, open sewers, and unburied garbage, carried on breezes to which the high brick wall stretching east and west as far as the eye could see was no impediment.

  A wooden gate in the wall blocked Fifth Avenue’s uptown progress.

  Here, too, stood a pair of feeble-minded guards. Impressing them with his pass, Banga secured entrance.

  As the gates closed behind them and they trotted on, Rufus felt his stomach drop.

  The buildings on the far side of the wall were no more than crumbling, fire-blackened shells. The damage was old, a product of the same period as Liberty’s beheading.

  Rufus pictured the hordes of victorious, vengeance-seeking whites who must have rampaged here, making sure no Negroes lingered after the last boat left.

  Stopping a few dozen yards inside the walled ghetto, Rufus saw that the physical heritage of Harlem was totally destroyed.

  But the district was still populated.

  From the ruins they crawled and leaped and hopped and dragged themselves, an army of defectives and cripples. Half-men, animal-women, brutish children, naked with every missing limb or flipper or extra organ on display. Snakes and frogs and apes they resembled, and other, less savory, things. Their calls and cries rang abominably.

  Banga smiled, less convincingly than usual.

&
nbsp; “The culls, professor. The failed experiments. Not put down out of hand, as a merciful people might ordain, but stored here as a measure of perverse thrift, fed with the city’s slops.”

  Rufus choked out his words. “What—what do you intend?”

  “Liberation, professor. Plain and simple. With a tidy profit down the line.”

  Banga turned to address the crowd of mutants, which, still swelling, easily numbered in the thousands. They did not seem unduly surprised by the appearance of two black men, almost as if they had been prepared by forerunners.

  “Friends, it is as prophesied! I am here to lead you to reclaim what’s yours! You have only to follow me!”

  The noise of the mob grew until it resembled feeding time at the Lusaka zoo.

  Without further delay or speech making, Banga swung his horse around. Digging into his saddlebag, he brought out two grenades.

  Having pulled the pins, he chucked both at the gate.

  Twin explosions rocked the ground.

  Then Banga shouted, “Ride! Ride for your life, professor!”

  Rufus chose to obey.

  He did not look back until they were well down Fifth.

  Behind, the monstrous horde spilled out unchecked. Sirens went off all over the city.

  Their horses were in a lather by the time they reached the Waldorf-Astoria.

  Assembled on the street were what seemed to be all the Pan-African guests.

  “To the ship!” yelled Banga, and turned to lead.

  On Broadway, the retreating Africans came face to face with a white militia. Led by a saber-waving, medal-bedecked general on horseback, the nervous troops blocked the way with bayonets leveled. Only a few dozen yards separated the two groups.

  “Will you let us pass?” demanded Banga.

  “Never! Your nigger treachery is known, and you must pay!”

  Banga seemed to be stalling for time. “An incident like this spells war.”