by Irwin Shaw
“Don’t take it out on me, Frances, darling,” Archer said quietly. “Please.”
“His name was Vaness. Major Henry Vaness,” Frances went on. “Maybe you could have him dropped out of the American military cemetery at Metz. Conduct unbecoming a dead pilot.” Her eyes were glistening, but she didn’t cry. She wasn’t acting now. Her voice was flat and lifeless. “He was the only complete man I’ve ever found,” she said, “and nobody can say I’ve been lazy about looking since then.” There was sour self-mockery and self-disgust in her voice. “And do you know why he was complete? Because he had love in his heart. Love for everybody. For his men, for his little silly Red Cross girl, for the people he was forced to kill … Twenty-one missions and good-bye. Should I tell you what the men in his squadron did for me the day his plane went down? Ah—what for? You’re like all the rest. You’re more polite and maybe you’ll struggle a little longer—but finally you’ll be snowed under, too. It’ll just make it harder for you if you have to hear that somebody who believed in Communism was a great man and that everyone who ever knew him loved him. I’ll make it easy for you,” Frances said challengingly. “I’ll tell you I was a famished little virgin and I fell in love with a dashing Major and I picked up my politics in bed. Anyway, the day after I took off my uniform I went to the nearest Party headquarters and told them I wanted to join. Guilty as charged. That’s what you came to find out and you’ve found it out. Now I must ask you to leave, Clement. I expect somebody up here any minute and I’d rather you didn’t meet him …”
She stood up. Her hands were clenched at her sides and her face looked drawn. Archer rose from his chair uncertainly.
“Thanks,” Archer said lamely. “I want to thank you for being so frank.”
“Sure,” Frances waved her hand carelessly. “I’ll tell anybody anything. I’m famous for it.” She started toward the door.
“I’ll keep you posted,” Archer said, following her and picking up his hat and coat. “Whatever develops.”
“By all means.” Frances opened the door for him. “Keep me abreast.”
The phone began to ring in the bedroom and Frances said, “I’d better answer it. Good-bye.” Her tone was remote and cold and as though she had no connection with Archer and her pose at the door was plainly impatient.
Archer wanted to say something gentle, hopeful, persuasive, something that would show he had been moved and that he wanted to be her friend. But Frances looked hurried and forbidding, standing at the open door, and all Archer could manage was, “Good-bye, Frances. Good luck on the play.”
Then she closed the door crisply behind him. He could hear her hurrying through the room to the phone as he put on his hat and began to work himself into his coat.
“Motherwell speaking,” he heard her say through the thin partition. “Oh. Hello. Yes. I’m alone now.” Archer buttoned his coat and started down the stairs. Faintly he heard Frances’ voice saying, “How’re the measles today?” Then he was out of earshot on the dark stairs. He stopped, reflecting on what he had heard. He realized that he was straining to hear the rest of the conversation, but at that distance there was just the low, indistinguishable murmur of Frances’ voice. Then he was ashamed of himself and descended the stairs swiftly. The pianist on the floor below was still working on the same run.
Archer emerged into the sunlight, blinking his eyes a little. No, he thought, it’s ridiculous, probably ten thousand families in New York at this moment have a case of measles somewhere on the premises. And even if, by a wild chance, it was Vic, now in Detroit, who was calling her, what of it? There might be a hundred reasons, all innocent, for such a call. And whatever the reason, it certainly was none of his business. Forget it, he told himself, forget it, it’s just because you’re so shaky after that weird half-hour with the girl, forget it. But he knew that the next time he saw Vic and Frances together, he would look at them curiously, with new speculation and doubt. He was committed, he began to realize, to an endless task. Once you began to inquire into the fundamental and hidden motives of human beings, you were confronted with an infinite number of clues. And there was never any time off and there was no one whom you weren’t ready to suspect. The bloodshot detective within you was on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
He looked curiously at the faces of the passers-by, wondering whom they had questioned that morning and who was going to question them that night. He wondered if they felt as trapped and uncertain as he.
He walked slowly across town, grateful for the pale winter warmth of the sun on his skin. Well; he thought, smiling weakly, Interview Number One is over, now where are you? The magazine had been right about Frances Motherwell, at least in calling her a Communist. That had been no surprise. But did that mean they were right about the others? And after listening to her, did he feel she was dangerous, that she deserved to be punished? A neurotic, unstable girl, theatrically given to attitudinizing, making out of her politics a romantic monument to a man she’d loved and who had been killed in the war. Spouting the stalest slogans and the most passionate personal revelations in the same breath, all mixed with a night-club glitter and fashionable vulgarity. A new development in political circles—the elegiac Communist in a cashmere sweater shakily recovering from the champagne of the night before. The unwed widow of the crashed hero, hopefully presenting herself for martyrdom and never finding it because she was too rich, too talented, and too pretty to be picked for sacrifice. The placarded mind under the permanent wave, convinced by a voice from the grave that she was in the vanguard of those who were standing for the equality of men, whatever that was. A liar on the telephone to a desolate suitor, fiercely certain that she was privy to the only truth. A lost prowling girl hunting for a lost boy among later beds, making up with a substitute devotion for what she knew in her heart she would never find. An indiscreet, nervy performer whose hands shook when she lit a cigarette, natural casting for the part of a woman who had a mad scene toward the end of a play, confident that she and her friends formed a solid core of reason and virtue in an insane and villainous world. God help those friends, though, Archer thought, if she ever thinks that they have betrayed her.
She’s indigestible, Archer thought; there’s no nourishment there for either side. Attack or defend her at the risk of your own confusion. Still, and Archer sighed relievedly as he thought of it, this time I’m sharing in her luck. By a fortunate coincidence, the question of Frances Motherwell need not be debated at the moment. Moving on to better things, the girl had neatly removed her problem to the field of theory. Practically, you could forget about her, knowing that she was above harm. It was too bad the others could not be disposed of as happily. As for the principle … Archer shrugged. Time for that, later on, later on. Get the survivors off the wreck now, and bring in the boat at another time, when the water was calmer.
Now—who next? Archer stopped in the middle of the street. Pokorny? Herres? Atlas? Weller? He really ought to see Pokorny as soon as possible, because he was already suffering. But Pokorny was bound to be the most painful of them all and Archer still felt shaken after Frances. Atlas, he thought selfishly, there’s the toughest of the bunch; he doesn’t give a damn about anything. He’ll give as good as he gets and you can check your pity at the door.
Archer went into a phone booth and called Atlas’ number.
“Hello, Stanley,” Archer said when he heard Atlas’ voice. “This is Clement Archer.”
“Yes?” Atlas said, not friendly and not unfriendly.
“I have to see you, Stanley. Today. As soon as possible.”
“Oh.” There was a pause on the phone and Archer could almost picture Atlas coolly deciding whether to be agreeable or not. “Why?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone.”
“Got a nice tip in the seventh at Hialeah you’re just dying to give me, Clem?” Atlas asked.
“I’ve got to see you. Right away.” Archer tried to keep the note of impatience out of his voice.
> “Where?”
“Well …” Archer hesitated. He couldn’t ask Atlas to meet him at O’Neill’s office for this particular conversation and he didn’t know of any place where he could take a Negro in for lunch without a fuss. “Well,” he said, “how about Louis’ bar?” He had never seen any Negroes there, but he was known there and he probably could arrange something.
“Massa Clem,” Atlas began, his voice rich and Southern, “don’ you-all know what shade I am?”
“Don’t be silly, Stan,” Archer said, with false confidence.
“Last time I was in Louis’ bar for ladies and gentlemen, Massa Clem, they done break the glass I was drinkin’ from after I was finished. I sure would hate to put those nice white folks to any more expense on my account.”
The trouble with him, Archer thought, sweating in the cramped phone booth, is that he enjoys telling me these things. “OK, Stan,” Archer said, “I won’t argue with you. Why don’t you come down to my house?”
“That’s mighty downtown,” Atlas drawled. “That there’s a long ride on the underground for jes a little spot of conversation.”
“Stanley,” Archer said loudly, “will you please spare me the carry-me-back-to-old-Virginny dialect? I’ve got to see you. For your own good. It’s important. Now, where’ll you meet me?”
“Well,” Atlas was still drawling, with the same undertone of malice and amusement, “I got a puffictly nice sittin’ room, right up heah in lovely old Harlem. I’ll get the hens off the settee and the pig out from under the television and we’ll have things just as shiny as a three-hundred-dollar coffin by the time you get heah.”
“What’s the address?” Archer asked curtly.
Atlas chuckled, victorious. Then he gave Archer the address, in a clear, well-modulated voice that sounded as though its owner had been graduated from Harvard.
9
“SO,” ATLAS WAS SAYING, “THEY HAVE ME TABBED AS A REAL RED TYPE of feller and they want to retire me from competition, is that it?”
“Just about,” Archer said. He had wasted no time in telling Atlas the reason for his visit. Atlas had sat relaxed in a big leather chair, moving a moccasined foot gently back and forth from time to time, listening without a word. Occasionally Archer thought he caught the hint of a smile on the comedian’s face, but his attitude had been grave and attentive. The living room was large and neatly furnished in imitation early American pieces. There was a small upright piano with a few photographs of Negro entertainers and athletes on it, inscribed to Atlas. The apartment overlooked a small park and Archer could see scraps of dirty snow still clinging in spots on the brownish earth. Atlas was dressed in gray flannel trousers and a dark-blue wool shirt, open at the collar. He was wearing bright-yellow wool socks and they made little flashes of color when he moved his legs.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Atlas asked, looking curiously, and with a hint of secret amusement at Archer. “Am I supposed to get up and say I’m just a dirty old colored man and I confess everything and I’ll be a good nigger from now on if you don’t whup me and I promise to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” every night before going to bed?”
“You do whatever you want to do,” Archer said.
“Did you take that long ride in the subway just to tell me that, Clem?” Atlas asked. He spoke mildly and he seemed perfectly at ease. The scar marks looked neat and leathery on his cheeks in the cold north light.
“I came up to see if I could help,” Archer said. “To see if there was anything you wanted to tell me that might clear this up. We have almost two weeks to work in before …”
“Two weeks,” Atlas nodded reasonably. “How long have I been working on the program, Clem?”
“You know as well as I do. Three years.”
“Going onto four. And now I get almost two weeks to clear this up, like you say. That’s what I call real generous of you, Clem.”
“Listen, Stanley,” Archer said, feeling as he always did with Atlas, at a disadvantage, “I’m not doing this. If it were up to me, this wouldn’t have come up at all.”
“You mean you wouldn’t mind if us Reds took over the Government and razorcut ol’ Mr. Hutt and raped all the white girls?” Atlas asked in mock astonishment. “That comes as a real surprise to me, Clem. It surely does.”
What a satisfaction it would be, Archer thought grimly, to punch that cool, grinning man right in the nose. “Look, Stanley,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady, “I’m involved in this as much as you.”
“They got you marked down in their books, too?” Atlas grinned more widely. “Why, those boys don’t miss sparrow drops, do they?”
“No,” Archer said, beginning to feel that it was hopeless, “they haven’t got me marked down. Nobody’s accusing me of anything.”
“Jest you wait,” Atlas said comfortingly, “you’ll be invited to the party one of these days just like everybody else.”
“I’m trying to save the program,” Archer said earnestly, trying to break through the shield of Atlas’ mockery. “I’m trying to save as many people as I can. I’m trying to figure out what kind of position I have to take.”
“I get it,” said Atlas. “You didn’t take that subway ride to help me. You came up here to get me to help you.”
“All right,” said Archer wearily. “Put it that way.”
“Now,” Atlas smacked his lips judiciously and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling, “let’s us see what we-all can do to help the white folks. Would it be more convenient for your taste if I call up Mr. Hutt right now and tell him I am a red, raving Communist and I get my instructions every morning direct from the Kremlin? Or would it make it more homey if I just said I’m just a poor dumb colored boy that just barely learned to read and write, spellin’ out the Emancipation Proclamation we used to have hangin’ in the privy out in the yard back home, and I been duped and led into evil ways unbeknownst to myself by a lot of red foreign Jews from downtown? Or maybe it would be more suitable if I got up on my hind legs and yelled and hollered and rolled my eyes and said, ‘May Jesus strike me dead this minute if I’m tellin’ a lie! I’m as innocent as a newborn lamb and I hate the Communists like snake poison because they’re leadin’ us poor black children into the ways of sin and temptation.’ You just tell me,” Atlas said, smiling, “and I’ll say whatever you like, because my aim is to please.”
“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough,” Archer said, hating the man. “You’re on the verge of being fired from every program you’ve ever played on. You won’t get another job. You’ll be finished. You won’t earn a cent. Now, for God’s sake, stop joking!”
“Money ain’t my primary interest in life,” Atlas said lazily, “so I can afford to joke. I been working a long time and I don’t go in for fast motor cars or fast ladies and there’s a standing rule around this house that my wife don’t buy ermine more than once a year. So I got a cushion. A nice, fat cushion. Just for occasions like this. I own two buildings on Lenox Avenue and I’m silent partner in a very nice bar and I got some bonds that’d look sugar-sweet in anybody’s bank vault. So I got what you might call a steady income, Clem, and I don’t have to take guff at all. Nobody’s guff. No guff from the sponsor, no guff from any white magazine writers, no guff, excusin’ the expression, from you. If people get nasty, maybe I’ll just pack up with the old lady and take off to France. Spend those francs. I was there during the war with the USO and I was attracted. I even got a running start on the language. Cherie,” he said, grinning “je cherche du cognac, s’il vous plait. Let them yell all they want about me back here, I’ll be reading the Frog newspapers.”
“If you run away,” Archer said, “without defending yourself people’re bound to believe the worst about you, Stanley. Eventually you’ll want to come back and work. An actor lives on his reputation, and he’s more vulnerable than other people; he’s got to be more careful …”
“Is that what you believe?” Atlas peered bleakly out of his chai
r.
“I don’t want to believe it,” Archer said wearily. “I’m forced to.”
“I get the same story from some of my friends,” Atlas said quietly. “Only not about being an actor. They’re colored and they say a colored man has to be more careful than anybody else. Maybe you’re thinking a little of the same thing yourself, Clem?”
“No,” Archer said, wondering if he was telling the truth. “I’m not.”
“That’s good. I don’t like people who think colored folks ought to make sure to act like angels at all times, just because we’re what you might call unpopular in certain quarters. First of all, it ain’t possible. It ain’t possible for actors and it ain’t possible for blacks. And if it was possible that’d be the worst thing of all, because then people’d have a real grievance against the race, if they went around behaving better than everybody else. They’d be so holy they’d be swinging from every lamppost. And then, as a voting citizen, I’d be against it because it’s un-American.” He grinned coldly, confident and unmoved, taking his time, lazily enjoying playing with Archer. “In the United States of America, the man says here, everybody’s born free and equal. Don’t say nothing about black men or actors on the radio or anybody. It just says everybody. That means we all got the equal right to be mean or dirty or obstreperous with everybody else. We got the same license to get into trouble as anyone else. I don’t notice no quota system in the jails. Folks who run the jails, they’re firm believers in the Constitution, they say, Sinner, you broke the law, we got a spot for you, we don’t care who you are.”
“Stanley,” Archer said impatiently, “we could talk like this all day and never get anywhere.”
“I was just lettin’ my mind ramble around among the possibilities,” Atlas drawled. “I feel playful today. Now, I suppose what you really want to know is—am I or ain’t I.”
