by Zadie Smith
Jerome gave up and tucked the paper under his arm. He resumed his search for Levi, spotting him at last in the doorway of Wellington Savings Bank, eating a burger. As Kiki had predicted, he had friends with him. Tall, skinny black guys in baseball caps, evidently not Americans, also intent on their burgers. From ten yards off, Jerome hollered at Levi and held up his hand, hoping that his brother would save him from an awkward set of introductions. But Levi waved him in.
‘Jay! Hey, this is my brother, man. My brother, brother.’
Jerome now learned the grunted names of seven inarticulate guys who seemed little interested in learning his.
‘This is my crew – and this is Choo, he’s my main man, he’s cool. He’s got my back. This is Jay. He’s all . . .’ said Levi, tapping both of Jerome’s temples, ‘he’s a deep thinker, always analysing shit, like you.’
Jerome, uneasy in this company, shook the hand of Choo. It drove Jerome nuts that Levi always assumed that everyone felt as comfortable as Levi did himself in any given situation. Now Levi left Choo and Jerome to stare blankly at each other as he crouched down and gathered up Murdoch in his arms.
‘And this is my little foot soldier. He’s my lieutenant. Murdoch always got my back.’ Levi let the dog lick his face. ‘So, how are you, man?’
‘Good,’ said Jerome. ‘I’m good. Glad to be home.’
‘Seen everybody?’
‘Just saw Mom.’
‘Cool, cool.’
They were both nodding a lot. Sadness swept over Jerome. They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.
‘So,’ said Jerome, trying weakly to fulfil his mother’s brief, ‘what’s going on with you? Mom said you got lots going on.’
‘Just . . . you know . . . hanging with my boys – getting things done.’
As usual, Jerome tried to sieve Levi’s elliptical language for any specks of truth concealed within.
‘You all involved in the . . . ?’ said Jerome, motioning to the little table across the way. Behind it two young black men with glasses were handing out leaflets and newspapers. A banner was propped up behind them: FAIR PAY FOR WELLINGTON’S HAITIAN WORKERS.
‘Me and Choo, yeah – trying to get the voice heard. Representing.’
Jerome, who was finding this conversation increasingly irritating, stepped around the other side of Levi so as to get out of earshot of the silent burger-eating men beside him.
‘What did you put in his coffee?’ Jerome joked stiffly to Choo. ‘I couldn’t even get him to vote in his school elections.’
Choo clasped his friend around his shoulders and had the gesture returned. ‘Your brother,’ he said affectionately, ‘thinks of all his brothers. That’s why we love him – he’s our little American mascot. He fights shoulder to shoulder with us for justice.’
‘I see.’
‘Take one,’ said Levi, and pulled a double-sided piece of paper printed like a newspaper from his voluminous back pocket.
‘You take this, then,’ said Jerome, handing him the Herald in return. ‘It’s Zora. Page 14. I’ll get another one.’
Levi took the newspaper and forced it into his pocket. He tucked the last lump of burger into his mouth. ‘Cool – I’ll read it later . . .’ Which meant, Jerome knew, that it would be found torn and screwed up with the rest of the trash in his room a few days from now. Levi handed the dog over to Jerome.
‘Jay, actually – I got something I gotta do just now – but I’ll see you later . . . you coming to the Bus Stop tonight?’
‘Bus Stop? No . . . no, um, supposedly Zora’s taking me to some frat party or other, down in –’
‘Bus Stop tonight!’ said Choo over him and whistled. ‘It will be incredible! You see all those guys?’ He pointed to their silent companions. ‘When they get on stage, they tear up everything.’
‘It’s deep,’ confided Levi. ‘Political. Serious lyrics. About struggle. About – ’
‘Getting back what is ours,’ said Choo impatiently. ‘Taking back what has been stolen from our people.’
Jerome winced at the collective term.
‘It’s profounding,’ explained Levi. ‘Deep lyrics. You’d really be into it.’
Jerome, who doubted this very much, smiled politely.
‘Anyway,’ said Levi, ‘I’m out.’
He touched fists with Choo and each of the men in the doorway. Last was Jerome, who received not a touched fist, nor the hug of Levi’s younger days, but rather an ironic chuck on the chin.
Levi crossed the square. He went through Wellington’s main gate, across the quad, out the other side, into the Humanities Faculty site, into the building, along the halls, into the English Department, out the other side, down another hallway, and arrived finally at the door of the Black Studies Department. It had never struck him before how easy it was to walk these hallowed halls. No locks, no codes, no ID cards. Basically, if you looked even vaguely like a student, nobody stopped you at all. Levi shouldered open the Black Studies door and smiled at the cute Latino girl on the desk. He walked through the department, idly mouthing the names on each door. The department had that last-Friday-before-a-vacation feeling – people hurrying to finish off their odds and ends. All these industrious black folk – like a mini-university within a university! It was crazy. Levi wondered whether Choo realized that Wellington had this little black enclave. Maybe he would speak more kindly of it if he knew. A familiar name now arrested Levi’s stroll. Prof. M. Kipps. The door was closed, but to the left a half-pane of glass revealed the office inside. Monty was not in. Levi lingered here, none the less, taking in the luxurious details to relay to Choo later. Nice chair. Nice table. Nice painting. Thick carpet. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Levi jumped.
‘Levi! Cool – you came –’
Levi looked puzzled.
‘The library – it’s through here.’
‘Oh, yeah . . .’ said Levi, knocking the fist that Carl offered to him. ‘Yeah – that’s right. You . . . you said come, so I came.’
‘You just caught me, man – I was just about to quit for the day. Come in, man, come in.’
Carl walked him into the Music Library and sat him down.
‘You wanted to hear something? Name it.’ He clapped his hands. ‘I got every damn thing.’
‘Er . . . yeah . . . hear something . . . OK, well, actually there’s this group I been hearing a lot about . . . they Haitian . . . their name is hard to say – I’ll write it down like how I hear it.’
Carl looked disappointed. He bent over Levi as Levi phonetically wrote the name on a Post-it. Afterwards Carl took up the little piece of paper and frowned at it.
‘Oh . . . well, that ain’t my area, man – I bet you Elisha’ll know, though – she does the world music. Elisha! Let me go find her – I’ll ask her. This is the name?’
‘Something like that,’ said Levi.
Carl left the room. Levi hadn’t been comfortable in his seat for a few minutes – now he remembered why. He lifted up and pulled the newspaper from his pocket. He was still restless. He hadn’t brought his iPod out with him today, and he had no personal resources to cope with being alone without music. It never even occurred to him that the paper in front of him might afford a distraction.
‘You Levi?’ said Elisha. She stretched out her hand, and Levi stood up and shook it. ‘I can’t believe it – you’re one of the first visitors to this fine resource,’ she said chidingly. ‘And then you got to go and make some rare request. Couldn’t just ask for Louis Armstrong. No, sir.’
‘But don’t be searching if it’s like a big hassle or a problem,’ said Levi, embarrassed now to be here.
Elisha laughed easily. ‘Isn’t either. We’re glad to have you. It’ll take a little while for me to have a look through our records, that’s all. We’re not completely computerized . . . not yet. You can go and come back if you like
– it might be about ten, fifteen minutes, though.’
‘Stay, man,’ pressed Carl. ‘I been going stir crazy in here today.’
Levi did not especially want to stay, but it was more effort to be rude. Elisha left to go through her archives. Levi sat back down in her seat.
‘So – what’s up?’ asked Carl. But just then a loud beep came from Carl’s computer. A look of hungry anticipation broke out over his face.
‘Oh, Levi – sorry, man, one minute – e-mail.’
Levi sat back in his chair, bored, as Carl typed frantically with two fingers. He felt the despondency universities had long inspired in him. He had grown up in them; he had known their book stacks and storage cupboards and quads and spires and science blocks and tennis courts and plaques and statues. He felt sorry for the people who found themselves trapped in such arid surroundings. Even as a small child he was absolutely clear that he would never, ever enrol at one himself. In universities, people forgot how to live. Even in the middle of a music library, they had forgotten what music was.
Carl hit ‘Return’ with a pianist’s flourish. He sighed happily. He said, ‘Oh, man.’ He seemed to have overestimated Levi’s curiosity about the lives of other people.
‘Know who that was?’ he prompted finally.
Levi shrugged.
‘Remember that girl? I first saw her when I was with you. The one with the booty that was just . . .’ Carl kissed the air. Levi did his best to look unimpressed. One thing he couldn’t stand was brothers boasting about their ladies. ‘That was her, man. I asked someone her name and found her in the college book. Easy as that. Victoria. Vee. She driving me crazy, man – she e-mails like . . .’ Carl lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘She so dirty. Photos and all’a that. She got a body like . . . I don’t even have any words for what she got. She be like sending me . . . well – you want to see something? Takes a minute to download.’ Carl clicked his mouse a few times and then began to turn his screen round. Levi had seen a quarter of a breast when they both heard Elisha coming down the hall. Carl whipped his computer back to face him, switched off the screen and picked up the newspaper.
‘Hey, Levi,’ said Elisha. ‘We got lucky. I found what you’re looking for. You want to come with me?’
Levi stood up and, without saying goodbye to Carl, followed Elisha out of the room.
‘Baby, you can’t lie to me. I can see it in your face.’
Kiki took Levi by the chin, tilted his head back and examined the swollen pockets of skin under the eyes, the blood that had leaked into his corneas, the dryness of his lips.
‘I’m just tired.’
‘Tired my ass.’
‘Let go of my chin.’
‘I know you’ve been crying,’ insisted Kiki, but she didn’t know the half of it: couldn’t know, would never know, the lovely sadness of that Haitian music, or what it was like to sit in a small dark booth and be alone with it – the plangent, irregular rhythm, like a human heartbeat, the way the many harmonized voices had sounded, to Levi, like a whole nation weeping in tune.
‘I know things at home haven’t been good,’ said Kiki, looking into his red eyes. ‘But they’re going to get better, I promise you that. Your daddy and I are determined to make it better. OK?’
There was no point in explaining. Levi nodded and zipped up his coat.
‘The Bus Stop,’ said Kiki, and resisted the urge to deliver a curfew that would only be ignored. ‘You go and have fun.’
‘You want a ride?’ asked Jerome, who was passing through the kitchen with Zora. ‘I’m not drinking.’
Just before they got in the car, Zora took off her coat and turned her back to Levi. ‘Seriously, do you think I should wear this – I mean, does it look OK?’
Her dress was a bad colour and it had no back and it was the wrong material for her lumpy body and it was too short. Normally, Levi would have bluntly told his sister all of this, and Zoor would have been upset and angry, but at least she would have gone back in and changed, and, as a consequence, arrived at the party looking a hell of a lot better than she did now. But tonight Levi had other things on his mind. ‘Beautiful,’ he said.
Fifteen minutes later they dropped Levi off in Kennedy Square and continued on to the party. There was nowhere to park. They had to leave the car several blocks from the party itself. Zora had specifically worn the shoes she was wearing because she had not anticipated any walking. To make progress she had to grip her brother around his waist, take little pigeon-steps and lean far back on her heels. For a long time Jerome restrained himself from commentary, but at the fourth pit stop he could keep silent no longer. ‘I don’t get you. Aren’t you meant to be a feminist? Why would you cripple yourself like this?’
‘I like these shoes, OK? They actually make me feel powerful.’
Finally they reached the house. Zora had never been so happy to see a set of porch steps. Steps were easy, and with joy she placed the ball of her foot on each wide wooden slat. A girl they did not know answered the door. At once they saw that it was a better party than either had been expecting. Some of the younger grads and even a few faculty members were there. People were already boisterously drunk. Pretty much everybody Zora considered vital for her social success this coming year was present. She had the guilty thought that she would do better at this party without Jerome hanging at her heels in his slacks with the T-shirt tucked in too tightly.
‘Victoria’s here,’ he said as they left their coats in the pile.
Zora looked down the hall and spotted her, simultaneously overdressed and half naked.
‘Oh, whatever,’ said Zora, but then a thought came to her. ‘But Jay . . . If, I mean, if you want to go . . . I’d understand, I could get a taxi back.’
‘No, it’s fine. Of course it’s fine.’ Jerome went over to a punch bowl and scooped them a drink each. ‘To lost love,’ he said sadly, taking a sip. ‘One glass. Did you see Jamie Anderson? He’s dancing.’
‘I like Jamie Anderson.’
It was strange being at a party with your sibling, standing in a corner, holding your plastic tumblers with both hands. There’s no small talk between siblings. They bopped their heads ineptly and stood slightly turned out from each other, trying to look not alone and yet not with each other.
‘There’s Dad’s Veronica,’ said Jerome, as she passed by in an unflattering 1920s flapper dress complete with headband. ‘And that’s your rapper friend, isn’t it? I saw him in the paper.’
‘Carl!’ called Zora, too loudly. He was fiddling with the stereo, and now turned and came over. Zora remembered to put both hands behind her back and pull down her shoulders. Her chest looked better that way. But he did not look in that direction. He patted her chummily on the arm as usual and shook Jerome’s hand vigorously.
‘Good to see you again, man!’ he said and shot out that movie star smile. Jerome, now recalling the young man he had met that night in the park, registered the pleasant change: this open, friendly demeanour, this almost Wellingtonian confidence. In answer to Jerome’s polite question as to what Carl had been up to recently, Carl prattled on about his library, neither defensively nor particularly boastfully, but with an easy egotism that did not for a moment consider asking Jerome a similar question. He spoke of the Hip-hop Archive and the need for more Gospel, the growing African section, the problem of getting money out of Erskine. Zora waited for him to mention their campaign to keep discretionaries in class. No mention came.
‘So,’ she said, attempting to keep her own voice casual and cheery, ‘did you see my op-ed or . . . ?’
Carl, in the middle of an anecdote, stopped and looked confused. Jerome, peacemaker and trouble-spotter, stepped in.
‘I forgot to tell you I saw that in the Herald – Speaker’s Corner – it was really great. Really Mr Smith Goes to Washington . . . it was great, Zoor. You’re lucky you got this girl fighting in your corner,’ said Jerome, knocking his tumbler against Carl’s. ‘When she gets her teeth into something, she doesn
’t let go. Believe me, I know.’
