Another Country (55 page)

Vivaldo said, to break the silence which abruptly roared around them, “To be paid back.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I felt that way, too.”

She walked over to the stove again.

“I felt that I’d been robbed. And I
had
been robbed— of the only hope I had. By a group of people too cowardly even to know what they had done. And it didn’t seem to me that they deserved any better than what they’d given me. I didn’t care what happened to them, just so they suffered. I didn’t really much care what happened to me. But I wasn’t going to let what happened to Rufus, and what was happening all around me, happen to me. I was going to get through the world, and get what I needed out of it, no matter how.”

He thought,
Oh, it’s coming now,
and felt a strange, bitter relief. He finished his drink and lit another cigarette, and watched her.

She looked over at him, as though to make certain that he was still listening.

“Nothing you’ve said so far,” he said, carefully, “seems to have much to do with being black. Except for what you make out of it. But nobody can help you there.”

She sighed sharply, in a kind of rage. “That could be true. But it’s too easy for you to say that.”

“Ida, a lot of what you’ve had to say, ever since we met, has been— too easy.” He watched her. “Hasn’t it?” And then, “Sweetheart, suffering doesn’t
have
a color. Does it? Can’t we step out of this nightmare? I’d give anything, I’d give anything if we could.” He crossed to her and took her in his arms. “Please, Ida, whatever has to be done, to set us free— let’s do that.”

Her eyes were full of tears. She looked down. “Let me finish my story “

“Nothing you say will make any difference.”

“You don’t know that. Are you afraid?”

He stepped back. “No.” Then, “Yes. Yes. I can’t take any more of your revenge.”

“Well, I can’t either. Let me finish.”

“Come away from the stove. I can’t eat now.”

“Everything will be ruined.”

“Let it be ruined. Come and sit down.”

He wished that he were better prepared for this moment, that he had not been with Eric, that his hunger would vanish, that his fear would drop, and love lend him a transcendent perception and concentration. But he knew himself to be physically weak and tired, not drunk, but far from sober; part of his troubled mind was far away, gorging on the conundrum of himself.

She put out the fire under the frying pan and came and sat at the table. He pushed her drink toward her, but she did not touch it.

“I knew there wasn’t any hope uptown. A lot of those men, they got their little deals going and all that, but they don’t really have anything, Mr. Charlie’s not going to let them get but so far. Those that really do have something would never have any use for me; I’m too dark for them, they see girls like me on Seventh Avenue every day. I knew what they would do to me.”

And now he knew that he did not want to hear the rest of her story. He thought of himself on Seventh Avenue; perhaps he had never left. He thought of the day behind him, of Eric and Cass and Richard, and felt himself now being sucked into the rapids of a mysterious defeat.

“There was only one thing for me to do, as Rufus used to say, and that was to hit the A train. So I hit it. Nothing was clear in my mind at first. I used to see the way white men watched me, like dogs. And I thought about what I could do to them. How I hated them, the way they looked, and the things they’d say, all dressed up in their damn white skin, and their clothes just so, and their little weak, white pricks jumping in their drawers. You could do any damn thing with them if you just led them along, because they wanted to do something dirty and they knew that you knew how. All black people knew that. Only, the polite ones didn’t say dirty. They said real. I used to wonder what in the world they did in bed, white people I mean, between themselves, to get them so sick. Because they are sick, and I’m telling you something that I know. I had a couple of girl friends and we used to go out every once in a while with some of these shitheads. But they were smart, too, they knew that they were white, and they could always go back home, and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it. I thought to myself, Shit, this scene is not for me. Because I didn’t want their little change, I didn’t want to be at their mercy. I wanted them to be at mine.”

She sipped her drink.

“Well, you were calling me all the time about that time, but I didn’t really think about you very much, not seriously anyway. I liked you, but I certainly hadn’t planned to get hung up on a white boy who didn’t have any money— in fact, I hadn’t planned to get hung up on anybody. But I liked you, and the few times I saw you it was a kind of—
relief
— from all those other, horrible people. You were really nice to me. You didn’t have that look in your eyes. You just acted like a real sweet boy and maybe, without knowing it, I got to depend on it. Sometimes I’d just see you for a minute or so, we’d just have a cup of coffee or something like that, and I’d run off— but I felt better, I was kind of protected from their eyes and their hands. I was feeling so sick most of the time through there. I didn’t want my father to know what I was doing and I tried not to think about Rufus. That was when I decided that I ought to try to sing, I’d do it for Rufus, and then all the rest wouldn’t matter. I would have settled the score. But I thought I needed somebody to help me, and it was then, just at the time that I—” She stopped and looked down at her hands. “I think I wanted to go to bed with you, not to have an affair with you, but just to go to bed with somebody that I
liked
. Somebody who wasn’t old, because all those men are old, no matter how young they are. I’d only been to bed with one boy I liked, a boy on our block, but he got religion, and so it all stopped and he got married. And there weren’t any other colored men, I was afraid, because look what happened to them, they got cut down like grass! And I didn’t see any way out, except— finally— you. And Ellis.”

Then she stopped. They listened to the rain. He had finished his drink and he picked up hers. She looked down, he had the feeling that she could not look up, and he was afraid to touch her. And the silence stretched; he longed for it to end, and dreaded it; there was nothing he could say.

She straightened her shoulders and reached out for a cigarette. He lit it for her.

“Richard knows about me and Ellis,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “but that’s not why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because I’m trying to bring this whole awful thing to a halt. If that’s possible.”

She paused. She said, “Let me have a sip of your drink, please.”

“It’s yours,” he said. He gave it to her and poured himself another one.

She blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “It’s funny the way things work. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think Ellis would ever have got so hung up on me.
He
saw, better than I did, that I really liked you and that meant that I could really like somebody and so why not him, since he could give me so much more? And I thought so, too, that it was a kind of dirty trick for life to play on me, for me to like you better than I liked him. And, after all, the chances of its lasting were just about equal, only with him, if I played it right, I might have something to show for it when it was all over. And he was smart, he didn’t bug me about it, he said, Sure, he wanted me but he was going to help me, regardless, and the one thing had nothing to do with the other. And he did— he was very nice to me, in his way, he was as good as his word, he was nicer to me than anyone had ever been before. He used to take me out to dinner, to places where nobody would know him or where it wouldn’t matter if they did. A lot of the time we went up to Harlem, or if he knew I was sitting in somewhere, he’d drop in. He didn’t seem to be trying to hype me, not even when he talked about his wife and his kids— you know? He sounded as though he really
was
lonely. And, after all, I owed him a lot— and— it was nice to be treated that way and to know the cat had enough money to take you anywhere, and— ah! well, it started, I guess I’d always known it was going to start, and then, once it started, I didn’t think I could stand it but I didn’t know how to stop it. Because it’s one thing for a man to be doing all these things for you while you’re not having an affair with him and it’s another thing for him to be doing them after you’ve
stopped
having an affair with him. And I had to go on, I had to get up there on top, where maybe I could begin to breathe. But I saw why he’d never been upset about you. He really is smart. He was
glad
I was with you, he told me so; he was glad I had another boy friend because it made it easier for him. It meant I wouldn’t make any scenes, I wouldn’t think I’d fallen in love with him. It gave him another kind of power over me in a way because he knew that I was afraid of your finding out and the more afraid I got, the harder it was to refuse him. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” he said, slowly, “I think I understand that.”

They stared at each other. She dropped her eyes.

“But, you know,” she said, slowly, “I think you knew all the time.”

He said nothing. She persisted, in a low voice, “Didn’t you?”

“You told me that you weren’t,” he said.

“But did you believe me?”

He stammered: “I– I
had
to believe you.”

“Why?”

Again, he said nothing.

“Because you were afraid?”

“Yes,” he said at last. “I was afraid.”

“It was easier to let it happen than to try to stop it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Her eyes searched his face. It was his turn to look away.

“I used to hate you for that sometimes,” she said, “for pretending to believe me because you didn’t want to know what was happening to me.”

“I was trying to do what I thought you wanted! I was afraid that you would
leave
me— you
told
me that you would!” He rose and stalked the kitchen, his hands in his pockets, water standing in his eyes. “I worried about it, I thought about it— but I put it out of my mind. You had made it a matter of my trusting you— don’t you remember?”

He looked at her with hatred, standing above her; but she seemed to be beyond his anger.

“Yes, I remember. But you didn’t start trusting me. You just gave in to me and pretended to trust me.”

“What would you have done if I had called you on it?”

“I don’t know. But if you had faced it, I would have had to face it— as long as you were pretending, I had to pretend. I’m not blaming you. I’m just telling it to you like it is.” She looked up at him. “I saw that it could go on a long time like that,” and her lips twisted wearily. “I sort of had you where I wanted you. I’d got my revenge. Only, it wasn’t you I was after. It wasn’t
you
I was trying to beat.”

“It was Ellis?”

She sighed and put one hand to her face. “Oh. I don’t know, I really don’t know what I was thinking. Sometimes I’d leave Ellis and I’d come and find you here— like my dog or my cat, I used to think sometimes, just waiting. And I’d be afraid you’d be here and I’d be afraid you’d gone out, afraid you’d ask me,
really
ask me where I’d been, and afraid you wouldn’t. Sometimes you’d try, but I could always stop you, I could see in your eyes when you were frightened. I hated that look and I hated me and I hated you. I could see how white men got that look they so often had when they looked at me; somebody had beat the shit out of them, had scared the shit out of them, long ago. And now I was doing it to you. And it made it hard for me when you touched me, especially—” She stopped, picked up her drink, tasted it, set it down. “I couldn’t stand Ellis. You don’t know what it’s like, to have a man’s body over you if you can’t stand that body. And it was worse now, since I’d been with you, than it had ever been before. Before, I used to watch them wriggle and listen to them grunt, and, God, they were so solemn about it, sweating yellow pigs, and so
vain,
like that sad little piece of meat was making miracles happen, and I guess it was, for them— and I wasn’t touched at all, I just wished I could make them come down lower. Oh, yes, I found out all about white people,
that’s
what they were like, alone, where only a black girl could see them, and the black girl might as well have been blind as far as they were concerned. Because they knew they were white, baby, and they ruled the world. But now it was different, sometimes when Ellis put his hands on me, it was all I could do not to scream, not to vomit. It had
got
to me, it had got to me, and I felt that I was being pumped full of— I don’t know what, not poison exactly, but dirt,
waste,
filth, and I’d never be able to get it out of me, never be able to get that stink out of me. And sometimes, sometimes, sometimes—” She covered her mouth, her tears spilled down over her hand, over the red ring. He could not move. “Oh, Lord Jesus. I’ve done terrible things. Oh, Lord. Sometimes. And then I’d come home to you. He always had that funny little smile when I finally left him, that smile he has, I’ve seen it many times now, when he’s outsmarted somebody who doesn’t know it yet. He can’t help it, that’s him, it was as though he were saying. ‘Now that I’m through with you, have a nice time with Vivaldo. And give him my regards.’ And, funny, funny— I couldn’t hate him. I saw what he was doing, but I couldn’t hate him. I wondered what it felt like, to be like that, not to have any real feelings at all, except to say, Well, now, let’s do this and now let’s do that and now let’s eat and now let’s fuck and now let’s go. And do that all your life. And then I’d come home and look at you. But I’d bring him with me. It was as though I was dirty, and you had to wash me, each time. And I knew you never could, no matter how hard we tried, and I didn’t hate him but I hated you. And I hated me.”

“Why didn’t you stop it, Ida? You could have stopped it, you didn’t have to go on with it.”

“Stop it and go where? Stop it and do what? No, I thought to myself, Well, you’re in it now, girl, close your eyes and grit your teeth and get through it. It’ll be worth it when it’s over. And that’s why I’ve been working so hard. To get away.”