Nella Larsen (18 page)

“What on earth for?”

“I believe she claims it discourages the casual visitor.”

“And she's probably right. Hard on herself, though.”

Brian said: “Yes, a bit. But she says she'd rather be dead than bored.”

“Oh, a garden! And how lovely with that undisturbed snow!”

“Yes, isn't it? But keep to the walk with those foolish thin shoes. You too, Irene.”

Irene walked beside them on the cleared cement path that split the whiteness of the courtyard garden. She felt a something in the air, something that had been between those two and would be again. It was like a live thing pressing against her. In a quick furtive glance she saw Clare clinging to Brian's other arm. She was looking at him with that provocative upward glance of hers, and his eyes were fastened on her face with what seemed to Irene an expression of wistful eagerness.

“It's this entrance, I believe,” she informed them in quite her ordinary voice.

“Mind,” Brian told Clare, “you don't fall by the wayside before the fourth floor. They absolutely refuse to carry anyone up more than the last two flights.”

“Don't be silly!” Irene snapped.

The party began gaily.

Dave Freeland was at his best, brilliant, crystal clear, and sparkling. Felise, too, was amusing, and not so sarcastic as usual, because she liked the dozen or so guests that dotted the long, untidy living-room. Brian was witty, though, Irene noted, his remarks were somewhat more barbed than was customary even with him. And there was Ralph Hazelton, throwing nonsensical shining things into the pool of talk, which the others, even Clare, picked up and flung back with fresh adornment.

Only Irene wasn't merry. She sat almost silent, smiling now and then, that she might appear amused.

“What's the matter, Irene?” someone asked. “Taken a vow never to laugh, or something? You're as sober as a judge.”

“No. It's simply that the rest of you are so clever that I'm speechless, absolutely stunned.”

“No wonder,” Dave Freeland remarked, “that you're on the verge of tears. You haven't a drink. What'll you take?”

“Thanks. If I must take something, make it a glass of ginger ale and three drops of Scotch. The Scotch first, please. Then the ice, then the ginger ale.”

“Heavens! Don't attempt to mix that yourself, Dave darling. Have the butler in,” Felise mocked.

“Yes, do. And the footman.” Irene laughed a little, then said: “It seems dreadfully warm in here. Mind if I open this window?” With that she pushed open one of the long casement-windows of which the Freelands were so proud.

It had stopped snowing some two or three hours back. The moon was just rising, and far behind the tall buildings a few stars were creeping out. Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below.

Someone in the room had turned on the phonograph. Or was it the radio? She didn't know which she disliked more. And nobody was listening to its blare. The talking, the laughter never for a minute ceased. Why must they have more noise?

Dave came with her drink. “You ought not,” he told her, “to stand there like that. You'll take cold. Come along and talk to me, or listen to me gabble.” Taking her arm, he led her across the room. They had just found seats when the door-bell rang and Felise called over to him to go and answer it.

In the next moment Irene heard his voice in the hall, carelessly polite: “Your wife? Sorry. I'm afraid you're wrong. Perhaps next—”

Then the roar of John Bellew's voice above all the other noises of the room: “I'm
not
wrong! I've been to the Redfields and I know she's with them. You'd better stand out of my way and save yourself trouble in the end.”

“What is it, Dave?” Felise ran out to the door.

And so did Brian. Irene heard him saying: “I'm Redfield. What the devil's the matter with you?”

But Bellew didn't heed him. He pushed past them all into the room and strode towards Clare. They all looked at her as she got up from her chair, backing a little from his approach.

“So you're a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!” His voice was a snarl and a moan, an expression of rage and of pain.

Everything was in confusion. The men had sprung forward. Felise had leapt between them and Bellew. She said quickly: “Careful. You're the only white man here.” And the silver chill of her voice, as well as her words, was a warning.

Clare stood at the window, as composed as if everyone were not staring at her in curiosity and wonder, as if the whole structure of her life were not lying in fragments before her. She seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring. There was even a faint smile on her full, red lips, and in her shining eyes.

It was that smile that maddened Irene. She ran across the room, her terror tinged with ferocity, and laid a hand on Clare's bare arm. One thought possessed her. She couldn't have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn't have her free.

Before them stood John Bellew, speechless now in his hurt and anger. Beyond them the little huddle of other people, and Brian stepping out from among them.

What happened next, Irene Redfield never afterwards allowed herself to remember. Never clearly.

One moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone.

There was a gasp of horror, and above it a sound not quite human, like a beast in agony. “Nig! My God! Nig!”

A frenzied rush of feet down long flights of stairs. The slamming of distant doors. Voices.

Irene stayed behind. She sat down and remained quite still, staring at a ridiculous Japanese print on the wall across the room.

Gone! The soft white face, the bright hair, the disturbing scarlet mouth, the dreaming eyes, the caressing smile, the whole torturing loveliness that had been Clare Kendry. That beauty that had torn at Irene's placid life. Gone! The mocking daring, the gallantry of her pose, the ringing bells of her laughter.

Irene wasn't sorry. She was amazed, incredulous almost.

What would the others think? That Clare had fallen? That she had deliberately leaned backward? Certainly one or the other. Not—

But she mustn't, she warned herself, think of that. She was too tired, and too shocked. And, indeed, both were true. She was utterly weary, and she was violently staggered. But her thoughts reeled on. If only she could be as free of mental as she was of bodily vigour; could only put from her memory the vision of her hand on Clare's arm!

“It was an accident, a terrible accident,” she muttered fiercely. “It
was.
”

People were coming up the stairs. Through the still open door their steps and talk sounded nearer, nearer.

Quickly she stood up and went noiselessly into the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.

Her thoughts raced. Ought she to have stayed? Should she go back out there to them? But there would be questions. She hadn't thought of them, of afterwards, of this. She had thought of nothing in that sudden moment of action.

It was cold. Icy chills ran up her spine and over her bare neck and shoulders.

In the room outside there were voices. Dave Freeland's and others that she did not recognize.

Should she put on her coat? Felise had rushed down without any wrap. So had all the others. So had Brian. Brian! He mustn't take cold. She took up his coat and left her own. At the door she paused for a moment, listening fearfully. She heard nothing. No voices. No footsteps. Very slowly she opened the door. The room was empty. She went out.

In the hall below she heard dimly the sound of feet going down the steps, of a door being opened and closed, and of voices far away.

Down, down, down, she went, Brian's great coat clutched in her shivering arms and trailing a little on each step behind her.

What was she to say to them when at last she had finished going down those endless stairs? She should have rushed out when they did. What reason could she give for her dallying behind? Even she didn't know why she had done that. And what else would she be asked? There had been her hand reaching out towards Clare. What about that?

In the midst of her wonderings and questionings came a thought so terrifying, so horrible, that she had had to grasp hold of the banister to save herself from pitching downwards. A cold perspiration drenched her shaking body. Her breath came short in sharp and painful gasps.

What if Clare was not dead?

She felt nauseated, as much at the idea of the glorious body mutilated as from fear.

How she managed to make the rest of the journey without fainting she never knew. But at last she was down. Just at the bottom she came on the others, surrounded by a little circle of strangers. They were all speaking in whispers, or in the awed, discreetly lowered tones adapted to the presence of disaster. In the first instant she wanted to turn and rush back up the way she had come. Then a calm desperation came over her. She braced herself, physically and mentally.

“Here's Irene now,” Dave Freeland announced, and told her that, having only just missed her, they had concluded that she had fainted or something like that, and were on the way to find out about her. Felise, she saw, was holding on to his arm, all the insolent nonchalance gone out of her, and the golden brown of her handsome face changed to a queer mauve colour.

Irene made no indication that she had heard Freeland, but went straight to Brian. His face looked aged and altered, and his lips were purple and trembling. She had a great longing to comfort him, to charm away his suffering and horror. But she was helpless, having so completely lost control of his mind and heart.

She stammered: “Is she—is she—?”

It was Felise who answered. “Instantly, we think.”

Irene struggled against the sob of thankfulness that rose in her throat. Choked down, it turned to a whimper, like a hurt child's. Someone laid a hand on her shoulder in a soothing gesture. Brian wrapped his coat about her. She began to cry rackingly, her entire body heaving with convulsive sobs. He made a slight perfunctory attempt to comfort her.

“There, there, Irene. You mustn't. You'll make yourself sick. She's—” His voice broke suddenly.

As from a long distance she heard Ralph Hazelton's voice saying: “I was looking right at her. She just tumbled over and was gone before you could say ‘Jack Robinson.' Fainted, I guess. Lord! It was quick. Quickest thing I ever saw in all my life.”

“It's impossible, I tell you! Absolutely impossible!”

It was Brian who spoke in that frenzied hoarse voice, which Irene had never heard before. Her knees quaked under her.

Dave Freeland said: “Just a minute, Brian. Irene was there beside her. Let's hear what she has to say.”

She had a moment of stark craven fear. “Oh God,” she thought, prayed, “help me.”

A strange man, official and authoritative, addressed her. “You're sure she fell? Her husband didn't give her a shove or anything like that, as Dr. Redfield seems to think?”

For the first time she was aware that Bellew was not in the little group shivering in the small hallway. What did that mean? As she began to work it out in her numbed mind, she was shaken with another hideous trembling. Not that! Oh, not that!

“No, no!” she protested. “I'm quite certain that he didn't. I was there, too. As close as he was. She just fell, before anybody could stop her. I—”

Her quaking knees gave way under her. She moaned and sank down, moaned again. Through the great heaviness that submerged and drowned her she was dimly conscious of strong arms lifting her up. Then everything was dark.

Centuries after, she heard the strange man saying: “Death by misadventure, I'm inclined to believe. Let's go up and have another look at that window.”
³

NOTES

DEDICATION

1.
For Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff:
Larsen's dedication acknowledged her friends and supporters Carl Van Vechten (1886–1964) and his wife, Fania Marinoff (1887–1972). Novelist, photographer, and music and drama critic, Van Vechten was a patron of the arts and black artists during the Harlem Renaissance. Author of the controversial novel
Nigger Heaven
(1926), he was also a bohemian bon vivant and habitué of Harlem's exotic nightlife. He and his wife were widely known for their lavish interracial parties downtown, and acted as a kind of bridge between the Harlem Renaissance artists and their white publishers and promoters. It was Van Vechten who recommended Larsen's work—along with that of James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Rudolph Fisher—to Knopf, his own publisher.

EPIGRAPH

1. One three centuries removed . . . What is Africa to me?: The novel's epigraph is from Countee Cullen's famous poem “Heritage,” from his first published volume of poetry,
Color
(1925). Cullen (1903–1946) was the most celebrated poet among the New Negro writers and is known for his lyricism. He was widely acclaimed for his Keatsian sonnet “Yet Do I Marvel,” which concludes with the lines, “Yet do I marvel at this curious thing / To make a poet black, and bid him sing.” He was also chided by some of his contemporaries for making the statement, “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be a POET and not [a] NEGRO POET.” One thus notes with some irony that his best-known poems address issues of race.

PART ONE: ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER TWO

1.
Samaritan:
as in the “good Samaritan” (Luke 10:30–37); one who is compassionate and helpful to those in distress.

2.
finger-nails . . . silly rot:
During the 1920s, the popular press teemed with warnings about those with “Negro blood” sliding quietly into the ranks of whiteness and offered several physical characteristics—among them the presence of a particularly distinct half moon or a dark blue tint on the fingernails, a clear difference in pigmentation between the palm and the back of the hand, and other “subtle” physical markers—as a litmus test of hidden African ancestry. Nearly every state in the union had some version of the one-drop rule, conceived during slavery, that held an individual legally black at the presence of a single drop of Negro blood. These physical markers—and by extension the one-drop rule—are the targets of Irene's derision and derive from the widely accepted “principles” of the Victorian pseudosciences of the late nineteenth century. The Victorians in both England and the United States were awash in race theories and phrenology, pseudosciences that found their clearest expression in eugenics, a theory—and later practice—founded by Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton (1822–1911) in the mid-nineteenth century that applied horse-breeding principles to human reproduction.

3.
“Marshall Field's”:
Marshall Field and Company remains Chicago's largest retail department store. Established in 1852, its renovation (after the great fire of 1871) installed a neoclassical design that suggested not only its dominance in the world of modern retail sales but also its cultural authority as an arbiter of fashion and taste for the affluent. Although the store also served a lessaffluent clientele in the 1920s, it catered primarily to a wealthy elite class. Shopping at Marshall Field's thus reaffirmed the social standing and cultural taste of its white patrons. Clare's shopping at such an establishment would have suggested her desire for race privilege and class status, and their material accouterments. Except for this reference and the one that follows, these explanatory notes do not highlight Larsen's numerous references to the urban geography of Chicago, as they simply serve to locate the novel's action. For more on these geographical references, see the notes in Thadious Davis's edition of
Passing
(Penguin, 1997).

4.
“Idlewild”:
an African-American vacation resort located in Manistee National Forest, Lake County, Michigan. It was popular for its lakeside beach, horseback riding, hunting, and other amusements during the 1920s and well into the twentieth century. Frequented by affluent blacks, Idlewild was for the black Midwest what Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard was for the black elite in the Northeast. See Robert Stepto's “[F]rom Idlewild and Other Seasons” (
Callaloo
14:1 [1991], pp. 20–36).

5.
“Negro blood”:
refers to black ancestry and is part of a pseudoscientific discourse predicated on the notion that race was biologically defined. “Negro blood” was thus conceived of as different from “white blood,” and in the instance of miscegenation would “stain” the “purity” of the “white” bloodline. In the West Indies, some whites claimed that the Negro's blood was indeed “black.” Notably, this discourse references the white perspective; black discourse might refer to “white blood.”

6.
“sons and daughters of Ham”:
reference to Ham, father of Canaan, and his descendants, the Canaanites (Genesis 9:20–27). According to the Bible, the progeny of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, populated the earth after the flood. When Noah became drunk from the wine of his vineyard and lay uncovered within his tent, he was gazed upon and mocked by his son Ham, who went and told his brothers that their father lay naked. When Noah awoke and discovered what Ham had done, he cursed his progeny, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” This biblical passage was often invoked by proslavery advocates to provide scriptural justification for the enslavement of Africans in the American South.

7.
“the tar-brush”:
slang (disparaging and offensive) for black ancestry—as in brushed or “painted” with tar. Among whites, the term was used to refer to someone “black” who may not actually be so; among African Americans, the term may also refer to dark-skinned blacks.

CHAPTER THREE

1.
“I nearly died of terror . . . for fear that she might be dark”:
Clare expresses fear of the consequences of reproduction and racial passing, namely, the popular belief that “race will out.” The discourse on color between Clare and Gertrude expresses the anxiety of the passer that, despite skipping generations, the grosser anatomical features of race will eventually resurface, either in the first-generation offspring of miscegenated unions or in subsequent generations. The white counterpart of such a conviction would be “there's a nigger in the wood-pile,” meaning that black ancestry will sooner or later manifest itself. Such a discourse represents the fear or conviction of the “return of the repressed” at the level of the body. Interestingly, such folk convictions may have been supported at the scientific level by the findings of such nineteenth-century investigators as biologist and botanist Gregor Johann Mendel (1822–1884), whose experiments with plants led to the formulation of the principles of heredity that provided the basis for modern genetics. Furthermore, the legal doctrine of the one-drop rule both drew on and contributed to these popular notions. Also, it is clear that here Larsen expresses the anxiety and frustration associated with her own status as the visibly black child of “white” parents. See Thadious Davis's biography,
Nella Larsen, Novelist of
the Harlem Renaissance
(Louisiana State University Press, 1994).

2.
“A black Jew”:
most likely pertaining to or derived from the Abyssinian, or Ethiopian, Jews (as opposed to the Semitic Jews). Black Jews consider themselves one of the lost tribes of Israel and descendants of the first Jews, who, they believe, originated in Abyssinia, or Ethiopia. Interestingly, modern DNA research has proved that the Lemba, a group of black Jews in southern Africa who have long claimed priestly lineage, share the Y chromosome of the Cohanim, the Semitic priestly line traced back to Aaron. These genetic results have given credence to claims of an ancestral Jewish link for black Jews. More problematic are those whose link to Judaism is not clearly genetic. The Church of God in Philadelphia, for example, founded by Prophet F. S. Cherry, believes that Christ, with his “lamb's wool hair,” was black. Current followers of Prophet Cherry consider themselves black Jews. One of the earliest studies of black Jews in America, based in part on Cherry's followers, is a chapter in Arthur Huff Fauset's
Black Gods of the Metropolis
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944); some recent scholars have argued that Fauset (and others who study black Jews in the United States ) use vague, often nonracial definitions of Judaism that hopelessly skew their results. Larsen may also be referring more specifically to the Jewish congregations founded in Harlem by Chief Rabbi Wentworth Arthur Matthew (1892–1973) and his rabbinical students, beginning in 1919. Rabbi Matthew was closely connected to Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) by way of Rabbi Arnold J. Ford, the group's musical director.

3.
wartime in France . . . the new gaiety of Budapest:
Clare's travels take her through France, Germany, England, and Austria-Hungary during World War I (1914–1918) and its aftermath (1919–1926).
After-the-wartime in Germany
refers to the Weimar Republic. At the time
Passing
takes place, Germany was a country of contrasts. Just beneath the gaiety and extravagance of the wild, opulent cabaret scene of Berlin was the crushing poverty of the failing German economy, which was, b y the late 1920s, careening toward collapse under the weight of the war reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Adolf Hitler's National Socialists had also taken root: Hitler had founded the Schutzstaffel (S.S.) and published his manifesto,
Mein Kampf,
in 1925. Within five years of
Passing
's publication, President Paul von Hindenburg (elected president of the Weimar Republic in 1925) would name Hitler chancellor, paving the way for Hitler's ascension to power in 1934. The
general strike
refers to the striking coal miners in England who requested the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to convene a general strike in sympathy in early May 1925. More than two and a half million workers in transport, newspapers, and the iron and steel industries participated in the strike, which lasted for nine days. In response, the British government deployed troops to control essential supplies under the Emergency Powers Act of 1920. Although the TUC called off the strike, the miners did not return to work until November 1925. The
dressmakers' openings in Paris
refers to the Art Deco exposition that opened in Paris in July 1925, showcasing clothes, jewelry, and other decorative arts, providing a stimulus to the Parisian houses of high fashion. Designers such as Poiret, Chanel, Vionnet, Lanvin, Babani, Worth, and others secured Paris's status as the center of fashion in the 1920s (see note for page 141, page 198).
The new gaietyof Budapest:
The period between World War I and World War II, particularly the 1920s, is often referred to as the Silver Age of Budapest. During this time, the city was part of the Grand Tour, known for its spas and casinos that attracted Europe's wealthy elite; the novelist Evelyn Waugh and the Prince of Wales were among its frequent visitors.

4.
And something else for which she could find no name:
a line suggestively reminiscent of the phrase associated with Oscar Wilde, “the love that dare not speak its name,” referring to homosexual love. In a November 12, 1930, letter to Carl Van Vechten, Larsen writes that upon meeting a haughty Englishman (whose name was apparently Douglas), she quipped, “Pardon me, but are you the Lord Douglas who slept with Oscar Wilde?” (quoted in Thadious Davis's
Nella Larsen, Novelist of the
Harlem Renaissance
[Louisiana State University Press, 1994], p. 11). Though often associated with Wilde, the original phrase is from a sonnet, “The Two Loves,” by Wilde's “lover-in-disgrace,” Lord Alfred Douglas. I am indebted to my friend and colleague Chip Delany for this clarification. Although critics have failed to note it, this line further underscores the homoerotic subtext of Larsen's novel.

PART TWO: RE-ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER ONE

1.
sardony:
Apparently, this is Larsen's neologism linking the adjective
sardonic
with the noun
irony,
suggesting a mix of surprise and bitter humor, which is characterized by scorn, mockery, derision, and a reversal of expectation.

2.
“Seventh Avenue, and Lenox Avenue”:
The area to which Brian refers was the heart of Prohibition Harlem, the speakeasy district bounded by 125th and 135th streets and by Lenox and Seventh avenues in the years between 1920 and 1933. Among the vast array of speakeasies, lounges, cafes, supper clubs, theaters, ball-rooms, and dance halls, one could find the famous Cotton Club (Lenox and 125th) and the Hurtig and Seamon's Burlesque, which in 1934 became the Apollo Theater. Nearly all these establishments were segregated; though always featuring black entertainers, these establishments were open to black patrons only after the white crowds had gone home. Of the theaters, for example, only the Alhambra and the Crescent were “black,” while the Cotton Club and Connie's Inn were “whites only” (together with Small's Paradise and Barron Wilkins's Club, these comprised the “big four”). At the time Larsen's novel takes place, this area of Harlem is in its heyday, the golden age of Harlem nightlife. And as Brian's not so subtle suggestion indicates, the Lenox–Seventh Avenue area was a site of illicit and illegal (and racially charged) recreation.

3.
“shine”:
disparaging term for a black male, as in the various toasts on “Shine and the
Titanic.
” The term is most likely derived from
shoeshine boy
and the shine or blackening associated with the surface of polished shoes.