The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories (29 page)

“I’ve had this letter,” Irene told him. “And I’m sure that anybody’ll admit it’s enough to make a saint swear. The nerve of her!”

She passed the letter to him, and in the act made a little mental frown. For, with a nicety of perception, she saw that she was doing it instead of answering his question with words, so that he might be
occupied while she hurried through her dressing. For she was late again, and Brian, she well knew, detested that. Why, oh why, couldn’t she ever manage to be on time? Brian had been up for ages, had made some calls for all she knew, besides having taken the boys downtown to school. And she wasn’t dressed yet; had only begun. Damn Clare! This morning it was her fault.

Brian sat down and bent his head over the letter, puckering his brows slightly in his effort to make out Clare’s scrawl.

Irene, who had risen and was standing before the mirror, ran a comb through her black hair, then tossed her head with a light characteristic gesture, in order to disarrange a little the set locks. She touched a powder puff to her warm olive skin and then put on her frock with a motion so hasty that it was with some difficulty properly adjusted. At last she was ready, though she didn’t immediately say so, but stood, instead, looking with a sort of curious detachment at her husband across the room.

Brian, she was thinking, was extremely good-looking. Not, of course, pretty or effeminate; the slight irregularity of his nose saved him from the prettiness, and the rather marked heaviness of his chin saved him from the effeminacy. But he was, in a pleasant masculine way, rather handsome. And yet, wouldn’t he, perhaps, have been merely ordinarily good-looking but for the richness, the beauty of his skin, which was of an exquisitely fine texture and deep copper color?

He looked up and said: “Clare? That must be the girl you told me about meeting the last time you were out home. The one you went to tea with?”

Irene’s answer to that was an inclination of the head.

“I’m ready,” she said.

They were going downstairs, Brian deftly, unnecessarily, piloting her round the two short curved steps, just before the center landing.

“You’re not,” he asked, “going to see her?”

His words, however, were in reality not a question, but, as Irene was aware, an admonition.

Her front teeth just touched. She spoke through them, and her
tones held a thin sarcasm. “Brian darling, I’m really not such an idiot that I don’t realize that if a man calls me a nigger it’s his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”

They went into the dining room. He drew back her chair and she sat down behind the fat-bellied German coffeepot, which sent out its morning fragrance, mingled with the smell of crisp toast and savory bacon, in the distance. With his long, nervous fingers he picked up the morning paper from his own chair and sat down.

Zulena, a small mahogany-colored creature, brought in the grapefruit.

They took up their spoons.

Out of the silence Brian spoke. Blandly. “My dear, you misunderstand me entirely. I simply meant that I hope you’re not going to let her pester you. She will, you know, if you give her half a chance and she’s anything at all like your description of her. Anyway, they always do. Besides,” he corrected, “the man, her husband, didn’t call you a nigger. There’s a difference, you know.”

“No, certainly he didn’t. Not actually. He couldn’t, not very well, since he didn’t know. But he would have. It amounts to the same thing. And I’m sure it was just as unpleasant.”

“U-mm, I don’t know. But it seems to me,” he pointed out, “that you, my dear, had all the advantage. You knew what his opinion of you was, while he—Well, ’twas ever thus. We know, always have. They don’t. Not quite. It has, you will admit, its humorous side, and, sometimes, its conveniences.”

She poured the coffee.

“I can’t see it. I’m going to write Clare. Today, if I can find a minute. It’s a thing we might as well settle definitely, and immediately. Curious, isn’t it, that knowing, as she does, his unqualified attitude, she still—”

Brian interrupted: “It’s always that way. Never known it to fail. Remember Albert Hammond, how he used to be forever haunting Seventh Avenue, and Lenox Avenue, and the dancing places, until some ‘shine’ took a shot at him for casting an eye towards his ‘sheba’? They always come back. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.”

“But why?” Irene wanted to know. “Why?”

“If I knew that, I’d know what race is.”

“But wouldn’t you think that, having got the thing, or things, they were after, and at such risk, they’d be satisfied? Or afraid?”

“Yes,” Brian agreed, “you certainly would think so. But the fact remains, they aren’t. Not satisfied, I mean. I think they’re scared enough most of the time, when they give way to the urge and slip back. Not scared enough to stop them, though. Why, the good God only knows.”

Irene leaned forward, speaking, she was aware, with a vehemence absolutely unnecessary, but which she could not control.

“Well, Clare can just count me out. I’ve no intention of being the link between her and her poorer, darker brethren. After that scene in Chicago, too! To calmly expect me—” She stopped short, suddenly too wrathful for words.

“Quite right. The only sensible thing to do. Let her miss you. It’s an unhealthy business, the whole affair. Always is.”

Irene nodded. “More coffee?” she offered.

“Thanks, no.” He took up his paper again, spreading it open with a little rattling noise.

Zulena came in, bringing more toast. Brian took a slice and bit into it with that audible crunching sound that Irene disliked so intensely, and turned back to his paper.

She said: “It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.”

“Instinct of the race to survive and expand.”

“Rot! Everything can’t be explained by some general biological phrase.”

“Absolutely everything can. Look at the so-called whites, who’ve left bastards all over the known earth. Same thing in them. Instinct of the race to survive and expand.”

With that Irene didn’t at all agree, but many arguments in the past had taught her the futility of attempting to combat Brian on ground
where he was more nearly at home than she. Ignoring his unqualified assertion, she slid away from the subject entirely.

“I wonder,” she asked, “if you’ll have time to run me down to the printing office? It’s on 116th Street. I’ve got to see about some handbills and some more tickets for the dance.”

“Yes, of course. How’s it going? Everything all set?”

“Ye-es. I guess so. The boxes are all sold and nearly all the first batch of tickets. And we expect to take in almost as much again at the door. Then there’s all that cake to sell. It’s a terrible lot of work, though.”

“I’ll bet it is. Uplifting the brother’s no easy job. I’m as busy as a cat with fleas, myself.” And over his face there came a shadow. “Lord! how I hate sick people, and their stupid, meddling families, and smelly, dirty rooms, and climbing filthy steps in dark hallways.”

“Surely,” Irene began, fighting back the fear and irritation that she felt, “surely—”

Her husband silenced her, saying sharply: “Let’s not talk about it, please.” And immediately, in his usual slightly mocking tone, he asked: “Are you ready to go now? I haven’t a great deal of time to wait.”

He got up. She followed him out into the hall without replying. He picked up his soft brown hat from the small table and stood a moment whirling it round on his long tea-colored fingers.

Irene, watching him, was thinking: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair.” After all these years to still blame her like this. Hadn’t his success proved that she’d been right in insisting that he stick to his profession right there in New York? Couldn’t he see, even now, that it
had
been best? Not for her, oh no, not for her—she had never really considered herself—but for him and the boys. Was she never to be free of it, that fear which crouched, always, deep down within her, stealing away the sense of security, the feeling of permanence, from the life which she had so admirably arranged for them all, and desired so ardently to have remain as it was? That strange, and to her fantastic, notion of Brian’s of going off to Brazil, which, though unmentioned, yet lived within him; how it frightened her, and—yes, angered her!

“Well?” he asked lightly.

“I’ll just get my things. One minute,” she promised and turned upstairs.

Her voice had been even and her step was firm, but in her there was no slackening of the agitation, of the alarms, which Brian’s expression of discontent had raised. He had never spoken of his desire since that long-ago time of storm and strain, of hateful and nearly disastrous quarreling, when she had so firmly opposed him, so sensibly pointed out its utter impossibility and its probable consequences to her and the boys, and had even hinted at a dissolution of their marriage in the event of his persisting in his idea. No, there had been, in all the years that they had lived together since then, no other talk of it, no more than there had been any other quarreling or any other threats. But because, so she insisted, the bond of flesh and spirit between them was so strong, she knew, had always known, that his dissatisfaction had continued, as had his dislike and disgust for his profession and his country.

A feeling of uneasiness stole upon her at the inconceivable suspicion that she might have been wrong in her estimate of her husband’s character. But she squirmed away from it. Impossible! She couldn’t have been wrong. Everything proved that she had been right. More than right, if such a thing could be. And all, she assured herself, because she understood him so well, because she had, actually, a special talent for understanding him. It was, as she saw it, the one thing that had been the basis of the success which she had made of a marriage that had threatened to fail. She knew him as well as he knew himself, or better.

Then why worry? The thing, this discontent which had exploded into words, would surely die, flicker out, at last. True, she had in the past often been tempted to believe that it had died, only to become conscious, in some instinctive, subtle way, that she had been merely deceiving herself for a while and that it still lived. But it
would
die. Of that she was certain. She had only to direct and guide her man, to keep him going in the right direction.

She put on her coat and adjusted her hat.

Yes, it would die, as long ago she had made up her mind that it should. But in the meantime, while it was still living and still had the power to flare up and alarm her, it would have to be banked, smothered, and something offered in its stead. She would have to make some plan, some decision, at once. She frowned, for it annoyed her intensely. For, though temporary, it would be important and perhaps disturbing. Irene didn’t like changes, particularly changes that affected the smooth routine of her household. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Something would have to be done. And immediately.

She took up her purse and, drawing on her gloves, ran down the steps and out through the door which Brian held open for her and stepped into the waiting car.

“You know,” she said, settling herself into the seat beside him, “I’m awfully glad to get this minute alone with you. It does seem that we’re always so busy—I do hate that—but what can we do? I’ve had something on my mind for ever so long, something that needs talking over and really serious consideration.”

The car’s engine rumbled as it moved out from the curb and into the scant traffic of the street under Brian’s expert guidance.

She studied his profile.

They turned into Seventh Avenue. Then he said: “Well, let’s have it. No time like the present for the settling of weighty matters.”

“It’s about Junior. I wonder if he isn’t going too fast in school? We do forget that he’s not eleven yet. Surely it can’t be good for him to—well, if he is, I mean. Going too fast, you know. Of course, you know more about these things than I do. You’re better able to judge. That is, if you’ve noticed or thought about it at all.”

“I do wish, Irene, you wouldn’t be forever fretting about those kids. They’re all right. Perfectly all right. Good, strong, healthy boys, especially Junior. Most especially Junior.”

“We-ll, I s’pose you’re right. You’re expected to know about things like that, and I’m sure you wouldn’t make a mistake about your own boy.” (Now why had she said that?) “But that isn’t all. I’m terribly afraid he’s picked up some queer ideas about things—some things—from the older boys, you know.”

Her manner was consciously light. Apparently she was intent on the maze of traffic, but she was still watching Brian’s face closely. On it was a peculiar expression. Was it, could it possibly be, a mixture of scorn and distaste?

“Queer ideas?” he repeated. “D’you mean ideas about sex, Irene?”

“Ye-es. Not quite nice ones. Dreadful jokes, and things like that.”

“Oh, I see,” he threw at her. For a while there was silence between them. After a moment he demanded bluntly: “Well, what of it? If sex isn’t a joke, what is it? And what is a joke?”

“As you please, Brian. He’s your son, you know.” Her voice was clear, level, disapproving.

“Exactly! And you’re trying to make a mollycoddle out of him. Well, just let me tell you, I won’t have it. And you needn’t think I’m going to let you change him to some nice kindergarten kind of a school because he’s getting a little necessary education. I won’t! He’ll stay right where he is. The sooner and the more he learns about sex, the better for him. And most certainly if he learns that it’s a grand joke, the greatest in the world. It’ll keep him from lots of disappointments later on.”

Irene didn’t answer.

They reached the printing shop. She got out, emphatically slamming the car door behind her. There was a piercing agony of misery in her heart. She hadn’t intended to behave like this, but her extreme resentment at his attitude, the sense of having been willfully misunderstood and reproved, drove her to fury.

Inside the shop, she stilled the trembling of her lips and drove back her rising anger. Her business transacted, she came back to the car in a chastened mood. But against the armor of Brian’s stubborn silence she heard herself saying in a calm, metallic voice: “I don’t believe I’ll go back just now. I’ve remembered that I’ve got to do something about getting something decent to wear. I haven’t a rag that’s fit to be seen. I’ll take the bus downtown.”