I smiled at him. “I was scared green.”
“You weren’t,” he said. “I was watching you. You never turned a hair. You almost seemed to enjoy it.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself,” I said. I imitated his voice, “I’d better go down and talk to them.”
“I was,” he said seriously, “afraid, I mean. I was really afraid. Deep inside of me I knew I was afraid and I was ashamed of it. I was ashamed because I thought I had mastered that fear a long time ago. It’s a peculiar black fear in character—fear of a mob of white people. It goes back a long time, I guess.”
“Well, you didn’t show it,” I said. “You’d better forget it and try to sleep. In the morning everything will seem different.”
“Will tomorrow be different?” he asked speculatively. “Will it ever be any different than today? People don’t change overnight. When something goes wrong it’s natural for them to look for a scapegoat. They forget anything a person has ever done for them in their foolish stupid search for vengeance.”
I got to my feet. A note of determination crept into my voice. “Put it out of your mind and go to sleep. A little rest is what you need right now.” I walked towards the door and opened it. “I’ll be out here if you want me. Just call.”
He nodded. “You’re a funny guy, Frank.” He smiled a little. “I told you that before, didn’t I?”
“You can tell me again tomorrow,” I said, “when you’ve had a good night’s rest. Good night.”
“Good night,” he said.
I closed the door softly behind me. I rinsed out the cup and put it back in the pantry. Then I sat down and lit a cigarette. About halfway through with it, I thought I heard him call me. I got up and peeked into the room. He was asleep. I went back inside and sat down.
There was a small portrait of Gerro on the table near the easel. I went over and picked it up. It was a good portrait. I didn’t notice it before, but Gerro was a good-looking guy. He had a firm, sensitive cast to his face, high cheek-bones, large, intelligent eyes, and a
I awoke when I heard a key turning in the lock. A quick glance at the clock told me it was three-thirty. I waited for the door to open. I heard the tumblers click, and then a girl stepped into the room. She stopped short in the doorway when she saw me.
She was a beauty—small, dark-red hair, deep-brown eyes, a small, beautifully curved mouth. Her coat was open and I could see she had a terrific figure—sexy. The right things in the right places—nice legs, a soft, creamy-white skin. I blinked my eyes. This was why Gerro had tried to shake me. I stood up.
“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice matched her figure. It was a soft, deep voice. “Frank Kane,” I said. “I’m a friend of Gerro’s.”
“Where is he?” she asked.
I gestured to the bedroom. “He’s in there asleep. He had a bit of an accident and I came along with him.”
She closed the door and came into the room, taking off her coat. She looked at me a moment, and then went to the bedroom and opened the door and looked in. I could see he was still asleep. She went into the room and stood over the bed looking down at him. Then she quietly came back into the room I was in, and closed the door softly behind her.
I saw she was a little pale. “Don’t be upset,” I said. “He’ll be all right.” “What happened?” she asked.
I took out a cigarette and offered her one. She took it and we lighted up. Then I told her. When I had finished she sank into a chair.
“It must have been terrible,” she said. “It could have been worse,” I said.
“I mean for him,” she said. “You don’t know how much of himself he put into that club. How proud he was of it! How proud he was of the way he was accepted there! He always said that it was only the beginning—a forerunner of a better tomorrow. When everyone, no matter what their colour or creed would be, would get along with each other. He must have taken a terrible beating.”
I looked at her. “It wasn’t a bad cut.”
“The physical side of it, he will forget soon enough,” she said. “It’s the other side that really was hurt—his pride and spirit— and it won’t heal as well as the cut on his face.”
I picked up my coat. “I’d better be going now,” I said. “I only waited for someone to come so I could tell them not to disturb him.”
“No,” she said quickly, “don’t go. It’s late. I don’t know how far away you live but why don’t you stay here tonight? You can sleep inside with Gerro. I’ll sleep out here on the couch. You look terribly tired.”
“No,” I said slowly. “Thanks just the same but I think I’d better go.” I walked towards the door.
She came to the door with me. “Why don’t you stay?” she asked. “I don’t mind sleeping out here—honestly. I’ll have to do it anyway.”
I just looked at her questioningly.
She blushed, the hot, red colour running up her neck and across her face. She looked down at the floor. “Wait a minute. You don’t understand. I’m his wife.”
I almost smiled. “Look, lady, I don’t want to seem rude or small-minded. It’s your business, not mine. It doesn’t make any difference to me who or what you are. Gerro is a great guy. He may even be a great man. I’m just one of the people who are lucky enough to know him, that’s all.”
She sat down on a chair. She seemed to be furious with herself. “I’m sorry I said that,” she told me. “I lied. I’m not his wife.” She picked her head up and looked at me proudly. “I wish I were, though. I wish I had the nerve to make him marry me.”
I looked right back at her, staring into her eyes until she began to colour up again, but she didn’t look away. I threw my coat across the room. “This is a hell of a way to treat a guest!” I said. “Haven’t you anything to eat in this place? I’m starved, Miss——?”
“Marianne Renoir,” she said.
“How about something to eat, Marianne?” I asked, smiling.
“Eggs?” She smiled back. “You’ll have to take that. It’s all there is.” She turned towards the kitchenette. “Fried or scrambled?”
Ten minutes later we were sitting at the table eating—that is, I was eating, she was talking.
“Gerro wouldn’t have liked what I said to you. He doesn’t like me to lie about us. The truth is always much simpler, he says.”
I nodded agreement.
She lit a cigarette. “I met Gerro when we were juniors in college. And you know how those things are. One minute you’re talking about a common problem of classwork, and the next minute you find out that there are more important things to talk about.
“But I was the brave one. We’ll defy the world, I said. What are standards? What do we care what people say or think? We’ll show them. But Gerro never said anything. He’d just smile in that sweet, quiet, sincere way he has and not say a word.
“I guess he knew, even then, that I was just talking to keep from facing the facts. My folks wouldn’t allow it. I come from Haiti, and though there was a touch of black in us, somewhere back in my great-grandmother’s time, they were even more proud of their colour than those who were pure white.
“And Gerro’s family was the same way from exactly the opposite point of view.
“Gerro always wanted to be a writer—a journalist. He studied journalism in school. But the inequity of his opportunity as compared with his training soon became apparent to him. Then he turned to this. He thought if he worked hard enough at it and if others worked hard enough at it, people would grow to accept him in the way they would accept anyone else of equal talent. That’s why I think he must feel so hurt over what happened tonight.
“He’s kept so busy that he hasn’t had time even to see me more than once a week. And when he does come, he goes over to the typewriter over there and starts to write things, so wonderful and beautiful and compassionate that I don’t see how anyone who reads them can keep from weeping. He pours out his heart and soul into that typewriter, and then when he’s finished, he looks up at me and smiles and gives it to me to read.
And while I read it, he walks up and down nervously, smoking one cigarette after the other, and tries to read my mind as to how I feel about it.
“And when I’d look up at him and tell him how wonderful it is, he takes the pages back from me and he holds them in his fist and shakes them at me. ‘Is it the truth, Marianne?’ he would ask, ‘Is it the truth?’
“It is the truth all right. The truth—naked, raw, honest, uncompromising. The truth— the misery of a man’s soul, his sensitivity to his fellow man’s feelings. But the truth—a torch—a bright, shining torch on a foggy night in a world beclouded with prejudice and stupidity.”
She got up and picked up the little portrait of Gerro that I had looked at before. “I painted him one day while he was working. He never knew it until he had finished his work, then he looked up and saw me. I smiled at him and showed him the painting. And do you know what he said?
“He said, ‘Lord, darling, you make me beautiful!’ As if I could make him beautiful—he who is beautiful and kind and honest in his own right.”
She put the portrait down and stared at it a few minutes. I had finished the eggs and I watched her. She was oblivious to my gaze. “Oh, how much I wish we were married!” she said.
I started to speak but a voice interrupted me. It was Gerro, and he was standing in the bedroom doorway smiling at us. “I see you two have met,” he said. “But as usual she only tells you her side of the story. She didn’t tell you she won the Ross Scholarship in Art, did she? She didn’t tell you her family is one of the wealthiest in Haiti? She didn’t tell you if I married her we wouldn’t have a penny to live on?”
She got up and ran over to him. “Gerro, I was so afraid for you.”
He smiled at her gently. “Afraid, Marianne? Not you. Maybe I was. But not you.”
I got up from the table. “Look,” I said, “I’m tired. Court’s adjourned, for the night. I’ll listen to your side of the story, Gerro, in the morning. Let’s go to sleep.”
I slept on the couch in the studio. I had almost fallen asleep when I heard someone come out into the studio from the bedroom. I looked through the darkened room. It was Marianne. “Marianne,” I whispered, “is he asleep?”
She came towards me and stopped near the couch looking down at me. “You still awake?”
“Yes.”
“He told me what you did. I wanted to thank you. I didn’t realize,” she laughed suddenly to herself.
“What are you laughing at?” I whispered.
“You know what I thought when I first came into the apartment and saw you sitting there in the chair? I thought you were a burglar who had fallen asleep in the chair and just woke up when I came in. There was something on your face that seemed to be laughing at me. It seemed to say: ‘All right, I’m caught. What are you going to do about it?’ I was afraid to come in but I couldn’t go away. I just stood there not knowing what to do. Some day I’m going to paint you—even though I know now you are such a nice boy.”
I didn’t answer.
She bent down and kissed my cheek. There was a perfume about her, a femaleness I was instantly aware of. “That was for being so kind to Gerro.”
I put my hands under her arms and pulled her towards me. “That was for Gerro,” I whispered. “This is for me.”
I kissed her on the lips. At first she was too surprised to stop me. Then she kissed back. Her arms went under my head and held my face close to hers. When we separated I whispered: “For whose benefit was that speech while I was eating—mine or yours?”
For a second she held her face close to mine. We looked into each other’s eyes. Then she straightened up. “You dog!” she whispered evenly. “You dirty dog! I can never paint you now. You are a burglar. I was right the first time.” She moved towards the doorway and stopped there. “I’ll never see you again,” she said definitely.
I turned over on my stomach and looked at her. “Marianne,” I whispered, “would you say that if I weren’t Gerro’s friend?”
She went into the bedroom without answering. I turned over on my back and looked up at the ceiling half smiling to myself. She was right. I would never see her again, not as long as Gerro was my friend. It was too dangerous for both of us. I liked her—more than I had ever liked anyone before. There was something about her—about us—that seemed to draw us together. I sensed it when I first saw her. I knew she did too. I liked her voice, her mobile, expressive face, her hands with long, capable, sensitive fingers. I liked the way her lips felt against mine, the corners of them moving a little. But I would never see her again, not as long as Gerro was my friend.
I left early in the morning before either of them had awakened. It was Monday and I had to be at work. I slipped out of the apartment like a thief—a burglar.
A
FEW
minutes after we had opened, Terry came in. She was as mad as hell. “I thought you were going to get in touch with me last night,” she said furiously.
“I couldn’t,” I said, trying to cool her off. Harry was looking at us curiously. “Gerro was hurt pretty bad and I stayed the night with him. What happened after I left?”
She cooled off quickly. “I don’t know. I called the cops like you said I should, and then went home. I guess the place must be wrecked. How is Gerro?”
“He’ll be O.K.,” I said. “We got away over the roof.” “What are they going to do about the club?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. We went out into the street and looked up at the club. All the windows had been smashed. We went upstairs. The little furniture that had been there was thoroughly smashed. Obscenities were chalked on the walls. We went outside again. Terry had a funny look on her face.
“I guess it’s all over now,” she said slowly.
“Maybe,” I said. “You never can tell. If it means enough to the members, it will open again.”
“If it does mean enough!” she answered.
I was curious. “What did it mean to you?” I asked. “What did you get out of it?”
She hesitated a moment before she answered. “It was a place to meet people, to make friends, and talk about things. It was a place to get together.”