The Blacker the Berry (10 page)

Alva’s mother had been an American mulatto, his father a Filipino. Alva himself was small in stature as his father had been, small and well developed with broad shoulders, narrow hips, and firm, well-modeled limbs. His face was oval-shaped and his features more oriental than Negroid. His skin was neither yellow nor brown but something in between, something warm, arresting, and mellow with the faintest suggestion of a parchment tinge beneath, lending it individuality. His eyes were small, deep, and slanting. His forehead high, hair sparse and finely textured.

The alcove finally straightened up, Alva dressed rather hurriedly, and, taking a brown suit from the closet, made his regular Monday morning trip to the pawn shop.

Emma Lou finished rinsing out some silk stockings and sat down in a chair to re-read a letter she had received from home that morning. It was about the third time she had gone over it. Her mother wanted her to come home. Evidently the hometown gossips were busy. No doubt they were saying, “Strange mother to let that gal stay in New York alone. She ain’t goin’ to school, either. Wonder what she’s doin’?” Emma Lou read all this between the lines of what her mother had written. Jane Morgan was being tearful as usual. She loved to suffer, and being tearful seemed the easiest way to let the world know that one was suffering. Sob stuff, thought Emma Lou, and, tearing the letter up, threw it into the waste paper basket.

Emma Lou was now maid to Arline Strange, who was playing for the moment the part of a mulatto Carmen in an alleged melodrama of Negro life in Harlem. Having tried, for two weeks, to locate what she termed “congenial work,” Emma Lou had given up the idea and meekly returned to Mazelle Lindsay. She had found her old job satisfactorily filled, but Mazelle had been sympathetic and had arranged to place her with Arline Strange. Now her mother wanted her to come home. Let her want. She was of age, and supporting herself. Moreover, she felt that if it had not been for gossip her mother would never have thought of asking her to come home.

“Stop your mooning, dearie.” Arline Strange had returned to her dressing room. Act One was over. The Negro Carmen had become the mistress of a wealthy European. She would now shed her gingham dress for an evening gown.

Mechanically, Emma Lou assisted Arline in making the change. She was unusually silent. It was noticed.

“’Smatter, Louie. In love or something?”

Emma Lou smiled, “Only with myself.”

“Then snap out of it. Remember you’re going cabareting with us tonight. This brother of mine from Chicago insists upon going to Harlem to check up on my performance. He’ll enjoy himself more if you act as guide. Ever been to Small’s?” Emma Lou shook her head. “I haven’t been to any of the cabarets.”

“What?” Arline was genuinely surprised. “You in Harlem and never been to a cabaret? Why I thought all colored people went.”

Emma Lou bristled. White people were so stupid. “No,” she said firmly. “All colored people don’t go. Fact is, I’ve heard most of the places are patronized almost solely by whites.”

“Oh, yes, I knew that, I’ve been to Small’s and Barron’s and the Cotton Club, but I thought there were other places.” She stopped talking, and spent the next few moments deepening the artificial duskiness of her skin. The gingham dress was now on its hanger. The evening gown clung glamorously to her voluptuous figure. “For God’s sake, don’t let on to my brother you ain’t been to Small’s before. Act like you know all about it. I’ll see that he gives you a big tip.” The call bell rang. Arline said “Damn,” gave one last look in the mirror, then hurried back to the stage so that the curtain could go up on the cabaret scene in Act Two.

Emma Lou laid out the negligee outfit Arline would be killed in at the end of Act Three, and went downstairs to stand in the stage wings, a makeup box beneath her arm. She never tired of watching the so-called dramatic antics on the stage. She wondered if there were any Negroes of the type portrayed by Arline and her fellow performers. Perhaps there were, since there were any number of minor parts being played by real Negroes who acted much different from any Negroes she had ever known or seen. It all seemed to her like a mad caricature.

She watched for about the thirtieth time Arline acting the part of a Negro cabaret entertainer, and also for about the thirtieth time, came to the conclusion that Arline was being herself rather than the character she was supposed to be playing. From where she was standing in the wings she could see a small portion of the audience, and she watched their reaction. Their interest seemed genuine. Arline did have pep and personality, and the alleged Negro background was strident and kaleidoscopic, all of which no doubt made up for the inane plot and vulgar dialogue.

They entered Small’s Paradise, Emma Lou, Arline, and Arline’s brother from Chicago. All the way uptown he had plied Emma Lou with questions concerning New York’s Black Belt. He had reciprocated by relating how well he knew the Negro section of Chicago. Quite a personage around the Black and Tan cabarets there, it seemed. “But I never,” he concluded as the taxi drew up to the curb in front of Small’s, “have seen any black gal in Chicago act like Arline acts. She claims she is presenting a Harlem specie. So I am going to see for myself.” And he chuckled all the time he was helping them out of the taxi and paying the fare. While they were checking their wraps in the foyer, the orchestra began playing. Through the open entrance way Emma Lou could see a hazy, dim-lighted room, walls and ceiling colorfully decorated, floor space jammed with tables and chairs and people. A heavy-set mulatto in tuxedo, after asking how many were in their party, led them through a lane of tables around the squared-off dance platform to a ringside seat on the far side of the cabaret.

Immediately they were seated, a waiter came to take their order.

“Three bottles of White Rock.” The waiter nodded, twirled his tray on the tip of his fingers and skated away.

Emma Lou watched the dancers, and noticed immediately that in all that insensate crowd of dancing couples there were only a few Negroes.

“My God, such music. Let’s dance, Arline,” and off they went, leaving Emma Lou sitting alone. Somehow or other she felt frightened. Most of the tables around her were deserted, their tops littered with liquid-filled glasses, and bottles of ginger ale and White Rock. There was no liquor in sight, yet Emma Lou was aware of pungent alcoholic odors. Then she noticed a heavy-jowled white man with a flashlight walking among the empty tables and looking beneath them. He didn’t seem to be finding anything. The music soon stopped. Arline and her brother returned to the table. He was feigning anxiety because he had not seen the type of character Arline claimed to be portraying, and loudly declared that he was disappointed.

“Why there ain’t nothing here but white people. Is it always like this?”

Emma Lou said that it was and turned to watch their waiter, who with two others had come dancing across the floor, holding aloft his tray, filled with bottles and glasses. Deftly, he maneuvered away from the other two and slid to their table, put down a bottle of White Rock and an ice-filled glass before each one, then, after flicking a stub check on to the table, rejoined his companions in a return trip across the dance floor.

Arline’s brother produced a hip flask, and before Emma Lou could demur mixed her a highball. She didn’t want to drink. She hadn’t drunk before, but….

“Here come the entertainers!” Emma Lou followed Arline’s turn of the head to see two women, one light-brown skin and slim, the other chocolate-colored and fat, walking to the center of the dance floor.

The orchestra played the introduction and vamp to “Muddy Waters.” The two entertainers swung their legs and arms in rhythmic unison, smiling broadly and rolling their eyes, first to the left and then to the right. Then they began to sing. Their voices were husky and strident, neither alto nor soprano. They muddled their words and seemed to impregnate the syncopated melody with physical content.

As they sang the chorus, they glided out among the tables, stopping at one, then at another, and another, singing all the time, their bodies undulating and provocative, occasionally giving just a promise of an obscene hip movement, while their arms waved and their fingers held tight to the dollar bills and silver coins placed in their palms by enthusiastic onlookers.

Emma Lou, all of her, watched and listened. As they approached her table, she sat as one mesmerized. Something in her seemed to be trying to give way. Her insides were stirred, and tingled. The two entertainers circled their table; Arline’s brother held out a dollar bill. The fat, chocolate-colored girl leaned over the table, her hand touched his, she exercised the muscles of her stomach, muttered a guttural “Thank you” in between notes and moved away, moaning “Muddy Waters,” rolling her eyes, shaking her hips.

Emma Lou had turned completely around in her chair, watching the progress of that wah-wahing, jello-like chocolate hulk, and her slim, light-brown-skin companion. Finally they completed their rounds of the tables and returned to the dance floor. Red and blue spotlights played upon their dissimilar figures, the orchestra increased the tempo and lessened the intensity of its playing. They swaying entertainers pulled up their dresses, exposing lace trimmed stepins and an island of flesh. Their stockings were rolled down below their knees, their stepins discreetly short and delicate. Finally, they ceased their swaying and began to dance. They shimmied and whirled, charlestoned and black-bottomed. Their terpsichorean ensemble was melodramatic and absurd. Their execution easy and emphatic. Emma Lou forgot herself. She gaped, giggled and applauded like the rest of the audience, and only as they let their legs separate, preparatory to doing one final split to the floor, did Emma Lou come to herself long enough to wonder if the fat one could achieve it without seriously endangering those ever tightening stepins.

“Dam’ good, I’ll say,” a slender white youth at the next table asseverated, as he lifted an amber-filled glass to his lips.

Arline sighed. Her brother had begun to razz her. Emma Lou blinked guiltily as the lights were turned up. She had been immersed in something disturbingly pleasant. Idiot, she berated herself, just because you’ve had one drink and seen your first cabaret entertainer, must your mind and body feel all aflame?

Arline’s brother was mixing another highball. All around, people were laughing. There was much more laughter than there was talk, much more gesticulating and ogling than the usual means of expression called for. Everything seemed unrestrained, abandoned. Yet, Emma Lou was conscious of a note of artificiality, the same as she felt when she watched Arline and her fellow performers cavorting on the stage in “Cabaret Gal.” This entire scene seemed staged, they were in a theater, only the proscenium arch had been obliterated. At last the audience and the actors were as one.

A call to order on the snare drum. A brutal sliding trumpet call on the trombone, a running minor scale by the clarinet and piano, and umpah, umpah by the bass horn, a combination four-measure moan and strum by the saxophone and banjo, then a melodic ensemble, and the orchestra was playing another dance tune. Masses of people jumbled up the three entrances to the dance square and with difficulty, singled out their mates and became closely allied partners. Inadvertently, Emma Lou looked at Arline’s brother. He blushed, and appeared uncomfortable. She realized immediately what was on his mind. He didn’t know whether or not to ask her to dance with him. The ethics of the case were complex. She was a Negro and hired maid. But was she a hired maid after hours, and in this environment? Emma Lou had difficulty in suppressing a smile, then she decided to end the suspense.

“Why don’t you two dance. No need of letting the music go to waste.”

Both Arline and her brother were obviously relieved, but as they got up Arline said, “Ain’t much fun cuddling up to your own brother when there’s music like this.” But off they went, leaving Emma Lou alone and disturbed. John ought to be here, slipped out before she remembered that she didn’t want John any more. Then she began to wish that John had introduced her to some more men. But he didn’t know the kind of men she was interested in knowing. He only knew men and boys like himself, porters and janitors and chauffeurs and bootblacks. Imagine her, a college-trained person, even if she hadn’t finished her senior year, being satisfied with the company of such unintelligent servitors. How had she stood John for so long with his constant defense, “I ain’t got much education, but I got mother wit.” Mother wit. Creation of the unlettered, satisfying illusion to the dumb, ludicrous prop to the mentally unfit. Yes, he had mother wit all right.

Emma Lou looked around and noticed at a nearby table three young colored men, all in tuxedos, gazing at her and talking. She averted her glance and turned to watch the dancers. She thought she heard a burst of ribald laughter from the young men at the table. Then some one touched her on the shoulder, and she looked up into a smiling oriental-like face, neither brown nor yellow in color, but warm and pleasing beneath the soft lights, and, because of the smile, showing a gleaming row of small, even teeth, set off by a solitary gold incisor. The voice was persuasive and apologetic, “Would you care to dance with me?” The music had stopped, but there was promise of an encore. Emma Lou was confused, her mind blankly chaotic. She was expected to push back her chair and get up. She did. And, without saying a word, allowed herself to be maneuvered to the dance floor.

In a moment they were swallowed up in the jazz whirlpool. Long strides were impossible. There were too many other legs striding for free motion in that overpopulated area. He held her close to him; the contours of her body fitting his. The two highballs had made her giddy. She seemed to be glowing inside. The soft lights and the music suggested abandon and intrigue. They said nothing to one another. She noticed that her partner’s face seemed alive with some inner ecstasy. It must be the music, thought Emma Lou. Then she got a whiff of his liquor-laden breath.

After three encores, the clarinet shrilled out a combination of notes that seemed to say regretfully, “That’s all.” Brighter lights were switched on, and the milling couples merged into a struggling mass of individuals, laughing, talking, overanimated individuals, all trying to go in different directions, and getting a great deal of fun out of the resulting confusion. Emma Lou’s partner held tightly to her arm, and pushed her through the insensate crowd to her table. Then he muttered a polite “thank you” and turned away. Emma Lou sat down. Arline and her brother looked at her and laughed. “Got a dance, eh Louie?” Emma Lou wondered if Arline was being malicious, and for an answer she only nodded her head and smiled, hoping all the while that her smile was properly enigmatic.