The Outsider (31 page)

“Well, Gil, we're not all lucky enough to be able to keep abreast of events as well as you do.”

“I'm not keeping abreast of events,” Gil corrected him with imperturbable aloofness. “You learn revolutionary logic by working in the revolutionary movement. Yes, Lionel, you need to stop throwing your life away in individual protests against your exploiters. Pool your strength with your natural allies; get in the revolutionary movement and soak up the lessons of history.”

“I'd never try to act before knowing what I was about,” Cross told him.

“Look, guy,” Gil took his pipe from his mouth and leaned and pointed the stem at him. “I like you, see? I've seen you for about ten minutes and I'm willing to take a chance on you. If I made you a gift, would you accept it?”

Cross smiled and looked at him. These Communists mean business…

“My mother used to tell me: ‘When somebody gives you something, take it; when somebody takes something away from you, cry',” Cross said.

Gil managed a wry smile, as though he did not approve of the folk-saying because it had not the sanction
of Karl Marx; but Eva clapped her hands and laughed delightedly.

“I want to send you to the Workers' School,” Gil said, “at my own expense. But there's only one catch to my offer…”

“What's that?”

“If I stake you to study, then you'll have to come and live with us.”

“Why?” Cross asked, puzzled.

Did this man want him in the same house with a girl as beautiful as Eva? He was crazy…

“For many reasons,” Gil explained. “First, I'd like to keep track of your progress. Second, I want you to help me in a fight against racism which I'm going to wage in the building in which I live. Third, I want to demonstrate to a certain man, my landlord, who needs to learn a lot, that a Negro is not afraid to live in his building. My landlord's a Fascist, an open Fascist! I want you to move into my apartment. We've a spare room.”

Cross looked at Eva.

“We'd be happy to have you,” she said; but she did not smile.

Cross sighed. He had not expected this. Well, why not? This man thinks he is cold; well, I'm just as cold as he is…Maybe more…He is trying to use me, but I'll make
use
of his trying to use me…

“I like to gamble sometimes,” Cross said, rising. “I'm doing nothing with myself. I'll take you up on this and see where it leads. About the Fascist, lead me to him. I've been accused of many things in my life, but no one has yet said that I was afraid.”

Gil rose; he beamed for the first time since he had been in the room and he clapped his hand on Cross's shoulder.

“You're a man in a million! That's the spirit I like to see, boy!” Gil said with stiff, jerky lips.

“The freedom of your people ought to be the most precious thing on earth to you,” Eva said solemnly.

Smiling a smile that they thought was acquiescence but which was really irony, Cross stood to one side and watched them. As if at a signal, Bob and Sarah came into the room; there was no attempt to conceal the fact that all of them had discussed Cross previously and had decided to make the offer that Gil had tendered him. Bob was jubilant, slapping Cross on the back and telling him:

“You ain't got no worries now, boy. The Party'll take care of you…From now on, the Party's going to be your mother and your father.”

Sarah whispered to him, grinning and struggling to repress her laughter: “You're something new, something special. You can go far with that face of yours. Nobody'll think you're up to anything.”

Why do they have to crow so openly over me? Cross asked himself. Though he had agreed to give Gil's offer a try, he could not avoid feeling cheapened at the way they boasted of how they had been wise enough to know a “good man” when they saw one. I'll show 'em how good I am, Cross told himself.

Sarah turned and looked at the clock on the mantel; then she and Bob looked at each other.

“Where's Jack?” Bob asked.

“My dinner's being ruined,” Sarah complained.

“I say let's eat,” Bob said defiantly. “He knew what time we were eating.”

“Ditto,” said Sarah. “I don't like slaving over a hot stove cooking a good meal and letting it get cold. That Jack Hilton's always doing that. Who does he think he is?”

“He's held up at a meeting,” Gil said.

“Come on, folks,” Sarah called, beckoning. “Go into the dining room and sit down.”

Cross detected in Bob a feeling of hostility toward the absent Jack Hilton and he wondered about it. He joined the others at the dinner table, but even the deliciousness of Sarah's cooking could not banish his sense of their regarding him as a strange fish that they had hauled up out of the sea. Gil downed his food wordlessly, his attention far away. Eva gossiped with Sarah, and Bob ate lustily, now and again looking proudly at Cross. They were eating dessert when the doorbell rang.

“That's Jack,” Sarah said with disgust.

“I'll let 'im in,” Bob said, rising and going to the door.

Cross heard Bob greet the new guest: “Hey, Jack! You're late. We're eating dessert.”

There was a low rumble of voices in the hallway and then Cross saw a slender man of about thirty enter the dining room with his overcoat still on. Flakes of melting snow clung to his hat, and a faint haze of vapor, precipitated by the warm air of the apartment, rose from his clothing. His eyes were dark brown, limpid, deep-set, and stared almost unblinkingly. The face was emaciated, the lips thin and hanging slightly open; the mouth was wide, a little loose. He had a shock of blond hair and his skin was sallow. Under his arm he carried a roll of papers which was slightly damp from the weather outside and he held both of his hands, which had no gloves, clasped tightly in front of him, as though his strained nerves had to have something to hold onto for sake of support. Cross had the impression that the man was under severe nervous strain, and that perhaps a slight emotional push would set him going.

No one save Bob had spoken to him and so far he
had said nothing to anyone. All waited for him to speak. He glanced at Sarah and said dryly:

“I'm sorry I couldn't come in time to eat. But I was detained at the control commission.”

Sarah forced a smile and mumbled: “That's all right, Jack.”

“The Party comes first,” Bob agreed.

“Sit down and have a drink, won't you?” Sarah asked him.

“I don't want a drink,” he said. “I can stay but a minute. In fact, I've come on an important errand to speak to Bob.”

“We can go into the bedroom,” Bob suggested.

“No. I can say it right here,” Jack Hilton said in hard, cold, precise tones.

He paused and Cross noticed that Hilton's shoes had cracks in them. The man's feet must be frozen…

“Bob Hunter,” Jack Hilton began in a tone that sounded as though he was declaiming a prepared speech, “the Party has decided that you must not proceed any further in your attempt to organize any cells in the Dining Car Waiters' Union. The Party does not wish to see that task undertaken at this time. You must forth with desist from all and any activities in that direction. For further instructions, you will report to your Fraction Cell. Is that clearly understood?”

The man's voice had gradually risen to a high pitch of oratory before he had finished; Cross felt that the importance of the message did not justify such a method of delivery, but he sensed behind the manner of speaking an attempt to impose a respect for higher authority.

“But, man,” Bob protested, “what are you saying to me? I'm working at it night and day.”

“Then stop it!” The words shot from Hilton's mouth.

“But, Jack,” Bob yelled, “I already sent out the letters for a meeting—”

“Then send out letters and cancel the meeting!” Hilton said.

“But—Man, you don't know what you're doing! I declared myself to 'em in public as a Party member—”

Hilton took a step closer to Bob, and, taking the papers he had held under his arm, he doubled them in his right fist and slapped them against his leg to underscore each word he spoke.

“Hunter, when will you ever learn to respect a decision of the Party? You don't discuss decisions of the Party. You
obey
them!”

“But what am I gonna do?” Bob wailed. “I want to organize my union like the Party told me.”

“The Party has altered its decision!” Hilton stated flatly.

“Jack,” Sarah spoke in a low, calm tone of voice, “listen, this is not as easy as you think. Bob has exposed himself as a member of the Party in order to recruit for the Party. Now, if he drops this work, what is he to do? He can't work for the union and he can't work for the company…And now you're telling him he mustn't go on working for the Party—”

“This has
nothing
to do with
you
” Hilton told Sarah. “This decision is between Hunter and the Party—”

Sarah leaped from the table and confronted Hilton. “It
has
something to do with me!” she blazed. “Bob's my husband, and what concerns
him
concerns
me
!”

“Not in the Party it doesn't,” Hilton said.

“Then Bob's
not
going to obey any such damned decision!” Sarah shouted. “You wanted Bob to organize the waiters on the dining cars. Now, he's doing that. Then you say stop. Now, why,
why
?”

“The Party is not obliged to justify its decisions to you or anybody,” Hilton said.

“I'm gonna keep on organizing,” Bob said uncertainly to Hilton.

“Then you will be disciplined,” Hilton said.

“What discipline? What can you do to me?” Bob asked, his eyes wide with wonder and anxiety.

“You can be expelled,” Hilton told him. “And the Party will blacklist you throughout the labor movement. The Party will kill you. You can't
fight
the Party!
Understand
that?”

There was silence. Cross looked about the dining room. Gil leaned forward, listening, sucking contentedly at his pipe, his elbows resting on the table. There was a quiet twinkle in his eyes as he looked from Bob to Hilton and back again, following their dialogue. Eva was pale, stiff, and seemed not to be breathing; her eyes were full of a look that seemed to be protest. Sarah's eyes were blazing and her chest rose and fell rapidly; Cross could see the throbbing of a tiny vein in her neck. Bob stood bent forward a little, his lips hanging open, his eyes wide and glassy. His stance was a combination of subservience and aggression; it seemed that he was about to bow to Hilton's demands and yet at the same time he could have been ready to leap forward and grab Hilton's throat. Cross wondered if it occurred to Bob that he was trying to drag him into an inhuman machine like this…? Maybe Bob's mind did not possess enough elasticity to bring such ideas to his consciousness…?

“But what can I do?” Bob finally asked in a wail.

Gil rose and walked around the table to Bob and pointed the stem of his pipe into Bob's face.

“You're going to be a Bolshevik and obey the Party,” Gil spoke with jerky authority.

“But my fellow workers'll think I'm crazy if I change my mind like that,” Bob pointed out.

“That does not matter,” Gil said. “You are an instrument of the Party. You exist to execute the Party's will. That's all there is to it.”

“But I
feel—
” Bob began.

“Goddamn your damned feelings!” Gil spat. “Who cares about what you feel? Insofar as the Party is concerned, you've got no damned feelings!” Gil paused a moment; there was a look of wild exasperation in his bulbous eyes. “Bob, there's a hell of a lot you don't understand. What do you think men like Molotov do when they get a decision? They carry it
out
! Do you think the Party exists to provide an outlet for your personal feelings? Hell, no! What do you think the Party would be if such happened? We are not Socialists…We are
Communists
! And being a Communist is not easy. It means negating yourself, blotting out your personal life and listening only to the voice of the Party. The Party wants you to
obey
! The Party hopes that you can understand
why
you must obey; but even if you don't understand, you
must
obey. If you don't, then the Party will toss you aside, like a broken hammer, and seek another instrument that will obey. Don't think that you are indispensable because you're black and the Party needs you. Hell, no! The Party can find others to do what it wants! Is this asking too much? No. Why? Because the Party needs this obedience to carry out its aims. And what are those aims? The liberation of the working class and the defense of the Soviet Union. The Party, therefore, does not and cannot ask too much of any comrade. It's logical, is it not? The Party is conducting this fight on your behalf and you must fit into it. Is that clear?”

Bob nodded his head affirmatively and then Gil turned and stared at Cross. And Cross felt that a better demonstration of what he was in for could not have happened even if it had been arranged.

“Lane,” Gil said, “you are looking at a Party problem. Do you understand it?”

“I understand it,” Cross said.

“I must go,” Hilton said; he turned and without another word walked out of the room. No one had moved to open the front door for him; Cross heard it slam shut. He looked at Gil and was astonished to see Gil watching him and smiling.

“Do you understand what I mean, Lane, when I say you can't learn this out of books?”

“Yes. But, listen, I see here two points of view. I see—”

His eyes caught sight of a gesture of Gil's hand, a motion that meant for him to remain silent; Cross knew that Gil did not want him to discuss Bob's Party problem in front of Bob.