The Ways of White Folks (13 page)

So it was decided that he would go to Fisk next year. When Arnie agreed, the Pembertons breathed a sort of sigh of joy. They thought he might remember the camp at Boston, and not want to go to a Negro college.

And now the Summer presented itself, the last Summer before they let Arnie go away—the boy whom they’d raised as their own. They didn’t want that last Summer spoiled for him. Or for them. They wanted no such incidents as the Boy Scout business. The Pembertons were kind people. They wanted Arnie to remember with pleasure his life with them.

Maybe it would be nice to take him to Europe. They themselves had not been abroad for a long
time. Arnie could see Paris and his father’s grave and the Tower of London. The Pembertons would enjoy the trip, too. And on their return, Arnie could go directly to Fisk, where his life at college, and in the grown-up world, would begin. Maybe he’d marry one of those lovely brown girls who sang spirituals so beautifully, and live a good Christian man—occasionally visiting the Pembertons, and telling them about his influence on the poor black people of the South.

Graduation came. Arnie took high honors in the class, and spoke on the program. He went to the senior prom, but he didn’t dance with any of the girls. He just sort of stood around the punch-bowl, and joked with the fellows. So nobody was embarrassed, and everyone was glad to see him there. The one dark spot in a world of whiteness. It was too bad he didn’t have a partner to stand with him when they sang the Alma Mater after the final dance. But he was a lucky chap to be going to Europe. Not many youngsters from Mapleton had been. The Pembertons were doing well by him, everybody said aloud, and the church board had got him into Fisk.

But with all their careful planning, things weren’t going so well about the European trip. When the steamship company saw the passports, they cancelled the cabin that had been engaged for Arnie. Servants always went second class, they
wrote. That Arnie wasn’t a servant, it was revealed ultimately, made no difference. He was a Negro, wasn’t he?

So it ended with the Pembertons going first, and Arnie second class on the same boat. They would have all gone second, out of sympathy for Arnie, except that accommodations in that class had been completely booked for months ahead. Only as a great favor to first-class passengers had the steamship company managed to find a place for Arnie at all. The Pembertons and their boy had a cross to bear, but they bore it like Christians. At Cherbourg they met the little black fellow again on an equal footing. The evening found them in Paris.

Paris, loveliest of cities, where at dusk the lights are a great necklace among the trees of the Champs Elysées. Paris, song-city of the world. Paris, with the lips of a lovely woman kissing without fear. June, in Paris.

The Pembertons stopped at one of the best hotels. They had a suite which included a room for Arnie. Everything was very nice. The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and the Café de la Paix were very nice. All with Arnie. Very nice. Everything would have gone on perfectly, surely; and there would have been no story, and Arnie and the Pembertons would have continued in Christian love forever—Arnie at Fisk, of course, and the Pembertons at Mapleton, then Arnie married and the Pembertons
growing old, and so on and on—had not Claudina Lawrence moved into the very hotel where the Pembertons were staying. Claudina Lawrence! My God!

True, they had all seen dark faces on the boulevards, and a Negro quartet at the Olympia, but only very good Americans and very high English people were staying at this hotel with the Pembertons. Then Claudina Lawrence moved in—the Claudina who had come from Atlanta, Georgia, to startle the Old World with the new beauty of brown flesh behind footlights. That Claudina who sang divinely and danced like a dryad and had amassed a terrible amount of fame and money in five years. Even the Pembertons had heard of Claudina Lawrence in the quiet and sedate village of Mapleton. Even Arnie had heard of her. And Arnie had been a little bit proud. She was a Negro.

But why did she have to move next door to the Pembertons in this hotel? “Why, Lord, oh, why?” said Grace Pemberton. “For the sake of Arnie, why?” But here the tale begins.

A lot of young Negroes, men and women, shiny and well-dressed, with good and sophisticated manners, came at all hours to see Claudina. Arnie and
the Pembertons would meet them in the hall. They were a little too well dressed to suit the Pembertons. They came with white people among them, too—very pretty French girls. And they were terribly lively and gay and didn’t seem dependent on anybody. Their music floated out of the windows on the Summer night. The Pembertons hoped they wouldn’t get hold of Arnie. They would be a bad influence.

But they did get hold of Arnie.

One morning, as he came out to descend to the lobby to buy post-cards, Claudina herself stepped into the hall at the same time. They met at the elevator. She was the loveliest creature Arnie had ever seen. In pink, all tan and glowing. And she was colored.

“Hello,” she said to the young black boy who looked old enough to be less shy. “You look like a home-towner.”

“I’m from Mapleton,” Arnie stuttered.

“You sound like you’re from London,” said Claudina, noting his New England accent and confusing it with Mayfair. “But your face says Alabama.”

“Oh, I’m colored all right,” said Arnie, happy to be recognized by one of his own. “And I’m glad to know you.”

“Having a good time?” asked Claudina, as the elevator came.

“No,” Arnie said, suddenly truthful. “I don’t know anybody.”

“Jesus!” said Claudina, sincerely. “That’s a shame. A lot of boys and girls are always gathering in my place. Knock on the door some time. I can’t see one of my down-home boys getting the blues in Paris. Some of the fellows in my band’ll take you around a bit, maybe. They know all the holes and corners. Come in later.”

“Thanks awfully,” said Arnie.

Claudina left him half-dazed in the lobby. He saw her get into her car at the curb, saw the chauffeur tip his hat, and then drive away. For the first time in his life Arnie was really happy. Somebody had offered him something without charity, without condescension, without prayer, without distance, and without being nice.

All the pictures in the Luxembourg blurred before his eyes that afternoon, and Miss Emily’s explanations went in one ear and out the other. He was thinking about Claudina and the friends he might meet in her rooms, the gay and well-dressed Negroes he had seen in the hall, the Paris they could show him, the girls they would be sure to know.

That night he went to see Claudina. He told the Pembertons he didn’t care about going to the Odéon, so they went without him, a little reluctantly—because they didn’t care about going
either, really. They had been sticking rather strenuously to their program of cultural Paris. They were tired. Still, the Pembertons went to the Odéon—it was a play they really should see—and Arnie went next door to Claudina’s. But only after he was sure the Pembertons were sitting in the theatre.

Claudina was playing whist. A young Englishman was her partner. Two sleek young colored men were their opponents. “Sit down, honey,” Claudina said as if he had known Arnie for years. “You can take a hand in a minute, if you’d like to play. Meet Mr. So and so and so.…” She introduced him to the group. “It’s kinda early yet. Most of our gang are at work. The theatres aren’t out.… Marie, bring him a drink.” And the French maid poured a cocktail.

A knock, and a rather portly brown-skinned woman, beautifully dressed, entered. “Hello! Who’s holding all the trump cards? Glad to meet you, Mr. Arnie. From Boston, you say? My old stamping-ground. Do you know the Roundtrees there?”

“No’m,” Arnie said.

“Well, I used to study at the Conservatory and knew all the big shots,” the brown-skin woman went on. “Did you just come over? Tourist, heh? Well, what’s new in the States now? I haven’t been home for three years. Don’t intend to go soon. The
color-line’s a little too much for me. What are they dancing now-a-days? You must’ve brought a few of the latest steps with you. Can you do the Lindy Hop?”

“No’m,” said Arnie.

“Well, I’m gonna see,” said the brown-skin lady. She put a record on the victrola, and took Arnie in her arms. Even if he couldn’t do the Lindy Hop, he enjoyed dancing with her and they got along famously. Several more people came in, a swell-looking yellow girl, some rather elderly musicians, in spats, and a young colored art student named Harry Jones. Cocktails went around.

“I’m from Chicago,” Harry said eventually. “Been over here about a year and like it a hell of a lot. You will, too, soon as you get to know a few folks.”

Gradually the room took on the life and gaiety of a party. Somebody sat down at a piano in the alcove, and started a liquid ripple of jazz. Three or four couples began to dance. Arnie and the lovely yellow girl got together. They danced a long time, and then they drank cocktails. Arnie forgot about the clock. It was long after midnight.

Somebody suggested that they all go to the opening of a new Martinique ballroom where a native orchestra would play rattles and drums.

“Come on, Arnie,” Harry Jones said. “You
might as well make a night of it. Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“I start rehearsals tomorrow,” Claudina said, “so I can’t go. But listen here,” she warned. “Don’t you-all take Arnie out of here and lose him. Some of these little French girls are liable to put him in their pockets, crazy as they are about chocolate.”

Arnie hoped he wouldn’t meet the Pembertons in the hall. He didn’t. They were long since in bed. And when Arnie came in at dawn, his head was swimming with the grandest night he’d ever known.

At the Martinique ball he’d met dozens of nice girls: white girls and brown girls, and yellow girls, artists and students and dancers and models and tourists. Harry knew everybody. And everybody was gay and friendly. Paris and music and cocktails made you forget what color people were—and what color you were yourself. Here it didn’t matter—color.

Arnie went to sleep dreaming about a little Rumanian girl named Vivi. Harry said she was a music student. But Arnie didn’t care what she was, she had such soft black hair and bright grey eyes. How she could dance! And she knew quite a little English. He’d taken her address. Tomorrow he would go to see her. Aw, hell, tomorrow the Pembertons wanted to go to Versailles!

When Arnie woke up it was three o’clock. This time Grace Pemberton had actually banged on the door. Arnie was frightened. He’d never slept so late before. What would the Pembertons think?

“What ever is the matter, Arnold?” Mrs. Pemberton called. Only when she was put out did she call him Arnold.

“Up late reading,” Arnie muttered through the closed door. “I was up late reading.” And then was promptly ashamed of himself for having lied.

“Well, hurry up,” Mrs. Pemberton said. “We’re about to start for Versailles.”

“I don’t want to go,” said Arnie.

“What ever is the matter with you, boy?” gasped Grace Pemberton.

Arnie had slipped on a bathrobe, so he opened the door.

“Good morning,” he said. “I’ve met some friends. I want to go out with them.”

The contrariness of late adolescence was asserting itself. He felt stubborn and mean.

“Friends?” said Grace Pemberton. “What friends, may I ask?”

“A colored student and some others.”

“Where did you meet them?”

“Next door, at Miss Lawrence’s.”

Grace Pemberton stiffened like a bolt. “Get ready, young man,” she said, “and come with us to Versailles.” She left the room. The young man got ready.

Arnie pouted, but he went with the Pembertons. The sun gave him a headache, and he didn’t give a damn about Versailles. That evening, after a private lecture by Mr. Pemberton on the evils of Paris (Grace and Emily had spoken about the beauty of the city), he went to bed feeling very black and sick.

For several days, he wasn’t himself at all, what with constant excursions to museums and villages and chateaux, when he wanted to be with Vivi and Harry and Claudina. (Once he did sneak away with Harry to meet Vivi.) Meanwhile, the Pembertons lectured him on his surliness. They were inclined to be dignified and distant to the poor little black fellow now. After all, it had cost them quite a lot to bring him to Paris. Didn’t he appreciate what they were doing for him? They had raised him. Had they then no right to forbid him going about with a crowd of Negroes from the theatres?

“He’s a black devil,” said Mr. Pemberton.

“Poor little fellow,” said Grace. She was a little sorry for him.

“After all, he doesn’t know. He’s young. Let us just try loving him, and being very nice to him.”

So once again the Pembertons turned loose on
Arnie their niceness. They took him to the races, and they bought him half a dozen French ties from a good shop, and they treated him better than if he were their own.

But Arnie was worse than ever. He stayed out all night one night. Grace knew, because she knocked on his door at two o’clock. And the Negroes next door, how they laughed! How they danced! How the music drifted through the windows. It seemed as if the actual Devil had got into Arnie. Was he going to the dogs before their very eyes? Grace Pemberton was worried. After all, he
was
the nearest thing she’d ever had to a son. She was really fond of him.

As for Arnie, it wasn’t the Devil at all that had got him. It wasn’t even Claudina. It was Vivi, the little girl he’d met through Harryat the Martinique ball. The girl who played Chopin on the piano, and had grey eyes and black hair and came from Rumania. By himself, Arnie had managed to find, from the address she had given him, the tall house near the Parc Monceau where she lived in an attic room. Up six flights of stairs he walked. He found her with big books on theory in front of her and blank music pages, working out some sort of exercise in harmony. Her little face was very white, her grey eyes very big, and her black hair all fluffy around her head. Arnie didn’t know why he had come to see her except that he liked her very much.

They talked all afternoon and Arnie told her about his life at home, how white people had raised him, and how hard it was to be black in America. Vivi said it didn’t make any difference in Rumania, or in Paris either, about being black.