Strivers Row (59 page)

“This is the Honorable Satohata Takahashi, of the
Kokuryukai,
the Black Dragon Society, and the Onward Movement of America,” Master Fard had introduced him.

“But he's not—” somebody had started to object.

“The Asiatic race is made up of all dark-skinned people, including the Japanese, and the Asiatic Black man,” Fard had cut him off sternly. “Our brothers in the East did not know that you were even here until sixty years ago. Now that they know where their lost Uncle is, they are only waiting upon my word to slaughter the white man!”

Mr. Takahashi bowed again, and came forward then—a little uncertainly, putting a hand out before him to touch the edge of the table.

“Negroes! You are too easy to be fooled by anybody, and especially white people!” he said, in a high, singsong voice that was in English—but which in its timbre and its rhythm reminded Elijah of nothing so much as the voices of the Martians he had heard on Fard's radio.

“The white man pushes you ahead as cattle in any war, and will use you as a shield! But when the spoils of war are to be divided, the white man is in front and if any Negro raises only a finger of disapproval of the white man's action, the white man cuts off not only the Negro's finger but his whole hand! Why should you respect the white man when he has nothing for you but a bloody whip?”

There was an angry stirring among the Fruit of Islam at such words, but the Master had come before them and quieted them again. He had laid out copies of a small book on the table before them then, and told them each to take one. Elijah thought that they looked not unlike dream books. On the cover were mystical symbols of crescent moons and stars, and the words:
Secret Rituals of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam.

“Here, each of you take one, and read it carefully,” Fard had commanded them. “There are precise instructions in them—at least there are for those among you who have ears to hear, and eyes to see.”

Elijah noticed that even Mr. Takahashi was looking distinctly ill at ease at this, speaking in an urgent whisper to Master Fard.

“You must urge them to be careful. We do not want what happened in Seattle to reoccur prematurely—”

But Fard had only held up a hand to silence him, and turned back to his men around the table.

“Take these, and read them for yourselves, and watch for the signs of the times. You will find instructions on how to deal not only with the white devils, but also those imps from our own race who have been so brainwashed they prefer to help the white man.”

But by the time Elijah got back to his house, he found that he was wheezing again, his lungs bothering him for the first time in months. There were things in the little book that he had never heard Fard preach on so directly before—instructions that alarmed him, and that he was sure would bring down trouble on all their heads. And he noticed that, on the title page—unlike the dream books—there was no indication of who had written it, or even where it had been printed.

It was Master Fard, as usual, who saw how the little books troubled Elijah before Elijah himself had worked up the courage to ask him about them. Turning to Elijah suddenly, one evening when they were alone again in the Allah Temple, and asking him as gently and with as much concern as ever:

“What is troubling you, my most faithful one?”

“This book—there are dangerous things here,” Elijah tried to tell him, but the Master remained undisturbed.

“Those things you mean, they are necessary to take the fear of the white man out of the hearts of the followers,” he told him.

“But what about those who are ignorant, or do not wish us well?”

“Never mind that,” Master Fard said, making a dismissive gesture. “Don't I always know where there are unbelievers amongst us? You have seen it.”

That much was true. The Master was always able to sniff out the spies the police sent, no matter how carefully they tried to disguise themselves at services as regular Negro workingmen. There was always something too reticent and nervous about them, as one might expect from any colored man who had offered up his services to the Detroit police department. Yet for Elijah, the very presence of the police spies confirmed that they had already drawn the attention of the white man, and that they had to be all the more careful.

“I don't like this Japanese fellow,” he said. “I don't like how some of the others are runnin' their mouths about the book, an' what's in it.”

It was as frankly and as critically as he had ever spoken to Master Fard, and when he was finished, it was all he could do to keep from cringing, out of fear that the Master would strike him down on the spot. But he had only smiled all the more gently at Elijah, and taken his hands in his own.

“Have faith a little while longer, my son,” he said, his face so radiant that for the moment Elijah forgot all of his worries. “The white man's day is done. Have faith in me when I tell you this.”

But all of their troubles had come home to roost on the Sunday of that Thanksgiving weekend, just a few weeks later. Elijah and his family no longer celebrated the holiday, following Master Fard's strict rules for dieting and fasting that had restored their health, and not seeing what the Black man could possibly be thankful about for having been brought to America as a slave, and worked for four hundred years against his will. But that Sunday, Robert Karriem, who was one of Master Fard's chosen Fruit of Islam, had announced he was holding an induction for a new member, and Elijah had agreed to go over to the rooms Karriem rented in a row-house on Dubois Street, and witness it.

He had been apprehensive from the moment he arrived at Karriem's home. Elijah had always thought he was one of the more excitable, and naive, of the men around the Master, and he had never heard of any temple induction ritual. Yet when Elijah reached Karriem's home, he saw that someone had set up twelve chairs in his apartment living room, along with a makeshift altar—and another chair just in front of it. The seats filled with Karriem's wife, his two young children, and other members of the temple—all of them looking every bit as nervous, and jumpy as Elijah felt.

Then Karriem had entered, and called out the name of one James Smith. Mr. Smith had gone up and sat in the chair facing them—a small, fastidious man, dressed in a gray suit and bow tie, and swinging his feet a little nervously while Karriem said a prayer over his head. When he had finished praying, Karriem pulled out an eight-inch butcher's knife from somewhere under the altar, and held it just over Smith's neck.

“James Smith, are you willing to give your life for Islam?” he intoned, the knife moving slowly closer to the man's neck.

“Yes,” Smith had answered in a wavering voice. “Go, then, and lie upon the altar!”

Smith had done as he was told, moving rubber-legged and slowly, but climbing up on the white sheet of the altar as if hypnotized. Elijah was already standing by then, starting for the door. Stumbling over the legs of the other, uncomprehending witnesses, who remained riveted to their chairs.

“In the name of Allah, then—”

He only glimpsed the big knife coming down, the arc of blood spouting up from Smith's chest. The room dissolved into panic behind him, Karriem's children screaming, Smith screaming and trying to get to his feet. People were trying to get to Robert Karriem, to restrain him even as he pushed Smith back down and pulled a car axle up from under the altar—slamming it into Smith's skull with an awful, mushy sound.

Elijah was already down the hall to the stairs by then, pushing past the neighbors pouring out of their rooms. More of the witnesses fighting their way down out after him, knocking each other aside, all of them tumbling down the stairs together in a blind, writhing knot. Spilling out into the chilly, wan, late Sunday afternoon sunlight, where Elijah could still hear the awful screams behind him, Karriem wailing at the top of his voice:

“I had to kill somebody! I could not forsake my gods!”

Elijah had run on down the street then, waving for the streetcar— nearly falling underneath the iron wheels as he grabbed hold and scrambled onboard. Jumping off after a few blocks and running on toward the Fraymore even though his lungs felt as if they were on fire. Bursting into Master Fard's rooms at last—managing just to blurt out the one question he had before his lungs bent him in half, his hands on his knees and his head down.

“What was he?” he asked, between gulps of breath.

Fard was standing in his front room, along with the man once known as Brown Eel, and Elijah's own brother, Jarmin, whom the Master had renamed Kallatt.
And that Chinaman again.
Eddie Donaldson. For a moment, Elijah was filled with apprehension at the very sight of them all together, fearing that he had stumbled into a trap. But Fard had only smiled his same, reassuring smile at him.

“What was he? A police spy? An imp? A white man?” Elijah asked more urgently, into the uncomprehending silence, when he was finally able to raise his head.

“Who's that?” Master Fard asked, and though his face looked as serene as ever, Elijah could tell—with a rising sense of fear—that he really didn't know, that it wasn't a test, or an ambush, and that Master Fard was as ignorant about what had transpired as any of them.

“What are you talking about, my most faithful servant?”

“He did it,” Elijah said, telling him all about Robert Karriem's ritual sacrifice. Pleading with the Master, once again, when he was finished:

“Why. Just tell me
why
.”

But to his chagrin, Master Fard's face looked troubled, and he went immediately into his bedroom and began throwing his fine silken clothes into a suitcase—Brown Eel and Kallatt hastening to help him, though the Chinaman called Eddie Donaldson just stood around watching them, an amused expression on his face.

“It may be time for us to relocate for a while,” Fard said, his voice still calm as he packed. “The white devils will try to use this against us—”

But despite his haste the police were already there by the time they got to the lobby. Two thick-faced Irish cops, with their guns already drawn. Pausing for a moment, despite the desk clerk's frantic pointing, when they actually saw the Master.

“Jesus, buddy, you're Fard?” one of them asked. “You're as white as I am!”

“Hey, you all right in there? Everything all right in there, buddy?”

Malcolm jerked his head up at the sound of the gruff white voice, just outside the stall door. Trying to shake off the daze of the reefers, and all of the incredible, glowing words before him, and figure out what he should do.

“Hey, chief, you been in there awhile. Everything okay?” Malcolm snapped the book closed and secreted it back in his jacket. Glancing down under the bottom of the stall door, he could see a pair of thick, heavily rubbered shoes.
Cop's shoes?
He thought desperately about what he could do, cornered in a bathroom stall with a pack of marijuana sticks—sure now that he had been followed all the way from 125th Street. For a moment, he even considered trying to sling himself under the side wall, come out the next stall, and catch the cop by surprise. He was sure he would get a running start of at least ten feet on him, and after that the cop would never catch him—

But then he looked again at the usual layers of men's-room filth ground into the stall tiles. Thinking that he would ruin his suit for sure, and how shameful it would be for him to be caught there, trying to crawl out along a bathroom floor. It occurred to him, too, that the cop might have his vice-squad partner with him, stationed at the door and waiting for him no matter how fast he ran.
And maybe they wanted him to run—

“Hey, buddy, you dead in there?!”

He slipped the little .25 into his hand, then slowly slid the stall latch back. Thinking with a thrill that rippled through even his marijuana daze that this might be it—that he could be dead within moments. He waited for the fat white cop's hand to yank the door open, and reach for him. Slipping the safety off his .25, thinking, with the bravado of the gage, that that was all right then—that no matter what, he wasn't going back to the precinct house, to that little, caged green room, so like the one that they had
her
in—

Nothing happened. He inched forward on the toilet seat, pushed the door open a little more with one foot—hand still wrapped firmly around the .25 in his pocket. The door swinging open to reveal more of those thick, rubber-soled cop's shoes...and then a mop, and a bucket. The gray-uniformed attendant of the men's room stood before him, an old man with a permanent crick in his back, a pair of Coke-bottle glasses, and a permanent grimace on his face.

“There you are! Whatta you been doin' in there—” he started to exclaim, but Malcolm was already out, pushing past him, heading back up the two flights to the bus platform again.

Once he was out there, in the breeze from the river, away from the dizzying, combined antiseptic and piss smell of the men's room, he felt able to breathe again. Hopping the first Red & Tan bus over to the other side. Settling into a seat near the back with his
Life
magazine open now—not daring to risk further sacrilege by bringing the book out again. His eyes flickering fitfully over an elaborate half-page illustrated ad, featuring a GI grinning and toasting with a bedouin on a camel—

“Have a Coca-Cola=Sa-LAM-oo a-Lay-koom (Peace Be Unto You)...or how Americans make pals in Palestine.
Peace be unto you,
says the hospitable Moslem when he greets a stranger.
Have a “Coke”
says the American soldier in return, and in three words he has made a new friend. It's a phrase that works as well in Haifa as in Harrisburg—”

He looked up from his ad, yawning, and glanced idly around the bus. The few scattered midday passengers were all either dozing or gazing out the window, except for one, a man sitting bolt upright in the very front seat of the vehicle. Malcolm could make out only the back of his head, but somehow he thought he knew him. Then it struck him—the same rounded hat the man was wearing, complete with its familiar golden symbols. He couldn't think why he hadn't noticed it before.
Elijah
.