The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories (18 page)

Thankful for the appeasement of that loneliness which had again tormented her like a fury, she gave herself up to the miraculous joyousness of Harlem. The easement which its heedless abandon brought to her was a real, a very definite thing. She liked the sharp contrast to her pretentious stately life in Copenhagen. It was as if she had passed from the heavy solemnity of a church service to a gorgeous carefree revel.

Not that she intended to remain. No. Helga Crane couldn’t, she told herself and others, live in America. In spite of its glamour, existence in America, even in Harlem, was for Negroes too cramped, too uncertain, too cruel; something not to be endured for a lifetime if one could escape; something demanding a courage greater than was in her. No. She couldn’t stay. Nor, she saw now, could she remain away. Leaving, she would have to come back.

This knowledge, this certainty of the division of her life into two parts in two lands, into physical freedom in Europe and spiritual freedom in America, was unfortunate, inconvenient, expensive. It was, too, as she was uncomfortably aware, even a trifle ridiculous, and mentally she caricatured herself moving shuttlelike from continent to continent. From the prejudiced restrictions of the New World to the easy formality of the Old, from the pale calm of Copenhagen to the colorful lure of Harlem.

Nevertheless she felt a slightly pitying superiority over those Negroes
who were apparently so satisfied. And she had a fine contempt for the blatantly patriotic black Americans. Always when she encountered one of those picturesque parades in the Harlem streets, the Stars and Stripes streaming ironically, insolently, at the head of the procession, tempered for her, a little, her amusement at the childish seriousness of the spectacle. It was too pathetic.

But when mental doors were deliberately shut on those skeletons that stalked lively and in full health through the consciousness of every person of Negro ancestry in America—conspicuous black, obvious brown, or indistinguishable white—life was intensely amusing, interesting, absorbing, and enjoyable; singularly lacking in that tone of anxiety which the insecurities of existence seemed to ferment in other peoples.

Yet Helga herself had an acute feeling of insecurity, for which she could not account. Sometimes it amounted to fright almost. “I must,” she would say then, “get back to Copenhagen.” But the resolution gave her not much pleasure. And for this she now blamed Axel Olsen. It was, she insisted, he who had driven her back, made her unhappy in Denmark. Though she knew well that it wasn’t. Misgivings, too, rose in her. Why hadn’t she married him? Anne was married—she would not say Anderson—Why not she? It would serve Anne right if she married a white man. But she knew in her soul that she wouldn’t. “Because I’m a fool,” she said bitterly.

One November evening, impregnated still with the kindly warmth of the dead Indian summer, Helga Crane was leisurely dressing in pleasant anticipation of the party to which she had been asked for that night. It was always amusing at the Tavenors’. Their house was large and comfortable, the food and music always of the best, and the type of entertainment always unexpected and brilliant. The drinks, too, were sure to be safe.

And Helga, since her return, was more than ever popular at parties. Her courageous clothes attracted attention, and her deliberate lure—as Olsen had called it—held it. Her life in Copenhagen had taught her to expect and accept admiration as her due. This attitude, she found, was as effective in New York as across the sea. It was, in fact, even more so. And it was more amusing too. Perhaps because it was somehow a bit more dangerous.

In the midst of curious speculation as to the possible identity of the other guests, with an indefinite sense of annoyance she wondered if Anne would be there. There was of late something about Anne that was to Helga distinctly disagreeable, a peculiar half-patronizing attitude, mixed faintly with distrust. Helga couldn’t define it, couldn’t account for it. She had tried. In the end she had decided to dismiss it, to ignore it.

“I suppose,” she said aloud, “it’s because she’s married again. As if anybody couldn’t get married. Anybody. That is, if mere marriage is all one wants.”

Smoothing away the tiny frown from between the broad black brows, she got herself into a little shining, rose-colored slip of a frock knotted with a silver cord. The gratifying result soothed her ruffled feelings. It didn’t really matter, this new manner of Anne’s. Nor did the fact that Helga knew that Anne disapproved of her. Without words Anne had managed to make that evident. In her opinion, Helga had lived too long among the enemy, the detestable pale faces. She understood them too well, was too tolerant of their ignorant stupidities. If they had been Latins, Anne might conceivably have forgiven the disloyalty. But Nordics! Lynchers! It was too traitorous. Helga smiled a little, understanding Anne’s bitterness and hate, and a little of its cause. It was of a piece with that of those she so virulently hated. Fear. And then she sighed a little, for she regretted the waning of Anne’s friendship. But, in view of diverging courses of their lives, she felt that even its complete extinction would leave her undevastated. Not that she wasn’t still grateful to Anne for many things. It was only that she had other things now. And there would, forever, be Robert Anderson between them. A nuisance. Shutting them off
from their previous confident companionship and understanding. “And anyway,” she said again, aloud, “he’s nobody much to have married. Anybody could have married him. Anybody. If a person wanted only to be married—If it had been somebody like Olsen—That would be different—something to crow over, perhaps.”

The party was even more interesting than Helga had expected. Helen, Mrs. Tavenor, had given vent to a malicious glee and had invited representatives of several opposing Harlem political and social factions, including the West Indian, and abandoned them helplessly to each other. Helga’s observing eyes picked out several great and near great sulking or obviously trying hard not to sulk in widely separated places in the big rooms. There were present, also, a few white people, to the open disapproval or discomfort of Anne and several others. There too, poised, serene, certain, surrounded by masculine black and white, was Audrey Denney.

“Do you know, Helen,” Helga confided, “I’ve never met Miss Denney. I wish you’d introduce me. Not this minute. Later, when you can manage it. Not so—er—apparently by request, you know.”

Helen Tavenor laughed. “No, you wouldn’t have met her, living as you did with Anne Grey. Anderson, I mean. She’s Anne’s particular pet aversion. The mere sight of Audrey is enough to send her into a frenzy for a week. It’s too bad, too, because Audrey’s an awfully interesting person and Anne’s said some pretty awful things about her.
You’ll like
her, Helga.”

Helga nodded. “Yes, I expect to. And I know about Anne. One night—” She stopped, for across the room she saw, with a stab of surprise, James Vayle. “Where, Helen did you get him?”

“Oh, that? That’s something the cat brought in. Don’t ask which one. He came with somebody, I don’t remember who. I think he’s shocked to death. Isn’t he lovely? The dear baby. I was going to introduce him to Audrey and tell her to do a good job of vamping on him as soon as I could remember the darling’s name, or when it got noisy enough so he wouldn’t hear what I called him. But you’ll do just as well. Don’t tell me you know him!” Helga made a little nod. “Well! And I suppose you met him at some shockingly wicked
place in Europe. That’s always the way with those innocent-looking men.”

“Not quite. I met him ages ago in Naxos. We were engaged to be married. Nice, isn’t he? His name’s Vayle. James Vayle.”

“Nice,” said Helen throwing out her hands in a characteristic dramatic gesture—she had beautiful hands and arms—“is exactly the word. Mind if I run off? I’ve got somebody here who’s going to sing.
Not
spirituals. And I haven’t the faintest notion where he’s got to. The cellar, I’ll bet.”

James Vayle hadn’t, Helga decided, changed at all. Someone claimed her for a dance and it was some time before she caught his eyes, half questioning, upon her. When she did, she smiled in a friendly way over her partner’s shoulder and was rewarded by a dignified little bow. Inwardly she grinned, flattered. He hadn’t forgotten. He was still hurt. The dance over, she deserted her partner and deliberately made her way across the room to James Vayle. He was for the moment embarrassed and uncertain. Helga Crane, however, took care of that, thinking meanwhile that Helen was right. Here he did seem frightfully young and delightfully unsophisticated. He must be, though, every bit of thirty-two or more.

“They say,” was her bantering greeting, “that if one stands on the corner of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue long enough one will eventually see all the people one has ever known or met. It’s pretty true, I guess. Not literally of course.” He was, she saw, getting himself together. “It’s only another way of saying that everybody, almost, sometime sooner or later comes to Harlem, even you.”

He laughed. “Yes, I guess that is true enough. I didn’t come to stay, though.” And then he was grave, his earnest eyes searchingly upon her.

“Well, anyway, you’re here now, so let’s find a quiet corner if that’s possible, where we can talk. I want to hear all about you.”

For a moment he hung back and a glint of mischief shone in Helga’s eyes. “I see,” she said, “you’re just the same. However, you needn’t be anxious. This isn’t Naxos, you know. Noboby’s watching us, or if they are, they don’t care a bit what we do.”

At that he flushed a little, protested a little, and followed her. And when at last they had found seats in another room, not so crowded, he said: “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you were still abroad.”

“Oh, I’ve been back some time, ever since Dr. Anderson’s marriage. Anne, you know, is a great friend of mine. I used to live with her. I came for the wedding. But, of course, I’m not staying. I didn’t think I’d be here this long.”

“You don’t mean that you’re going to live over there? Do you really like it so much better?”

“Yes and no, to both questions. I was awfully glad to get back, but I wouldn’t live here always. I couldn’t. I don’t think that any of us who’ve lived abroad for any length of time would ever live here altogether again if they could help it.”

“Lot of them do, though,” James Vayle pointed out.

“Oh, I don’t mean tourists who rush over to Europe and rush all over the Continent and rush back to America thinking they know Europe. I mean people who’ve actually lived there, actually lived among the people.”

“I still maintain that they nearly all come back here eventually to live.”

“That’s because they can’t help it,” Helga Crane said firmly. “Money, you know.”

“Perhaps, I’m not so sure. I was in the war. Of course, that’s not really living over there, but I saw the country and the difference in treatment. But, I can tell you, I was pretty darn glad to get back. All the fellows were.” He shook his head solemnly. “I don’t think anything, money or lack of money, keeps us here. If it was only that, if we really wanted to leave, we’d go all right. No, it’s something else, something deeper than that.”

“And just what do you think it is?”

“I’m afraid it’s hard to explain, but I suppose it’s just that we like to be together. I simply can’t imagine living forever away from colored people.”

A suspicion of a frown drew Helga’s brows. She threw out rather tartly: “I’m a Negro too, you know.”

“Well, Helga, you were always a little different, a little dissatisfied, though I don’t pretend to understand you at all. I never did,” he said a little wistfully.

And Helga, who was beginning to feel that the conversation had taken an impersonal and disappointing tone, was reassured and gave him her most sympathetic smile and said almost gently: “And now let’s talk about you. You’re still at Naxos?”

“Yes, I’m still there. I’m assistant principal now.”

Plainly it was a cause for enthusiastic congratulation, but Helga could only manage a tepid “How nice!” Naxos was to her too remote, too unimportant. She did not even hate it now.

How long, she asked, would James be in New York?

He couldn’t say. Business, important business for the school, had brought him. It was, he said, another tone creeping into his voice, another look stealing over his face, awfully good to see her. She was looking tremendously well. He hoped he would have the opportunity of seeing her again.

But of course. He must come to see her. Anytime, she was always in, or would be for him. And how did he like New York, Harlem?

He didn’t, it seemed, like it. It was nice to visit, but not to live in. Oh, there were so many things he didn’t like about it, the rush, the lack of home life, the crowds, the noisy meaninglessness of it all.

On Helga’s face there had come that pityingly sneering look peculiar to imported New Yorkers when the city of their adoption is attacked by alien Americans. With polite contempt she inquired: “And is that all you don’t like?”

At her tone the man’s bronze face went purple. He answered coldly, slowly, with a faint gesture in the direction of Helen Tavenor, who stood conversing gaily with one of her white guests: “And I don’t like that sort of thing. In fact I detest it.”

“Why?” Helga was striving hard to be casual in her manner.

James Vayle, it was evident, was beginning to be angry. It was also evident that Helga Crane’s question had embarrassed him. But he seized the bull by the horns and said: “You know as well as I do, Helga, that it’s the colored girls these men come up here to see. They wouldn’t think of bringing their wives.” And he blushed furiously at
his own implication. The blush restored Helga’s good temper. James was really too funny.

“That,” she said softly, “is Hugh Wentworth, the novelist, you know.” And she indicated a tall olive-skinned girl being whirled about to the streaming music in the arms of a towering black man. “And that is his wife. She isn’t colored, as you’ve probably been thinking. And now let’s change the subject again.”

“All right! And this time let’s talk about you. You say you don’t intend to live here. Don’t you ever intend to marry, Helga?”