The Outsider (54 page)

“Too bad. He was a brilliant guy. He could have been a damn good friend of yours if they hadn't killed 'im…”

“Has the Party got any line on who did it?” Cross asked.

“No,” Menti said. “But they'll find out. The Party never sleeps, boy. Once they get an idea into their heads, they
never
give up.”

“What idea have they got?”

“How do I know?” Menti said, smiling and studying Cross.

Cross restrained a chuckle, then resumed his striding to and fro. He could handle this Menti. He was certain that Hilton had not taken Menti into his confidence. But did Menti himself suspect him? Cross grew irritable. It was wearying to give the attention and strain necessary to keep track of the motives of Party people. The hell with Menti…But in his heart he hoped fervently that no other fool would pop up to threaten him; he was sick of the thought of murder.

“Say, Menti, have the police found any clues as to who killed Hilton?” he asked.

“Nothing. But we know he didn't kill himself,” Menti said.

“Really? How do you know?”

“We just know. He didn't have any reason. Say, Lane, could I ask you a question?”

Cross turned and stood in front of Menti, his hands deep in his pockets. Just try to figure me out, boy, Cross mused.

“Sure. What is it?”

“What school did you say you came from?”

“I didn't say,” Cross told him; yes, Menti was digging at him now.

“But you told the D.A. that you came from Fisk…”

So this clown was not so dumb after all. The Party had checked with Houston and Menti had been informed. Cross's eyes narrowed.

“Why are you asking me this, Menti?” Cross countered softly. He was determined not to let this man see him in any way rattled.

“To find out the truth, of course,” Menti said.

“Did the Party ask you to?”

“Yes,” Menti answered honestly, looking boldly at Cross.

For the first time the reality of Menti broke through to Cross. There was a shy fanaticism in the man's deep, brown eyes, an apologetic inferiority in his demeanor, an ingratiating humility even in the way he talked—all of which hid something that Cross could not fathom. What was this man up to? That the Party trusted Menti was obvious. But how far would Menti go? Cross blamed himself for having not gotten to know Menti better.

“You knew Hilton well, didn't you?” Cross asked him.

“Better than he knew himself,” Menti smiled and hung his head, a sheepish look coming into his eyes.

Then Cross knew. Menti had been spying on Hilton! And Hilton had suspected it, but had not been certain of it. That was why Hilton had not told Menti about his finding of the bloody handkerchief! How complicated it was! What a system of life! Spies spying upon spies who were being spied upon! Imagine a society like that! It would be an elaborate kind of transparent ant heap in which the most intimate feelings of all the men and women in it would be known, a glass jailhouse in which the subjective existence of each man and woman would be public each living moment…And if an alien happened to show up in that ant heap, it would at once become evident because that alien would be at once opaque and, hence, known as alien. And for his spying in this ant heap, each spy would derive, as his reward, a satisfaction from the godlike position which he could assume in relation to his neighbor. This spy would not be a complete god, of course; being a complete god would be reserved for the distant dictator. But being a little god was better than being no god at all…It was
perfect, giving each spy something for his pains and hopes, and supplying each with an explanation for his suffering should he fail…

Cross admitted that he had made a psychological mistake; he should have observed Menti closer. Intuitively he sensed an almost organic servility that would make this man lend himself to any use by those whom he respected and loved. He had now to try to get to this man, for he felt that the influence of the Party on Menti's mind now caused Menti to regard him as an opaque object that had to be accounted for. He studied Menti's too-white, sensitive face, almost a woman's face; he looked wonderingly at the deep, brooding eyes that never let you hold their gaze for long; at the bluish tint that always showed just beneath his dead-white, close-shaven skin; at those long and tapering fingers that were sensitive without being in any way delicate…The man seemed like an empty, waiting vessel that could be easily filled with either a frightened acquiescence or a strident brutality; or, if necessary, a combination of both.

Cross sat next to Menti and asked him:

“Menti, what have you got against me?”

“Personally, nothing.” Menti's voice was affable.

“What do you think I'm up to?”

“I don't know.”

“Have you seen me do anything that would make you suspicious of me?”

“No.”

“Then why are you prying into me?”

“We don't know you,” Menti said without anger.

“What do you want to know about me?”

“Everything.”

“What do you call ‘knowing' somebody, Menti?”

Menti smiled, crushed out a cigarette, and lit another one.

“It's possible to know enough about a man to know when he would or wouldn't do certain things,” Menti said.

“You talk about people as if they were machines, something
made
,” Cross protested. “How can you predict behavior?”

“By a man's convictions,” Menti said. “By where he stands in the context of a concrete situation.”

“So the Party can tell in
advance
if a man will be guilty or not in any given instance?” Cross asked. “You mean to say that?”

“Just that,” Menti said. “The logic of a position will make a man act in a certain way. Given a man with a given set of convictions, and given a situation, the Party can tell what that man would do.”

“And you could condemn him in advance of his deed?”

“Certainly. It's logical, isn't it?” Menti asked earnestly.

Cross knew that Menti was reflecting the attitude of the Party.

“What are you trying to find out about me?”

“Who you are and what you are doing.”

Menti was fluent in his answers and Cross knew that the Party would soon know that he had asked these questions. He would try to send back a human answer.

“I'm a Negro, Menti; I'm trying to learn,” Cross lied.

“Learn
what
?”

“How to live.”

“Hunh. You mean how the
Party
lives?”

“Hell, no. Have I ever asked you anything about the Party?”

“No. But you got Eva—”

“But Eva's not a political person, Menti. You know that.”

“She was Gil's wife.”

“So what? Are you moral?”

“The Party is not moral,” Menti answered, declining to assert his personal opinion. “You love Eva, don't you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“She's a woman, one I've been seeking all my life.”

“And she happened to be a wife of a member of the Central Committee—”

“She knows nothing of politics,” Cross protested.

“You found that out, didn't you?” Menti demanded.

“Yes.”

“Why?” Menti demanded in insolent tones.

It was hopeless. Goddamn this dirty spoon in the hands of the Party! Cross rose. This man would not, could not believe that there existed men who could, at some moments of their lives, be honest as Cross was now honest with him about Eva. Indeed, Cross could feel that his love of Eva would assume baffling guises in the Party's mind. The simpler and more human a thing was, the more the Party feared it…

“Listen, Menti, if the Party wants to know anything about me, let 'em come and ask me,” Cross said. “They don't have to go licking around the District Attorney…”

“They'll come to you; don't worry,” Menti assured him. “They went to the D.A. because you know 'im.”

And what would Houston think of their asking? Cross felt that he was in danger, but it was not acute yet. Yes, he would move Eva out of this apartment tonight. His real hope was that he could get Eva to trust
him and run off somewhere with her. But what explanations could he give her for such a drastic move? The only reasons he could give her would be of a nature that would guarantee her not coming…Menti stood and put on his overcoat; he paused, a cigarette smouldering in his lips.

“The Party's checked at Fisk University and has found that you never went to school there,” Menti came to the point at last.

“So?”

“Then why did you tell the D.A. that you went there?”

“Must I tell the D.A. the truth?” Cross hedged.

“Tell me, what do you plan to do now?”

“Nothing.”

“You got any money?”

“Not much.”

“You're staying with Eva here?”

“If she lets me,” he said.

“She'll let you,” Menti said.

Cross was angry, but he knew that he had invited that crack. He held his peace. But it was clear that the crux of the Party's attitude was his relationship with Eva.

“I'm blowing, guy,” Menti said and left.

Cross sat and brooded. If the Party checked up on him, they would run into a blank wall, and then what would they do? Just because his life was not transparent, would they get suspicious? The secret side of him was a handicap in the Party's eyes…The more they probed into his background to uncover his identity, the more inflamed would their suspicions become. But what would they be suspicious of? And suspicion was not proof of murder. They would have to peel off layer after layer of pretense, uncover front after front of make-believe and where would it lead them in the end?

Eventually, of course, the police could trace him by his fingerprints back to his Post Office identity in Chicago. But what would that really prove? They would run into a truly bewildering set of facts…

Sarah came out of Eva's room.

“She wants to see you, Funny Face,” Sarah said.

Sarah looked lost, piqued; he could see that she was losing weight. And Eva's happiness was exciting her jealousy.

“I'm going to ask Eva to come to your place,” he told her. “We'll all chip in together on the expenses, hunh?”

“I could use some money,” Sarah told him flatly. “I've no work now. I got to look for something.”

“Don't worry,” Cross told her.

He went in to Eva who lay pale and limp on the bed. She summoned a smile for him. He took her hand and they were silent for a long time.

“Eva, I've an idea…Until Gil is buried, let us go and live with Sarah in Harlem. It'll take you away from this apartment, those reporters, and you'll be in different surroundings,” he explained.

She was thoughtful for a moment, then nodded her head in assent.

“That would be nice. I've always wanted to live there. Is it all right with Sarah?”

“She loves it.”

“And we can be alone there, Lionel,” Eva said with a sense of relief.

 

Life in Sarah's sixth-floor walk-up apartment eased the sense of strain in Cross, but it did not free him from the probing presence of Menti who came the next morning, expressing great astonishment at the fact that they had moved. He had gone to the Charles Street
apartment, he said, and rang and rang and no one had answered the door.

“Then I knew that if anyone would know where Eva was, it would be Sarah,” Menti explained.

He had come, he told them unctuously, to bring Eva news of the Party's elaborate arrangements for Gil's funeral. All Sunday morning Gil's body would lie in state in a union hall, guarded by Communist militants, and in the afternoon it would be shipped to Gil's family in the Bronx for burial. As Menti described the reaction of the Party to Gil's death, Cross could see that Gil's dying was being used to excite admiration for Party leaders in general. Gil had already, in Party circles, been deified as a kind of god who had laid down his only life as a sacrifice on the altar of freedom. Menti then, with measured movements which were supposed to be consonant with death and grief, hauled from his pockets a huge batch of messages of condolence which had come from as far away as Moscow. But Cross observed that Communists were not good when it came to paying respects to the dead; there was something embarrassingly self-conscious about Menti's manner as he sought to convince Eva of the touching solicitude of the Party for her in her bereavement. It's hard to pretend something about death that you really don't feel, Cross thought.

“Now, Eva,” Menti went on, smiling slightly. “Don't think the Party has forgotten you. The Party never forgets its own.” He drew forth from an inner coat pocket a big envelope and handed it to Eva.

“What's this?” she asked.

“It's for you. Look at it and see,” Menti urged.

Cross was standing behind Eva when she tore open the envelope; it was filled with greenbacks.

“But why?” Eva asked, her eyes round with surprise.

“It's yours,” Menti said. “You're Gil's widow. The Party will look after you…”

“But I can work,” Eva's voice faltered. “I'm an artist—”

“Do you spurn the sympathy of the Party?” Menti asked.

“Oh, no…It's not that, Menti,” Eva said. “But I've never worked for the Party. I was only Gil's wife…”

“You helped Gil, you comforted him; you enabled him to keep up his hard pace of work for the Party…”

Eva's eyes filled with a look of terror and she sank to the floor and sobbed, shaking her head. Cross knew what was going through her mind. All that Menti had just said about Eva's relationship to Gil was blatantly untrue; Eva had not helped him because she felt she had been deceived and turned into an object, a thing, a means…Then what was the meaning of this gesture of the Party? It was a threat wrapped in kindness…They were seeking a way to keep a hold over Eva, trying to buy her loyalty, laying the basis for future demands. Cross could feel that the Party was delicately making its first moves against him. He felt alarm, but he knew that he had some time yet before things would become serious enough to warrant his taking action.