Ralph Ellison - Invisible man

I left the building still feeling as though I had been violently spun but with optimism growing. Being removed from Harlem was a shock but one which would hurt them as much as me, for I had learned that the clue to what Harlem wanted was what I wanted; and my value to the Brotherhood was no different from the value to me of my most useful contact: it depended upon my complete frankness and honesty in stating the community's hopes and hates, fears and desires. One spoke to the committee as well as to the community. No doubt it would work much the same downtown. The new assignment was a challenge and an opportunity for testing how much of what happened in Harlem was due to my own efforts and how much to the sheer eagerness of the people themselves. And, after all, I told myself, the assignment was also proof of the committee's goodwill. For by selecting me to speak with its authority on a subject which elsewhere in our society I'd have found taboo, weren't they reaffirming their belief both in me and in the principles of Brotherhood, proving that they drew no lines even when it came to women? They had to investigate the charges against me, but the assignment was their unsentimental affirmation that their belief in me was unbroken. I shivered in the hot street. I hadn't allowed the idea to take concrete form in my mind, but for a moment I had almost allowed an old, southern backwardness which I had thought dead to wreck my career.

Leaving Harlem was not without its regrets, however, and I couldn't bring myself to say good-bye to anyone, not even to Brother Tarp or Clifton -- not to mention the others upon whom I depended for information concerning the lowest groups in the community. I simply slipped my papers into my brief case and left as though going downtown for a meeting.

I went to my first lecture with a sense of excitement. The theme was a sure-fire guarantee of audience interest and the rest was up to me. If only I were a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, I could simply stand before them with a sign across my chest, stating i KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM, and they'd be as awed as though I were the original boogey man -- somehow reformed and domesticated. I'd no more have to speak than Paul Robeson had to act; they'd simply thrill at the sight of me.

And it went well enough; they made it a success through their own enthusiasm, and the barrage of questions afterwards left no doubts in my mind. It was only after the meeting was breaking up that there came the developments which even my volatile suspicions hadn't allowed me to foresee. I was exchanging greetings with the audience when she appeared, the kind of woman who glows as though consciously acting a symbolic role of life and feminine fertility. Her problem, she said, had to do with certain aspects of our ideology.

"It's rather involved, really," she said with concern, "and while I shouldn't care to take up your time, I have a feeling that you --"

"Oh, not at all," I said, guiding her away from the others to stand near a partly uncoiled firehose hanging beside the entrance, "not at all."

"But, Brother," she said, "it's really so late and you must be tired. My problem could wait until some other time ..."

"I'm not that tired," I said. "And if there's something bothering you, it's my duty to do what I can to clear it up."

"But it's quite late," she said. "Perhaps some evening when you're not busy you'll drop in to see us. Then we could talk at greater length. Unless, of course..."

"Unless?"

"Unless," she smiled, "I can induce you to stop by this evening. I might add that I serve a fair cup of coffee."

"Then I'm at your service," I said, pushing open the door.

Her apartment was located in one of the better sections of the city, and I must have revealed my surprise upon entering the spacious living room.

"You can see, Brother" -- the glow she gave the word was disturbing -- "it is really the spiritual values of Brotherhood that interest me. Through no effort of my own, I have economic security and leisure, but what is that, really, when so much is wrong with the world? I mean when there is no spiritual or emotional security, and no justice?"

She was slipping out of her coat now, looking earnestly into my face, and I thought, Is she a Salvationist, a Puritan-with-reverse-English? -- remembering Brother Jack's private description of wealthy members who, he said, sought political salvation by contributing financially to the Brotherhood. She was going a little fast for me and I looked at her gravely.

"I can see that you've thought deeply about this thing," I said.

"I've tried," she said, "and it's most perplexing -- But make yourself comfortable while I put away my things."

She was a small, delicately plump woman with raven hair in which a thin streak of white had begun almost imperceptibly to show, and when she reappeared in the rich red of a hostess gown she was so striking that I had to avert my somewhat startled eyes.

"What a beautiful room you have here," I said, looking across the rich cherry glow of furniture to see a life-sized painting of a nude, a pink Renoir. Other canvases were hung here and there, and the spacious walls seemed to flash alive with warm, pure color. What does one say to all this? I thought, looking at an abstract fish of polished brass mounted on a piece of ebony.

"I'm glad you find it pleasant, Brother," she said. "We like it ourselves, though I must say that Hubert finds so little time to enjoy it. He's much too busy."

"Hubert?" I said.

"My husband. Unfortunately he had to leave. He would have loved to've met you, but then he's always dashing off. Business, you know."

"I suppose it's unavoidable," I said with sudden discomfort.

"Yes, it is," she said. "But we're going to discuss Brotherhood and ideology, aren't we?"

And there was something about her voice and her smile that gave me a sense of both comfort and excitement. It was not merely the background of wealth and gracious living, to which I was alien, but simply the being there with her and the sensed possibility of a heightened communication; as though the discordantly invisible and the conspicuously enigmatic were reaching a delicately balanced harmony. She's rich but human, I thought, watching the smooth play of her relaxed hands.

"There are so many aspects to the movement," I said. "Just where shall we start? Perhaps it's something that I'm unable to handle."

"Oh, it's nothing that profound," she said. "I'm sure you'll straighten out my little ideological twists and turns. But sit here on the sofa, Brother; it's more comfortable."

I sat, seeing her go toward a door, the train of her gown trailing sensuously over the oriental carpet. Then she turned and smiled.

"Perhaps you'd prefer wine or milk instead of coffee?"

"Wine, thank you," I said, finding the idea of milk strangely repulsive. This isn't at all what I expected, I thought. She returned with a tray holding two glasses and a decanter, placing them before us on a low cocktail table, and I could hear the wine trickle musically into the glasses, one of which she placed in front of me.

"Here's to the movement," she said, raising her glass with smiling eyes.

"To the movement," I said.

"And to Brotherhood."

"And to Brotherhood."

"This is very nice," I said, seeing her nearly closed eyes, her chin tilting upward, toward me, "but just what phase of our ideology should we discuss?"

"All of it," she said. "I wish to embrace the whole of it. Life is so terribly empty and disorganized without it. I sincerely believe that only Brotherhood offers any hope of making life worth living again -- Oh, I know that it's too vast a philosophy to grasp immediately, as it were; still, it's so vital and alive that one gets the feeling that one should at least make the try. Don't you agree?"