James Baldwin - Another Country

Eric, without moving his head, suddenly opened his eyes and looked blankly around the table. Then he looked sick, rose, and hurriedly vanished. All the students laughed. They were caustic about their vanished comrade, feeling that the character represented by Eric lacked courage. The film ground on, and Eric appeared twice more, once, silent, deep in the background, during a youthful council of war, and, finally, at the very end of the film, on a rooftop, with a machine gun in his hand. As he delivered his one line—“ Nom de Dieu, que j’ai soif! ”—the camera shifted to show him framed in the sights of an enemy gun; blood suddenly bubbled from Eric’s lips and he went sliding off the rooftop, out of sight. With Eric’s death, the movie also died for them, and, luckily, very shortly, it was over. They walked out of the cool darkness into the oven of July.

“Who’s going to buy me that drink?” Eric asked. He smiled a pale smile. It was something of a shock to see him, standing on the sidewalk, shorter than he had appeared in the film, in flesh and blood. “Anyway, let’s get away from here before people start asking me for my autograph.” And he laughed.

“It might happen, my dear,” said Cass, “you’ve got great presence on the screen.”

“The movie’s not so much,” said Vivaldo, “but you were terrific.”

“I didn’t really have anything to do,” said Eric.

“No,” said Ida, “you didn’t. But you sure did the hell out of it.”

They walked in silence for a few moments.

“I’m afraid I can only have one drink with you,” Cass said, “and then I’ll have to go home.”

“That’s right,” Ida said, “let’s don’t be hanging out with these cats until all hours of the morning. I got too many people to face tomorrow. Besides”—she glanced at Vivaldo with a small smile—“I don’t believe they’ve seen each other alone one time since Eric got off the boat.”

“And you think we better give them an evening off,” Cass said.

“If we don’t give it to them, they going to take it. But, this way, we can make ourselves look good — and that always comes in handy.” She laughed. “That’s right, Cass, you got to be clever if you want to keep your man.”

“I should have started taking lessons from you years ago,” Cass said.

“Now, be careful,” said Eric, mildly, “because I don’t think that’s very flattering.”

“I was joking,” Cass said.

“Well, I’m insecure,” said Eric.

They walked into Benno’s, which was half-empty tonight, and sat, in a rather abrupt and mysterious silence, at one of the tables in the back. This silence was produced by the fact that each of them had more on their minds than they could easily say. Their sexes, so to speak, obstructed them. Perhaps the women wished to talk to each other concerning their men, but they could not do this with the men present; and neither could Eric and Vivaldo begin to unburden themselves to each other in the presence of Ida and Cass. They made small-talk, therefore, about the movie they had seen and the movie Eric was to make. Even this chatter was constricted and cautious, there being an unavowed reluctance on Eric’s part to go to Hollywood. The nature of this reluctance Vivaldo could not guess; but a certain thoughtfulness, a certain fear, played in Eric’s face like a lighthouse light; and Vivaldo thought that perhaps Eric was afraid of being trapped on a height as he had previously been trapped in the depths. Perhaps he was afraid, as Vivaldo knew himself to be afraid, of any real change in his condition. And he thought, The women have more courage than we do. Then he thought, Maybe they don’t have any choice.

After one drink, they put Ida and Cass in a cab, together. Ida said, “Now don’t you wake me up when you come falling in,” and Cass said, “I’ll call you sometime tomorrow.” They waved to their women and watched the red lights of the cab disappear. They looked at each other.

“Well!” Vivaldo grinned. “Let’s make the most of it, baby. Let’s go and get drunk.”

“I don’t want to go back into Benno’s,” Eric said. “Let’s go on over to my place, I’ve got some liquor.”

“Okay,” said Vivaldo, “I’d just as soon see you pass out at your place as have to drag you to your place.” He grinned at Eric. “I’m very glad to see you,” he said.

They started toward Eric’s house. “Yes, I’ve wanted to see you,” said Eric, “but”—they looked at each other briefly, and both smiled—“we’ve been kept pretty busy.”

Vivaldo laughed. “Good men, and true,” he said. “I certainly hope that Cass isn’t as — unpredictable — as Ida can be.”

“Hell,” said Eric, “I hope that you’re not as unpredict able as I am.”

Vivaldo smiled, but said nothing. The streets were very dark and still. On a side street, there stood a lone city tree on which the moonlight gleamed. “We’re all unpredictable,” he finally said, “one way or another. I wouldn’t like you to think that you’re special.”

“It’s very hard to live with that,” said Eric. “I mean, with the sense that one is never what one seems — never — and yet, what one seems to be is probably, in some sense, almost exactly what one is .” He turned his half-smiling face to Vivaldo. “Do you know what I mean?”

“I wish I didn’t,” said Vivaldo, slowly, “but I’m afraid I do.”

Eric’s building was on a street with trees, westbound, not far from the river. It was very quiet except for the noise coming from two taverns, one on either far corner. Eric had visited each of them once. “One of them’s gay,” he said, “and what a cemetery that is. The other one’s for longshoremen, and that’s pretty deadly, too. The longshoremen never go to the gay bar and the gay boys never go to the longshoremen’s bar — but they know where to find each other when the bars close, all up and down this street. It all seems very sad to me, but maybe I’ve been away too long. I don’t go for back-alley cock-sucking. I think sin should be fun.”

Vivaldo laughed, but thought, with wonder and a little fear, My God, he has changed. He never talked like this before. And he looked at the quiet street, at the shadows thrown by houses and trees, with a new sense of its menace, and its terrifying loneliness. And he looked at Eric again, in very much the same way he had looked at him in the film, wondering again who Eric was, and how he bore it.

They entered Eric’s small, lighted vestibule and climbed the stairs to his apartment. One light, the night light over the bed, was burning, “To keep away robbers,” Eric said; and the apartment was in its familiar state of disorder, with the bed unmade and Eric’s clothes draped over chairs and hanging from knobs.

“Poor Cass,” Eric laughed, “she keeps trying to establish some order here, but it’s uphill work. Anyway, the way things are between us, I don’t give her much time to do much in the way of straightening up.” He walked about, picking up odds and ends of clothing, which he then piled all together on top of the kitchen table. He turned on the kitchen light and opened his icebox. Vivaldo flopped down on the unmade bed. Eric poured two drinks and sat down opposite him on a straight-backed easy chair. Then there was silence for a moment.

“Turn out that kitchen light,” Vivaldo said, “it’s in my eyes.”

Eric rose and switched off the kitchen light and came back with the bottle of whiskey and put it on the floor. Vivaldo flipped off his shoes and drew his legs up, playing with the toes of one foot.

“Are you in love with Cass?” he asked, abruptly.

Eric’s red hair flashed in the dim light, as he looked down into his drink, then looked up at Vivaldo. “No. I don’t think I’m in love with her. I think I wish I were. I care a lot about her — but, no, I’m not in love.”