James Baldwin - Another Country

“No,” said Eric, “you’ll never know. If I had been there, I’d have held him — but it wouldn’t have helped. His little girl tried to hold him, and that didn’t help.”

He sat down on the bed beside Vivaldo. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Hell, no.” Vivaldo dried his eyes with the back of his hand. “Let’s have another drink. Let’s watch the dawn come up.

“Okay.” Eric started to move away. Vivaldo grabbed his hand.

“Eric—” He watched Eric’s dark, questioning eyes and the slightly parted, slightly smiling lips. “I’m glad I told you about that. I guess I couldn’t have told anybody else.”

Eric seemed to smile. He took Vivaldo’s face between his hands and kissed him, a light, swift kiss, on the forehead. Then his shadow vanished, and Vivaldo heard him in the kitchen.

“I’m out of ice.”

“The hell with the ice.”

“Water?”

“No. Well, maybe a little.”

Eric returned with two glasses and put one in Vivaldo’s hand. They touched glasses.

“To the dawn,” said Eric.

“To the dawn,” Vivaldo said.

Then they sat together, side by side, watching the light come up behind the window and insinuate itself into the room. Vivaldo sighed, and Eric turned to look at his lean, gray face, the long cheeks hollowed now, and the stubble coming up, the marvelous mouth resigned, and the black eyes staring straight out — staring out because they were beginning to look inward. And Eric felt, for perhaps the first time in his life, the key to the comradeship of men. Here was Vivaldo, long, lean, and weary, dressed, as he almost always was, in black and white; his white shirt was open, almost to the navel, and the shirt was dirty now, and the hair on his chest curled out; the hair on his head, which was always too long, was tousled, and fell over his forehead; and he smelled Vivaldo’s sweat, his armpits and his groin, and was terribly aware of his long legs. Here Vivaldo sat, on Eric’s bed. Not a quarter of an inch divided them. His elbow nearly touched Vivaldo’s elbow, as he listened to the rise and fall of Vivaldo’s breath. They were like two soldiers, resting from battle, about to go into battle again.

Vivaldo fell back on the bed, one hand covering his forehead, one hand between his legs. Presently, he was snoring, then he shuddered, and turned into Eric’s pillow, toward Eric’s wall. Eric sat on the bed, alone, and watched him. He took off Vivaldo’s shoes, he loosened Vivaldo’s belt, turning Vivaldo to face him. The morning light bathed the sleeper. Eric made himself another drink, with ice this time, for the ice was ready. He thought of reading Yves’ letter again, but he knew it by heart; and he was terrified of Yves’ arrival. He sat on the bed again, looking at the morning…. Mon plus cher. Je te previendra la jour de mon arrivée. Je prendrai l’avion. J’ai dit au revoir à ma mère. Elle a beaucoup pleurée. J’avoue que ça me faisait quelque chose. Bon. Paris est mortelle sans toi. Je t’adore mon petit et je t’aime. Comme j’ai envie de te serre très fort entre mes bras. Je t’embrasse. Toujours à toi. Ton YVES.

Oh, yes. Somewhere, someone turned on a radio. The day was here. He finished his drink, took off his shoes, loosened his belt, and stretched out beside Vivaldo. He put his head on Vivaldo’s chest, and, in the shadow of that rock, he slept.

Ida told the taxi driver, “Uptown, please, to Small’s Paradise ,” then turned, with a rueful smile, to Cass.

“ Their night,” she said, indicating the vanished Eric and Vivaldo, “is just beginning. So is mine, only mine won’t be as much fun.”

“I thought you were going home,” Cass said.

“Well. I’m not. I’ve got some people to meet.” She looked thoughtfully at her fingernails, then looked over to Cass. “I couldn’t tell Vivaldo, so don’t you tell him, please. He just gets upset when he’s around — some of those musicians. I can’t blame him. I really can’t blame them, either; I know how they feel. But I don’t like for them to take it out on Vivaldo, he’s having a rough enough time as it is.”

And, after a moment, she added, under her breath, “So am I.”

Cass said nothing, for she was too astonished. So far from imagining herself and Ida to be friends, she had long ago decided that Ida disliked and distrusted her. But she did not sound that way now. She sounded lonely and troubled.

“I wish you’d come up and have one drink with me up there,” Ida said. She kept twisting the ring on her little finger.

Cass thought, at once, I’ll feel terribly out of place up there, and if you’re meeting someone, what’s the good of my coming along? But she sensed, somehow, that she could not say this, that Ida needed a woman to talk to, if only for a few minutes, even if the woman were white.

“Okay,” she said, “but just one drink. I’ve got to hurry home to Richard.” As she said this, both she and Ida laughed. It was almost the first time they had ever laughed together; and this laughter revealed to Cass that Ida’s attitude toward her had been modified by Ida’s knowledge of her adultery. Perhaps Ida felt that Cass was more to be trusted and more of a woman, now that her virtue, and her safety, were gone. And there was also, in that sudden and spontaneous laughter, the very faintest hint of blackmail. Ida could be freer with Cass now, since the world’s judgment, should it ever be necessary to face it, would condemn Cass yet more cruelly than Ida. For Ida was not white, nor married, nor a mother. The world assumed Ida’s sins to be natural, whereas those of Cass were perverse.

Ida said, “Men are a bitch, aren’t they, baby?” She sounded sad and weary. “I don’t understand them, I swear I don’t.”

“I always thought you did,” said Cass, “much better than I ever have.”

Ida smiled. “Well, that’s all a kind of act. Besides it’s not hard to deal with a man if you don’t give a damn about him. Most of the jokers I’ve had to deal with weren’t worth shit. And I’ve always expected all of them to be like that.” Then she was silent. She looked over at Cass, who sat very still, looking down. The cab was approaching Times Square. “Do you know what I mean?”

“I don’t know if I do, or not,” Cass said. “I guess I don’t. I’ve only dealt with — two men — in my whole life.”

Ida looked at her, speculatively, a small, sardonic smile touching her lips. “That’s very hard to believe. It’s hard to imagine.”

“Well! I was never very pretty. I guess I led a kind of sheltered life. And — I got married very young.” She lit a cigarette, she crossed her legs.

Ida looked out at the lights, and the crowds. “I’m wondering if I’m ever going to marry. I guess I’m not. I’ll never marry Vivaldo, and”—she tapped her ring again—“it’s hard to see what’s coming, up the road. But I don’t seem to see a bridegroom.”

Cass was silent. Then, “ Why will you never marry Vivaldo? Don’t you love him?”

Ida said, “Love doesn’t have as much to do with it as everybody seems to think. I mean, you know, it doesn’t change everything, like people say. It can be a goddam pain in the ass.” She shifted, restlessly, in their narrow, dark space, and looked out of the window again. “Sure, I love Vivaldo; he’s the sweetest man I’ve ever known. And I know I’ve given him a rough time sometimes. I can’t help it. But I can’t marry him, it would he the end of him, and the end of me.”

“Well, why?” She paused; then, carefully, “You don’t mean just because he’s white—?”

“Well, yes,” said Ida, forcefully, “in a way, I do mean that. That probably sounds terrible to you. I don’t care about the color of his skin. I don’t mean that.” She stopped, clearly trying to discover what she did mean. “I’ve only known one man better than Vivaldo, and that man was my brother. Well, you know, Vivaldo was his best friend — and Rufus was dying, but Vivaldo didn’t know it. And I was miles away, and I did! ”