James Baldwin - Another Country

Rufus looked at him. “Don’t you like her?”

“Sure, I like her. She’s a sweet girl.” He took a swallow of his beer. “The question is — how much do you like her?”

“Can’t you tell?” And Rufus grinned.

“Well, no, frankly — I can’t. I mean, sure you like her. But — oh, I don’t know.”

There was silence again. Vivaldo dropped his eyes.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Rufus. “I’m a big boy, you know.”

Vivaldo raised his eyes and said, “It’s a pretty big world, too, baby. I hope you’ve thought of that.”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“Trouble is, I feel too paternal towards you, you son of a bitch.”

“That’s the trouble with all you white bastards.”

They encountered the big world when they went out into the Sunday streets. It stared unsympathetically out at them from the eyes of the passing people; and Rufus realized that he had not thought at all about this world and its power to hate and destroy. He had not thought at all about his future with Leona, for the reason that he had never considered that they had one. Yet, here she was, clearly intending to stay if he would have her. But the price was high: trouble with the landlord, with the neighbors, with all the adolescents in the Village and all those who descended during the week ends. And his family would have a fit. It didn’t matter so very much about his father and mother — their fit, having lasted a lifetime, was now not much more than reflex action. But he knew that Ida would instantly hate Leona. She had always expected a great deal from Rufus, and she was very race-conscious. She would say, You’d never even have looked at that girl, Rufus, if she’d been black. But you’ll pick up any white trash just because she’s white. What’s the matter — you ashamed of being black?

Then, for the first time in his life, he wondered about that — or, rather, the question bumped against his mind for an instant and then speedily, apologetically, withdrew. He looked sideways at Leona. Now she was quite pretty. She had plaited her hair and pinned the braids up, so that she looked very old-fashioned and much younger than her age.

A young couple came toward them, carrying the Sunday papers. Rufus watched the eyes of the man as the man looked at Leona; and then both the man and the woman looked swiftly from Vivaldo to Rufus as though to decide which of the two was her lover. And, since this was the Village — the place of liberation — Rufus guessed, from the swift, nearly sheepish glance the man gave them as they passed, that he had decided that Rufus and Leona formed the couple. The face of his wife, however, simply closed tight, like a gate.

They reached the park. Old, slatternly women from the slums and from the East Side sat on benches, usually alone, sometimes sitting with gray-haired, matchstick men. Ladies from the big apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue, vaguely and desperately elegant, were also in the park, walking their dogs; and Negro nursemaids, turning a stony face on the grownup world, crooned anxiously into baby carriages. The Italian laborers and small-business men strolled with their families or sat beneath the trees, talking to each other; some played chess or read L’Espresso . The other Villagers sat on benches, reading — Kierkegaard was the name shouting from the paper-covered volume held by a short-cropped girl in blue jeans — or talking distractedly of abstract matters, or gossiping or laughing; or sitting still, either with an immense, invisible effort which all but shattered the benches and the trees, or else with a limpness which indicated that they would never move again.

Rufus and Vivaldo — but especially Vivaldo — had known or been intimate with many of these people, so long ago, it now seemed, that it might have occurred in another life. There was something frightening about the aspect of old friends, old lovers, who had, mysteriously, come to nothing. It argued the presence of some cancer which had been operating in them, invisibly, all along and which might, now, be operating in oneself. Many people had vanished, of course, had returned to the havens from which they had fled. But many others were still visible, had turned into lushes or junkies or had embarked on a nerve-rattling pursuit of the perfect psychiatrist; were vindictively married and progenitive and fat; were dreaming the same dreams they had dreamed ten years before, clothed these in the same arguments, quoted the same masters; and dispensed, as they hideously imagined, the same charm they had possessed before their teeth began to fail and their hair began to fall. They were more hostile now than they had been, this was the loud, inescapable change in their tone and the only vitality left in their eyes.

Then Vivaldo was stopped on the path by a large, good-natured girl, who was not sober. Rufus and Leona paused, waiting for him.

“Your friend’s real nice,” said Leona. “He’s real natural. I feel like we known each other for years.”

Without Vivaldo, there was a difference in the eyes which watched them. Villagers, both bound and free, looked them over as though where they stood were an auction block or a stud farm. The pale spring sun seemed very hot on the back of his neck and on his forehead. Leona gleamed before him and seemed to be oblivious of everything and everyone but him. And if there had been any doubt concerning their relationship, her eyes were enough to dispel it. Then he thought, If she could take it so calmly, if she noticed nothing, what was the matter with him? Maybe he was making it all up, maybe nobody gave a damn. Then he raised his eyes and met the eyes of an Italian adolescent. The boy was splashed by the sun falling through the trees. The boy looked at him with hatred; his glance flicked over Leona as though she were a whore; he dropped his eyes slowly and swaggered on — having registered his protest, his backside seemed to snarl, having made his point.

“Cock sucker,” Rufus muttered.

Then Leona surprised him. “You talking about that boy? He’s just bored and lonely, don’t know no better. You could probably make friends with him real easy if you tried.”

He laughed.

“Well, that’s what’s the matter with most people,” Leona insisted, plaintively, “ain’t got nobody to be with. That’s what makes them so evil. I’m telling you, boy, I know.”

“Don’t call me boy, ” he said.

“Well,” she said, looking startled, “I didn’t mean nothing by it, honey.” She took his arm and they turned to look for Vivaldo. The large girl had him by the collar and he was struggling to get away, and laughing.

“That Vivaldo,” said Rufus, amused, “he has more trouble with women.”

“He’s sure enjoying it,” Leona said. “Look like she’s enjoying it, too.”

For now the large girl had let him go and seemed about to collapse on the path with laughter. People, with a tolerant smile, looked up from the benches or the grass or their books, recognizing two Village characters.

Then Rufus resented all of them. He wondered if he and Leona would dare to make such a scene in public, if such a day could ever come for them. No one dared to look at Vivaldo, out with any girl whatever, the way they looked at Rufus now; nor would they ever look at the girl the way they looked at Leona. The lowest whore in Manhattan would be protected as long as she had Vivaldo on her arm. This was because Vivaldo was white.

He remembered a rainy night last winter, when he had just come in from a gig in Boston, and he and Vivaldo had gone out with Jane. He had never really understood what Vivaldo saw in Jane, who was too old for him, and combative and dirty; her gray hair was never combed, her sweaters, of which she seemed to possess thousands, were all equally raveled and shapeless; and her blue jeans were baggy and covered with paint. “She dresses like a goddamn bull dagger,” Rufus had told Vivaldo once, and then laughed at Vivaldo’s horrified expression. His face had puckered as though someone had just cracked a rotten egg. But he had never really hated Jane until this rainy night.