“Oh, Lionel, I must go,” she said hurriedly, ignoring his question. “Stay and look at them as long as you like…Here are the keys to the apartment; one’s for the downstairs and the other’s for the front door up here. I’m off to do some shopping and then I’ll do a concert.” She flashed him a quick smile. “Come and go as you like. But watch out for Herndon downstairs…”
She left him and a few moments later he heard the front door open and close. She had not wanted to talk to him, but what she had seemed too shy to say in words shouted and pled for her in images. For two hours he looked at every canvas in the room, placing them in the light, examining them from far and near. He had the illusion, while studying them, of standing somehow at the center of Eva’s ego and being captured by the private, subjective world that was hers, a world that was frightening in the stark quality of its aloneness; and he knew that it was out of a sense of aloneness that these bold, brutal images, nameless and timeless, had come with the force of compulsions. At least she’s lucky to be able to say her terrors and agonies in form and color, he said a little enviously to himself.
With a cigarette glowing in his lips, he went back into the apartment and wandered aimlessly from room to room, probing and idly searching. He smiled, feeling the presence of Eva and Gil as he spied among their belongings. Why did they have two separate bedrooms? Twin beds were all right, but two bedrooms? He recalled the little, pecking kiss that Eva had given Gil when she had come in from her shopping and he was certain that there was something wrong between them.
He ended up in Eva’s bedroom, prowling in drawers and desks. At the bottom of a pile of dusty sheets of music lying on the floor of a clothes closet he came across a stack of bound notebooks; he opened one. They were Eva’s diaries…Ought he risk peeking a little into one? He glanced guiltily over his shoulder. When would she be back? To be surprised reading her intimate diary would be awful…He stepped into the hallway and saw that there was a safety night-chain on the door. Yes; he had it…He would put the night-chain in place and if Gil or Eva returned suddenly, he could always say that he had put it on in order to be on guard if Herndon came up…He chained the door and went back into Eva’s bedroom and picked up a volume of the diary that dated back six months of that year. He began reading the small, clear, schoolgirlish handwriting:
“June 10th
“—I’m at last in Paris, city of my dreams! What a wedding gift from Gil! Poor dear, he’s too busy with Party work to show me the beauty of this wonderful Paris; his assignments keep him going from morning ’til night…But I do manage to see it for myself. The art exhibits, the artists’ studios, the sense of leisure, the love of beauty—will I ever be the same again after all this?
“Notre Dame! Rising nobly in the warm summer night like a floodlit dream—The tourist bus is crawling away, taking me from this vision of beauty, remote, fragile, infused with the mood of eternity. At the next stop I got off the bus and walked back to Notre Dame; I could not keep to the schedule of a tourist bus! I sat on a bench and gazed at Notre Dame ’til almost dawn…How quiet the city is…A lonely, shabby man is pushing a handcart through the city streets. Lines, space, harmony softened by dark mists…Dusk of dawn kissing the pavements with tenderness…I doubt if Gil would understand feelings like these, yet they mean so much to me, to my heart…Mine is the glory of those angels against the background of that pearly, infinite sky…
“June 15th
“I’m so numbed with shock that I can hardly think…Is this my honeymoon? Is it possible that Gil has betrayed me so cruelly, so cynically? For days now I’ve pretended to be ill to avoid having it out with him, but in the end I must do it. It all began one afternoon when I went to see a Left Bank art exhibit. I stayed behind and got to talking to some of the younger artists, both American and French, all of whom were complete strangers to me. One young man, an American expatriate, obviously a Trotskyite, began a violent tirade against the Party, charging that membership in the Party was death to artists. I told him that I was a painter and did not think so. He then told me not to be naïve like that silly but gifted Eva Blount girl who had had such a stunningly successful exhibit in New York last spring…He did not know who I was, and I asked him what was so naïve about Eva Blount…He said that it was being whispered about that Gil Blount had been ordered by the Party to marry her, to get her into the Party for prestige purposes. He went on talking of other instances where such had happened…I was silent; I felt cold, dead…To stand in a crowd of people and hear them talk of you like that!!! He said that it was common knowledge in the labor movement that Gil Blount had been told to recruit Eva Blount…I asked him how did he know this, and what right had he to spread such foul gossip about people he did not know…He then went on to tell of facts which only someone close to the revolutionary movement could know…He said that Gil’s secretary, Rose Lampkin, was his mistress and had been for years, and that at the same time she was spying on Gil…I could not contradict him…His words suddenly opened up a vast vista of understanding which I fought against desperately. Am I so naïve…?
“To hear one’s private life spoken about so brutally, in public! God, can this be true? Yet his words explain so much! Is that why Gil is away from home so much? Is that why he never comes to me except when he’s drunk? Oh, God, I feel I’ve no ground under my feet anymore—I must confront Gil with this…But how? Ought I run off? But to where?
“And that Rose Lampkin woman, Gil’s secretary…Is that his mistress? Is that why he insisted that she accompany us to Paris? The more I think, the sicker I get! I try to tell myself that this cannot be true, yet in my heart I know it and feel it…
“June 17th
“Gil has all but said that it’s true! Which means that when I confronted him, he would not say anything!!! He raves at me, telling me that I’m trying to undermine his Party position! That I’m slandering him! I asked him to send Rose back to New York, and he said that it was the Party’s decision that Rose remain with him…And Rose, when she came to the hotel this morning, had a cold smirk on her face. She knows that I know! According to Gil, I must accept this betrayal and be loyal to the Party; to be loyal to my feelings means betraying the Party! I don’t know what to do—I feel that everybody’s laughing at me, that everybody knows—I could kill Gil!
“June 18th
“I must be calm—I’ve only my work left; that’s all. I tell myself all day long that I must give my life to my work. If I make a sudden, hysterical move and lose grip on myself, run off, the Party can always say that I deserted and degenerated! Gil has predicted as much! Can there be betrayals as intimately cynical as this? I’m a fool to wonder, for it is true, it stares me in the face…But I don’t want to believe it. That’s what makes it possible; no one wants to believe it…What coldness people are capable of! I walk the streets all day to keep thoughts of suicide from filling my head—
“June 19th
“Can I work now? My whole life seems tainted, unclean…I’ve asked Gil to take me back to New York; he says he will as soon as his duties with the French Party are over. I begged him to give me fare, and he says no…I’m alone again, just as I was in the orphan home. I didn’t lose heart then and I mustn’t now. I won’t; I can’t give up; I must work, work, work, paint…But can I paint again? The Party lifted me up in its hands and showed me to the world, and if I disown them, they’ll disown me…What a trap!
“Gil warned me that I must not talk of this! He demanded to know who told me about the Party deciding that he was to marry me…He accuses me of having anti-Party friends!
“I’m afraid. If I stay with Gil, I’ll loathe myself; if I run off, the Party will attack me publicly, branding me a renegade. All of my friends are Party people and they would no longer speak to me…Night and day Gil demands that I be loyal to the Party. But I owe myself some loyalty too. How can I face myself in the years to come, knowing that I have been bought, and in such a shameful way? Gil says that my personal feelings do not count…Doesn’
t he know he’s killing me…?
“June 20th
“I’ve been hurt; there’s no doubt about it. I stand before my easel and cannot paint. I’m numb; my love of work is gone. When Gil comes into the hotel room, I begin to tremble with shame and rage…And he tells me that I must not, cannot talk to anybody…If I protest, the Party will destroy me…Last night he relented a tiny bit and said that I could be free only if I let the Party choose a husband for me…It seems that I’m now guilty not because of what I’ve done, but because of what I know…Goddamn this deception!
“June 21st
“I’ve begun to notice things that I’ve never noticed before. Is this because of what Gil and the Party have done to me? I feel like a victim and everywhere I look I think I can see other victims in the making…I’ve just come from a movie where I saw mothers with their young children. It was a horrible gangster film with a tense, melodramatic atmosphere. How can mothers take their children into such places? I should hate to have my children getting used to sights of violence, death, brutality…When for years a child has seen men hitting other men, killing or getting killed, he gets used to it. In time it does not impress him any more…He gets used to it, and death, betrayal, deception become just unimpressive facts of life, just ‘one of those things’…
“June 23rd
“Gil came in at 2 A.M., drunk. He’s ashamed to face me when he’s sober. I understand it: drunk, he’s still a free Communist; sober, he’s still a slave of his boyhood upbringing in the Bronx and is ashamed of what he’s done…To every argument I raise, he has one answer: ‘You don’t understand!’ I’ve got a knife with which I cut canvases and I sleep with it under my pillow. Gil will never touch me again, drunk or sober…
“My eyes are red and raw from weeping and sleeplessness. Never did I dream that I’d be brought to this! Before this the world was a sad place, but now it’s sad and dangerous…The worst part of all this is that I’ve no preparation for it; there was no warning. There’s nothing I’ve ever read or heard that could have prepared me for this…After father died when I was six, I lived in that orphan home; but even there life seemed rational. Hunger, cold, study; making sacrifices to attend art school—all of that was rational. When I began to win scholarships, all the deprivations were redeemed. But this deliberate deception—? Where does it fit in?
“Gil is sullen, silent; a cold wall—He has his friends; I’ve none; I’m alone—I’ve no friends unless I consent to accept what has been done to me! I must be a partner to this crime in order to be forgiven! I see it now; there can be no crimes like this unless there is the consent of the victim! My fear to talk, my silence makes this possible! But dare I speak? Who would believe me? Who’d care? How can I go on like this…?
“June 24th
“I’m afraid my loneliness and melancholy are making me morbid…Injustice has always been merely a word to me, now it’s a reality. Gil and the Party have opened my eyes and I see…In the Paris Metro today I saw something that made me sad. In front of me, on one seat, sat a young mother, middle-class, her face well done-up and glowing with motherly pride; she was holding a little girl of about two years of age on her knees. And that sweet little baby girl, all dressed up in delicate, lacy things took a liking to a pale little boy of about nine or thereabouts. He was filthy, badly dressed; he seemed too mature for his age; he sat next to a huge, vulgar, toothless, harsh-voiced woman—no doubt his mother. Both the little children were at once keen on each other, but the big woman kept telling her son to stop looking and smiling at the baby. The little girl’s hands tried to take hold of those of the boy and the boy was enjoying it. The young mother did not like it, but she was too well-bred to want to hurt the little boy’s feelings. Maybe the big woman was afraid of what the smartly dressed young woman would say? Anyway, the two women got terribly nervous and finally the young mother pried the tiny, playful, rosy little fingers out of the boy’s dirty hands…The baby cried and I wanted to cry too—I wonder if Gil realizes how awful people can feel when something happens to them that they cannot understand? I’ve sworn that Gil will never touch me again…I’ll die first!
“July 10th
“We’re back in New York. My friends are asking me about my honeymoon and I’m forced to smile…God, how can I keep up this deception any longer? I’m noticing other victims now. I’ve become aware of colored people. God, how they take it! Compared to their deception, mine is nothing…Yet they manage to go on living, even smiling. How do they do it? They must be strong, healthy, unspoiled by the lies of the white man’s world.
“July 12th
“My world has failed me and everything in it…What Gil and his Party have done to me is ruining my life, making me possess fantastic notions. My loathing of Gil has gone so far that I cannot any longer abide the color pink. I no longer want to paint in reds and blues and greens…They now remind me of Gil’s deception. That’s why I’m beginning to adore colored people; I could live my life with sunburnt people; I wish I was a warm, rich, brown color—
“July 18th
“I’ve begged Gil for a little money to start out for myself and he says no; the Party says no; it’s no everywhere…
“We’re in a new apartment and the landlord is truly a Fascist! This morning I met him on the stoop and said good morning to him. For some reason I asked him if there were any black people in the neighborhood. He must have thought that I objected to them, for he said: ‘Oh, no; nothing like that around here, lady. But there’s a Chinese laundry down the street—’ ‘But Chinese are not black,’ I said. ‘Oh, lady, you don’t know. They’re almost black…These colored people are all the same…God’s marked ’em all red, yellow, brown, and black so we could know ’em…’ Good God, what a world we live in…”
Cross smiled and flipped the pages of the diary and began reading the last entry:
“March 3rd
“Bob Hunter, one of the Party organizers, came rushing in to see Gil. When I told him that Gil was out his face fell and he pouted like a child. I like him because he is so open about his desire to fight and free his people from oppression. Bob told me to tell Gil that we must be sure to come to his apartment for dinner tonight—Bob bubbles over with the news of his finding a new, wonderful recruit for the Party. He is a young Negro living under an assumed name, a fugitive from southern racists. He is, according to Bob, who swore me to secrecy, a bright young Negro intellectual who had some dire trouble with whites and committed some crime and is in hiding to save his life. Bob met the young man on a train and he is certain that he has killed a white man and that there is a price on his head…It sounds so exciting, terrible, pitiful…And they’re bringing him into the Party! Another victim? I wish I could talk to him and tell him something…Colored people are so trusting and naïve…He’s going to be misled by Gil, just as I have been…”
Cross closed the diary; now that he had learned something of Eva’s life, he did not want to read any more. He knew enough to make a numbing sense of recognition go through him. Impulsively he wanted to run to her and talk to her, to tell her that she was not alone. But that was foolish. Secrecy was how the world was run. Millions felt alike, but were ashamed to admit it. Here was a lost, brave woman who had enough sensitivity and intelligence to understand what he had to say. She was a victim like he; the difference was that he was a willing victim and she was an involuntary one…She protested and he said yes. And a world yawned between his yes and her no…
But, Christ, how could she go on living that life? Her tense, artificial manner was now clear. She did not want to talk about politics; she was afraid of what she would say…She wanted to help him; and he wanted to help her…
And Gil was trusting him because of Bob’s foolish stories! Yes; that was rich. Bob had led the Party to feel that it had found a real victim of race hate! Well…
He felt sluggish; he replaced the diary and decided to take a walk. He went out of the front door, listening to hear a harsh voice challenging him. But nothing h
appened. He walked to Washington Square and stood looking at the pigeons fluttering around the treetops, alighting in the snowy grass. He went past the bookshops on Fourth Avenue, browsing here and there. It was cold; he would go home.
He was entering the building when the door of the apartment of Langley Herndon opened. Cross saw a white face watching him from behind thick spectacles. He shut the door to the street, taking his time, then turned and started up the stairs.
“Hey, you! Wait a minute!”
It was the voice of a man who was used to issuing orders. Cross paused, turned his head, and registered a look of make-believe surprise.
“What do you want here?” the man asked, coming up to him.
“What do you mean?” Cross countered. “I’m going up to my room.”
“Your room? Are you living here?” Herndon demanded.
“Of course. And who are you? Why are you asking me all this?”
“I just happen to own this goddamn building, that’s all,” Herndon said with rough irony. “I say who can and can’t live here!”
“But I’m not going into your apartment,” he pretended to misunderstand. “I live upstairs—”
“I don’t give a good goddamn where you live!” Herndon snapped. “You can’t stay in this building—”
“Now, wait a minute! I’ve signed a lease with Mr. Blount—”
“You can’t talk to me that way!”
Herndon advanced and Cross doubled his fist.
“Watch out! You’re old and I don’t want to hurt you!” He saw Herndon pause and blink his eyes. “If you want to talk to me, all right. But don’t touch me, see?”
Herndon was short, grey, flabby, with a wide mouth. His eyes were reddish and teary at the inflamed corners. His hair was black and slicked flat to the crown of a large, partly bald skull. He was violently agitated and seemed not to know what move to make. His face grew brick red.
“How long have you been in this building?” Herndon asked finally.