Going to Meet the Man Read online

  I can see that one of the vacant models is preparing herself to come to our table and ask for an autograph, hoping, since she is pretty—she has, that is, the usual female equipment, dramatized in the usual, modern way—to be invited for a drink. Should the maneuver succeed, one of her boy friends or girl friends will contrive to come by the table, asking for a light or a pencil or a lipstick, and it will be extremely difficult not to invite this person to join us, too. Before the evening ends, we will be surrounded. I don’t, now, know what I expected of fame, but I suppose it never occurred to me that the light could be just as dangerous, just as killing, as the dark.

  “Well, let’s make it brief,” I tell him. “Sometimes I wish that you weren’t quite so fond of me.”

  He laughs. “There are some very interesting people here tonight. Look.”

  Across the room from us, and now staring at our table, are a group of American Negro students, who are probably visiting Paris for the first time. There are four of them, two boys and two girls, and I suppose that they must be in their late teens or early twenties. One of the boys, a gleaming, curly-haired, golden-brown type—the color of his mother’s fried chicken—is carrying a guitar. When they realize we have noticed them, they smile and wave—wave as though I were one of their possessions, as, indeed, I am. Golden-brown is a mime. He raises his guitar, drops his shoulders, and his face falls into the lugubrious lines of Chico’s face as he approaches death. He strums a little of the film’s theme music, and I laugh and the table laughs. It is as though we were all back home and had met for a moment, on a Sunday morning, say, before a church or a poolroom or a barbershop.

  And they have created a sensation in the discothèque, naturally, having managed, with no effort whatever, to outwit all the gleaming boys and girls. Their table, which had been of no interest only a moment before, has now become the focus of a rather pathetic attention; their smiles have made it possible for the others to smile, and to nod in our direction.

  “Oh,” says Vidal, “he does that far better than you ever did, perhaps I will make him a star.”

  “Feel free, m’sieu, le bon Dieu, I got mine.” But I can see that his attention has really been caught by one of the girls, slim, tense, and dark, who seems, though it is hard to know how one senses such things, to be treated by the others with a special respect. And, in fact, the table now seems to be having a council of war, to be demanding her opinion or her cooperation. She listens, frowning, laughing; the quality, the force of her intelligence causes her face to keep changing all the time, as though a light played on it. And, presently, with a gesture she might once have used to scatter feed to chickens, she scoops up from the floor one of those dangling rag bags women love to carry. She holds it loosely by the drawstrings, so that it is banging somewhere around her ankle, and walks over to our table. She has an honest, forthright walk, entirely unlike the calculated, pelvic workout by means of which most women get about. She is small, but sturdily, economically, put together.

  As she reaches our table, Vidal and I rise, and this throws her for a second. (It has been a long time since I have seen such an attractive girl.)

  Also, everyone, of course, is watching us. It is really a quite curious moment. They have put on the record of Chico singing a sad, angry Martinique ballad; my own voice is coming at us from the walls as the girl looks from Vidal to me, and smiles.

  “I guess you know,” she says, “we weren’t about to let you get out of here without bugging you just a little bit. We’ve only been in Paris just a couple of days and we thought for sure that we wouldn’t have a chance of running into you anywhere, because it’s in all the papers that you’re coming home.”

  “Yes,” I say, “yes. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”

  “Oh!” She grins. “Then we really are lucky.” I find that I have almost forgotten the urchin-like grin of a colored girl. “I guess, before I keep babbling on, I’d better introduce myself. My name is Ada Holmes.”

  We shake hands. “This is Monsieur Vidal, the director of the film.”

  “I’m very honored to meet you, sir.”

  “Will you join us for a moment? Won’t you sit down?” And Vidal pulls a chair out for her.

  But she frowns contritely. “I really ought to get back to my friends.” She looks at me. “I really just came over to say, for myself and all the kids, that we’ve got your records and we’ve seen your movie, and it means so much to us”—and she laughs, breathlessly, nervously, it is somehow more moving than tears—“more than I can say. Much more. And we wanted to know if you and your friend”—she looks at Vidal—“your director, Monsieur Vidal, would allow us to buy you a drink? We’d be very honored if you would.”

  “It is we who are honored,” says Vidal, promptly, “and grateful. We were getting terribly bored with one another, thank God you came along.”

  The three of us laugh, and we cross the room.

  The three at the table rise, and Ada makes the introductions. The other girl, taller and paler than Ada, is named Ruth. One of the boys is named Talley—“short for Talliafero”—and Golden-brown’s name is Pete. “Man,” he tells me, “I dig you the most. Your tore me up, baby, tore me up.”

  “You tore up a lot of people,” Talley says, cryptically, and he and Ruth laugh. Vidal does not know, but I do, that Talley is probably referring to white people.

  They are from New Orleans and Tallahassee and North Carolina; are college students, and met on the boat. They have been in Europe all summer, in Italy and Spain, but are only just getting to Paris.

  “We meant to come sooner,” says Ada, “but we could never make up our minds to leave a place. I thought we’d never pry Ruth loose from Venice.”

  “I resigned myself,” says Pete, “and just sat in the Piazza San Marco, drinking gin fizz and being photographed with the pigeons, while Ruth had herself driven all up and down the Grand Canal.” He looks at Ruth. “Finally, thank heaven, it rained.”

  “She was working off her hostilities,” says Ada, with a grin. “We thought we might as well let her do it in Venice, the opportunities in North Carolina are really terribly limited.”

  “There are some very upset people walking around down there,” Ruth says, “and a couple of tours around the Grand Canal might do them a world of good.”

  Pete laughs. “Can’t you just see Ruth escorting them to the edge of the water?”

  “I haven’t lifted my hand in anger yet,” Ruth says, “but, oh Lord,” and she laughs, clenching and unclenching her fists.

  “You haven’t been back for a long time, have you?” Talley asks me.

  “Eight years. I haven’t really lived there for twelve years.”

  Pete whistles. “I fear you are in for some surprises, my friend. There have been some changes made.” Then, “Are you afraid?”

  “A little.”

  “We all are,” says Ada, “that’s why I was so glad to get away for a little while.”

  “Then you haven’t been back since Black Monday,” Talley says. He laughs. “That’s how it’s gone down in Confederate history.” He turns to Vidal. “What do people think about it here?”

  Vidal smiles, delighted. “It seems extraordinarily infantile behavior, even for Americans, from whom, I must say, I have never expected very much in the way of maturity.” Everyone at the table laughs. Vidal goes on. “But I cannot really talk about it, I do not understand it. I have never really understood Americans; I am an old man now, and I suppose I never will. There is something very nice about them, something very winning, but they seem so ignorant—so ignorant of life. Perhaps it is strange, but the only people from your country with whom I have ever made contact are black people—like my good friend, my discovery, here,” and he slaps me on the shoulder. “Perhaps it is because we, in Europe, whatever else we do not know, or have forgotten, know about suffering. We have suffered here. You have suffered, too. But most Americans do not yet know what anguish is. It is too bad, because the life of the West is i
n their hands.” He turns to Ada. “I cannot help saying that I think it is a scandal—and we may all pay very dearly for it—that a civilized nation should elect to represent it a man who is so simple that he thinks the world is simple.” And silence falls at the table and the four young faces stare at him.

  “Well,” says Pete, at last, turning to me, “you won’t be bored, man, when you get back there.”

  “It’s much too nice a night,” I say, “to stay cooped up in this place, where all I can hear is my own records.” We laugh. “Why don’t we get out of here and find a sidewalk café?” I tap Pete’s guitar. “Maybe we can find out if you’ve got any talent.”

  “Oh, talent I’ve got,” says Pete, “but character, man, I’m lacking.”

  So, after some confusion about the bill, for which Vidal has already made himself responsible, we walk out into the Paris night. It is very strange to feel that, very soon now, these boulevards will not exist for me. People will be walking up and down, as they are tonight, and lovers will be murmuring in the black shadows of the plane trees, and there will be these same still figures on the benches or in the parks—but they will not exist for me, I will not be here. For a long while Paris will no longer exist for me, except in my mind; and only in the minds of some people will I exist any longer for Paris. After departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love. So many things, so many people, depart! And we can only repossess them in our minds. Perhaps this is what the old folks meant, what my mother and my father meant, when they counseled us to keep the faith.

  We have taken a table at the Deux Magots and Pete strums on his guitar and begins to play this song:

  Preach the word, preach the word, preach the word!

  If I never, never see you any more.

  Preach the word, preach the word.

  And I’ll meet you on Canaan’s shore.

  He has a strong, clear, boyish voice, like a young preacher’s, and he is smiling as he sings his song. Ada and I look at each other and grin, and Vidal is smiling. The waiter looks a little worried, for we are already beginning to attract a crowd, but it is a summer night, the gendarmes on the corner do not seem to mind, and there will be time, anyway, to stop us.

  Pete was not there, none of us were, the first time this song was needed; and no one now alive can imagine what that time was like. But the song has come down the bloodstained ages. I suppose this to mean that the song is still needed, still has its work to do.

  The others are all, visibly, very proud of Pete; and we all join him, and people stop to listen:

  Testify! Testify!

  If I never, never see you any more!

  Testify! Testify!

  I’ll meet you on Canaan’s shore!

  In the crowd that has gathered to listen to us, I see a face I know, the face of a North African prize fighter, who is no longer in the ring. I used to know him well in the old days, but have not seen him for a long time. He looks quite well, his face is shining, he is quite decently dressed. And something about the way he holds himself, not quite looking at our table, tells me that he has seen me, but does not want to risk a rebuff. So I call him. “Boona!”

  And he turns, smiling, and comes loping over to our table, his hands in his pockets. Pete is still singing and Ada and Vidal have taken off on a conversation of their own. Ruth and Talley look curiously, expectantly, at Boona. Now that I have called him over, I feel somewhat uneasy. I realize that I do not know what he is doing now, or how he will get along with any of these people, and I can see in his eyes that he is delighted to be in the presence of two young girls. There are virtually no North African women in Paris, and not even the dirty, rat-faced girls who live, apparently, in cafés are willing to go with an Arab. So Boona is always looking for a girl, and because he is so deprived and because he is not Western, his techniques can be very unsettling. I know he is relieved that the girls are not French and not white. He looks briefly at Vidal and Ada. Vidal, also, though for different reasons, is always looking for a girl.

  But Boona has always been very nice to me. Perhaps I am sorry that I called him over, but I did not want to snub him.

  He claps one hand to the side of my nead, as is his habit. “Comment vas-tu, mon frère? I have not see you, oh, for long time.” And he asks me, as in the old days, “You all right? Nobody bother you?” And he laughs. “Ah! Tu as fait le chemin, toil Now you are vedette, big star—wonderful!” He looks around the table, made a little uncomfortable by the silence that has fallen, now that Pete has stopped singing. “I have seen you in the movies—you know?—and I tell everybody, I know him!” He points to me, and laughs, and Ruth and Talley laugh with him. “That’s right, man, you make me real proud, you make me cry!”

  “Boona, I want you to meet some friends of mine.” And I go round the table: “Ruth, Talley, Ada, Pete”—and he bows and shakes hands, his dark eyes gleaming with pleasure—“et Monsieur Vidal, le metteur en scène du film qui t’a arraché des larmes.”

  “Enchanté.” But his attitude toward Vidal is colder, more distrustful. “Of course I have heard of Monsieur Vidal. He is the director of many films, many of them made me cry.” This last statement is utterly, even insolently, insincere.

  But Vidal, I think, is relieved that I will now be forced to speak to Boona and will leave him alone with Ada.

  “Sit down,” I say, “have a drink with us, let me have your news. What’s been happening with you, what are you doing with yourself these days?”

  “Ah,” he sits down, “nothing very brilliant, my brother.” He looks at me quickly, with a little smile. “You know, we have been having hard times here.”

  “Where are you from?” Ada asks him.

  His brilliant eyes take her in entirely, but she does not flinch. “I am from Tunis.” He says it proudly, with a little smile.

  “From Tunis. I have never been to Africa, I would love to go one day.”

  He laughs. “Africa is a big place. Very big. There are many countries in Africa, many”—he looks briefly at Vidal—“different kinds of people, many colonies.”

  “But Tunis,” she continues, in her innocence, “is free? Freedom is happening all over Africa. That’s why I would like to go there.”

  “I have not been back for a long time,” says Boona, “but all the news I get from Tunis, from my people, is not good.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to go back?” Ruth asks.

  Again he looks at Vidal. “That is not so easy.”

  Vidal smiles. “You know what I would like to do? There’s a wonderful Spanish place not far from here, where we can listen to live music and dance a little.” He turns to Ada. “Would you like that?”

  He is leaving it up to me to get rid of Boona, and it is, of course, precisely for this reason that I cannot do it. Besides, it is no longer so simple.

  “Oh, I’d love that,” says Ada, and she turns to Boona. “Won’t you come, too?”

  “Thank you, mam’selle,” he says, softly, and his tongue flicks briefly over his lower lip, and he smiles. He is very moved, people are not often nice to him.

  In the Spanish place there are indeed a couple of Spanish guitars, drums, castanets, and a piano, but the uses to which these are being put carry one back, as Pete puts it, to the levee. “These are the wailingest Spanish cats I ever heard,” says Ruth. “They didn’t learn how to do this in Spain, no, they didn’t, they been rambling. You ever hear anything like this going on in Spain?” Talley takes her out on the dance floor, which is already crowded. A very handsome Frenchwoman is dancing with an enormous, handsome black man, who seems to be her lover, who seems to have taught her how to dance. Apparently, they are known to the musicians, who egg them on with small cries of “Olé!” It is a very good-natured crowd, mostly foreigners, Spaniards, Swedes, Greeks. Boona takes Ada out on the dance floor while Vidal is answering some questions put to him by Pete on the entertainment situation in France. Vidal l
ooks a little put out, and I am amused.

  We are there for perhaps an hour, dancing, talking, and I am, at last, a little drunk. In spite of Boona, who is a very good and tireless dancer, Vidal continues his pursuit of Ada, and I begin to wonder if he will make it and I begin to wonder if I want him to.

  I am still puzzling out my reaction when Pete, who has disappeared, comes in through the front door, catches my eye, and signals to me. I leave the table and follow him into the streets.

  He looks very upset. “I don’t want to bug you, man,” he says, “but I fear your boy has goofed.”

  I know he is not joking. I think he is probably angry at Vidal because of Ada, and I wonder what I can do about it and why he should be telling me.

  I stare at him, gravely, and he says, “It looks like he stole some money.”

  “Stole money? Who, Vidal?”

  And then, of course, I get it, in the split second before he says, impatiently, “No, are you kidding? Your friend, the Tunisian.”

  I do not know what to say or what to do, and so I temporize with questions. All the time I am wondering if this can be true and what I can do about it if it is. The trouble is, I know that Boona steals, he would probably not be alive if he didn’t, but I cannot say so to these children, who probably still imagine that everyone who steals is a thief. But he has never, to my knowledge, stolen from a friend. It seems unlike him. I have always thought of him as being better than that, and smarter than that. And so I cannot believe it, but neither can I doubt it. I do not know anything about Boona’s life, these days. This causes me to realize that I do not really know much about Boona.

  “Who did he steal it from?”

  “From Ada. Out of her bag.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten dollars. It’s not an awful lot of money, but”—he grimaces—“none of us have an awful lot of money.”

  “I know.” The dark side street on which we stand is nearly empty. The only sound on the street is the muffled music of the Spanish club. “How do you know it was Boona?”