The Promised Land

I

AT a certain level of the airshaft two songs, issuing from opposite windows, met, mingled minor refrains, and rose together toward Negro Harlem’s black sky; two futile prayers which spent themselves like mist ere they reached the roof. The one was a prayer for the love of man, the other a prayer for the love of God: ‘blues,’ and a spiritual.

The blues song would have drowned the spiritual had it not labored against a closed window. No such barrier stayed the spiritual. To be sure the singer was old, as her present posture emphasized: shoulders bent round, dim eyes and unsteady hands searching the pages of the Bible on her lap. But her voice was well sustained, and her song was none the less clear because it accompanied her endless thumbing of thin leaves.

Like her eyes and her fingers, her hymn sought comfort, sought while it almost despaired: —

Presently, as if there came no answer, she interrupted her quest and her song, turned out the gas, and sat back in the darkness to observe the progress of the rent party across the shaft.

A rent party is a public dance given in a private apartment. If, after letting out three of your five rooms to lodgers, your resources are still unequal to your rent, you make up the deficit by means of a rent party. You provide music, your friends provide advertisement, and your guests, by paying admission, provide what your resources lack.

Such a party Mammy now witnessed. Through the window opposite her own she commanded most of one room and a corner of another in the adjacent flat. The window was indeed a screen upon which flashed a motion picture oddly alive and colorful. Boys whose loose trousers were too long for their legs and girls whose tight skirts were too short for theirs hugged each other close, keeping time to the rhythm of hoarsely phonographed blues.

Bright enough dresses, certainly: scarlet and green and glowing purple, rendering dark complexions darker, lending life to pale ones; dresses that, having lost half their volume, put all their color into the rest. Bright enough faces, too: boys wagging their heads and grinning, girls gayly laughing at their jokes.

But such a dance! The camel walk. Everybody ‘cameling.’ Had God wanted man to move like a camel He’d have put a hump in his back. Yet was there any sign of what God wanted in that scene across the shaft? Skins that He had made black bleached brown, brown ones bleached cream-color; hair that He had made long and kinky bobbed short and ironed dead straight. Young girls’ arms about boys’ shoulders, their own waists tightly clasped; bodies warmly fused, bending to the sensual waves of the ‘camel.’ Where was God in that?

Mammy watched as she had often watched before, with a dull wonder that such colossal wickedness should be allowed to prevail. The song that had mingled with hers now filtered through the closed window opposite and came alone to her ears, bringing no reassurance. For all that it plumbed the nadir of woe, was it not a song of sin?

One couple swung into view which especially caught Mammy’s attention, so completely had it abandoned itself to the dance. Mammy saw with a little quiver of alarm that the boy was her grandson, Sam. Wesley, her other grandson, was also somewhere in that company, and it was Wesley’s girl with whom Sam was dancing. If Wesley ever saw Sam dancing like that with Ellie —

In the visible corner of the far room Mammy recognized Wesley’s back. Wesley’s shoulders, far less mobile than Sam’s, were gradually turning as he faced about in the slow measure of the dance. In but a few seconds he would be looking at his cousin through the intervening doorway, would see Sam and Ellie’s exaggerated movements, despite the people between. An old and mounting hostility between them would swiftly surge and flare — they would quarrel, perhaps they would fight. Mammy sat up, leaned tensely forward, whispered, ‘Lawd, have mercy!’

Unlike her earlier prayer, this one was apparently heard, for at that moment the blues halted and the dancing abruptly ceased. The change of partners, however, only momentarily relieved Mammy’s qualms. Over her settled a deadly certainty that the clash had been merely postponed. There would be many more dances, one of which would rejoin Ellie and Sam as partners. The later that happened, the higher would everyone’s spirits be, the wilder the dancing, and so the quicker and hotter Wesley’s resentment. As the new dance began, Mammy grew rapidly surer of what she foresaw. Soon her helplessness and the increasing effort to suppress her excitement welled almost beyond bearing. Her misgiving urged her to do something to prevent this long-deferred crisis; but somehow she could only sit still and look on and pray that this time for once her foresight would prove wrong.

Her apprehension became black emptiness into which memories, rocketwise, soared and burst: rumor of opportunity in the cities of the North — certainty of ruin should rumor prove false; hope of young and old men departing, of women and children gone after them — despair of tranquil homes upheaved, of families ruthlessly scattered; the joy she herself had felt when these two grandsons had finally sent for her — the sorrow of being the last to leave the lopsided old Virginia home.

They were equally dear to Mammy, these two boys, and, until they had come to New York, had been equally fond of each other. They had grown up together, attended the four-monthsa-year school together, played hooky, fished, hunted rabbits, and got baptized together; and finally, caught in the epidemic fever of migration that swept the dark-skinned South, they had left home together to find their fortunes in Harlem.

As life had thus brought some to seek wealth, so death, back home, brought others to seek peace; but Mammy had been beckoned toward neither goal, had simply been left quite alone. And rather because there was nothing else to do than because they wanted or needed her, the cousins, Wesley and Sam, had offered to let her housekeep for them in a small flat in the great city.

Scarcely had she got over the shock of underground railroads, of trains overhead, of mountainous buildings where people lived like chickens, before she perceived that the city had done something to Wesley and Sam. They had lost their comradeship, they just managed to tolerate each other, and they compensated for this mere toleration by goading each other persistently with strange, new, malicious jibes: —

‘Down-home boy lak you ain’ got no business in no city nohow.’

‘Don’ ketch me th’owin’ my money ’way on no numbers, though, uh no baseball pool.’

‘Co’se not. You don’ make no money. How you go’n’ th’ow any ’way?’

Mammy soon saw what new feature of their life lay at the bottom of this. To Sam, whose hands learned quickly, the city had been kind. Starting as handy man in a garage, he had soon become a mechanic’s helper, and now at last was a mechanic with wages of sixty dollars a week. Wesley, always more awkward, had found the city indifferent, and so perforce had become his own boss, washing windows at fifteen cents each. So Harlem, where there was insistent competition to test and reward special skill, and where there was so much more for men to quarrel about and resent, had quickly estranged these two unguarded lads simply by paying the one twice as much as the other; had furnished them thus with taunts that had not been possible back home, and now kept them constantly wounding each other with the heedless cruelty of children — wounds that would one day translate themselves from the spirit into the flesh.

‘Ellie? Ellie yo’ gal? Whut business you got wid a gal? You could n’ buy a gal coffee ’n’ a san’wich.’

‘Reckon you could buy huh champagne an’ lobster.’

‘An’ I don’ mean maybe.’

‘Better put some dat money in accident ’nsurance den.’

‘What you talkin’ ’bout?’

‘’Cause ’f I ketch you messin’ roun’ Ellie I’m sho’ go’n’ turn yo’ damper down. An’ I don’ mean maybe.’

‘Shuh! Listen t’ dis boogy. Man, my slowes’ move’s too fas’ f’ you.’

‘Not yo’ slowes’ move roun’ Ellie ain’t.’

‘One my thoughts ’d bust yo’ haid wide open.’

‘Yeah? Well it don’ do nuthin’ to yo’ haid but swell it.’

Suddenly these remembered mockings leaped out of past into present. As one rudely waked starts up, so Mammy’s fear now started out of the stupor of memory. In the room across the airshaft Sam and Wesley were facing each other, the fire of their hostility having driven the onlookers back into an expectant surrounding circle. Mammy saw the boys’ lips move, and from their malignant countenances and the dismay on the faces about them she knew that again bitter taunts were being exchanged, this time in company where words quickly kindled action. Hitherto her own presence had always restrained them. Now the only spectators were hoodlums off the street, before whom the boys might well wish to show off, at the same time squaring the urgent account of a hundred bygone insults.

The antagonists stood toe to toe, Sam the more lithe, slightly taller, Wesley broader and heavier. Their lips no longer moved, and Mammy recognized that silent, critical moment in an encounter when the mere forward swaying of a body is enough to free madness.

She jumped up, tried to cry out a warning, achieved but a groan: ‘Good Lawd!’ Her impotence became frenzy; she cast about wildly for some means of diverting the inevitable. A soft golden glint caught and held her eyes — the gilt edge of the Bible still in her hand, touched to a glow by light from across the way.

The Bible was suddenly divine revelation, an answer. She hesitated only long enough to note Sam’s hand creeping toward his coat pocket. ‘God fo’give me,’ she breathed; then drew back an arm grown opportunely strong, and hurled the Word with all her might through the pane of the opposite window.

At the crash and jingle of glass she shrank back into the shadow of her own room; yet not so far back as to obscure the picture of her two grandsons, staring limply agape, now at each other, now at the Book at their feet.

II

Mammy asked Ellie point-blank: —

‘Which a one my boys you lak sho’ nuff?’

And Ellie, a girl of the city, replied with a laugh and a toss of her bob: —

‘Both of ’em. Why not?’

They sat in the kitchen of Mammy’s three-room flat, of which the parlor served as the boys’ bedroom and the third room on the airshaft as Mammy’s own. Ellie and a chum occupied a similar apartment, the adjacent one, where the rent party had been given; and Ellie occasionally ‘ran in,’ ostensibly anxious to inquire after Mammy, actually hoping to see one of the boys and possibly make a date.

Mammy saw through these visits, of course, and had thought that Ellie’s interest was in Wesley. But Ellie’s behavior with Sam at the party tinctured this conclusion with doubt. No girl, thought Mammy, who liked one man would behave like that with another — not with both present.

Hence, with characteristic directness, Mammy instituted investigation; and Ellie’s side-stepping answer but whetted a suspicion already keen.

‘You lak bofe of’m d’ same?’

‘I’ll say I do.’

‘Jes’ d’ same?’

‘Nothin’ different.’

’Hmph. Dat mean you don’ really lak neither one of’m, den.’

‘Oh, yes, I do. Pretty skee sheiks for country jakes.’

‘ Whut you lak ’bout’m?’

‘Well, different things. Sam’s crazy and knows how to show a girl a good time, see? Wesley ain’t so crazy, but he tries hard and you can depend on him. You wonder about Sam, you know about Wesley. Wesley’s betterlookin’, too.’

‘S’posin’ you had to choose between ’m. Which a one you take?’

‘ Oh, Sam. Sam makes twice as much as Wesley.’

The casualness of that answer made Mammy wince. To accustom yourself to some things is easy — to subways and ‘L’s,’ to army-worm traffic, to hard grassless pavements, hot treeless sidewalks, cold distant starless skies; even to a fifth-story roost on the airshaft of a seven-story hencoop. But to accustom yourself to the philosophy of the metropolis, to its ruthless opportunism — that is hard.

‘S’posin’,’ Mammy experimented, ‘dey bofe made zackly d’ same? Which a one you take den?’

The questioning began to irritate Ellie. ‘Wha’ d’ y’ mean, take? I ain’t grabbin’ after neither one of ’em, y’ know.’

‘I mean ef dey bofe ast you to marry’m.’

‘ Oh, to marry ’em? And both drawin’ the same pay? Why, Wesley, by all —’ Ellie bit her lip, and withdrew into the cautious neutrality out of which the unexpected contemplation of matrimony had surprised her. ‘ Or — well — either one — I don’t know.’ This old woman was nearer to either boy than was she herself, she remembered. Both the bumpkins spent on her. Why reduce her chances for a good time by making a betraying choice? Play the boobs off against each other, let them both strut their stuff. Maybe a better catch then either would meanwhile gulp your bait. Then you could discard both these poor fish with a laugh. ‘You know what the song says, Mammy: “Don’t let no one man worry your mind.’”

Mammy looked at Ellie as she might have looked at the armadillo in the zoo — this strange, unbelievable creature who in the spring of her life subjected romance to utility. For Mammy saw that the girl really preferred Wesley to Sam, yet had no apology of word or manner in prospectively renouncing Wesley’s character for Sam’s superior pay. Young, pretty, live girls like Ellie should have to be told to consider their suitors’ pay. With them it ought to be secondary to youth’s more compelling absurdities. But here was a slip of a girl who spoke like a thricemarried widow of fifty.

Mammy accepted this as one of the mysteries of city breeding. Having done so, it was easy to prophesy. Ellie’s willingness to take equally what Sam and Wesley had to give would be the crux of the boys’ antagonism. Wesley claimed right of priority. Neither Ellie nor Sam cared a sneeze for such right. Ellie, city-wise, ‘liked them both.’ Into the mould of this situation all of the vague potent bitterness of the boys’ recent hatred would be poured, to take definite form. The city had broken the bond between them. The city now fashioned them a bludgeon with which to shatter their common life.

‘Listen, daughter. How come you carry on wid Sam lak dat las’ night? Did n’ you know’t would start trouble?’

‘Carry on? Wha’ d’ y’ mean, carry on? I only danced with ’im.’

‘Dat all? Den whut start d’ trouble?’

‘Wesley buttin’ in, the dumbbell. Why don’t somebody tell him something? He ain’t down home now. This is New York.’

‘Uh-huh. Dis is New York. Dis is New York. An’ ain’t New York in God’s worl? Don’ New York come under His eyes a-tall?’

This was quite out of Ellie’s line. She shrugged and kept still. Mammy’s voice, however, grew stronger with her pain.

‘New York. Harlem. Thought all along ’t was d’ las’ stop ’fo’ Heaven. Canaan hitself. Reg’lar promis’ lan’. Web, dat’s jes’ whut’t is — a promis’ lan’. All hit do is promise. Promise money lak growin’ on trees — ain’ even got d’ trees. Promise wuk fo’ dem whut want wuk — look at my boy, Wesley. Promise freedom fum d’ whi’ folks — white man be hyeh to-day, take d’ las’ penny fo’ rent. You know why ’t is? You know how come?’

Ellie stared. Mammy got up, stood erect, with almost majestic dignity. ‘Hit’s sin. Dat’s whut ’t is — sin. My people done fo’got dey God, grabbin’ after money. I warn ’m ’fo’ dey all lef’. Longin’ fo’ d’ things o’ dis worl’ an’ a-fo’gittin’ d’ Lawd Jesus. Broke up dey homes in d’ country — lef’ folks behind sick an’ dyin’. So anxious. So scairt all d’ money be gone ’fo’ dey git hyeh. I tole ’m. Fust seek d’ kingdom of God an’ His righteousness. But no. Everybody done gone crazy over gittin’. An’ hit don’ bring nothin’ but misery in dis worl’ an’ hellfire in eternity. Hit’s sin!’

‘Soft pedal, Mammy. And hold the sermon, will you?’

‘An’ dat’s another thing.’ The diminished tone only bared Mammy’s intensity. ‘ You-all so scairt o’ d’ Word o’ God. Sam and Wesley done got d’ same way sence dey been up hyeh. Seem lak hit make you oncomf’table. Make you squirm. Make you squirm wuss ’n ’at low-down dancin’ you do. Well, hit oughter. Garment o’ righteousness don’ b’long on no body o’ sin.’

Ellie did n’t quite get this, but she did n’t like the way Mammy was looking at her. ‘Say, what’s the idea?’ she inquired.

‘Idea?’ Mammy grew calm, almost cold; focused her distraction on one problem; ‘Idea is, you either let one my boys alone or let ’em bofe alone. You heah? You cain’t run wid d’ hare an’ hunt wid d’ hounds. Dis hyeh “either one” business’ll have ’m both at each other’s th’oats ’fo’ another day. Lawd knows dey’d be better off ef you stayed ’way fum’m bofe.’

At this Ellie flared. ‘Well, of all the cockeyed nerve! Say, where do you think you get off? D’ you s’pose I’m chasin’ after your farmer boys?’

Mammy said nothing. It was Ellie’s turn to wax loud.

‘Pity you old handkerchief-heads would n’ stay down South where you belong. First you ask me to state my intentions. Then you tell me I started the argument at the party. Then you preach me a sermon on sin or clothes or somethin’. Then you tell me to let them alone — as if they did n’t pester me dizzy. As if I was chasin’ them. What are you trying to call me, anyhow? Do you think I’d chase any bozo on earth?’

Mammy did not dream what vile accusation lay in the provincialism ‘chase.’ Unaware of what the word meant to Ellie, she commented promptly and bluntly: —

‘You sho’ ain’ chasin’ me.'

Ellie sprang up, furious, inflamed less by the implication than by Mammy’s intuitively shrewd analysis. ‘Why, you dirty old devil — I ought to paste you one! If that’s what you think you can all go to hell.’ She turned and strode hotly away, flinging back a smouldering ‘Damn you!’ The hall door slammed behind her with a bang that jarred the floor.

Mammy stood bewildered a while; presently murmured, ‘She cuss’ me— ’ Slowly she sank into her chair and looked around at the close kitchen walls; kept repeating, as if to convince herself, ‘Dat li’l chile — she cuss’ me.’

III

The three-room apartment boasted four windows, and on them, following Mammy’s request, Wesley agreed to finish his fruitless day.

‘I done done d’ inside all right,’ she explained, ‘ but I cain’t make d’ outside. I scairt to stick my haid out one o’ dese winders. No sense in folks livin’ in d’ side of a cliff dis-a-way — ’cep’n’ hit’s as near to d’ heaven as dey’ll ever git again.’

Wesley, polishing glass, endeavored to stay the passing light of day with song, but even his song grew dark as the mood of blues settled gradually over it: —

The words were not without significance. Usually Ellie greeted him with great show of eagerness; comforted him at the end of a poor day when he dropped in for a while before dinner; suggested some means of disposing of the day’s return — which, of course, was too small to save. But to-day, after peeping out as usual, she had slammed the door in his face.

‘Ellie — wha’s a matter?’

Only a diminuendo of angry clicks, receding down her hallway.

Well, it had served him right. He’d been warned about these uppity Northern gals, these ‘gimme’ gals. Always had their hands out, expecting something. Something for nothing. Taxis. Eats. Liquor. Big times. Back home a girl could n’t want so much because there was n’t so much to want. But here — no effort on his part in spending three days’ earnings on Ellie in a single night. No effort on her part to save it, either. And in return a kiss and a promise — a promise to go out again with him some night. Gimme.

Probably sore because he’d started a row at her party last night. Well, was she his gal or was n’t she? A kiss. In the city a kiss has many meanings. Maybe she kissed Sam also. Maybe her kisses were a commodity.

He stopped polishing to look down on the street five stories below. Folks look funny at that distance and angle. All look alike. None human. Long thin feet alternately passing each other, arms circling awkwardly outside the feet, heads gliding squatly forward in the midst of arms and legs. People seen on end resemble spiders.

Ellie, maybe, was a spider, and he had been her fly. Having withdrawn his little substance, she now discarded his shell. Sam’s turn now. Fly guy, Sam. Ought to swat him. Leave it to Ellie — she’ll swat him for sixty bucks a week. Gimme.

‘Don’ set dey idle, son. Fust thing you know you’ll lose yo’ holt an’ fall.’ ‘Make no diff’unce ef I land on my haid.’

‘Git th’ough in d’ kitchen nex’. Got to git supper. Sam be home tireckly.’

‘M-hm.’

Wesley did the kitchen window and proceeded to Mammy’s room. The airshaft was quite dark, so that he had to light the gas jet. He soaped his wet rag and clambered half through, turned, and clamped his heels as usual against the wall beneath the sill, thus leaving both hands free for work. He soaped the outside surface of the pane and, while waiting for it to dry, twisted about to look behind him at Ellie’s window. It was still unrepaired; a newspaper covered the jagged opening in the pane. His enlarged shadow fell misshapen on the wall about the window and the jagged opening looked like a wound in his side.

Somewhere beyond the broken window a door banged loudly shut. Soon another, closer door did likewise.

Sam shuffled angrily into the kitchen and tossed something black on to the table, where it landed with a thump. Peering over her ‘specks,’ Mammy recognized her Bible. She reproved: —

‘Don’t you know no better ’n to th’ow d’ Word of d’ Lawd aroun’ lak dat? Better learn to keep it near yuh.’

‘Did n’ th’ow it half as fur as you did.’

‘I th’owed it to keep you young fools fum doin’ harm. You jes’ th’owed it to be th’owin’.’

‘Da’s aw right ’bout doin’ harm. Ef I had busted Wesley, he could ’a’ gone to d’ free hospital. But you busted d’ winder. Who go’n’ pay fo’ dat?’

‘Lan’lawd oughter pay fo’ it. He charge enough rent.’

‘Maybe he would, but sump’n done got into Ellie — she raisin’ d’ devil. ’Clare out she go’n’ tell d’ lan’lawd you th’owed it — yo’ name’s wrote in it. Dat mean I have to pay d’ bill — lak I pay f’ ev’ything else roun’ hyeh.’

‘Dat all she say?’

‘No. Say she go’n’ have you ’rested fo’ disturbin’ d’ peace. Say sump’n ’bout slander too.’

‘Hmph!'

‘Den she slam’d’ do’ in my face.’

‘Maybe dat’ll help you stay ’way fum ’uh.’

‘Stay ’way fo’ whut?’

‘’Cause she ain’ got d’ love o’ God in huh heart, dat’s fo’ whut. An’ neither is you. Hit’s a bad combination.’

‘Ain’ lookin’ fo’ no love o’ God. Lookin’ fo’ Wesley. Wha’ he at?’

‘Washin’ my room winder. Let ’im ’lone.’

‘I’ll let ’im ’lone, aw right. I’ll th’ow ’im out it.’

Only Wesley’s legs were visible to Sam, entering the room. Wesley was wiping off the frosting of soap that he had allowed to dry on the pane. As he wiped, more of his body appeared through the glass thus made clear, and at last his troubled face. It showed surprise at the presence of Sam, who stood glowering accusation.

‘What d’ hell you been tellin’ Ellie ’bout me?’

Even through intervening glass Wesley’s anger was quick to respond. ‘What d’ hell could I tell ’uh bad enough?’

‘You been puttin’ me in — else she would n’ ’a’ slam’ no do’ in my face.’

‘She slam’d’ do’ in yo’ face?’

‘Reckon you tole ’uh to do it.’

Wesley’s anger subsided. He repeated, with something akin to relief, eagerly, —

‘Say she slam’d’ do’ in yo’ face?’

‘Did n’ miss it.’

Wesley threw back his head and filled the airshaft with loud laughter. To Sam it was galling, derisive, contemptuous laughter, laughter of victory. Anger, epithets, blows he could have exchanged, but laughter found him defenseless. In a hot flush of rage he drew back a foot and kicked viciously at Wesley’s legs.

At the moment Wesley had only one leg pressed firmly back against the wall. It was this that received the blow, and the quick sharp pain loosened its grip. In swift effort to catch himself, Wesley snatched at the bottom edge of the lower frame, but with such desperate force that it slid instantly upward, so that his hold was broken by the upper. Grabbing wildly, Sam sprang forward, frightened into contrition — succeeded only in further dislodging his already unbalanced cousin. A brief mad scramble to save him — a futile clawing and slipping of hands — a cry

— a moment’s incredulous silence — silence that broke with a soft and terrible thud.

Sam shrank back and threw one hand up over his mouth like a child that has heard something forbidden; wheeled, to see Mammy stiff in the doorway, staring with stricken eyes. Hysteria gripped him.

’I did n’ do it — I ’clare out ’fo’ God, Mammy—’ He turned back toward the window; backed off from it, crouching and trembling; faced again toward Mammy. Deprecation gave way to bravado. He whispered sharply, ‘Ef you tell anybody, I’ll—’ Then suddenly rushed with insane menace toward her as panic rushed through his brain, reached her, stopped

— abruptly collapsed at her feet, shuddering with sobs.

Mammy, roused by a spirit which still hoped in the face of calamity, quickly bent down and shook the crumpled lad with sobering vigor. ‘Git up, son! Make has’e! Git up! Mammy seen yuh! Seen yuh try to ketch’im! Make has’e to’im! Maybe he’s on’y hurt!’

The boy raised a countenance wretched with fear and doubt and weakness, but the strength and will in Mammy’s eyes brought him to his senses.

‘Make has’e, I tell yuh!’

He jumped up, his face still convulsed, and sped toward the outer door and the stairs.

IV

Again Mammy sat by her window, her fingers groping amid the thin leaves of her Bible.

Out of the airshaft sounds came to her, sounds of the land of promise. Noise of a rent party somewhere below from a tiny dwelling that had to be hired out if it was to be dwelt in at all — peculiar feature of a place where your own home was n’t your own. Noise of a money quarrel somewhere above, charges, taunts, disputes — fruit of a land where sudden wide differences in work and pay summoned disaster. Noise of sinful singing and dancing, pastime of Ellie’s generation, breed of a city where children cursed and threatened the old and went free.

For Ellie still went her way rejoicing, heedless of what she had precipitated in a passing fit of temper. Sam in a week had forgotten — was with Ellie at this very rent party below. And when the white folks had come to investigate the unfortunate death by violence, Mammy had sworn with stiffened lips it was all an accident.

Into the airshaft crept her old hymn, lifting toward Harlem’s black sky: —