Though trying to remain sober. Trying to remain . . . Darian, the skeptic. Caring for nothing but his music, which is to say his solitude; the solitude required for the composing of . . . music.
He hears his own laughter, often. A harsh raw boyish laughter as of a violin long out of tune, half its strings broken.
Abraham Licht is in a mood to confide. He"s forgiven his youngest son, apparently, for ten years" estrangement-"The stubbornness of youth, I suppose necessary if a.n.a.lyzed in Darwinian evolutionary terms." He has forgiven Darian, and Darian has evidently forgiven him. ("Why did we ever quarrel?" Darian wonders, genuinely baffled. He believes it may have had something to do with the Vanderpoel Academy . . . what a difficult adolescent he must have been, tormented by emotions as by acne. "But no more!") Almost, it"s a litany that might be put to music. In fact it is a litany that might be put to music. Darian envisions kettledrums, a B-flat cornet, a baritone voice in Gregorian-chant style. Bethlehem Steel. Mexican Seaboard Certificates. Pan American Western Corporation. Cole Motors, Indianapolis. American Telephone & Telegraph. Fleischmann"s Yeast. New York Central. Fisk Insurance. Standard Oil of New Jersey. Kennecott Copper. "All very conservative stocks," as Abraham Licht says. "For, despite his exemplary broker"s tips, "Moses Liebknecht" is too cautious to gamble his hard-earned money." Exactly who "Moses Liebknecht" is, Darian isn"t sure though he"s been told; both by Father and by Father"s new young wife, laughingly. "When we"d met, it was "Moses" I first loved," Rosamund says, shaking her head in wonderment. "Little did I know that "Abraham" was guiding us both."
Apart from the stock-market profits which, Darian gathers, are considerable, in this careening season of summer 1928, Abraham Licht and the beautiful young Mrs. Licht are beginning to make a fair amount of money from the sale, increasing weekly, of Liebknecht"s Formula. "At the outset, I"d marketed it as an "elixir of health"-that sort of thing. But, y"know, there are many compet.i.tors; too many; what"s wanted is a specific property. It was staring us in the face all along: fertility."
Darian isn"t sure he has heard correctly. ""Fertility"-?"
Abraham says, smiling happily, "Human fertility, Darian. Babies-to be blunt. Some couples are unable to conceive. It"s a medical predicament of which few persons wish to speak-at least at this time-yet of course it exists, and women are aggrieved at being "barren," and men at having failed to "sire." One can"t blame them, for it"s a biblical injunction Increase and multiply! "Liebknecht"s Formula" is being promoted as a fertility elixir, manufactured and distributed by Easton Pharmaceuticals in Pennsylvania. It is something of a wonder drug, I would swear to it."
At this, Rosamund begins laughing like a young girl, and has to leave the room; Darian hears the sharp tattoo of her high-heeled shoes on the parquet floor, and her melodic voice raised at the rear of the brownstone (she must be speaking to the housekeeper); in a minute or two she"ll return, giddy and flush-faced, for she"s never out of Abraham Licht"s presence for long, and possibly she"s drawn to Darian as well. Am I in love, certainly not. My own father"s wife. What a joke! Darian too begins laughing, and coughing; Father slaps him between the shoulder blades; telling him of a whim of a bet he"d placed the previous Sunday, on a filly running at the Preakness, odds 5 to 1, he"d had a hunch she might win for her name was June Hardy and the month is June and some years ago-"Someday, son, I will tell you in full"-Abraham had been a dear friend of the former president Warren Harding, a good-hearted soul for all his failings and his deeply American ignorance; and so, with such stars in collusion, Abraham had known the filly would win.
"Only imagine, Darian-your madman of a father sneaking off without telling me, and placing two thousand dollars on a horse, and returning with ten thousand! And in cash, in all his pockets," Rosamund cries, nearly faint with laughter, pretending to be thrusting her hands into the pockets of Abraham"s velvet smoking jacket as he laughingly fends her off, "-commanding me to search him! Till all the carpet here was covered in hundred-dollar bills. But I don"t, y"know, approve of gambling. I don"t."
"Yes, Rosamund is of old, censorious American-Puritan stock. Her ancestors arrived on these sh.o.r.es in 1641-imagine! Some years preceding our own." Abraham grows sober suddenly, as if his words have awakened a disturbing memory; but the mood of the evening is such, sobriety can"t endure for more than a few seconds. At once Abraham is on his feet mixing another round of this delicious new drink, new at any rate to Darian-"The "Manhattan." Smooth as silk going down, yes?" Rosamund brings Darian his drink, their fingers brush as he takes the exquisitely shaped crystal gla.s.s, never in his life has he so much as lifted such a gla.s.s to his lips, never exchanged such a glance, such a smile from a beautiful young woman so clearly fond of him. ("Am I your "stepmother," Darian dear? I should have rushed to get well, instead of languishing like a ridiculous old prude, all those years.") Abraham is informing Darian that he"s invested nearly $1 million in Manhattan real estate. This three-story brownstone residence (at East Seventieth Street and Fifth Avenue); a similar brownstone on East Sixty-third; and a commercial building on Broadway and Forty-fifth. Prices in Manhattan are steep but will continue to rise; in another five years, if all goes well, the price of these properties will have trebled. "You have only to contemplate the stock market to see how prices will rise, rise and rise-like a spouting fountain."
For, yes, as Abraham is fond of saying-The island is finite, its promise infinite.
And its corollary-Manhattan today, all of America tomorrow.
Still, Abraham Licht"s plan isn"t to remain in Manhattan for long. He and Rosamund are going to make a major purchase sometime before the fall, a horse ranch in the Chautauqua Valley-"That most beautiful region to which I yearn to return, with my bride." Both are great admirers, it seems, of Arabian horses; Rosamund rode when she was a girl out on Long Island, and Abraham has long been interested in (hadn"t Darian known? surely yes) breeding Thoroughbreds for racing. "Not at all for money," Abraham says sternly, "-but for the aesthetics of the sport. For nothing, y"know, is quite so splendid as an Arabian in his prime."
"Or her prime," Rosamund murmurs.
"Certainly, yes. Or her prime."
Husband and wife exchange an intimate smoldering glance. Just to witness it is to feel the danger of combustion.
Darian takes a large, improvident swallow of his Manhattan.
Abraham Licht is musing how in the Chautauqua Valley, not many miles from Muirkirk, they might lead a secluded and idyllic life; precisely the sort of life suited for their imminent situation.
Imminent situation?
No. Yes. Of course. Rosamund is pregnant . . . that explains much that has pa.s.sed between husband and wife; and Darian, being an adult of nearly twenty-nine, was expected to have understood without having been told explicitly. My father, again a father. And I, another time a brother.
Rosamund, seeing Darian"s startled glance, blushes. A faint lovely rose rising from her slender throat into her angular, rather narrow face. Her skin is of the hue of ivory; despite her vivacious manner, which may be fueled by alcohol, she"s an abnormally thin woman; shivers often, though perhaps in excitement, nerved-up, as Katrina would say high-strung as a filly in heat; except, being pregnant, Rosamund is a.s.suredly not in "heat." She has draped a white crocheted shawl over her slender shoulders; her loose-fitting dress is of sea-green silk, falling fashionably to midcalf; not bobbed or shingled in the fashion of the day, her glossy black hair is parted this evening in the center of her head and gathered back in a Grecian twist at the nape of her neck. The proud mother-to-be. Darian would cry, "Congratulations! To you both." But instead takes another swallow of his drink.
Over a cold supper of oysters Rockefeller, filet mignon, creamed potatoes, Stilton cheese and glazed apricots, served by a Filipino woman in black, Abraham Licht takes up the subject, perhaps a familiar one to him, though unfamiliar to Darian, of the philosophical consequences of physiological experimentation in ident.i.ty. "Whether, that is, an individual being identical and fully present in either half of his brain might be "divided" into two separate individuals to be housed in two separate bodies. As William James believed, we are as many "selves" as there are individuals who know us; so it may be that . . . " Darian nods, trying to follow his father"s abstruse logic; yet distracted by Rosamund"s presence, her daughterly attentiveness to Abraham as if every word of his were sacred, to be committed to memory. Darian feels a pang of jealousy; of loss; that Abraham and Rosamund hadn"t attended his recital . . . for, surely, Rosamund would have found something to admire in Esopus; Rosamund would have recognized Darian"s heartfelt yearning, the very music of his soul, beneath and beyond the playful experimentation of sound. My music was written for you. Will you hear my music . . . someday?
Abraham is musing on the paradox that ident.i.ty seems to reside in the head; in "consciousness"; yet we don"t really identify with our physical selves-"For this, we say, is "my" hand, implying that it"s a mere possession, and we"re possessors. "My" arm, "my" head; even "my brain." Isn"t it paradoxical that we"re in the habit of referring to "my" soul as well?"
Darian, aroused by wine and by Rosamund"s presence, laughs nervously; saying he doesn"t know, he"s never given much thought to it, if you"re a musician you"re immersed in music night and day, day and night, hour following hour, like a lover obsessed with his beloved. "And possibly, Father, it"s only just a convention of language, peculiar to English."
"No. Hardly peculiar to English. "Moses Liebknecht" is both psychologist and linguist, a polyglot in fact, and informs us that such patterns of speech indicate a universal human habit, of separating, as Descartes did so methodically, "mind" from "body." What interests me is why we resist identifying even with our souls."
"a.s.suming, darling, that we have souls," Rosamund says. "For perhaps not all of us are so burdened."
But Abraham Licht, brooding upon his own thoughts, pays her no heed; nor notices how his long-lost Darian is gazing at him, and at her, with an expression of infinite yearning.
SHORTLY AFTERWARD, ROSAMUND excuses herself to retire for the night; and Darian"s father persuades him to stay another hour, in fact to stay the night-"We can finish this bottle of burgundy. There are so many things we need to speak of, son!"
And naturally Darian consents. Though he"d planned-vaguely-to return to Schenectady on the earliest train out of Penn Station. (Already he"s delayed returning by two days; has missed cla.s.ses at the Westheath School, with no explanation or apology to Myrick Sheffield; the past forty-eight hours have sped by in a dream.) What pleasure in Abraham"s-and Rosamund"s-company! What riches! It"s as if the humiliating "premiere" at Carnegie Hall had never occurred, nor had ever been envisioned by an arrogant young composer. When Father focuses his attention so exclusively on Darian, Darian can feel his heart swell; his "ailing" heart; and knows himself far stronger than he"d imagined. For so Zeus might breathe the spirit of life into a mere clay vessel. The first music of all is breath.
So Darian remains for another hour in the handsome brownstone on East Seventieth Street, tempted to stay, as Abraham has invited him, the night; yet wanting to maintain some measure of independence . . . some distance from Abraham Licht and his young pregnant bride, despite the dreariness of the Empire State Hotel. Eagerly he listens to his father"s conversation, which is as usual one-sided; Darian would like to ask Abraham how he and Rosamund met, how long they"ve been married, what are the circ.u.mstances of Rosamund"s life . . . but he"s too shy to interrupt. All too briefly Abraham remarks that Rosamund is a remarkable woman whom he loves deeply, far more than he"s loved any other woman; as he believes she loves him-"For it"s her conviction, Darian, that I saved her life. Which perhaps I did."
"I hope to play some of my music for her soon. If only you had a piano here . . . ."
"We"ll buy a piano. Tomorrow morning. Well-tomorrow afternoon! There"s a Steinway showroom on Park Avenue, close by. And Rosamund, I know, loves piano music." Abraham Licht smilingly snaps his fingers. Almost, Darian can see the magnificent gleaming piano materialize in the adjoining drawing room.
Following this, Abraham begins to make inquiries, tactful enough but edged with paternal concern, about Darian"s present circ.u.mstances. Abraham has to confess he"s never heard of the Wheatsheath-the Westheath?-School of Music; nor does he know anything of Schenectady, New York. "To speak bluntly, son: have you much of a future in such a place? Will you perhaps be moving on to a more prestigious school-like Juilliard, here in Manhattan?"
Darian, giddy from wine, says carelessly, "To h.e.l.l with Westheath-and Juilliard, too. I want to compose, Father. I want to alter the sound of American music." Yet in his own ears how childlike these words echo; a mere proposal, and not a statement of fact.
"Do you, son? I wish you well." Abraham raises his winegla.s.s in an oddly restrained gesture, and drinks.
Darian feels himself subtly rebuffed.
He doesn"t believe me. He has no faith in me.
Long ago p.r.o.nouncing me unfit for The Game.
The evening is fast waning. Darian will not stay with his father and his father"s bride but must return to the Empire State Hotel; and fall into bed, and sink into another oblivion. He"s both relieved and disappointed that Abraham hasn"t asked him more about his life, especially when Rosamund was still at the table. What tales Darian had to tell, long prepared to be told in such a way, to Abraham Licht, of riding the rails in the Midwest, shabby, unshaven and reckless as any hobo; of sc.r.a.ping together a living however he could, as he had reason to think Abraham had done as a young man; of Colonel Harris"s Needham Silver Cornet Band . . . and many more. "Well, there will be other evenings," Darian thinks. "Many more." It is only relief he feels that Abraham hasn"t inquired after Millie or Thurston; a.s.suming no doubt that Darian hasn"t heard of them or from them in years.
Abraham offers Darian a cigar, which he unwisely accepts; the men smoke together in thoughtful silence for a few minutes; Darian, who has only smoked cigarettes in the past, and few of these, knows he must not inhale the powerful smoke but isn"t quite sure how to smoke without inhaling. He begins to cough, and his head begins to swim. Abraham, fortunately, doesn"t notice; he"s speaking dreamily of his plans to move to the Chautauqua Valley, and to raise the finest Arabian horses to set "records of the future"; there"s a possibility, Abraham confides in Darian, in a lowered voice as if he fears being overheard, of his purchasing the renowned stallion Black Mars who"d won last year"s Kentucky Derby, sired out of the 1925 Triple Crown winner Crescent, in turn sired out of the great Midnight Sun of years past. "If only I can realize this dream," Abraham says, exhaling smoke in a bluish vaporous cloud. "What prizes, what glory for my wife and my family!"
Darian listens, fascinated. Or would be so except his head is swimming.
"For I am "family" too, am I not?" he thinks.
Darian rises to leave, and stumbles; but rights himself, with a thrill of pride, before his father can a.s.sist him; for he won"t have it said (in jest, even if in affection) by Abraham to Rosamund that poor Darian was incapacitated in the slightest. Another time Abraham invites Darian to stay the night, and another time Darian politely declines; Abraham promises to telephone him in the morning, before his train leaves; and promises to keep in touch with him, in Schenectady; even to visit, soon-"For we won"t miss another of your concerts, Darian, I vow." (Darian is confused: hadn"t Abraham planned to buy a piano the next day, so that Darian could play it for Rosamund? Or had Darian misunderstood? He blames the cigar for his muddled head and discreetly lays it aside.) Then they"re out on the street, and strolling arm in arm in the direction of Fifth Avenue, where Abraham will hail a cab for Darian, to take him to his hotel. When they part, Abraham embraces Darian impulsively. "Bless you, son!"
"And you, Father. Bless you."
Next day, Darian can"t move from his bed until early afternoon.
He has never been so sick . . . so deathly sick. As if his insides, from his lungs to his bowels, were crammed with a corrosive substance like lye. And his head filled to bursting with broken gla.s.s.
No telephone call comes from Abraham Licht.
When Darian tries to telephone Abraham Licht, he"s informed by an operator that "no such party" is listed in the directory.
When Darian is well enough to venture forth, in the early evening, he takes a cab to the brownstone on East Seventieth Street, or is it East Seventy-first Street . . . he can"t quite remember. The brownstones resemble one another, very like brownstones on East Seventy-second and East Seventy-third. When he rings the doorbells at two of these residences, no one answers; at the third, a soft-spoken woman in a uniform, possibly Filipino, opens the door to inform him that "Mister and Missus" are away. Darian asks if Abraham Licht resides at this address, and the woman shakes her head wordlessly, and quickly shuts and bolts the door.
"Wait!" cries Darian. He stumbles down the steps, and out into the street, in order to see the upper stories of the handsome house more clearly. He cups his hands to his mouth-"Father? Father! It"s me, Darian." But the upstairs windows are darkened. No face appears.
Next morning, he takes the train north to Schenectady. Praying that his "visiting instructorship" still remains at the Westheath School.
Sitting alone in the day coach staring dry-eyed out the window hearing no music in his head, scarcely even the thump! thump! thump! of the train wheels and the intermittent melancholy whistle; seeing nothing of the majestic landscape along the Hudson River. Could I console my idiot self thinking I am headed home except Schenectady is not my home. I have none.
. . . A VAST FEATURELESS Silence against which elliptical patterns of Sound define themselves: overlapping, drawing apart, rippling, shuddering, running together as wayward currents of water join in a larger stream, rushing together at varying speeds; the rising of voices (of the lost souls of Esopus, of all of the dead) displaced in Time; a gradual fantasia of broken melodies, incantations, children"s voices, chants; and always the beat, the blood-heavy beat, the relentless primitive blood-heavy beat, hardly discernible until the final fading unresolved notes.
"PROPHET, REGENT & EXCHEQUER . . . "
When Prince Elihu speaks all of the world, white no less than Negro, is obliged to listen: for it is Elihu"s teaching that Africa is the birthplace of all civilization, and black and dark-skinned peoples, descended from Ham, are the origin of mankind; of whom the white man is but a fallen, diseased, and doomed specimen, who, by an ironic reversal of history, has come to a.s.sume a temporary sovereignty. And Africa, and the black and dark-skinned peoples of the world, shall rise again, to reclaim in righteousness the lost grandeur of that civilization-whether with the cooperation of the white race, or no.
(For the Caucasians are but a tribe of vicious cannibal-devils, as the recent World War made clear; and within a decade or two, according to Elihu"s calculation, there will follow yet a second world war waged by Caucasians, against Caucasians, which will destroy their degenerate civilization entirely.) Thus, speaking as the Prophet, Regent & Exchequer of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union, Prince Elihu commands that the United States Government prepare to deliver to the Negro people within its territorial boundaries either a portion of land (of the size of Oklahoma), including a waterfront; or rest.i.tution of no less than $5 billion as indemnity for the outrage of slavery, that the entire Negro population of the North American continent might one day migrate en ma.s.se back to Africa, to colonize a pure black republic . . . and to prepare for the eventual overthrow of the white-controlled regions of the entire continent.
Liberty or Death! was the watchword of the martyred Gabriel Prosser, a twenty-two-year-old slave tortured to death in 1800 by his white captors-Die silent as you shall see me do.
So with Prince Elihu, it is Liberty or Death; and Death Before Humility.
AND: BROTHERS BY blood are brothers by the soul.
And: All white men are our enemies, then and now.
IT IS WHISPERED through Harlem that Prince Elihu is possessed of immortal powers: that he was born with the gift of voodoo-telepathy; of mesmerism; of slipping out of his skin and entering another"s, by way of the secrecy of Night. Though born in Jamaica, or Haiti, or, perhaps, the Windward Islands, some forty years ago, he is nonetheless believed to be the avatar of the ancient African king Elihu (himself related to Egyptian and Turkish n.o.bility)-he who, according to legend, arose out of the fiery flood of a volcano"s eruption, and led his people to military glory as conquerors of the region now known as the Ivory Coast. Thus, though numerous attempts have been made on his life, by both Negroes and whites, he cannot be killed.
Yet he carries a bone-handled stiletto strapped to his left leg, with which, it is said, he has killed a white man (a white policeman, in some versions of the account); and, when attacked by a crazed fellow prisoner in the Atlanta penitentiary (a Georgian Negro whose brains had fried from chain-gang work in 110-degree heat), he managed to overcome his a.s.sailant, and hold him powerless on the ground, without so much as laying a hand to him.
(Of such feats Elihu says carelessly, that, as the eyes of the cannibal-devils are fixed upon him, he is obliged to be a G.o.d, that they not mistake him for a beast.) IN PATERSON, NEW Jersey, in March of 1917, while leading a rally to protest the deaths of three young Negroes savagely beaten by police, and to promote the cause of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union, Prince Elihu was fired upon suddenly by white-hooded men: yet so fierce were his powers that night, so impenetrable the aura he had cast about himself, the clumsy fusillade of bullets spared him utterly.
And not long afterward, following his arrest on charges of sedition ("Having incited both by language and conduct actions directly in defiance of the authority of the United States Government . . . "), Elihu, though making no attempt to resist his captors or to escape, was nonetheless handcuffed by federal agents, and subjected to a beating of many hours in the Manhattan interrogation chamber of the Bureau of Investigation: which beating had not the power of weakening his proud defense, and his disclaiming of all authority of the United States Government over him, at the time of his public indictment.
And, in the h.e.l.lish Atlanta penitentiary, amid diseased, mentally deranged, and vicious persons, of his own race no less than the Caucasian, the n.o.ble Prince withstood any number of physical a.s.saults upon his body; and soon developed a power of second sight that allowed him to know beforehand if he was in danger . . . nor did this remarkable faculty ebb when Elihu was pardoned by the publicity-seeking Warren G. Harding, but, rather, intensified, as the Negro leader continued fearlessly to travel about the country, even into the deepest South, seeking members for his revolutionary organization, and making investigations into lynchings, rigged trials, rapes and various a.s.saults, etc., directed toward Negroes by their fellow Americans.
Many a time the Prophet, Regent & Exchequer of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union was fired upon by cowardly white men, in ambush; many a time was a bomb attached to his car, or thrown into a meeting hall or church in which he was speaking. Yet his powers were such, not only he but those standing close to him were spared; in most instances, at least. (For it must be admitted that numerous tragedies have occurred during Prince Elihu"s campaign to awaken his fellow blacks from their delusion of believing themselves American, when in fact they are Negroes: a truth, Elihu tells them, the white man knows, and acts upon covertly or otherwise at all times.) ALSO, IT"S WHISPERED that Prince Elihu did indeed succ.u.mb to Death, in the palace of the President of Liberia (whose privileged guest he was at the time): being stricken suddenly with a violent malaise that threw him into convulsions, and then into a coma, or a trance, for twenty hours: from which finally, he emerged-by way of his own princely will. And it is said that he alone survived the "accidental" crash of the six-pa.s.senger biplane, the Black Eagle (newly purchased for the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union); and the "accidental" sinking, one hundred miles south of Long Island, en route to Miami, of the ocean liner Black Jupiter (newly purchased for the purpose of trade with Negro businesses in the West Indies and Africa) . . . though very little is known of the actual circ.u.mstances of these misfortunes. (For they were reported but tersely on an inside page of the Negro Union Times.) Yet more sensationally, it is whispered that Prince Elihu overcame a crude attempt on his life in the fall of 1928, at a secret meeting with white leaders (among them Mayor Jimmy Walker, Anglican bishop Henry Rudwick, a scattering of wealthy businessmen, and, not least, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan), when he unknowingly swallowed poison in a gla.s.s of wine . . . or a piece of fruit . . . yet managed, by a supreme effort of his n.o.ble will, to shake off the effect of the powerful draft.
And so on, and so forth: for as many persons who have glimpsed Elihu, let alone have had occasion to speak with him, come away with tales about him; which, while being never wholly true, are yet perhaps never wholly false.
Elihu is not a man but a Destiny, the Prince himself has said-and Destiny must run its course.
LESS TO HIS liking, however, it is said that, despite his pose of celibacy, he has in fact numberless wives: a virtual harem of dark-skinned women!-many of them sequestered on the topmost floor of his private brick residence on Strivers Row (the most exclusive block in all of Harlem); others scattered through the city. Indeed, in every part of the United States, in every foreign country in which Elihu has had occasion to travel since the formation of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union in 1916-among these, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Central America, the West Indies, Brazil and Argentina-Elihu has aroused such desire in women, or by voodoo-telepathy has summoned them to him, that not King Solomon in all his manly glory (possessed of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines) is more to be marveled at. How shameless these women, and how desperate!-aflame, as they confess themselves, with love of the mahogany-skinned Prince (most dazzling in his immaculate white caftan and white, white trousers, flaring just perceptibly at the ankles, with, upon certain ceremonial occasions, a bit of gold braid, a bit of crimson velvet, a ruby-studded golden sword carried almost sportily at his side): whom they attempt to approach after his speeches and rallies, crowding about, weeping, nearly hysterical, kept at a discreet distance by Elihu"s guards, though, surely?-the more attractive among them are summoned afterward to meet with Elihu, that their frenzied pa.s.sion be absolved. For even l.u.s.t may be counted holy, when in the service of the race. (Indeed, it has been the claim of hundreds of Negro women, during the years of Prince Elihu"s ascendancy, that the "call" comes to them in their dreams: a vision of their Prince appearing to them by night, summoning them to him, that he might get them with child . . . to maintain the purity of the Negro race, much despoiled in the past several centuries by the white devil"s seed.) And it surely follows, then, that Prince Elihu has fathered numberless sons and daughters, in these many parts of the world; each marked by his strong bold features, the near-black eyes flecked with micalike glints of hazel, the long broad nose, the haughty upper lip; marked too (as their mothers boast) by his wild spirit.
For Prince Elihu is no ordinary man; but fired with the zealous virility of an African king, of ancient times.
The Prince and his most trusted ministers, however, respond with impatience at such tales; for after all Elihu has pledged himself to chast.i.ty, celibacy and manly virtue, as have the most devoted of his followers; all pa.s.sion to be directed toward the triumph of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union, and the eventual reclamation of the great lost civilization of Africa. (This to be done within the next decade; for, by Elihu"s calculation, the second of the cannibal-devils" wars will begin by that time, in Europe.) So when distraught women crowd about the platform following one of Elihu"s rallies, or appear drunken and weeping at his doorstep on 138th Street, pleading to be admitted, his guards are instructed to turn them away courteously yet forcefully; and to discourage them from further such shameless and degrading behavior. It is their sacred duty to wed and to bring forth black progeny with men of their own sphere, that the race maintain its vigor. For, as Elihu has said, the eyes of the cannibal-devils being fixed upon him, he is obliged to be a G.o.d, that they not mistake him for a beast.
Yet to many observers, his fellow Negroes no less than his adversary whites, Prince Elihu is neither a G.o.d nor a beast but a common charlatan: indeed, a common criminal-too wily, at the present time, to trip himself up.
But Elihu is as swollen with pride as the legendary peac.o.c.k, isn"t he?-and Pride goeth before a fall.
For, murmur his enemies, only consider: since the formation of his World Union in 1916, he has drawn into his net an estimated eighty thousand to one hundred thousand Negroes in the United States and abroad, each paying dues of 35 per month; and contributing a good deal more. (In the official publication of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union, Negro Union Times-a brisk new rival to such publications as The Crisis of the National a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Colored People, and The Guardian of the National Rights League-reports of the Union"s progress and financial state vary from week to week. Sometimes it"s proclaimed that the membership is climbing toward its goal of 1 million members by 1930; sometimes it is lamented that the membership is stalled-the consequence of "old-time Negro cowardice." Occasionally a news item will proclaim that Prince Elihu"s followers are generous in their contributions; at other times, that they are falling behind in their dues. In general, however, the tone of the Negro Union Times is one of formality and dignity, at least in those editorials written by Elihu himself; for it"s a principle of Elihu that one cannot boast of worldly success without lapsing into vulgarity. When the Negro revolution is complete, and Africa reclaimed by her exiled sons and daughters, then will begin the new age, the Black Age, when human worth will no longer be equated with mere money . . . .) But as Dr. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois of The Crisis has charged, Is not one of Prince Elihu"s goals the acc.u.mulation of money?-and power, and fame, and the installation of the fraudulent "Prince" as the reigning monarch of the colored world?
To which crude accusation the Prince himself has declined to reply except obliquely, at his Harlem rallies: "It is not given to one of low propensities and despoiled vision to comprehend the high."
AS THE FIERY Elihu, springing, it seemed, virtually out of nowhere-the eruption of a holy volcano, perhaps, in the very midst of Harlem"s streets-drew from the first the active hostility of white adversaries ranging from the New York City police to the Attorney General of the United States, so too, and perhaps not altogether innocently, did he arouse the hostility and deep resentment of other Negroes. For, after all, each Negro who chose to join the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union, and to pay 35 cents per month for the privilege, was very likely choosing not to join such Harlem-based organizations as the NAACP, which had been founded in 1909; or the National Rights League; or the National Urban League; or the Liberty League of Afro-Americans; or even the aggressive Socialists of Harlem. These organizations, closely bound up with Negro churches and businesses, and headed by intellectuals, drew Elihu"s lofty scorn from the very first. Their leaders, he charged, lacked the "tragic eye of History": they suffered from the blindness of false optimism; the inability to comprehend, as one of n.o.ble blood did, that the purity of the Negro race can only be contaminated by a.s.sociation of any kind with the white cannibal-devils . . . who must be delivered from the Christian delusions of certain of their spokesmen, pressing upon them the injunction Love thy neighbor as thyself when such an action, for the white cannibal-devil, is an impossibility.
"They do not love themselves," Elihu says scornfully, "-how, then, can they love their neighbor?"
No: the goal for Negroes cannot be integration with their enemies, still less with a race as debased as the Caucasian; it can only be the establishment of a colony-state on this continent, prior to a ma.s.s emigration to the continent of their origin, Africa. Begging former slave-holders for crumbs (stable wages, decent working conditions, a federal lynching law) is unworthy of a n.o.ble race; it is demands that must be made-for a sizable portion of land, fronting on the ocean, within the territorial United States; or rest.i.tution of $5 billion as indemnity for past abuses. ("Though it is ten billion that is deserved," as Elihu has said.) To dwell amid a degenerate race, particularly one that in its mental derangement imagines itself superior, is intolerable for all Negroes. Thus the aims of existing Negro "betterment" organizations are null and void from this time hence.
Little wonder then that Prince Elihu has acc.u.mulated countless enemies among his neighbors; and that bookmakers both Negro and Caucasian began as early as 1925 to make book on how long he might live.
The earnest, well-spoken, proudly Christian and educated gentlemen of the NAACP, for instance, find it intolerable that a transparent charlatan like "Prince" Elihu (avatar of an African king, indeed) has been able to draw the enthusiastic, even ecstatic, support of large ma.s.ses of Negroes to whom they have made little appeal-they, who are so reasonable, and pious, and patriotic, they might be white men but accidentally trapped in black skin! The much-publicized goal of this organization is equality for the colored in all phases of American life; and where possible integration of the races-the very ideal treated with such contempt by Prince Elihu.
Then again, the Socialist Party is scandalized by Elihu"s repeated a.s.sertions that race, not cla.s.s, determines destiny; that the Negro worker has very little in common with the white worker, save being the object of his especial hatred, should an economic recession occur. The Socialist publication in Harlem, The Emanc.i.p.ator, stresses the ideal of world unification of all workers against the imperialist cla.s.s, but Elihu insists that all whites without exception, including Marx and Lenin, const.i.tute an imperialist cla.s.s-"For it is the very soul of the Caucasian that is degenerate, not merely his rung on the ladder of society," Elihu says with withering scorn. Those Socialists, Communists and Anarchists who preach a natural brotherhood of man, regardless of skin color, are as deluded as their imperialist adversaries who believe the dark races marked by their Christian G.o.d as inferior, and fit solely to be enslaved.
Also, says Elihu contemptuously, "There can be no cla.s.sless society-not even in the grave."
It"s no surprise that the Christian ministers of Harlem are allied in righteous opposition to Prince Elihu, who ridicules their churches for being childish versions of the white cannibal-devil"s church, and their theology for aping the white cannibal-devil"s theology; and who speaks lightly of the Savior, Jesus Christ ("If he was crucified, then he is bound to have been black-but where are the black Christs?"). The Christian G.o.d is never evoked by Elihu in his speeches, though he makes a glancing reference now and then to Allah; his emphasis is primarily upon History, Destiny, Fate; yet the "free volition" of the Negro race to alter its present condition.
For Heaven, should it exist, is African; Africa itself.
Black businessmen who want only to make as much money as possible in the interstices of the racist society, and who fear and loathe the poorer Negroes among them, are frightened of Elihu"s aim of a separate state or African colony; those businessmen whose specific trade turns upon Negro self-hatred (their products being skin bleaches, greasy pomades, hot combs, etc.) are frightened that Elihu"s preaching of race pride will injure their sales. (For the Negro race is the origin of mankind, Elihu insists, and the white man is but a fallen, diseased, and doomed specimen: thus it surely follows that white features-skin of a certain pigment, hair of a certain texture, etc.-are hardly to be emulated.) Naturally black politicians hate Prince Elihu, in whom they see a dangerous rival for the fickle love of the ma.s.ses; black "numbers" bosses and bootleggers hate him, for his pose of self-righteous purity, and his frequent admonitions to the people that they give to the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union the money usually wasted on gambling, whiskey and other dissipations. Elihu has also warned that when he and his followers come into power, all Negroes who emulate Caucasians in preying upon their own kind will be "severely punished."
More mysterious is the official action of the Republic of Liberia in declaring Prince Elihu persona non grata following his tour of the country in winter 1926, and barring the black revolutionary from returning. The Liberian amba.s.sador to the United States has declared that Elihu, Prophet, Regent & Exchequer of the World Negro Betterment & Liberation Union has tried to interfere with domestic Liberian affairs (daring to suggest economic and land "reforms" while a guest of the President himself); and his intention to make war against other sovereign African states by proclaiming that Black Africa has the "moral obligation" to free those Negro peoples enslaved by the colonial rule of the English, Dutch, Belgians, etc. For these reasons, Prince Elihu will not be permitted to cross the border into Liberia again under pain of death.
"If I am the declared enemy of criminals and murderers, am I to be ashamed, or rather proud?"-so Prince Elihu has issued his sole public statement on the Liberian affair. He has told his a.s.sociates at Union headquarters that, on his side, diplomatic ties are henceforth severed between his society and the black African states that have betrayed them. "And when millions of Negroes emigrate from North America to the continent of their origins, it will be to another sort of Africa, I promise-perhaps the southern tip which is said to be so beautiful, and so rich in natural resources-and not the treacherous West Coast."