The Notched Hairpin (11 page)

“For we did go on trying to find other trial shockers, as we called them. And the next was our last. The next did, at length, bring this modern silly madness of hell-fire clubism to a head. Our secretary, who showed industry worthy of a better pursuit, went on hunting for oddities. He drew a few blanks, it is true, but one day he came in elated.

“‘Look at our list,' he said boastfully. ‘Up to date our catalogue of crooks runs its roll of industries—Limey, with gin for gringos; the Alsatian, with bombs for Bengalese; Crofts, with repression-ridding for undergraduates; and our little Armenian with his 'eroin for Arabs, and in the end for all Europe. And now I can crown the list.'

“To our ‘Who?' he said ‘Wait.'

“Well, he certainly was right. His find crowned and closed the list.”

Millum paused, and then added, “And has led, among other things, to us three being here. I can see that evening. We used to have that hideous hole in which we met lit with those awful incandescent gas mantles, over which were draped those shades just like a woman's hat in the nineties. The room was always, therefore, hot, and a slight whistling sound as of an asthmatic pug came from the lights. Our secretary was to bring our guest, and five minutes after we were all ready, the door opened.

“He ushered in a towering figure that filled the doorway with a torso dressed in fawn-gray worsted of the finest weave but rather too fine cut. At the too-many-buttoned sleeve ends, an ivory silk shirt showed its cuffs, held by sapphire and platinum links. The tie was silk of Naples yellow; the shoes of patent leather. And, perhaps you will have guessed, the hands and head coal black. He was a giant West African Negro. He bowed to us, and in that rich drawl, without waiting to be introduced, remarked, ‘Pleased to meet you, gentlemen. My name is Johnstone, Odysseus Kaled Johnstone of Zimbawbee Ranch, Mid-Congo, and the Palestrina Apartments, Pall Mall.” He then swept us a bow, and moved his vast frame over to us at the table. Our secretary, being able now to get into the room, began making our presentations to this black presence.

“We didn't have to put him at ease. He was easily king of his company. He spoke of Africa, and said he was sure we were interested in its art.

“‘I am no artist, alas,' he said, ‘but I trust I do my little part to be a patron; and, as far as a very busy man may be, an amateur.'

“As the meal came to a close he demonstrated for us, with just the butts of two table knives, what he took rhythm to be. We all held that modern syncopation, if it was African, had demoded all classic music. Indeed, here stole in one of our inconsistencies. We had to say that the “Honeysuckle and the Bee” gave us more amusement than any song by Brahms, but this authentic savage liveliness from the Congo, we somehow made out, came under our category of delicious ill-tastes. We sat entranced, while quicker and quicker he beat out ever more complex tappings. Suddenly he said, throwing down the knives:

“‘That's merely the echo of the real thing. In Africa we still know what all the rest of the world has forgotten, that music is wonderful as far and only so far as it is the auditory aspect—or, if you will, outlet—of the whole rhythm of life. It is part of the dance and the dance part of the drama. But much as I admire our music, I sometimes think, gentlemen, I am (and might have shown I was, had I not been kept so busy as an executive) more of a plastic artist. If you will give me leave, I will ask my chauffeur to bring up for your inspection a couple of masks which I am taking on to present to one of my friends for one of your large museums.'

“Our secretary asked if he might go, and after a couple of minutes he returned with a chauffeur in lemon-colored livery with silver facings bearing a large box. It was the contrast of man and master on the one hand, and what came out of that box (a huge, white glazed cardboard thing in which are sent the floral tributes meant for a prima donna) that gave us just the thrill we'd hoped for. This evening, we now felt, was surely our best, our climax. The introduction could not have been more symbolically apt. For out of the virgin-looking pasteboard and wrappings of tissue paper came two of the most frightful examples I have ever seen of that strangest of arts—Negro dramatic carving. All the apparent exuberance of Bantu physique and rhythm has no echo or reflection in this terrifying work. The inspiration seems a nightmare obsession with blood, fear, and cruelty. True, they were carved superbly—what they wished to convey they did as powerfully as Phidias could make cold marble take on the spirit of Olympian calm. And the addition of real hair and beards, gray and clotted, did not make them comic but more terrifying. One had in its jaws a none-too-well-cured child's skull; the other's teeth were fringed with adults' fingerbones.

“‘These are authentic. So much that you have in your collections here is, as Americans would say, custom built. You will have already recognized, in regard to these, that they have been used. They are true sacrificial objects. That,' he paused, letting his hesitation give effect to the word he chose, ‘that “dressing” on the beards and hair is—well, what must be employed if our magic is to operate.'

“He lifted the one whose teeth held the child's skull and put it in front of his own face. From its foul mouth came a sound which suited its looks. It seemed to breathe loathing out upon us. The appeal of these objects assaulted all the senses. For the crowning touch,
le succès fou
, was given to this show when, the warmth of the room affecting the objects, they began to yield a smell that made their showman's hints and recollections come almost tangibly to life.

“Then, turning to me as he laid aside this cloud of beastliness and his big, black, beaming face appeared again, he added in the blandest manner, ‘Of course, Sir, they go too far. The artist and every enthusiast always tends to shock the practical moralist, and such, Sir, I cannot help being. Superb art, as this, has its place. But it must allow that it has no right—if I may paraphrase and convert the Latin epi-grammatist—to shorten life that it may prolong itself! I am absolutely loyal to our wonderful culture. But I have, as a man of the mode—and what is that but to say a person of the current civilized mores?—to recognize that Art cannot be wholly free to be Art for Art's sake only; nor can we—however anthropologically interesting it may be—preserve the Tradition at any price.'

“We were quite at a loss as to how to take this modulation of key. But we were all too afraid of the others to suggest or show by a sign that we might be getting out of our depth in this black man's clever word-play. What in hell's name could he be driving at?

“The next remark puzzled us even more: ‘So I became one of the faithful. One must move with the times.'

“It flashed through my mind that it might really prove too much for our stomachs, too violent and rapid a vertigo if, after all, this great black man should at the end prove to be a Baptist evangelist, and under all his appearance of
outré
culture have come here to sell us Fundamentalist tracts! That would have been a joke at our expense which I doubt if any of us would have been sufficiently subtle to be able to turn to effect. For an instant I sensed our horrid fear that, in this oddest of disguises, the Trojan horse device had been employed to penetrate our Troy, and that this was the cunning master counterattack from the ‘saved' native against the ‘damned' white—a revenge so exquisite and so wholly at our expense that we could not foot the bill: we should have lost face for good and to ourselves.

“But the next remark cleared us of that ghastly possibility, though still leaving us sufficiently uneasy.

“‘So, gentlemen, I joined the Faith, the One Faith of the One—I refer to Islam—Allah Akbar, Bismillah. Yes, all Africa is bowing, like swaths of ripe wheat when the wind goes over it, bowing to the Word that speaks from the Kaaba, the wind that blows from Arabia the blessed. All Africa, pan-Africa, shall rise under the green flag and the crescent.'

“A pan-Islam lecture would be a bore. But we felt with relief that we had escaped the worse fate of being asked if we ourselves were saved. That would have been, in the old, stale term, too ‘shy-making.' So we settled down while our guest flowed on, as though he were the Congo itself:

“‘I do my part, I trust, loyally. At my initiation by circumcision (no casual water baptism, let me assure you, gentlemen, when performed by ritual correctitude with authentic flint instead of unorthodox steel—oh, yes, we converts pay the price for being True Believers) I took, as I've mentioned to you when I introduced myself, as my mid-second name that of him who, because he swept north with the Faith and mowed down the first white areas (I refer to the glorious conquest of Iran), was named by the Prophet himself “Kaled the Sword of Allah,” And so, as I serve the Faith, I may rightly hope for houris and paradise. I say it advisedly: I am no languid convert, content to have secured only my own salvation. I spread the Word.'

“Then, for the first time, he looked us over with a sudden shrewd sweep of those great ivory eyes in that mask of ebony.

“‘Islam works with Africa as Africa understands. So it worked with my own soul. We have the so-called white man on us all the time, under the name of humanity, trying to break up African unity, so we must work quietly. We have what may be called a front. That is to say, my own business has two sides, one economic and the other religious. To give the taxation authorities the evidence they need and which I must submit for my standard of life,' and he looked complacently at his clothes, ‘I have my business—large coco plantations. For some reason, that rather cloying drink wrung from black labor always appeals to the Quaker and nonconformist conscience. And behind the waving coco palm I have cover for those bigger aims which are so largely religious.'

“Then suddenly, as though he had gagged sufficiently—I think because he had made up his mind that he might do business with us—his tone changed and he became rapid, matter-of-fact, and startlingly explicit. He smiled a vast ogreish smile and hummed ‘Does any little child ever really want to go to school?'

“‘That, gentlemen, is it in a nutshell. We take them to school. Education is said to be liked by the white, but only if it leads the black to serve him. Well, we have learned the lesson. Mind you, Africa is one. We have no color bar. Arabia gave us our religion and we owe Arabia some return.'

“For a moment we thought we were lost again, but he put us back on the rails with a bump with, ‘My little enterprise—the first to be properly organized on a joint-stock basis with all modern office technique—is what you might call a Meet-Your-Fellow-Religionist club, or a domestic-servant agency. The Arabs up north are fine, God-fearing men, and, as I've said, the time has come for my own people to let their faith become art. So,' and he went on without a change of tone, ‘for a comparatively small commission I carry out the transfers and provide the Arab homes of the north with the domestic help they need, while that domestic help gains the incomparable benefit of being brought up in God-fearing homes. Thus,' and he spoke with a complacency that awoke our rather grudging capacity for admiration, ‘I am making the best of both worlds: giving my coreligionist clients in the north the economic service they require, and giving my fellow countrymen of central Africa the religious opportunities, of which they will stand in dire need when the few short years of this life are over.'

“‘Why I tell you this is not only because I realize that its anthropological and missionary interest will appeal to you, but because of quite a practical matter. My zeal for the spiritual good of my people, and for doing something practical for those who gave me my faith, has been blessed, greatly blessed. But, as you know, when a business is set up with entirely new standards of efficiency, when an old trade is completely reorganized on modern terms, then the difficulty is lack of capital. You will understand that self-interest, aping hypocritically as morality, has made it impossible for me to raise money openly on the big exchanges of Europe or America. Hence I am wondering whether,' and he waved his hand to the ceiling, ‘as you have written that charming motto, as a courtesy, in sham Arabic lettering, now that the providence of Allah has put His work and a handsome profit in your way, you who have money would not aid this fine missionary work. I am ready to give you figures. But as an introduction I will tell you out of my head that we pay anything from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty per cent.'

“Though nearly all our cleverness was just word-froth, we weren't quite so stupid that we didn't know what he'd told us. Under the most perfect impudence of religious zeal blended with Negro nationalism, he was asking us to come in on the slave trade. As we were mistaken often for being Leftwing because we were always mocking the Right, we were often sent some of the Left's exposures of the Right's hypocrisies. Among them, I remember getting some amusement, when I had nothing else to read—and, being a reading addict, having to read something—” (Mr, Mycroft smiled) “from reading an attack on the British coco trade, the power of vituperation making up for the lack of proof—saying that it was mixed up or letting itself be used as a blind for some kind of slave trade going on behind its plantations. And again none of us dared to show we were shocked, and perhaps some of us weren't. I know Sankey, with considerable sang-froid—but I don't think thinking he'd be taken at his word—said, ‘Of course we'd have to see the actual figures and then, as the ceiling says, we're open to offers. All capitalization is exploitation and I prefer my blackguardism unblessed by the bench of bishops.'

“‘Very right, Sir,' our black tempter replied, and rose. ‘I will be sending you the figures of the Mid-Congo Employment Agency, Ltd.' He bowed.

“But when he was gone, none of us could back down in each other's presence. Sankey, indeed, remarked, ‘He's probably simply a wide-mouthed black boaster, but if he can live up to his word, this is going to be the most profitable dinner we've ever given.'