“They say,” was her bantering greeting, “that if one stands on the corner of One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street and Seventh Avenue long enough, one will eventually see all the people one has ever known or met. It’s pretty true, I guess. Not literally of course.” He was, she saw, getting himself together. “It’s only another way of saying that everybody, almost, some time sooner or later comes to Harlem, even you.”
He laughed. “Yes, I guess that is true enough. I didn’t come to stay, though.” And then he was grave, his earnest eyes searchingly upon her.
“Well, anyway, you’re here now, so let’s find a quiet corner if that’s possible, where we can talk. I want to hear all about you.”
For a moment he hung back and a glint of mischief shone in Helga’s eyes. “I see,” she said, “you’re just the same. However, you needn’t be anxious. This isn’t Naxos, you know. Nobody’s watching us, or if they are, they don’t care a bit what we do.”
At that he flushed a little, protested a little, and followed her. And when at last they had found seats in another room, not so crowded, he said: “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you were still abroad.”
“Oh, I’ve been back some time, ever since Dr. Anderson’s marriage. Anne, you know, is a great friend of mine. I used to live with her. I came for the wedding. But, of course, I’m not staying. I didn’t think I’d be here this long.”
“You don’t mean that you’re going to live over there? Do you really like it so much better?”
“Yes and no, to both questions. I was awfully glad to get back, but I wouldn’t live here always. I couldn’t. I don’t think that any of us who’ve lived abroad for any length of time would ever live here altogether again if they could help it.”
“Lot of them do, though,” James Vayle pointed out.
“Oh, I don’t mean tourists who rush over to Europe and rush all over the continent and rush back to America thinking they know Europe. I mean people who’ve actually lived there, actually lived among the people.”
“I still maintain that they nearly all come back here eventually to live.”
“That’s because they can’t help it,” Helga Crane said firmly. “Money, you know.”
“Perhaps, I’m not so sure. I was in the war. Of course, that’s not really living over there, but I saw the country and the difference in treatment. But, I can tell you, I was pretty darn glad to get back. All the fellows were.” He shook his head solemnly. “I don’t think anything, money or lack of money, keeps us here. If it was only that, if we really wanted to leave, we’d go all right. No, it’s something else, something deeper than that.”
“And just what do you think it is?”
“I’m afraid it’s hard to explain, but I suppose it’s just that we like to be together. I simply can’t imagine living forever away from colored people.”
A suspicion of a frown drew Helga’s brows. She threw out rather tartly: “I’m a Negro too, you know.”
“Well, Helga, you were always a little different, a little dissatisfied, though I don’t pretend to understand you at all. I never did,” he said a little wistfully.
And Helga, who was beginning to feel that the conversation had taken an impersonal and disappointing tone, was reassured and gave him her most sympathetic smile and said almost gently: “And now let’s talk about you. You’re still at Naxos?”
“Yes I’m still there. I’m assistant principal now.”
Plainly it was a cause for enthusiastic congratulation, but Helga could only manage a tepid “How nice!” Naxos was to her too remote, too unimportant. She did not even hate it now.
How long, she asked, would James be in New York?
He couldn’t say. Business, important business for the school, had brought him. It was, he said, another tone creeping into his voice, another look stealing over his face, awfully good to see her. She was looking tremendously well. He hoped he would have the opportunity of seeing her again.
But of course. He must come to see her. Any time, she was always in, or would be for him. And how did he like New York, Harlem?
He didn’t, it seemed, like it. It was nice to visit, but not to live in. Oh, there were so many things he didn’t like about it, the rush, the lack of home life, the crowds, the noisy meaninglessness of it all.
On Helga’s face there had come that pityingly sneering look peculiar to imported New Yorkers when the city of their adoption is attacked by alien Americans. With polite contempt she inquired: “And is that all you don’t like?”
At her tone the man’s bronze face went purple. He answered coldly, slowly, with a faint gesture in the direction of Helen Tavenor, who stood conversing gayly with one of her white guests: “And I don’t like that sort of thing. In fact I detest it.”
“Why?” Helga was striving hard to be casual in her manner.
James Vayle, it was evident, was beginning to be angry. It was also evident that Helga Crane’s question had embarrassed him. But he seized the bull by the horns and said: “You know as well as I do, Helga, that it’s the colored girls these men come up here to see. They wouldn’t think of bringing their wives.” And he blushed furiously at his own implication. The blush restored Helga’s good temper. James was really too funny.
“That,” she said softly, “is Hugh Wentworth, the novelist, you know.” And she indicated a tall olive-skinned girl being whirled about to the streaming music in the arms of a towering black man. “And that is his wife. She isn’t colored, as you’ve probably been thinking. And now let’s change the subject again.”
“All right! And this time let’s talk about you. You say you don’t intend to live here. Don’t you ever
