Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [121]
"Come, let's get a drink," he said, guiding me toward the end of the room.
The woman who'd let us in was mixing drinks behind a handsome free-form bar which was large enough to have graced a night club.
"How about a drink for us, Emma?" Brother Jack said.
"Well, now, I'll have to think about it," she said, tilting her severely drawn head and smiling.
"Don't think, act," he said. "We're very thirsty men. This young man pushed history ahead twenty years today."
"Oh," she said, her eyes becoming intent. "You must tell me about him."
"Just read the morning papers, Emma. Things have begun to move. Yes, leap ahead." He laughed deeply.
"What would you like, Brother?" she said, her eyes brushing slowly over my face.
"Bourbon," I said, a little too loudly, as I remembered the best the South had to offer. My face was warm, but I returned her glance as steadily as I dared. It was not the harsh uninterested-in-you-as-a-human-being stare that I'd known in the South, the kind that swept over a black man as though he were a horse or an insect; it was something more, a direct, what-type-of-mere-man-have-we-here kind of look that seemed to go beneath my skin . . . Somewhere in my leg a muscle twitched violently.
"Emma, the bourbon! Two bourbons," Brother Jack said.
"You know," she said, picking up a decanter, "I'm intrigued."
"Naturally. Always," he said. "Intrigued and intriguing. But we're dying of thirst."
"Only of impatience," she said, pouring the drinks. "I mean you are. Tell me, where did you find this young hero of the people?"
"I didn't," Brother Jack said. "He simply arose out of a crowd. The people always throw up their leaders, you know . . ."
"Throw them up," she said. "Nonsense, they chew them up and spit them out. Their leaders are made, not born. Then they're destroyed. You've always said that. Here you are, Brother."
He looked at her steadily. I took the heavy crystal glass and raised it to my lips, glad for an excuse to turn from her eyes. A haze of cigarette smoke drifted through the room. I heard a series of rich arpeggios sound on the piano behind me and turned to look, hearing the woman Emma say not quite softly enough, "But don't you think he should be a little blacker?"
"Shhh, don't be a damn fool," Brother Jack said sharply. "We're not interested in his looks but in his voice. And I suggest, Emma, that you make it your interest too . . ."
Suddenly hot and breathless, I saw a window across the room and went over and stood looking out. We were up very high; street lamps and traffic cut patterns in the night below. So she doesn't think I'm black enough. What does she want, a black-face comedian? Who is she, anyway, Brother Jack's wife, his girl friend? Maybe she wants to see me sweat coal tar, ink, shoe polish, graphite. What was I, a man or a natural resource?
The window was so high that I could barely hear the sound of traffic below . . . This was a bad beginning, but hell, I was being hired by Brother Jack, if he still wanted me, not this Emma woman. I'd like to show her how really black I am, I thought, taking a big drink of the bourbon. It was smooth, cold. I'd have to be careful with the stuff. Anything might happen if I had too much. With these people I'll have to be careful. Always careful. With all people I'll have to be careful . . .
"It's a pleasant view, isn't it?" a voice said, and I whirled to see a tall dark man. "But now would you mind joining us in the library?" he said.
Brother Jack, the men who had come along in the car, and two others whom I hadn't seen before were waiting.
"Come in, Brother," Jack said. "Business before pleasure is always a good rule, whoever you are. Some day the rule shall be business with pleasure, for the joy of labor shall have been restored. Sit down."
I took the chair directly before him, wondering what this speech was