THE MOHAMMEDANS
285
beg of you, one moment more! I came to this meeting with no idea of
what I was going to say to you-and now I know! Yes, Simon is guilty,
I mean Wiley Bey is guilty. We are all guilty!"
He paused, carried away, and pointed his finger at the ceiling.
"Consider for a moment what a chain of guilt must have produced
a situation like this! The infinite multitude of mean and grandiose actions
without which-without
all
of which-this world we cling to in des–
peration would not be ours. What Wiley Bey does not sufficiently realize
and who can blame him?-is that the Negroes in this country are only
one link in the chain. They were dragged here by men who had sold their
souls to the devil. They were set free as a matter of expediency,
and
that
was
the only possible way!
Wiley Bey is a powerful man, above all
a man of moral earnestness. He is aware of the guilt of a country which
gives birth to the slogans we hear and read every day. Buy Blabber's
Beer and remember Pearl Harbor! No Negroes need apply! And so he
in
turn-1 tell you, there's no end to it!-commits the sins of despair
and pride, chooses to withdraw from a society which is still capable of
absorbing his values. To dissolve the City which grew painfully,
crookedly, corruptly, and which alone stands between us and the un–
ending jungle!"
Simon paused again. He would have liked a great roll of drums,
not for
effect,
but to make them listen. And, alas, he would have liked
the words to come less easily, with no oratorical roundness or niceties
of style. For Simon was so made that even now he feared that he might
be
perfanning,
once more: his emotion part of the play.
"Surely, I am not myself a man of moral earnestness. Perhaps you
are thinking that I am only a foolish buffoon. But I am capable of
seeing how we are all responsible for the wrong we inherit and live with,
day by day. It is a small vision, and often worse than useless. But
believe me, nothing less than this vision can make sense of such a case
as Wiley Bey's."
He stopped, and squinted myopically at the faces of the board
members. With the exception of a Negro minister, who was dozing, they
all looked rather embarrassed.
"Are you finished.?" said the chairman, heavily.
Simon, quite suddenly, was embarrassed himself. He smiled awk–
wardly and made a deep bow:
"Opus superabat maJeriam.
Nevertheless, I have spoken."
"Thank you for your inspiring message. Officer, will you please
show this man to the door?"
A~d
so he swirled his cloak around his shoulders and walked out,
followed by the policeman who had appeared from nowhere to fill his
heart
with the familiar unreasoning terror. Sweating, he mounted the
two steps. 0 blueclad terror of marginal men! Had he broken a law?
Was the hand coming down on his shoulder? ... The Negroes, who
had been sitting open-mouthed on the bench, turned as he passed, and
stared. Then they looked back to the members of the board.
Outside, his sudden fright gave way to confusion. His mind in–
stantly filled with what he had meant, the qualifications and nuances,
