290
PARTISAN REVIEW
He dressed and went upstairs. This time he stood shivering in the hall,
without exaltation, and knocked. One of the women called softly:
"Who dere ?"
"It's
I.
Simon."
The door opened. Wiley Bey was standing at the front window.
He looked small, round, impenetrable, at the end of the long expanse of
floor. He turned from the window and said:
"Well, here they are."
Simon walked across the floor. He was already frightened. In fact
he had been frightened all along, from the very beginning. He wished
Wiley Bey would stop grinning in that ghastly unrecognizable way, like
some sinister African idol. Downstairs, the police were mounting to the
front door. A dark green sedan had drawn up behind the squad car,
and some men in plain-clothes were getting out. The bell rang. Simon
was suddenly overwhelmed by the Negro odor of this place.
"Do you mind going down?" said Wiley Bey. "The buzzer doesn't
work."
Simon went to the hall and descended the steps. Half-way ·down, he
was stopped by the Negro's voice. "Ask them for a warrant," said Wiley
Bey, who was standing at the door. "Tell them they can't come breaking
into my house without a warrant." Simon was seized with a violent fit
of shivering: it was as though he were
dreaming
of shivering. And
oddly, he was struck by the illogic of the Negro's attitude. To begin
with, it isn't your house, he thought. Moreover, you've repudiated the
whole business, warrants and all.... His mind moved slowly, in wide
irrelevent sweeps. In any case, it didn't matter: when he turned to speak,
Wiley Bey had disappeared from the landing.
Simon first opened his own door, and left it ajar. Then he unlocked
the front door, saying:
"Mr. Wiley ah, lives on the second floor ..."
Of course he had no time to mention the warrant. Three policemen
shouldered their way past him and mounted the stairs. Two others stood
in the doorway and looked ironically at Simon, who retired to his
threshold. One of them said:
"Where you going?"
"I live in here," said Simon. "On the first floor."
"Stay right where you are."
"Keep us company," added the other policeman, in a somewhat less
threatening tone. But then he turned to the other and, with an air of
quiet philosophical inquiry:
"You know, I never been able to figure it out. Where does a white
guy come
off,
living in a house with niggers?"
"Hell, that's nothing," said the other. He looked at Simon and spat
on the porch. "There's white girls in houses go down on niggers....
You know I think I seen this guy somewhere. What's your name?"
"Simon. Charles R. Simon."
"You a friend of this guy Wiley? How'd you know we was looking
for
him?"
"This house," began Simon, with a miserable awkward ingratiating
smile, "has been in my family for many generations.
1-"
