Eugene Gordon, "The Sarcophagus" (1929)
By EUGENE GORDON
"MY name, professor," apologetically declaimed the bald, nose - spectacled, goateed black man, rising in the rear of the room, "is Hezekiah Thompson. You have probably heard of me: I'm professor of history at the Star of Zion Baptist College, in Macon . . . Macon's in Georgia." He paused, and there was a noticeable twitching of the left side of his neck and face. Meeting only with cold silence, he went on defensively : "I came up here to Boston University just to take this wonderful course of lectures in Egyptian and Ethiopian History at the Summer Session. I notice every day you ask if anybody'd like to make a comment or ask a question on your lecture, and nobody ever says anything. Today I'd like to ask a question."
The class of sixty white graduate students
turned and stared as the speaker paused a second time. Then they turned and looked at the wizened, grayish, sharp-featured Professor of Egyptian and Ethiopian History. He sat behind a small table at the front of the room, frowning, and frequently glancing at the clock above the door on his left.
"Well?" he prompted bluntly.
The man from the Star of Zion smiled. "I'd like to make a brief statement first," he said, addressing the students rather than the lecturer.
Self-consciously he fingered his black-and-white striped tie; felt of the flaring wings of his high collar; stroked the wide black ribbon which festooned gracefully from the glasses on his aquiline nose. He went on, the muscles of his neck and face twitching spasmodically: "My statement is this: The white professors of history, as well as the white so-called historians, are in league to ignore the black man's contribution to civilization. For instance, all our lives we've been taught that Ethiopians were just ordinary Negroes; why, the Bible itself says so. But as soon as it is found out that the Ethiopians were a people of great importance—"
The professor rose and picked up his green cloth bag. "Mr. Thompson, the 'class period is ended," he said shortly. "I'm sorry. You'll—"
"So am I, professor, but—" The professor, his face red with anger, struck his palm upon the table.
"That's enough from you, sir! If you care to stay and see me after the others have been dismissed, all right; but I refuse to listen to you further—under the circumstances."
He took out his watch, glanced at it, replaced it, then made a gesture of dismissal to the students.
"That's all," he said.
Immediately the room was abuzz with voices.
The professor stood tapping the table nervously with his knuckles as the men and women passed out; as some of them lingered, sitting on the broad arms of their chairs; as they whispered excitedly behind their hands, staring from the angry white face of the professor to the twitching face of the black man. Thompson now sat forward, alertly, on the edge of his chair, his eyes glittering.
Presumably convinced that many had no intention of quitting the room, the professor peremptorily ordered them to leave.
"Our friend evidently has some deep-seated grievance against white folk in general and against me in particular," he said, with forced jocularity.
When the last had departed, closing the door after them, the professor said abruptly: "Now, then, Mr. Thompson, what is your trouble?" The black man picked up his rusty brief case and his straw hat and moved to the front of the room. Laying his belongings in a chair beside him, he sat down directly in front of the professor and crossed his long, thin legs. His lower lip was quivering now, and his head was making short, spasmodic jerks. His eyes were glitteringly bright.
The professor backed round until the table stood squarely between them; glanced toward the door, gripping the edge of the table firmly as if to give his nerves stability.
"Well," he said impatiently, "begin."
"Yes, sir. I will. I wish you'd sit down, though; I'd feel more at ease. You make me feel like yelling when you stand there like that." The man laughed mirthlessly; stared round the room.
"As you can see for yourself, I'm somewhat nervous, professor. It doesn't take much to get me all wrought up. What are you looking at me like that for? Do you think I'm crazy?" He seemed about to rise, but the professor, laughing as if to conceal a fear, signalled him to remain as he was. He himself sat down, somewhat off from the table. He glanced at the clock, at the door, then looked at the man before him.
“Crazy? Nonsense! Why should I think that? . . . You are nervous, though, are you not?”
“I am, professor. Very. Sometimes I’m frightened at myself. I . . .” His deep-set black eyes seemed alternately to dilate and contract. They wandered round the room. “I’m very much affected that way when anybody crosses me. When I get excited or lose my temper I—”
“We’ll not discuss any unpleasant subjects, Mr. Thompson. . . . You say you are a professor of history?”
“Yes, sir. Well, no. That is, I was. It’s rather amusing; you’ll laugh. My college sent me up here—that is, the trustees told me I ought to come—to take this course. But yesterday—” He laughed, picked up his brief case from the chair beside him, fumbled in it, and withdrew a letter. “Yesterday I got this.” He half rose and passed the envelope across the table. “Just read that, will you, professor?”
The professor drew out the folded typewritten sheet, opened it, and read. He replaced it in the envelope and passed it back without comment.
“Don’t you think that’s rather queer, professor?” demanded the black man. He pursed his rather thin lips and glared round the room. His neck and face began to twitch. He said loudly: “Well, I do, whether you think so or not. Get me up here, then send me a request for my resignation.” He frowned and stared at the floor.
The professor began tentatively: “Then you’re interested in Egyptian and Ethiopian history. How did your interest in this subject come to be aroused?”
Thompson stared, puckering his forehead; bent his head and tapped it with his knuckles. He looked up quickly.
“How? I’ll tell you how, professor. Why is it that colored people—Negroes, if you please—are being denied credit for their contribution to civilization? Take—”
“But they’re not, are they? Don’t you think your premise is unsound?”
“No, I don’t. My mind is perfectly sound . . . perfectly sound. As sound as I am.” He smiled a pensive little twitch and stood up. Then, I suppose you say. But never mind that. They’ll not get me into their strait-jacket again. A fine, strong tree once stood there. Plenty of flowers, and base trees. Do you know, I often seem to see something about fine old shade trees that isn’t there: that just . . .” He bent his head and tapped it with his knuckles. “Say, professor,” he cried, snapping his fingers, “ever read Joyce Kilmer’s poem about trees? It goes—”
The professor’s face was a white, taut mask, moistened at the lower edge with sweat.
In one hand he clutched his old Panama hat, and in the other his bag. He glanced at the door.
“I annoy you, I see. I tire you with my random chatter.” The man from Macon leaned forward and shook a long black finger at the professor. “If you tried to leave me alone something would happen to you. . . . But I ramble, and I am sorry. To the point. Revenons a nos moutons! So, now. Take this recent discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. He was a black man until it was found he had carried remnants of a dazzling civilization into his tomb. Then he became a white man. Even Ethiopians, that we’ve always been taught were pure African Negroes, are ‘white folks’ now. Can you beat it? as the boys say. In other words, everything that’s any good is white. Now, isn’t that so, professor?”
The professor had been watching and listening with evident interest. He shook his head.
“I shouldn’t say so. You are obviously laboring under a very strange hallucination. You—” He halted himself as if suddenly reminded of what he had said too much; peered apprehensively at the man before him.
But the listener was calm now. The twitch was scarcely visible, and the eyes were no longer dilated. He appeared to be the professor of history whose title he had but recently held.
The lecturer smiled, rose, and placed his old Panama on his head.
“I’m glad to have been of service to you, Mr. Thompson,” he said, moving toward the door rather hurriedly. He stopped. “If ever I can—”
“But you’re not leaving yet, sir,” cried the black man, jumping up. “Why, you haven’t answered my question.” He picked up the brief case and fumbled in it, pulling out a book. The professor, half way to the door, stood looking at him, his forehead knotted in a frown, his thin pinkish lips opening and closing as though tasting some unclean thing.
“Here . . .” The man turned the pages, moistening his thumb as he thumbed. “Here, professor. Here is a passage in a book you wrote yourself on the Negro in history. On page 195 you say — now listen, professor, to what you say —”
“‘The inhabitants of both Abyssinia and Ethiopia were mixed races. In Abyssinia, southern Semites, immigrants from the Arabian Yemen on the other side of the Red Sea, were the dominant race; and in Ethiopia Hamitic Libyans from the western desert formed the ruling class, while the mass of the people were probably racially Hamites if not actually of Lybvan origin. The whole region involved was inhabited in antiquity, as it is today, by dark-colored races in which brown prevails. But they are not,’ you say here, professor, ‘they are not, and were not, African negroes, although many individuals in the same region show a mixture of black blood, many of them being blacks of the slave class.’”
He closed the book with a vicious snap, and, narrowing his eyes, leaned forward and thrust a quivering finger under the professor’s nose. He asked angrily: “Why do you all delight so in libelling a whole race, professor?”
The professor made a gesture of weariness. “What need is there of my telling you that you are wrong? You don’t seem to be able to concentrate on anything save the one delusion of your grievance. Let us have done with this nonsense,” he said sharply. “If you doubt that these people were not Negroes, go to the art museum—ever been there?”
“I’ve spent a part of every day, recently, in the Egyptian and Ethiopian room.”
“Well, I am curator of that department. I want you to go there and look at the skulls of those mummies in the glass cases. Many of them have become unwrapped. Examine the skulls closely. If you see any resemblance between them and a Negroid skull, I’ll be glad to make a note of your discovery when I revise my book. By the way,” he said, as if with sudden inspiration, “here’s something you might do. Have you seen that great nineteen-ton granite sarcophagus—the one with the lid back against the wall?”
The man stared at him, his neck and face beginning to twitch, his eyes to dilate and glitter. The professor backed toward the door; the black man followed.
The professor made an arresting gesture. “Wait a moment. I want you to go to the art museum—tell them I sent you, if you wish. Tell them Dr. Niles sent you to do a little research work for him. Go to the Egyptian-Ethiopian room and look into the biggest granite sarcophagus. Get down inside of it and later report your findings to me.”
Thompson stared after him, his neck and face twitching, his eyes dilated and glittering. Then he ran forward very swiftly, and just as the old man reached the brink of the staircase well, shoved him. The body shot out, shrinking, sprawling, whirling, descending, the green bag dropping away from it. The bag landed far below with a smart thud. A moment later there came the sound of a heavier, more compact object striking the hardwood floor. There followed no other sound, save that of the ancient elevator creaking on its cables in the nearby shaft.
Thompson returned to the room, put on his hat, and picked up his brief case. He went out and rang for the elevator. He seemed singularly composed and detached. His eyes were but slightly brighter than normally, and even had the aged elevator man not been near-sighted, he could not have detected the veriest tremor of nervousness in his passenger. But the operator paid no heed, and as soon as Thompson had stepped out, the elevator man lowered the car to the basement.
Thompson detoured widely round the right of the stairs. The man had fallen on the left. At the front door he looked back. He saw protruding from the shadow beneath the stairs the gray head of the professor on the floor.
Once in the street he alternately walked and ran. He ran only when no one was near him. Looking continuously over his shoulder, he muttered: “They’ll get me yet. What chance has a poor beast of a black man, anyway? They’ll track me down as sure as fate.”
Persons meeting him strained their ears to pick up fragments of his soliloquy; stopped and looked after him. When he noticed this he silenced himself, increased his pace until he reached a corner, then turned swiftly from view.
When he arrived at the art museum there was an hour until closing time. He mounted the flight of white marble stairs, turned to the left down a long vaulted corridor with a series of doors opening into each side of it, and came at length to the entrance of the Egyptian-Ethiopian department. It was built to represent an ancient Egyptian tomb, and had the proper atmosphere carved even into the solid rock of a mountain. Beside the door, in a chair tilted back against the wall, there sat a uniformed museum police, his cap pulled over his eyes.
Thompson walked in and looked about. He was like a mand standing alone in the center of a musty tomb. Through a crevice of a window, Thompson's neck and face began to twitch and high up, a yellowish blade of daylight cut the his glinting eyes to seek the dimensions of every eternal gloom. Other light came dimly from corner. He looked upward and, with a quick concealed bulbs round the border of the low and gasp, grabbed his brief case. Then, clutching it rugged ceiling. The walls bore protuberances in his fingers, he seized the broad ledge of the of glass shelves weighted with objects from the sarcophagus and drew himself up its seven-foot country of the Nile : statuettes, fragments of ala- wall. Throwing his leg over, he scrambled down, baster vessels inscribed with the names of for- as into a pit.
Thompson walked in and looked about. He was alike a man standing alone in the center of a musty tomb. Through a crevice of a window, high up, a yellowish blade of daylight cut the general gloom. Other light came dimly from concealed bulbs round the border of the low and rugged ceiling. The walls bore protuberances of glass shelves weighted with objects from the country of the Nile—statuettes, fragments of alabaster vessels inscribed with the names of forgotten dynasties, and samples of pottery from the burial rooms of the western Defufa; mud sealed impressions from the same source, brass bowls, glass jars and decorated pottery from the Me-roitic cemetery; scarabs and golden crocodiles from the Great Cemetery of the Hyksos Period; busts of black granite of a King of the Twelfth Dynasty, and so on, interminably.
"No wonder they want to claim the Egyptians and Ethiopians for the white race," he muttered, "when you look at all these things." He had been here countless times before, and on each occasion he had made the self-same observation.
Leaning against the walls, underneath the shelves, were a dozen mummy cases in cubic framings and fantastic coloring; mummies of men and women dead two and three thousand years, in glass cases. Some of the wrappings had fallen off, exposing powdering bones. The man bent close over these and studied the shapes of the skulls.
There were a few wooden sarcophagi, but these were empty. Against the wall in a corner stood a great granite sarcophagus weighing, with its upturned lid, nineteen tons. A small card with this information printed on it hung from the wall. About this monster trunk-like casket there seemed to lurk centuries of shadows. Thompson stooped and examined the figures in relief on the surface of the granite hulk. There was pictured here a procession of slender Negroid figures, some with staffs in their hands, and others with what resembled pails and bags and tools. Then came figures of jackals, serpents, and hawks. There were others which he could not identify. But he had no doubt that these figures represented Negro men. He ran his finger over them and smiled.
There was a sound of footsteps on the flagstones of the corridor. Thompson dropped to his knees at the end of the granite-ton sarcophagus. The legs of the guard's chair clicked as they dropped to the floor, and someone was talking to him—an indeterminate rumble of men's voices that conveyed no meaning. Then one of the men said loudly: "But I would swear I saw him come this way!" They said he did. They said . . .
Thompson's neck and face began to twitch and his glinting eyes to seek the dimensions of every corner. He looked upward and, with a quick gasp, grabbed his brief case. Then, clutching it in his fingers, he seized the broad ledge of the sarcophagus and drew himself up its seven-foot wall. Throwing his leg over, he scrambled down, as into a pit.
The lid was quivering at the disturbance. It had left the wall and stood like a malignant thing of reason, pondering whether to seal the captive in. The man was now struggling madly up the steep smooth side, scuffling it impotently with the toes of his shoes, trying to get out. The lid veered. It shuddered shrieks in a muffled roar of thunder. A statuette toppled, shattering itself on the flagstones. Mummies two and three thousand years old shivered in glass cases. Echoes spent themselves in the vault-like chamber.
Reverberations died in distant corridors; then silence, save for the five o'clock gong.
Without the guard's chair had come down again with a clack. The man rubbed his sleepy eyes as he stood in the doorway. In the vault-like room beyond, a yellow blade of sunlight cut the thickening gloom. A thin cloud of dust particles danced in it. Corners were already dark. Objects in corners already were already indistinguishable. . . . Ah! The sarcophagus lid was down. So that was the cause of the big noise, was it?
The guard stretched, yawning.
"All out!" he called; simply a routine detail. "All out!"
When the guard got downstairs the director was locking the office door. The guard said:
"Dr. Hawley, did you locate the superintendent? George came round to the Egyptian department looking for him, but—"
"Yes, we found him." The director slipped his key into his pocket, set his straw hat at a more jaunty angle, twirled his cane, and started toward the street. "He has just left."
The guard said suddenly: "Oh, by the way, Mr. Hawley. The director paused, half turning. "That big sarcophagus lid fell just now. It—"
"Oh, did it?" Well, I'm not surprised. Dr. Niles warned me of it yesterday. Said the slightest vibration would cause it to fall. So I intended to have it lowered, anyway. . . . When we got round to it. Don't have to bother now, though, do we? Good night."
He went on into the expanse of the evening, twirling his cane.