The Black Russian (8 page)

After the Riviera season was over, in the spring of 1897,
Frederick
returned to Paris, where he worked as a waiter in the Restaurant Cuba on the avenue des Champs-Élysées. He then made an extensive tour of Germany, crossing the country from west to east, and
working
for short periods in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Leipzig. This zigzagging itinerary shows that he had not yet found a place that suited him entirely and that he was satisfying his curiosity to see other parts of Europe. Like other waiters in Europe, Frederick would have heard much about the strict discipline and perfect service practiced in German restaurants and hotels and might have been
interested in sampling this world. But like others before and after him, Frederick probably discovered quickly that German patrons were very difficult to please. From Germany he returned to Paris, and late in 1897 he turned south once more, this time choosing first Nice and then Monte Carlo, the capital of the famous, diminutive principality of Monaco on the Azure Coast, where he would have a memorable encounter with a white American.

Drysdale, the reporter making a tour of Europe, arrived in Monaco with an English friend during the first week of February 1898, from Nice and other points farther west on the French coast. Already much impressed by the beauty of the countryside they had seen from the train, with picturesque hills on the left and the azure Mediterranean on the right, he emerged from the Monte Carlo train station only to be struck anew by the remarkable beauty of the town. At the center was the Casino, a grand, elegant, and lavishly decorated concoction of cream-colored stone. It stood on one end of a large square
occupying
the hill that towered over the area, and that was surrounded by what Drysdale described as a “fairyland of flowers and tropical plants as you may dream of sometimes but seldom see.” The extravagant luxury of Monte Carlo’s appearance, and the gorgeously decorated coaches, drivers, and horses that the town’s twenty-five hotels sent to the station to meet the train and attract guests, overcame Drysdale’s reservations and frugality. He and his friend decided to splurge on the Hôtel de Paris, which belonged to the Casino Company and was, as he admitted, “by many degrees the largest and finest and most expensive in the place.” It also faced the Casino, as it does to this day.

After being escorted by a regally garbed bellman to his
handsome
rooms facing the sea, Drysdale was in the process of unpacking and preparing to ask a maid for some hot water, in French, when he heard a voice behind him say: “Reckon I better look aftah dis ’Merican gemman.”

Without looking up, Drysdale guessed who had arrived at his door and felt a wave of relief. After traveling for months through the famous cities of Europe, he was delighted to encounter a friendly black servant from home, someone with whom he could feel “
completely
at ease,” as he put it, and to whom he could confide all the small cares and worries associated with travel. The various Dutch, German, Belgian, and French hotel “boys” had been perfectly
obliging
and attentive. But this young black man was a “colored friend and brother,” someone as familiar as if “you had brought him up from the cradle,” someone who, when compared with the Europeans, was “an electric light beside a flickering candle.”

Drysdale’s affection for Frederick was genuine, even though it was tainted by an unconscious patriarchal racism. Drysdale had been born in Pennsylvania and lived most of his life in New Jersey while he wrote for newspapers in New York City. Nonetheless, his
comments
about Frederick betray a nostalgia for a romanticized image of the old antebellum South that began to appear among
northerners
at the end of the nineteenth century, and that centered on the supposedly chivalrous nobility of the planters and their benevolent relations with contented slaves. Drysdale would also have enjoyed being waited on simply because he was a heavy man, and no longer young at forty-six; indeed, he was to die only three years later. Thus, he found it entirely normal to expect that a black man would be an excellent servant; to think of him as a “boy” even though he was in his mid-twenties; to refer to him as “Sambo,” as an “ebon” or “sunburnt angel,” or as a “dusky brother”; and to record his speech in a way that exaggerated its nonwhite, semiliterate pronunciation (despite the fact that Frederick had probably learned to modulate his native accent when dealing with affluent white clients).

Drysdale also concealed Frederick’s real name and referred to him as “George.” By doing this, he was consistent with how he
concealed
the names of others he encountered on his travels, including his English friend, presumably out of consideration for their privacy.
Nonetheless, his choice of “George” may also have been dictated by the custom American whites had of referring to black servants by “generic” names that denied them their individuality. A striking example of this was porters on Pullman trains, all of whom were black and many of whom were former slaves hired after the Civil War. Passengers called every one of them “George” no matter what their names may have been, and did so automatically and “in honor” of the businessman George M. Pullman, who employed them.

Drysdale was of course curious about Frederick’s origins and began to quiz him. “I comes from Kaintucky, Sah,” was the reply (Frederick continued to misrepresent his origins). “Been on dis side de watah bout fo’ yeahs, Sah.”

And why had he come to Europe? “To see the worl’, Sah.”

Part of Drysdale’s sense of relief when Frederick appeared came from not having to struggle with French any longer. Instead of “de l’eau chaud,” all he had to say now was “bring me a jug of hot water.” By contrast, Frederick spoke French fluently and explained that he had learned it while living in Paris for about three years. He had come to the French Riviera several months earlier for additional language study—except that now he wanted to learn Italian. To his disappointment, he found what little was spoken in Nice to be
corrupted
with French and Provençal, the old language of the region, so that he had moved to Monaco instead. The Italian there proved to be badly flawed as well, prompting him to make plans to leave for Milan in a few weeks.

Drysdale had the opportunity to verify Frederick’s ability to speak French on several occasions and was much impressed by how good it actually was. Especially surprising was the cultural
transformation
that it captured. Although Drysdale said that he found Frederick’s “bluegrass dialect” more musical than the band playing in Monte Carlo’s public park, he also thought that the “negro dialect” Frederick spoke had such a coercive hold on him that he would never be able to speak “real English.” It was therefore a genuine shock for
Drysdale to find that Frederick’s black southern accent did not affect his French at all—either when he spoke with Drysdale himself or when he spoke with Frenchmen fresh from Paris.

By contrast, Drysdale ruefully acknowledged that his own French was “naturally bad.” In keeping with the practices of the time, it is likely that Frederick’s language studies in Paris consisted less of classroom
instruction
than of walking and riding around the city in the company of an experienced teacher and repeatedly imitating both the practical, everyday expressions he used and his accompanying manner and gestures.

The elegance of Frederick’s French was echoed by his worldly manner, which Drysdale described as dignified, gentlemanly, and altogether fine. Frederick was also physically striking. He was a bit taller than average at five feet nine, and good-looking, with rich brown skin and generously proportioned features: high cheekbones, large oval eyes, a prominent nose, and a wide mouth that was quick to break into a captivating smile. He also liked to dress stylishly.
Everything
about Frederick said that he had transformed himself into a genuine cosmopolitan, one who felt free to travel around Europe as his fancy moved him, and without any concerns about being able to find suitable employment whenever he wanted it.

After helping Drysdale settle in, and brushing and cleaning his clothes in a way that “no valet in the world can do as well as Sambo when he chooses,” Frederick went to get the hotel register in which all guests were obligated by local law to write their names, home addresses, and occupations. The police checked the registers every
day and guests were supposed to make their entries accurately. But Drysdale blithely dismissed this requirement and told Frederick not to bother him with such details and to register him under any name and occupation that he chose.

Frederick was entirely willing to play with Drysdale’s biography, as he did with his own when it suited him. Frederick’s years of
successfully
serving clients in half a dozen countries on two continents had made him into an excellent actor and judge of character. He had also gotten to know human nature too well to take entirely seriously all the moral pieties that laws and social norms were meant to reflect. Instead of putting his trust in abstract principles, Frederick invested in private relations; and he could be very generous with his affections.

Taking the black-covered book to a mantelpiece in the room, Frederick began to write in it with an expression that Drysdale
characterized
as showing “that he was going through a severe mental struggle,” an implausible description that says more about Drysdale’s racially inflected projections than about what proved to be Frederick’s adroit and ironic flattery. Asking “wheder dat’ll do, Sah,” Frederick handed the book to Drysdale, who sheepishly realized that the valet had “rather turned the tables” on him. He had registered him as “Hon. G. W. Ingram, residence Washington, occupation United States Senator, last stopping place Paris, intended stay in Monaco two weeks, intended destination Cairo, Egypt.”

To his discomfort, Drysdale realized that he would have to
backpedal
because “such false pretenses might lead to awkward
complications
”; moreover, he would have to find some way to retreat gracefully after saying that he did not care what Frederick wrote about him.

Thus it was that Drysdale’s young English friend received what
Drysdale
, with his rather cumbersome wit, chose to characterize as “the greatest honor of his life”—being transformed “for the moment into an American and a Senator.”

Like any valet or waiter, Frederick would have wanted to
ingratiate
himself with his patrons by assuming a deferential mien and manner, both because the job demanded it and because his income from tips depended on it. However, in his subsequent encounters with Drysdale, who spent about a month at the Hôtel de Paris
before
resuming his leisurely journey along the Mediterranean coast, we also get glimpses of Frederick’s poised self-confidence and of his mastery of local cultural norms, which he understood far better than his patron.

Frederick’s assurance and sophistication belied the primitivized portrait captured in Drysdale’s articles. When Frederick saw Drysdale and the Englishman crossing the hotel lobby toward the door on the first evening after their arrival, he hastened to intervene to forestall a possible social gaffe.

On another occasion, Frederick was able to explain to Drysdale and the Englishman how one gained entry to the Casino, which was off-limits to the local Monegasques: “You has to apply in persing fer de ticket, Sah…. But it ain’t no trouble ’tall, Sah. All you has to do is to walk in de do’, an’ dey’ll spot you in a minute an’ put you on
de right track. Dey has won’ful sharp eyes, Sah.” To be sure, this is a minor comment about a routine event, but it is also an observation made by a man with an eye for detail, a job well done.

Frederick was unusually blunt about his own abilities in
comparison
with those of his coworkers, especially the native Monegasques. “Dey has to bring in all dere hotel waiters, Sah,” he explains to
Drysdale
at one point; “dese native dagoes don’t know nothing.”

Frederick’s sense of ease and self-assurance would only have been bolstered by the personal freedom and social acceptance he found in old Europe. His impression that he was better than his
fellows
at what they all did for a living could have goaded him to seek advancement as well. Indeed, part of Frederick’s reason for moving from country to country and job to job was probably that, in
addition
to satisfying his curiosity, he was searching for a place where he could put down roots and build a career.

Frederick left Monte Carlo for Italy around mid-March 1898. During the next year, he continued his exploration of Europe and, heading this time in a generally eastward direction, toward Russia, traveled to five new cities—Milan, Venice, Trieste, Vienna, and Budapest.
Everywhere
he went he followed the same pattern and worked in hotels or restaurants for periods of a few weeks to a few months, or presumably just long enough to have a look around and to earn enough money for the next leg of his trip. Frederick’s ability to find such work in different cities suggests that he had good letters of reference from previous employers as well as a winning way of presenting himself, which was its own best recommendation.