Wench
Page 20
She turned back to the birds on the ground beside her, and felt her eyes sting from the heat of the fire. Then she looked again at Drayle, and as the burning child’s screams simmered, she saw him take another puff of his cigar and wipe his forehead.
Lizzie was so busy watching Drayle that she had no memory of Mawu at that moment. She wished she had looked her way. Later, she wondered if she would have seen the reflection of the fire in her eyes.
THIRTY-SIX
The second fire happened that very night. The men poured out of the cottages in their dressing gowns, faces lined with the tension of sleep. The fire rose like a vengeful ancestor over the lot of them.
Mawu and Tip. It was their cottage. Lizzie searched the faces for her friend and found her, standing on the fringe, indecent in her gown, arms hanging slack at her sides, crying and choking through something that resembled tears.
Lizzie saw Reenie hurrying along with a pail of water in each hand. Out of the darkness, Drayle pushed two pails stuck inside of each other into Lizzie’s fist and commanded her to the pond. She joined the long line of frantic men and women, sooty-faced colored and white, slave and free, who moved back and forth between the pond and the cottage. One of the men yelled something unintelligible, and Mawu reached out into the darkness as if trying to clutch someone. Swollen white sores ran the length of her arm.
“She hurt. Mawu hurt,” Lizzie said to the closest passing negro.
In a moment, Reenie was there. Both of Mawu’s arms had been burned from the shoulder down to the hand. The skin had started to pucker, a fret of scales and blisters. Mawu looked down at her arms as if they belonged to someone else. Her face appeared untouched, smooth as a speckled stone, brown and iridescent in the light of the moon and the fire.
“I tried, I tried.”
“Hush. We gone take care of you.” Reenie had to yell over the shouts of the men.
Lizzie wanted to ask. What had she tried to do? had she tried to save Tip and failed? Lizzie looked off toward the cottage. It was a lick of flames, dark smoke blasting into the air and sending down a sprinkle of ashes.
“But you don’t understand, Miss Reenie. You don’t understand. I tried, I tried.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Lizzie heard Reenie say. “Anybody ask, you tell them she burnt and I is taking her back to my cottage, you hear?”
Lizzie nodded, the empty pails swaying in her hands.
“Is she all right?”
Reenie shook her head. It surprised Lizzie. Like asking the doctor if someone was going to be all right and hearing the truth for a change.
“She got more than burns to deal with.”
“Lizzie! Fill them buckets, girl!” Drayle shouted at her as Reenie and Mawu hurried off.
Lizzie ran back to the pond. One of the slaves standing knee deep in the water helped her get them full. When she turned around, she saw Tip waiting behind her, an outstretched pail in his hand and a pasty look on his white face that made him appear ghostlike.
But he was not a ghost. He was just as real as the fire still panting hungrily behind him. She glanced off in the direction that Reenie and Mawu had gone. Now she understood. She understood what Mawu had tried to do.
And while she had a strange feeling in her belly she might never see Mawu again, it never crossed her mind she might never see Reenie again, either.
THIRTY-SEVEN
When she heard that both Reenie and Mawu were missing, Lizzie felt as if her insides had been broken into a thousand pieces. She wanted to crawl inside herself like a turtle. Later, she would describe it to Glory as time moving at an indescribable speed, carrying buckets of water one minute and carrying her heart in her hands the next.
After the news spread through the resort, Drayle changed toward her. Everything became a barked order and she was locked in a room at night.
Lizzie ran the day over and over through her mind. From the girl with the burned legs—the way the skin merely looked sunburned—to the oozing sores on Mawu’s arms. From the dark smoke rising from the cottage to the empty feeling in her stomach that came with the knowledge that she was the only one of the four left. She could not understand what she had missed, why they had not included her in their plans. She wasn’t sure how she would have responded if they had, but she mourned the lack of invitation.
The only thing she could come up with was that they had not forgiven her for the summer she told on Mawu. They still thought of her as a traitor.
After the cottage fire was put out, Drayle had told her to make her way back. She had considered sneaking off to Reenie’s cottage, but she had thought better of it. Drayle’s eyes had made two holes in her back, and she’d figured it wasn’t smart to anger him at that point.
She couldn’t keep her face out of the window that night. Drayle followed her home soon after and made her come to bed. But after he was asleep, she got up and sat in the window again. The smell of ash was still in the air and the moon was bright enough for her to just make out Tip’s cottage where two men were still dousing the smallest flames. It wasn’t really a cottage anymore, just a black shell standing.
How long had they known they were making a run for it?
Two days later, Drayle shouted orders to George to get their trunks up to the hotel where the omnibus would pick them up. There was still no news of Reenie and Mawu’s whereabouts, but every day she could hear the dogs. The same dogs they’d used to hunt wild birds and pheasants and possum were now being used to hunt her friends. She had heard that the reward money was so big, every slave catcher in the county was out looking for the women.
She hoped Mawu had covered her hair. In her mind, she warned the woman like a mother would a child. She advised the two to split up. She wrapped hot biscuits in a cloth and tucked it into their aprons.
Tip walked around the resort with a righteous anger on his face, as if someone had kidnapped his mother. She wondered if he was angrier that Mawu had escaped or that she had tried to kill him first.
You ain’t the only one wondering about a betrayal, she wanted to say to him. But she didn’t say anything because whatever rights she’d had before Reenie and Mawu had escaped had ended. Now it seemed everyone was watching her. Reenie’s Sir even tore a piece of her dress one day and gave it to one of the dogs. The dog smelled and licked it while she watched. Then Sir grinned at her, as if to let her know that he could find her, that he would find her if she had a mind to take off after the others.
Each hour that passed by that she didn’t hear they had been caught was like a jubilation. She hoped they made it all the way to Canada. She had heard that in Canada coloreds and whites could marry. She wondered if there was a country north of Canada, and what possibilities existed there.
She also wished for two more things: that she could be with them and that she could return to her children. It felt like her right arm was being pulled one way and her left arm being pulled the other. She knew it wasn’t a right way to feel.
While she was packing her trunk, she tried to pack her fancy dress, but Drayle told her to leave it behind. Leaving the dress, saying goodbye to it, was like leaving a part of her new self. She wished she had given the dress to Sweet to tear up and sew. Maybe it would be of better use in the ground where they’d buried the clothes in honor of her children.
On the day they woke up to leave, it was still dark outside. As she walked to the hotel, she found no joy in the early morning bird chirps.
She moved slowly because she wanted to remember every moment of the free soil. She remembered Reenie asking Philip to tell her what freedom tasted like, and she felt a thrill at the knowledge that Reenie would be getting her own taste now.
Drayle watched her. He appeared to be half asleep, his eyes drooping low, but when she glanced his way, she sensed the alertness. What did he think she was going to do? Try to make a run for it? There were dogs and slavecatchers throughout the woods. She supposed that Drayle was already regretting his decision to sell Philip. His eyes were saying he had
no intention of letting her go.
The walk from the cottage to the hotel seemed longer than it had ever been. Even though the air still carried an early morning chill, she felt sticky beneath her breasts. Drayle walked behind her, and it felt like he would walk behind her for the rest of her days.
Once the omnibus was loaded, she climbed onto it. Drayle sat beside her the way he always did, as if she were his real woman. She pulled the cloth tight around her hair and the sides of her face.
As the omnibus rolled forward, she thought to herself that this would be the final time she would feel this human. She thought about her children and how overjoyed they would be to see her again. Both of them. The slate board was wrapped carefully in a cloth and tucked into her things. Drayle had taken the dress, but he hadn’t known about the slate. She had also managed to bring along two pieces of chalk. She thought of the free child at the picnic and wondered if she could read. The girl had been about Rabbit’s age.
And there was one more thing she had managed to escape with: the pamphlet. She needed to find a safe place for it, somewhere it could sit for a few years. She planned to give it to Nate once he was a man, so that he too could feel the heat of the words and channel his young anger into the righteous fury of this Wendell Phillips.
She tried not to look back at the cottages or the hotel because she did not want to feel any worse. She just wanted to think of her children and not think about Reenie or Mawu or anybody else. She took solace in knowing that there would be no more goodbyes.
But just as they rounded the bend in the road, she couldn’t stop herself. She looked back anyway. It was too late. The hotel and cottages were too far back behind the trees.
But there was a figure. Lizzie closed her eyes and opened them again. The woman was still there.
In the middle of the road, smaller after she opened her eyes the second time, was Glory. She didn’t have on her bonnet, so Lizzie could just make out her face, the square of her chin. Glory lifted her arm up and did something like a wave.
Lizzie waved back. There had been someone to say goodbye to after all.
PART IV
1854
THIRTY-EIGHT
They returned to the resort that summer for the fourth time, after all. And this time, Fran came with them.
On the ship, Lizzie slept in the servants’ quarters adjacent to Fran and Drayle’s stateroom. She wondered where she would sleep once they got to the resort. She pictured Fran in her cottage, tucked into her sheets, soaking in her bathtub, drinking from her cups.
Leaving her children had been more difficult than ever. Nate was almost eight years old—big enough to work in the fields and to look after his sister. Rabbit was a year younger, but she had an old soul. Lizzie sometimes felt the girl could see right through her mother’s put-on strength. As if the girl could sense the most cowardly part of her. As if the girl already knew the secret that Lizzie had not told anyone, had not even half admitted to herself.
Fran had been pestering Drayle about putting the children to work, and even though Drayle had held her off, Lizzie could tell that the woman was wearing him down. Drayle had never gotten over losing Philip. Even though he had sold his favorite slave at a fair price, he acted as if Philip had escaped. He didn’t even like for Lizzie to mention Philip’s name. Recently, Drayle had started training Nate to care for the horses. It was exactly what Lizzie had expected.
Nate was eager to bid Drayle’s wishes. Lizzie could see how much her son wanted his father’s attention and how he would jump the sun and the moon to get it. If he wasn’t busy showing off how strong he was by lifting something too heavy for him, he was reciting something from a book. Lizzie was proud of the fact that he talked like a white boy with nary a touch of slave in his speech. She only wished that the other slave women were there so she could brag about him in a way that she could not brag about him to other slaves.
She leaned her forehead against the train car window. She passed the time by counting the houses built along the banks of the Little Miami River. Her stomach pitched with each tumble of the train. The glass was hot against her skin. She missed Philip’s stories.
Drayle had warned her this wasn’t a vacation this summer, mysteriously saying that he had unfinished business. She hoped that it had nothing to do with trying to buy Philip back. She wanted Philip to enjoy his freedom with his new wife. At the same time, she didn’t want to offer up her son as a replacement. As usual, she found herself having to choose between her interests and another’s.
She wondered why Drayle had brought her along at all. Since Reenie and Mawu’s disappearance the summer before, they had not spoken about the two women. She had been afraid to ask lest he think she had a mind to follow.
As soon as they got to the hotel, she planned to make her way to the kitchen so she could find out the latest news.
When they finally arrived at the resort after eight days of travel, the grand white hotel did not look the same to Lizzie. The paint was not fresh, and a yellowed curtain blew through a broken window pane. The grass was not trimmed very low, and some of the flowerbeds were empty. A gaggle of geese sauntered by, following a servant carrying bread.
Fran looked about her, as if disappointed that the resort did not appear the way she had expected. Lizzie wished the woman could have seen the place at its height. When Drayle entered the hotel to sign the register, Fran instructed Lizzie to fan her while they waited. Lizzie stretched over the trunks in the back of the omnibus so she could reach her. The leather was hot. Her lip twitched. Lizzie wished there was someone there to fan her. I suppose I am the spoiled nigger she says I am.
When he came back, he pointed to Lizzie and said, “They fixed up your bed” as if she was supposed to know what he was talking about. She hopped off the back of the omnibus and grabbed the square of cloth pinned around her belongings.
In the kitchen, the head cook Clarissa smiled at her and while Lizzie had waited for such a warm welcome for the past three summers, she found that it did little to ease her mood.
“You looking good,” the older woman said to Lizzie. “You done gained some.”
“I reckon so,” Lizzie responded. The cook put up her arms to stretch, and Lizzie pretended to take it for a hug. She pulled Clarissa close, and when the woman squeezed her back, Lizzie felt a flower open up inside of her.
She asked if Lizzie had eaten, and when Lizzie told her no she fixed a plate. She motioned for Lizzie to go outside and wash up. Lizzie stepped into the sideyard. The spigot on the water pump was rusted and a bee circled its mouth as if it held the attraction of something other than water. She put her hands beneath the cool liquid, and closed her eyes.
Clarissa served mashed potatoes, gravy, and chicken. Lizzie was hungry. A chambermaid on the ship had brought her a plate of leftover food every evening, but once she’d boarded the train, there had been no more meals. After she finished the chicken, she felt sick. She tried to hide it from the ex-slave, thinking it wouldn’t take much for the woman to guess her condition.
Lizzie indicated she was ready to go upstairs. Clarissa called out for a servant who showed Lizzie up the back stairway. As she led the way, the girl asked if she had ever seen where the hotel servants slept. Lizzie answered no. When they opened the door, the girl pointed out that the men and women slept on opposite sides of the attic. The wall between the two spaces had been erected after Clarissa explained to the hotel manager that no self-respecting free colored woman would share a bedroom with a man. The servant pointed to a narrow bed that was sinking in the middle.
“I guess a bed, even a sinking one, is better than a dirty old pallet any day,” the girl said softly, watching Lizzie.
Lizzie slid her bundle under the bed and thought of her bedroom at home. This free girl was assuming that because she was a slave, she slept on a pallet. She wondered what the girl would think if she saw the spacious room Lizzie called her own in Drayle’s house. The drawer of underwear. The wooden horse on the dresser.
She considered asking the girl her name, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was another friend who would desert her.
She wanted to kill Drayle. While she was sleeping that night, she made up in her mind that she didn’t want to kill it. She wanted to kill him instead. He was the one who had gotten her into this mess. He was the one who had been lying to her for all these years, who wouldn’t let her children go free.
She had to kill him. And unlike Mawu, she had to succeed.
She caught herself mumbling when she woke up. The room was so hot, she felt as if she were boiling. There wasn’t a window that opened in the attic and even though the door was ajar, the air wasn’t moving.
She pushed her way out of the bed, pulled off the sheet, and walked down the back stairs. She was used to finding cool spots in the kitchen, so she had no problems locating one here. She balled up the sheet and made a bed of it.
But still she couldn’t sleep. Because in her dreams, she had done it already. She had killed him. Would doing something like this weigh on her children’s spirits? Would they pay for her decisions? Big Mama always used to say that the sins of the mother and the father rained down on the heads of the children.
She finally gave up on trying to sleep and stepped out the back door. Everything was quiet except for the occasional sound of a dog barking. She walked, stopping when she saw a piece of paper nailed to a tree.
$100 REWARD FOR NIGGER WENCH.
RANAWAY FROM TAWAWA HOUSE RESORT, NEAR XENIA SPRINGS, OH
ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST, 1853. ANSWERS TO THE NAME