The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead

  In the fields, she was ever under the merciless eye of the overseer or boss. “Bend your backs!” “Work that row!” At the Andersons’, when Maisie was at school or with her playmates and little Raymond was asleep, Cora worked unmolested and unwatched. It was a small treasure in the middle of the day. Her recent installation in the exhibition returned her to the furrows of Georgia, the dumb, open-jawed stares of the patrons stealing her back to a state of display.

  One day she decided to retaliate against a red-haired white woman who scowled at the sight of Cora’s duties “at sea.” Perhaps the woman had wed a seaman of incorrigible appetites and hated the reminder—Cora didn’t know the source of her animus, or care. The woman irked her. Cora stared into her eyes, unwavering and fierce, until the woman broke, fairly running from the glass toward the agricultural section.

  From then on Cora selected one patron per hour to evil-eye. A young clerk ducking out from his desk in the Griffin, a man of enterprise; a harried matron corralling an unruly clutch of children; one of the sour youths who liked to batter the glass and startle the types. Sometimes this one, sometimes that one. She picked the weak links out from the crowd, the ones who broke under her gaze. The weak link—she liked the ring of it. To seek the imperfection in the chain that keeps you in bondage. Taken individually, the link was not much. But in concert with its fellows, a mighty iron that subjugated millions despite its weakness. The people she chose, young and old, from the rich part of town or the more modest streets, did not individually persecute Cora. As a community, they were shackles. If she kept at it, chipping away at weak links wherever she found them, it might add up to something.

  She got good at her evil eye. Looking up from the slave wheel or the hut’s glass fire to pin a person in place like one of the beetles or mites in the insect exhibits. They always broke, the people, not expecting this weird attack, staggering back or looking at the floor or forcing their companions to pull them away. It was a fine lesson, Cora thought, to learn that the slave, the African in your midst, is looking at you, too.

  The day Isis felt under the weather, during Cora’s second rotation on the ship, she looked past the glass and saw pigtailed Maisie, wearing one of the dresses Cora used to wash and hang on the line. It was a school trip. Cora recognized the boys and girls who accompanied her, even if the children did not remember her as the Andersons’ old girl. Maisie didn’t place her at first. Then Cora fixed her with the evil eye and the girl knew. The teacher elaborated on the meaning of the display, the other children pointed and jeered at Skipper John’s garish smile—and Maisie’s face twitched in fear. From the outside, no one could tell what passed between them, just like when she and Blake faced each other the day of the doghouse. Cora thought, I’ll break you, too, Maisie, and she did, the little girl scampering out of the frame. She didn’t know why she did it, and was abashed until she took off her costume and returned to the dormitory.

  —

  SHE called upon Miss Lucy that evening. Cora had been figuring on Sam’s news all day, holding it up to the light like a hideous bauble, tilting it so. The proctor had aided Cora many times. Now her suggestions and advice resembled maneuvers, the way a farmer tricks a donkey into moving in line with his intentions.

  The white woman was gathering a stack of her blue papers when Cora poked her head into the office. Was her name written down there, and what were the notes beside it? No, she corrected: Bessie’s name, not hers.

  “I only have a moment,” the proctor said.

  “I saw people moving back into number 40,” Cora said. “But no one who used to live there. Are they still in the hospital for their treatment?”

  Miss Lucy looked at her papers and stiffened. “They were moved to another town,” she said. “We need room for all the new arrivals, so women like Gertrude, the ones who need help, are being sent to where they can get more suitable attention.”

  “They’re not coming back?”

  “They are not.” Miss Lucy appraised her visitor. “It troubles you, I know. You’re a smart girl, Bessie. I still hope you’ll take on the mantle of leadership with the other girls, even if you don’t think the operation is what you need right now. You could be a true credit to your race if you put your mind to it.”

  “I can decide for myself,” Cora said. “Why can’t they? On the plantation, master decided everything for us. I thought we were done with that here.”

  Miss Lucy recoiled from the comparison. “If you can’t see the difference between good, upstanding people and the mentally disturbed, with criminals and imbeciles, you’re not the person I thought you were.”

  I’m not the person you thought I was.

  One of the proctors interrupted them, an older woman named Roberta who often coordinated with the Placement Office. She had placed Cora with the Andersons, those months ago. “Lucy? They’re waiting on you.”

  Miss Lucy grumbled. “I have them all right here,” Miss Lucy told her colleague. “But the records in the Griffin are the same. The Fugitive Slave Law says we have to hand over runaways and not impede their capture—not drop everything we’re doing just because some slave catcher thinks he’s onto his bounty. We don’t harbor murderers.” She rose, holding the stack of papers to her chest. “Bessie, we’ll take this up tomorrow. Please think about our discussion.”

  Cora retreated to the bunkhouse stairs. She sat on the third step. They could be looking for anyone. The dormitories were full of runaways who’d taken refuge here, in the wake of a recent escape from their chains or after years of making a life for themselves elsewhere. They could be looking for anyone.

  They hunted murderers.

  Cora went to Caesar’s dormitory first. She knew his schedule but in her fright could not remember his shifts. Outside, she didn’t see any white men, the rough sort she imagined slave catchers to look like. She sprinted across the green. The older man at the dormitory leered at her—there was always a licentious implication when a girl visited the men’s housing—and informed her that Caesar was still at the factory. “You want to wait with me?” he asked.

  It was getting dark. She debated whether or not to risk Main Street. The town records had her name as Bessie. The sketches on the fliers Terrance had printed after their escape were crudely drawn but resembled them enough that any savvy hunter would look at her twice. There was no way she would rest until she conferred with Caesar and Sam. She took Elm Street, parallel to Main, until she reached the Drift’s block. Each time she turned a corner, she expected a posse on horses, with torches and muskets and mean smiles. The Drift was full with early-evening carousers, men she recognized and those she did not. She had to pass by the saloon’s window twice before the station agent saw her and motioned for her to come around back.

  The men in the saloon laughed. She slipped through the light cast in the alley from inside. The outhouse door was ajar: empty. Sam stood in the shadows, his foot on a crate as he laced his boots. “I was trying to figure out how to get word,” he said. “The slave catcher’s name is Ridgeway. He’s talking to the constable now, about you and Caesar. I’ve been serving two of his men whiskey.”

  He handed her a flier. It was one of the bulletins Fletcher had described in his cottage, with one change. Now that she knew her letters, the word murder hooked her heart.

  There was a ruckus from inside the bar and Cora stepped farther into the shadows. Sam couldn’t leave for another hour, he said. He’d gather as much information as he could and try to intercept Caesar at the factory. It was best if Cora went ahead to his house and waited.

  She ran as she had not in a long time, sticking to the side of the road and darting into the woods at the sound of a traveler. She entered Sam’s cottage through the back door and lit a candle in the kitchen. After pacing, unable to sit, Cora did the only thing that calmed her. She had cleaned all the dishware when Sam returned home.

  “It’s bad,” the station agent said. “One of the bounty hunters came in right after we spoke. Had a ring of ears ar
ound his neck like a red Indian, a real tough character. He told the others that they knew where you were. They left to meet their man in front, Ridgeway.” He panted from the run over. “I don’t know how, but they know who you are.”

  Cora had grabbed Caesar’s bowl. She turned it over in her hands.

  “They got a posse together,” Sam said. “I couldn’t get to Caesar. He knows to come here or the saloon—we had a plan. He may already be on his way.” Sam intended to return to the Drift to wait for him.

  “Do you think anyone saw us talking?”

  “Maybe you should go down to the platform.”

  They dragged the kitchen table and the thick gray rug. Together they lifted the door in the floor—it was a tight fit—and the musty air flickered the candles. She took some food and a lantern and descended into the darkness. The door closed above her and the table rumbled back into place.

  She had avoided the services at the colored churches in town. Randall forbade religion on his plantation to eliminate the distraction of deliverance, and churching never interested her once she came to South Carolina. It made her seem strange to the other colored residents, she knew, but seeming strange had not bothered her for a long time. Was she supposed to pray now? She sat at the table in the thin lamplight. It was too dark on the platform to make out where the tunnel began. How long would it take them to root out Caesar? How fast could he run? She was aware of the bargains people made in desperate situations. To reduce the fever in a sick baby, to halt the brutalities of an overseer, to deliver one from a host of slave hells. From what she saw, the bargains never bore fruit. Sometimes the fever subsided, but the plantation was always still there. Cora did not pray.

  She fell asleep waiting. Later, Cora crawled back up the steps, perching just beneath the door, and listened. It might be day or night in the world. She was hungry and thirsty. She ate some of the bread and sausage. Moving up and down the steps, putting her ear to the door and then retreating after a time, she passed the hours. When she finished the food, her despair was complete. She listened by the door. There was not a sound.

  The thundering above woke her, terminating the void. It was not one person, or two, but many men. They ransacked the house and shouted, knocking over cabinets and upending furniture. The noise was loud and violent and so near, she shrank down the steps. She could not make out their words. Then they were done.

  The seams in the door permitted no light and no draft. She could not smell the smoke, but she heard the glass shatter and the pop and crackle of the wood.

  The house was on fire.

  Stevens

  THE Anatomy House of the Proctor Medical School was three blocks away from the main building, second from last on the dead-end street. The school wasn’t as discriminating as the better-known medical colleges in Boston; the press of acceptances necessitated an expansion. Aloysius Stevens worked nights to satisfy the terms of his fellowship. In exchange for tuition relief and a place to work—the late-night shift was quiet and conducive to study—the school got someone to admit the body snatcher.

  Carpenter usually delivered just before dawn, before the neighborhood roused, but tonight he called at midnight. Stevens blew out the lamp in the dissection room and ran up the stairs. He almost forgot his muffler, then remembered how cold it had been last time, when autumn crept in to remind them of the bitter season to come. It rained that morning and he hoped it wouldn’t be too muddy. He had one pair of brogues and the soles were in a miserable state.

  Carpenter and his man Cobb waited in the driver’s seat. Stevens settled in the cart with the tools. He slid down until they got a healthy distance away, in case any of the faculty or students were about. It was late, but a bone expert from Chicago had presented that night and they might still be carousing in the local saloons. Stevens was disappointed about missing the man’s talk—his fellowship often prevented his attendance at guest lectures—but the money would remove some of the sting. Most of the other students came from well-off Massachusetts families, spared worries over rent or food. When the cart passed McGinty’s and he heard the laughter inside, Stevens pulled his hat down.

  Cobb leaned around. “Concord tonight,” he said, and offered his flask. As a matter of policy Stevens declined when Cobb shared his liquor. Though still in his studies he was certain of various diagnoses he’d made about the state of the man’s health. But the wind was brisk and mean and they had hours in the dark and mud before the return to the Anatomy House. Stevens took a long pull and choked on fire. “What is this?”

  “One of my cousin’s concoctions. Too strong for your taste?” He and Carpenter chortled.

  More likely he had collected last night’s dregs at the saloon. Stevens took the prank in good cheer. Cobb had warmed to Stevens over the months. He could imagine the man’s complaints when Carpenter suggested that he stand in whenever one of their gang was too besotted, or incarcerated, or otherwise unavailable for their nocturnal missions. Who’s to say this fancy rich boy could keep his tongue? (Stevens was not rich and was fancy only in his aspirations.) The city had started hanging grave robbers lately—which was ironic or fitting depending on one’s perspective, as the bodies of the hanged were given to medical schools for dissection.

  “Don’t mind the gallows,” Cobb had told Stevens. “It’s quick enough. The people are the thing—it should be a private viewing, if you ask me. Watching a man shit his guts, it’s indecent.”

  Digging up graves had fastened the bonds of friendship. Now when Cobb called him Doctor, it was with respect and not derision. “You’re not like that other sort,” Cobb told him one night when they carried a cadaver through the back door. “You’re a wee shady.”

  That he was. It helped to be a wee disreputable when you were a young surgeon, especially when it came to materials for postmortem dissection. There had been a body shortage ever since the study of anatomy came into its own. The law, the jail, and the judge provided only so many dead murderers and prostitutes. Yes, persons afflicted with rare diseases and curious deformities sold their bodies for study after their demise, and some doctors donated their cadavers in the spirit of scientific inquiry, but their numbers scarcely met the demand. The body game was fierce, for buyers and sellers alike. Rich medical schools outbid the less fortunate ones. Body snatchers charged for the body, then added a retainer, then a delivery fee. They raised prices at the start of the teaching period when demand was high, only to offer bargains at the end of the term when there was no longer a need for a specimen.

  Morbid paradoxes confronted Stevens daily. His profession worked to extend life while secretly hoping for an increase in the deceased. A malpractice suit called you before the judge for want of a skill, but get caught with an ill-gotten cadaver and the judge punished you for trying to obtain that skill. Proctor made its students pay for their own pathological specimens. Stevens’s first anatomy course required two complete dissections—how was he supposed to pay for that? Back home in Maine, he’d been spoiled by his mother’s cooking; the women on her side were gifted. Here in the city, tuition, books, lectures, and rent had him subsisting on crusts for days on end.

  When Carpenter invited Stevens to work for him, he did not hesitate. His appearance scared Stevens, that first delivery months before. The grave robber was an Irish giant, imposing in frame, uncouth in manner and speech, and carried with him the reek of damp earth. Carpenter and his wife had six children; when two of them passed from yellow fever, he sold them for anatomical study. Or so it was said. Stevens was too scared to ask for refutation. When trafficking in cadavers, it helped to be immune to sentimentality.

  He wouldn’t be the first body snatcher to open a grave to find the face of a long-lost cousin or a dear friend.

  Carpenter recruited his gang at the saloon, rowdies all. They slept the day, drank well into the evening, and then set off for their pastime. “The hours are not great, but suit a certain character.” Criminal character, incorrigible by any measure. It was a low enterprise. Raidi
ng cemeteries was the least of it. The competition was a pack of rabid animals. Leave a prospect to too late in the evening and you were liable to discover someone else had pilfered the body first. Carpenter reported his competition’s clients to the police, broke into dissection rooms to mutilate their deliveries. Brawls erupted when rival gangs converged on the same pauper’s field. They smashed one another’s faces among the tombstones. “It was raucous,” Carpenter always said when he finished one of his stories, grinning through his mossy teeth.

  In his glory days, Carpenter elevated the ploys and chicanery of his trade to a devilish art. He brought rocks in wheelbarrows for undertakers to bury and carried away the deceased. An actor taught his nieces and nephews to cry on demand, the craft of bereavement. Then they made the rounds of the morgue, claiming bodies as long-lost relatives—although Carpenter was not above simply stealing bodies from the coroner when he had to. On more than one occasion, Carpenter sold a cadaver to an anatomical school, reported the body to the police, and then had his wife, dressed in mourning clothes, claim it as her son. Whereupon Carpenter sold the body again to another school. It saved the county the expense of burial; no one looked too closely.

  Eventually the body trade grew so reckless that relatives took to holding graveside vigils, lest their loved ones disappear in the night. Suddenly every missing child was perceived to have been a victim of foul play—snatched, dispatched, and then sold for dissection. The newspapers took up the cause in outraged editorials; the law stepped in. In this new climate, most body snatchers extended their territory, riffling the graves of distant cemeteries to space out their raids. Carpenter turned to niggers exclusively.