Wash

by Margaret Wrinkle

  She just folded her hand closed and sat there, tipping her head and waiting on me to do like she said and choose. That was the day when I learned how a shark tooth, a tiny piece of hair from those dark spidery tree roots and some pebbles worn almost back down to sand can be enough.

  Thompson

  The one time I caught Mena at her mojo, I was riding over the dune just as she was laying some animal bones in a shallow grave and covering them with sand. I pointed from her hands fluttering over the hole to my own chest and back, raising my eyebrows to ask if that was some version of me she was burying.

  She shook her head no with some force. All I cared about was that it wasn’t me. Beyond that, I knew to stay out of it. I kicked my gelding on along, telling myself I’d best beef up my own prayers.

  When she talked to Wash, Mena’s ribbony murmur sounded like a small creek running over stones. I remember wondering what stories she could possibly be telling him that went on and on like that. But I was glad she was bothering to teach him, glad to have enough slack to grant her some and more than glad that I knew enough by then to leave her well alone. Every time I heard them, I rode on past.

  What Mena caught on to right at the beginning and never did let go of was the sun setting over the sound. She’d get everything done and ready for my supper, then she’d stand there, so still she was almost trembling, with her eyes fixed on me till I’d nod and then she’d be off. Drawn down there like a magnet, every day as urgent as the last, for as long as the light held. With that boy trailing right behind her, steady as a hound and taller every day.

  It took me years of watching to see what she was doing, but even before I understood it, I let her go. She seemed centered on it somehow and she always had her work done. My supper laid out and everything else put away. I hate having someone hovering over me while I eat anyway. If I can’t ladle my own food, I might as well climb on into my bed, fold my hands across my chest and get ready to meet my maker.

  It was not until I went riding after an early dinner one summer night and came across her showing Wash the sun setting over the sound that I understood the whole story. I watched her hands flutter in the air, making what looked like mountains running down to the water. Then she made a circle of sun with one hand and drew it down behind the flat floating line of ocean she made by holding her other palm out parallel to the ground, letting it rise and fall a little to show the waves.

  That’s when I saw it. She’d found a sun that set over the water the way it must have done at home. The way it must have been doing when they stole her. What her hands did next, going around her own neck and making to drag her off, that’s when I knew how it had happened.

  She’d gone down to watch the sunset like she always did, even though the trouble had long since started and her family told her not to go. I could tell when she wagged her finger at her boy, saying no, don’t you dare, she was being her parents talking to her younger self. She had nodded and smiled but kept going to the water. And that was when they caught her.

  But here she is, and she’s found the sun setting into the water instead of rising from it, with Wash growing up straight and strong and not getting hit.

  Wash

  It was in the quiet of the sound where my mamma told me stories. Soon as we stepped into the trees, the roar of the waves fell away. Like the woods was one big mouth closing up with us inside it. Old pines leaning against each other with vines tangled between em and a bed of sea grass grown long like hair, all matted round their trunks.

  Might have been spooky if we hadn’t known it so well. We knew to cross the swampy part close by the double sycamore instead of higher where the water stayed murky, full of jelly lilies. We knew the black snake with brown marks lived in that one log hollowed out from rot. We knew how to stick to the deep sandy paths and stay away from the wide hardpacked trails that other folks used. And we knew how to disappear whenever we heard somebody coming.

  Horse might smell us and spook or snort a little, but most folks would kick him on past without looking too close. Said the place was haunted. Those thick woods gave them the willies so they either went round or else hurried on through. But most times, that bogey man was us. Just us.

  We’d work our way through the woods, picking chinquapin nuts for the winter. Get to the sound by midmorning. So quiet with still water stretching as far as I could see. One big mirror making two of everything and shallow enough for me to walk way across that smooth floor of pure white sand, giving under each step I took and drifting like sugar behind me.

  At the near end, there was a tiny curved beach between these two trees so old their wet black roots fanned in the air from the sand washed out underneath. Just like sitting in a circle of great big spiders, my mamma said as she settled us in. Made me think of how old man Thompson used to shake his head over her, muttering about how she wasn’t afraid of much.

  But truth was, she had a whole different set of things to be scared of. Said it wasn’t so much the thing itself as being surprised by it. That’s why she told me everything. Said she wanted me to be ready, come what may. Wanted me to know whatever I needed to know, and since she had no idea what all that might be, she told me everything she could think of. Started this telling long before I ever understood her and there wasn’t nothing she didn’t tell me she thought I could use.

  Sometimes all I got was the rhythm and the shape of the story, the rise and fall of her voice and the shapes she made in the air with her hands. Sometimes what happened in one of her stories didn’t come clear to me till much later. I’d find myself in the middle of some trouble, then I’d see her hands moving in my mind’s eye, the look on her face all those years ago. Then I’d say to myself, oh. Here it is. This right here is what she meant.

  She never knew how much time she had with me out on that island under old man Thompson. We knew he’d die one day, and his boys stayed itching to get their hands on us, so she made sure I had hold of all my people and my places. She told it to me over and over like she was drawing pictures in wet sand. Feeding them feeds us was what she said. That’s how we watch over each other.

  But I had to wait on her to get ready. And I knew not to ask questions. Best sit still and watch her hands move. Seemed like the telling was as much for her as for me. She was homesick and wanted to keep her people strong and bright in her mind’s eye.

  Her mamma, round and sweet. Grabbing you close, making a game out of giving you some sugar. And her daddy, so serious he was scary. I know just how he was from watching her tell me about him. I’d seen her get just like that, drawing up inside herself and giving you that look. Made you think twice before bothering her.

  She knew my daddy’s people too. My daddy’s daddy was soft and kind of nosy in a way, but most folks didn’t mind. When you went to him with trouble, he helped you if he could. And my daddy’s mamma was kind of standoffish, or maybe she just seemed that way next to her husband staying in everybody’s business. And my mamma’s brothers and sisters, all older than her, with children of their own. Her nieces and nephews. My cousins. She told me about every single cousin I had. How they were like and not like me.

  I loved it when she talked about me. How I had my uncle’s eyes set so square in my face. Said I had my daddy’s wide hands and her narrow feet. Where these bony shoulders like bird wings came from she had no idea. She’d lean into my side, rubbing my back, making me smile.

  Said she knew it might make it harder on me, having such a strong clear picture of how our life was before. But she was not about to have a child of hers walk through this world, no matter for how long, not knowing who he was and who his people were, both the living and the dead. Harder or easier, she was not going to have it.

  Enough of my mamma’s stories and I could feel our people all round me, the littlest ones jostling and playing so close and the older ones darting through the clearing. I’d turn my head real quick, thinking I saw somebody at the edge of the woods, but I never could catch em with my eyes. I had to settle fo
r their breath on the back of my neck and their hands steadying mine. I mighta been spooked by it but my mamma treated it so regular. Pointed to my goose bumps, then smiling and rubbing my back so calm, saying there they go, trying to get next to you.

  It was luck, she said, finding the sound. A place where the sun fell down in the water like it did at home. She never thought she’d see that again ever. Day falling into night didn’t feel right to her here. Said the ocean looked like it felt left behind at dusk.

  She never did get used to facing east. Made her uneasy. So she gave thanks every night for the sound, for the sun sliding down into the water, letting it shine that gold back to the sky, and sending the rest of the world falling into pink and gray and shadows. That was how it should be, she always said. That was right.

  ∞

  It’s those times I think about when I get up on em. When Richardson sends me someplace and I have to get up on em, I think about all those hearts of mine, crowding so close beside that quiet sound. I keep my mind turned towards how I’m handing all my people some new bodies to live inside.

  All those spirits hovering round me as real and hollow as shadows, I want em right here by me. I want mine right here in this world where I can get at em. I want to grab em with my own two hands and feel em wriggling and squirming to get away from me. Running to their mammas, asking who is that scary man.

  I want these little ones of mine crawling all over everything. Some will make it and some won’t but they will all be mine. They’ll be up under white folks and they’ll get messed with and beat down and broken, but they will be mine whether they ever know it or not. And some will make it and they belong to us and us to them. My mamma and my daddy and theirs, running in the blood of these children I keep dragging into this world.

  They will look in some scrap of mirror and they will see us. Showing up in the shape of their eyebrow or the feel of their tongue sitting inside their mouth. They will see us out of the corner of their eye and feel us breathing close, laying our hands on their hands, whether they ever know it for sure or not, we’ll be gathered close. All the time.

  So that’s what I do. I get up on em, one after the next, and I keep my heart full with all those spirits of mine. I’m pulling my people back into this world so they can be here with me. Right here in this world, cause I know this world won’t last. These here will die off and mine will breathe in new air and it will be a new day.

  So bring em on, those that’s messing with me and laughing. It’s all right. I know who gets the last laugh. Go head, bring em right on.

  So I got me a setup and I try to leave most of the rest of it alone. Sit in the sun on cool days and move to the shade of the willow on hot ones. Not like the rest of these folks round here, always trying to get lighter and stay lighter. To hell with that. The darker I am, the less will show.

  And I keep most everybody looking out for the back of my hand. Most of these little ones stay on the jump from me. I know what folks think of me and sometimes I let the way they see me rise up in me till I’m cutting the buck real good. Fighting just to feel my hand coming down, till I can read my scars like words on a page.

  Life comes over me in waves, with the bad and the good twined tight together, making me take all of it or none. And what I do know is I can’t stay here without nothing at all. That’s like a plant stuck in his little patch of dirt, with rain just too uncertain.

  They can take me however they like. I ain’t got a thing I can do for em. Too many of em sitting on ready, wanting to run and trying to plan, but I can’t fall for it anymore. I been through that door enough times to see it don’t lead nowhere. Can’t none of us see far enough, even in our mind’s eye, how far we’d have to make it before we’d be out of these woods. I’d rather be here, with my hearts and my having everything worked into some kind of manageable than having to start over some place else, with this same mess and folks I don’t even know.

  And I’m a Washington for Richardson too but he may be getting more than he bargained for. My face and my ways starting to crop up on most places round here. Some favor me more and some favor me less but it’s me everywhere all the same. He laid that big man’s name on me and I’m making my own country, then weaving back and forth across it, going to see Pallas.

  It’s hard on her just like it’s hard on me, but life is hard in all kind a ways and this is just one of em. We can’t have each other to ourselves but her knowing and mine go together some kind a way. Day or night, she’s pulling most all mine into this world and naming plenty of em too. Hers is the first face they see, so we got less but at the same time, we got more.

  Parts of your heart will jump up trying to catch onto life, and you can’t do nothing but slap em back down, so we stay real careful. We meet out and away and secret. We find our time together and it’s sweet enough to last us these long stretches in between. Drives me clean out sometimes but Pallas sees more to me than anybody and I can’t make do with less.

  But it sure did gall me to have this be what Richardson ended up wanting from me. Working you to death is one thing but this here was something else.

  I saw from the beginning this work would set me apart from the rest. Sooner or later, they’d put me with somebody’s somebody. And that was just the start. I saw trouble stacking right up.

  But I wasn’t in the field and I wasn’t driving and having to give folks the lash. And I was getting enough to eat. More than enough. As for set apart, growing up the way I did, with a mamma like mine, I was already set apart anyhow.

  Besides, I was still young and Richardson was careful to sneak it up on me. He started me out slow and kept me to the fine ones I’d already been eyeing. Like Nelle. Right from the first, he made sure he let me think it was me choosing. Like I didn’t do nothing but fall in a tub of butter.

  And it didn’t take much. Get my hands on her good, feel her snug round me and let it come over me. Running up my spine and cresting over my shoulders in a wave, keeping me curling into her. Ain’t no way it ever feels bad.

  And I looked away from the rest. Looked away from em watching me. Back then, they still bothered to hide it. Wasn’t till later when they stood in the open.

  But pretty soon it added up and added up, stories started to go round, and I got riled. Set to work on not letting em take nothing from me. They’d bring her to me in that barn and I’d think about all kind a things, trying to keep myself to myself. They’d nod at her to take her shirt off and she’d stand there unbuttoning, one slow hand after the next, till her cloth fell open and she glowed whether she wanted to or not, so I’d call a picture to my mind.

  Bright pink skin of a possum, just been yanked inside out, all crisscrossed with blue veins and deep red ropes of blood ringing the holes where the skin tore from the head, paws and tail. I’d fill my mind’s eye with the inside of that possum skin till no matter what she looked like, I’d just lay there, heavy and soft between my thighs.

  It worked but only for a minute. Quinn told me I could find a way to hook up with my business or I could sit and wait for a whipping. Watch everything get taken away from me bit by bit till I was right back in that far field, shackled with the rest of the troublemakers and bringing up the rear.

  I saw us all chained together, trying to hoe that last row with some cracker riding close on us all day, dark to dark, straight through all those goddamn songs. I’d already got put in the far field once, back at Thompson’s place, and I’d already decided I wasn’t going back.

  This way, I didn’t have to be tied to nobody. Didn’t have to ask nobody for nothing. Besides, it had already made me mad, Richardson messing with the only thing I’d ever known for sure. This one thing was mine from beginning to end, and here he comes, trying to put his foot right in the middle of me.

  I wasn’t gonna let it happen like that. One way or other, I wasn’t gonna lose feeling good. Not in this lifetime. It got so I didn’t care how they messed with me. Right or wrong, I went with it more than against it. And that’s
how I made it all the way to now.

  So I take it all. And the perks and the treats too. Sit in the shade of the willow and pocket that extra bacon. Go see Pallas when I can so long as I keep coming back. Even that damn Quinn, watching me through the stall door with a hand on himself.

  At least Richardson keeps him off the girls. Says he doesn’t want no mixing. Not when he has gone to this trouble to start some fine lines with me. Says he’s building something and the last thing he wants is some trashy snaggletooth strain seeping into his plans and draining the African right out. He tells me he has a reputation to look after. That people come to him for his negroes.

  He tells me all about it, like I need to hear whatever words he wants to wrap round this work. Then he says I need to keep a very old truth in the front of my mind. There’s always some evil to balance every good.

  Richardson

  I have learned over time to carry Wash to other places. Let him do most of his work away from home and let mine have their own families. You must give them a reason to do right. Thompson was certainly on the money about that.

  It’s best to keep everything as separate as possible. I decided to stick to my own rules after one exception I made nearly bit me right back. I’d received Delph without wanting or needing her. Accepted her in repayment of an old debt and planned to sell her on my next trip downriver since money’s always much more useful to me. She was midway through her twenties so far as she knew and surly but light skinned and lean, with those Chinese eyes so many seem to favor. She wouldn’t be on my place long, and pregnancy would increase her value, so I put her with Wash.

  Didn’t take her but a day or two to go after him and she went after him good, never mind the dullness of that oyster knife she’d found. And she near about got him too.