by Alan Cheuse
She looked at me, I looked to the children.
He has for sale
Some Negroes, male,
Will suit full well grooms,
He has likewise
Some of their wives
Can make clean, dirty rooms…
“It is…silly and hurtful,” Rebecca said, looking at me. She turned to her cousin. “Don’t you think so, Anna?”
Her cousin shook her head.
“It is silly,” she said.
“It is mean,” Rebecca said.
“Rebecca, hush,” Jonathan said. “Let them finish.”
“It is just beginning,” Rebecca said. “Father?”
My host ignored her, directing the children to go on.
For planting, too,
He has a few
To sell, all for the cash,
Of various price,
To work the rice
Or bring them to the lash.
The young ones true,
If that will do,
May some be had of him
To learn your trade
They may be made,
Or bring them to your trim.
“Have you heard enough?” Rebecca said to me.
But I did not wish to be an ungracious guest, and so I shook my head, while the children raced along in their sing-song fashion.
The boatmen great.
Will you elate
They are so brisk and free;
What e’er you say,
They will obey,
If you buy them of me.
He also can
Suit any man
With land all o’er the State;
A bargain, sure,
They may procure
If they don’t stay too late.
For paper he
Will sure agree,
Bond, note or public debt;
To sell the same
If with good name
Any buyer can be met.
To such of those
As will dispose
He begs of them to tell;
By not or phiz,
What e’er it is
That they have got to sell.
He surely will
Try all his skill
To sell, for more or less,
The articles
Of beaux and belles,
That they to him address.
They bowed, and we applauded and went in to lunch.
At table the father of the children, Rebecca’s brother Joseph, the red-haired legislator, having had just returned from the capital was dishing out a plateful of news about battles in the governing body in Columbia.
“The struggle now is between those who want to nullify and those who talk secession,” he said.
Rebecca’s father announced that he had always been in favor of nullification as long as it did not lead to secession.
“Tariffs are never good for me,” he said. “It makes all of my imported cloths cost extra. And my prices go up.”
“You are arguing a practical point,” said his son. “My colleagues in Columbia put forward nullification because they would desire to have us make our own laws and regulations, in other words, create our own union. It is the first step.”
“Ah, yes,” his father said, “because they want to preserve our peculiar institution no matter what the law of the nation.”
“Father,” Rebecca spoke up, “you call it peculiar but whom do we have cooking our lunch just this moment?”
“That’s what I mean,” her father said. “To me this is very peculiar.”
“That’s why I had my vision,” Rebecca said. “Because it is all so peculiar.”
“Your vision,” her father said. Then turning to look directly at me. “You know about her vision?
I nodded, preferring to keep my silence.
But next he said, “And what do you think of it?”
I looked down into my glass and took a breath.
“Peculiar,” I said, and we all laughed together.
“But you do think she is right?” her father said.
“I don’t know enough about the way things are down here,” I said.
“The way things are? They are what they are, sir. They are the way the Lord intended them to be. Selah, selah.”
“Father,” Rebecca said.
“Do we want to discuss this?” Jonathan said.
“All we have is what we talk about,” Rebecca’s father said.
“We have God’s laws and man’s laws,” her brother put in. “If God had solved everything, why do we need a legislature?”
“Yes, you have a point,” said our host. Turning to me, “But I am interested in our guest’s view of things.”
“His view of us?” Jonathan said. “He thinks we are queer folk. With our strange ways. He is, of course, a Jew himself. But Yankee Jews seem to be different from us.”
“And what is that difference?” said our host.
“They don’t own slaves.” He paused, licked his lips in anticipation of what he was going to say next, and then said it. “Yet.”
Everyone at table laughed at that, at me, except for Rebecca. Jonathan meanwhile refilled his wine glass, something which I had not noticed he had been doing since we sat down at table.
“You all are being horrible,” Rebecca said. “Horrible rude and horrible, just plain horrible.”
“I will take back what I said,” Jonathan spoke up. “They will never have slavery in the north. It is too cold, I hear, much too cold for an African population to survive.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “if they have a choice between slavery and warm weather and freedom and cold weather, they might still wrap themselves in warm coats and choose freedom.”
“A good point,” put in our host. “And do you think they will have a choice?”
“If your daughter’s plan, or vision, whatever you call it, works, they will.”
“It never will work,” he said.
“Father!” Rebecca was insulted.
“It won’t,” he said. “You might educate the occasional genius of a slave. But as they are like most other people, geniuses are few and far between. Most of them are condemned to a life of ordinary servitude.”
“Do you really believe that, sir?” I said.
“I do,” he said. “But what do you believe, young man? Are these black slaves educable, do you think?”
“I…I do not know enough of them to say.”
“Well, sir, you must live here a while with us and find out for yourself.”
“That is exactly what he is doing,” said my uncle. “He is making a study of it.”
“To what end?” asked our host. “Are you aiming to become a scientist and study our skulls, Jews and slaves alike?”
“No, sir,” I said. “I am here because my father, my uncle’s brother, asked me to come and investigate plantation life.”
“Investigate? Oh, sir, that makes it sound quite serious, as though we are part of some sort of crime. Investigate, to what end?”
“He is thinking of ways to invest, sir,” I said.
“A good Jew,” our host said.
“He is trying to help his business, sir,” I said.
“And that is?”
“Sir, it is import-export.”
“Does he buy and sell slaves?”
“No, sir, not now. Only lifeless goods.”
“Very good, very good. But he may yet. Is that what he is asking you to investigate?”
My uncle broke in.
“My brother has many irons in the fire,” he said. “He and I have had a correspondence. Let us say that he is quite interested in what we do here, because he himself may choose to become part of it.”
“Well, he is a wise man to look before he leaps. There is no greater sorrow than to enter into a business about which you know nothing. Especially if it is a business that deals in human lives.”
“Yes, they are human,” Jonathan said, as if he were talking to himself and him
self alone.
“Jonathan, what are you saying?” I could hear the anger in Rebecca’s voice.
“Nothing, I am saying nothing. Ignore me, Rebecca. I was speaking loosely.”
“Many hold the same view,” said my uncle. “Just as they think that way of us.”
“Yes, Jonathan,” Rebecca said, “do you wish others to think of you in this fashion?”
“Frankly, I don’t care what others think. As long as I am free.” He glanced over at me, catching me in my fascination with all this going on before me. “What do you think, Cousin?”
“About what?”
“What do you think about slaves? Are they human? Or are they another species? Or perhaps even akin to inert articles, such as furniture. I could, if I like, sit upon a slave and he would not complain as I am his master.” Deep in his throat he made a sound, something like a laugh, but slightly more sinister, as if since knowing that no one else would find his comments comical that he would have to laugh all on his own.
“Jonathan!” Rebecca stood up from the table.
“Please sit, darling,” Jonathan said. “We are having an interesting discussion.”
He gestured, and she slowly seated herself again. “Cuz?”
“I don’t know enough about slaves,” I said. “From a distance, they appear to be perfectly human.”
“Or imperfectly,” my uncle said.
“Yes,” I said in agreement. “No better, no worse, than the rest of us.”
“Just unlucky at birth?” My cousin seemed almost to be taunting me.
“As you say, no more and no less than other people.”
“But other people are not slaves,” said Jonathan.
“Jonathan,” Rebecca said, “other people might say the same of us.”
“That Jews are not lucky or that Jews are not human?”
“We once were born slaves and now we are free,” Rebecca said. “It proves to me that those born black slaves may one day gain their freedom.”
“Easy to say for someone who grew up in town,” Jonathan said. “But where would our plantation be without their labor?”
“Then there should be no plantation,” Rebecca said. “What do you think, Anna?” she asked of her cousin.
Anna looked at me, of all people, as if I might give her direction. But I said nothing.
“Children,” our host’s wife said, “don’t quarrel. It is not good for the married life.” She then turned to her son and asked about recent events in Columbia.
Rebecca’s brother talked about the Jews in the legislature and how much the Gentile members depended on them.
“Because we defend our way of life here,” he said. “And we were once slaves ourselves…”
“More evidence for the peculiar,” Rebecca said.
“Why do you talk that way?” Her mother shook her head. “It is a miracle, Rebecca, that you found a man as good as Jonathan, when you talk like such a…a…”
“Sport?” I said.
“Sport? And what is that?”
“A changeling,” I said. “Rebecca’s ideas are ahead of her time. Ahead of our time.”
“She is a bold girl,” Jonathan said, “and I admire her.”
“Thank you, my darling,” Rebecca said.
Now, dear Miriam, I have to tell you that two strange things occurred during the course of this visit, neither of which I have yet described. The first such thing happened after I asked where I might wash up before leaving for our drive back to The Oaks and Rebecca directed me to a water closet toward the rear of the house.
“Can you find your way back, Cousin?” she said, rather playfully.
“I believe I can,” I said.
She then left me to close the door to the little room. After making my toilet I wandered on my return to the front of the house, passing a small sitting room from which I heard voices.
“You are not feeling well?” A woman spoke, whose voice I did not immediately recognize.
“I cannot go on,” I heard a woman say. This was my cousin Rebecca, speaking in a voice so tormented that I nearly did not recognize it. Whatever playfulness she might have feigned while speaking to me had disappeared.
“What choice do you have?” This, I now understood, was her cousin Anna.
“None,” Rebecca said.
“That is right,” Anna said.
“I…I spoke to Mother.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said, this is our lot. And I should not complain anymore, it would not be good for my child.”
“The father of whom…”
“Yes?”
“…is the father of whom?”
“You make a joke, Anna, and I wish that I could laugh.”
“I am sorry, Cousin. I do not care to make you feel any worse than you already do. It would not be good for your child.”
“My child…” Rebecca’s voice dropped away, almost to the inaudible. I leaned closer and listened hard.
“I wish that I had no child coming.”
“Rebecca!”
“I do sometimes wish that.”
“Please, please,” her cousin said. “Let us speak of other things.”
Rebecca seemed to recover herself almost at once.
“Do you mean…?”
“Yes, I do.”
“He seems like a gentleman.”
“I do like the way he carries himself.”
“And you would like for him to carry you away to New York?”
Even as I felt myself begin to blush I heard the rustling of skirts and hurried away from the door, thinking back to her walk through the dark on the way to the cabins while continuing on to the front of the house where the rest of the party waited for me. Rebecca and Anna soon returned as well and we made our farewells.
And now I must tell you of the second incident, something that you will find awful and revolting, and so I suggest that you set this letter down and put it aside if you fear being horrified and affronted. I apologize in advance for the awful picture it gives, something that soundly jarred the stillness I mentioned when I first began this missive.
As we were driving along the Battery (for who cannot resist a last turn along this wonderful avenue, with the park of trees on one side and the ocean on the other side of the sea wall), we saw a commotion up ahead. A carriage had just run off the road, apparently because of some fault and distraction of the horse, and sat up on the grass, with the animal, a huge chestnut gelding, now docile in front of it, head bent, nibbling at the local flowers. Just as we approached, the driver, a man dressed all in black with top hat and silvery-white hair down to his shoulders (I instantly recognized him as a man who had boarded our ship in Perth Amboy on our way south) leaped down from his seat, raised his arm high and beat at the horse with his whip.
The animal lifted its head and whinnied in pain.
Whup! Again, the man slashed at the beast across the eyes.
“Dumb!” he cried out. “You, dumb!”
Again he slashed, and the horse whined, and tried to pull away, carriage and all, but the man had grabbed at its traces with his free hand and kept slashing with the other.