Amari remembered the utter safety she felt as a child in her village, knowing that if she fell down and skinned her knee, any woman close by would dry her tears, put a little mud on the wound, and send her on her way with a hug.
“Little boys like me be there?” Tidbit asked with genuine curiosity.
“I had a brother,” she said slowly. “Little older than you be. Happy boy with laugh like gold.” She had to close her eyes at the thought of Kwasi.
“Where he be now?” Tidbit asked innocently.
Amari’s face crumpled. “Dead,” she said. Tidbit looked at her and nodded with a look of almost adult understanding. The three of them were silent for a few minutes, the only sound being the trilling of warblers and swallows.
Tidbit then asked Polly, “Where you was ’fore you come here?”
Polly looked thoughtful. “I grew up not far from here—in the low country. I remember moving from place to place and never having enough money, but that never bothered my parents. They doted on each other, but I was their shining star.” Amari was thankful Polly spoke slowly so she could follow along.
“What that mean?” Tidbit asked.
“You know how your mama looks at you just before you go to sleep? That worried look when you stay out with Hushpuppy too long?” The boy nodded. “That’s how my mama and daddy loved me.”
Amari understood as well, but it surprised her. She’d never really thought about Polly’s loss or grief. She just figured that because Polly was a white girl, her life just had to have been easier.
Polly looked into the distance and kicked at the tree trunk. “My mother told me once that she wanted to be a lady—somebody who wore lace and rode in a fancy carriage. But it never happened,” she mumbled. “So she wished it for me.”
Amari wasn’t sure of every single word, but she knew Polly missed her mother. She reached over and touched Polly’s hand. She was surprised that Polly didn’t jerk away.
“You ever goin’ back to Africa?” Tidbit asked Amari.
“No,” Amari replied quietly and sadly, and she knew that it was forever true. Tidbit nestled against her, as if he understood her sorrow.
The two girls, accompanied by an unusually quiet Tidbit, walked back to Teenie’s kitchen in silence. They delivered the peaches to Teenie and returned to their chores without comment.
20. ISABELLE DERBY
IN SPITE OF TEENIE’S DIMINUTIVE SIZE, AMARI noticed that no one ever questioned her authority in the kitchen, not even the white people who lived in the main house. For a slave, that was power.
Isabelle Derby, the current mistress of the house, turned out to be surprisingly motherly and caring. Amari had heard whispers and rumors about her from some of the house slaves who stopped by Teenie’s kitchen. Her husband controlled her every move and kept her away from everyone she had once known, they said. Amari noticed also that the household servants obeyed her without question—maybe because she was the only white person they knew who looked at them with a smile.
All the slaves also whispered about the fact that she was pregnant.
Each morning Mrs. Derby, dressed in white, as she usually was, came to Teenie’s kitchen, greeted everyone with a cheerful hello, and planned the meals for the day. She would sometimes unlock the smokehouse so Teenie could choose a smoked meat if nothing fresh was available. Amari knew that Teenie would fix what she wanted to in spite of what Mrs. Derby suggested, but they had this conversation every morning anyway.
“It’s a lovely day, Teenie,” she’d always begin. She would always glance out of the narrow door and toward the horizon as she said that. It seemed to Amari that she wished she could be in another place.
“Yes’m. Gonna be hot again—hotter than buzzard’s breath.” A look of wistful sorrow crossed Mrs. Derby’s face.
“Perhaps some iced tea for Master Derby at dinner would be refreshing.” Mrs. Derby always frowned as she spoke of her husband.
“Yes’m. I be fixin’ fresh chicken and snow peas and hush puppies. Anything else you be wantin’ today?”
“Maybe some of your delicious peach pie?”
“Already done started it, ma’am. Be real good for you and that chile you carryin’. You need a little meat on them bones.”
Mrs. Derby looked down at her swollen belly. “I pray for this child, Teenie,” she said quietly. Amari watched as the woman gently rubbed her stomach.
“Yes’m. Maybe that chile make you happy for shure.”
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Derby replied, the wistful look returning.
Amari was fascinated with this white woman who seemed to be so pleasant and gentle. She tried to be in the kitchen area whenever Mrs. Derby came around, because the mistress of the house had a kind word for everyone and always smelled like flowers. Amari liked the fact that she didn’t look at her as if she were ugly or an animal or a piece of flesh to be used. Mrs. Derby smiled at her with genuine compassion.
One early morning when the grass was still wet with dew, Amari was returning to the kitchen with a bucket of water for Teenie. She didn’t often get time alone, so she walked slowly, savoring each solitary moment, even though she knew Teenie would scold her for being late.
She looked up with surprise as she almost collided with Mrs. Derby, who was walking alone on the path that led to the woods. Dressed in a long billowing gown that accentuated her pregnancy and a white hooded shawl, she looked almost like a spirit to Amari.
“You are Myna, am I correct?” Mrs. Derby asked her, to Amari’s surprise. Her voice sounded whispery.
Nervously, Amari replied, “Yes’m.” She stared down at her own bare, dirty feet, which stood so close to the fancy white shoes of the mistress. Teenie had told her never to look the masters directly in their eyes, but Amari had stolen looks at Mrs. Derby as often as she had been able to.
“Are you adjusting to your life here?” the woman asked kindly.
Again Amari simply replied, “Yes’m.” How could she tell this woman of the horrors of her forced nights with Clay or her gutwrenching longing for her mother?
“It must be very difficult for you, dear,” Mrs. Derby said, as if she had read Amari’s mind. “I know what it is like to be unhappy.”
Surprised, Amari looked up. This white woman was admitting a weakness to her—a slave? Mrs. Derby smiled and reached out to touch Amari’s shoulder. Amari, startled by her kind touch, gazed into eyes so green, they looked unreal. She had never encountered anyone with eyes that color. Amari also noticed what might have been tears on Mrs. Derby’s face, but perhaps it was just her imagination.
Mrs. Derby hesitated, then said, “I know about you and Clay.”
Amari stepped back, her heart beating fast. What did she mean, “you and Clay”? Did this woman think she went to his room voluntarily? Amari didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to say all the jumbled thoughts in her head.
“It is an unfortunate situation,” Mrs. Derby said with feeling. “But I have no control over what he does. To tell you the truth, I have very little power over anything around here,” she said morosely. “I just want to let you know I sympathize. I hope it ends soon.”
Amari, whose face was hot with embarrassment, managed to mumble, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“I must go now,” Mrs. Derby said suddenly, looking nervously toward the manor house. She gave Amari one last look, then turned and hurried back to the house, her body a silhouette against the morning sun.
Later that afternoon Amari, peeling potatoes in the corner of the kitchen, listened as Lena, one of the house slaves, gossiped with Teenie. Grasping on to every word, Amari did her best to figure out the conversation. “Miz Isabelle be carryin’ that baby real high, Teenie. I figger it’s a boy.”
“No, gal,” Teenie commented. “It’s a girl for shure. Miz Isabelle deserve a purty little girl to keep her company in that big ol’ house. I feels sorry for her.”
“How you feel sorry for a rich white woman?” Lena asked harshly.
“Money
ain’t everything, chile. And ain’t none of his money belong to her—she got ’bout as much chance to use his money as you do.”
“Yeah, but she ain’t no slave,” Lena insisted.
“Pretty close to it,” Teenie said. “He decide where she go, who she talk to, what she wear—everything. She just sleep in a better bed than you do!”
Lena continued, “And Noah, that slave she brought with her, I heard tell she got legal papers all writ up for him, so when she die, he be free.”
“Do say, now,” Teenie replied, but she made no real comment. Lena had ambled out of the kitchen then, to tend to other chores.
Intrigued, Amari wanted to know more. “How old she be—Miz Derby?” Amari asked Teenie.
Teenie counted on her fingers. “Maybe round ’bout eighteen. She jest a young thing. She came to that marriage with her slave Noah, lots of land, and piles of money, which is what ol’ Massa wanted.” Teenie glanced at Amari, a look of warning on her face. “Now, don’t you be mindin’ white folks’ business, you hear me, gal? Just get them ’taters peeled right quickly.”
Amari nodded and tried to focus on the mountain of potatoes in front of her.
Several evenings later, just before darkness completely obscured the path, Amari, exhausted from the labors of the day, hurried to finish gathering kindling to stoke Teenie’s fire during the night. Suddenly, she stiffened, for just off the path she heard soft voices—a deep male voice, speaking in hushed tones, then a female’s whispered reply. The woman seemed to be upset or crying.
“Who there?” Amari asked, not sure what she was interrupting. She recognized most of the slaves on the place by now and knew they posed no threat to her. But she feared running into Clay.
She heard a rustling in the bushes, then footsteps retreating. Amari listened for a moment or two, but all was silent, so she hurried back to Teenie’s kitchen. She had learned, in her short time on the plantation, never to ask too many questions. Some things were best left unsaid, so she did not mention the incident to Teenie or Polly.
At the end of each day Amari collapsed, exhausted, on the floor mat in their small cabin. At first she thought she was being selfish, taking the sleeping mat from Polly, but Polly actually seemed to prefer that lumpy, smelly mattress. Gradually, Amari had figured out that not everyone slept as she had back in her village.
Clay, for example, slept on a soft, clean feather mattress, with perfumed sheets and silken curtains around the four-poster bed. But the curtains hid his vile habits, the smell of the perfume made her gag, and the clean sheets stank of his sweat by the time he was done with her. Oh, how she hated the smells of that bed!
Amari didn’t know how the other slaves managed, for after their day’s labor, they returned to their huts to care for their children, tend their small gardens, and prepare their own meals for the next day. Sometimes she heard bits of their conversations and voices singing late into the midnight hours.
“Why do you think they sing?” Polly whispered one hot, humid night as they listened to the somber songs drift through the window.
“Songs float up to sky—fly free,” Amari had replied simply. She sadly thought back to the music of her mother’s voice. She fell asleep, and thankfully, on that night, she was not awakened by Tidbit.
PART FOUR
POLLY
21. RICE AND SNAKES
POLLY WAS DETERMINED TO GET A POSITION IN the big house. The slave girl was adjusting, Teenie didn’t really need her, and Polly was tired of working like a common slave. She waited for her opportunity, praying for a moment alone with Mrs. Derby to ask for a more suitable position in her household. But Teenie kept her busy from dawn to dusk doing what Polly considered to be slave labor—peeling potatoes, shelling peas, shucking corn, and carrying heavy stacks of kindling for the fire.
Lots of corn grew on the land, and Polly was consistently impressed by Teenie, who seemed to know thousands of things she could make from it, but Derbyshire Farms was actually a rice plantation. Rice was everywhere. Rice ruled.
“Do you think Mr. Derby gets his wealth from the rice?” she asked Teenie one humid afternoon.
“Lawd, chile, what you care about Massa Derby’s money? All I knows is every year Massa Derby go to market and buy big strong male slaves directly from Africa, for to work in the rice fields,” she explained. “I was surprised at first when he brung Myna here—little biddy girl thing—she ain’t no bigger than a rock-eatin’ chicken. For shure she ain’t strong enough to work the fields.” She sighed. “But then I figgered out the reason why. I’m sorry, chile,” she said to Amari.
Amari simply shrugged. “Why he buy Africa men?” she asked Teenie.
“They knows the rice ’cause they work it in their own country. They the brains of the whole project here. Massa won’t admit it, but he need them men to keep this place goin’. They is what’s makin’ him rich.”
Polly pondered this a moment, trying to find any opportunity to move from the kitchen to the house. “Perhaps Mr. Derby could use an assistant to help him keep his books. I can read and cipher, you know,” she added with a bit of pride.
Teenie snorted. “Ain’t much call for none of that round here. That’s enough o’ talkin’ about the massa’s money. I want y’all to head over to the rice fields and take this here water to the workers. Tote a little corn bread for ’em too. Lawd knows when they gonna git the time to eat or drink, though.” She prepared a large wooden bucket for each girl to carry.
Polly groaned inwardly as once again she was given what she considered to be slave duties. What is the advantage of being white if I have to work like I’m black every day? she thought with consternation. Mama would die if she saw me here!
Teenie motioned to the boy. “Tidbit, you and that dog of yourn go with them and show them the way. But you stay outta that water, you hear? Gators get you!” Teenie wiped the sweat from her face.
“Yes, Teenie,” Polly replied with resignation. She grabbed one of the buckets.
“Leave everything with Cato—if he ain’t dead yet. He so old, he couldn’t cut hot butter with a knife!” She laughed at her own joke. “And don’t be all day down there—y’all got work to do back here.”
Polly gritted her teeth, slowly repeated everything Teenie had said to Amari, even though she figured the girl had already understood most of it, and headed out of the kitchen and down to the river.
As they were walking down the path, Polly heard Teenie call out one final warning: “Y’all be careful of snakes, now!” Tidbit laughed, dropped to the ground, and pretended to slither like a snake. Hushpuppy, always ready for a new game, cavorted around Tidbit, barking wildly.
“Get up, silly boy,” Polly said, her grim mood fading. “Your mama will get us if you get any dirtier.” The boy got up, but he darted along the path like a little insect, picking up bugs and rocks along the road and tossing sticks for Hushpuppy to chase.
“I hate the heat of late summer,” Polly remarked, her hair sticking to her face in the humidity. Amari didn’t respond, but she seemed to be enjoying the warmth of the sunshine.
Polly had never been this far from the big house. She had heard of the rice fields, but she stood amazed at what she saw. Two dozen black men and women, knee-deep in thick mud, bent over the delicate-looking rice plants. There was no shade anywhere, and Polly could see thick rivulets of sweat running down their faces. They moved slowly, joylessly. How can people live like this? Polly thought.
“What y’all want?” a wrinkled, skinny slave sitting on the bank of the river asked. His hair, what was left of it, dotted his head like tiny clouds. “Hey, Tidbit! How be the little man and his dog?”
Tidbit bounded over to the old man and gave him a big hug. “Hey, Cato.”
“Teenie sent corn pone and water for the rice workers,” Polly told him.
“Hopes they get to eat ’em ’fore the bugs do!” He cackled, then almost choked in a spasm of coughing. “So how it be fer the new ’dentured gal?” he asked Polly
when he got his breath. “That sunshine-colored hair of yourn gonna get you out of your indenture right quick,” he predicted. “Alls you need is a lonely little white boy!” He laughed at his own comments, then coughed even harder.
Polly touched her hair but did not answer him directly.
Amari asked him, “You work hard today, Cato?” Polly had learned that Cato, the oldest slave on the plantation, always seemed to know everything that went on while managing to do very little work at all.
“They ain’t got much choice but to let me do pretty much what I wants to nowadays, since they done ’bout worked me dry,” he said, chuckling. “Right now I’m workin’ at watchin’ this here grass grow!” He laughed and coughed deeply.
Cato looked up at Polly then. “You two still workin’ in the kitchen?” he asked.
Polly nodded.
“Not fer long, chile. You’se a white gal—soon they gonna have you sewing fer Miz Isabelle.” Polly thrilled at the possibility. “But Miz Africa here gonna be down here in the swamps with us—soon as Massa Clay get tired of her.” Amari let out a soft moan.
“How do you know this?” Polly asked.
“I ain’t the oldest slave on the place fer nothin’. I hears things and sees things.”
“Maybe it is too soon for her,” Polly said, frowning.
Amari looked at Polly, a look of surprise on her face.
“You don’t have to convince ol’ Cato. I’m just tellin’ you what I knows. Massa love to see the Africans workin’ the rice.”
“You ever hear tell of anybody goin’ back to Africa?” Tidbit asked.
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