Douglass’ Women

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Baltimore

  Late spring ain’t never sweet in Baltimore. Hot, slick. Sticky beyond dreaming.

  I was twenty-eight, surviving as best I could. Had me a calico cat. Lena. I’d fan both her and me. Put ice chips in her milk. Ice on my head and wrists. May was as hot as July and there’d be no relief ’til November. Breezes didn’t cool no sweat.

  Legs itching against cotton. Arms damp, staining crinoline. Beads of water draining into my hair, down my cheek. Nights just as bad. Laying in my shift, barely breathing, counting the tiniest stars I could see through the window-top.

  I felt drained. Hungry for more water. For something to fill me up.

  I’d growed. I wasn’t Lil’ Bit no more. Wasn’t cute no more, either. Just short, round, dark; beyond lonely.

  Mam say, “Beauty lives in the heart.” But Mam was thirty miles away. Pa now dead, Mam had her own troubles living old. My trouble was forgetting the kind things she said, the words that made me feel special.

  Now, I was Anna, Housekeeper. Got servant’s wages. Three dollars a month. Half sent to Mam. Got food, which I cooked. Milk for the cat. A room: clean but too small for a chair.

  Eleven years, I worked for the Baldwins. A good position. Nobody slapped me. Or cursed. Or expected me to bed them. But there wasn’t much room for getting ahead. So I sewed and laundered on my off-day. Thursdays. Anna, Seamstress. Washwoman. Carrying baskets to the docks.

  Baltimore, great city then. Harbor for all kinds of goods and people. French and China silk. Spices. Rum. You need a gold cage for a bird? Baltimore. Sugarcane from Haiti? Bananas? Whale oil? All in Baltimore.

  Irishmen, New Englanders, Virginia planters, British, Spanish, free colored men, they all passed through that harbor. And women—some dressed fine as queens, some barely dressed—waited for them. Waited for the men to slip them coins. Some folks went off in carriages; some went to the tavern; some got no further than an alley.

  Everybody mated, two by two.

  Only new slaves—male and female—kept separate. Each had their own cage at the dock’s east end. When I could, I slipped bread and meat to the women (some just children). On Sundays, men with great buckets splashed water at the slave holds. Great buckets to wash away the dirt and smell. Nothing washed away the heat. Except when my Mistress ordered it, I kept clear of the docks on the Lord’s Sabbath and Slave Auction Days. Kept clear of seeing misery I couldn’t fix.

  Still. 1841. Baltimore, a great city.

  Except for colored folks, everybody a bit rich. Got pennies to spare for colored gals to wash their shirts, pants, and privates. I worked for sailors stitching where a knife sliced, soaking tobacco stains and spit, cleaning where stew crusted on sleeves and collars. I starched jackets for Captains who brung tea, goblets, and Africans across the sea. Some I stitched gold braids for when they got promoted or won slaving treasure. But Captains be the worse. Mean, they say your work not good. Insist you buy brand new shirt. After I lost my profit once, I never worked for any Captain again.

  This May that felt like late summer, I was working for Gardner’s men. Carpenters with lots of money and no respect. Their clothes, more grease and sawdust than cotton. Mister Gardner had a contract to build two man-of-war brigs for the Mexican government. They say, July, if Gardner be done, he’ll win a big bonus. All the carpenters win bonuses, too. So everybody work hard—black and white—building these great ships.

  I made my deliveries at dinner break. Men eating be generous. Less likely to complain: “This not clean enough.” “This not ironed right.” Foolishness. They complained to make me lower my price. Eating men don’t talk much. Some even toss an extra penny.

  I’d just finished giving William, the mast maker, his clean clothes when I looked up and saw this young man standing at the unfinished bow, the ship still on stilts, looking out across the water. Not more than three feet away. He stood there—legs spaced, solid. Like nothing tip him over. No waves. No wind. He was pitched on the edge of the horizon. Boat beneath his feet. Orange-streaked sky above his head. Endless water fanning out the harbor. Seem like nothing move him from that space he choose to be. He be a colored Captain, watching, waiting for some change to happen. Some sign from the birds flying high. Some new streak of color in the sky. Some sweet odor of free.

  His pants weren’t fine. Brown burlap. His ankles and shins poked out. Shirt gone. His back was broad, rolling mountains. Copper-colored. Trails crisscrossed his back. I knew then he was a slave or ex-slave. No pattern to the marks. Just rawhide struck, hot and heavy. Enough to know someone had been very angry with him. Once. Twice. Maybe more.

  I think I fell in love with his head. He looked up, not down. Tilt of his head told me he not beaten. Not yet. His hair curled in waves, touching his shoulders. Thick, black strands. Made me want to reach out and feel. Made me wonder: what would it be like to bury my face in his hair? Would I smell the sea? Smell the oil they used to shine wood?

  His hair made me think of Samson. God’s strength upon him. Something else upon me. Some wave of feeling I’d never felt. Made my feet unsteady. My heart race.

  “Girl,” Pete, the iron maker, called. “Hurry your nigger self here.”

  I scurried like a scared rabbit. This Samson man turned and saw me. Really saw. His eyes were golden, like light overflowing. I knew he saw me as a weak woman. Big. Too fat. Hurrying to this scum of a white man.

  I couldn’t stop myself. Mam taught me: “Never irritate white folks. Do your work. Collect their money.” But this one time I didn’t want to scurry. I wanted to move slow, sashay my gown, and have this man I didn’t know, think I was pretty. No—Lovely. I wanted to be lovely.

  Twenty-eight and never had a man look at me with love. Passion. Desire. Mam taught me not to say those words. But I learned them as a woman. Learned them watching folks at the wharf. Learned them, too, listening to my Mistress’s friends—women promised to one man, yet mad about some other. They were mostly sorrowful. Passionate and sorrowful.

  Mam said God made special feelings, ’specially for men and women. She and Pa felt them. I’d never felt one. Never ’til this man, this slave looked at me from the bow of an unfinished ship.

  I hadn’t enough backbone to tell this white man: “I’m coming. Don’t hurry me.” I scurried toward him and away from those light-filled eyes.

  Head low, I got rid of all those clothes. Quick as possible. Out with the clean, in with the dirty. Collect my money. Just move. Don’t think about shame. The colored men were kind. Like they knew my sin. One tried to tell a joke. But it was no use. I hurried to leave that dock. Trembling. Not sure I’d ever come back. Ever hold my head high.

  That evening I laid on my bed and cried. Cried ’cause I wasn’t lovely. ’Cause this man would never love me. Cried ’cause he couldn’t love me. Him, being slave. I, being free. Him, young. I, old. Him, handsome. Me, ugly.

  I cried and bit my pillow to keep from letting my screams out. I’d never have my own home. My own babies. I’d work my days ’til too old to work, ’til crippled and less than nothing, with no children, surviving on what little I’d set by.

  Time makes the world fresh. Seven days, the world created. Seven days, my pain eased. Stopped feeling like a horse was sitting on my chest. Sabbath helped. I remembered the Lord loved me. And while I was singing “My Redeemer,” I felt Mam, as if she was right beside me, taking my hand.

  Got so I could see my reflection again and think I looked respectable. Clear eyes. Thick lashes. Clear skin. I didn’t have to worry about freckles like white women. But it was a sore fault not to have Mam’s sweet smile or Pa’s even nose.

  Lizbeth got Mam’s smile and four children. Even mean George with his trim features had a family of five. All told, I was aunt to twenty children. Two in the oven. Then, I felt hurt, confused. Thinking about my family, I started thinking about this man. Handsomest man I’d seen.

  Between kneading bread, slicing yams, between serving the Baldwins’ food, I be thinking: “Why this man o
ff by his self? Where his dinner pail? His food? Why this slave be at the shipyard? Why he not sitting with free coloreds? Where’s his Master?”

  I thought, “Charity. I can show him Christian charity.”

  I kept thinking of his hair, too. Light trapped in it. Him standing on the bow, looking like gold glowed about his head.

  His Daddy must be white. Most likely his Daddy be his Master. The Dinwidde Street grocer had a daughter who visited a free colored. When her belly rose up, her folks whipped her awful. She lost the babe. The colored man ran to Canada.

  I packed a dinner. Miz Baldwin wanted chicken and biscuits. So I cooked extra. Just a few. Then I slipped in a piece of banana pie.

  Charity was Jesus’ blessing. I’d take that man supper.

  I was so nervous. I wore my best dress. It was blue and I always felt small in it. Married women seemed small. Delicate and needful, like Miz Baldwin. If I didn’t cook and clean for her, she’d fade away and die, resting on her ottoman.

  My blue dress had little buttons down the front and back. Had lace at the wrists. Shouldn’t have been wearing my best dress among those coarse men, among that sweat and dust. But I wanted that slave man to see me different.

  The trip was all right. Passed out the white carpenters’ clothes, then went to the colored men. They ate off to the side. Gaines, a free colored, who trimmed sails, acted shocked. “You almost pretty, Miz Anna.” I nearly slapped him. Everybody would’ve seen me blush if I was less dark. I passed out the clean clothes. Collected new ones. William’s shirt had bloodstains from when a saw sliced his fingertip off. Everybody working, too hard. Making mistakes. But now they were having dinner. I had passed out my clothes and if I was gonna meet this slave man, I had to do it now. Had to march myself to the ship edge and holler, “Good day.”

  I couldn’t do it. Too nervous. I stood at the edge of the dry dock looking up. Looking up at this man looking out to sea on a ship on stilts, I started chuckling. Funny. Both of us weren’t going nowhere.

  He turned, looked down at me. His hand on the rail. He smiled. I did, too. I said, “You eat?” His face twisted, puzzle-like. “You eat supper? You hungry?”

  “No. I … I didn’t eat. I am hungry.”

  My heart fell ’cause he talked proper. Even so, I said, “Come down, then.” I lifted my smaller basket. “Else I’ll feed this here to the gulls.”

  He smiled and it snatched my breath. He moved fast yet smooth, down the bow steps, then ran to where it was safe to leap over the ship’s rail. Nimble, swift. He came upon me eager. Widest smile. His beauty nearly undid me. I wondered whether Delilah felt this way when she first see Samson.

  But he wasn’t Samson. No Egypt black man. Seeing his features straight on, I could see more of the whiteness in him. But the drops of whiteness didn’t matter. He still a slave. My life was surely better than his. Not handsome, I knew I’d struggle to make a man love me. Pa said my darkness didn’t matter but the world taught me it did. Even colored children called me “Afric.”

  But a handsome man—mixed black and white—might dream a better life. Might wish for genteel society. A high-yellow wife. Must be hard to have Master be your father. Hard to see white brothers and sisters enjoy privileges not yours.

  William catcall, “Better leave that slave alone. Ain’t got the sense of a dog.”

  “Hush,” I answered back. “Your sense got cut off with your baby finger.”

  “That’s a fact,” said Peter, the nail man.

  The colored men laughed and I smiled.

  “It’s true.” This man’s eyes were lit fierce. “I don’t have a dog’s sense.” Then, his voice fell to a whisper. “A dog will stay where it’s put. Or if it won’t, a chain will hold him. I’m a man. I won’t be held. Chained or unchained.”

  I kept real still. I knew he was staring at me. Expecting some response. Maryland was a slave state. Words could get me whipped. But here was this man asking more of me. Asking me to agree that holding a man a slave was wrong. I inhaled, murmured low, “That’s proper. Nobody has the right to hold a man.”

  He smiled sweetly at me.

  “Or woman.”

  He tilted his head back and laughed. Then, he held out his hand. “Frederick Bailey.”

  I forgot I was wearing my good dress and wiped my hand on my skirt. “Anna Murray.”

  “Anna,” he say. My name sounded like a jewel. He clasped my palm good and solid and made me feel like I’d made a friend. Not just a good-time friend but a forever friend.

  And just as quickly, the word “dangerous” flashed through my mind. “A dangerous friend.” Don’t know where those words came from. They just sprung up. As soon as they did, someone struck a bell and this heavyset-looking man come between us.

  “Boy. Hear that bell? Work needs doing. Go on. Get.”

  “He needs his dinner.”

  “Don’t tell me what he needs,” the man turned angrily, causing me to back step and as I did, Mister Bailey moved forward. I held up my hand, not wanting to cause him trouble.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I understand. I just brung chicken. My Christian deed. It’s still warm. You’re welcome to some. I be trying to get my spirit right. Do a little something for my fellow man. But, next time, I’ll come earlier, so I won’t interfere with work. Would that be all right? I can bring you chicken, too. My mistake this time.”

  This foreman looked at me. His eyes squinting as if figuring if I meant what I said. He had a bushful of hair on his head and face. He smiled crookedly, spoke tickled yet mean:

  “You sweet on him? Won’t amount to much. Him a slave and all.”

  “I know,” I said as Mister Bailey said, “We’re acquaintances.”

  I felt anger flood me at high tide. But all mixed up ’cause I wasn’t sure I was upset at just the foreman. “Acquaintances” sounded cold. Yet that was us. Barely met. Barely knowing each other.

  “I’m simply doing my Christian duty. Seem like his Master would want him fed.” I knew I was pushing too far.

  “I’m his Master as long as he’s working for carpenters, learning how to build ships. Go on, now. Get.”

  “Good-bye, Mister Bailey,” I said bowing neatly. Just like at a dance. Suddenly, I felt embarrassed.

  “Good-bye, Miss Murray.” He looked at me quizzing, like he don’t understand me at all. Then, he bowed at the waist like he had all the time in the world.

  “Boy. Come here, boy,” somebody was already calling. Then there was another cry from the opposite direction. “Boy. Over here. Brace this beam.” The foreman was shoving Mister Bailey along. I walked from the place real slow. I still held my baskets. One filled with old clothes. One filled with my best cooking.

  I knew I’d return next Thursday. The sky was sheets of orange, yellow, red, piled on top of one another. The clouds had turned slate gray. A storm be rolling in from the Gulf, the Caribbean Sea. I felt happy and shy. Scared and nervous. My world was upside down.

  How to be more than “acquaintances”? How to get Mister Bailey to think well of me? Few words exchanged on a year of Thursdays didn’t add up to much. And even if it did—a free woman and a slave? Hah! Don’t carry much future. I ain’t so dumb I didn’t know that.

  But little things can add up to big. “Be special like you,” Mam would always say. I just had to be patient. Take my chance when it come.

  That evening I looked for my cat. She came in late, purring. I turned my back and faced the wall.

  Thinking of Mister Bailey, it was some time before I finally slept.

  Next week I thought Miz Baldwin gonna throw me out on the street. Everything I touched went wrong. Ended up crosswise. I, who prided myself on knowing everything about a house, top to bottom, did everything wrong.

  I starched Miz Baldwin’s undergarments. Spilt tallow on the table. Didn’t add cornstarch to the pie. Peach juice pooled on the plate. Bread didn’t rise. I forgot yeast. Salt. Then, broke a china saucer with gold trim. Even mixed pork fat with chicken grease
. Two days, I forgot to clean the grates. Smoke flooded the house. Didn’t tie off my knitting so the doll I made unraveled, making baby cry. I even forgot to dust ’tween the banister posts.

  I forgot every lesson I learned about domestic comfort. As I came undone, so did the Baldwins’ house. Miz and Mister started arguing. Baby be colicky. Beth wouldn’t nap. Thomas cut his thumb. Windows got stuck; floorboards creaked; clock ran down. The House Spirit just seemed ornery without my attention.

  I felt adrift. Bobbing in a sea with no course. My slave man, Mister Bailey, be filling my spaces. I saw him sitting in the parlor. Everyone knows parlors ain’t for coloreds. But Mister Bailey be sitting right there. When he ain’t in the parlor, he in the library. I saw the curves of his hair, his fine stature facing those books. Outside with the wash, he be leaning against the tree. At night, when I lit the candles, he lived in the shadows.

  Miz Baldwin asked to see me. I worried ’cause I know it be hard to find another position. Baldwins ain’t rich. Just have me and a wet nurse. They don’t work me hard and I love their three-story house. Narrow but pretty. They just young. Only on their fourth child. And up ’til now, I felt my back and hands be helping them along.

  Miz say sit beside her. I be shocked.

  She blushed. “Are you in a delicate condition?”

  I felt bad, like I wanted to shrink to nothing and wanted to hit her, too.

  “Naw. I mean, no, ma’am.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. I mean, yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m so glad. I would’ve had to dismiss you. I told Mr. Baldwin I wasn’t sure I could. You’ve been such a help. But he said handling the domestic arena and coloreds were my province. My responsibility.”

  Suddenly, I wanted to slap my Mistress’s face. I kept shut and stared at the side of her head.

  “Then it must be love,” Miz Baldwin chirped.

  I pulled into myself. White folks were fools. My feelings were private. Weren’t meant for discussing.