Douglass’ Women

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  I clasped the chair’s arms. I didn’t want to touch him. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to let him go.

  “You still see me as mulatto.”

  “Your color pleases me.”

  “I want a woman who only sees me as I am. Beyond color to character.”

  “What does Anna see?”

  He turned away.

  “Douglass, please. Aren’t you asking the impossible? Doesn’t your wife see your black skin?”

  “Don’t speak of Anna.”

  “Why? Are we both invisible to you?”

  He was angry again. His fist pounded into his palm. “I’m the equal of any man.”

  “Superior.” I wanted to touch him. Could I seduce him with passion? Probably. But if Douglass was to be won, it would be with the mind.

  “Douglass, a free man is free to choose his desires. But you’re not free to choose how I see you. My desires are my own.”

  He poured more wine.

  “I think I loved you from the beginning. Desired you.”

  “I’ve been taught not to want you.”

  “Why shouldn’t you? I’m no white American.”

  “In my mind, I’m free. Free to do as I please.”

  “In your heart, too.”

  “There’s Anna.”

  “Only you can answer, ‘who is my wife?’ In a free world, acting like a free man, I believe you’d choose me.”

  His fingers traced the lace at my bodice. “We should live in a world that is color-blind.”

  “We’re beautiful together.”

  “Ottilie?” Barely a whisper. His hands slid up my skirt, stroking my hips. His lips pressed against my neck. “I claim you because I allow myself to claim you.”

  “I’m the wife of your spirit.” I kissed his brows, his rough skin where his beard begins. His soft lips.

  He took my hand, guiding me to the bed, his hands undoing my buttons. “I’m the equal of any man.”

  “More so.”

  Flesh straining toward flesh, I gave myself up to his passion. I reveled in my own. I rode him. His member inside me, I rocked and moaned. I was riding to a new country. I wanted to cry out. Instead, I bit at his chest, his lips, and tasted the blood in his mouth. He turned me over, my face and breasts pushed deep into the pillow. He entered me. Over and over. I was satiated by his glory. But still he rode, his thighs rubbing against mine. His abdomen against my buttocks. I turned my head and saw us in my dresser mirror, his copper skin stretched high above my bright, white skin.

  He lay flat upon me. Moving, thrusting. His black hair mingling with my blond tresses. Heat washed over me again. The two of us—such color, form, and symmetry. How I wished I could paint us lying together. Exhibit it for the world to see. His face buried in my skin; my eyes, wide, dilated, swimming in joyous tears.

  “What’s the matter?” Douglass asked, pulling out of me.

  We were face-to-face. Our bodies slick, sticky. I clasped his manhood. “Have you bruised me, Douglass? Have you left bruises?” I felt his member elongating, growing harder. “Love me. Love me hard. Leave bruises.”

  I thought he would tear me apart and swallow me but I gave him good measure. Matched his fire with my own. Oh, how he rode me. And when he tired, I did the riding. We loved until dawn. We made a new world of dreams.

  I was who I was. Half Jew. Half Christian. Loving both the blackness and whiteness in this man. Can Anna do that?

  Anna

  “Anna, I trust you will find someone to read my words.”

  —FREDERICK DOUGLASS,

  1841

  “I did what needed to be done. I depended

  upon me. Why that be so terrible?”

  —ANNA DOUGLASS,

  A YEAR BEFORE DYING, 1881

  New Bedford

  I forgot to tell him about the bones. Forgot to tell Freddy that the bones would keep him safe as he crossed the water.

  My trip north had brought me some joy, but much pain. But I never forgot those bones that sang to me as a child. Freddy say, “You don’t understand. You’ve never been a slave.” Don’t I have a heart? Living on the seacoast, I saw bones get washed ashore. Slaves killed, pushed, shoved, dropped overboard. “Been going on for a hundred years,” Mam taught me.

  Well, I lived. Even in those hard times. Even though in a long time, I hadn’t heard the bones sing, I believed they wanted me to sing. Wanted me to take as much joy as I could from this cold, sometimes heartless world.

  I took Miss Assing’s money. But I couldn’t take the portrait she’d left—a small cameo with black ribbon and a picture of Freddy’s face. She must’ve painted it and worn it around her neck, beneath her shift, warm against her bosom. I tossed her gift into the fire. I didn’t need paint to see Freddy’s face.

  Early morning, I wrapped Rosetta well and went to the harbor. Not too close to Freddy’s ship. But I stayed on a rough hill, waiting, watching ’til his ship sailed.

  When it was gone, I thought I should be gone. I never liked New Bedford. Neither white folks nor colored folks treated me natural. I’d go where no one knew I be Miz Frederick Douglass. I’d go where I could find honest work. Where I could raise my children in peace. Who knows when Freddy be home?

  I sat and cried. I overstayed too long, for both me and Rosetta got chilled. My fingers and feet be numb when I get home. Rosetta’s nose be bright pink. I should’ve known better. I wasn’t “Lil’ Bit.” I was a woman grown. A mother like Mam.

  I fixed tea and grits and took both the food and Rosetta into bed with me. “This be our party,” I say. “Farewell party.” Rosetta gurgled at my nonsense. I wiggled her toes, sang songs. I whispered about Baby Jesus and spirits in the sea. The wind be howling outside my window. The storm done come fierce and without mercy.

  Garrison could write Freddy a letter. Tell him where I be. Where me, Rosetta, and baby growing inside me be.

  We be building a new home until Freddy comes home.

  Lynn, Massachusetts

  Moving day everybody be my friend. Nobody wanted me to move. But I was tired of living in somebody else’s house. I’d make my own home. Make my own friends too.

  Garrison let me keep the horse and cart. I was grateful and told him so.

  It didn’t take long to get to Lynn. I picked it because it had a woman’s name—Lynn. It was another small town with plenty of hardworking colored folk. They made shoes. Drying and curing skin into leather all day. But the women I met were as friendly as pie. Soon as I arrived with my baby in a basket, my belly puffed up, women came out eager to help. Fluttering around me. Cradling Rosetta. Tethering my horse. Didn’t care who I was. Just cared that I needed a hand.

  A woman with a mole on the side of her nose, shouted, “Girl, you going to need me. I’m the midwife.” She shook my hand, helped me down from the wagon. “I’m Miz Beasley. Just that. Miz Beasley.”

  “I’m Anna. This be Rosetta.”

  Miz Beasley squinted at me but said nothing about a husband. Her finger touched my wedding ring. Looking me in my eye, she said, “I know a sweet little house you can rent. A doll’s house.”

  I gave her a big smile.

  The house be small all right. Maybe too small for Freddy. But the gray cottage suited me and Rosetta just fine. It wasn’t grand. Just simple. It had a kitchen, a parlor, and two bedrooms. Space for a garden and all within spitting distance of the sea. I baked Miz Beasley a “thank-you” pie. Cherry with as much sugar as I dared.

  The very next day, I sent a Penny-man to Mam. Told her I loved her. Told her she was soon to be a grandmother, twice over. I had one girl and be hoping for a boy. I watched the tin salesman go, hoping he be honest. Hoping he’d pass the message, like a bird, to another Penny-man headed further south. My words might tumble from several mouths before a Penny-man finally spoke them to Mam. But I’d be patient. It’d been nearly three years since I’d spoken to Mam, but I felt it in my bones that she be alive.

  Freddy be alive, too. But I couldn’t send a Penny
-man to him, so I sent my love by wishing on the stars. “Be safe.” “Come home soon.” “Rosetta and I miss you.”

  Day and night, I thought of Freddy. I thought of him holding me, touching me. Sometimes my mind conjured him so real, I shivered, remembering him loving me.

  Not a day went by when I didn’t think of him. Not a day went by I didn’t think of her. White women always had more freedom than a colored gal.

  When I prayed on the North Star, I told Freddy what thoughts be falling out of my mind. How Miz Greene tried to cheat me; how I’d planted my garden with tomatoes, lettuce, and snap beans; how I bought two chickens; how Rosetta crawled faster than a bug; how the new baby (I didn’t get to tell him about) be growing bigger each day. How I be making a home for us. How I scraped enough money to buy a desk for him, a table to eat. Right now, me and Rosetta be sleeping on quilts. But I be saving for a bed big enough to hold me and my husband twice over. I blushed. I thought the North Star be winking back at me.

  I knew Freddy, wherever he be, be seeing the same stars as me.

  Days turned to weeks, to months. I began to doubt. Happiness be hard when nobody be beside you to say “good night” when shadows fall or “good morning” when the sun rise.

  Laying on my pile of quilts, feeling the wet summer breezes, I thought as much as I loved him, I was not, in Freddy’s mind, the woman for him.

  By fall, I thought, if Freddy truly loved me, he would’ve taken me with him. True, a sea trip would’ve been hard. True, the new baby made my stomach weak. But I would’ve done it. I did it before.

  Come winter, ice crusting over everything, I wondered: why Freddy not think of Canada? Still north. But not so far. If Canada be good enough for Miz Tubman and the Underground Railroad, why ain’t it good enough for him?

  Would Miz Assing have gone to Canada? Naw, I answer. Miz Assing knew I surely would’ve followed.

  Mercy. I started to cry. I mustn’t think of her. Mustn’t doubt what be in my heart.

  I promised to love, honor, and obey. I would. He vowed to love and honor me. So he would.

  Love be true.

  In the meantime, I took in laundry. I did a good job. Earned good money. I took Rosetta everywhere. Folks gave me an extra penny because of her. Rosetta liked playing in the soap when I did laundry. She be the cleanest, sweetest baby.

  Our home be our small kingdom. I left it only for work. Or church.

  I learned new hymns. Songs that sweeped my spirit into the sky. Preacher wasn’t Holy Roller. He talked plain, good sense. Didn’t have as much book-learning as Freddy. But he knew one book well enough.

  Local abolitionists asked me to speak. Garrison must’ve told them who and where I be. I said, “No speeches. Raising my babies be enough.” I didn’t know if they ever saw such a determined black woman as me. But I wasn’t going to change my mind. I was afraid, too, if my friends found out who my husband be, everything good in Lynn would change. Like the Bedford folks, people might start thinking: “Why’d he marry her?” “How’d this fat, dark woman get picked?” “What she got to offer famous Mister Douglass, the runaway, ex-slave man?”

  Always, I kept praying for Freddy’s safety. For my own. For Rosetta’s. For the baby’s-to-be.

  * * *

  One spring Sabbath, I be kneading bread when the Penny-man comes. I had to buy a quarter pound of tea before he’d speak my message! Such a cheat! All the while, I excited, jumping up and down like a child.

  Penny-man cleared his throat: “Dear Anna, I was sick for a while but each day I grow stronger. I be happy you married. Kiss the baby for me. Kiss the new one when he come due. Mam.”

  “That all?”

  Penny-man tipped his hat. “Want to send a message back?”

  “I don’t have money to spare,” I shouted, angry ’cause I’d bought too much tea. I rubbed my belly, feeling guilty and sad Mam had been ill. Was it her heart? Her head?

  Penny-man climbed onto his wagon.

  “Come back next time,” I hollered. “Try me next time.” But what could I ever say to change the fact of my leaving … change Mam’s sickness, change the fact that I was thousands of miles away? Unlikely to see her before she died.

  I crossed my hands over my face. I didn’t want Rosetta to see me cry.

  Next time, I wouldn’t let Penny-man force me to buy tea. Next time, I’d save money to send to Mam. A whole dollar. Wherever Freddy be, he didn’t need my money. No message had come. No Penny-man. No money wrapped in oil paper. No marks upon a page. I thought he didn’t need me.

  My baby was coming. Miz Beasley rubbed my belly with chamomile. She pressed hard against my aching back. Rosetta, while I labored, stayed with the Pastor’s wife.

  “Can I send for the father?” Miz Beasley asked.

  I laughed. Then, gasped at my pain.

  “A man’s needed.”

  “He can’t help birth.”

  “Naw. But you’re gonna need looking after. Two babies plus taking in laundry be hard.”

  “I’ll survive.” I shut up as pains started rocking me off the bed. “Sweet Jesus,” I murmured. “This be worse than Rosetta.” I couldn’t help thinking I did something wrong to have so much pain.

  Pain visited me for three days, two nights. It stole my breath and ran like fire along my spine, across my belly, and down my legs. Sometimes I felt like rolling up and dying. But I didn’t ’cause of Rosetta. She needed me.

  Miz Beasley pushed on my stomach. Next, she pulled and pulled. Later, she put lard on her hands, saying, “It’s got to be done, Anna. Bite hard on this.”

  I bit on a piece of rope. Still my screams escaped, sliding out the sides of my mouth. I must’ve fainted.

  But, at first, I thought I died. I woke and the room was quiet and dark. No more waves of pain, no Miz Beasley, and my stomach be empty. I be floating in a dark sea, floating, following after Freddy. I see his ship just out of reach. Bones rise up, two by two, singing, “Better day if you believe in Jesus.”

  I did. I did believe. Freddy be Samson-man sent to pull down the pillars of my heart. Even in Heaven, in the sweet hereafter, way over yonder, I be loving Freddy. Telling him to love our children. Even the ones he didn’t see. The ones he needed to see.

  “Anna.”

  “Freddy?”

  “Naw, Miz Beasley. You need some water, child?”

  “Where’s the baby?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Ain’t dead?”

  “Mercy, no. You had a rough trip, but the baby’s born.”

  “Rosetta?”

  “At Pastor’s house. Just fine. She already been in to see you. I told her you be sleeping. She sleeps now, too.”

  I licked my lips, squeezed Miz Beasley’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Hush. You did all the work.”

  She left for a minute, then came back carrying a bundle in a blue blanket. “He’s hungry.”

  Oh, how handsome my son be. Thick curls like his Daddy. As perfect as a child can be.

  The baby bit hard on my breast. I welcomed the pain for I knew both me and my baby be alive.

  “What you going to name him?”

  “Frederick Bailey Douglass, Junior.”

  “My word,” gasped Miz Beasley.

  “My word, too. This be his son.” Then, I let myself cry—with relief, joy, sorrow, pain—all my feelings tender. Now everybody knew I was not just me. I was an abolitionist’s wife.

  I cried and cried while Freddy Junior took his Mam’s milk mixed with salty tears. Miz Beasley went to fix me broth. I kissed my son’s head. I wondered whether in this world he’d get to see his Papa.

  Ottilie

  “Freedom has the sweetest taste.”

  —FREDERICK DOUGLASS,

  IN A LETTER TO JULIA GRIFFITHS, 1846

  “He was always free with me. Wasn’t he?”

  —OTTILIE ASSING,

  DIARY ENTRY, 1865

  England! We arrived triumphantly as lovers. Garrison’s
letters opened doors. Douglass’ brilliance opened hearts.

  The Narrative was extremely popular. People from all walks of life clamor for Douglass’ autograph. Whether it’s a coal miner, a duke, a don at Cambridge, or a sheep farmer, all seem enamored of an intelligent slave. Douglass’ words, too, touch Englishmen’s cold hearts and, without question, they can feel superior to their one-time colonists.

  Douglass was generous and gracious to all.

  He dressed like a gentleman now—silk cravats, perfectly tailored evening suits, leather boots, a walking stick, and tweed jacket. I gave him a gold watch and chain to wear inside his vest. I dared to place a lock of my hair in it, dared to have it engraved: Ottilie to Douglass. With Love.

  Sometimes I caught Douglass standing before the cheval glass, fingering his pocket watch, admiring his new form. He was truly altered from the humble slave.

  He visited the finest houses, currying favor with politicians, lords and ladies. During summer parties, it was nothing to serve champagne and lobster patties, dance the quadrille, and then listen to Douglass’ fire and thunder. The newest rage.

  Douglass performed an open letter to his Master. He spoke as if Auld were present, conjuring the spirit of this evil man, bringing slavery right into aristocratic homes.

  His voice filling with pathos, Douglass struck a noble pose: “Why am I a slave?”

  Voices hushed; china cups and saucers quieted; and the musicians laid down their violins and bows.

  “When I saw the slave driver whip a slave-woman, cut the blood out of her neck, and heard her piteous cries, I went away into the corner of the fence, wept and pondered over the mystery. I had, through some medium, I know not what, got some idea that God, the creator of all mankind, had made the blacks to serve the whites as slaves. How He could do this and be good, I could not tell.