Dream Country

by Shannon Gibney

  She had pushed Little George’s chin farther from her with the slap, and he brought his palm up to caress his raw cheek, which was red from the stinging wind. When he looked back at her, he was not empty anymore— Yasmine recognized what filled his face, his arms, his pores. It was rage, barely contained below the surface.

  Nolan ran up behind her and pulled at her skirt. “Mama, don’t be mad at your George, please. It was me, it was my fault we stopped. They didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  Yasmine turned around slowly to face him. He was wiping away tears and snot with the back of his hand, sniffling all the while. He looked up at his mother, looked down at the ground, then looked back at her. “I . . .” His voice became smaller than she had heard it since he was a toddler. “I don’t wanna go there.” He began to fiddle with his hands.

  Yasmine had always said that she knew that Nolan had been here before; she didn’t know whose he had been, she didn’t know when, but he was definitely an old soul, and one who had known freedom.

  “And . . .” Nolan looked askance, as if he were trying to parse out something far away. “I miss Daddy too.” Tears began to fall anew with these last words.

  Yasmine sighed and crouched down so that they were eye level. “We all miss Daddy, Nolan.” She allowed herself to feel the truth of this statement for a moment, then pushed it back down again because she knew it could overwhelm her. “But that don’t mean we don’t have to go.”

  “Go where?” Little George asked suddenly, venom in his words. “What you even know ’bout where we going? Livingston said they all heathens over there anyway; that some jungle fever done killed most of the first settlers, and—”

  Yasmine stood up and whipped around to face him. “Since when do Livingston say a thing worth repeating?” Livingston was Little George’s age-mate, who lived up the road. He could talk a wild streak about nothing so fast you swore you could feel your mind dulling in your skull.

  Little George scowled. “You just mad ’cause his mama caught you and Old Master in—”

  Yasmine was on him before she knew it. She would have slapped him again, twice as hard this time, if Big George hadn’t come up behind her and held her back. “You never talk to me that way, you hear?”

  “Easy,” Big George told her softly. He was deliberately using his calm voice, she could hear it, and that eased some part of her to know that he, at least, was trying. “Easy, Ma. You know he don’t know nothing. He just a kid.”

  “And that is your saving grace, boy!” she hollered at Little George. “That you only eleven. ’Cause if your father was here, he would be slapping you silly right now, and you know that’s God’s truth.”

  Finally she saw some kind of repentance in his face. Because he knew, she surmised, that she was right. There had not been much that James could do about so many things, but one thing he said that he always would do was raise his children—until, he said, he couldn’t.

  On her mother’s back, Lani had begun to wail. She had new energy to spend on her tantrums, full of Yasmine’s milk. Yasmine closed her eyes. Just breathe, baby. Breathe. It was times like these that he came to her—never in her dreams, where he might linger. “We got to go,” she said, willing her voice to be level. “I ain’t gonna lie to you and say it’s going to perfect, but we got no other choice. We got to go now.”

  Little George opened his mouth to say something, but Big George shushed him with one look. Nolan took her hand, and the two older boys set out in front, back the way she had come from.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  1827, Norfolk, Virginia

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED IN Norfolk late the next day, the skies were clear and the sun had driven away all traces of the frost. Even Little George perked up when they entered the bustling port city. His eyes widened at the naval yards and timber stores, steam mills, tanneries, hotels, churches, bars, and even residential neighborhoods, dotted with expansive houses. Men with wide-brim hats and wider bellies stood outside their storefronts hawking eastern white pine, passage to exotic places, and everlasting salvation in the pews of their worship halls.

  “Mama,” Little George whispered shyly in her ear, mindful of sleeping Lani. “How come you never said nothing ’bout so many coloreds here?”

  Yasmine wished she could laugh at his excitement, seeing so many of their people in one place. She couldn’t deny that it was something to see honey brown, chestnut, sallow yellow everywhere you turned. There was a certain kind of beauty to the way the mass of these bodies moved, sometimes across from other, white bodies, but mostly behind them. There was a certain way that they ruptured the sterile, safe landscape that was so deliberately built and maintained. But in the end, she had to conclude that it wasn’t enough. There was still a little girl of no more than six, who walked beside them for a moment and smiled at Nolan, and was knocked down by the older white boy responsible for her for “watching them niggers, when you ought to be watching me.” There was still the middle-aged woman who followed behind her madame, carrying her skirts over mud and ice, slipping on the bare soles of her feet as they crossed this unforgiving December ground. Yes, Yasmine mused, you could come to the city all you wanted and expect its busyness, its hustle and bustle, to transform its inhabitants into some higher form of being than could be found back in the countryside. Yes, you could hope all you wanted that somewhere in these United States that God had forsaken, someone knew how to treat their fellow men and women, but hope still wouldn’t change what was staring you straight in the face.

  Yasmine closed her eyes and willed herself back to the room with all the white men in suits and shiny new boots, all those weeks ago. “We cannot wait for the race problem to solve itself,” said the man behind the podium. From where she was, standing way in the back, Yasmine could make out that his hair was blond and that he had a large dimple that appeared whenever he smiled, which he did intermittently during the speech. He could not have been more than thirty. “The so-called freedmen in our state create an unnatural situation, whereby many blacks come to accept the false belief that their destiny is the same as the white man’s. They come to the conclusion that their minds have the same capacity for reason and good judgment as ours do, and that they can perform the same tasks that God has bestowed to us for the purposes of building this country in the name of spreading His truth. My brothers, you know the deep and dangerous error in this line of thinking!” The orator threw his hand down on the podium after this declaration, for emphasis. Yasmine remembered feeling Lani startle on her back at the noise.

  The thirty or so wealthy plantation owners who had sat in finely carved wooden chairs arranged in a series of straight lines radiating outward from the podium puffed on their pipes and murmured in agreement.

  Thus urged onward, the man continued. “Whether you agree with the aims of our venerable organization, commonly known as the American Colonization Society, or whether you subscribe to a more modest set of purposes”—he nodded toward the Quakers in the room, a few of whom looked at one another meaningfully, and a few others who shifted uncomfortably in their seats—“you agree that the situation we currently find ourselves in is neither sustainable nor advisable, for any of the parties involved.” Again the men toward the front of the room murmured in appreciation. “The state of degradation that the black race now experiences is the direct result of the centuries he spent in the heathenism that runs rampant in their homeland, that dark place of Canaan we know as Africa. Most of these men, women, and children have only just come to know our Savior and the liberation that awaits us all in His arms. They have also only recently come to know the meaning of hard work, the meaning of toil and labor in order to rise out from under the muck of their previous lives in that spiritual desert so far away.” Smatterings of applause lit up around the room. “There comes a time, my friends, when we must ask ourselves: What is to become of our less fortunate brethren—both those here, in this land of peace, salvati
on, and plenty, and there, in that land of charred earth and wasted human potential?” The man patted his handkerchief across his sweaty brow and paused for emphasis. There was no sound in the room, save for the tiny ticking of a watch, hidden in some unknown breast pocket. “Philosophically, this is a question that must be asked and one that must be answered as well, unless we want to risk everything that we have toiled so hard to build here, in our home. Although there will be no easy answers to such complex and difficult questions, if we have courage, we can face whatever may come to us, and then employ the ingenuity that is so fundamental to our way of life, in order to carry out what we are called to do.”

  Yasmine could see that even the Quakers were paying attention now; they were sitting forward in their seats, their hands clenched tightly in their laps. And she had to admit that even her own heart was quickening, being carried forward on the current of his words, waiting to arrive wherever it was he was going. “The Gold Coast,” the man said, almost under his breath, so that the listeners had to strain to hear him, so that they wished he would say it again, to make sure they had heard him right. “The Gold Coast of Africa is the balm to this gaping wound that now threatens to overwhelm the entire democratic order of our nation.”

  The Gold Coast. What a funny set of words they were, and yet, Yasmine mused, words that seemed to shine as they flowed out of her mouth in a whisper.

  “The land there, unlike other parts of Africa, is plentiful and fertile. The people there are hungry for the knowledge that will transform their lives of sloth to industry, from damnation to salvation. Why not send the coloreds back to the place from which they have traveled so far, to the land of their forefathers, to the place that would have ruined them had they stayed, but which now is hungry for the knowledge, the experience, and the salvation they have gained here? That is what the American Colonization Society proposes, and that is why I stand here before you, asking for your support.” The man patted his brow again, wiping away the sweat gathered there. “We have a ship scheduled to leave from Norfolk for the port of Monrovia in December. We would like to take no more than one hundred and no less than eighty blacks with us on board.”

  It was then that the talk on the floor swelled above a dull murmur. The speaker was not disturbed, though, and continued on in a louder voice. “This is not such an unprecedented journey as some might think. In fact, quite a few of our people are on the Gold Coast right now, working with the blacks to set up their living places, build their houses of worship, grow their crops, and prepare everything else that is associated with immigrating to a new land. One shipload of coloreds left last year, also from Norfolk, and another left the year before, from the port of Baltimore.” The man fished in his pocket and pulled out a tattered letter. “I have a letter from my good friend, Adulus Barnes, who is protectorate of the new town, right here, if you’d like to read it. He says they are all doing just fine over there, that the coloreds are adjusting famously to their old country, and that he will soon be able to leave them to rule over themselves.”

  At this point, a man in a navy suit stood up and said, “I know of a whole group of so-called freedmen in Hoke County who would do well to take you up on this kind and excellent offer. Since our fair state doesn’t recognize such nonsense as ‘freedmen,’ they are forced to leave their families in some cases and travel north, which they are loath to do. But with this new option you have brought before us, they could pay out the remainder of the value of various family members—if we masters are inclined, if the slaves are so inclined and if they can afford it—and travel back to their homeland to start an entirely new life, completely devoid of the problems they would have here—north or south.”

  The blond man behind the podium clapped his hands once and then pointed to the man in the navy suit. “Right you are, my friend,” he said. “That is the kind of thinking that will get this next boat out of the port. We need you and other men like you to spread the word, to let others know about this opportunity.”

  Yasmine’s head was swimming. The meeting was disbursing. Lani had begun to squirm on her back, impatient and hungry. Yasmine would have to nurse her soon or risk causing a scene. The blond man at the podium thanked everyone for their attention and stepped down. Some men in front surrounded him, and he was soon engaged in what looked like quite a lively discussion. Other small pockets of conversation between groups of men popped up around the room. And the men beside her started to quietly shuffle out. She knew they expected her to follow them and also to serve them their afternoon teas—it was why they had allowed her into the meeting in the first place. She didn’t have much time before someone demanded her labor and attention. The plantation had a reputation for being as efficient as it was hospitable, and Master Scott would throw a fit if any one of his workers jeopardized this standing. She needed to move fast.

  Yasmine scanned a group that was slowly moving beside her. They were older gentlemen, and they held their felt hats lazily in their hands, like they knew they had to move, but their bodies did not feel any kind of urgency about it. One man had a stripe of gray that ran all the way up his beard to about halfway up to the crown of his head. She had never seen anything like it before, and wondered if it was the sign of a curse or a blessing. He wore a simple dark gray suit, and his shoes were well shined. He turned toward Yasmine, feeling her eyes, and gave her something like a smile.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” she said, sensing her opening.

  The man nodded. “Good afternoon.”

  She could see him taking in her gingham dress, which was still red despite years of heavy washing and her leather shoes. It was clear, in so many ways, that she was not a slave.

  “Come to hear the good Mr. Richards speak this afternoon, have you?” He stepped toward her, and she instinctively stepped back.

  She made her face relax. “Yes. His plan look interesting,” she said, trying to find the right words that would show her intelligence. White men truly owned everything—even the English language. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

  The man laughed, and it was a deep and hearty sound. “Neither did I, until a few weeks ago. I’m a Quaker myself and a bit skeptical about the whole thing. But if it’s what gets you coloreds your freedom, then it can’t be so bad, can it?”

  She could hear Master Scott calling to her from the meeting room and decided that she had about thirty seconds to finish making the connection. She smiled and said, “No, it can’t be. I be thinking ’bout me and mine’s booking passage on one of them ships. You know anything ’bout it?”

  The man shook his head. “I don’t.”

  Yasmine’s breath ran out; she had picked the wrong man. You never picked the man who looked kind—she knew this—because he would also be the one who held the least sway with the truly powerful.

  Still, he took her elbow and guided her into the meeting room. She couldn’t remember the last time that a white person had touched her so easily, without a thought. Lani cooed, seeming to sense the remarkable contact. “I can take you to who to talk to, though,” he said. “You have the look of a free woman to you, the look of intensity, which is just what they want, as I understand it. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  * * *

  —

  They were almost to the guesthouse when they saw it. Walking toward the southeastern part of town, the streets became wider, the cobblestones few and far between. The majestic, cavernous two-story houses that they had seen at the center of town had long given way to the more modest buildings. With the change of weather, the new dirt roads had degenerated to mud, and many a horse and carriage were stopped on the side of the road, drivers working anxiously to clear their wheels. This was the new part of Norfolk, the section that was expanding as the cotton trade spread south, and enterprising folk—white, black, and Indian—came from all around to find their own fortunes or, in the case of the last two, to be dominated by them.

 
“Mama, what’s that?” Nolan said, his voice trembling a bit.

  Yasmine had already seen it out of the corner of her eye, no more than fifty feet away. She willed Lani and the boys not to notice, but to no avail. Black bodies in chains were being filed onto the block, where white men smelling of sweat and tobacco breathed over them with lascivious, ambitious eyes. She had seen this once before, when she was sixteen, and she had gone to visit her aunt at a nearby plantation by Magnolia. Her aunt’s master, openly disturbed by Old Master Scott’s leniency, brought all of them to an auction outside of Portsmouth. Yasmine had never forgotten the sight of a girl, ten years her junior, marched out onto the stage where white men pinched her nipples “to see if they would one day be ripe enough to produce milk” and slapped her buttocks for no particular reason that they felt compelled to utter.

  “Slave auction,” Big George said now, matter-of-factly. His voice pulled her back, violently, to the present. He spit on the side of the road, a habit that Yasmine had doggedly tried to break him of. “Look like a big one too. They got least a hundred, hundred fifty of them.” He took a step closer to the proceedings.

  Yasmine wanted to grab his arm and pull him to them, but she thought better of it.

  “That ain’t nothing,” Little George said, coming up behind his brother. “Papa said he saw one in Savannah with almost five hundred.” There was an edge to his voice, an unmistakable bitterness, that worried her. “Had them there for a week beforehand, sleeping with the horses, doing all kind of things you should never see a human do.”