This Strange New Feeling

by Julius Lester

  She looks at him, her eyes growing big.

  “Don’t be bashful now,” he says, laughing. The crowd laughs. “Just pull it over your head like you do for all the young bucks.”

  The crowd laughs louder.

  The girl crosses her arms over her breasts and moves away from the white man. He grabs her by the arm and snatches the top of her dress, pulling on it hard. It rips and falls to the floor. The crowd cheers loudly.

  The girl doesn’t know what part of her body to hide from all the eyes. The crowd laughs even more. The white man slaps at her arms and she lets them hang limply at her side.

  “Gentlemen! Now, I ask you! Have you seen a finer bit of flesh on the market in the past year? I guarantee that you haven’t. This girl here is good for anything you might have in mind.”

  That causes more cheering and clapping.

  The man tells the girl to turn around, and when she does, he grasps her buttocks and squeezes them. He turns her to face the crowd again and puts his hand on her full breasts and squeezes. “Just as ripe as a cantaloupe off the vine with the dew still on it. Now, who’ll make the first bid?”

  “Five hundred!” someone in the front yells.

  The girl is looking straight at the crowd now, the tears running down her face. I cannot tell for sure, but I think she is looking at me.

  “Five fifty!” comes another shout.

  Maybe if she looks at me, she won’t cry. She’ll know that we can’t ever let them see us cry. If they see us cry, then we won’t have anything left that’s ours.

  “Seven hundred!”

  I guess she can’t see me, because her shoulders heave as her tears become sobs. I walk away before I go up on that stage and slap her.

  Forrest and I have our worst argument yet as we drive home, the shiny black horse tied to the back of the wagon. He’s angry that I didn’t have better sense, as he puts it, than to stay away from the slave market. I tell him that I got plenty sense, better sense than him ’cause I don’t want more horses than I need.

  “You just can’t get rid of the slave mentality is what’s wrong with you,” he tells me.

  I don’t say anything, because if we keep talking, one of us is going to say something that we can’t take back—ever. That’s what made it so bad for Master and Mistress. They said things to each other that “I’m sorry” wouldn’t make go away. They said things that the other one couldn’t forget, and not being able to forget it, there was nothing to do but remember.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” Forrest says after a while.

  “You right,” I tell him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  His voice is soft and sweet like a quiet rain in the middle of the night in the springtime. I want to stay angry awhile longer, but when he talks in that voice, well, something happens to me. Before I get all the way soft, though, I have to know. “What you mean by saying I got a slave mentality?”

  I can tell that he doesn’t want to answer when he says, “Aw, nothing. I just got hot under the collar. You had me scared.”

  “If you hadn’t meant something, you wouldn’t have said it. I ain’t never known you to waste no words, Forrest Yates.”

  He sighs like he knows he’s caught. “Let me put it this way. I want us to live as good as white people. That means we got to have the things that white people do. That’ll prove that we’re just as good as they are.”

  “And that’s how come you bought a horse we don’t need and are going to buy a carriage we don’t need?”

  “It’ll prove that I’m as free as they are.”

  I want to tell him that it proves that he’s a bigger fool than they are, but I don’t. When you love somebody, you can think they’re a fool sometime, but if you say it, you’re the fool.

  “Maybe having the slave mentality ain’t all bad,” I say, finally.

  “I didn’t mean that, Maria,” he apologizes.

  “It’s all right. The slave mentality sees white folk and their fine horses and big houses and pretty china and all like that. But we see that they ain’t got no love. And that’s all I got to say on it.”

  It is a few weeks before all our wounds heal. Forrest needs to see me look at him with my eyes all soft and warm, like he is the best man in the world. I need him to look at me, his eyes all glazed over. When he looks at me like that, the scars on my body disappear and my breasts stand round and firm.

  So when he rides in one evening in a carriage, I exclaim and carry on like it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. He is so proud of it, and maybe he’s right. Maybe a black man needs carriages and fine horses to feel that he’s really free. Maybe he can’t believe he’s free unless he can see it. All I know is that I hope he didn’t have to borrow too much money to pay for it.

  But I don’t say any of that. Instead I cook him a special dinner of chicken smothered with dumplings. Afterward we look at each other across the table and everything is all right again. I look at him, and if he doesn’t know where the sun lives, nothing can convince me that he won’t find its address.

  He left early this morning and will be gone for a couple of days working on plantations in the southern part of the county. If Mammy was at the plantation, I would go stay with her. She’s in Richmond at Master’s house there, so I think I will make a new dress for when Forrest takes me riding in the carriage. That’ll help him feel free too.

  It is almost dusk when I hear a horse galloping up the road. I hurry to the door, wondering what Forrest is doing home so soon. It’s not him. It’s Master.

  “Master!” I exclaim as he gets off his horse.

  “Maria,” he says, kind of flatlike.

  “It sure is good to see you. This is a real surprise. If I had known you were coming, I would’ve made some of that apple cobbler I know you like.”

  He smiles weakly. “Thank you, Maria. Mind if I come in?”

  “Oh, excuse my manners, Master. Come right in, please. Can I get you something to drink?”

  He sits down at the table. “No, thank you.”

  I wonder how come he don’t want to look at me, but looks over my shoulder and out the door.

  “I’m not very good at this sort of thing,” he says nervously. “I wish I knew the right way to tell you.”

  “What is it? Has something happened to Mammy?” I say quickly, understanding now. “You just sit right there, Master. I can be ready to come with you soon as I get my shawl and saddle one of the horses.” I start out the door.

  “It’s Forrest,” he says in a dull voice.

  I stop and turn around slowly. “Forrest?”

  “He’s dead, Maria.”

  I look at him for a moment, then I laugh. “Dead? No, Master. He just left here this morning. Somebody told you wrong.”

  “He went down to the Simpson plantation, didn’t he?”

  I nod weakly, the tears coming to my eyes.

  “Seems that he was shoeing one of their horses and Mr. Simpson’s little boy was watching. He didn’t know any better and he got a stick. He thought it would be funny to watch the horse jump around if he flicked some live coals on it. Forrest was kicked in the head and died instantly. A boy rode up from there to tell me, and I rode straight out here. I’m sorry, Maria.”

  I shake my head and laugh again. “No, Master. That ain’t true. That just ain’t true. IT AIN’T TRUE!” And I run out, past the barn and the corral and into the forest. Then I cry.

  V

  Master sent Mammy to stay with me these weeks since Forrest—I still can’t say it. How can I believe he’s dead when I feel him alive? I look out the window and see him walking to the barn and exercising the big black horse in the corral. I wake up a half hour before light and start to light the fire in the stove. Then I remember. There’s no reason to get up or build a fire or do anything else.

  Forrest is laying over there on the other side of the corral, and when it rains, I worry if he’s getting wet. There was a frost a few nights ago, and I stay awake worr
ying about him being cold lying in that ground. Mammy says that it’ll be best for me to leave him here, to go someplace where everything won’t remind me of him. There ain’t no such place. I look at the sky and that reminds me of him. I look at the earth and think of him. I can’t go and leave him all alone out there in the ground.

  Today Master is coming out from Richmond with Forrest’s will. Today I’m free. I wish I wasn’t.

  It is early afternoon when Master arrives. I was listening for the sound of a horse. He arrives in a carriage, and behind him another white man driving a wagon. I guess it takes more than one white man to read a will.

  The long, tall white man in the carriage looks familiar, but I can’t place him. I guess I must’ve seen him on the street in Richmond once.

  Master doesn’t introduce him but sits down at the table. The long, tall white man stands by the door. Master speaks to Mammy but barely nods at me. You would almost think he’d come to tell me that Forrest was dead.

  He reaches into his coat pocket and takes out some papers. “I guess I’ll get right to the point. You understand what this paper is, Maria?”

  “Yes, sir, Master. Forrest explained to me about his will and how he was giving me my freedom.”

  Master nods. “That’s right. It’s all in here. I won’t bother to read it to you, because it’s all in lawyer’s talk. But Forrest gives you your freedom.”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “There may be a problem, however.”

  “What problem, Master?”

  “The law says that when a man dies, all the money he owes has to be paid to the people he owes it to. Now, it seems that Forrest owes a fair sum of money.” He unfolds the paper and reads down it until he comes to the part he’s looking for. “He borrowed money from the bank to buy two horses, a carriage, and a ton of oats that was delivered last week.”

  “That’s right,” I agree.

  “Now, what all that means is that you’re going to have to pay back all that money.”

  “I ain’t got no money, Master. You know that.”

  “None at all, Maria?”

  “No, sir, not unless I sell all the horses, the carriage, and the oats.”

  “Well, you could sell two of the horses. They’re paid for. But the bank that loaned Forrest the money is the real owner of the other two horses, the carriage, and the oats.”

  I look at him blankly, not understanding.

  “I’m sorry, Maria.” Master looks at me sorrowfully. “I’m afraid that you’re going to have to be sold, and the money from that will be used to pay off Forrest’s debts and the interest on them.”

  “Oh, Master, no!” Mammy exclaims.

  “But you just told me that the will says I’m to go free.”

  “I’m sorry, child. You can’t go free if Forrest owes money. All of his property has to be sold to pay his debts. According to the law, you’re the most valuable piece of property he owned.”

  I remember the other white man now, and the way he ripped off the slave girl’s dress.

  Mammy begins crying. “Master, you can’t let them sell Maria. She’s been like a daughter to you. Like a member of your own family.” She is kneeling beside his chair, her hands clenched almost like she is praying to him. He looks over her and out the window, the color rising to his cheeks.

  “Master! Master! Can’t you pay off Forrest’s debts for her? You got plenty money, Master. You could do that. And Maria, she could come to Richmond and work off the debt to you and then you could set her free. You could do that, Master! You don’t want to see her stood up on the auction block and sold away to somebody who will abuse her. You got too good a heart to do that to her, Master!” Mammy is sobbing uncontrollably now.

  I look at Master, waiting to hear what he will say. He looks at me and his eyes flicker rapidly, as if he cannot look at me directly, as if he is afraid to know what he would feel if he looked at me without his eyes fluttering like the wings of a honeybee. Forrest looked at me like that when he was angry and ashamed at the same time.

  If I ask Master, he’ll say yes. That’s what he’s waiting for. He did the asking the other time, but he never asked really. I didn’t know that I shamed him when I said no. He agreed with me so quickly that I didn’t think any more about it. Maybe he didn’t either until right now. He’s got all the power today. If he just says right out that he’ll pay Forrest’s debts, he won’t have the power no more. I will.

  I go to Mammy, pulling her from the floor.

  “It’s all right, Mammy. It’s all right. I don’t want no new mistress whipping me because she see something in Master’s soul he shamed to have there.”

  I look at him as I say it, and he drops his head. Suddenly he gets up, gives me a hateful look, and then with a jerk of his head tells the slave auctioneer that he can take me. He takes a rope from his pocket.

  “You don’t need to tie me,” I tell him. “I ain’t going to run away.”

  And I won’t. I can see myself standing up on that platform, and when he tears my dress off, I won’t cry. I’ll stand up straight, and when the white men start cheering and applauding, I’ll stare every one of them in the eye and make them stop. Won’t many of them want to buy me, and whichever one does will wish he hadn’t.

  ’Cause I know. I know now where the sun lives.

  A Christmas Love Story

  One

  I

  Ellen held the oak-framed oval mirror in front of her and stared. She did not see the smooth, creamy-white skin, the gray-green eyes, or the brown hair that fell down her back like a silken waterfall. She looked instead at the dark-skinned man standing behind her, his face without a smile or frown.

  “I can’t do it, William,” she said, lowering the mirror. “I’m sorry. I can’t do it.” Emotion made her voice even deeper and huskier than normal.

  William put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “I know,” he said softly. “I’m afraid too.”

  She turned and looked at him. “You are?” she asked, surprised.

  “I’m not a fool,” he responded with quiet seriousness.

  His admission of fear was oddly comforting. If he had said otherwise, she would have been too alone. She would be alone enough during the next four days. One mistake by her, one false move or word, and they were caught. William was depending on her.

  “I love you, William Craft,” she said, turning around and hugging him to her. “And if we’re both afraid, then we are stronger.” She released him. “I’m ready now.”

  Ellen sat down in the straight-backed chair in front of the dresser, the mirror in her lap. William began cutting her hair patiently, snipping an inch away at a time, as if he hated what he was doing.

  That straight hair had fooled him into believing she was a white woman the first time he saw her. When he learned she was a slave like himself, he could not believe it, though he should have. He had been a slave in Georgia all of his twenty-four years. It was not uncommon for slave owners to have children by black women. He had seen many, and no matter how white their skins, how gray, green, or light brown their eyes, or how straight and smooth their hair, William always knew they were slaves like himself.

  Why, then, had he not known that Ellen was a slave, too, that July day two years ago? He had happened to look up from the bureau he was sanding to see her walk slowly past the window. Was it the way she held her head level and steady on her slender neck? Was it the slow, almost leisurely way she had passed the cabinetmaker’s shop where he worked? She looked like the favored daughter of a wealthy planter strolling to have tea at a friend’s.

  It was almost impossible for a slave not to bear the marks of his or her condition, no matter how much he or she hated it. Shoulders carried proudly would acquire at least a stoop eventually, and the eyes become furtive, flitting around in their sockets like tiny birds at the approach of a cat. He had seen that look, particularly in the slaves who worked harder than mules on the plantations. He supposed he was lucky t
hat Dr. Collins, his owner, had hired him out as an apprentice to John Knight, a cabinetmaker, when he was fourteen. After a few years some of the wealthiest families in Macon were coming to the shop, asking him to make sideboards, tables, and bureaus. From the money he earned, two hundred dollars a year went to Dr. Collins. He was allowed to keep the remainder.

  Having a skill, being paid for his labor, and the basic solitude of his work had kept him secreted from the crushing weight of slavery. Ellen had been spared, too, being a lady’s maid and her mistress’s favorite servant. She was also her mistress’s half-sister.

  William clipped more rapidly now as clumps of soft, fine hair dropped to her lap and onto the floor at his feet. It was as if remembering had rekindled his hatred at being a slave, and he expressed it by removing that hair whose softness he loved to feel beneath his hand, even as he hated the white man who had bequeathed this hair, the gray-green eyes, and the white complexion to this woman he adored, this woman who was his wife.

  Quickly now he was done. He took a clothes brush and whisked the clipped hair from her shoulders and back. Moving around to look at her, he stared for a moment and, taking a comb from the top of the dresser, pushed the hair back.

  “There.” He nodded, satisfied. “Maybe I should have been a barber instead of a cabinetmaker.” He chuckled.

  Ellen raised the mirror and looked at herself. She did not think she looked any more like a man than when her hair had hung to her waist. But she was not sorry to be relieved of that hair of her father’s, who had also been her owner and so never looked at her with any expression other than the frown he bestowed on all his slaves. Ellen was only sorry that William could not also change the color of her eyes and blacken her skin. But if that were possible, their plan would not work. For the first and last time in her life, she was glad her father had been a white man. At least she would be glad four days from now—if all went well.