This Strange New Feeling

by Julius Lester

  She stood, brushing clumps of hair from her lap.

  “You get ready,” William told her. “I’ll sweep.”

  Ellen smiled. She still marveled at William’s ability to sweep a floor without raising a wisp of dust. That had been his first job at the cabinetmaker’s—sweeping the floor of wood shavings, sawdust, nails, and dowels, and doing it without covering the finished and half-finished chairs, tables, and bureaus with dust and debris. How could she not have married a man who handled a broom like that? she wondered, laughing to herself. The few times she had ever tried to sweep, one would have thought a dust storm had gone through the room.

  She went behind the screen standing in a corner of the room and began putting on the unfamiliar clothes. Did a man put on the trousers before the shirt, or vice versa? William put on his pants first, and for some reason always the left leg before the right. Once he had put the right leg on first, stopped, taken it off, and put the left leg on. She chuckled as she slipped her left leg into the pants.

  “Well?” she asked tentatively when she finally emerged from behind the screen. “Do I look like a young white southern gentleman?”

  William looked at her with a critical eye. The white shirt and dark suit fit her well, and when her disguise was complete, he believed, she would be able to pass for a man. He smiled. “I think it’s going to work, Ellen. I think it’s going to work.”

  She laughed sardonically. “If it doesn’t, we’re going to be sold so far into slavery that the Lord won’t be able to find us on Judgment Day.”

  “How do the shoes feel?” he wanted to know.

  “Better. I’m glad I practiced walking in them the past few nights, but I still don’t understand how men ever get anywhere. It’s like walking with fish traps strapped to my feet.”

  “Good,” he said absentmindedly, still looking at her critically. “Now come over here and sit on the bed, and I’ll finish making you into a cultivated young man on his way to Philadelphia with his manservant for medical treatment.”

  As he took the long swathes of white cloth from beneath the bed, he wondered again if it was an insane idea. It was, and that was its safety. He was glad that it had been Ellen’s idea, because everything depended on her.

  He wrapped a swathe of cloth around her right hand and wrist, then pulled it over her shoulder and back, tying it into a sling. “Is that too tight?”

  She shook her head.

  He took the other piece of cloth and wrapped it around her chin and over her head, covering her smooth and hairless cheeks, which would give her away as a woman. “Where’s the hat?”

  “Oh. I left it behind the screen.”

  William got the hat and placed it on her head. He handed her the mirror. “Well, what do you think?”

  Ellen gazed at the unfamiliar face in the mirror. “Well, if nothing else, I certainly look like I’m on Death’s doorstep.”

  William took the black cravat from the dresser and tied it around her neck. Finally he reached into his coat pocket and handed her the green spectacles. She put them on.

  “Your face is almost totally hidden now,” William said, pleased. “People will see the spectacles and the bandages, but not you.”

  She raised the mirror and looked at herself again. “I hope so,” she said softly. “I hope so. These next four days are going to be worse, I think, than the twenty-two years I’ve been in slavery.”

  “Don’t think about it. Just think about being in Philadelphia on Christmas Day and having freedom for a Christmas present.”

  “Do I dare, William? Do I dare?”

  “If we don’t dare, we’ll die as slaves.”

  She nodded slowly. “I know. But I couldn’t go through with this if it were just for me.”

  “Nor I,” he agreed.

  “But I want children and I will not have our children born into slavery!” she flared suddenly. “I will not! To have children and see them sold away from us or us from them as you saw your mother, father, brother, and sister sold. I would kill any child I birthed into slavery.”

  William blew out the candle, knowing that light seen coming from the cabin of slaves at that time of night would arouse suspicion if anyone walking along the street happened to see it.

  They sat on the edge of the bed, neither daring to sleep if they had been able. No more words were spoken. There was only the waiting now, and the night passed so slowly that Ellen began to wonder if God had commanded the sun not to rise. But when the sky changed from black to inky blue, she did not notice until William touched her arm.

  Though the rim of the sun’s orb had not yet cleared the horizon, the blue-black of first light quickly changed to a deep ultramarine, and through the window Ellen saw the shapes of the trees. When the shapes changed to the spare limbs and branches of oak and elm, William squeezed her hand.

  “It is time,” he whispered.

  Ellen would not release his hand. “William?” she said finally, her voice faint. She turned and stared into his face and then traced it gently with her fingertips—the eyebrows, the full lips, the thick mustache, which still tickled sometimes when they kissed.

  “If—if something happens and I never see you again, I want you to know that I love you more than I have ever been able to say. Do you know that, William?”

  “I know, Ellen. If something does happen, I’ll find you—if not here, then in the life beyond. But I will find you, wife.”

  “I’ll be waiting. Forever would not be too long to wait for you.”

  They kissed and held each other for a long moment before William broke the embrace. “We must go or we’ll miss the train.”

  He put on his white beaver hat and took the two already-packed valises from beneath the bed. They walked softly to the door. William opened it and peered out. All was still. The trees were as stolid as tombstones.

  “Come,” he whispered.

  Ellen didn’t move, as tremors suddenly shook her body.

  “What’s wrong?” William asked sharply.

  She burst into tears and put her arms around his neck, squeezing him so tightly that it hurt. He dropped the valises, pushed the door shut, and put his arms around her.

  She was glad for his silence, loved him even more for knowing there were no words that could quiet the terror of this moment. There were no words that could reconcile her to the rage of having to literally steal their own lives. And if they failed? He would probably be sold to a plantation to work like a yoked ox until he died. And some white man would pay handsomely to use her for his pleasure, as her mother had been used.

  Her sobbing stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun. “Come, William. It is getting late.”

  He opened the door and they stepped out, as softly as the dawn sending a warm band of red and orange across the eastern horizon. They tiptoed across the yard to the street, afraid that the slightest sound might awaken those who slept on the upper floor of the large white house on the corner where her half-sister–mistress lived with her family.

  When they reached the sidewalk, William handed her her valise. There was nothing more to say, and as if to acknowledge that they were no longer Ellen and William Craft, but “Mr. William Johnson” and “his slave,” they turned and walked in opposite directions toward the railroad station.

  William walked quickly, afraid he might be recognized by some early riser. He and Ellen had asked for and been given four-day passes by their respective owners. It was not unusual for slaves to be given passes at Christmastime to go visiting, so his presence on the street so early would not be questioned. He and Ellen would not be missed even until they were safely in Philadelphia. But he was afraid of being detained for any reason, and was glad when he reached the station and boarded the Negro car where he had to ride.

  Ellen walked slowly. She was surprised at the stillness and peace she felt now. Even if they were caught, she had walked across some invisible line, and no one could ever take this moment from her, the first moment of her life when she knew what
it was to be free, to be walking along the street early on a quiet and peaceful morning. There was a slight chill in the air, but the sky was clear. The sun would warm the day. That was what it was like to go from slave to free woman. One minute she had been cold. Now she was warm. They could never take that from her.

  As she neared the red-brick railroad station, she adjusted the hat atop her head and reminded herself that she was now William Johnson. She remembered all the white men she had seen, how they hooked their thumbs in the pockets of their vests, crossed their legs when they sat, flicked invisible bits of lint from coats and trousers with a flick of thumb and forefinger. It was little things like that that identified a man.

  As she entered the station, she noticed the line at the ticket window, as William had predicted. The ticket seller would have no time for idle talk or questions. From behind the green spectacles she looked over the people in the station quickly, afraid there might be someone who would recognize her. There was no one.

  “Two to Savannah,” she said when she got to the window, glad once again that her natural speaking voice was deep.

  The ticket seller did not look up but reached beneath the counter, took two tickets, stamped them, and shoved them beneath the window grill. She pushed the money toward him and walked away.

  William saw her as she emerged from the station house. Only when he heard the loud sigh escape his body did he realize how tense he was. Ellen did not look toward the back of the train, where the Negro car was, but proceeded slowly along the platform and entered the third car from the front.

  William sighed again. Now, if the train would only start moving. He stared at the people coming out of the station house and pausing on the platform to say goodbye to friends and relatives. Just then someone rushed out, pushing and shoving his way through the crowd. William almost leaped from his seat, and his heart was pounding as loudly in his ears as the hammer with which he had pounded so many nails.

  There, hurrying toward the train, was John Knight, the cabinetmaker for whom he worked. A tall, lean man with a sharp nose like a rooster’s beak, Knight stopped a white man, speaking rapidly while pointing at the train. The man shook his head and Knight walked quickly toward the train.

  William snatched the white beaver hat from his head and put it on the seat beside him, cursing to himself. There were some whites who seemed to have some kind of sixth sense about their slaves, and John Knight was one. He hadn’t wanted to give William the pass.

  “What do you need a pass for?” he’d asked. “You see your wife every night. I could understand if she lived on one of the plantations in the countryside.”

  “Yes, sir,” William said, seeming to agree. “That’s just it. My wife and I would like to go visit her mother, and since I’ve never asked you for a pass, sir, I didn’t think you’d mind this once, sir.”

  Though William had kept his eyes looking downward in the proper pose of submission, he could almost feel Knight thinking. White men lived in fear of slaves escaping. Any request a slave made was scrutinized for hidden means of running away.

  “Well,” Knight began finally, “I better see you bright and early the day after Christmas. If I don’t, I’ll have the slave catchers after you so quick you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

  Now here he was, entering a coach of the train, the one, William realized, where Ellen sat! William waited, scarcely breathing, and though only a moment passed, it seemed like hours before Knight walked off the coach and hurried to the next one. Quickly he was off that coach and leaped up the steps to the next. Two more coaches and he would come to the last one, the Negro coach.

  “We are caught,” William mumbled, and angry tears moistened his eyes as he pounded his fist on the coach seat. And almost in response to the blow the train jolted once, twice, a third time, and slowly began moving. William saw Knight jump from the train, and though he wanted to frame his face in the window for Knight to see, William shrank down in the seat. It was some moments before he dared rise up again.

  Ellen had not seen Knight when he entered the car. She was gazing through the window, wondering why, at the moment of leaving, there were these unwanted feelings of sadness. She couldn’t believe that she would really miss Rebecca. But why shouldn’t she? They were half-sisters, weren’t they, and looked so much alike that many white people used to comment to Rebecca’s mother about her “two lovely daughters.” That was why Rebecca’s mother had wanted to sell Ellen as far away from Georgia as possible. For some reason it had never happened. Eventually, though, she got rid of Ellen, giving her to Rebecca for a wedding present as if she were a bowl of cut crystal, or a place setting of silver.

  Foolishly, Ellen had expected her half-sister to free her. Instead, Ellen continued to wait on Rebecca as she had since she was seven and Rebecca ten. Ellen awakened her in the morning, took out the chamberpot, carried warm water from the kitchen for her to wash with, made the bed, laid out her clothes, mended her dresses and underwear, sewed new clothes for her, brushed her hair, as long and brown as Ellen’s, and listened to her chatter about the “ball at the Markham plantation,” and “dinner with the Bells in Atlanta.”

  Once a day Rebecca would hug Ellen, exclaiming, “Oh, Ellie! You’re my dearest friend in all the world! I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

  “Learn to mend your own drawers,” Ellen had wanted to tell her so often.

  Now, as she felt the train gathering speed, she knew that her sadness had nothing to do with leaving her half-sister, who would’ve sold her if she had ever needed the money. No matter how right it was for her to leave, her emotions knew only that they were being carried into the new and the unknown. Afraid, they clawed to cling to the known, no matter how horrible.

  When the city of Macon passed from her window to be replaced by the flat, red clay countryside, Ellen turned and was surprised she hadn’t noticed that someone had taken the seat next to her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something familiar. It appeared to be a walking stick whose knob was artfully carved into a face—a carved face she had looked at only three nights ago when Mr. Cray, a cotton dealer from Savannah, had come for dinner with Rebecca and her husband.

  Ellen was afraid she was going to faint, or worse, cry out. Was it just coincidence that Mr. Cray was on the same train? But coincidence would not have placed him beside her. How could he have found out? She and William had told no one.

  Ellen turned to look through the window again, biting her lip to hold back the tears.

  “It is a very fine morning, sir,” Ellen heard Cray’s rich bass voice.

  Was he addressing her? she dared wonder.

  “I said it’s a fine morning, isn’t it, sir?” Cray’s voice repeated, louder.

  He was addressing her, wasn’t he? Ellen thought.

  “I’ll make him hear,” Cray said, insulted and annoyed now. “It is a very fine morning, sir!” His voice reverberated the length of the coach.

  Ellen knew she had to do something, but if she turned and he recognized her, it was over! Yet, what if she looked him directly in the eye and spoke, and he saw a man?

  She turned her head and found his eyes staring into hers. “Yes, it is a fine morning,” she said, making her voice even deeper. “I hope you will excuse my hearing,” she continued, then smiled, and turned back to look out the window again, her heart fluttering as rapidly as the wings of a hummingbird.

  “It’s a terrible thing to be deaf,” she heard someone behind her whisper to Mr. Cray.

  “It certainly is,” he returned sympathetically. “I won’t trouble that young man anymore.”

  Ellen didn’t relax, however, until the train stopped at the next town and Mr. Cray got off.

  It was evening when the train arrived in Savannah. As William put on his white hat and walked off the car, he could smell a heavy saltiness to the air. That could only be the ocean, he concluded, though he had never smelled it before.

  He walked slowly forward to the car where his “master”
was. When “he” descended the steps, William did not look up into that face he loved so completely, but with one hand reached for “his” hand, while taking the suitcase from “him” with the other. As Ellen stepped onto the station platform, she squeezed William’s hand before releasing it.

  “Were you able to rest, Master?”

  “I’m afraid not, William.”

  “Perhaps you’ll be able to sleep tonight on the steamer.”

  “I hope so.”

  The station platform was crowded with disembarking passengers and friends and family who’d come to meet them. It was Christmastime, Ellen remembered, a time for reunions and cheeriness. Or so she had observed.

  She wondered why William was standing there holding the valises. Then she remembered. She was the “master” and had to find the carriage to take them to the dock to the steamer for Charleston, South Carolina.

  She started slowly across the platform and through the station, William a discreet two paces behind. Once on the street, a man standing beside a carriage stepped forward quickly.

  “Going to the Charleston steamer, sir?”

  Ellen nodded. “Yes.”

  “Right this way. That your nigger?”

  “Yes, he is. And a more faithful servant cannot be found in all of Georgia.”

  The man opened the door of the carriage. “Well, consider yourself blessed by God.”

  “I do,” Ellen responded, smiling to herself as William took her hand and squeezed it tightly as he helped her inside.

  “You can ride up top with me, boy,” the carriage driver told William.

  As the carriage moved slowly through the streets of Savannah, William wished it had been daylight so he might see something of this city by the ocean. It was a place favored by many wealthy whites, especially at this time of year, when the weather might turn chilly in central Georgia. He’d overheard whites in the cabinet shop talk of plants and trees growing in this city that must be wondrous to see—palm trees, oak trees with hanging moss. It was odd to be in a place and not know exactly where he was.