Birth of a Dark Nation

by Rashid Darden

  In my chair sat the first woman I had dreamed up. She stood up and walked toward me, blade in hand.

  "Remember!" she shouted.

  I bared my fangs at her and she disappeared.

  "Jesus!" I said, reaching into my pocket and calling Dante on my phone with a trembling hand.

  "Hey handsome, what's up?"

  "I'm seeing ghosts," I whispered.

  "What?"

  "When I got to work today, I started daydreaming about these people I've never seen before. And…and they're dressed like from a hundred years ago. Like, like slaves or something. But I wasn't daydreaming. They were here. They are here. They won't go away. Why won't they go away?"

  "Justin, relax."

  "Don't tell me to relax! Tell me how to get rid of these ghosts!"

  "They're not ghosts."

  My heart stopped.

  "Djinn?"

  "No, not Djinn either. They're memories. Was one of them a tall woman with high cheekbones?"

  "Yes."

  "Rebekah."

  "Who?"

  "Rebekah Deslondes. Listen, Justin, don't panic. Sit down, relax, and let them visit with you. They are people from our past, from our history. Let them talk to you. I will be there soon."

  "Okay," I said. I clicked off the phone and put it on my desk. I walked to my empty chair and sat down timidly. I closed my eyes and exhaled. The woman appeared to me once more.

  I tried not to panic.

  "Are you Rebekah?" I asked. She nodded.

  "Do you mean me any harm?" She said nothing.

  "Please…show me what you want me to see." I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by the slave apparitions once more. They looked over me, and then walked away. Above me was not the ceiling of my office, but the blue sky and blazing sun of another time.

  ***

  I finished my shopping at the Whole Foods in Silver Spring and hurried back across town to get to Justin. The passenger seat and floor of the van were covered with bags of beans, fruits, vegetables, tofu, herbs, spices, and bottles of water and juices. I was grateful that there were still organic options in this era. It seemed as though forces conspired against black people for generations. It was bad enough that they had to endure the horrors of slavery, but after we left the plantations and the south in general, it seemed like black folks couldn't even get a good grocery store in their neighborhoods, much less clean, organic foods.

  I hurried and put the food away in our refrigerator and walked over to Magdalene to help Justin, lunch bag in hand. I knew that the fact that the memories were coming without my prompting was a good thing. I was no geneticist, but it seemed to me that the Razadi blood in him was bonding with his and reproducing. Our memories were in our DNA; our blood was now his blood.

  Magdalene had never looked cleaner. Justin's staff took major pride in this place and it showed, from the polished glass doors to the smiling face of the assistant who greeted me by name.

  "How can I help you, Mr. Oliver?"

  "Please, just Dante," I smiled at her. She smiled back.

  "Well how can I help you, Dante?"

  "Your boss—Mr. Kena—left his lunch at home again. I was wondering if I could take it upstairs to him."

  "Oh, I can do that for you-"

  "I'd kind of like to surprise him. If that's okay with you, of course."

  "Oh, okay, sure! That's really sweet of you!"

  I smiled.

  "Thanks, Jennifer," I said. The world really was changing. This evolution was more rapid than I had anticipated. Men were able to love other men openly and freely, even in black American communities. This love wasn't without its challenges, and homophobia did still exist, but at least in Justin's workplace his staff could accept who I was—and who I was to him—without so much as a second glance.

  I carried his lunch bag up the stairs directly to his office, nodding at the technology dude and entering Justin's office without knocking.

  As I thought he would be, he was lying on the floor, face up, as straight as a board. His eyes were closed, but they moved beneath the lids as though he were in REM sleep. His lips were moving with an attempt at speech, in a volume too low for me to understand.

  I locked the door behind me, put his lunch on the desk, and sat on the floor beside him. He flinched as I caressed his cheek.

  "Justin, can you hear me?" I asked. He lips quivered for a few moments and he finally stuttered my true name.

  "A…A…Aragbaye. Aragbaye."

  "Yes, good. I'm here. Tell me what you see."

  "Camp. Camp. Campfire. Razadi. Slaves. Free men. Slaves. Together. Meeting."

  I propped Justin up and slid behind him, cradling him in my arms and allowing him to rest comfortably. I whispered into his ear.

  "You're okay. You're safe. Take me there. Take me back."

  I leaned close to him until our skin touched, and I remembered.

  "Bernard, I am asking you. I am begging you. Please, join us. Can't you see that this relationship between our people—between slave and free—is the only way that we can all be free? We can't do it ourselves. We don't have the access to movement that you do. Do I have to remind you of all that the white man has taken from us? Hmm? Do I have to remind you that my family is broken? Shattered and scattered across the south. I have a son who I will never see. I have parents I will never know. You have to help us, Bernard. Peace is not the answer. Not as long as the white man walks this earth. We have to conquer them. We do, you and I. We can do this together. Do it for our people, yours and mine, but especially mine.

  "We who do not remember our true homes. We who do not know our true names. We who toil in the fields for trash who wouldn't survive here on their own. It is time. It is time for us to take the land which we till. It is time for us to rise up against our masters with our scythes. With our hoes. With our blades. With whatever we have available. It is time for us to take back our own lives, and we can't do it without the help of our brothers. Our brothers who have given us these gifts. The power. The strength. The second chance at life. We need you, brothers. Please. Join us. Join this rebellion. Join this war. Give us that gift."

  Babarinde, now known as Bernard, sat in silence at the bonfire behind our plantation house, built with our own hands in the harsh Louisiana heat. We lived in LaPlace, in the Territory of Orleans, on a vast cotton plantation amid dozens of our neighbors' sugar cane fields.

  Charles Deslondes, a black overseer from a neighboring sugar plantation, was pleading with Babarinde on that November evening in 1810.

  "Why are you silent, Bernard?" demanded the angry woman with the high cheekbones. "Were you not aware of the monster you would create?"

  "You are not a monster," he replied.

  "Of course I am," she hissed. "I am stronger than my wildest dreams and the nightmares of my slavers."

  Babarinde grinned.

  "Ah, Bernard, you smile because you know. You know what you've done for me, the gift you bestowed on me. And you know it can't be undone."

  "You had a terrible carriage accident, Rebekah. I couldn't let you die."

  "What you did was more than save my life," Rebekah said, walking around the fire to get to Babarinde. She knelt at his lap and caressed his wooly hair.

  "When that carriage I was driving hit that stone and tossed me clear across the road, I thought I was done. I didn't even see the horse run me over. But what you did for me…coming out of nowhere, like an angel, opening your own vein and giving me your blood to drink, pouring it in my open wounds. You gave me life. You gave me a new life."

  Babarinde frowned again and stood up, shaking Rebekah's hands from him.

  "I should have let you die."

  "Why do you say such hateful things!" she shouted, standing up from the ground.

  "Because your people are not ready! Enslaved blacks are scattered and divided. There is no central hierarchy or particular loyalty-"

  "Haiti rose!" Charles said. "We could be next! And who knows, maybe your breth
ren somehow helped there, too."

  Babarinde vigorously shook his head.

  "No. It wasn't us."

  "But you're not sure," Rebekah added.

  "Can any of us be sure?" Ariori said. His new name was now Louis. "You all know that we are an old people—a very old people—and we know Africa. And we know the Caribbean. And maybe, just maybe, more of our people came to this hemisphere under force, or trickery, or maybe by choice, in search of us. We don't know. But Rebekah. Charles. All of you. It's just too dangerous. We don't even know how this all works."

  "We don't care how it works," Charles said. "We just know that it works. You saved my sister and made her better. Now please…make us better. Let us rise up and be our own nation. Louis, Bernard, Pierre?"

  He reached out his hand, gesturing toward me.

  "Pierre, I see it in your eyes. You long to go back to your homeland. But you know you can't. Even if you could cross the ocean without incident, you'd surely give the white man a path directly to your ancestral secrets. So you can't come out of the shadows and let the world know what you really are. But what if you could recreate your nation here? What if out of the whiteness of our oppressors could emerge a new nation—a dark nation of brothers and sisters united in the blood?"

  I looked down and then quickly up at Babarinde.

  "I think I'd like that," I said in response to Charles, while making eye contact with Babarinde.

  "Pierre!" Eşusanya said. He chose the name Henri for our lives in Louisiana. "You be quiet. This isn't our fight."

  "Isn't it? Baba… Tonton Bernard. It's time."

  Babarinde turned to me, his eyebrows raised in astonishment.

  "Charles, Rebekah… Please, give us a moment." Bernard requested.

  Our five enslaved guests quietly ascended the stairs into our home while the rest of us remained outside.

  "Speak, Aragbaye," he said.

  "Baba, we have been away from home for a long time. And we know that we can't go back. Not now. We can't risk the safety and sanctity of our families and our land. But I am tired. And I am restless. I thought that Orleans would be a new life for us. But being a free black here isn't much better than what our enslaved brethren experience. And yes, they are our brethren.

  "We've lived in Louisiana for six years now. Six long years, and for what? What we saw on Dominica was nothing compared to this. Do you realize that our people are building this country? Yes, our people. African people. I am no longer comfortable sitting in this big house, in the middle of a cotton field, among dozens of plantations, when people who look just like us can't leave.

  "And can we leave? Really? Can any of us truly walk about freely without fear?

  "Can you, Eşusanya? How about you, Aborişade? No. None of us can. Listen…I'm not saying that we should be irresponsible. But Razadi fight for what's right—always!"

  My hands trembled with excitement and I fell on my knees before Babarinde.

  "This is our home now. We have to take it. For our people. Give them our gifts."

  "Do you all feel the same way?" Babarinde asked slowly.

  The brothers broke the circle around the campfire and approached Babarinde. One by one, they fell to their knees with me in solidarity, even Eşusanya.

  "I mean, it's time we had us an old-fashioned rebellion, don't you think?" Eşusanya whispered.

  "If it's good for Haiti, it's good for Louisiana," Aborişade whispered in my other ear. I smiled.

  All of us were on our knees before our leader.

  "Charles!" he shouted. "Get out here!"

  Charles' boots could be heard clomping on our hard wooden floors as he emerged onto our porch.

  "Yes, sir?" he said.

  "All these men want to help in your rebellion."

  "Will you allow them?" Charles asked. His sister and companions fanned out behind him.

  Babarinde extended his hand over us and we all rose. He brought his wrist to his mouth and pricked a vein with his fang. Blood trickled out.

  "Come. My people will help."

  Charles came to Babarinde, clasped his hand, and brought his wrist to his mouth. He drank Babarinde's blood unrelentingly. Baba's eyes closed in ecstasy.

  "Know this, beloved," Babarinde growled. "If this doesn't work, you're on your own. We've lost too much. We won't lose it all."

  Charles nodded slowly. I bared my wrist for Rebekah, and she drank as well, gaining more power with each gulp.

  ~

  Over the next few months, our plot developed. We would march to Orleans and take each plantation along the way, liberating the slaves and recruiting them for our cause.

  Each night, new slaves would appear at our doorstep, traveling for miles from nearby plantations to get a sip of Razadi blood. None of us knew how it worked. All we knew was that when they drank our blood, they got powerful. They got bold. In hindsight, they got reckless. And we were all too happy to play into their recklessness, foolishly believing that we could truly overthrow the white man in his own county. Maybe we were still bitter about the kidnapping of Dominique Bellanger, who was long dead by then. Or perhaps we never quite got over being tricked and kidnapped from our own homeland.

  The mild winter months came, and it was clear the same transformation that you're going through now, Justin, was happening to these slaves. They lost the taste for meat once they had a taste for blood. When their vision worsened is when I felt most sympathetic for them. What are cataracts in the eyes of slaves but an excuse for more abuse?

  Their vision improved and got better than it ever had been. They grew their own fangs, hidden from their masters. They were stronger, leaner, and faster. For those few months, productivity was at an all-time high on their plantations.

  We wanted to wait until the spring to launch the revolt. We wanted to be organized. We wanted to know how to take this plot of earth, this land, this Orleans for ours once and always. But Charles was impatient.

  On the night of January 8, Charles and Rebekah showed up on our doorstep.

  "We have to go, Pierre," Rebekah said.

  "What? Why?" I asked.

  "Mercredi and Amos…they killed Gilbert Andre."

  "Master Manuel Andre's son?"

  "Yes! They killed him with an axe! Then they came next door and got Charles and I. We've got to go. The rebellion has begun!"

  "No! You're not ready!" I exclaimed.

  "Ready or not, here we come," she said, bounding down the stairs of our porch.

  "Baba!" I called out. I ran to our staircase and yelled his name again.

  "What?" he called back. He emerged from the hallway, bare-chested and sleepy.

  "The others…they…they killed Gilbert Andre!"

  "Dear God," he said. "Where are they now?"

  "Outside our house getting ready to march on Orleans!"

  "Shit," he said. He and I ran through the house assembling dozens of our men and arming them with every weapon we had. In minutes, we were on the side of the road.

  "This is very stupid, Charles!" he shouted to Charles.

  "We're ready, Bernard! A new day has begun!" Charles bared his fangs for the first time.

  "No, Charles. You're not ready. There is much to learn. This is not how you win a war."

  "We are not stoppable, don't you see that? Hundreds of Africans have been made like you. We thirst for the blood of the white men and we will get it. To Orleans!"

  We began our march to the city.

  "This is wrong, Babarinde," Aborişade said. He had a look of dread on his face.

  "It may be wrong," Baba replied. "But we're here. And we can't let our fellow Africans down. We will fight until we can't fight anymore."

  And fight we did, all night long, liberating black people from each plantation along the German Coast, inching closer and closer toward Orleans. Charles and Rebekah Deslondes led the way, their sandy faces twisted in rage and vengeance as they flung wide the gates of the plantations, giving the blacks inside the choice to either join us and figh
t or stay behind and die with their masters. Whether out of fear, jubilance, or even rudimentary hypnosis, not a single slave stayed behind. Men, women, and children joined our bloody band.

  For a day and a half, we marched toward the city, camping at various plantations that had been deserted by the whites at the very rumor of an insurrection. We ended up at the Bernoudy estate, a vast sugar cane plantation with some of the only hills in all of the German Coast. We marched up one hill to survey our destruction and attempt to see Orleans in the distance.

  To our surprise, we found that militiamen surrounded us on all sides.

  "Can we hypnotize them?" Ariori whispered to Babarinde.

  "Can't get close enough to see their eyes," he whispered back.

  Mercredi, standing on the front lines next to Charles, began to retch.

  "What the hell is wrong with him?" Eşusanya said.

  Suddenly, others were retching and vomiting blood all around us.

  "What's happening?" Ariori asked.

  "Something's wrong," Babarinde said.

  People were collapsing all around us. None were Razadi. All were slaves.

  A calm, silent whiteness fell over us like a fog. It was as though we had all been bathed in coconut milk. Through the silence, we heard a soft, but powerful voice in our own tongue:

  This is not your fight.

  "Obatala!" several of us shouted at once, in spiritual ecstasy.

  The whiteness around us dissipated and the militia still encroached upon us.

  "Run!" Babarinde said to us. We headed toward the swamps behind us as the bullets whizzed by us.

  Rebekah laid on the ground beside me, doubled over in pain. She grabbed at my leg.

  "Please…help," she pleaded.

  I looked at her in pity and tried to speak, but the words were caught in my throat.

  I ran, leaving her and the others behind, disappearing into the words, praying that Olódùmarè would somehow protect our stricken friends.

  Over the next few days, we were visited several times by angry men, demanding to know our role in the slave uprising. We told them, each time, that we had nothing to do with it; that we didn't know anything about it and that we were just peaceful cotton farmers with a thriving textile business.