The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  We rode on, speaking of the old days and all the Lost Ones of Elm County—Thurston, Lucille, Lem, Garrison. We talked of how they had gone, how Natchez had taken them. Some quiet. Some singing. Some laughing. Some swinging.

  “What happened to Pete?” I asked.

  “Sent over the bridge about a month before you come back,” Sophia said.

  “Thought Howell would never part with him,” I said. “That man had such a hand for them orchards.”

  “All gone now,” she said. “Natchez. As are all the rest. As are we all, soon enough. All gone. All done.”

  “Naw,” I said. “I think we are survivors, you and I. If by devilish means, we are survivors. Maybe not much more than that. But we are, I do believe, survivors.”

  The winter had not yet given its full effect, and now we rode through a clear, crisp winter morning. We climbed high up on the road now, and I could see the Goose, and see across the shore over toward Starfall, and in the far distance I could see the bridge from which I had conducted myself into this other life.

  “But what if we are not, Sophia?”

  “What?”

  “All gone. All done,” I said. “What if there was some way by which we might make ourselves more than all the misery we have seen here?”

  “This more of your dreams without facts? All sideways. You remember how that went, right?”

  “I remember well. But we are connected, just as you say. We are older than our years. The place has made us that way, by all we have seen. We are out of time, you and I. What was glorious to them is crumbling before our eyes. But suppose we did not have to crumble with them? We know well that they are going down, Sophia. Suppose we did not have to go with them?”

  She was now looking at me directly.

  “I cannot, Hiram,” she said. “Not like that. Not again. I know it’s something about you. And when you are ready to tell me what that is, then I shall be with you. But I cannot go on just a word, not again. Ain’t just me anymore, so if you have something, I have to know the all of it. I have said it. I would kill to be off of this, kill to save my daughter from it.”

  “Can’t kill this one,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “Can only run. But I must know how and I must know to what.”

  * * *

  —

  We did not speak much after that, as both our time was now much occupied with what had been said and the events of the day. But when we arrived back at Lockless, we found Thena seated at the edge of the tunnel with her head in her hand. There was a bandage wrapped around her head. She was in her work dress with no coat. Caroline was nowhere to be seen.

  “Thena!” I said.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “What happened?” Sophia said. “Where’s Caroline?”

  “Inside sleeping,” Thena said.

  Sophia darted into the tunnel. I squatted down and touched the side of Thena’s temple where a spot of blood had pooled in the bandage.

  “Thena, what happened?” I said.

  “Don’t know,” she said. “I—I can’t remember.”

  “Well, tell me what you do,” I said.

  She squinted her eyes. “I-I don’t…”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Come on, let’s get in.”

  I put her arm over my neck and lifted, and as I did, I saw Sophia coming back out of the tunnel.

  “She fine. Asleep, just like Thena said it,” she said. “Look like Thena put her in your bed, and…I can see why.” Then Sophia started to cry and said, “Hiram, they took it. I know what they was doing. They took it.”

  We walked a few steps and I felt Thena’s feet begin to drag. So I picked her up in my arms and carried her. “Hold on,” I said. We passed Thena’s room first and what I saw was a half a chair on the ground and splinters everywhere. I walked past there to my old room, where I saw Caroline just beginning to stir. Sophia pulled the covers off and picked her up. I laid Thena down in her place and pulled the cover back over her.

  I turned to Sophia. “The hell happened?”

  She shook her head. She was still crying.

  I walked back to Thena’s room. It looked like someone had taken an axe to everything—the bed, the mantel, the one chair, it was all smashed. And then I looked over and saw the true aim—Thena’s lockbox, which was splintered in two. Kneeling down, I saw some old souvenirs—beads, spectacles, a couple of playing cards. But what I did not see was the laundry money that Thena had so dutifully deposited every week, as her payment on freedom. I stood there for a moment trying to understand who would do such a thing. I had heard stories of old masters making such deals and then reneging, keeping all the money for themselves. But this made no sense with Thena—who was old, and willing to compensate Howell for her freedom and relieve him of her care. And the violence of it, the axing, spoke of someone who had no other means to compel Thena, and I knew, right then, that whoever had done it had to be Tasked.

  You don’t ever know how much you need your people until they are gone. By then Lockless was down to perhaps twenty-five souls. But it was not as it had been before, when, though there were more, we were all known to each other. Now I only knew a few of them on the Street and knew fewer still down in the Warrens. In the old days there were men, slave-doctors, who could have seen to Thena. But they were all gone, sent out, and we were left to ourselves. I thought of Philadelphia, and the warmth I felt knowing there was always someone, and I felt that a kind of lawlessness had now descended upon Lockless. Whom would I tell of the assault on Thena? My father? And what would be his answer then? To send more across the bridge? Could I even believe that the right perpetrator would be sent?

  We made our share of changes over the next week. We moved, all of us, out of the Warrens and down to Thena’s old cabin in the Street. It was where we felt our safest, and all it meant for me was that I would rise a bit earlier in the morning to get to my father in time for my duties. We did not leave Thena alone. Sophia took up the washing and I assisted as I could on Sundays, hauling up the water, gathering the wood, and wringing the laundry. Thena was mostly back to normal after a week. But the terror of that assault changed her, and for the first time in all my time of knowing her I saw true fear on her face, fear of what could happen remaining there at Lockless. And that was when I thought of Kessiah, and knew that the time of redeeming promises had come.

  * * *

  —

  Thena was not my only concern. I learned later, through my father, that Nathaniel had never returned from Tennessee, despite his summons, and had been delayed by some urgent business. What that might be I could not know. But I thought that perhaps his intentions for Sophia might well go beyond what I had previously conceived. And I was not the only one thinking this.

  Sophia said, “You ever think about me going that way?”

  We were up in the loft, staring through the darkness up at the rafters. Caroline was asleep between us, while down below, on the ground floor, Thena snored softly.

  “I do,” I said. “Especially lately.”

  “You know what I hear?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I hear things are different in Tennessee. Hear that it’s far from this society and there are different customs, and there are white men there who take colored women like man and wife. And I been wondering bout Nathaniel and his particulars, for instance the desire that I make myself up like…”

  She trailed off as though working her way through a thought, and then said, “Hiram, is that man grooming me for something? Is it his intention to get out of custom, and finally install me as his Tennessee wife?”

  “Is that what you want? Tennessee?” I asked.

  “Is that what the hell you think I want?” she asked. “Don’t you know by now? What I want is the same thing I have always wanted, what I have always told you I wanted. I want
my hands, my legs, my arms, my smile, all my precious parts to be mine and mine alone.”

  She turned toward me now, and though I was still looking at the ceiling I could feel her looking directly at me.

  “And should I feel a need, should I desire to give all that to some other, then it must be my own need, my own desire to do as such. Do you understand, Hiram?”

  “I do.”

  “You do not. You can’t.”

  “Then why do you keep telling me?”

  “I am not telling you, I am telling myself. I am remembering my promises to myself and to my Caroline.”

  We lay there in silence until we fell asleep. But I forgot none of the conversation. The time was so clearly now. I had performed my duties well, keeping Hawkins informed. And more, I had opened the secret of Conduction for myself. I felt it now time for Corrine Quinn to make good on her portion of the bargain.

  Holiday came upon us. It was to be a lonely time. The Walker clan would not be returning that year, and with Maynard gone my father now faced the prospect of the blessed season all alone. But Corrine Quinn, having grown closer and closer to him, relieved his lonesome situation by coming to Lockless with her own retinue—this time much larger than merely Hawkins and Amy. They were trusted cooks, maids, and other caretakers. And too Corrine brought a collection of cousins and friends to entertain my father, who was now up in age. And this ensemble pleased him greatly, for there was a rapt audience before him eager to hear the tales of old Virginia.

  It was a charade, of course. Every one of these cooks, caretakers, and cousins was an agent—some whom I’d known from my time training at Bryceton and others who’d worked out of the Starfall station. The plan was now clear to me. As Elm County declined and fell into obsolescence, and the Quality quit the country, in the crawl-space left behind, the Underground would ply its trade, expanding its war. Looking back now from the prospect of years, I confess myself filled with admiration. Corrine was daring, ruthless, ingenious, and while Virginia lived in fear of another Prophet Gabriel or Nat Turner, what they should have feared was right in their own home, in the garb of ladyhood, the model of fine breeding, porcelain elegance, and undying grace.

  I could not see the genius of it, not at the time, for we were, even if united in our goal, too much committed to opposing routes. The tasking men were people to me, not weapons, nor cargo, but people with lives and stories and lineage, all of which I remembered, and the longer I served on the Underground, this sense did not diminish but increased. So it was that day, at the closing of the year, when I insisted on what must be done, that we stood at opposite ends.

  We were down by the Street. Our story was simple—Corrine had desired a tour of the old quarters and I was her guide. So I had escorted her down from the main house and we made small, insignificant talk, until we cleared the gardens and the orchards and found ourselves on the winding path to the Street.

  “When I came back to Howell’s, it was on the promise that a family would be conducted north,” I said. “The time for that conduction is now.”

  “And why now?” she asked.

  “Something happened here a couple of weeks ago,” I said. “Somebody got after Thena. Took an axe-handle to her head and then busted up her quarters. Took all the money she had been saving from the washing.”

  “My Lord,” she said, and a look of real concern broke through the mask of ladyhood. “Did you find the villain?”

  “No,” I said. “She don’t remember who it was. Besides, the way people are moved in and out of here these days…tough to tell. I know more of this crew you have brought with you than of the people who work here every day.”

  “Should we investigate?”

  “No,” I said. “We should get her out.”

  “But not just her, right? There is another—your Sophia.”

  “Not mine,” I said. “Just Sophia.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Corrine said with a faint smile. “How much have you grown in one year? It truly is a marvel. You really are one of us. Forgive me, it is a thing to behold.”

  She was regarding me in amazement, though I now think she was not so much regarding me in that moment as regarding the fruit of her own endeavor, so that it was not I who amazed Corrine so much as her own powers.

  “Do you yet remember?” she asked.

  “Remember?”

  “Your mother,” she said. “Have your remembrances of her returned yet?”

  “No,” I said. “But I have had other concerns.”

  “Of course, forgive me. Sophia.”

  “I am worried that Nathaniel Walker will call her title, call her down to Tennessee.”

  “Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” Sophia said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I made arrangements with him a year ago. In one week, her title will revert to me.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Corrine gave me a look of bemused concern.

  “Don’t you?” she said. “She’s had his child, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then you understand,” she said. “You are, after all, a man yourself, a simple creature of severe but brief interests, subject to seasons of lust that wax and wane. As is your uncle, your man of Quality, Nathaniel Walker. And now that he is in Tennessee, he has an entire field for his passions. What would he need of Sophia?”

  “But he called on her,” I said. “It was not but two weeks ago that he called on her.”

  “I am sure he did,” she said. “A souvenir, perhaps?”

  Corrine Quinn was among the most fanatical agents I ever encountered on the Underground. All of these fanatics were white. They took slavery as a personal insult or affront, a stain upon their name. They had seen women carried off to fancy, or watched as a father was stripped and beaten in front of his child, or seen whole families pinned like hogs into rail-cars, steam-boats, and jails. Slavery humiliated them, because it offended a basic sense of goodness that they believed themselves to possess. And when their cousins perpetrated the base practice, it served to remind them how easily they might do the same. They scorned their barbaric brethren, but they were brethren all the same. So their opposition was a kind of vanity, a hatred of slavery that far outranked any love of the slave. Corrine was no different, and it was why, relentless as she was against slavery, she could so casually condemn me to the hole, condemn Georgie Parks to death, and mock an outrage put upon Sophia.

  I had not put it together like this in that moment. What I had was not logic but anger, and not anger at the slandering of something I owned, but of someone who held me upright in the darkest night of my life. But I did not vent this anger. I had been practicing the mask long before I met Corrine. Instead, I simply said, “I want them out. Both of them.”

  “There’s no need,” said Corrine. “I have title to the girl, and so she is saved.”

  “And Thena?”

  “It’s not time, Hiram,” she said. “There are a great many things in the works, and we must take care to not endanger them. The powers of Elm County are diminished and every day we grow stronger, but we must take care. And I have done much already that might arouse suspicion. There is the fact of what we have done at Starfall. There is the fact that both of you ran, that the girl ran. Did she tell you I looked after her?”

  “She did.”

  “Then you must understand. There is too much to contend with at once. If we were ever figured out, so many would suffer.” She had dropped her mocking tone and was now on the verge of pleading. “Hiram, listen to me,” she said. “Your service to the Underground has been of great value. Your reports on your father have opened up possibilities we had not even considered. Even if you never master Conduction, you have proven yourself more than worth the risks we took in bringing you out. But we have much to balance and consider. What does it look
like for me to take the title of Nathaniel Walker’s consort, only for her to immediately disappear? And this woman Thena has made an enterprise out of the washing. Will people not wonder when she suddenly stops coming around? We have to be so very careful, Hiram.”

  “You made a promise,” I said.

  “Yes, I did,” she said. “And it is my intention to keep it. But not just now. We will need time.”

  I locked on to Corrine with a hard gaze. It was the first time I had looked at her without the respect that Virginia demanded. She was not being unreasonable. In fact, she was correct. But I was hot over her mocking of Sophia and there were my own feelings and shame at having delivered Sophia into outrage all those times, at having left Thena to run, and then left her again to be assaulted, at my mother who was sold, who I could not protect, who I did not avenge. All of that roiled in me and it shot out in the look I now put upon Corrine.

  “You cannot do it,” Corrine said. “You will need us, and we will not consent. We will not put ourselves to the sword for your brief and small infatuations. You cannot do it.”

  And then a look of recognition bloomed across her face until it covered the whole of her visage in horror, and she understood.

  “Or maybe you can,” she said. “Hiram, you will bring hell upon us all. Think. Think beyond your emotions. Think beyond all your guilt. You have no right to endanger all who might be so rescued. Think, Hiram.”

  But I was thinking. I was thinking of Mary Bronson and her lost boys. I was thinking of Lambert under the Alabama ox and Otha presently tracking cross the country for the freedom of his Lydia. Lydia, who endured all outrage for the chance of family.

  “Think, Hiram,” she said.

  “You told me freedom was a master,” I said. “You said it was a driver. You said none can fly, that we are tied to the rail. ‘I know,’ you told me. ‘And because I know, I must serve.’ ”

  “You know I am not without sympathy,” she said. “I know what happened to you.”