Walk Through Darkness
Page 28
He was upon the meeting area before he knew it. He strode into the corner of the square and paused, casting about him. The sky was an opal blue now, lit to the east with a pink hue, smooth and delicate like the inside of some seashell. But it was too quiet in the square, too normal. The façades of the homes stared out, each a face of window-eyes and door-mouths. At first glance there was no movement save that of pigeons sweeping down from the roofs and stirring bits of rubbish as they landed. For a moment, Morrison was taken over by the ringing fear that this was it. It had all come to this. To nothing. He was alone in the world, even more so now that he had killed she who had been so faithful and since those to whom he had tried to make amends had spurned him.
Then he saw them.
The covered wagon was there at the far edge of the square, some fifty yards away. The coal sled was drawn up near it, and the young immigrant was helping Dover into the back of the wagon. Morrison could not see William, but he knew immediately that he was there, resting beneath the cloth covering. They were all there. He began to stumble toward them across the square, under and through the great oaks that shaded it. Midway across the others saw him. Dover’s face peered out of the wagon and a moment later William peeked out as well. Their two dark faces watched his progress. The old Scot trudged toward them, tired like he had never been before, with the limp body of the hound cradled in his arms, thinking that here before him was all the family he had in the world.
EPILOGUE From the hull of the ship cries are heard. The crew looks one to another and, like superstitious men, they say nothing. The cries are crazed howls at the edge of life and death. At times they are moans so deep they seem to be protests from the tortured spine of the ship itself. Other times they are sharp-edged and raw and cut through the sea noise like talons through flesh. But all of these sounds come from a single woman. They are the cries of a life-giver, and the emotion behind them silences all the crew with newfound humility. The boat rocks through it all, for the motion of the world and its seas do not pause to mark the arrival of any one creature.
The woman in the berth below has a rhythm of her own and it comes to her in defiance of all else. She feels herself splitting, feels a great, great pressure, as if her body contains all of creation within it and she can hold it back no longer. She pains but in her own way that pain is pleasure, for she believes that this baby will be born into a world without masters. Nobody within miles and miles and miles will lay their hands upon this child in ownership. She pushes, not for the first time, but this time, for a moment at least, the boat’s rhythm is one with the woman’s. She pushes, and the boat leans to aid her. She grits her teeth, and the boat holds its breath upon the back side of a wave. The woman hisses a curse at life, and the boat begins its downward slide. Before it ends, the child slips forth into its father’s arms. The newborn is slippery and moist, flesh soft and gray. Air hits the child’s face like a shock and all is silence.
The boat creaks as it begins to ride the next swell. The men on the deck are battered by the wind and they hear nothing save the roar of air and water. And deep within the silence lingers long, long, long. The father stands trembling with the joy and fright. He doesn’t know what to do and stands awed until the white man speaks in his ear and instructs him with knowledge that comes from he knows not where. This old man who never thought of himself as a father—who took life often but never knowingly gave it—seems as adept as any midwife. He checks the babe’s mouth and nose. Deeming them clear, he pushes the father’s hands, and therefore the baby, toward the mother’s breast. In these moments the Scotsman feels something he has not felt before and that is the grand bliss of life. And also beneath it is a sadness that he doesn’t wish to address at that moment. The mother takes the child in her arms, the cord between them still pulsing. The moisture on the babe is a great bloody filth and yet it is her filth. She would happily lick the child clean, no different in this devotion than the hound who watches the scene from the edge of the cabin.
The baby wakes from her brief stupor and plays her part in this drama as she knows she must. She lifts her head and opens her mouth and cries the trauma of birth. She cries for the wonder she has just awakened to and for the wonders yet to be found. She cries with the voice of all those who came before her and who live on within her. She cries, as do they all, each of them in that small chamber, overcome. They cry another baby into this world.
As do we all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Not only is Walk Through Darkness dedicated to my mother, Joan Scurlock, but I must also acknowledge how indebted I am to her for its very conception. This novel sprang from the research that she was doing into our own family’s history. She opened my eyes to the diversity of the American experience and challenged me to uncover and explore rarely acknowledged aspects of our troubled past. Thank you, Mom. Your work goes on.
My heartfelt appreciation also goes out to Marita Golden. Thank you for creating the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation over a decade ago and for being a source of guidance and inspiration ever since. If anyone hasn’t heard of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, please do check out their website. This organization supports, encourages, and challenges aspiring African American writers, thereby helping to positively influence the future of American literature.
I’d like to thank my editor, Debbie Cowell; my agent, Sloan Harris; and also Bill Thomas, Steve Rubin, and everyone else at Doubleday. I appreciate not only the support they’ve shown for my first two books, but also for their willingness to dream of a future with me. Thanks to Jeffrey Lent and family for providing me with the necessary long conversations about novels, children, horses, and about generally staying sane while trying to make this writing life work. Also, my heartfelt thanks and love go out to everyone whom I call family. We’ve been through tough times this last year, and I will never forget the strength and wisdom you all showed. And, of course, I’d be nowhere without my wife, Gudrun, and kids, Maya and Sage. It’s also in them that my mother’s work goes on, now and forever.
While this work was inspired by real, rigorous historical research, the novel itself is a creation of my imagination. All the characters and events are completely fictional and the settings, such as Annapolis and Philadelphia, are used with the utmost respect. While I’ve done my best to ensure the accuracy of all historical details, I also accept the full responsibility for any errors. I won’t catalog all the titles that I consulted while writing this novel, but I will admit that as a fiction writer I steal unabashedly from the works of more disciplined scholars including James Hunter’s A Dance Called America. One title, more than any other, inspired key moments and plot points within this fiction: Runaway Slaves, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger.
Copyright © 2002 by David Anthony Durham
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:
Durham, David Anthony, 1969–
Walk through darkness / David Anthony Durham.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. African American men—Fiction. 2. Separation (Psychology)—Fiction.
3. Fugitive slaves—Fiction. 4. Married people—Fiction. 5. Philadelphia (Pa.)—
Fiction. 6. Annapolis (Md.)—Fiction. 7. Psychological fiction. 8. Historical
fiction. I. Title
PS3554.U677 W35 2002
813′6—dc21
2001047673
eISBN: 978-0-307-56104-6
www.anchorbooks.com
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