Conjure Women
Page 36
Then came the second doctor, big and ruddy and from the North, though the country was one borderless place now, or so they told her. That doctor came and said to her, “Miss Rue, we will try a course of poisoning.” But her sin-sick soul worsened while the affliction fed on the poison they put to her and multiplied.
Now the third doctor comes to her. There’s no door to her room but he knocks politely at her doorframe.
“Miss Rue,” says he.
She stops in her walking, paused on the sixth and seventh tile, turns to him and squints to see him better. She is twice forty now and failing. He is a white blur at her threshold.
“Come in,” she gets to say, and there’s power in that at least.
Up close he’s as handsome as any doctor she’s seen. The freckles on his nose make him appear boyish; the slicked-back brown of his hair suggests a root that would coil if it had half the chance. He’s carrying a chart he doesn’t need to read from, but he puts on thick-paned glasses anyway and it’s through that glass that she notices his eyes, big and all glossy black as spilt oil. He looks at Rue then like he knows her. Looks at her like he knows.
But quickly he fiddles with the heavy folio in his hands, flutters open the pages to their well-worn center, and the moment’s broken. He clears his throat to speak. He has a lovely voice, she notices, like music to be heard. “Miss Rue, how are you feelin’ this mornin’?”
They always start off that way, the doctors, like someone has told them they ought to. Rue nods to him politely, the way she’d nod to any white man asking her something. But inside she does wonder.
“Alright, thank you,” says she.
“Any advanced discomfort? Any pain?”
There is always pain, but you don’t tell a man that nor a white man besides. “No, suh.”
He sighs, shuts his papers. “I think we’ll try a different course today if you don’t mind, Miss Rue.”
She does mind, very much, their cold metal and their bright lights in her eyes, their nods and their note-taking. She can’t figure why they don’t know what she knows. There is no help for it. She’s dying.
“What course is that, suh?”
He smiles, as bright a smile as any balm.
“Well, Miss Rue,” says he, “I thought we’d go walkin’.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Immeasurable recognition is owed to the people whose real histories informed the fictional stories that make up Conjure Women. I drew largely from Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews, as conducted in the 1930s by the Work Projects Administration, to find voice and flavor, curses and cures. So, too, is great recognition owed to Lucy Zimmerman, Anarcha Westcott, and Betsey Harris, as well as countless unnamed, unknown women whose indignities and suffering under the medical “care” of J. Marion Sims were detailed in his own The Story of My Life. I offer gratitude to the African American men and women who, through their own written narratives, through interview or amanuensis, willingly and at times unwillingly, shared their experiences within the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and its long-lasting aftermath.
For Mum,
the first storyteller I ever knew
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Raising Conjure Women was a village-wide undertaking. I am immensely grateful to all those who aided in ways great and small in this novel’s conception, labor, and birth. Thank you:
To my mother, Diana Okyere Atakora, who offered great insight into matters pertaining to medicine and motherhood and everything in between—who taught me, always, that I could do anything, and then helped me to do it.
And to my grandmother Dora Akua Akomaah, “Ma Doe,” who relayed a hundred years’ worth of memories, stories, and proverbs all the way from Ghana and did not let the language barrier, the Atlantic Ocean, or her dwindling cellphone battery keep her from inspiring her granddaughter.
To all those at ICM who advocated both at home and abroad. Most especially to the amazing Amelia Atlas, who saw this novel’s potential long, long before I did and who tirelessly guided me in every step of the journey.
To the incomparable Kate Medina, who is in possession of that singular skill of extraordinary editors (and midwives) to ask for one more push and one push more, and under whose immeasurable guidance this story thrived.
In the United States, to the team at Penguin Random House—most especially Erica Gonzalez, who warmly read and reread, and in so doing re-sparked my enthusiasm at every turn.
And in the United Kingdom, to the team at Fourth Estate, HarperCollins—most especially Helen Garnons-Williams, who believed early on that the magic of Conjure Women could cross all borders.
I am indebted to the many teachers, mentors, and friends who supported early drafts. At the Tin House workshop: to Elissa Schappell, Dana Spiotta, and the lifelong cohort I formed there over one wild week. And at Columbia University: to Binnie Kirshenbaum, Chinelo Okparanta, Rebecca Godfrey, and the group of daring, witchy women writers who studied and conjured alongside me. Heartfelt thanks to Joni Marie Iraci, who offered wisdom and wit in equal measure.
Thank you to my beloved literary sisters Janet Matthews-Derrico and Rosemary Santarelli, who read every crazy incarnation and only ever asked for more crazy.
And to the “biddies,” my best friends and chosen family, for celebrating the successes and celebrating the failures, for making celebrating a lifelong pursuit.
Lastly, thank you to my husband, Sean, my best friend and partner in every way, who kept me fed and watered, who heard me say a million times, “I’m going to do the thing,” and answered, every single time, “I know you will.”
About the Author
AFIA ATAKORA was born in the United Kingdom and raised in New Jersey. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Columbia University, where she was the recipient of the De Alba Fellowship. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award for college writers. Conjure Women is her first novel.
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