“Hush!” Her head breaks through the surface. “Sister, you sure are a worrying somebody.” She laughs when I jump. “I wasn’t gonna drown. I ain’t the one ’fraid of the water.” She bobs near the middle of the river.
“I ain’t either.”
“Then come in. Just a little. Just poke your little toe—”
“So what do you see?”
“Come closer and I’ll tell you.” She opens and closes her arms like a starfish. The river moves in little ripples with her. I know better but I go to the edge. She moves her mouth but I can’t make out the words. I scoot closer to the edge. She’s whispering so I have to lean over to hear.
“Up at the house they got so much food they can’t even eat it all,” she whispers. “Roasts, ham, chicken, taters, pies, fruits; and that’s just for supper. Ivy sends plates piled this high with all sorts of juicy stuff and most times plates come back with food still on ’em. And no one can touch none of it till Missus say she had her fill and what’s to be kept for when and who.”
“If they got all that food, why are we hungry?”
“Cuz we black.”
“Being black don’t have nothing to do with being hungry.”
“Master say we always want more than we need and it’s up to him to make sure we don’t get nothing we don’t need.”
“When he say all that?”
“When he was hitting Rose in the mouth,” Tempe says.
“When was that?”
“I don’t know, musta been the other day. I was waiting on Samantha to finish packing supper for the hands so she could get me the fabric to take round to the sewing shack and Rose was carrying trays stacked with plates and saucers and cups this high.” She points to the sky. “When she went back with the after-supper coffee, Master said he smelled meat on her breath. Rose said she hadn’t eaten any meat and maybe some spilled on her from cooking out back all day and Master said she was calling him a liar and Rose said she hadn’t called him any such thing and Master got to screaming that she had called him a liar twice and he hit her, pop-pop, in the mouth.” Tempe splashes water with each pop. “He told her don’t take nothing without asking and no one said nothing about it after, but I hope Samantha said something cuz Rose didn’t eat no food off no plate. I did.”
“Tempe!” I yell.
Water covers her chin. It swallows her mouth, her nose and eyes—still open—and finally her head.
“Why do you keep your eyes open?” I ask.
Laughing again, Tempe jumps out of the river and twists into her shift. Now she lies with her wet hair on my back. I’m drenched. I don’t move.
“You can’t see ’em with your eyes closed,” Tempe whispers.
“Can’t see who?”
“The dead.”
“Then how do you know they’re down there?”
“I can just tell. You know that spot where the water goes ice cold for no reason? The sun will be hot as a skillet. Water almost boiling when you get in. You wade in deep. Just go where the water takes you. It’s just you and the river pushing and pulling you where it wants you to go. You let yourself be; you just let the water do what the water’s gonna do. You know?”
“What do you see?”
“Souls,” Tempe answers.
“How do they look?”
“Mad. I’m hungry.”
“Mama will make something good—”
“I know, but let’s go up the house first.”
At first I think she’s talking about the old shack Mama lived in before, back when she was just Agnes. Even though Mama don’t like it, Tempe and me play there all the time. The busted-up roof and sides ’bout to lean in make a cave. Just me and Tempe and them bundles of shells and stuff Mama don’t think we know about. To Mama and them, it’s a shack. To me and Tempe, it is home. But Tempe ain’t talking about home. The House. I follow. I have to. Tempe runs down the trail through the woods and instead of going around the fields like we’ve been told a thousand times, she runs straight through one. It’s harvest time but everybody’s down the main field. Not a soul around for acres. The forbidden dirt feels softer. Even the air smells sweeter. We race. I would have won if I had known where we were going. If we were just running up to the house to slap the old girl like we usually did when there wasn’t anybody around to tell Mama, I’d have won. I’m about to smack right on a smooth beam when Tempe runs toward the back. She’s going to knock on the kitchen door! If she finds out we went knocking on the kitchen door begging Samantha for food, Mama will be madder than she was the time Tempe threatened to tell Walker on her if Mama hit her again. I don’t want to see nothing like that again. I run around back to catch up.
“You’ll get them in trouble if you go begging for food,” I say. I’m out of breath. I hold my side and lean against the cellar door.
“I ain’t asking them.” She darts past the side to the front.
“Tempe!” I whisper but I know she can hear me.
The back door swings open. Rose stares at me.
“What you doing hollering back here?” Her rich voice is warm and deep.
I don’t mean to but I smile.
Tempe reaches the front of the house. She skips up on to the large, white porch. By then Rose, Samantha, and me have reached the side. Tempe knocks on the door. The wind carries James’s surprised voice and his attempts to shoo Tempe off the porch. Master Walker comes out. I can tell by the way she’s standing, she wasn’t expecting him to be home. Serves her right.
“Oh no,” Samantha moans.
Instead of knocking her down like I expect, Walker stoops down to talk to her. Whatever he says, Tempe shakes her head no. He says something else. She shakes her head yes. A few minutes of headshaking and she’s inside. The door shuts behind her.
It’s almost dark before the back door opens.
Tempe ain’t said nothing since she come out the back door cradling that hunk of ham between her hands.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. Mama will kill me if something happened to her.
“Nothing.”
“Something happen in there?”
“Nope.”
“Somebody hurt you?”
“Nope.”
“You ever gonna tell me what happened?”
“Nope.”
She never does. Instead, she grabs my hand and we run through the woods till we get home. We let the door bounce against the frame behind us and tumble onto the floor. After pulling them from under the planks, we unwrap both bundles. Tempe rubs the stones against her face, kisses a smooth lump of hide, breathes deep. She splits the hunks of meat in two and puts one in each satchel for later before wrapping them back up.
“Why’d he give you that?” I ask.
“Did you know ain’t no babies born here ’cept us for years and years and years? Not one. Not even Agnes.”
“Mama will kill you if she hears you calling her that.”
“That’s what Master calls her.”
I give her my you know better than that look. “Besides, Mama was born right here on Walker Farm.”
“Was not.”
“Was too. Lived right here with her ma and her pa since she was born.”
Tempe’s already shaking her head. “That ain’t hardly true,” she says. “Agnes lived here with a mama and a papa. Walker gave her to them. He’s gonna give you and me babies one day too. In about a year when we older. Walker bought her when she was a baby. Bought plenty of babies too. Even bought one wasn’t a baby.”
She’s staring at me like she’s gonna be sick and throw words up all over the floor. Sweat starts beading up around my forehead then popping up under my arms. I’m holding my breath, waiting. “If he bought babies here, where they at?” I ask.
“Dead.”
“All of them?”
“’Cept Agne
s. Walker says the whole place was cursed. Wouldn’t nothing hardly grow. Then Mama’s folks died and the curse was lifted. I popped out and then running behind me, you. Walker says I’m a miracle.”
“You?”
“He said you and me both. He meant me cuz I was first.”
“Then why ain’t no babies come after me?”
“Maybe you brought the curse back with you.”
Later, when Tempe tells Mama, she leaves out the part about Walker buying her. She don’t call her Agnes neither. Mama doesn’t listen anyway, not after the part about giving me and Tempe babies. I want to ask her if I’m cursed. I don’t, though. Even though I tell her I wasn’t in the house Mama scrubs us both with every sliver of homemade soap she can find. When that’s used up she uses lemon peels and tomatoes. She scrubs until my skin tingles. Then she says our insides need cleaning. We drink four jars each of “inner ointment.” The smell of lemon and onion and the thick gooey tree sap is enough to make you sick but I don’t dare drop a drip. Tempe lets a dollop fall to the ground and has to drink a whole other jar to replace it. I drink mine fast so I can’t taste it. We do our business out back downwind from the house. By the time it runs through us, we’re tired, sweaty, and empty. Our stomachs rumble when we finally lay on our thin bed of stuffed skins. Tempe shakes next to me. For months Mama makes me and Tempe drink that concoction. I drink mine every night. Tempe dumps hers in between the floorboard underneath her pallet. I watch her do it. As we get older, Mama adds a cream to rub between our legs, some herbs to put on our tongues. I do mine every morning. Tempe stands right there and watches me wiggle and squirm and pretend my insides ain’t burning up. She watches and shakes her head. She don’t wiggle or squirm except when Mama’s watching. When Mama’s there, Tempe dips her hand in the jar, rubs her fingers between her legs and then jumps and hollers like she’s on fire. Mama stands there telling her it’ll be okay like she believes it. She tells us the cream is like medicine. When Tempe says we ain’t sick, Mama says you take it before you need it. Then come the herbs. Mama dips into a satchel and measures out a pinch each of bitter herbs. We ain’t supposed to swallow them, just suck on them until it tingles. Tempe never gets it right. Because she’s the oldest, Mama puts the herbs in her hand and lets Tempe slip them on her tongue. She don’t do it, though. Soon as Mama turns to give me mine, Tempe slips hers into her pocket or scatters them on the floor. By the time Mama turns back, Tempe’s pretending her mouth is on fire. Sometimes I make her wait. I hold them on my tongue until my eyes start to water and my throat burns. The juice burns going down. It’s worth it, though. Mama smiles, relieved that her girls are safe. She gives us pressed blueberry syrup to drink after. The dosing becomes a routine, every morning before sunrise. Now that Mama stopped watching us do it, Tempe don’t bother to pretend.
Chapter 12
August 17, 1857
“Why do we have to go, Mama?” Tempe asks. She sits cross-legged on the floor, stuck between Mama’s legs. She squirms and yelps like Mama’s killing her while she gets her hair plaited. A preacher’s coming. Walker’s taken to going to church and having preachers, reverends, and ministers for Sunday supper but this is the first one I will ever see. Walker sent down new dresses for the women and dungarees and shirts for the men.
We all got hats and headscarves and new shoes. He called for all the slaves, even them from the house, to worship.
“We’re going to hear the word,” I say. Mama done my hair earlier. I stand on the porch, careful not to lean on the new rail Mama built and careful not to dirty my new dress or sweat out my puffs.
“The preacher is going to talk to us about God,” Mama says. She twists and pulls Tempe’s thick hair. Tempe jumps. “Sit still.”
“We already talked about God. What can he tell us that you don’t know?”
“What’s God look like?” I ask.
“Us,” Mama says.
I picture God, his brown face and eyes lit up like stars. He’s long-legged and tall, taller than any man I’ve ever seen, with arms as long as trees stretched wide enough to hold me, Mama, and Tempe too. He’s standing there smiling, with a smile so bright it’s like looking into the sun and he’s waiting, just waiting. “Does God’s Mama make him sit still while she pulls and yanks on his hair too?”
“Tempe!” Mama yells. She laughs. “Ask God yourself.”
“I ask God a lot of things but he don’t never answer,” Tempe says.
It’s hot. Including the hired hands, there are only fifteen or so of us here, but it’s boiling. The preacher wants to hold the service in the barn. Even though it’s warm as could be outside, he got the door shut and the shutters closed.
“Y’all ought to be thankful to Master Walker for allowing me to spread the Lord’s Good Word to you lowly heathens,” the preacher says. His face is pink and shiny. Even worse, he’s a whisperer. We have to lean in close to hear him.
“What’d he say?” someone asks.
“He said we ought to be thankful to the Lord for heathens,” someone else answers.
Darned hired hands mock everything. The way Tempe milks a cow, the way I walk, and now this. And on Sunday!
“That ain’t what he said at all,” one of them says. “He said we should be thankful heathens.”
“I said—”
“Well, why’s he yelling? Lord got him all enraptured already?”
“Praise Lord! Hallelujah!” Rose gets to singing.
“Amen, amen,” someone says, “that was a right good sermon.” The hands turn to go.
“We ain’t finished!” The preacher’s pink face goes red. “I’ll say when it’s time to go!” He fans himself with one of them wicker fans Rose uses to cool the Missus. “Now the Lord in his infinite wisdom has seen to it to give you all to Master Walker for his care. The burden of responsibility is lifted and all you have to do now is serve your Master on Earth and serve your Master in Heaven and—”
“What he say?”
“Repeat after me,” the preacher says. He wipes his face. “Y’all are heathens sent to pay for the sins of your father.”
“Y’all heathens sent to pay for the sins of your father,” the hands repeat.
“No! Say I’m a heathen damned to—”
“What he say?”
“He’s damned! He’s damned!”
“Oh Lord Jesus, save us, save us, Lord! He’s damned!”
“I’m not damned, you all are damned!”
Don’t seem to be nothing he can do. Them hands hightail it out of there like the barn’s on fire. Door not even shut good and I can hear them laughing out there in the cool air. It’s just Mama, James, Rose, Samantha, Tempe, and me left.
“You sent here to save us?” James asks.
The preacher looks relieved. He taps on his Bible and straightens the brim on his hat. “I am here to save you, with the word!” His voice bellows. I jump. “That’s right, heathen,” his eyes burn into mine. “God knows you evil. He gave you the mark of the devil.”
I look at Mama. If he’s right, I ain’t the only one cursed.
“It’s your skin, your skin!” he yells. He waves his Bible frantically. “The mark of the curse is the black of your skin. God made you in the devil’s image.”
“Have you seen God?” Tempe asks. She steps closer. “Everyone knows what God looks like.” The preacher waves her back with his hand. “He looks like me and like Master Walker and—”
“You and Master Walker don’t look nothing alike. How your God look like you and him both?”
He paces the length of his imaginary pulpit. “It isn’t my God and your God. There’s only one God. God has seen fit to yoke your people with the chains of slavery and it’s your job to uphold those chains until God sets you free.”
“Freedom? God’s going to set us free? Hallelujah!” James says. Tears stream down his face.
“When you die,” the preacher raises his voice, “you will shake off the chains of slavery and serve your new Master in Heaven.”
“According to that book you got there, I’m called to hold the chains up and you called to lay them on?” James asks.
“That’s one way to look at it,” the preacher says. His head bobs up and down. “Escaping your obligation to the Lord is a sin. If you were to cast off your chains without God or Master Walker setting you free, you’d go straight to Hell and live a life of eternal damnation.”
“What’s Hell like exactly?” Mama asks.
“It’s fiery hot with no cool water to drink or cool grass for shade. Nonstop work. The devil’s work is never done from sunup to sundown. Nonstop pain too; whipping and harsh words. The burden is never lifted. And if your family isn’t there with you, but then, you wouldn’t want your family there with you, would you? Well, if they aren’t then it’s you all alone with no one to love you. Can you imagine? Being separated from your loved ones for eternity?”
Samantha, Rose, Mama, and James look at each other.
Preacher must feel it. Anger. Blood rushes in my ears.
“How about a song?” the preacher suggests. He starts to hum a fidgety tune as he edges closer to the barn door.
Samantha picks up the tune and adds a melody. I still don’t know the words but the rest of us join in.
“Amen, amen,” the preacher murmurs as he ushers us out.
“I don’t believe in your old made-up book,” Tempe whispers on the way out.
The preacher grabs her by the shoulder and lifts her off the floor.
“She don’t mean that,” Mama says.
Tempe reaches out her hand to Mama. Mama don’t move. “What you mean, child?” the preacher asks.
“I don’t believe no God would make one group to be better than another and expect them not to do nothing about it.”
“You are an ignorant little thing, aren’t you? Your Mama believe it, don’t you, gal?”
“Yes sir, I believe there are words in that book that I never will understand.”
“And you believe youse all put on this Earth to serve white people, don’t you?” Preacher asks.
Remembered Page 12