Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [11]
“Yes, sir,” I said, smiling at his jest.
“As far as the matter of the slaves,” he said…
“Yes?”
“We do not own such property, but your uncle and older cousin do. You must respect their views on such matters. The question has to do with finance. Do we invest or not? Put your mind to work on this question, not your heart.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, without much thought to it.
I wanted to say something more, but the ship’s bell clanged, and sailors whistled to sailors, and so Father gave me a little push and started me toward the gangplank.
“Father,” I said, “is there anything I—?”
“Your uncle will explain,” he said, “as he did to me in his letter.”
I did not know what to say or what to ask. I felt suddenly orphaned and uneasy, with the pier beneath my feet giving me the impression I was already subject to the cycles of the tides.
“I will write to you, sir!” I spoke up in a burst of emotion.
“As you like.” Father gave me one last blink of assent. “Bon voyage,” he said as I turned to climb the gangway.
“Thank you,” I said over my shoulder, feeling the presence of the watch in one pocket and that of the pistol in another.
As the band played on I mounted higher and higher, and despite my ignorance and my uncertainty, felt in my soul as I gained the deck as though I were growing taller and taller.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” said an officer, in smart blue uniform and braids and gold stars, as he snapped me a salute.
Immediately I went to the rail and looked down, seeing my father appearing considerably smaller now that I towered above him on the deck, and I waved, and passed along the salute from the sailor. A carriage raced up to the dock and a small, dark, curly-haired figure emerged from the cab, my childhood sweetheart, Miriam (I should have mentioned her earlier, but truly in the emotional departure from New York I had forgotten her), she whom I walked home with from synagogue on holidays and sat with cheerfully in the parlor of her father’s house, nearly tripping as she ran, with her eyes fixed up here where we stood on the deck. True to what I took at that time to be the nature of woman, she appeared always to be late to appointments.
“Hello!” I called to her, feeling my heart sink at the sight of her.
“Nathaniel, Nathaniel, bon voyage! I’ll wait for you!”
“I’ll return soon!” I called, caught up in the romance of the moment, stirring as it was, with the cries of seabirds and the noise of the crowd and the music of the band. Though my father’s plan, of which I was the instrument, called for a stay on the plantation of only a month or so, I suffered suddenly the premonition that I would never see her again—shipwreck or drowning or murder would come between us, I feared, rather foolishly I have to say.
Although for an instant it seemed as though the pier began to move, it was us, our ship, which shifted away from the land. Even while I was suffering my outrageous fear of loss, we had loosed ourselves from the mooring, and that sensation of floating free of land stayed with me from then on. One moment land-bound, another and the pier and my father and Miriam and my past life receded swiftly into the distance. Being no sailor I cannot explain what the crew did as they worked the sails, though their shouts sounded smartly from the hold and we moved smoothly down river and then headed east into the Kill van Kull—the purser came alongside me and explained our route—to put old Manhattan behind us. With the New Jersey shore to starboard we sailed down the Kill toward Perth Amboy—this same trip I had made so long ago with my dear mother—where we were to pick up more passengers and some mail. The water was calm, the sun warm, the few other people on deck, older than I was (which meant less hair and more belly) speaking quietly of their various business ventures. The hiss of our prow cutting the water and the low singing of the wind in the sails gave me a false sense of what the rest