Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [119]
I could picture Precious Sally opening her eyes in the dark, saying her prayers to the gods, whichever she might believe in—and raising her large body out of her bed of ticking and straw, pulling on her apron and making ready to proceed to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, where she found Liza already baking the daily bread.
Isaac, perhaps having slept in his clothes, slowly raised his head off the straw pillow and looked around at the sound of the crowing birds, knowing he must wake his crews and get them moving into the fields as the sun was rising. And in the other cabins, dozens upon dozens of other slaves beginning their long morning, awaking out of the freedom of sleep into another day of captivity, some with words of love, some with curses on their lips, stumbling out into the woods and performing their ablutions, and then eating a corn cake and taking a sip of water and hasting to the fields.
Some of them were singing, a little love tune—
I love my darlin’, dat I do,
Don’t you love Miss Susy, too?
Some sang parts of a work song—that same
My old missus promise me
Shoo a la a day,
When she die she set me free
Shoo a la a day…
I could hear the music, though most were moving in silence, dragging their feet, heads lowered, eyes still fixed on whatever dreams they might have lived in their sleep.
To belong to another person! To be owned by someone the way people owned shoes or carriages or tables and chairs and horses and tools! It never occurred to me to consider such matters even after my days living at The Oaks, at least not until after that night with Liza. Lying there in my bed, the odors of our coupling still rising like ancient perfume from the pillows and sheets, I was reluctant to give up the memories of the night before even as I knew I had to arise and dress and descend the stairs to the breakfast table into the world of strife and suspicion.
Liza was nowhere to be seen. Here I met my uncle. Even as he skewered a small breakfast bird on his fork he appeared to be watching me carefully as I entered the room.
“Well, lad,” he said, “and how are you this morning? Slept rather late, did you? And I thought you were early to bed.”
“I read a while, Uncle.”
“Ah, the reading. Always something I plan to do but never get to it.” He sighed, and chewed on the small bird.
From another doorway Jonathan entered the room, like a leading actor suddenly making his entrance on stage.
“Good morning, gentlemen.”
“Good morning, son. And did you have a good rest?”
“After great exercise, great rest,” he said.
“Oh, were you out wandering in the night?” I tried to stare my cousin down, but he met me glinty glare for glinty glare.
“Jonathan is always up early,” my uncle said, “always on the watch for odd stoppages and difficulties.”
“And for the good events, too,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” my uncle said. “Certainly for the good as well.”
“What good, Cuz,” I said to Jonathan, “do you find in your wanderings at night?”
“Oh, a quiet night, Cuz, with nothing stirring except a slight breeze, and a few peaceful songs on the air from the cabins.”
“You do help to keep the peace there, do you not?”
My cousin stepped toward me and leaned his face close to mine. I could smell traces of foul whiskey on his breath, the residue, no doubt, of a night in the cabins.
“You yourself seem quite well rested,” he said. “Tell me, dear Cousin, do you take this kind of leisure in New York? I will wager a week’s worth of labor that you do not.”
“No,” I said, “I am usually up quite early, as I’ve been doing since I arrived. Except for last night.”
“Always a good idea to make an exception some time,” my uncle said. “Sally? Was there liquor in the pie last night? Our young nephew appears to have been drugged.”
He proceeded to cut the