Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [122]
“I got a question. If I’m ever going to be a free woman—and that’s what I dream of—I know I got to talk better than I do. That right?”
“When you are free, Liza, you can speak any way you like. That is part of being free.”
“I read books, you know.”
“I believe I know that.”
“Next thing I want to work on my hand.”
“That would be a good thing.”
“The doctor says, you write a letter, it’s like casting your voice over the miles.”
“A lovely way to put it,” I said.
She pursed her lips and turned her face away, as if she suddenly had a desire to study the plants and trees we passed.
“Do you ever wonder about what it’s like to be a slave?”
“What a question! No, I never have.”
“That’s because you don’t have to. But every one of us dreams about being free, ’cept those that can’t dream. The stupid ones. The ones be content to stay where they are every day, working until they fade away, for a few cups of flour and some pieces of meat at the weekend and the holidays.”
“I could find many people like that in New York,” I said, “and they are supposed to be free.”
“They are free,” Liza said. “So they can choose to be a slave or not. Slaves don’t have a choice.”
I remembered the terrified man crossing the creek not so long ago.
“Unless they run.”
“You got to be something stupid just to try and run.” Silence settled over us for a little while, silence, tempered by the racketing of the wagon and the sound of the horse. Then she said, “Or awful smart, and do it the right way.”
“What way would that be?”
“Not that way,” Liza said, as we noticed a group of horsemen coming our way from the direction of town.
“No, not that way,” I said as Langerhans and two of his cohorts on horseback flew past us at a gallop, the leader inclining his head toward us as we passed. I did not quite understand, though, what I had said.
Liza grew silent and stared at the sky above the treetops, lighter than the light blue above the barns where we had begun our journey. It must be the sea, I said to myself, the sea makes the sky turn as light as an egg-shell.
***
When we arrived in Charleston we went immediately to a hotel where I took a room. Liza quickly departed for the market and I made a visit to the shipping office and inquired in desultory fashion about departure dates of boats sailing to New York. When I mentioned there might be two passengers, an inquisitive clerk asked me for our names. He stared at me as though he could somehow read the plan I held in my mind. I told him nothing more and returned and went upstairs to the room. I took up a post at the window to await for Liza’s return. Outside the street was filled with carriages and towns-folk, white and slaves, walking along as if with great purpose to their lives. In my own life, meanwhile, I saw no purpose beyond the next hour, waiting as I was with a deep expectation about the woman who would return. As to my voyage home, I thought almost nothing of it now, and felt deeply powerful in my decision. This was what it was like, I took pride in, to be a free man who could freely decide his own fate.
Time passed. My father’s pocket-watch ticked away. I was contemplating going out for a walk to the ocean-side of town when there came a knock at the door, and Liza entered the room, followed by two young slave-boys, bearing large tubs of steaming water.
“Massa,” she said, after the young slaves had set down their burdens and left the room. “Time for a bath.”
“A good idea,” I said. But as dusty from the road as I was, I stood there a moment, until she came up to me and began to tug at my coat.
Not since I was a boy and bathed by my mother had I ever undressed in front of a woman in the broad light of day. It was both embarrassing and titillating to me, as Liza helped me off with my shirt, and knelt to work at removing my boots and my trousers. I was intensely excited but at the same had wandering thoughts as I studied the top of her head, the intricate intersections of wiry hairs making patterns that only another person could have braided. Who did this for her? Precious