Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [136]
The slaves had their own way of cooling off, with a break in their labors coming every hour or so when they would wade out into the creek up to their shoulders, or some even ducking their heads under while others joked about alligators catching them for supper if they didn’t catch them first. Once at midday they had time to rest, on some pallets that were put there for just this purpose, pallets soaked with sweat and worn thin by the daily grind of bodies splayed out upon them. (There were not enough to go around, and most of the slaves sprawled during this respite on the ground, under the shade of the trees at the edge of the glade, which in this season was no shade at all.)
After a day such as this I found myself waiting for the right moment at dinner to ask for an interview.
“You wish to speak to me?” my uncle said. “We are speaking now.”
I tried not to look around at the other faces at the table, my aunt’s, Jonathan’s, Rebecca’s, and I avoided any recognition of white-haired, ramrod straight Black Jack who stood at his ready just behind my aunt’s place, or Precious Sally, at her customary stand near the rear door.
“Might we speak in private?”
Cousin Jonathan raised his lip and glared at me.
“Something about the rice, no doubt,” he said.
My uncle turned on him, in as sudden a way as a heavy man like himself could turn.
“Have some respect for your cousin.”
“Might we speak now, sir?”
“Let me eat my dessert and we’ll retire then to the veranda.”
I watched him devour two slices of Precious Sally’s best peach pie and swallow his coffee in one gulp, which gave me little time to rehearse the speech I planned to make to him.
“It is so hot this evening, is it not it?” my aunt said.
“It is,” Rebecca said.
Jonathan continued to glare at me, ignoring his dessert.
“Come on, mass’ Jonathan,” Precious Sally said from the doorway where she kept her watch. “Ain’t you going to eat my pie? It’s delicious.”
“What about him?” Jonathan said.
In the place before me my own dessert lay untouched.
“I made it for you, mass’.”
I couldn’t help but be distracted as Jonathan, looking dutifully scolded, reached grudgingly for his fork and attacked the pie.
“Well, now,” said my uncle, his own plate now cleared. He got up and lumbered to the veranda, with me a few paces behind.
Outside, in the swell of the early evening heat, my fear cooled me. I watched carefully as he lowered himself into his large wicker chair that creaked as he sat like an old bridge with heavy wagons crossing it.
“Shall we have a little brandy then?” he said when he had settled.
“Thank you, sir, but not for me.”
“Don’t suppose it will do me any good, but then it can’t hurt either, can it?”
He called for Jack, who almost instantly appeared, and told him to bring us some brandy.
The light had faded, but the noise of the day still pushed against that border of sound that came with the night. I listened, waiting for Jack to return and depart again.
“Now then,” my uncle said, raising his glass.
“Uncle,” I said, raising my own glass and quickly swallowing, “I will not dance around the subject.” I cleared my throat and spoke again, as forthrightly as I could muster. “I wish to buy Liza.”
He paused a moment, silent except for his breathing that was so intense I could hear it despite the rising sounds of night, and looked at me as though I had caught him in the eye with a bright lantern light.
“Well, then, so you shall agree to my proposal? Have you written to your father? I don’t pretend that I kept track of everything that happens on this plantation, but I would know if you had sent out a letter.”
“I have not yet written to him, Uncle,” I said.
He wagged his head from side