Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [158]
What a marvelous way to clear my head! The sea was calm, or seemed so at least in the fading light. Out beyond the squat shape of Fort Sumter on the horizon the sky appeared to be striped with multi-layered clouds, some pink, some peach, some darker, like fog. But even as I watched the cloud-shapes shifted and the colors turned to lavender and then to red, the darker turning light, the lighter turning dark as Nature made her paintings on the sky. If I could have stood here forever, fixing my attention on the works made in air, I would have chosen to do that, fixed in time, certainly, but in the knowledge that however difficult might be the choice I had to make I would not now or ever have to make it.
Chapter Seventy-four
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A Death
An hour later I stood once again in front of that house on the edge of the Battery. Within moments of my arrival, both my cousin and Joseph Salvador emerged from the front door and even before I could speak the clatter of horse and carriage sounded behind me.
Joseph Salvador, avoiding my eyes, waved a farewell to my cousin, who joined me at the carriage. We rode back to The Oaks, which took not an inconsiderable amount of time, in darkness and silence. Only as we neared the end of our journey did he say anything at all, and this began as small talk about tariffs and nullification and secession.
“Father will be interested to know what transpired,” he said.
“Shall we tell him everything?” I said.
“Don’t be such a moralistic oaf,” my cousin said. “Do you believe that he is a paragon of virtue himself? Good God, Nathaniel, when you finally see the truth of things I expect it will come as such a blast of light that you might nearly go blind.”
“And will I ever see the truth?”
“Cousin, I really do not know.”
“I know enough about you, sir, that I find it, I must say, truly uncomfortable to ride with you like this.”
“Is that so?” Jonathan turned to me and over the sound of the moving carriage and lay a hand on my arm. “Just how much do you know? Enough to worry about any partnerships we might make? Or enough to challenge me to a duel?”
I clenched my fists, having never been spoken to like this before in my life by one of my own kin. But I forbore, saying nothing. We rode in silence under the great starry vault of the sky. It was a moonless night, and though the stars glittered everywhere above us, in some places seeming to be as thick as dust, the moisture in the air kept us from a perfect sight of the heavens. Things blurred, things faded. But that was the way we saw such matter in this world. And I thought to myself, what if there were a way for us, me and Liza, to grow wings and fly up into that space, and hurry away to some star where we might be alone and together and happier and easier than we are? And then I said to myself, I will book us passage on that ship to New York, the two of us, and we will sail away, if not fly.
At last, the great dark tunnel of trees lay just ahead. We rode along, beneath the shadowy wood, darkened by the darkness.
Then we saw at a great distance at the end of the low road the house all aglow, candles in every window.
“What is it?” I asked my cousin. “Another meeting? It looks as though they might even be having a party!”
When we made our way inside the house, we found the front parlor filled with weeping slaves and wailing Jews. Rebecca sat in a chair near the door, moving her head from side to side, crying out, “He’s gone! He’s gone!” while my aunt lay unmoving on the couch, Precious Sally was kneeling next to her, dabbing at her face with wet cloths.
“Oh, my aunt,” I said, rushing to her side.
She coughed, let out a whimper, cleared her throat.
“It happened so suddenly. He went up to take a nap, and awoke a short while later with a small fever. He said he was tired, and went back to sleep. I looked in on him while he was sleeping, and he was soaking such a sweat I didn’t know what to do. After a while I asked Sally to make a poultice.”
Tears flowed from her eyes and it took her a few moments to regain her