Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [181]
“The time is coming soon,” I told him.
“Meanwhile, would you like a drink, sir?” he said, proffering his bucket.
“Yes, in a moment, thank you…”
I ducked back into my tent and returned with my cup so that he might pour me some water.
I drank deeply, and it tasted to me sweeter than wine, nearly ambrosial, and somehow cooler than ice.
“Will you drink?” I said.
“Oh, I drunk plenty,” he said, “I drunk plenty.”
The young free man and I shook hands, and he took his bucket off into the dark, leaving me to meditate on my fate.
Should I not survive the war and my dear wife Miriam reads this manuscript I hope she will forgive me. However I do fully expect to see many other sunrises, in war and in peace. As someone who knows that he stands on the right side of this struggle between freedom and slavery, I can only hope that the one God, the God of Abraham and Isaac, will protect me in battle and bless me in the aftermath of whatever terrible acts I may have to perform.
Chapter Eighty-five
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Hurry, Run!
And when the sun set on that terrifying day in the swamp Liza had to make her decision about whether to remain with my ailing father or light out. So she closed her eyes and called on the goddess for guidance. When she opened them she saw glowing through the stunted pines a half-moon, with a bright star just above it, all to the west.
“Is it you, Yemaya?” she said in a whisper. “Star! Half-moon! Yemaya? Have you taken to the sky and turned it into a sea?”
At first, nothing but stillness reigned in the wake of her call. Gradually, sounds began to emerge in the darkening swamp, the last buzzings of insects, the whirr of bird wings, growls and whimperings of some animals unknown. She feared that she might hear dogs, but nothing in the rising noises of the oncoming night resembled the particular barking and howls of canines in pursuit.
She took a deep breath, sighed, glanced down at my father, who lay shivering on the sodden ground. As she raised her eyes again to the bluish-purple sky, a voice spoke to her, as if descending from the configuration of half-moon and star.
“Run!”
Or, “Come!”
Or, “Go!”
(As she recollected it, the voice remained slightly unclear, but the order remained direct. Run, come to me, go, go!)
“Is it you?” she asked. “Oh, my goddess, Yemaya! Are you still here? All these years, days, hours, I thought you had gone home to Africa!”
No voice came in response, but she knew what she had heard just before the vast silence settled over things again. She hesitated another moment, taking a deep breath, and sighing deeply. Though she had planned from the start to use my father for whatever she needed in order to make her escape, in the end she felt some affection for him, if not anywhere near the love he felt for her, the man who helped free her, a certain amount of deep and real affection. In fact, she had surprised herself with the emotion in her voice when she spoke to him about their ties even as she knew she was still using him to make her escape. The emotion rippled down her body, chest to her feet, turning them to lead and making it difficult for to take a step in any direction.
Oh, this life, she lamented to herself, where one cannot truly love without being truly free! Or be truly free without love!
Such thoughts weighed on her so heavily that she could not move.
And then she heard the dogs. Dogs! Hounds! The hounds of hell!
(Free people sometimes suffer the pangs of conscience. Slaves suffer from pursuit by vicious dogs!)
One moment the goddess leaned on the sliver of a moon and in the next stood by her side tugging at her sleeve.
“Come,” she said. “Go!”
Liza hesitated only a moment more before leaving my father, supine and feverish, in the care of the young runaway boy from New Jersey and without looking back walked deeper into the swamp in what she gauged to be a westerly direction. Only after the moon disappeared altogether and the stars appeared determined to light her way did she stop to rest, but only for a short while.