Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [191]
“Without love you cannot be free, without freedom you cannot love.”
Her theme echoed through the minds of many hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Bay area folk who had listened.
She linked it to a second theme, something of which she also spoke a great deal.
“What do I believe? In gods and goddesses, in rivers that speak and birds that tell stories? Is that all in my own mind, projected by me, a human magic lantern, onto a blank wall? Or do I believe in inventions and inventors? Do I worship the power of the human mind over all else? Or do I believe in some power beyond it that has shaped and formed us? I was raised by Africans, enslaved by Jews, hunted by Christians—I know something of the world besides what exists in books, and everything I have lived through confirms for me the truth of what the best writers write.
“Without love you cannot be free, without freedom you cannot love…”
People kept flocking to her talks.
One day, after speaking to a large crowd at a theater in downtown San Francisco, a young woman came up to her just as she was leaving the stage and knelt before her.
“What are you doing?” Eliza said.
“Bless me,” the young woman said.
Seeing her there on her knees before Eliza several other people from the audience came up and knelt as well.
“Stop this!” Eliza, terribly upset, raised her voice.
“Please,” the young woman said, her eyes filled with tears. “I am a slave and I long to be free…”
“I as well,” said one of the other devotees.
Eliza left them kneeling there and fled from the hall, never to give another talk again.
Years passed, like one long day of fog and sun. Now if you know our city, you know how often you can find yourself climbing a hill, and another, and another beyond it. Picture Eliza tugging me along as she goes, the toddling boy, along with her, up and up, until I could eventually hold my head up high and walk along with her, she with her cape and parasol, me (when still that young) in my buckskin knickers (because my heroic aspiration at that early age was to become a buffalo soldier, a goal I still remember clearly, though these days it brings a smile to my face).
And then came the years of braving sailing expeditions on the Bay with her husband, the man whom I came to see as my father, when she worked hard to give no sign of, as she later confessed to me, her deep aversion to the surge of tides and beat and splash of waves. Passage over water infused her with a certain dread, something she had first noticed when hidden in that boat that carried her across the Mississippi what was now some years ago. It called to mind the Atlantic crossing her mother’s mother made, and her mind near drowned when weighed down by the memories and thoughts of the myriad Africans, her closest relatives and total strangers, who had come that way before. She loved to watch the ocean, but to sail?
Her dread arose on Sunday morning when her husband took her for what he called an easy sail along the north shore of the bay. At first she agreed with him about the easy part, steering out of the busy harbor around the oceangoing ships flying flags from around the world, and then skimming past the wooded islands, looking toward the gentle mountain that rose to the west, between them and the great ocean, this did soothe her, she had to admit. Her worries and nightmares of murderous passages over water flew away on the salty wind. Only when they tacked across the outgoing tide at the gateway to the ocean did her fears tighten her chest and send lightning down her limbs.
“Turn around!” she called over the wind.
“My dear,” he said, turning to her as he held the wheel steady.
A pair of birds rushed past in desperate flight. Eliza heard a splash and caught a glimpse of a fish tail, and a sleek long snout and a fish tail again.
Yemaya? She wondered, could the goddess of fabled times