Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [37]
“Damned if I am,” Abraham said.
“Abe!” My cousin rolled around in his chair. “Leave the room!”
My youngest cousin, who one day, I imagined, would become heir to the plantation in the long scheme of things after his father, having taken over after my uncle’s demise, loosed his reins, scowled in my direction and obeyed.
My uncle now raised himself out of his chair, a rather monumental action that combined a great intake of breath and a steely pressing of hands on table arms and the uplifting of his massive chest and belly. The odd thing, I noticed, was how delicately he performed this, almost like a performer on a stage. No grunts, no moans, no complaints—only that inward sigh and he was on his feet.
“I will see to the boy,” he said to my aunt, and then begging my pardon he moved slowly from the room leaving the rest of us to talk quietly in his wake.
“Such a young ruffian,” said Jonathan, pouring himself wine from a beautifully carved glass decanter.
“Jonathan,” said my aunt, “please wait for the blessing.”
“I bless this wine,” Jonathan said and took another sip.
“Jonathan,” his wife said, “please.”
“Am I a worse and more rebellious boy than my own son?”
He winked at me, and took another sip of wine.
“Abe is just a child,” my aunt said. “We must forgive him.”
“If I used language such as that at table I’d take myself into the hallway and give myself quite a talking-to.”
“But you do not,” Rebecca said.
“Because I will not,” Jonathan said. “Not because I do not have it in me.”
He drank again, and then reached for the decanter to refill his glass.
“Oh, Jonathan,” said his mother, my aunt, “I wish you would tutor that boy a little more vigorously.”
Jonathan merely took another sip of wine, and out of the desire to seem a good guest and accommodating member of the family I also took a drink. The blend of rich dry grape and the brandy I had drunk earlier stayed on my tongue a while. So this is how my Carolina cousins live, I sighed to myself, with this leisurely pace of taking food and drink—or in Jonathan’s case in the reverse order—while attended by numerous bonded servants.
A trio of them made their way in and out of the room in an intricate choreography, carrying steaming platters of beef and fish and corn and tomatoes and carrots and baskets of bread, and aligning the silver and wine bottles, silently, as if almost we were not present, or at least just mere statuary rather than living creatures and us, or at least the rest of the family, ignoring them, as though they were invisible.
But in fact they were quite darkly visible, and the more dark they were the more present, beginning with the cook, Precious Sally, as I soon learned she was called, who stood in the doorway, showing almost as much bulk and flesh as my uncle as she directed the other servants in their dance of food and service. Two women and one man, the women dressed in white aprons, like Sally’s, whose apron was as large almost as a tablecloth in order to cover her huge amount of flesh, which made their darkness all the more stark. The man, a tall old fellow, with a forehead like a bulldog’s and skin as dark as a night without a moon, wore a blue serving coat and britches, and bowed as each dish reached the table, ostensibly overseeing the service, but always with his ear cocked toward Sally, clearly the director of this entertainment.
I waited patiently—I was not just then sure why—for the advent of the lighter-skinned Liza, who had met us at the door. But she never appeared, since, as I quickly surmised, this was not in her line of duty.
My uncle lumbered back into the room, followed by his repentant grandchild Abraham. We waited and watched silently until they took their places at the table again.
“And now,” my uncle said, with an audible wheeze, “to begin. Abe, will you say the blessing?”
My younger cousin looked down at his plate and folded his hands in front of him.
“God of our Fathers, God of Abraham—that’s me—”
“Abe!” His father spoke up.
“—and Isaac, (we own him)…”
“Abe!” his mother