Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [49]
Midmorning now, and those without food began to call out to their captors. The slavers paid no attention. Lyaa lay down, pretending to sleep while silently clawing about in her pack for small bits of the food she had gathered. At the sound of a child weeping nearby she turned and saw the wee thing nursing at her mother’s breast, but without satisfaction.
Lyaa offered the mother a few nuts, and the woman bowed her head in thanks. Hours passed, more flamingos floated overheard, and then someone pointed out a strange bird, with a deep pouch at its throat, and large wings, and other smaller white birds that called to each other and sounded almost as if they were laughing.
Except for crying children, silence reigned on the raft under the hot sun. At night Lyaa listened to the pole men call to each other, telling stories about girls and river adventures. She could hear the rush of the water against the wood of the raft, a shearing sound, as though water were falling over a cliff rather than simply moving swiftly along. A large empty hole seemed to open up in her the more she thought about her absent mother, and she shivered even in the heat of the rising sun at the prospect of going another day without her.
She had little time to grieve. A turn in the river up ahead, the paleness of the sky beyond caught her eye. People around her began to murmur, and some parents wept louder than their children.
“The sea, the sea!” someone called out.
She had never heard the word before, but before too long, as they rounded one more turn, she saw what they spoke of, the broad flat expanse of dark water, a solid blue-green plain reflecting back at her the light of the sun. Pale clouds sailed overhead, beyond the white birds in flight.
The sea, the sea!
Where close to an island covered with palms two large ships with broad white sails lay at anchor.
Chapter Twenty-one
________________________
More to Learn
Black Jack the butler met me at the door and I told him of the need for the wagon out in the fields.
“Yes, massa,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
None of my relatives seemed to be about. I asked him to heat water for my bath and went up to my room. After filling the large copper tub behind the screen he left and I undressed. I gingerly climbed in and soaked a while, listening to the birdsong outside my window, but despite the prettiness of that music I felt myself sinking now and then into a dolorous state in which I allowed myself to succumb to a deep despair about life here and the indentured state into which that infant in the field had just been born. How torn I felt between my duty to my family and its business and the desire to take up my pistol, fire into the air, and declare that each and every one of the slaves on the plantation was free to go! Was I myself free to go? The soothing water soon lulled me into a worrisome nostalgia for home and the city. I found myself missing the hurly and busyness of the streets, the cry of children scrambling for goods, the smoke from many chimneys, the horns and rumble of horse-carts on cobblestones, and, quite unbelievably, even the clouds that often descended to the house tops and made gloom a palpable part of life among us urban-dwellers.
Gloom, gloom, where have you gone?
These were my thoughts, my foolish mind turned upside down, when I heard a musical sound—not birdsong—from somewhere on the other side of the screen.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Massa Pereira,” a woman said.
“What? Who is that?”
But I half-knew already, and so was not completely unprepared for the shock of Liza, the house-slave, appearing around the corner of the screen.
“I’ve brought fresh towel for you, massa,” she said, staring past me at the wall. “I’ll set it down here, sir, just next to the tub.”
“Thank you, Liza,” I said. I looked away out of embarrassment, the shock of her appearance working in my loins. “Now please excuse me.”
She gave me a half-smile,