Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [52]
“Must I say again what we take to be the truth? That we are all brothers under the skin, and that even if someone is born into the tribe of dusky Ham we must help him to recognize his worth.”
“Thank you,” said Rebecca.
“They know what they are worth,” my cousin put in, ignoring his wife. “If they listen to the bidding at their auction.”
Rebecca sat up and took in a great rush of breath.
“Jonathan!”
He turned his lips out and made a puckering sound.
“My darling, rest easy, I was simply making a jest.” He nodded to me. “For our dear visiting’s cousin’s sake.”
Rebecca remained outraged.
“I am quite sure our dear cousin from New York does not enjoy such humor.”
She turned to me, which I took to be my cue to speak.
I took a sip of wine and set down my glass, giving myself a moment’s more time.
“I do and I do not,” I said.
My answer clearly did not satisfy her.
The look it produced on Jonathan’s face seemed otherwise.
“I believe,” he said, “that we understand each other. All that you’ve seen so far is quite new to you. I expect that before too long in your stay you will come to understand exactly how much it is worth you—and your father, of course. My dear uncle, sitting up there in New York City, watching over us and judging our every move…”
“Father is not like that,” I said. “He looks fairly and equitably upon everything that comes before him.”
“Of course, of course,” my cousin said. “The fair judge from New York. Just like our God, giving us the opportunity—”
“Jonathan…”
Now it was his father, my uncle, who broke in.
“Sorry, sir, sorry,” my cousin said.
At last, I found the breath to speak up again.
“I have a question, now that we are talking about such matters as this,” I said.
“And your question?” Jonathan seemed happy that I was taking such an interest.
“You mentioned the bidding,” I said.
“Yes?” he said. “That jolly auction system of ours, I did take you to see it. But what is your question?”
“Oh, I am, to say the truth, rather fascinated with this business of putting a price on a human being. And I am wondering just how one does that.”
“Yes, you saw the handbill about one sale. Most others are like that, with particular prices for particular slaves.”
“But how, sir, do you come up with a price?” I quickly took a large sip of wine and went on with my query. “If, say, one were to ask about a particular slave. Say, the house girl, Liza—”
“Ah, the house girl Liza,” Jonathan said. “Yes. What about her?”
“Do you recall what price you paid for her…just as an example, mind you.”
“The price for Liza, hmm…”
“Just a hypothetical question, mind you,” I said, scolding myself in my old tutor’s voice, who had always expressed his disdain for hypothetical questions. The actual, the particular, that’s what he had always urged on me.
“Why—” my uncle spoke up.
But Jonathan interrupted him.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but in the case of the house girl, Liza—” and he smiled at me from across the table in such a warm way that I leaned closer and gave him my complete attention, on top of the deep interest that I was already finding I possessed—“that question is moot. She was born here, and so no one ever bid on her.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. “I should have figured that out myself.”
“No reason to,” my cousin said.
“Why, though, young nephew”—here my uncle finally found the way to break into this intense exchange—“in the case of Liza you must recognize how impossible it would be to put any price on this young woman.”
“But say,” I responded, “in this hypothetical instance—”
Jonathan’s smile collapsed into itself and of an instant he showed me a rather strange façade, as though anger roiled him for a fleeting instant and then, blinking, he found peace again in his thoughts.
“This one, Liza, the slave girl, is priceless,” he said. “Utterly and absolutely and irrevocably without a price.”
Chapter Twenty-two
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In My Margins
Wisps of Life
Smoke, wind, water, salt, a cough, a kiss,