Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [82]
And then I heard her voice.
“Massa Pereira?”
“Who—oh!”
I jumped to my feet.
“Yes, sir,” the girl Liza said. “Black Jack asked me to bring you this. He said you were having trouble falling asleep.”
As she crossed the room first she was nothing more than a wavering of the dark, and then, as her pale (compared to the darkness) face caught the light of the candle-flame, I could finally make her out in a white smock holding the tray before her.
“What is that?” I said, seeing the goblet on the tray.
“His special potion for sleep,” she said.
“A magic potion?”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “Drink and you shall be bewitched, massa.”
I strained my eyes in the dark to see if I might catch a glimpse of her eyes, but she was nothing but a solid emblem of something somewhat lighter than the dark behind her, with no particular features for me to make out.
“Then bewitched I shall be,” I said. “But first, one thing.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Stop calling me master, please?”
“—”
“Liza?”
“Yes, massa?”
“That is exactly what I’m talking about. No more of that.”
“No, massa,” she said.
“Liza!”
“—”
“Liza?”
“But what do I call you then, massa?”
“Nathaniel, call me Nathaniel. Or Nate.”
“I can’t do that. The old massa will be angry with me.”
“Then let’s make an agreement,” I said, picking up the goblet and without hesitation taking a long swallow of the sweet pungent liquid that stopped me for a moment from breathing.
“Massa?” she said.
“No more of that,” I said in a raven-like croak.
“Yes, sir.”
“No, no, no, no. When we are alone, you call me Nate. When we are with the family, you can do your duty and address me as usual.”
“Yes, massa.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Nate,” she said. There was something as smooth and pungent in her voice as the liquid in my throat.
We paused there, and I must say, in the spirit of candor, that in that instant, when I stood so close to her that I could hear her quiet breathing and mistake it for my own, the heat of our two bodies embossed the place in the dark where we faced each other.
“Nate,” she said.
“Ah,” I said, quite taken with the fact that she had used my name and the way she had spoken it.
Tenderly, she took the goblet from my hand and turned to set it on the tray as I boldly allowed myself the gaze at her faint outline in the dark, ghostliness upon ghostliness.
I stepped toward her.
But she was already out the door and gone.
I returned to my bed and lay there what I thought was a long time and then I was opening my eyes to bright dawn sun and the music of birds.
Chapter Thirty-three
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Straw into Brick
The Sabbath had ended. Now it was time for business. First thing the next morning I went directly to the stables where I found Isaac working on the carriage.
“Are you ready, sir?” he said.
I nodded as we packed some jars of water from the house spring into our saddle-bags.
“You don’t want to drink the creek water, massa,” Isaac said. “Folks have been known to meet the Visitor from drinking creek water.”
“The visitor?” I said.
“The cholera, the doctor calls it,” he said. “Nasty awful. Empties you out and then dries you up for the grave.”
“No creek water for me, then,” I said as we hitched up our horses, or rather Isaac had taken care of his and mine, my old Promise again, and mounted up for the ride to the brickyard. The sun was just rising over the tops of the trees and the insects buzzed all around us. A faint haze hovered at fetter-length. Birds called and responded and called.
“Isaac?” I said.
“Yes, massa?”
“Were you born here?”
“Yes, massa.”
We rode a little way in silence.
“Do you have a family, Isaac?”
“My papa and mama is dead,” he said in rote fashion, which made me wonder if it was true or not.
“And no wife?”
“No, sir. Though I would like one some day.”
Though I gave no hint of it, a small shudder ran up my arm and into my chest as I imagined this man, finding a woman—Liza? Yes,