The Known World - Edward P. Jones [138]
“Nowhere,” she said. The simplicity of a clear answer hit them both and they said nothing until they heard Elias and Stamford laugh as they came from the barn and went to their cabins. Both men were carrying lanterns.
“Thas more like it,” Moses said to Alice and released her. She went out to the path that would take her to the road.
He had expected her to take off that night and for her body to be delivered by the patrollers before morning, but she was at her cabin the next day.
The following evening he waited at her cabin door for her to come out. “I got a job for you,” he said, “and if you do it right, you won’t have to be nobody’s slave no more.” He had not made love to Caldonia that evening but his sky went up very high.
She wanted to chant, but the angels might not understand what she was saying with this overseer as her witness. I met a dead man layin in Massa lane. . . . Maybe if she lifted her arms now, they would reward her for all that singing in the past and raise her up up to freedom. A man . . . A dead man is what it is. . . . How could you forget that dead man? All her singing must be worth something. If she lifted her arms and wiggled her fingers, the angels might see her even in the dark with that overseer and pick her up like she was just somebody’s June bug. I met a dead woman laying way out there all the way in my dead Massa’s lane. . . .
Moses said, “You go on, cause I got my eye on you. Got both my eyes on you.” He watched her go. “That mule be waitin for you in the mornin,” he said.
It was true, she thought as she stepped tentative feet onto the road, that the world had had eyes to see her, and even if the angels did take her now, the world would just reach up and pull her back. They don’t want you there, girl, so just come on back to us. . . . She did not go far that night and turned around not long after passing the crossroads. The lane was all quiet but it was not as quiet as on all the other nights when her voice had been hoarse and her feet tired from all the walking and dancing. She entered her cabin and waited inside for the sound of it all coming to an end. Maybe if she had cared enough about everyone; maybe if she had shared; maybe if she had even believed that Delphie and Cassandra would want to go and sing to the angels with her. Nothing came but the sounds of her own heart and she went down to her knees and crawled to her pallet a few feet away from those of Delphie and Cassandra. Maybe she had waited far too long, and in waiting the train and the people had waved as they went by her. Who knew that there had never been enough time? Who knew that God had parceled out time the way Bennett and Moses parceled out the meal and flour and molasses? Thas gotta last so yall be careful how you eat. . . . On the last plantation she had been on, a woman had jumped into the well, vowing to swim her way home. And she had done it, too, without a blessing from a mule kick. Why had she held back in just walking home? Now, that mule might want to take back his kick. You ain’t usin it, now give it here. . . .
Two mornings later, Thursday, Caldonia told Loretta, who was to tell Zeddie, that she would supper with Moses in the kitchen. Loretta was not a woman to ask her mistress to repeat anything she said, but Zeddie wanted to know if Loretta was going around with ears too dirty to hear right. Loretta funned no one and when Zeddie saw she had the same face as on every morning, she said, “Tell her I get everything ready for her and the overseer.”
The meal was over and done with rather quickly because they did not talk. He had never sat at a table such as that one and had a full plate put before him. He had not known what to do and she saw this and took him away from the table.
They did not make love but he went back to the lane with the same amount of joy. He knocked at Alice’s cabin and took her outside, over to the side of the barn, and told her he was setting her free, that he had the power