The Known World - Edward P. Jones [180]
It was then that I noticed over her shoulder another Creation of the same materials, paint, clay and cloth. I had been so captivated by the living map of the County that I had not turned to see the other Wonder on the opposite wall.
“How have you been, Calvin?” Priscilla inquired. She had no fear in her words that I might have come to take her back. Her words conveyed only what she had said, a need to know my condition.
I responded, “I have tried to be well, Priscilla. I have tried very hard.”
I could still see over her shoulder that other Creation. Priscilla saw it in my eyes and moved aside. This Creation may well be even more miraculous than the one of the County. This one is about your home, Caldonia. It is your plantation, and again, it is what God sees when He looks down. There is nothing missing, not a cabin, not a barn, not a chicken, not a horse. Not a single person is missing. I suspect that if I were to count the blades of grass, the number would be correct as it was once when the creator of this work knew that world. And again, in the bottom right-hand corner are the stitched words “Alice Night.”
In this massive miracle on the Western wall, you, Caldonia, are standing before your house with Loretta, Zeddie and Bennett. As I said, all the cabins are there, and standing before them are the people who lived in them ere Alice, Priscilla and Jamie disappeared. Except for those three, every single person is there, standing and waiting as if for a painter and his easel to come along and capture them in the glory of the day. Each person’s face, including yours, is raised up as though to look in the very eyes of God. I look at all the faces and I am more than glad now that I knew the name and face of everyone there at your home. The dead in the cemetery have risen from there and they, too, stand at the cabins where they once lived. So the slave cemetery is just plain ground now, grass and nothing else. It is empty, even of the tiniest infants, who rest alive and well in their mothers’ arms. In the cemetery where our Henry is buried, he stands by his grave, but that grave is covered with flowers as though he still inhabits it.
There are matters in my memory that I did not know were there until I saw them on that wall. I must tell you, dear Caldonia, that I sank to my knees. When I was able to collect myself, I stood and found not only Priscilla watching me but Alice as well.
I spoke to Alice thus: “I hope you have been well.” What I feared most at that moment is what I still fear: that they would remember my history, that I, no matter what I had always said to the contrary, owned people of our Race. I feared that they would send me away, and even as I write you now, I am still afraid.
Alice responded to me, “I been good as God keeps me.”
I am “laboring” here now, at the Hotel, the Restaurant, and the Saloon, trying to make myself as indispensable as possible and yet trying to stay out of the way, lest someone remember my history and they cast me out. I would be sick unto death if I were sent away. After years of being a nurse to Mother, my work here is not taxing. I am happy when I get up in the morning and I am happy when I lay my head down at night.
All that is here is owned by Alice, Priscilla and all the people who work here, many of them, to be sure, runaways. My room is on the top floor of the hotel where everyone lives. It is a nice room and it fits me well. Jamie comes and goes as a student in a school for colored children. He is as fine a young man as any father or mother could want.
I will close for now and pray that you and Louis are well. When you are able to write, recall my fear of being cast out and please write my name on the envelope as humbly as you possibly can.
I remain
Forever
Your Brother
Calvin
Caldonia read the letter over and over for days, relieved that Calvin had negotiated the state of Virginia