Читать книгу Grace - Natashia Deon - Страница 15

6 / FLASH

Conyers, Georgia, 1846

THE LAST THING I remember is Hazel telling me, “Run!” And I ran with all my soul, I did.

Then walked some.

Rested beside a stream and drank water. Ate some stale bread Hazel gave me. And when the bread was gone the second day, I used Hazel’s fire poker to kill again. But I prayed over that coon. Prayed over it with my Bible, started a fire the way Hazel taught me to. Roasted it, ate it, slept ’til daylight and ran again. ’Til nightfall, I did. Three more days this way. Three more days with Hazel’s voice in my head telling me, don’t stop. “Go north,” she said. So I kept on, under the cover of rainwet leaves and gray clouds.

By nightfall on the fourth day, I found that North Star. But by then, I was too tired for it to matter. Had been climbing up and over and up and over, the backs of my arms were sore and my muscles were burnt to cinder.

The rain had started again, was overflowing, making the ground a stream of cold. I was slipping over rocks, walking more than running, catching myself from falling. I tied big green leafs around my bleeding bare feet but still felt every grounded thistle like a blade.

Rain kept pelting my face. Was soft tickles at first, then turned to hard pinpricks from hitting the same spot again and again.

I stumbled into a road, soaking wet, turning myself this way and that way. The light of two buggy lamps showered me and the sign in the road next to me. It read: Conyers, Georgia.

The buggy’s horses were coming my way, snorting, their hooves pounding. That’s when I threw myself off the road.

Now, I don’t know how long I been in this room.

Or how I got here.

Or who put me in these dry clothes.

Or why I feel full. I don’t remember eating after that second night.

My whole body hurts and my eyes is swole shut. I cain’t see. Puss and blood is squeezing around ’em, pushing my eyeballs out, slicing pain behind ’em. Whoever got me here put piles of sheets on top of me making it hard to move.

The sheets bend and make a space under my neck between my chest and chin like a roof’s peak, where hot is puffing out and blowing steam over my face. A wet rag is sagging down from my forehead to my mouth, almost dry from fever, rubbing the thin skin on my top lip raw.

Shivers send my teeth chattering. My jaw is sore and my ear holes are plugged like they brimming wit water, muffling noises outside of me.

My imaginings got me thinking that some man’s standing above me with a knife, ready to cut me up ’cause he know I cain’t move. For a hour, I been facing the spot where I think he is but he ain’t killed me yet.

Throw-up’s racing to my mouth, bitter, ’cause I’m thinking ’bout Momma killed. I swallow it back down, breathe slow, keep it from coming again.

Lord, I miss Hazel.

THE SCENT OF a woman is on me like lavender and sugar. Must be a negro ’cause she clean. But somebody oughta tell her she wasting her time trying to save me ’cause I think God mean for me to die here.

My eyelids is lighting up red so I reckon God’s coming for me now. I peel ’em open, peek through to see God, but it ain’t Him, just an open window above me burning my eyes with light and dust.

I close ’em, don’t deserve to see the light no how, gon’ accept my punishment, stop getting better. Sleep.

I BEEN UP a long time today.

Tears for Momma and Hazel’s keeping my eyes from burning.

The musk of tobacco smoke is in my hair. Must be what yellowed the wallpaper, turned its tiny pink flowers brown. I been catching a corner of the paper wit my fingernail, flicking it up and down, give me something to do ’til I die.

I reckon I got in this room yesterday or the day before cause the moon outside the window ain’t changed much since the last time I seen it. The round of it looks like Mama Dean’s spinning wheel, hanging in the sky, stuck on nothin.

The clouds are stretched across the moonlit sky like ready-to-spin cotton across a dark tabletop—pulled apart, kneaded back together, its different little pieces tangled into one. Mama Dean once told me, “We’re all like this spinning cotton. A God-made thang. Blended together the pieces are strong. Apart, the wind gets them, blows them away, makes them dirty before they have a chance to make something beautiful.” I reckon I’m like that cotton, blown-away dirty.

I can move an arm now. Can almos’ touch the bed next to me. I ain’t on a bed, though. What I’m on is something hard but dressed like a bed, with a pillow under my head and these heavy covers. I reckon it’s a trunk cause I can feel a big latch on the side. It reminds me of the door knocker Hazel made for me. She’d carved a woodpecker from pine and put a string through its beak and a separate piece of wood so when you pulled the string, the bird would peck the wood. She said, “See, ain’t all knockin bad.”

My neck’s sore from my jaw ache but I can move my head, can see the pattern on my sheets—more yellow flowers. I cross my eyes to fix ’em on the dry, gray stain below my chin. I take a big sniff of it but it don’t smell like nothin. It’s clean.

Across the room, a white chair stands in front of a vanity, a shawl with red feathers hangs lazy down its middle. The vanity holds perfume bottles, two drankin glasses and a washbasin. Wax is sliding down a lit candlestick there, too. Its holder got a pattern etched in it like Hazel’s fire poker got. It brings my tears back ’cause I don’t know where I lost hers.

I’ll wait. Let Him take me peaceful.

THE KNOCKIN SOUND woke me up but it ain’t Momma and it ain’t this trunk.

A white woman is on the bed in front of me with a man.

There ain’t a wall, nothin between us.

She’s on all fours, looking at the ceiling, grunting. Her face is a schoolteacher’s but her act is a slave.

Her blonde hair is spiraled to her wrists and rocking back and forth. The naked man behind her is pushing, into her, cupping her tits with his hands now, rubbing her nipples with his fingertips. It’s making me shamed to see so I close my eyes.

The man say, “Is she watching us, Cynthia?”

“Frank, just finish.”

“I’m just saying. If she was, it would be sorta nice.”

“That would be extra.”

THE DOOR ACROSS the room swings open and pushes a gust of wind over me, bringing men and their voices near to my bed. Their hot-whis-kied breaths rain moist on my cheek. I keep my eyes shut. Pretend I’m dead. Let their funk, spit, and sighs blanket me. I won’t move.

“You sure she out of it?” one of ’em say. “I ain’t had one of these black whores in years.”

“You think Cynthia mind?” another one say. “If we just . . .”

“She’d be making money, wouldn’t she?”

The blood’s pumping fast to my head now, my face is swelling, lips tight, eyelids sealing from swell, cain’t open ’em if I wanted.

I hear a woman’s voice: “You think that black bitch is better than me? Hell, I’m good enough for the both of yous.”

“That sho’ looks nice, Cynthia,” one say.

My blood keeps rising. Everything go black.

THIS MORNING, A woman’s humming a peaceful song and dancing nice with a little boy. He’s barely tall as her armpit, standing on her shoes.

I ain’t never seen hair so red.

She say, “I love you, Johnny.”

I MUSTA BEEN sleeping good ’cause she changed my clothes and gave me a new pillow stuffed with mint.

The boy’s gone.

A man’s there in the boy’s place, sitting on the corner of the bed with his back turned to me. His red neck looks like not-done meat with white lines creased deep and jagged across it. His grayish hair is lined with a razor’s edge above his neck. I see him in the mirror smiling and when he laugh, his shoulders bounce. When he ain’t laughing, his teeth poke out his mouth like a egg halfway out a chicken. He covers his mouth with one hand to hide it, lets his buckteeth wet his palm. When he pulls his hand away, he stretches his lips over ’em to cover.

The woman slouches in her chair, painting her makeup on. Her silk gown clings to her curves. The man was fixing to say something but took a deep breath instead.

Finally, he gets up and goes to her, puts his hands on her shoulders, squeezes. “Cynthia, I wanna take you away from here. Give you the good life.”

Cynthia laughs out loud. “And make a good woman outta me, Nate?” She throws her washrag in the basin. “Take me away from my kingdom?”

She squats above her chair, smacks the wet rag between her legs, and swishes it around her privates, then stands up and sprays a burst of perfume there, too. She slides her frilly britches over her hips.

He puts his hands back on her shoulders.

“Come on, Nate. I got a headache and another customer. Just pay me and go.”

“I’m serious,” he say.

She clears the snot from her throat, hocks it in her rag, and throws it back in the basin, then falls back in her chair and takes a fancy silver box off the table. She pulls out a cigarette. “You still here?”

He grabs his hat and coat from off the dresser. Hiding under ’em is a bunch of yellow flowers. She smiles. “You gettin soft on me, Nate.”

“I know you like yella,” he say. “I could bring you flowers every day, if you let me. Be the man you want me to be.” He crouches on one knee, holds the flowers out to her. She lets him rub her thigh. He say, “I love you. You know that. I could look after you. You could stop what you’re doing here and just be mine.”

Her expression softens.

“Hell,” he say. “I’d even look after your bastard. Every boy needs a daddy.”

She stiffens, lights her cigarette, sucks it started, and blows the smoke over his flowers, say, “I’m allergic to little dicks and spare change. So like I said nice before, get the fuck out.”

His fistful of flowers slam across her chin and her hair spreads across her face. Yellow petals twirl across the room and blood rises from her split lip.

He say, “I . . . I try to do s-something nice for you. Look what you m-made me do.”

She don’t look at him.

“Just leave my money on the dresser,” she say, her voice crackling. She picks up a glass of water and drinks. Blood rushes in.

The door slams when he go. It makes me jump but Cynthia don’t. She keep puffing on her cigarette, then eases down in her chair and lets her legs gap open like a man. The strap of her gown slides off her shoulders, flashing bruises on her back. I ain’t never seen a white woman with bruises like that.

Between her puffs, she spits out bits of blood from her lip, sprinkling her gown with dots of red. She wipes her mouth with the back of her arm, leaving a streak. It makes me scared for her.

“Don’t look at me like you better than me,” she say.

I close my eyes fast.

I can hear her turn her chair around to me.

“I’ve been keeping these dogs off your ass for twelve days.”

I ain’t never heard a woman talk like that.

“What brings you to Conyers, girl?”

I don’t answer. Keep my eyes closed.

“Then let’s start easy. . . . What’s your name?”

I open my eyes. Don’t say a word.

“How about my name is, ‘Thank You For Saving My Black Ass.’ Yeah, that’s a good name.”

She puffs on her stick again, glares at me, throws her feet up on the bed, slides back in her chair.

“Albert found you in the woods thirteen nights ago. Thought you was a wild pig, grunting and groaning so. Nearly stabbed you dead. Felt sorry for you since you busted your head wide open. Caught yourself an infection. Lucky for you, it was nothin I hadn’t seen before.”

Must be a nurse.

She exhales a line of smoke. “What was you doin out in them woods anyway? Ain’t no town closer than forty miles. . . . What? Was you runnin north?”

I don’t look at her.

“You people always tryin to run north like y’all ain’t niggas up there, too.”

I don’t want to talk.

She throws my Bible, spinning it toward me, I catch it with my strong hand.

“Only thing you had on you ’sides this fire poker.” She picks it up from next to the mirror, sucks on her cigarette. Smoke seeps out her nose. “No money, no papers. Like to have thrown you back. Where you from?”

It don’t matter. I cain’t never go back but when I get my strength, I’m gon’ leave here, too. So I ain’t got to listen to her. I press my Bible against my chest real hard, close my eyes real hard and start praying cause Hazel told me that God can understand me even if I cain’t talk.

“Ain’t gon’ do you no good,” Cynthia say. “The gods are dead. There’s only us.”

My ears pop open for the first time and sound rushes in, forcing me to sit up and pay attention. I can hear knockin all around me, behind these walls. I didn’t hear it before, didn’t feel it, smell it—the liquor, the perfume, sweat, reminding me of the times when Massa made Momma dress up and smile.

“This is my house,” Cynthia say. “God don’t own a half cent in my dime.” She blows a funnel of white in the air.

I push myself against the wall ’cause I know God put me in hell. She laughs at me with bloody teeth, the taste of it turns her ’round to the mirror and she leans into her reflection, rolling her lip over and stares at the cut. She licks off what’s left of the blood, then pushes her cigarette back in.

She stares at me through the mirror. “So you a runaway?”

I don’t say nothin.

“Hell, girl. We all slaves to somethin.” She turns herself to me.

I press myself straight against the wall, the furthest I could go without breaking through. She say, “I tell you what . . . runaway or not. You gon’ need to earn your keep.”

My body gets tight cause she gon’ force me.

She reaches under her bed and throws a white sheet at me. A dress. Long and plain. “Here, you wear this.”

I ain’t gon’ be Momma for her. Momma died so Hazel didn’t have to be her, neither.

In one quick move, she grabs my poker from against the wall and shoves it far behind the dresser and relaxes back in her chair. She say, “That dress is the only thing I got decent. Wore it at my momma’s funeral. It’s clean. Mop and pail’s in the closet down the hall. You gon’ be cleaning up after us.”

I wasn’t expecting her to say that.

“I might get used to you,” she say. “Keep things interesting around here. And don’t you mistake it for kindness, cause when losing people get angry, they first turn on the kindest hand. You a loser?”

I shake my head.

“Good. Letting you stay here is no more than my good fortune of finding a slave for nothing. My pappy used to say, ‘everythang cost somethin.’ But you ain’t gon’ cost me, are you?”

I costed Momma.

Costed Hazel.

She grabs my arm and yanks me to her. “Law say, I should send you back where you came from. But I tell you the truth? . . . You steal from me . . . or run, I kill ya on sight.”