Читать книгу Grace - Natashia Deon - Страница 18

9 / 1855

Tallassee, Alabama

AFTER THE VAPORS got Josey, Charles brought her here to the Graham house where she been resting. Got hisself sent home to wait ’cause he was pacing too loud and Missus Graham don’t like to be near him long on account of his burn scars. Some people get nervous around bodies that move or look different, deformed or retarded. She’s one of them. But I ain’t leaving. Been passing time rushing ’round this big house and through its downstairs corridors, along dustless floors and hand-carved finishings. Been in the grand ballroom twice, along its papered walls and white moldings, and up to the ceiling where clear crystals hang.

I settle in this darkened hallway. Useless pretty furniture line the path to the room where Josey is. I go through its closed double door. The sun through the window casts a yellow mist of color, tinting everything. There’s a stillness here. A quiet. This sound of nothing strikes me like deafness.

There’s a chaos here, too. The way things been put together wrong. Like across the room, there’s a statue of a naked baby angel on a white column and its base teeters on the thick edge of an African rug colored a mess of orange and red and green patterns. Above the fireplace, a gold frame holds prisoner the likenesses of a sad white woman and sad white man dressed in black. And next to it, muted green curtains climb the heights of two tall windows. Between ’em is a redwood bed shaped like a dead horse on its back. Mosquito netting swoops down from where the hooves would be and touches the floor.

A tapping near the window brings the sound back to the room.

Missus Annie Graham patters her foot below the hem of her blue satin gown making the fabric bounce and the light reflect off of its sewn-on silver flakes, spitting sparkle. The flakes follow the dress’s neckline and make a trail down her shoulder and her crossed arms, where the white dots of light cast freckles on her angry face. Annie looks broken and old even though she ain’t more than twenty-nine.

“Bessie,” Annie calls to a dark-skinned field negro she’s trying to train to be light. Light, ’cause most housework’s done by the offspring of the raped: mixed-raced and birthed out of broken wombs. “Bessie,” Annie say again, this time with her voice raised. She steps in front of Bessie and puts her hand near Bessie’s neck. The touching makes Bessie shiver like a wet dog, drenched—a common condition for older slaves that Annie buys new. They must have never been shown mercy.

“How many times must I tell you?” Annie say. “Your collar needs to be pressed down. The ends are intended to remain straight throughout the day. Properly ironed and cared for. Not curled up in this fashion.”

“Yes’m, Missus Annie.” Bessie starts crying.

“There’s a particular way to do everything. A right way,” Annie say. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes’m.”

“Why are you crying?” Annie say, stepping away. “Am I harsh in my instruction?”

Bessie puts her head down, shakes it slowly, “No, ma’am.”

“When you do it right the first time, there’s never a need to cry. Never a regret. It’s either right or it’s wrong. The sooner you learn that, the better. This will be what’s required of you if you are to remain in this household. Do you understand me?”

“Yes’m, Miss Annie.”

Annie snaps a loose thread from the second buttonhole of Bessie’s blouse. “Everything in its right order.” She puts the string in Bessie’s hand. “Discard it properly,” she tells her.

“Yes’m.”

“And I don’t mean for you to drop it along the way.”

“Yes’m, Miss Annie.”

Next to the bed, water trickles into a basin as a light-skinned slave twists a wet rag in it. When the rag stops dripping, she slides away the mosquito netting that surrounds the bed and lays the rag on Josey’s forehead. Her body is drowned in covers, her head sunk into the pillow. Only the tip of her nose and her cracked pink lips show. She breathes lightly.

A lanky old white man, a doctor, sits down on the bed next to us and puts his big head on Josey’s chest, listening. He sits up and puts his fingertips on the center of her ribcage, massaging around in little circles. He say, “It’s not my intention to call to question your methods, Missus Graham, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that it is highly irregular for this child to be in this house.”

“Is her chest clear?” Annie say.

He lowers his head back down and listens just as Bessie comes back through the door carrying a cup of black coffee. “Place it there,” Annie tells her, and Bessie sets it next to the basin.

Annie say, “Have you met Bessie, Doctor? She was trained by Mrs. Durand herself. Her coffee would stand against all challengers in these parts. Tea, especially.”

“Training is one thing, Annie. But this gal in the bed . . .”

“She is my property, Doctor. I’ll do what’s best to see she’s cared for.”

“I urge you not to be so giving. This room . . . your good coffee. If Richard were here . . .”

“Bessie, try to wake her,” Annie say. “Have her drink the coffee. It’ll loosen her chest.”

“Yes’m,” Bessie say.

Bessie puts her hand behind Josey’s head to lift her up to sitting, waking her for coffee. Josey takes a few sleepy swallows.

“I . . . I found that girl, Ada Mae,” Bessie say to Annie. “She was peeking through the window downstairs. I thought you might want to have a word so I . . . She’s in the hall . . .”

“You brought her in here?” Annie say, meeting eyes with the doctor. Doctor folds his arms like he told her so. “Where is she now?”

Ada Mae comes through the door slow and with her clothes still stained with berry juice and dirt from playing earlier. She stutters, “I . . . I was just comin ’round for Josey. See how she was. She got the vapors when we was playin and . . . I ain’t too sure how it started. Could be the berries or could be . . .”

“Do you think it’s acceptable to come in my house dirty?” Annie say, her voice rising. “Like some naked African fresh off the boat. Some kind of vile creature,” she yell. “Answer me!”

“No no, Missus Graham.”

“Then why have you insisted on bringing your filth into my house? Get out! And the next time you try to kill another one of my slaves, I’ll have you and your momma strung up like runaways. You hear me?”

Doctor seems pleased.

“Yes’m,” Ada Mae say, trembling.

“Well go!”

The wind of Ada Mae’s sprint makes the door yawn and Josey comes wide-awake. Annie leans over Josey’s bed. “And you. If I have to spend another dime to treat your carelessness, I’ll sell you off!”

“Yes’m,” Josey say, breathy.

From the other side of the doorway, hands clap together, loud and slow. “Bravo,” a man’s voice say before his muddy black boots stomps across the threshold shaking brown chunks to the floor. Newly growed to manhood, about eighteen, George is two feet taller than he was the last time I saw him but he still small—the same size as Annie is now. “Brilliant,” he slurs, drunk. “Wonde’ful.”

“Bessie, come and clean this up,” Annie say, pointing to the mud.

“Was that little performance for the doctor’s sake, or yours?” George say. “It was . . . quite amusing.” He burps, then covers his mouth, dainty and polite-like, making hisself chuckle. He steps out of his boots, front ways, over the tongue of ’em, kicks ’em back into the hallway with his heels, then staggers toward Annie in his stocking feet, swaying from side to side.

“George, this isn’t the time,” Annie say.

He grabs her around the waist and lifts her up, grunting as he do. She stiffens in his skinny arms, her pretty puffed dress crushed to a wilted flower. “That’s enough,” she say, shoving her forearms in his chest. He holds on to her anyway, pulls her closer.

“I can’t show my big sister how happy I am to see her? Been back three days and you haven’t even hugged my neck yet.” He swishes his sweaty hair in her chest, laughing, while the sweet funk of alcohol rises off of him.

“I told you to stay out of the cordial,” Annie say.

“Always telling me what to do,” he say and drops her directly. He reaches in his coat pocket for a metal flask, undoes the lid and swallows a few gulps of something strong before teasing the flask under her nose. “It’ll sweeten your disposition.”

“Doctor,” Annie say, clasping her hands in front of herself. “Wouldn’t you like to use the washroom? Down the hall. Last door on the right.” She waits for Doctor to understand that her question wasn’t a question and when he finally do, he nods before he go.

George strolls around the room, drunk-grinning, pretending to ponder the sad people on the wall. “When’s your husband supposed to be back?” That’s the third time he’s asked about Richard in as many days.

Richard’s been gone for years and with no word to Annie on when he plans to come home. George has known the fact since the first time he asked, but annoys Annie with the question anyway.

“Bessie, come and help me fold these clothes,” Annie say, reaching for her basket of folding.

Annie shoves a blouse into Bessie’s hand and takes a pair of bloomers for herself to fold.

George twists his flask open again but before he sips, he stops and squeezes out gas from his backside. A shame, really. George used to be a pretty boy. Striking, even. And polite. The sight of him—dark-haired with eyes the color of purplish stones—used to be enough to stop me from doing my rounds through this property. I’d stop just to stare at him.

He was twelve years old when I first took notice. It was the year after I first come. He had an odd beauty about him, his features verging on manhood, even at that age. He was slim like a boy, and poised like a young man, but his Adam’s apple was pronounced like full-grown, his lips a dark-pink rose. Girls had noticed him before he’d noticed himself. At twelve, his focus was still on building forts and wooden trinkets. Inventions, he called ’em, and his imagination took him everywhere he needed to be, gave him a place to escape.

Josey coughs from the bed, hard and will-less, the bout sending coffee through her nose and out her mouth. Annie tells Bessie, “Give her a cloth and a little more coffee. Slower this time.”

George takes a sip from his flask, then strolls around to the bed, sits down on it, falls back like it’s his, stares up at Josey. “Goddamn, they’re looking more and more like us every day. Pretty soon we’ll all be coons.”

“Off the bed,” Annie says.

“Me, off the bed,” George laughs. “What in the hell will your husband say when he finds out you’ve been having niggers in the guest bed?”

“What I do in my house is nobody’s business,” Annie say.

“Hell,” he say, getting up. “If you like it, I love it. Just keep it out of my room.” He takes a mouthful of drink and squints from the burn.

“I heard about what happened in Montgomery,” Annie say, folding a pair of britches.

George’s manner changes. He slowly puts the lid back on his flask and slides it in his pocket. He walks back to the sad people like he ain’t seen the painting before. “Is that right?” he say.

“I know what the authorities said . . . ,” Annie say.

“All I did was give the girl a toy.”

“You were the last one to be seen with her.”

“Prove it,” he say, leaning back against the wall. “You believe ’em?”

“Doesn’t matter what I believe. No one is asking anymore and that other girl, the Humphrey girl from up the road, moved away years ago.”

“That wasn’t true, neither. Children will say anything.”

“She was five years old, George!”

“More reason for her to lie. Play make-believe. Children will say anything.” He pushes hisself off the wall. “I’m beginning to believe you’d trust strangers before your own brother.”

“I never said I believed them.”

“Is that why you sent me away?”

“That school was good for you,” Annie say. “Besides, it wasn’t me who sent you.”

“You didn’t stop it either . . .”

“Our parents knew what was best for you.”

“They’re dead,” he said. “But I’m still here, Annie.”

“That school was supposed to make you . . .”

“Distant?”

“Happy.”

“You used to hate that place as much as I did, Annie. You used to say it kept us apart. Best friends, remember? Then you let your husband send me there again.”

“University is not the same. That was a privilege. You could have come home anytime.”

“That’s funny.”

“Before then, you were a child. You needed something we couldn’t give you. It helped you to mature . . .”

“You stopped writing—”

“To become a man.”

“Never an explanation why.”

She shakes a pair of trousers from the basket. “I’m happy you’re home now. That’s all that matters.”

“That’s all? You mean, that’s all for you. You didn’t have to go through it. That’s all. Telling me that I need to move on, that’s all.” His face reddens and his cheeks quiver. “Eight years, Annie! Three weeks it took for me to get the news that Mother and Father died.”

“They were my parents, too!”

“And you didn’t send for me . . .”

“You’d only been there a few months. With everything that had just happened to you, your state . . . I didn’t know what it’d do to you. It was the best decision . . .”

He rips the trousers from her hand. “What happened to you?”

She closes her eyes. “I wanted to protect you. You weren’t ready. You needed to mature. Children have to grow up sometime, George. That’s what they do.”

“I suppose I didn’t do that right, either.” He flicks the trousers to the floor.

The doctor knocks on the door, opening it at the same time as he knocks. He walks in and leans over Josey, laying his head on her chest, listening. “Her vapors have gone.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Annie say.

He gathers his tools.

“And, Annie?” Doctor say. “You should reconsider your position on the matter. These negroes have no place in the house like this.”