The Invention Of Wings Part 17

I wrote a solicitous letter to Mother, explaining the unexplainable: Father had died and I wasn't coming home straight away. I need to grieve alone.

Mother's letter in response arrived in September. Her small, tight scrawl was thick with fury and ink. My behavior was shameful, selfish, cruel. "How could you abandon me in my darkest hour?" she wrote.

I burned her letter in the fireplace, but her words left contusions of guilt. There was truth in what she'd written. I was selfish. I'd abandoned my mother. Nina, as well. I anguished over it, but I didn't pack my trunk.

I spent my days as a malingerer. I slept whenever I was tired, often in the middle of the day. Mrs. Todd gave up on my presence at appointed meals and reserved my food in the kitchen. I would take it to my room at odd hours, then wash my own dishes. There were few books to read, but I wrote in a little journal I'd bought, mostly about Father's last days, and I practiced my scripture verses with a set of Bible flash cards. I walked up and down the streets beneath the sycamores as they turned blonde, then bronze, venturing further and further each day-to Was.h.i.+ngton Square, Philosophical Hall, Old St. Mary's, and once, quite by accident, The Man Full of Trouble Tavern where I heard shouting and crockery breaking.

One Sunday when the air was crisp and razor-cut with light, I walked ankle-deep in fallen leaves all the way to Arch Street, where I came upon a Quaker meetinghouse of such size I paused to stare. In Charleston, we had one teeny Friends House, something of a dilapidation, to which, it was said, no one came but two cantankerous old men. As I stood there, people began to stream from the central door, the women and girls clad in dismal, excoriated dresses that made us Presbyterians seem almost flamboyant. Even the children wore drab coats and grave little faces. I observed them against the red bricks, the steeple-less roof, the plain shuttered windows, and I felt repelled. I'd heard they sat in silence, waiting for someone to utter his most inward intimacies with G.o.d out loud for everyone to hear. It sounded terrifying to me.

Notwithstanding the Quakers, those days were very much like the moments I'd floated in the ocean at Long Branch beneath the white flag. A vitality inhabited those weeks, almost like a second heart beating in my chest. I'd found I could manage quite well on my own. Had it not been for Father's death, I might have been happy.

When November arrived, however, I knew I couldn't remain any longer. Winter was coming. The sea would become treacherous. I packed my trunk.

The s.h.i.+p was a cutter, which gave me hope of reaching Charleston in ten days. I'd booked first-cla.s.s pa.s.sage, but my stateroom was dark and cramped with nothing but a wallmere closet and a two-foot berth. As often as possible, I hazarded above deck to feel the cold, bracing winds, huddling with the other pa.s.sengers on the lee side.

On the third morning, I woke near dawn and dressed quickly, not bothering to braid my hair. The stale, suffocating room felt like a sepulcher, and I surfaced above deck with my carrot hair flying, expecting to be alone, yet there was another already at the rail. Pulling up the hood of my cloak, I sought a spot away from him.

A tiny, white ball of moon was still in the sky, clinging to the last bit of night. Below it a thin line of blue light ran the length of the horizon. I watched it grow.

"How are thee?" a man's voice said, using the formal Quaker greeting I'd often heard in Philadelphia.

As I turned to him, strands of my hair slipped from the hood and whipped wildly about my face. ". . . I'm fine, sir."

He had a dramatic cleft in his chin and piercing brown eyes over which his brows slanted upward like the slopes of a tiny hill. He wore simple breeches with silver knee buckles, a dark coat, and a three-cornered hat. A lock of hair, dark as coal, tossed on his forehead. I guessed him to be some years older than I, perhaps ten or more. I'd seen him on deck before, and on the first night, in the s.h.i.+p's dining quarters with his wife and eight children, six boys, two girls. I'd thought then how tired she looked.

"My name is Israel Morris," he said.

Later, I would wonder if the Fates had placed me there, if they'd been the ones who'd kept me lingering in Philadelphia for three months until this particular s.h.i.+p sailed, though of course, we Presbyterians believed it was G.o.d who arranged propitious encounters like these, not mythological women with spindles, threads, and shears.

The mainsails were snapping and wheezing, making a great racket. I told him my name, and then we stood for a moment, gazing at the rising brightness, at the seabirds suddenly making soaring arcs in the sky. He told me his wife, Rebecca, was quarantined in their cabin tending their youngest two, who'd become sick with dysentery. He was a broker, a commission merchant, and though he was modest, I could tell he'd been prosperous at it.

In turn, I told him about the sojourn I'd made with my father and his unexpected death. The words slid fluidly off my tongue, with only an occasional stammer. I could only attribute it to the sweep and flow of water around us.

"Please, accept my sympathies," he said. "It must have been difficult, caring for your father alone. Could your husband not travel with you?"

"My husband? Oh, Mr. Morris, I'm not married."

His face flushed.

Wanting to ease the moment, I said, "I a.s.sure you, it's not a matter that concerns me much."

He laughed and asked about my family, about our life in Charleston. When I told him about the house on East Bay and the plantation in the upcountry, his lively expression died away. "You own slaves then?"

". . . My family does, yes. But I, myself, don't condone it."

"Yet you cast your lot with those who do?"

I bristled. ". . . They are my family, sir. What would you have me do?"

He gazed at me with kindness and pity. "To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil."

I turned from him toward the gla.s.sy water. What kind of man would speak like this? A Southern gentleman would as soon swallow his tongue.

"Forgive my bluntness," he said. "I'm a Quaker. We believe slavery to be an abomination. It's an important part of our faith."

". . . I happen to be Presbyterian, and while we don't have an anti-slavery doctrine like you, it's an important part of my faith, as well."

"Of course. My apologies. I'm afraid there's a zealot in me I'm at a loss to control." He pulled at the rim of his hat and smiled. "I must see about breakfast for my family. I hope we might speak again, Miss Grimke. Good day."

I thought of nothing but him for the next two days. He disturbed nearly every waking minute, and even my sleep. I was drawn to him in a deeper way than I'd been to Burke, and that's what frightened me. I was drawn to his brutal conscience, to his repulsive Quakerism, to the force of his ideas, the force of him. He was married, and for that I was grateful. For that, I was safe.

He approached me in the dining room on the sixth day of the voyage. The s.h.i.+p was scudding before a gale and we'd been banned from above deck. "May I join you?" he asked.

". . . If you like." Heat flared in my chest. I felt it travel to my cheeks, turning them to crabapples. ". . . Are your children recovered? And your wife? Has she stayed well?"

"The sickness is making its way through all of the children now, but they're recovering thanks to Rebecca. We couldn't manage a single day without her. She is-" He broke off, but when I went on gazing at him expectantly, he finished his sentence. "The perfect mother."

Without his hat, he looked younger. Thatches and sprigs of black hair waved in random directions. He had tired smudges beneath his eyes, and I imagined they were from helping his wife nurse the children, but he pulled a worn leather book from his vest, saying he'd stayed up late in the night, reading. "It's the journal of John Woolman. He's a great defender of our faith."

As the conversation turned once again to Quakerism, he opened the book and read fragments to me, attempting to educate me about their beliefs. "Everyone is of equal worth," he said. "Our ministers are female as well as male."

"Female?" I asked so many questions about this oddity, he became amused.

"Should I a.s.sume that female worth, like abolition, is also part of your personal faith?" he said.

". . . I've long wished for a vocation of my own."

"You're a rare woman."

"Some would say I'm not so much rare, as radical."

He smiled and his brows lifted on his forehead, their odd tilt deepening. "Is it possible a Quaker lurks beneath that Presbyterian skin of yours?"

"Not at all," I told him. But later, in private, I wasn't sure. To condemn slavery was one thing-that I could do in my own individual heart-but female ministers!

Throughout the few remaining days on s.h.i.+p, we continued our talks in the wind-pounded world above deck, as well as the dining quarters, where it smelled of boiled rice and cigars. We discussed not only the Quakers, but theology, philosophy, and the politics of emanc.i.p.ation. He was of the mind that abolition should be gradual. I argued it should be immediate. He'd found an intellectual companion in me, but I couldn't completely understand why he'd befriended me.

The last night aboard, Israel asked if I would come and meet his family in the dining room. His wife, Rebecca, held their youngest on her lap, a crying tot no more than three, whose red face bounced like a woodp.e.c.k.e.r against her shoulder. She was one of those slight, gossamer women, whose body seemed spun from air. Her hair was light as straw, drawn back and middle-parted with wisps falling about her face.

She patted the child's back. "Israel speaks highly of you. He says you've been kind enough to listen as he explained our faith. I hope he didn't tire you. He can be unrelenting." She smiled at me in a conspiratorial way.

I didn't want her to be so pretty and charming. ". . . Well, he was certainly thorough," I said, and her laughter gurgled up. I looked at Israel. He was beaming at her.

"If you return to the North, you must come and stay with us," Rebecca said, then she herded the children to their cabin.

Israel lingered a moment longer, pulling out John Woolman's journal. "Please accept it."

"But it's your own copy. I couldn't possibly take it."

"It would please me greatly-I'll get another when I return to Philadelphia. I only ask that after you read it, you write to me of your impressions." He opened the book and showed me a piece of paper on which he'd written his address.

That night, after I blew out the wick, I lay awake, thinking of the book tucked in my trunk and the address secreted inside. After you read it, write to me. The water moved beneath me, rus.h.i.+ng toward Charleston into the swaying dark.

Handful.

When they plan to sell you, the first thing they say is, go wash your teeth. That's what Aunt-Sister always told us. She said when the slaves got sold on the streets, the white men checked their teeth before anything else. None of us were thinking about teeth after master Grimke died, though. We thought life would go on in the same old grudgeries.

The lawyer showed up to read the will two days after Sarah got back from the North. We gathered in the dining room, every one of the Grimke children and every slave. Seemed odd to me why missus wanted us slaves here. We stood in a straight line in the back of the room, half-thinking we're part of the family.

Sarah was on one side of the table and Nina on the other. Sarah would look over at her sister with a sad smile, and Nina would glance away. Those two were in a miff.

Missus had on her nice black mourning dress. I wanted to tell her she needed to take it off and let Mariah launder it cause it had gray armpit rings. Seemed like she'd worn it every day since last August, but you couldn't tell her a thing. The woman got worse in her ways by the day.

The lawyer, his name was Mr. Huger, stood up with a handful of papers and said it was the last will and testament of John Faucheraud Grimke, drawn up last May. He read the wherefores, to wits, and hithermores. It was worse than the Bible.

Missus didn't get the house. That went to Henry, who wasn't past eighteen, but least she could stay in it till she died. "I leave her the household furniture, plate, plated ware, a carriage and two of my horses, the stock of liquors and provisions which shall be on hand at the time of my death." This went on and on. All the goods and chattels.

Then he read something that made the hairs on my arms raise. "She shall receive any six of my Negroes whom she shall choose, and the rest she will sell or disperse among my children, as she determines."

Binah was standing next to me. I heard her whisper, "Lord, no."

I looked down the row of slaves. There was just eleven of us now-Rosetta had pa.s.sed on in her sleep the year before.

She shall receive any six . . . the rest she will sell or disperse. Five of us were leaving.

Minta started to sniffle. Aunt-Sister said, "Hush up," but even her old eyes darted round, looking scared. She'd trained Phoebe too good. Tomfry was getting on with age, too, and Eli's fingers were twisted like tree twigs. Goodis and Sabe were still young, but you don't need two slaves in the stable for two horses. Prince was strong and worked the yard, but he had glum spells now, sitting and staring and blowing his nose on his s.h.i.+rt. Mariah was a good worker, and I figured she'd stay, but Binah, she moaned under her breath cause she was the nursery mauma and there was no more children to rear.

I said to myself, Missus will need a seamstress, but then I noticed the black dress again. From here on out, all she'd need was a few of those to wear, and she could hire somebody for that.

All of a sudden, Sarah said, ". . . Father couldn't have meant that!"

Missus shot her a look of venom. "Your father wrote the words himself, and we'll honor his wishes. We have no choice. Please allow Mr. Huger to continue."

When he started back reading, Sarah looked at me with the same sorrowful blue eyes she'd had the day she turned eleven years old and I was standing before her with the lavender ribbon round my neck. The world was a bashed-in place and she couldn't fix it.

In December, everybody was on their last nerve waiting for missus to say who'd go and who'd stay. If I was sold, how would mauma find me if she came back?

Every night I put a hot brick in my bed to keep my feet warm and lay there thinking how mauma was alive. Out there somewhere. I wondered if the man who bought her was kind. I wondered if he'd put her in the fields. Was she doing any sewing? Did she have my little brother or sister with her? Was she still wearing the pouch round her neck? I knew she'd get back here if she could. This was where her spirit was, in the tree. This was where I was.

Don't let me be the one that has to go.

Missus didn't have Christmas that year, but she said go ahead and have Jonkonnu if you want to. That was a custom that got started a few years back brought by the Jamaica slaves. Tomfry would dress up in a s.h.i.+rt and pants tattered with strips of bright cloth sewed on, and a stove pipe hat on his head-what we called the Ragman. We'd traipse behind him, singing and banging pots, winding to the back door. He'd knock and missus and everybody would come out and watch him dance. Then missus would hand out little gifts to us. Could be a coin or a new candle. Sometimes a scarf or a cob pipe. This was supposed to keep us happy.

We didn't expect to feel in the mood this year, but on Jonkonnu day, here came Tomfry in the yard, wearing his s.h.a.ggy outfit, and we made a lot of clatter and forgot our troubles for a minute.

Missus stepped out from the back door in the black dress with a basket of gifts, Sarah, Nina, Henry, and Charles behind her. They were trying to smile at us. Even Henry, who took after his mauma, looked like a grinning angel.

Tomfry did his jig. Twirled. Bounced. Wagged his arms. The ribbons whirled out, and when he was done, they clapped, and he took off the tall hat and rubbed the crust of gray on his scalp. Reaching in the basket, missus gave the women these nice fans made with painted paper. The men got two coins, not one.

The sky had been cast down all day, but now the sun broke free. Missus leaned on her gold-tip cane and squinted at us. She called out Tomfry's name. Then Binah. Eli. Prince. Mariah. She said, "I have something extra for you," and handed each one a jar of gargling oil.

"You've served me well," she told them. "Tomfry, you will go to John's household. Binah, you will go to Thomas. Eli, I'm sending you to Mary." Then she turned to Prince and Mariah. "I'm sorry to say you must be sold. It's not my wish, but it's necessary."

n.o.body spoke. The quiet sat on us like a stone you couldn't lift.

Mariah dropped down and walked on her knees to missus, crying for her to change her mind.

Missus wiped her eyes. Then she turned and went in the house followed by her sons, but Sarah and Nina stayed behind, their faces full of pity.

The axe didn't fall on me. Didn't my Lord deliver Handful? The axe didn't fall on Goodis either, and I felt surprise over the relief this caused me. But there was no G.o.d in any of it. Nothing but the four of them standing there, and Mariah, still on her knees. I couldn't bear to look at Tomfry with the hat squashed under his arm. Prince and Eli, studying the ground. Binah, holding her paper fan, staring at Phoebe. A daughter she'd never see again.

Missus doled out their jobs to the ones of us left. Sabe took over for Tomfry as the butler. Goodis had the work yard, the stable, and drove the carriage. Phoebe got the laundry, and Minta and I got Eli's cleaning duties.

When the first of the year came, missus set me to work on the English chandelier in the drawing room. She said Eli hadn't s.h.i.+ned it proper in ten years. It had twenty-eight arms with crystal shades and teardrops of cut-gla.s.s hanging down. Using the ladder and wearing white cotton gloves, I took it apart and laid it out on the table and s.h.i.+ned it with ammonia. Then, I couldn't figure out how to put the thing back together.

I found Sarah in her room, reading a leather book. "We'll figure it out," she said. We hadn't talked much since she got back-she seemed woebegone all the time, always stuck in that same book.

After we finally got the chandelier back on the ceiling in one piece, tears flared up in her eyes. I said, "You sad about your daddy?"

She answered me the strangest way, and I knew what she said was the real hurt she'd brought back with her. ". . . I'm twenty-seven years old, Handful, and this is my life now." She looked round the room, up at the chandelier, and back at me. ". . . This is my life. Right here for the rest of my days." Her voice broke and she covered her mouth with her hand.

She was trapped same as me, but she was trapped by her mind, by the minds of the people round her, not by the law. At the African church, Mr. Vesey used to say, Be careful, you can get enslaved twice, once in your body and once in your mind.

I tried to tell her that. I said, "My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round."

She blinked at me and the tears came again, s.h.i.+ning like cut-gla.s.s.

The day Binah left, I heard Phoebe crying all the way from the kitchen house.

Sarah.

1 February 1820.

Dear Israel, How often I have thought of our conversations on board s.h.i.+p! I read the book you entrusted to me and my spirit was deeply kindled. There are so many things I wish to ask you! How I wish we were together again- 3 February 1820.

Dear Mr. Morris, After being away from the evils of slavery for six months, my mind burst with new horror at seeing it again on my return to Charleston. It was made all the worse upon reading the book you gave me. I have nowhere to turn but you- 10 February 1820.