gone.
Instead of lying on the floor of my living room, I was lying on the ground in the sun, almost directly over a hill of large black ants.
Before I could get up, someone kicked me, fell on me heavily. I had the breath knocked out of me for a moment.
“Dana!” said Rufus’s voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I looked up, saw him sprawled across me where he had fallen. We got up just as something began to bite me—the ants, probably. I brushed myself off quickly.
“I said what are you doing here!” He sounded angry. He looked no older than he had been when I’d last seen him, but something was wrong with him. He looked haggard and weary—looked as though it had been too long since he’d slept last, looked as though it would be even longer before he was able to sleep again.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Rufe. I never do until I find out
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what’s wrong with you.”
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He stared at me for a long moment. His eyes were red and under them were dark smudges. Finally, he grabbed me by the arm and led me back the way he had come. We were on the plantation not far from the house. Nothing looked changed. I saw two of Nigel’s sons wrestling, rolling around on the ground. They were the two I had been teaching, and they were no bigger than they had been when I saw them last.
“Rufe, how long have I been gone?”
He didn’t answer. He was leading me toward the barn, I saw, and apparently I wasn’t going to learn anything until I got there.
He stopped at the barn door and pushed me through it. He didn’t fol- low me in.
I looked around, seeing very little at first as my eyes became accus- tomed to the dimmer light. I turned to the place where I had been strung up and whipped—and jumped back in surprise when I saw that someone was hanging there. Hanging by the neck. A woman.
Alice.
I stared at her not believing, not wanting to believe … I touched her and her flesh was cold and hard. The dead gray face was ugly in death as it had never been in life. The mouth was open. The eyes were open and staring. Her head was bare and her hair loose and short like mine. She had never liked to tie it up the way other women did. It was one of the things that had made us look even more alike—the only two consistently bareheaded women on the place. Her dress was dark red and her apron clean and white. She wore shoes that Rufus had had made specifically for her, not the rough heavy shoes or boots other slaves wore. It was as though she had dressed up and combed her hair and then …
I wanted her down.
I looked around, saw that the rope had been tied to a wall peg, thrown over a beam. I broke my fingernails, trying to untie it until I remembered my knife. I got it from my bag and cut Alice down.
She fell stiffly like something that would break when it hit the floor. But she landed without breaking and I took the rope from her neck and closed her eyes. For a time, I just sat with her, holding her head and cry- ing silently.
Eventually, Rufus came in. I looked up at him and he looked away. “Did she do this to herself ?” I asked.
“Yes. To herself.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer. “Rufe?”
THE ROPE 249
He shook his head slowly from side to side. “Where are her children?”
He turned and walked out of the barn.
I straightened Alice’s body and her dress and looked around for some- thing to cover her with. There was nothing.
I left the barn and went across an expanse of grass to the cookhouse. Sarah was there chopping meat with that frightening speed and co- ordination of hers. I had told her once that it always looked as though she was about to cut off a finger or two, and she had laughed. She still had all ten.
“Sarah?” There was such a difference in our ages now that everyone else my age called her “Aunt Sarah.” I knew it was a title of respect in this culture, and I respected her. But I couldn’t quite manage “Aunt” any more than I could have managed “Mammy.” She didn’t seem to mind.
She looked up. “Dana! Girl, what are you doing back here? What
Marse Rufe done now?”
“I’m not sure. But, Sarah, Alice is dead.”
Sarah put down her cleaver and sat on the bench next to the table. “Oh
Lord. Poor child. He finally killed her.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I went over and sat beside her. “I think she did it to herself. Hung herself. I just took her down.”
“He did it!” she hissed. “Even if he didn’t put the rope on her, he drove her to it. He sold her babies!”
I frowned. Sarah had spoken clearly enough, loudly enough, but for a moment, I didn’t understand. “Joe and Hagar? His children?”
“What he care ’bout that?”
“But … he did care. He was going to … Why would he do such a thing?”
“She run off.” Sarah faced me. “You must have known she was goin’. You and her was like sisters.”
I didn’t need the reminder. I got up, feeling that I had to move around, distract myself, or I would cry again.
“You sure fought like sisters,” said Sarah. “Always fussin’ at each other, stompin’ away from each other, comin’ back. Right after you left, she knocked the devil out of a field hand who was runnin’ you down.”
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Had she? She would. Insulting me was her prerogative. No trespassing. I paced from the table to the hearth to a small work table. Back to Sarah.
“Dana, where is she?” “In the barn.”
“He’ll give her a big funeral.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s funny. I thought she was finally settlin’ down with him—getting not to mind so much.”
“If she was, I don’t think she could have forgiven herself for it.” Sarah shrugged.
“When she ran … did he beat her?”
“Not much. ’Bout much as old Marse Tom whipped you that time.” That gentle spanking, yes.
“The whipping didn’t matter much. But when he took away her chil- dren, I thought she was go’ die right there. She was screaming and cry- ing and carrying on. Then she got sick and I had to take care of her.” Sarah was silent for a moment. “I didn’t want to even be close to her. When Marse Tom sold my babies, I just wanted to lay down and die. See- ing her like she was brought all that back.”
Carrie came in then, her face wet with tears. She came up to me with- out surprise, and hugged me.
“You know?” I asked.
She nodded, then made her sign for white people and pushed me toward the door. I went.
I found Rufus at his desk in the library fondling a hand gun.
He looked up and saw me just as I was about to withdraw. It had occurred to me suddenly, certainly, that this was where he had been head- ing when he called me. What had his call been, then? A subconscious desire for me to stop him from shooting himself ?
“Come in, Dana.” His voice sounded empty and dead.
I pulled my old Windsor chair up to his desk and sat down. “How could you do it, Rufe?”
He didn’t answer.
“Your son and your daughter … How could you sell them?” “I didn’t.”
That stopped me. I had been prepared for almost any other answer—
or no answer. But a denial … “But … but …” “She ran away.”
“I know.”
THE ROPE 251
“We were getting along. You know. You were here. It was good. Once, when you were gone, she came to my room. She came on her own.”
“Rufe …?”
“Everything was all right. I even went on with Joe’s lessons. Me! I told her I would free both of them.”
“She didn’t believe you. You wouldn’t put anything into writing.” “I would have.”
I shrugged. “Where are the children, Rufe?” “In Baltimore with my mother’s sister.”
“But … why?”
“To punish her, scare her. To make her see what could happen if she didn’t … if she tried to leave me.”
“Oh God! But you could have at least brought them back when she got
