pull him back to us — back to life. So I told him some of the stories that Papa had entrusted to me and that he might have even heard before, when he was a boy. I was hoping that Mantis could save him, even if the surgeon and I couldn’t.
I thought that being free would fill me with joy, but I don’t think I was ever so tired as I was over those next days heading up to New York. I was weighted down with all the muddy soil of River Bend, clinging to every part of me.
In the early afternoon of our first full day at sea, John woke up, but he was real groggy. I made him drink a glass of water and eat some bread, since those were the surgeon’s orders. That evening his pulse started racing and his face was so hot I thought he’d burn to ash. At times, he got the chills too. When we were left alone I did what my papa used to do with me and spooned up behind him in his bed.
On our second day out to sea, his left arm grew
I wasn’t allowed to see him that day, so it was only the next morning I could go in. From the way he looked at me, I could see he was back with the living. “Are we free?” he whispered. He spoke as if he didn’t dare believe we’d made it.
He made me cry — because there he was without an arm and he’d used the word
John wanted to talk after that, as a way of forgetting what had happened to him, I think. So while he lay back in bed, we spoke about all sorts of things, including who might have betrayed us. I told him about Beaufort and the two men who’d helped us get our arms, Mr. Trevor and Mr. Rollins. He had a hard time believing that a Negro or mulatto would betray us.
“I don’t know about that,” I replied. “There’s plenty of us who just want to look good in a white man’s eyes.”
John said that Mr. Trevor might have needed to confide in a good many folks in order to get us our guns. Any one of them might have betrayed us and earned a few coins for his trouble.
One thing was for sure. Master Edward must have known for at least a few days what we had in mind. Maybe even for weeks. That was why he enjoyed having me flogged so much. He was getting revenge before the fact.
We reached New York Harbor two days later. John was fighting the pain as best he could but still couldn’t walk by himself, so Captain Ott had sailors carry him off the boat and put him in a carriage bound for his friend Violeta’s house. The rest of us walked behind. We had no bags, no money, no map. The folks in New York stared fierce at us, worse even than the British, and they whispered too. We were looking at them — and at the brick buildings, and at the carriages, and at the low gray sky, and at the church spires, and at one another — as if this was all impossible.
But it was possible, sure enough. By this time, the astonishing thing wasn’t that we’d made it up North, but that New York had been here the whole fifteen years I’d lived at River Bend, just waiting for me to come. Everything had always been waiting.
LV
When I woke to myself, I tumbled into a panic so wide and deep that I thought it would swallow me whole and never give me up. How would I go on without an arm?
I kept very still, but I knew that wishing to be the man I had been was useless — there was no magic that would take me back to that time.
The ache of not being whole made me so sick that I had to reach for my basin. Thankfully I was alone, so no one heard my sobs. I muffled them with my pillow, rocking back and forth like a child.
Morri came to me while I was in this fragile and confused state. I gripped her hand and asked if we were truly free, since that was the only thing I could think of that might make my loss worthwhile. She said we were, and she lifted my hand to her cheek. I was moved that she had come to trust me, but I was so envious of her completeness of body that I could no longer look her straight in the eyes.
After she left me and I had another good cry, I decided to try to imitate a man with two able arms. Over the next days at sea, despite the constant waves of pain breaking over my shoulder, I smiled while conversing with Morri, Captain Ott, and the amiable crew, as though my stump were but a superficial wound. I lifted my glass to the surgeon and thanked him heartily for his swift work on my behalf. I knew this was a lie I’d pay for sooner or later, but I could not show them my true feelings for fear of going mad with grief.
It was a tremendous relief, of course, that Mother would not have to visit my grave, that my girls still had one of their parents. Yet I knew I should have to rethink a great many things about my life. And though I expressed my heartfelt thanks to Morri and the others when she told me how I had been carried by the slaves to the rowboats for the journey downriver, a shadowy part of me cursed everything and everyone.
Whenever any of the refugees came to visit me in my cabin, I wondered what being out of River Bend meant to them. Most spoke in happy voices, but they were plainly frightened of the prospect of a life where their own choices would command their destinies. Morri dropped my gold coins into my hand, saying that she’d not been obliged to offer any bribes.
Martha and her sons were disconsolate about having lost their beloved Weaver, and they only appeared in my cabin twice, to express their regret at my having been wounded and to join the celebration hosted by Captain Ott on our last night at sea. At our party, little Mimi asked if my arm had been given a proper burial. I did not know, I told her, but I hoped it was at peace wherever it was. Later, the surgeon told me it had been tossed overboard.
Sitting with Morri, I often pondered the mystery of Midnight’s disappearance. “We will start looking for your papa as soon as we get to New York,” I assured her.
“I’m afraid he’s dead, John. We have to face it.”
“No!” I shouted, letting my emotions escape my rigid control for a moment. “If he’s dead … if he’s dead, then why have I lost my arm? It can’t be!”
I was screaming so loud that Morri called for help. The surgeon came in and forced two spoonfuls of medicine into me. I fell into a slumber in which my regrets seemed to seep into everything around me. In one dream, Daniel and I were at the bird market in Porto. He said that my having only one arm was why I’d been unable to save him from drowning. When we returned to my home to eat supper with my parents, we realized we’d made a mistake: Our house looked more like a dank cave. We didn’t know where we were. Then Daniel said we were in the belly of a giant beast — half-lion, half-bird. We heard the wind howling outside, and we knew we were flying, but we could not see where we were going.
My shame made me wish to lock my door the closer we came to New York, for I’d soon have to face Violeta. I regretted now not having made love with her before, as a whole man.
There are some women who are all efficiency when faced with the difficulties of others, and Violeta proved herself to be one of these gifted individuals from the moment I appeared on her doorstep. After her first gasp of horror at my misfortune, her great jade eyes awash with tears, she transformed herself into my nurse. “You are home now,” she said, bending down to kiss my brow, “and I shall see you well if it is the last thing I do.”
It’s difficult for me to speak about the initial relationships Violeta established with the former slaves of River Bend, since over those first three weeks I was largely confined to my room. I could not help but notice, however, that Morri became taciturn and fidgety whenever she and Violeta found themselves with me at the same time. I could see in the girl’s worried face that she had sensed the clash of emotions inside our hostess.
