“If they was made of brick, they wouldn’t melt every time it rained, and the field hands could keep them cabins of theirs heated even when it was pourin’. Maybe then they’d get themselves a full night of sleep.” My real mistake was glaring at him and asking: “You ever try workin’ sun to sun after getting only two hours of sleep, Mr. Johnson?”
That was when he grabbed my arm and had the two black foremen drag me off to the whipping barrel.
I struggled, of course, and even caught one of the foremen on the chin with my fist. But that made him throw me down in the dirt, and I broke a tooth. I spit it out at him. The other foreman gave me a kick on my backside for that and told me to just be still or he’d kill me with his own two hands.
“For how long you gonna hurt your own people?” I asked him.
He kicked at me again. He aimed for my head but only got my shoulder. I flapped my hand at him and shouted up at Mr. Johnson, “You gonna pay for this!”
He just laughed and told the foremen to tie me down. I shouted for help as loud as I could. I wanted Lily, Weaver, Crow, and the others to see what they were doing to me.
“Bite down hard, Morri chile,” Lily hollered to me as she came running.
“T’ink a somet’in’ good,” Weaver shouted from a long ways off. He must have been running in from the fields. “You’s sittin’ in a garden, Morri girl. You’s surrounded by flow’rs.”
I pictured what he told me, but the second stroke chased all the roses right out of me. I was nowhere but where I was. The stinging on my back felt like the skin was coming off.
“Help!” I shouted. “Help me. God help me!”
I squeezed my gut tight, but by the seventh stripe I’d peed on myself right good. And I was crying like a baby from the pain. Then I started whispering a verse from the Psalms over and over to myself. Just like I always do when I’m in big trouble:
The last stroke I remembered came across the back of my neck. That one was a special gift from Mr. Johnson, I reckon. But I like to think that that mean-spirited lash started my dreams looking for a way out of River Bend. Because it was right after that day that I started seeing that northern city where the snow was always falling.
I told my father right away about my being lashed when he got back from the city, because there was no way I could hide my wounds and the gap where my tooth was gone. But I told him I didn’t mind. It made me more like the others and I was glad for that. He paced round and round my room while I spoke, then hollered so loud for Lily that she came running in.
“Take care of my child,” he told her.
Lily held me back from following him outside, saying I’d only make things worse. Later, I heard from Crow that Papa stepped right up to Mr. Johnson on the piazza, shook his fist at him, and said that if he ever touched me again, his body would be feeding worms within the week.
“I’ll neither strike you nor fire a shot,” he said. “But you will die in such pain that they’ll need to gag you so whoever the new master is will be able to sleep.”
Mr. Johnson laughed and told Papa to shut his nigger mouth, but the truth is he never dared lash me again — at least not while my father remained with us at River Bend.
XXXV
I’m going to have to tell you now about how my father ended up coming to South Carolina, since the way I see it, that sent everything else rolling toward the future that’s come to pass.
Back in December of 1806, Papa and the Portuguese man who’d brought him to Europe were visiting England. The man, Mr. James Stewart, had a meeting one morning he couldn’t miss and asked to meet my papa at two o’clock that afternoon at a home near a large palace. When Papa arrived at the place, he was shown into a small, hot room by a crooked old lady. Three white men came barging in right away and tied his wrists and ankles, then stuffed a filthy rag in his mouth and covered his head with a sack.
When Mr. Stewart arrived, he must have been told that my father never reached there. Papa never saw him again.
The next morning he was driven to a stinking room and tied to a wooden column. The sack was removed from his head. Slivers of light shone in through a tiny window. The floor was tilting and the ceiling was real low. Men were walking above him.
He came to understand he was on a ship, below the main deck. It was so cold that his teeth started chattering a whole conversation.
Two goats and a cow were put in there with him. The sailors fed him and the animals nothing but biscuits and hay. He begged to see the sun, since no one from southern Africa can stand a whole day in the dark, but they weren’t about to let him go up on deck. He drank water from the same bowl as the animals till one of the sailors felt sorry for him and gave him a jug. He slept right up close to his companions so they could keep him warm.
It was then that Mantis appeared to my papa in a dream. Crawling to his ear and lifting up his heart-shaped head, he whispered, “Tsamma, they will want to learn the secrets of the Bushmen. Say nothing.” He then crept off.
So it was that Papa decided to never talk to the Captain or the crew.
Why that insect-god left my father all alone is a question I can’t answer. Maybe he didn’t want to be trapped in the dark below deck, where the stars and moon couldn’t be seen.
This first voyage lasted two or three weeks — my father lost track of time. During storms, his desire to follow the thunder and lightning was fierce. Papa tugged at his manacles and made his wrists and ankles bleed. One of the goats licked at his wounds.
Papa sang at night — songs he’d learned with his family in Portugal. But misery weighed him down during the day. He imagined the stars hunting his pain. And though they could find it, they had lost their aim. Their arrows missed him.
The weather grew powerful hot. The cow and the goats were killed and cut up so that the crew could have fresh meat.
When the ship reached shore, Papa was chained on deck to a mast. He saw a stone fort and many small houses. The Captain told him the ship was now on the west coast of Africa. If he was thinking about trying to escape, he ought to change his mind,
Africans in chains carried boxes of rum, wine, gunpowder, and cotton cloth from the ship to the wharf. Papa learned that these were to be given to the local kings in return for slaves.
When my papa told that to me, I remembered my mamma saying that she had been traded for two yards of indigo-dyed cloth.
That evening, Papa was chained below deck once again. Maybe fifty or sixty slaves joined him. He could not understand their language. There was no room for any of them to move. Then they got on their way again. For many weeks this time.
Papa said what he remembered most was the thirst. It was worse than the three days he’d walked in the summer desert as a boy to escape the Dutch guns. Then he knew where to look for water, could feel it beneath his feet, resting cool in the heart of the earth.
But even on board the ship he knew that he wouldn’t die. Because death did not ride the waves. And did not wear shackles. Any death that came for a Bushman would never ask him to stay inside a belly of wood while lightning was painting the sky the white of bone.
The Time of the Hyena was on my papa. He had visions of the great flood that almost cost Mantis his life, when he was saved by a bee. Sometimes he spoke to Noah, who told him that this time they would not reach dry land and that all the animals would vanish from the earth. Only the fish would remain. And they would not remember the Bushmen or even Africa. All the stories of the First People would be forgotten.
