A Mercy (12 page)

You never tell me that and it is a good thing to know. If my mother is not dead she can be teaching me these things.

I believe I am the only one who falls asleep and I wake in shame because outside the animals are already lowing. Tiny baas come from the kid as the Widow picks it up in her arms and takes it outside to nurse the dam. When she returns she unshutters both windows and leaves the door wide open. Two geese waddle in followed by a strutting hen. Another flies through a window joining the search for scraps. I ask permission to use the commode behind a hempen curtain. As I finish and step out I see Daughter Jane holding her face in her hands while the Widow freshens the leg wounds. New strips of blood gleam among the dry ones. A goat steps
in and moves toward the straw nibbling nibbling while Daughter Jane whimpers. After the bloodwork is done to her satisfaction the Widow pushes the goat out the door.

At table for a breakfast of clabber and bread the Widow and Daughter Jane put their palms together, bow their heads and murmur. I do likewise, whispering the prayer Reverend Father taught me to say morning and night my mother repeating with me. Pater Noster.… At the end I raise my hand to touch my forehead and catch Daughter Jane’s frown. She shakes her head meaning no. So I pretend I am adjusting my cap. The Widow spoons jam onto the clabber and we two eat. Daughter Jane refuses so we eat what she will not. Afterwards the Widow goes to the fireplace and swings the kettle over the fire. I take the bowls and spoons from the table to the closet where a basin of water sits on a narrow bench. I rinse and wipe each piece carefully. The air is tight. Water rises to a boil in the kettle hanging in the fireplace. I turn and see its steam forming shapes as it curls against the stone. One shape looks like the head of a dog.

We all hear footsteps climbing the path. I am still busy in the closet, and although I cannot see who enters, I hear the talk. The Widow offers the visitors seating. They refuse. A man’s voice says this is preliminary yet witnesses are several. Widow interrupts him saying her daughter’s eye is askew as God made it and it has no special powers. And look, she says, look at her wounds. God’s son bleeds. We bleed. Demons never.

I step into the room. Standing there are a man, three
women and a little girl who reminds me of myself when my mother sends me away. I am thinking how sweet she seems when she screams and hides behind the skirts of one of the women. Then each visitor turns to look at me. The women gasp. The man’s walking stick clatters to the floor causing the remaining hen to squawk and flutter. He retrieves his stick, points it at me saying who be this? One of the women covers her eyes saying God help us. The little girl wails and rocks back and forth. The Widow waves both hands saying she is a guest seeking shelter from the night. We accept her how could we not and feed her. Which night the man asks. This one past she answers. One woman speaks saying I have never seen any human this black. I have says another, this one is as black as others I have seen. She is Afric. Afric and much more, says another. Just look at this child says the first woman. She points to the little girl shaking and moaning by her side. Hear her. Hear her. It is true then says another. The Black Man is among us. This is his minion. The little girl is inconsolable. The woman whose skirts she clings to takes her outside where she is quickly quiet. I am not understanding anything except that I am in danger as the dog’s head shows and Mistress is my only defense. I shout, wait. I shout, please sir. I think they have shock that I can talk. Let me show you my letter I say quieter. It proves I am nobody’s minion but my Mistress. As fast as I can I remove my boot and roll down my stocking. The women stretch their mouths, the man looks away and then slowly back. I pull out Mistress’ letter and offer it but no one will touch it. The man orders me to place it on the table but
he is afraid to break the seal. He tells the Widow to do it. She picks at the wax with her fingernails. When it falls away she unfolds the paper. It is too thick to stay flat by itself. Everyone including Daughter Jane who rises from her bed stares at the markings upside down and it is clear only the man is lettered. Holding the tip of his walking stick down on the paper he turns it right side up and holds it there as if the letter can fly away or turn into ashes without flame before his eyes. He leans low and examines it closely. Then he picks it up and reads aloud.

Other than a small sound from Daughter Jane all is quiet. The man looks at me, looks again at the letter, back at me back at the letter. Again at me, once more at the letter. You see, says the Widow. He ignores her and turns to two women whispering to them. They point me to a door that opens onto a storeroom and there, standing among carriage boxes and a spinning wheel, they tell me to take off my clothes. Without touching
they tell me what to do. To show them my teeth, my tongue. They frown at the candle burn on my palm, the one you kissed to cool. They look under my arms, between my legs. They circle me, lean down to inspect my feet. Naked under their examination I watch for what is in their eyes. No hate is there or scare or disgust but they are looking at me my body across distances without recognition. Swine look at me with more connection when they raise their heads from the trough. The women look away from my eyes the way you say I am to do with the bears so they will not come close to love and play. Finally they tell me to dress and leave the room shutting the door behind them. I put on my clothes. I hear the quarreling. The little girl is back, not sobbing now but saying it scares me it scares me. A woman’s voice asks would Satan write a letter. Lucifer is all deceit and trickery says another. But a woman’s life is at stake says the Widow, who will the Lord punish then? The man’s voice booms. We will relay this to the others he says. We will study on it, consult and pray and return with our answer. It is not clear it seems whether or no I am the Black Man’s minion. I step into the room and the little girl screams and flails her arms. The women surround her and rush out. The man says not to leave the house. He takes the letter with him. The Widow follows him down the path pleading, pleading.

She returns to say they are wanting time to discuss more among themselves. She has hope because of the letter. Daughter Jane laughs. Widow Ealing kneels to pray. She prays a long time then stands saying I have to see someone. I need his witness and his help.

Who, asks Daughter Jane.

The sheriff says the Widow.

Daughter Jane curls her mouth behind her mother’s back as she leaves.

I am hung with fear watching Daughter Jane attend her leg wounds. The sun is high and still the Widow does not return. We wait. By and by the sun slows down. Daughter Jane boils duck eggs and when cool wraps them in a square of cloth. She folds a blanket and hands it to me, motions with one finger to follow. We leave the house, scurry around to the back. All manner of fowl cluck and fly from our feet. We run through the pasture. The nanny goat turns to look. The billy does not. A bad sign. We squeeze between the fence slats and run into the wood. Now we walk, softly, Daughter Jane leading the way. The sun empties itself, pouring what is left through tree shadow. Birds and small animals eat and call to one another.

We come to a stream, dry mostly, muddy elsewhere. Daughter Jane hands me the cloth of eggs. She explains how I am to go, where the trail will be that takes me to the post road that takes me to the hamlet where I hope you are. I say thank you and lift her hand to kiss it. She says no, I thank you. They look at you and forget about me. She kisses my forehead then watches as I step down into the stream’s dry bed. I turn and look up at her. Are you a demon I ask her. Her wayward eye is steady. She smiles. Yes, she says. Oh, yes. Go now.

I walk alone except for the eyes that join me on my journey. Eyes that do not recognize me, eyes that examine me for a tail, an extra teat, a man’s whip between my
legs. Wondering eyes that stare and decide if my navel is in the right place if my knees bend backward like the forelegs of a dog. They want to see if my tongue is split like a snake’s or if my teeth are filing to points to chew them up. To know if I can spring out of the darkness and bite. Inside I am shrinking. I climb the streambed under watching trees and know I am not the same. I am losing something with every step I take. I can feel the drain. Something precious is leaving me. I am a thing apart. With the letter I belong and am lawful. Without it I am a weak calf abandon by the herd, a turtle without shell, a minion with no telltale signs but a darkness I am born with, outside, yes, but inside as well and the inside dark is small, feathered and toothy. Is that what my mother knows? Why she chooses me to live without? Not the outside dark we share, a minha mãe and me, but the inside one we don’t. Is this dying mine alone? Is the clawing feathery thing the only life in me? You will tell me. You have the outside dark as well. And when I see you and fall into you I know I am live. Sudden it is not like before when I am always in fright. I am not afraid of anything now. The sun’s going leaves darkness behind and the dark is me. Is we. Is my home.

She did not mind when they called her Sorrow so long as Twin kept using her real name. It was easy to be confused. Sometimes it was the housewife or the sawyer or the sons who needed her; other times Twin wanted company to talk or walk or play. Having two names was convenient since Twin couldn’t be seen by anybody else. So if she were scrubbing clothes or herding geese and heard the name Captain used, she knew it was Twin. But if any voice called “Sorrow,” she knew what to expect. Preferable, of course, was when Twin called from the mill door or whispered up close into her ear. Then she would quit any chore and follow her identical self.

They had met beneath the surgeon’s hammock in the looted ship. All people were gone or drowned and she might have been too had she not been deep in an opium sleep in the ship’s surgery. Taken there to have the boils removed from her neck, she drank the mixture the surgeon
said would cut off the pain. So when the ship foundered she did not know it, and if any unmurdered hands and passengers escaped, she didn’t know that either. What she remembered was waking up after falling to the floor under the hammock all alone. Captain, her father, nowhere.

Before coming to the sawyer’s house, Sorrow had never lived on land. Now the memories of the ship, the only home she knew, seemed as stolen as its cargo: bales of cloth, chests of opium, crates of ammunition, horses and barrels of molasses. Even the trace of Captain was dim. After searching for survivors and food, fingering spilt molasses from the deck straight into her mouth, nights listening to cold wind and lapping sea, Twin joined her under the hammock and they have been together ever since. Both skinned down the broken mast and started walking a rocky shoreline. The bits of dead fish they ate intensified their thirst which they forgot at the sight of two bodies rocking in the surf. It was the bloat and sway that made them incautious enough to wade away from the rocks into a lagoon just when the tide was coming in. Both were swept out to deep water; both treaded as long as they could until the cold overcame their senses and they swam not landward, but toward the horizon. Very good luck, for they entered a neap rushing headlong toward shore and into a river beyond.

Sorrow woke up naked under a blanket, with a warm wet cloth on her forehead. The smell of milled wood was overwhelming. A woman with white hair was watching her.

“Such a sight,” said the woman, shaking her head.
“Such a dismal sight you are. Yet strong, I think, for a maid.” She pulled the blanket up to the castaway’s chin. “We thought from your clothes you were a lad. However, you’re not dead.”

That was good news, because Sorrow thought she was until Twin appeared at the foot of the pallet, grinning, holding her face in her hands. Comforted, Sorrow slept again, but easy now with Twin nestling near.

The next morning she woke to the grating of saws and the even thicker odor of wood chips. The sawyer’s wife came in holding a man’s shirt and a boy’s breeches.

“These will have to do for now,” she said. “I’ll have to make you something more fitting for there is nothing to borrow in the village. And there won’t be any shoes for a while.”

Light-headed and wobbly, Sorrow put on the dry boy clothes, then followed a scent of food. Once fed an extravagant breakfast, she was alert enough to say things but not recall things. When they asked her name, Twin whispered NO, so she shrugged her shoulders and found that a convenient gesture for the other information she could not or pretended not to remember.

Where do you live?

On the ship.

Yes, but not always.

Always.

Where is your family?

Shoulders lifted.

Who else was on the ship?

Gulls.

What people, girl?

Shrug.

Who was the captain?

Shrug.

Well, how did you get to land?

Mermaids. I mean whales.

That was when the housewife named her. Next day she gave her a shift of sacking, a clean cap to cover her unbelievable and slightly threatening hair, and told her to mind the geese. Toss their grain, herd them to water and keep them from waddling off. Sorrow’s bare feet fought with the distressing gravity of land. She stumbled and tripped so much on that first day at the pond that when two goslings were attacked by a dog and chaos followed, it took forever to regroup the flock. She kept at it a few more days, until the housewife threw up her hands and put her to simple cleaning tasks—none of which proved satisfactory. But the pleasure of upbraiding an incompetent servant outweighed any satisfaction of a chore well done and the housewife raged happily at every unswept corner, poorly made fire, imperfectly scrubbed pot, carelessly weeded garden row and badly plucked bird. Sorrow concentrated on mealtimes and the art of escape for short walks with Twin, playtimes between or instead of her tasks. On occasion she had secret company other than Twin, but not better than Twin, who was her safety, her entertainment, her guide.