Foe (13 page)

'Thinking
these thoughts, spinning round, my eyes closed, a smile on my lips, I
fell, I believe, into a kind of trance; for when next I knew, I was
standing still, breathing heavily, with somewhere at my mind's edge
an intimation that I had been far away, that I had seen wondrous
sights. Where am I? I asked myself, and crouched down and stroked the
floor; and when it came back to me that I was in Berkshire, a great
pang wrenched my bean; for what I had seen in my trance, whatever it
had been -I could summon back nothing distinct, yet felt a glow of
after-memory, if you can understand that -had been a message (but
from whom?) to tell me there were other lives open to me than this
one in which I trudged with Friday across the English countryside, a
life of which I was already heartily sick. And in that same instant I
understood why Friday had danced all day in your house: it was to
remove himself, or his spirit, from Newington and England, and from
me too. For was it to be wondered at that Friday found life with me
as burdensome as I found life with him? As long as we two are cast in
each other's company, I thought, perhaps it is best that we dance and
spin and transport ourselves. "It is your turn to dance,
Friday," I called into the darkness, and climbed into my crib
and piled hay upon myself and fell asleep.

At
first light I awoke, glowing with warmth, calm and refreshed. I
discovered Friday asleep on a hurdle behind the door and shook him,
surprised to find him so sluggish, for I had thought savages slept
with one eye open. But likely he had lost his savage habits on the
island, where he and Cruso had no enemies.'

* *

'I
do not wish to make our journey to Bristol seem more full of incident
than it has truly been. But I must tell you of the dead babe.

'Some
miles outside Marlborough, as we were walking steadily enough down an
empty road, my eye fell on a parcel lying in the ditch. I sent Friday
to fetch it, thinking I know not what, perhaps that it was a bundle
of clothes fallen from a carriage; or perhaps I was simply curious.
But when I began to unwind the wrapping-cloth I found it to be
bloody, and was afraid to go on. Yet where there is blood there is
fascination. So I went on and unwrapped the body, stillborn or
perhaps stifled, all bloody with the afterbirth, of a little girl,
perfectly formed, her hands clenched up by her ears, her features
peaceful, barely an hour or two in the world. Whose child was she?
The fields around us were empty. Half a mile away stood a duster of
cottages; but how welcome would we be if, like accusers, we returned
to their doorstep that which they had cast out? Or what if they took
the child to be mine and laid hands on me and baled me before the
magistrates? So I wrapped the babe again in its bloody winding-cloth
and laid it in the bottom of the ditch and guiltily led Friday away
from that place. Try though I might, I could not put from my thoughts
the little sleeper who would never awake, the pinched eyes that would
never see the sky, the curled fingers that would never open. Who was
the child but I, in another life? Friday and I slept among a grove of
trees that night (it was the night I tried to eat acorns, I was so
hungry). I had slept but a minute when I awoke with a start thinking
I must go back to where the child was hid before the crows got to
her, the crows and the rats; and, before I gathered my wits, had even
stumbled to my feet. I lay down again with my coat pulled over my
ears and tears coursing down my cheeks. My thoughts ran to Friday, I
could not stop them, it was an effect of the hunger. Had I not been
there to restrain him, would he in his hunger have eaten the babe? I
told myself I did him wrong to think of him as a cannibal or worse, a
devourer of the dead. But Cruso had planted the seed in my mind, and
now I could not look on Friday's lips without calling to mind what
meat must once have passed them.

'I
grant without reserve that in such thinking lie the seeds of madness.
We cannot shrink in disgust from our neighbour's touch because his
hands, that are clean now, were once dirty. We must cultivate, all of
us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be
tolerable. If Friday forswore human flesh during his fifteen years on
the island, why should I not believe he had forsworn it forever? And
if in his heart of hearts he remained a cannibal, would a warm living
woman not make a better meal than the cold stiff corpse of a child?
The blood hammered in my ears; the creak of a branch, or a cloud
passing across the moon, made me think Friday was upon me; though
part of me knew he was the same dull blackfellow as ever, another
part, over which I had no mastery, insisted on his bloodlust. So I
slept not a wink, till the light paled and I saw Friday dead asleep a
few paces away, his horny feet that seemed never to feel the cold
sticking out from under his robe.'

* *

'Though
we walk in silence, there is a buzz of words in my head, all
addressed to you. In the dark days of Newington I believed you were
dead: you had starved in your lodgings and been given a pauper's
burial; you had been hunted down and committed to the Fleet, to
perish of misery and neglect. But now a stronger certainty has come
over me, which I cannot explain. You are alive and well, and as we
march down the Bristol road I talk to you as if you were beside me,
my familiar ghost, my companion. Cruso too. There are times when
Cruso comes back to me, morose as ever he was in the old days (which
I can bear).'

* *

'Arriving
in Marlborough, I found a stationer's and for half a guinea sold him
Pakenham's
Travels
in Abyssinia
,
in quarto, from your library. Though glad to be relieved of so heavy
a book, I was sorry too, for I had no time to read in it and learn
more of Africa, and so be of greater assistance to Friday in
regaining his homeland. Friday is not from Abyssinia, I know. But on
the road to Abyssinia the traveller must pass through many kingdoms:
why should Friday's kingdom not be one of these?

'The
weather remaining fine, Friday and I sleep under hedgerows. For
prudence sake we lie low, for we make an irregular couple. "Are
you his mistress?" asked an old man of us, as we sat on the
church steps yesterday eating our bread. Was it a saucy question? The
fellow seemed in earnest. "He is a slave whose master set him
free on his deathbed," I replied -"I accompany him to
Bristol, where he will take ship for Africa and his native land."
"So you are returning to Africa," said the old man, turning
to Friday. "He has no speech," I put in-"He lost his
tongue as a child, now he speaks only in gestures. In gestures and
actions." "You will have many stories to tell them in
Africa, will you not?" said the old fellow, speaking louder, as
we do to deaf people. Friday regarded him emptily, but he would not
be deterred. "You have seen many sights, I am sure," he
continued -"great cities, ships as big as castles. You will not
be believed when you relate all you have seen." "He has
lost his tongue, there is no language in which he can speak, not even
his own," said I, hoping the fellow would go away. But perhaps
he too was deaf. "Are you gipsies then?" said he -"Are
you gipsies, you. and he?" For a moment I was lost for words.
"He has been a slave, now he is returning to Africa," I
repeated. "Aye," he said, "but we call them gipsies
when they roam about with their dirty faces, men and women all
higgledy-piggledy together, looking for mischief." And he got to
his feet and faced me, propped on his stick, as though daring me to
gainsay him. "Come, Friday," I murmured, and we left the
square.

'I
am amused now to think of this skirmish, but then I was shaken.
Living like a mole in your house has quite taken away my nut-brown
island hue; but it is true, on the road I have barely washed, feeling
none the worse for it. I remember a shipload of gipsies, dark and
mistrustful folk, cast out of Galicia in Spain, stepping ashore in
Bahia on to a strange continent. Twice have Friday and I been called
gipsies. What is a gipsy? What is a highwayman? Words seem to have
new meanings here in the west country. Am I become a gipsy unknown to
myself?'

* *

'Yesterday
we arrived in Bristol and made directly for the docks, which Friday
showed every sign of recognizing. There I stopped every seaman who
passed, asking whether he knew of a ship sailing for Africa or the
East. At last we were directed toward an Indiaman standing out on the
road, due to sail for Trincomalee and the spice islands. By great
good fortune a lighter just then berthed that had been conveying
stores to it, and the first mate stepped ashore. Asking his pardon
for our travel-stained appearance, assuring him we were not gipsies,
I presented Friday as a former slave from the Americas, happily now
free, who wished to make his way home to Africa. Regrettably, I went
on, Friday was master of neither English nor any other language,
having lost his tongue to the slave-catchers. But he was diligent and
obedient and asked for no more than to work his passage to Africa as
a deck-hand.

'At
this the mate smiled. "Africa is a great place, madam, greater
than I can tell you," he said. "Does your man know where he
wishes to be set down? He may be put ashore in Africa and still be
farther from his home than from here to Muscovy."

'I
shrugged off his question. "When the time comes I am convinced
he will know," I said-"Our feeling for home is never lost.
Will you take him or no?" "Has he ever sailed before?"
asked the mate. "He has sailed and been shipwrecked too," I
replied -"He is a mariner of long standing."

'So
the mate consented to take us to the master of the Indiaman. We
followed him to a coffee-house, where the master sat huddled with two
merchants. After a long wait we were presented to him. Again I
related the story of Friday and his desire to return to Africa. "Have
you been to Africa, madam?" asked the captain. "No, sir, I
have not," I replied, "but that is neither here nor there."
"And you will not be accompanying your man?" "I will
not." "Then let me tell you," said he: "One half
of Africa is· desert and the rest a stinking fever-ridden
forest. Your black fellow would be better off in England.
Nevertheless, if, he is set on it, I will take him." At which my
heart leapt. "Have you his papers of manumission?" he
asked. I motioned to Friday (who had stood like a stick through these
exchanges, understanding nothing) that I wished to open the bag about
his neck, and showed the captain the paper signed in Cruso's name,
which seemed to please him. "Very well," said he, pocketing
the paper, "we will put your man ashore wherever in Africa he
instructs us. But now you must say your farewells: we sail in the
morning."

'Whether
it was the captain's manner or whether the glance I caught passing
between him and the mate I cannot say, but suddenly I knew all was
not as it seemed to be. "The paper is Friday's," I said,
holding out my hand to receive it -"It is his only proof that he
is a free man." And when the captain had returned the paper to
me, I added: "Friday cannot come aboard now, for he has
belongings to fetch from our rooms in the city." By which they
guessed I had seen through their scheme (which was to sell Friday
into slavery a second time): the captain shrugged his shoulders and
turned his back to me, and that was the end of that.

'So
the castle I had built in the air, namely that Friday should sail for
Africa and I return to London my own mistress at last, came tumbling
about my ears. Where a ship's-master was honest, I discovered, he
would not accept so unpromising a deck-hand as Friday. Only the more
unscrupulous -of whom I met a host in the days that followed
-pretended to welcome us,· seeing me, no doubt, as an easy
dupe and Friday as their God-sent prey. One of these claimed to be
sailing for Calicut, making port at the Cape of Good Hope on the way,
where he promised to set Friday ashore; while his true destination,
as I learned from the wharfmaster, was Jamaica.

'Was
I too suspicious? All I know is, I would not sleep easy tonight if
Friday were on the high seas destined a second time, all unwittingly,
for the plantations. A woman may bear a child she does not want, and
rear it without loving it, yet be ready to defend it with her life.
Thus it has become, in a manner of speaking, between Friday and
myself. I do not love him, but he is mine. That is why he remains in
England. That is why he is here.'

Ill

T
he
staircase was dark and mean. My knock echoed as if on emptiness. But
I knocked a second time, and heard a shuffling, and from behind the
door a voice, his voice, low and cautious. 'It is I, Susan Barton,' I
announced -'I am alone, with Friday.' Whereupon the door opened and
he stood before me, the same Foe I had first set eyes on in
Kensington Row, but leaner and quicker, as though vigilance and a
spare diet agreed with him.

'May
we come in?' I said.

He
made way and we entered his refuge. The room was lit by a single
window, through which poured the afternoon sun. The view was to the
north, over the roofs of Whitechapel. For furniture there was a table
and chair, and a bed, slovenly made; one corner of the room was
curtained off.