Sally Heming (2 page)

His job as census taker would last only through the summer.
He had to do it while helping to run Broadhurst. He was the heir now; his older
brother, his father's favorite, was dead, a hole blown through him at
point-blank range. His father was grief-stricken, unable to take even the most
meager duties on his shoulders.

There had been relief and gratitude when he had announced
that he would stay at home and marry. Esmeralda Wilks was rich and
temperamental, and she had let him know in no uncertain terms that she was
tired of waiting. It was her family who had gotten him his temporary job as
census taker until he could finish his studies and pass his bar examinations.
He had thought about politics as well; but not only was he too
"radical" for this county, he would also be in competition with his
brothers and brothers-in-law. Still, he could consider this appointment as a
first "political" step to bigger and better things. He would
apprentice himself to Judge Miner in Charlottesville, see more of Esmeralda,
comfort his father, and run Broadhurst. At least he was rid of the necessity of
forever explaining himself, his family, and his state— to say nothing of the
entire South—to Northern friends, acquaintances, and reformers. One thing he
never wanted to explain again was the Institution of Slavery. He could give a
lecture, in his sleep, on this subject. He never again intended to endure
Northerners and their impertinent questions, the sententiousness of their
comments, the insulting familiarity of the exchanges.

He had managed, after years of arguments, to convince his
closest Northern friends that a Virginian did not automatically own "thousands
of slaves," and that he did not starve and beat the ones he had; that
Negroes bred in nine months like everybody else, and that neither he nor his
servants had tails, two heads, indolent or oversexed dispositions.

He always felt a general outrage that these ignoramuses
could so presume on his private life and that of his kin and his native
territory. Sooner or later their curiosity would get the better of their
manners, and they apparently found it quite natural to ask the most unwarranted
and intimate questions of a total stranger, one they considered the
"expert" Southerner. They would never dream of asking such questions
of their own family or class. Owning Negroes seemed to them to be a license for
all kinds of forwardness.

What's more, they never seemed to be satisfied. There had
always been "just one thing more I wanted to ask you." And these
Northerners, he thought furiously, had been his friends. The well-bred and
aristocratic sons of gentlemen and capitalists. Yet their greed for information
about the South, and their fascination with slavery, knew no bounds. What had
fascinated them most, especially the ladies, was not the economics, the
humanity, or the Christianity of the Institution, but sex. Langdon's mouth
tightened in exasperation. The only thing they really wanted to know about was
the sex life of the Southern aristocrat and his slaves. They had all heard of
the thousands of New Orleans octoroons, the dashing Washington mulattoes, the
plantation quadroons, sometimes sired by the sons' fathers, and overseers of
slave-owning families. Cross-breeding was something one didn't discuss in
polite society. One didn't discuss it at all, even in the intimacy of one's
private journal. It was something one relegated to that corner of the mind reserved
for incest, insanity, epilepsy, suicide, and sodomy; it was sordid and
unthinkable. He had never been able to explain to these morose Northerners the
particular combination of cruelty and affection, detachment and possessiveness
that made up the relationship between master and servant, a relationship all
the more complex and intense if they were blood kin. How could he ever explain
it to them? True, white men had begot and freed sons, even daughters, but the
basic rule of this charged and intimate correspondence was that there was a
superior and an inferior race, and to intermingle them was an error against
God, Nature, and Society. No matter how many mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons,
metis issued from lust or passion. He also knew that freed slaves were not
allowed to remain in Virginia. Why were the Hemingses so privileged? Who had
petitioned the Virginia Legislature for special permission for them to stay?
And why? Or did they remain without official permission? How was it possible
that, at the pinnacle of his power, Thomas Jefferson had chosen a slave when he
could have chosen any white woman alive!

His heavy shoulders moved uncomfortably in the loose woolen
jacket. He was not dressed for the heat. His thoughts had taken him far away,
so that he was startled to find himself looking at the most beautiful woman he
had ever seen, a woman old enough and fair enough to be his mother. It can't
be, he thought wildly, unnerved by her physical beauty.

The woman was indeed beautiful. The face was unlined, the gaze
fragile but unyielding. The eyes were almost emerald in the bluish shadow. The
mouth was soft and childish in its contours, and vain. The body was well
proportioned. She had removed the white cloth and her hair seemed to glow like
a silk cap, the braid coiled around her head breaking into planes of light.

No sound came from the dark recess, and Nathan Langdon
struggled to find a way of addressing this woman. How did one address a
creature who did not exist, who was the negation of everything he had been
taught to believe? There were no white slaves. There could be no white
ex-slaves. There were no women who looked like this, who lived in a Negro cabin
at the end of a dusty, weed-choked footpath out of time and memory, who had
been loved by a great man who had never freed her. The smell of poverty and
cooking hung in the interior. The woman's dress and apron were of poor-quality
black linen, faded to gray and without trimmings. A window in the room let in
the afternoon light, silhouetting this figure who neither moved nor spoke.

Finally, he said, "You are? ..."

"Sally Hemings." The voice was crisp and clear.
"Are you the census taker for the county my son spoke of?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Nathan Langdon, at your service."

The simplest words seemed to explode into the atmosphere.
Langdon caught his breath as the woman emerged gently from the shadow of the
room into the light. In the brightness, her eyes assumed their true color,
fringed with thick black lashes and by heavy eyebrows. The nose was slightly
flared, the cheekbones abnormally high, the eyes wide-spaced. There were
streaks of gray in the fine black hair, which, if loosened, would doubtless
have reached her waist.

"You live here with your sons Eston and Madison?"

"Yes."

"Ages?"

"Mine?"

"Yours first, Ma'am, then your sons'."

"Fifty-six. My son Eston is twenty-two and Madison is
twenty-five."

"All born in Albemarle County?"

"At Monticello."

"You are manumitted slaves, are you not? Do you have a
special dispensation to remain in Virginia?"

"Yes."

"Former slaves of Martha Jefferson Randolph?"

"Of Thomas Jefferson. My sons were freed by his will
in
1826."

"And you?"

"The same year."

"This cabin and land, the property of?"

"Cornelius Stooker of Charlottesville."

"Land?"

"Twelve acres."

"Yearly rent?"

"Two bales of cotton and seven bushels of corn."

"The professions of your sons?"

"Musicians ..."

Nathan Langdon raised his eyebrows. "They farm the
land as well?"

"Yes."

"No other adults living here?"

"No."

"Total?"

"Total?"

"That is, there are three adults and no children in
residence, am I correct?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Other members of your family not living at home?"

"What?"

"You have other children, do you not?"

"They are listed as runaways in the Monticello Farm
Book."

"How many?"

"Two—three."

"Three runaways?"

"Three."

"Five children in all?"

"Seven."

"Two deceased?"

"Yes."

"Are your sons at home?"

Sally Hemings hesitated. She was alone in the house and
unprotected.

"They will be coming home shortly."

"Where are they?"

"At the university."

"Can they read?"

"Yes."

"Can you read?"

"Yes."

"Vote?" The question had come automatically to
his lips. Now there was an embarrassed silence. Of course they couldn't vote.
They weren't even supposed to know how to read and write. It was against the
law. But then they were freed now, and there was no law saying freed slaves
could not read and write. Or was there? He covered himself as best he could.

"Uh ... property?" He flushed deeply. He was
questioning her as if she were white. As if her sons were white farmers and
musicians.

"Would you like a drink?" she asked suddenly.
"Ginger beer, perhaps?"

"Thank you, Ma'am."

"Wait here. No. Come inside out of the sun. You have
no hat on. It is finished, no?"

The strange involution of the sentence startled him. There
was something foreign about her speech, as if she were thinking in a different
language. It had no tremor of old age, but was delicious and young.

Nathan Langdon had to stoop to enter the somber cabin;
quickly he took in the room. It was the most disconcerting interior he had ever
seen. He had been in many slave and ex-slave cabins in the past weeks, so that
he was not surprised by the simple handmade benches and tables, the rough plank
floor, the whitewashed clay walls, the bits and pieces of hand-me-downs,
broken, and repaired finery from the Big House, but as his stunned gaze took in
the delicate cherrywood pianoforte, an exquisite onyx-and-bronze pendulum clock
ticking away over the finely carved wooden chimney, the elegant dark-green
leather chest with its brass fitting gleaming dully in the gloom, the French
armchair, a huge ornate and gilded mirror, and, strangest of all, a French
flag, a musket on which hung what looked like a small effigy or doll. He felt
he had walked into the inner sanctum of some desperate and overwhelming mystery.

There was a large bouquet of fresh flowers, and on the
floor lay a piece of black cloth, crumpled, as if discarded. In this
incongruous setting, the light silhouetted the woman, and the effect was so
intimate, so seductive, that Nathan Langdon instinctively took a step backward.
As he did, his head almost hit the low doorframe, and Sally Hemings, in an
unconscious, protective gesture, stepped forward.

"Please sit down."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Even this invitation, so noncommittal, made Nathan blush.
"Your mules need water?"

"Why, I'd be much obliged." Langdon fell into the
Southern formula for politeness. He had hardly used that term since his return.
As Sally Hemings turned away from him, Langdon had the distinct impression that
he recognized her; he knew he had seen this woman turn in that same way before.
But where? He had lived four years in Massachusetts. It was five years since he
had been in Charlottesville.

"But don't bother.... They'll be heading home now ...
this is my last visit."

Langdon had risen from his chair and followed her to the
door, but she had already turned and was out of the cabin to fetch the water.
Again, the same acute sense of recognition came back to him as the slender back
disappeared into a shaded area not far from the house, where he supposed there
was a well or a spring.

When she returned, she was carrying two buckets of water.

"You can take these down to those pretty mules of
yours. If you'll be so kind as to leave the pails at the bend, my son Eston
will see them and pick them up when he returns from work."

"I'm much obliged. Thank you. I'm sorry I missed
seeing your sons, Ma'am."