The Amalgamation Polka (13 page)

His mother. Liberty never
tired of looking into her face, the weather there ever changing, moods and expressions passing over it like clouds, temporarily altering her appearance but not the permanent geography underneath formed in comfort and kindness and love, features abiding though sometimes obscured by fronts, squalls, persistent fogs, low-hanging overcast that disturbed and puzzled him. She seemed to him on those occasions to be somewhat absent, the parts of her that made her his mother having departed for some other realm. She’d be rocking on the porch, Liberty reading a book at her feet, when abruptly she’d blurt out in a bright, unnatural voice, “My, the daisies are so forward today.” In time Liberty came to understand that in such moments she was back in Carolina again. He came to dread the periodic arrival in the mail of those envelopes with the spidery handwriting in lavender ink that would sometimes sit untouched for days on the table by the door until impulsively, in passing, Roxana would snatch the letter up into her hands, tear open the envelope, hastily read the contents, burst into tears and rush upstairs to her bedroom, leaving behind a confused, frightened son. If Thatcher were home, he’d go upstairs, too, and what transpired behind the closed door of their bedroom, from which Liberty could hear the unrestrained sobbing of his mother, was a profound and disturbing mystery.

“What’s wrong with Mother?” he’d once asked in a trembling voice when Thatcher had emerged, grim faced, from the bedroom.

“Come with me,” his father said, guiding him into his study and closing the door, the two of them in facing chairs only a few feet apart, Liberty’s short legs dangling well above the burgundy carpet.

“Your mother,” he began, “many years ago was forced through difficult circumstances to leave her own mother and father and come to live up here in New York. This was a terrible event. No one likes to have to run away from their family. Sometimes it makes people cry.”

“Why doesn’t Mother go back then?”

Thatcher sighed. “She can’t,” he managed, then seemed unable to continue.

“Why?”

“Because she’s been hurt. She doesn’t want to see her parents, and they don’t want to see her.”

Liberty’s face exhibited the effort of trying to digest this curious information. “I would always want to see you.”

Thatcher smiled. “I know. And your mother and I would always want to see you, too, but sometimes, Liberty, differences come up between members of the same family and sometimes those differences get so big it’s hard for people to even see or talk to each other across them. Do you understand?”

“Does Mother’s mother love her?”

“Yes, of course she does, but love, unfortunately, does not always protect people from misunderstanding each other or from disagreeing. Then, sometimes, things are said or done which can be hard to forgive.”

Liberty pondered these words for a moment. “Is this about the slavocracy?” he asked.

Thatcher’s expression was serious. “Yes,” he said.

Thereafter, whenever Liberty glimpsed one of those ominous letters with the lavender writing lying on the sideboard, he would stuff it under his shirt, hurry up to his room and hide it beneath his mattress.

Then, one afternoon Roxana summoned her son into the parlor, ordered him to take a seat and produced a handful of these envelopes. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

Liberty shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied, preferring to study the pattern in the carpet rather than his mother’s penetrating eyes.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? They were secreted in your bed. Are these letters yours? Are they addressed to you?”

“No.”

“Then what were they doing in your possession?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, and despite his most heroic efforts to stop them, tears began to roll down his cheeks.

Roxana rushed to her son, gathered him in her arms and began to cry, too. “It’s all right,” she said, stroking Liberty’s head. “I understand.”

Liberty pushed himself away to peer directly into her brimming eyes. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

“I’m sorry, Liberty,” she said, wiping his face with her handkerchief. “I suppose I haven’t been paying sufficient attention to you lately. It seems certain you have reached an age where you are ready to hear the story of your family.”

So from that day on, whenever Roxana deemed it appropriate, she would tell her son tales from when she was a girl and lived on a great plantation with her mother and father and sister and brothers on the banks of the Stono River in South Carolina, surrounded by dogs and cats and horses and chickens and everywhere you looked, near and far, against the distant horizon, under your very feet, a sullen horde of negro slaves.

Her favorite view of
the big house was from the boat coming upriver from Charleston and how, on rounding the final bend, the great bare columns of the cypress trees shifted magically about to reveal the matching columns of the veranda and the curtained window on the second floor that opened into her bedroom. There was a grand mystery and haunting romance to the setting which she experienced viscerally like a sweet breath drawn throughout the length of her small, thin body. Home. She simply could not imagine living anywhere else. She had been born in her parents’ bedroom mere steps down the hall from the room she now occupied and fully expected, some far distant day, to die in. And to glimpse again, after an absence of even the shortest duration, the familiar grounds and comforting lineaments of the family estate was a pleasure not to be exceeded in a whole life of pleasures great and trifling.

Gathered at the wharf was the usual welcoming throng of excited servants, who upon sighting the approaching boat began to shriek, whoop, cry, moan, hop up and down, break out into ecstatic dance, clap their hands and generally conduct themselves like a tribe of unruly children awaiting the arrival of a cargo of candy. As Roxana and her mother stepped ashore they were immediately engulfed in this crush of bodies, fingers reaching out to touch their arms, their faces, Old House Sally, the cook, seizing Roxana about the neck and planting a hard wet kiss upon her blushing cheek as Cripple Tom, the carpenter’s son, his frail form twisted by rheumatism, accident and sundry unknown ailments that had rendered him hardly fit to crawl, wrapped his misshapen arms around Roxana’s legs so she could not move. She and her mother had been away for less than a full day.

Mother Maury raised her hands above her, brought them together with a sharp slap and in her imperious mistress voice which had been known to carry distinctly across the river, commanded, “Enough now! Back to work, all of you!”

The smiles a shade too broad, the shuffles a bit too comic, the whole exaggerated party atmosphere vanished instantly, and, as the sobered crowd reluctantly dispersed one young girl with clay-streaked skin and a hideous scar across her forehead lingered on.

“What do you want?” snapped Mother, her eyes like blue fire.

The girl studied her dirty bare feet.

“Well, out with it. You may be free to laze away your day, but some of us in this family have duties to perform.”

Mustering her courage, the girl asked, “Did Missus bring me a pretty ribbon from town?”

Mother expelled a long, impatient breath. “No, I didn’t bring you any damn ribbon from town, and how you ever got the notion into your skull that I would is as mysterious as all the other ridiculous notions you’ve no doubt got stored up there, too.”

“But Missus promised.”

“I certainly did no such thing.”

“Yes, Mother, you did,” said Roxana. “You offered her a ribbon for helping Lucy polish the silverware.”

“I have no recollection of that whatsoever. Is my own daughter now correcting me? Are you suggesting that I’m losing my mind?”

Roxana turned to the girl. “Come see me after supper.” The girl smiled shyly, did a slight bow and disappeared running around the corner of the house.

“Honestly, Roxana, you’re going to get these niggers so spoiled that one day they’ll be lounging about in the parlor while we work the fields.”

Brother Val was seated on the steps of the gallery between two of his hunting dogs, meticulously cleaning his gun. A pair of dead grouse lay on the step at his feet, limp necks dangling over the edge, dripping blood onto the step below. He barely glanced at his mother and sister, sliding a piece of cloth up and down the barrel. “You remember to get that tack?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Mother. “I got the tack and the currycomb. I expect Nicodemus has already taken them up to the stable. And why you should send an old, ignorant woman on such a mission is a riddle only the Good Lord could solve.”

Val pulled the cleaning rod from the barrel. “God’s eye is upon you, Mother,” he said, winking at his sister. “He knows to choose the proper person for each task.”

“Now look what you’ve done,” declared Mother as she carefully removed her hat from the complicated arrangement of hair on her head. “Blood all over the front steps and Dr. Quake coming to call this afternoon. Samson!” she shouted at the house, rapping her cane against the planks of the gallery. “Samson! Get out here at once! Where is that doddering fool?” The cane beat louder and louder. Finally the front door opened a crack, revealing a grizzled head that peered impassively out at them.

“Get out here,” demanded Mother. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

Samson hobbled onto the gallery. He was dressed in a threadbare butler’s jacket with raveled sleeves and holes at the elbows. “I was in the back parlor, Missus, dusting the lamps.”

Mother snorted derisively. “You haven’t dusted a lamp or anything else, for that matter, in months. I want you to clean up the mess Val’s made before the wood gets permanently stained. I want this done immediately.”

Samson crept to the edge of the gallery and looked, shaking his head regretfully. “I ain’t touching no blood. That’s bad business.”

“My God,” Mother exclaimed, “what does one have to do around here to get a single lick of work out of any of you good-for-nothings? Val, dear, could you please find someone to attend promptly to this muddle?” She sighed. “This day has drained me utterly. I’m going to my room to take my medicine and rest.”

“That’s fine, Mother,” answered Val, again smirking at his sister, “you need your medicine. You need your rest.”

“And I expect to see these steps washed off by the time I come down for supper,” she said, leaning against her cane and laboring up onto the gallery.

“Yes, Mother,” answered Val. “Tabula rasa it shall be.”

At the door Mrs. Maury paused to inquire, “Where’s your father?”

“In the office listening to grievances. I heard some yelling coming from there a while ago. I wouldn’t go in if I were you.”

“And Roxana,” said Mother. “I don’t want to hear that piano until I come back down, do you understand?”

“Yes, Mother.”

The door banged shut.

“Enjoy your outing?” asked Val. There was something in his clear green eyes that always seemed to be moving, some mischievous thing trapped in there and constantly shuttling back and forth, seeking an escape.

“Out in the harbor a drunk man fell off the boat and drowned,” said Roxana. “Then his dog jumped in after him and swam round and round, barking and whimpering. And they couldn’t get the dog back into the boat even with ropes and hooks. Then a man dived in to save it, but the dog tried to bite him. So finally old Mr. Trotter pulled out his pistol and shot the dog dead and it sank beneath the waves as everyone at the rail stood and applauded. I hope never to witness such a ghastly spectacle again.”

“And Mother?”

“She helped direct the rescue effort. Then she told Mr. Trotter to shoot. She said, ‘A dog without his master is a useless thing.’”

“But not old Paddy here.” Val stroked the head of the dog on his right. “Or Luke, either.” He stroked the head of the dog on his left, then allowed each animal in turn to greedily lick at his own mouth.

“You’re so coarse,” observed Roxana. “You’ll certainly never win a belle with that behavior. Who’s going to want to kiss lips wet with dog slobber?”

Val raised an eyebrow. “There’s some who already have.”

“You’re not going to start boring me with that awful Abigail Moses again? I hate her. I don’t even wish to hear her dreadful name.”

“Well, dear sister, you may not only have to become accustomed to hearing her name, I’m afraid you’re going to also have to bear with seeing her often—and quite soon.”

It took a moment for his words to register, and then Roxana’s pale young face attained further degrees of paleness normally possible only through the application of fine cosmetics. “You’re not—” she blurted.

Val smiled indulgently. “I love her.”

“But she’s a feather-headed flirt who’s already rejected at least a dozen suitors this year alone.”

“But not me.”

She studied him curiously, then all at once glimpsed what he’d been hiding for so long in his expression. “Oh brother!” she exclaimed, hugging him tightly to her. “Please forgive me. I didn’t know. I wish you all the happiness in the world, you know that.”

“I know, and I’ll always wish the same for you.” He stared down at the puddles of blood between his feet. “Now who in all this pleasant land am I going to convince it’s worth their while to wipe up this sticky mess?”

“Ask Milla. She’ll do it for you.”

Val laughed. “Indeed she might. She might, that is, if she were still here. Ran off sometime last night, I believe.”

“Again?” asked Roxana, astonished as much by the persistent courage as by the frequency of her flights.

“No one’s even bothered to go out hunting for her this time. She’ll be back by sundown, said Father, and I suppose he’s probably right.”

“Where do you think she goes?” She couldn’t begin to imagine setting off at night into the swamp country with just the clothes on her back. What would one eat? Where would one sleep? A deeply inscrutable, troubling act.

“Ah, who knows?” said Val. “She’s probably got a beau over to Pettigrew’s Landing.”

The thought startled Roxana. At once she could see Milla stealing through the darkness, listening for the hounds, watching for snakes and gators, all to be near a man she must love immensely. What was his name? What did he look like? Did he ever come sneaking over here? The risks taken, the dangers challenged, under the spell of love. A force stronger than iron shackles. She wondered if her own sheltered life would ever be visited by such an experience. She wondered how long it would be until it arrived.

Val was scrutinizing the pattern of blood drops on the step as if, through augury, he might read there the name of the person willing to make it disappear. He glanced up at his sister. “Sall?” he asked.

Roxana shook her head. “I don’t know if she can bend down far enough with the rheumatism she’s got. No, dear brother, looks like this is one mess you’re going to have to clean up all by yourself.”

“Go get me a rag.”

“I certainly will not. Go get your own rag. I’m going out back to look at the garden.”

Rounding the house, she passed beneath the window of her father’s office and into the agitating sound of voices raised in disputation. She stopped and heard her father say in the cold tone she hated, “I’ll tell you who you’re married to and who you’re not married to, and I don’t care what Mama Jo said. Is she running this plantation or am I? Frankly, I’ve had a hard bellyful of you people telling me how to conduct my business. And as long as you are here, you are my property and my business. Do you understand?”

There was a mumbling she couldn’t comprehend.

“Now get the hell off my carpet and get out of my sight before I have to fetch the crop.”

Roxana heard nothing, then the sound of a door closing, and she continued on to the back of the house. The flowers she had planted only a few months before were blooming magnificently, heads buzzing with color. A black woman in a gunnysack shift was seated on the ground in the shade, leaning up against the trunk of the chinaberry tree, hands curled palms up in her lap. She gave Roxana a long bleak look. “I’m so tired, Missus,” she said. “I’d get up but I’m so tired.”

“That’s quite all right, Chloe,” said Roxana. “Stay where you are. I’ve just come back for a minute to look at the garden.”

“They sure are pretty, Missus.”

“Yes, they are.” Simply gazing upon the plants seemed to open up a plot of color inside Roxana, a soft, cozy place where she, too, could curl up and rest. “Chloe, how would you like a nice bouquet of flowers for yourself?”

“Why, yes, Missus, I sure would. I’d like some pretty in my house.” And with enormous effort and wheezing she began to rise.

“No, Chloe, stay right where you are. I’ll go inside and get the cutting shears.”

As Roxana approached the back gallery, she saw her mother standing regally in the doorway, a scented handkerchief tied over her nose and mouth. “Roxana,” she said, “we have servants in order that we might be waited on, not the other way around. What do you think you are doing? I forbid you to give flowers to Chloe as if you were her fawning paramour. These people are spoiled enough without my own children presenting them with romantic gifts.”

Roxana squeezed past her mother, saying, “I thought you were upstairs lying down.”

“Who can get any rest in this house what with all the shouting going on down here? Field hands traipsing in and out. The smell alone is sufficient to lay us low with God knows what wretched diseases.”

“Well, maybe if you’d encourage them to bathe more often you wouldn’t have such a problem.”

“An exercise in futility, child. They’re like cats when it comes to water.”

Roxana heard the purposeful thud-thud-thud of her father’s boots coming down the hallway. “My baby,” he declared, throwing wide his arms and enveloping his daughter in a mammoth hug. “Why didn’t you come greet your papa when you got back? I’ve missed you.”

“I thought you were busy. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You can’t disturb me, Roxana, you know that. Did you have a good time in town?”

“No,” interrupted Mother, “we certainly did not. Everywhere we went people were talking about that terrible Middleton affair. It brought on one of my headaches from which I have yet to recover.”

“A sorry business,” said Father. “And now the people are restless all through the country. I’m afraid we’re going to have to be even more vigilant in the coming weeks. Mr. Dray just informed me that Nicodemus threatened him twice yesterday and once this morning, even after receiving thirty-nine stripes.”

“Perhaps,” observed Roxana, “if Mr. Dray weren’t so free with the whip, he wouldn’t get threatened.”

Asa Maury patted his daughter tolerantly on the head. “It’s Mr. Dray’s job to supervise the hands and administer discipline as he sees fit. Believe me, child, he knows what he’s doing.”

“I’m going upstairs,” announced Mother. “I do not wish to be called until supper.” She moved off down the hall like a statue being drawn forward on little wheels. Then they could hear her ponderous feet mounting the stairs step by careful step.