The Slave Dancer (13 page)

I said nothing. I had grown suddenly dizzy. I had had such fits before—seconds, sometimes whole minutes, when I did not know where I was, when everything grew strange and soft and blurred. I stared desperately at Purvis. Now that Sam Wick had moved away with the lantern, I couldn't see Purvis' eyes, but how immense his jaw was! His lips were moving. I heard nothing.

“Purvis!” I croaked.

He put his hand on my shoulder. I felt steadier.

“Haggling over money,” he said again. That haggling had begun off the coast of Africa—now it was coming to an end here.

“That Spaniard is said to be the richest broker in Cuba,” Purvis was saying. My ears sharpened. I felt the deck beneath me once again. “He bribes the highest officials,” Purvis added admiringly.

“Why must he bribe them?”

“Why, the Spanish government is said to have undertaken to suppress the trade … of course they don't, no more than we do!”

“So all the governments are against the trade,” I said, “and in the same way.”

“I don't know about the Portuguese,” Purvis replied in a thoughtful way.

“And do the British carry slaves in the holds of their anti-slavery warships?”

“No, not them!” said Purvis scornfully.

“How does the Spaniard get the slaves to the market?”

“They'll be taken off our ship in skiffs, and they'll be marched to a plantation a few miles inland. I went with Cawthorne last time. What grub we had! The plantation owner takes one or two of the best of the slaves, pays off the local magistrates all the way to Havana. That's where most of them will be sold.”

“And when does Cawthorne get his money?”

“When the cargo has been unloaded,” Purvis said.

I swallowed noisily. I could feel him peering at me in the dark.

“It's this last moment that's always the worst,” he said, to comfort me I knew.

“Purvis? Where do you live?” I asked.

“Live? What do you mean?”

“Where's your home? Do you have a family?”

“A sister, older than me. That's all. She lives in Boston, or used to. I haven't seen her in fifteen years. She's dead for all I know.” He was silent a moment. Then he said, “My home is where I'm at.”

I thought of my home. If I ever got back, I would not, I told myself silently, ever go to the slave market on St. Louis and Chartres Streets again.

Ben Stout's Mistake

For some time after the sun had set, the sky remained the color of rope. The ship lay steady on the glass-like surface of the water which was pricked, now and then, into small ripples when a seabird struck its surface. There was a smoky indistinct look to the Cuban shore. The birds disappeared, their last cries lingering in my ears the way strands of light cling briefly to the masts after the sun has vanished.

In the holds of the ship, in the crew's quarters, along hatchways, across the deck below the furled sails, there was constant and agitated movement on this last night the slaves would be aboard. Tomorrow, before dawn, they would be loaded into boats and taken away. Some, too weak to stand, would be lowered with ropes over the side of
The Moonlight
and, if they weren't too far gone, the Spaniard would see to it that they were strengthened and fattened for market.

A few lanterns were strung up to give us light. They made a mystery of the ship—we floated like a live ember in a great bowl of darkness.

“I don't like this weather,” Purvis remarked. “I don't like Cuba. The sea is queer hereabouts.”

If I had not felt so heavy-limbed and sleepy, I would have shouted with rage when Isaac Porter, resenting the fact he'd been ordered to go aloft and serve as lookout, gave me a hard blow across my back. But all I did was slump against the pile of tarpaulin Purvis and I had just taken down.

“It's a terrible life,” Claudius. Sharkey observed to no one in particular. As though he'd been summoned by Sharkey's words, Stout appeared suddenly. “Go to the Captain's quarters, Jessie,” he said. “There's a chest there you are to bring out on deck.”

I had not ever seen the inside of Cawthorne's roosting place and I was both curious and fearful. I went aft, half suspecting the errand was some trick of Stout's to get me into trouble. After entering a short passageway, I came to a heavy, elaborately carved door. I knocked. A loud grunt left me perplexed as to what to do. “Well!” shouted the Captain's voice from behind the door. I went in. I was in a room, a real room, twice as spacious as the crew's quarters. I saw a large green chest near a berth covered with a scarlet rug. I had an impression of leather and new cloth, and I thought I smelled lemons.

“Well, Bollweevil,” said the Captain with unusual mildness. He was sitting at a desk, his hands folded across a blood-red book, a lamp near his elbow.

“Stout sent me to fetch a chest, Sir,” I said.

“That one,” he said, waving one hand with its turnip-like fingers toward the green chest. I hesitated. “Take it,” he said pleasantly enough. I grabbed hold of a ring in the side of the chest and pulled. Cawthorne held up his hands.

“Do you know what's inside?” he asked.

“No, Sir,” I answered.

“Guess, then,” he said.

I let go of the ring and straightened up. I felt a vague uneasiness as though someone I did not know was watching me from the shadows where the lamplight didn't reach.

“Well—”

“I insist,” said the Captain, his voice hardening ever so slightly.

“Rum?”

He laughed. “That's reasonable but incorrect,” he said.

“Brandy?”

“Not at all! For those louts out there? Brandy?”

He rose to his feet and leaned toward me. “Guess again,” he urged.

“Sir, I don't know!” I said pleadingly. I had had an impulse to ask him if he'd managed to pack a few more slaves in the chest. I was as afraid of what would pop out of my mouth as I was of him.

“Clothes,” he said. “The very best! Silks, laces … for a little entertainment on our last night together.
They
like to dress up, and it amuses the men who are tired and discouraged now but who will cheer up soon enough.”

Was I to take the chest? Or to listen? Before I could make up my mind, the Captain had reached somewhere behind his chair. “Here,” he said, and held out a hand filled with biscuits. “If you'd guessed right, I wouldn't have given you a thing. Draw a moral from that—if you dare!”

I took the biscuits instantly, fearing he might change his mind, and stuffed them in my shirt.

“Thank you, Sir,” I said.

Cawthorne scowled.

“You were sent to fetch the chest—then, fetch it!” he said, and sat down again and without another word opened the book and began to read it—or pretend he was reading it.

I lugged the chest out to the deck. Someone had set a keg of rum on Ned's bench. Because there was no wind to twist the flames, the lanterns burned steadily. Various crew members were lumbering about the deck in a way that reminded me of Bourbon Street. I looked around for Ben Stout and saw him standing a few feet away staring at the chest. He walked over to it, touched it, then told me to get my fife so I'd be ready.

“Ready for what?” I asked.

“For the festivity,” said Stout, grinning.

When I returned to the deck with my fife, Stout had gone somewhere else. Sharkey and Purvis were talking together, leaning on the starboard rail and looking off into the dark the way we all often did. Most of the slaves were huddled near the bow of the ship; a few sat near the forehold, legs drawn up, shoulders bent, their faces hidden by their arms. Some of the women held sleeping children.

I heard the slap of oars. Soon, the Spaniard, his narrow fox head resting stiffly among his ruffles, made his appearance on board. With him was his servant who was wearing a striped jacket and a flat hat with a broad brim that hid his forehead. Cawthorne walked quickly to the Spaniard who pointed up at the Spanish flag. “A miracle!” he cried, then broke into a shriek of laughter. I did not see the joke of it although I did think the Captain's hat was comical. It was covered with gold scroll and was too large for him. I wondered if he had worn it for humorous effect, or whether, on the contrary, it showed how seriously he took himself. He was laughing along with the Spaniard. I saw him reach up to slap the tall man's back. The Spaniard shut his mouth at once and looked exceedingly put out. At the same time, the servant advanced a step closer to his master as though to protect him against Cawthorne's familiarity. Cawthorne's hand went to the pistol he carried. Then we were all distracted by Stout's shouting as he herded the slaves amidship. It was a sight that was both heart-rending and ludicrous, for the black people were not resisting. They drifted toward the cluster of lanterns like shadow presences. Behind them, Stout, in a frenzy of self-importance, jumped up and down and waved his arms and commanded them to do what they were already doing.

Except for Porter far above us, we were all standing quite close together now, cargo, crew, Master, Cuban broker and his servant. For a moment, there was the whole heavy silence of the night, the sea. Then the Captain cried, “Open the chest!”

It was Stout who flung back the lid. Purvis muttered to me, “I didn't think he'd do it again—after the last time.” “What?” I asked as I saw Stout tossing all kinds of garments on the deck, women's gowns, seamen's trousers, hats and capes and shawls and even lengths of cloth. “Give what he calls a ball,” replied Purvis. “He says the niggers like to dress up and they ought to have a bit of pleasure before the Cubans get them. The Spanish are very cruel, you know …”

“What happened last time?” I asked.

“There was a knifing or two,” said Purvis. He wouldn't say more than that. When I asked him what kind of music they'd had on their last trip, he said, “Only a nigger with a drum.”

“Hurry now,” the Captain said. “Let them put on what they wish.”

“He knows they won't put on anything by themselves,” said Purvis in a low disgusted voice. Stout was picking up armfuls of the clothes and flinging them at the blacks who stood silently and impassively.

“Show them!” cried the Captain. “Teach them! Dress them!”

“Are they dead?” inquired the Spaniard in a piercing voice. “If they are dead, they are of no use to me!” The Captain joined in his laughter, the sounds of which seemed to me unreal, as those of men imitating roosters.

With his outstretched arms, Ben Stout was supporting a man so bent I thought, for a second, the Captain had been fooled into shipping an ancient halfway around the world. Then Stout began to shake him. I saw his face. I realized he was no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. With one hand, Stout held the young man upright; with the other, he drew a woman's loose white gown over his head. The hem fell just below his knees.

I heard Sharkey laugh and Smith snicker. John Cooley said, “Why she's a pretty little thing, ain't she?” The Spaniard whispered to his servant. The black man stepped forward and opened his mouth. No sound issued forth. He waved his hands—he lifted clothes from the deck—he made as if to dress himself in them. His mouth remained open like a small dark empty cave where nothing lives. He dropped the clothes he was holding on the deck. When he stepped back to take his place behind the Spaniard, the slaves picked up the various garments scattered around their feet. I was no more able to fathom their expressions as they dressed themselves than I could have explained how the mute man had persuaded them to dress at all. There was not a scrap of cloth left on the deck. The slaves were like statues. The sailors moved among them,' straightening a collar, rearranging a shawl, yanking down a shirt. One woman had not troubled to put her arms into the sleeves of the dress she had put on, and Cooley wound them about her neck and tied them in a knot. I saw the young black boy move to the rail, a thin white undergarment floating from his shoulders.

The rum keg was tapped, and the seamen began to drink clumsily and with gulping haste. Captain Cawthorne cried, “Don't neglect our guests!” Sharkey, whose arm the Captain had grabbed, looked at him in astonishment. When Sharkey gestured toward the Spaniard, the Captain hit him several times with considerable violence, all the while smiling as though they had been speaking together about pleasant matters. Sharkey was utterly bewildered. Cawthorne made him fill a cup of rum, guided his arm toward a black woman, then pushed the sailor's hand against the woman's mouth. “Our guests!” shouted the Captain. The woman coughed as she swallowed the burning stuff. “Bollweevil!” cried the Captain. “You'll dance us all now!”

I played my tunes. I could not hear my piping above the thumps of the sailors' boots and the slap of the slaves' feet. At first, I kept my eyes on the Captain who moved among his crew and cargo like a diving bird among a school of fish. He was dreadfully graceful and quick, so fast with his feet he could have danced for pennies on the riverside. Yet he had energy left over to pinch and hit and slap and punch the slaves and sailors alike. Purvis kept out of his way, but Stout, who'd drunk a good deal of rum by then, seemed to place himself in Cawthorne's way on purpose, roaring with laughter each time the Captain hit him.

The smell of rum was powerful. The slaves were drinking it avidly as though to assuage an endless thirst. The seamen drank to become merry but they only grew drunker. They clutched the slaves, they grabbed them by their waists, they hung on to their arms and flung them about, they fell upon them and dragged them to the deck. A few children suddenly broke away. I watched them run toward the bow. They hid near the anchor where they huddled together like nestlings. Then I dropped my fife, whether because the dance had grown more frantic and abandoned and I was frightened, or whether I had become exhausted, I don't know. It rolled toward the rail.