Wash

WASH

WASH

A N
OVEL

M
ARGARET
W
RINKLE

Atlantic Monthly Press

New York

Copyright © 2013 by Margaret Wrinkle

Photographs copyright © 2013 by Margaret Wrinkle

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FIRST EDITION

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or localities is entirely coincidental.

Epigraph from THE FAMISHED ROAD by Ben Okri, copyright © 1991 by Ben Okri, A Nan A. Talese book. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must aply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

Printed in the United States of America

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9378-0

Atlantic Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

841 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West

www.groveatlantic.com

13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For all those in Deads’ Town

and for us, the Living.

In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing, and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we sorrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had just returned from the world of the Living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn’t redeemed, all that they hadn’t understood, and for all that they had barely begun to learn before they were drawn back to the land of origins.

There was not one amongst us who looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.

from
The Famished Road
by Ben Okri

Prologue

Pallas

It was one of his early trips to Miller’s when I first laid eyes on Wash. Pretty soon, I learned to be gone when they brought him. Made sure to be out gathering or else seeing about folks. But that first Friday afternoon when Richardson sent Wash over here to do his business, I was home and I saw it all.

Watched him ride in on that wagon while I started my fire. Stood there stewing some goldenseal and saw Wash dip one shoulder to duck inside that small side door of Miller’s barn, with Richardson’s man Quinn following right behind him step for step.

Richardson’s horses, one rust and one a faded gray, stayed tied to that shaded post all day. His wagon stood close by the barn while they loaded it down till it sagged. One hogshead of tobacco, high as my waist. Bolts of the same cloth they’d be wearing next year. Three casks of apple brandy. All in barter.

I knew everything from the beginning. Can’t say I didn’t. But it’s like Phoebe told me, everything’s fine so long as you find a way to manage it. It’s when you can’t see what you’re dealing with that you head into trouble.

Somehow it fell to me to carry Wash his supper. Everybody else stayed crossways with him but I was curious. Took him some field peas and greens with two slices of smoked ham. Miller made sure about the meat. When I got to the stall they kept him in, Quinn sat by the door on a crate. He tipped his square chin up at me as he reached out for one of the two bowls I carried. He pulled the latch back on the bottom door till it swung open and nodded for me to go in.

I bent to step under the top door he’d left bolted shut. With the late light, I couldn’t see Wash too good but I felt him there. Heavy, like something fell off a shelf, and sitting real still. Then he came clear. Sitting on the floor in the deep straw, leaning his back against the far wall, resting his elbows on drawn up knees. He wasn’t doing nothing but watching his fingers twirling a piece of straw.

Even from where I stood, I could see the scar snaking through the edge of his hairline. Deep enough to hold water. Right at his temple. Everybody told a different story on what happened but it should have killed him sure enough. Made me wonder who it was had managed to keep him here on this earth and what he could see out of the one good eye he had left.

At first, he seemed to me like all the rest of these men, worn out from a long day, except he wasn’t sitting around with the rest of everybody. Tired feels less worn out when you got a few folks to sit with. Have a sip. Try and shake the day off.

It didn’t hit me till I stood there holding his supper in my hand, watching him twirl his piece of straw. Wash was further from having folks than just about anybody I ever came across. Nobody to sit with at the end of this long day or any other day either.

I always thought I was the only one who stayed steady looking back at the world from the far end of a long rope. But watching him sit there on the floor of that stall, finally looking up at me with that one good eye and his other eye roaming the dusty wall over my shoulder, I caught myself wanting to trace that R brand fading into his cheek with my finger. I could tell he’d looked down a long rope himself and likely still did most days.

He must have took hold of my thoughts, because without ever moving, he bristled like a cat. Slammed his eyes shut right in my face, even as he stayed steady watching me. Made me feel like I’d stepped inside his yard without asking. What set me back even more was the way he looked at me after he got all bowed up. Sat way back inside himself and ran his eyes over me, just as cold as you want to be. Like he was adding up some parts.

I been looked at like that plenty and didn’t need any more of it, so I edged over to set his bowl down beside him. Then I stepped away, careful not to turn my back on him. It wasn’t till he reached to take the bowl and was well into eating when he stopped and looked at me again.

I don’t know why I was still standing there. I turned right around and left. Ducked under that top door and bolted the bottom one behind me. Both that day and the next till Wash was good and gone.

That’s how things went between us at first, but it’s a whole different story now.

Richardson

When Quinn came to me with this idea for Wash, I turned away from it. I remember thinking, surely not. But he kept after me, saying supply was drying up and we could make a killing.

We sure as hell needed to make something. My place had fallen apart after I rode off to soldier in 1812, determined to whip England once and for all. Forever trying to make my contribution in what turned out to be a damn useless war.

It took me three years to get home and three more to drag my place back into some kind of working order. But I had set too many deals in motion at once and when the bottom fell from the market, there I sat. Dogpaddling. Trying to paper us out of the hole.

I remember even the day. It was hot as hell and dry. We had been without rain for nearly sixty days and my palms stuck to the pages of my letterbooks, leaving sweaty smears alongside my columns of numbers. Quinn came into my office with his jaw set.

No matter how short and bandy legged, Quinn was often right. That’s why I’d taken him on as a partner despite his lack of capital. His father was my father’s overseer but Quinn came West aiming higher. Soon as he closed the door behind him, he started in on me, relentless as a terrier. Talking incessantly about the waves of settlers moving through west Tennessee into the new territories of Arkansas and Louisiana. What they could mean for our markets.

“They’re all headed for the South West, trying to get in the cotton game. All that new land going to cotton, you’d have to be blind not to see what will happen to our prices. They’ll drop till there’s no way for us to make any money. As for negroes, they’ll go sky high. You know they will.”

As I ran my eyes over my columns which so steadfastly refused to add up, I had to admit he had a point. What I couldn’t get over was how easy it laid itself out before me. Stared straight at me, tugging on my sleeve. Even as I resisted Quinn’s logic, I was counting the numbers in my head. How could I not, with the debts I carried?

“It’s right there for the taking,” Quinn told me again and again until I turned my mind to face it.

Send Wash over to my old friend Miller’s on a Friday, put him with three or four per day. Even if only some take, that will mean ten new negroes, worth two hundred apiece once weaned. And with his midwife Pallas on hand to catch every single one, Miller can get the whole two hundred for each before he has to spend anything at all.

“Two thousand to him has got to mean at least two hundred for us. Even in barter, it’s worth it. You know it is.”

Two hundred to me for sending Wash over to Miller’s on a Friday. Over to Miller’s and then over to the next place and the next.

I do question what I would have done if I hadn’t already been wondering how to handle Wash. With the way he kept cutting the buck and tomcatting around, I knew I had to do something or my whole house was liable to come down on me. You can’t let just one get away with it. That’s like having a crack in your cup. Before you know it, all your water runs out.

I saw it so clearly. My wagon taking him there and back, the money in my hand. And Wash thrashing and cussing but somehow fitting the shoe right to his foot, almost in spite of himself. Making it fit.

We all did it. It’s just that some of us did it more and better. Smoother somehow. Quinn called it the Red Sea. Said the way parts for me. Says I was born to it. Not only the silver spoon but the cup and the bowl too.