Wench (20 page)

T
hey returned to the resort that summer for the fourth time, after all. And this time, Fran came with them.

On the ship, Lizzie slept in the servants’ quarters adjacent to Fran and Drayle’s stateroom. She wondered where she would sleep once they got to the resort. She pictured Fran in her cottage, tucked into her sheets, soaking in her bathtub, drinking from her cups.

Leaving her children had been more difficult than ever. Nate was almost eight years old—big enough to work in the fields and to look after his sister. Rabbit was a year younger, but she had an old soul. Lizzie sometimes felt the girl could see right through her mother’s put-on strength. As if the girl could sense the most cowardly part of her. As if the girl already knew the secret that Lizzie had not told anyone, had not even half admitted to herself.

Fran had been pestering Drayle about putting the children to work, and even though Drayle had held her off, Lizzie could tell that the woman was wearing him down. Drayle had never gotten
over losing Philip. Even though he had sold his favorite slave at a fair price, he acted as if Philip had escaped. He didn’t even like for Lizzie to mention Philip’s name. Recently, Drayle had started training Nate to care for the horses. It was exactly what Lizzie had expected.

Nate was eager to bid Drayle’s wishes. Lizzie could see how much her son wanted his father’s attention and how he would jump the sun and the moon to get it. If he wasn’t busy showing off how strong he was by lifting something too heavy for him, he was reciting something from a book. Lizzie was proud of the fact that he talked like a white boy with nary a touch of slave in his speech. She only wished that the other slave women were there so she could brag about him in a way that she could not brag about him to other slaves.

She leaned her forehead against the train car window. She passed the time by counting the houses built along the banks of the Little Miami River. Her stomach pitched with each tumble of the train. The glass was hot against her skin. She missed Philip’s stories.

Drayle had warned her this wasn’t a vacation this summer, mysteriously saying that he had unfinished business. She hoped that it had nothing to do with trying to buy Philip back. She wanted Philip to enjoy his freedom with his new wife. At the same time, she didn’t want to offer up her son as a replacement. As usual, she found herself having to choose between her interests and another’s.

She wondered why Drayle had brought her along at all. Since Reenie and Mawu’s disappearance the summer before, they had not spoken about the two women. She had been afraid to ask lest he think she had a mind to follow.

As soon as they got to the hotel, she planned to make her way to the kitchen so she could find out the latest news.

When they finally arrived at the resort after eight days of
travel, the grand white hotel did not look the same to Lizzie. The paint was not fresh, and a yellowed curtain blew through a broken window pane. The grass was not trimmed very low, and some of the flowerbeds were empty. A gaggle of geese sauntered by, following a servant carrying bread.

Fran looked about her, as if disappointed that the resort did not appear the way she had expected. Lizzie wished the woman could have seen the place at its height. When Drayle entered the hotel to sign the register, Fran instructed Lizzie to fan her while they waited. Lizzie stretched over the trunks in the back of the omnibus so she could reach her. The leather was hot. Her lip twitched. Lizzie wished there was someone there to fan her.
I suppose I am the spoiled nigger she says I am.

When he came back, he pointed to Lizzie and said, “They fixed up your bed” as if she was supposed to know what he was talking about. She hopped off the back of the omnibus and grabbed the square of cloth pinned around her belongings.

In the kitchen, the head cook Clarissa smiled at her and while Lizzie had waited for such a warm welcome for the past three summers, she found that it did little to ease her mood.

“You looking good,” the older woman said to Lizzie. “You done gained some.”

“I reckon so,” Lizzie responded. The cook put up her arms to stretch, and Lizzie pretended to take it for a hug. She pulled Clarissa close, and when the woman squeezed her back, Lizzie felt a flower open up inside of her.

She asked if Lizzie had eaten, and when Lizzie told her no she fixed a plate. She motioned for Lizzie to go outside and wash up. Lizzie stepped into the sideyard. The spigot on the water pump was rusted and a bee circled its mouth as if it held the attraction of something other than water. She put her hands beneath the cool liquid, and closed her eyes.

Clarissa served mashed potatoes, gravy, and chicken. Lizzie
was hungry. A chambermaid on the ship had brought her a plate of leftover food every evening, but once she’d boarded the train, there had been no more meals. After she finished the chicken, she felt sick. She tried to hide it from the ex-slave, thinking it wouldn’t take much for the woman to guess her condition.

Lizzie indicated she was ready to go upstairs. Clarissa called out for a servant who showed Lizzie up the back stairway. As she led the way, the girl asked if she had ever seen where the hotel servants slept. Lizzie answered no. When they opened the door, the girl pointed out that the men and women slept on opposite sides of the attic. The wall between the two spaces had been erected after Clarissa explained to the hotel manager that no self-respecting free colored woman would share a bedroom with a man. The servant pointed to a narrow bed that was sinking in the middle.

“I guess a bed, even a sinking one, is better than a dirty old pallet any day,” the girl said softly, watching Lizzie.

Lizzie slid her bundle under the bed and thought of her bedroom at home. This free girl was assuming that because she was a slave, she slept on a pallet. She wondered what the girl would think if she saw the spacious room Lizzie called her own in Drayle’s house. The drawer of underwear. The wooden horse on the dresser.

Lizzie wasn’t used to being idle, but the new sleeping situation had her off balance. She was used to tidying the cottage and washing Drayle’s clothes and warming his dinner. Why had they brought her here?

She considered asking the girl her name, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was another friend who would desert her.

S
he wanted to kill Drayle. While she was sleeping that night, she made up in her mind that she didn’t want to kill it. She wanted
to kill him instead. He was the one who had gotten her into this mess. He was the one who had been lying to her for all these years, who wouldn’t let her children go free.

She had to kill him. And unlike Mawu, she had to succeed.

She caught herself mumbling when she woke up. The room was so hot, she felt as if she were boiling. There wasn’t a window that opened in the attic and even though the door was ajar, the air wasn’t moving.

She pushed her way out of the bed, pulled off the sheet, and walked down the back stairs. She was used to finding cool spots in the kitchen, so she had no problems locating one here. She balled up the sheet and made a bed of it.

But still she couldn’t sleep. Because in her dreams, she had done it already. She had killed him. Would doing something like this weigh on her children’s spirits? Would they pay for her decisions? Big Mama always used to say that the sins of the mother and the father rained down on the heads of the children.

She finally gave up on trying to sleep and stepped out the back door. Everything was quiet except for the occasional sound of a dog barking. She walked, stopping when she saw a piece of paper nailed to a tree.

$100 REWARD
FOR
NIGGER WENCH.
R
ANAWAY FROM
T
AWAWA
H
OUSE RESORT, NEAR
X
ENIA
S
PRINGS
, OH
ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF
A
UGUST
, 1853. A
NSWERS TO THE NAME
REENIE

5
FEET 6 INCHES HIGH WITH A STRAIGHT NOSE FOR A NEGRO;
NO TEETH REMAINING BUT DOES WEAR A SET OF FALSE ONES;
DEEP VOICE LIKE A MAN. SHE WAS RAISED IN THE HOUSE
AND WILL LIKELY LOOK FOR WORK AS A COOK
.

The paper made Lizzie go cold.

She had only meant to walk to the pond and back, but her feet
had their own mind. Before she knew it, she had arrived at the cottage and was peering in the window. She wasn’t sure if Drayle would be staying in the same cottage as the one he had shared with Lizzie. A part of her had hoped they wouldn’t, that Drayle would be sensitive enough to know the cottage had been special to them. But there lay the couple, sleeping as sound as babies. Drayle’s arm lay across his wife’s chest. They didn’t look any more comfortable than she had felt in the attic above the kitchen.

As she tried to make her way back, she tripped over something in the dark that sounded like metal. It clanged loudly. She looked down and saw Drayle’s metal camping dishes, lined up against the outside of the house, still dirty from the last visitor. Surely Fran would wash them for him, she thought, as she put the cup back in its proper place.

“Who’s there?”

Jesus! It was Drayle and there was no place to hide. She stepped closer to the side of the house and pressed up against it. She figured if he went left, she would go right. If he went right, she would go left.

He came out the back door and walked to the water pump, as if he figured he would get himself something to drink while he was up.

She couldn’t help herself. She needed to claim him, needed to know there was still that connection between the two of them, even if she was angry at him. She crept up behind him and put her arms around his waist.

He jumped and turned around. “Girl! Don’t you sneak up on me like that. Are you crazy? What are you doing out here this time of night?”

His eyes moved past her shoulder.

“You spying on me?” he said.

Then he pushed her back into the shadows and kissed her. It had been a while since he had kissed her on the mouth. Lately,
their lovemaking consisted of a few grunts and then he was through. Most of the time it was from the back with her dress still on. She had noticed that sometimes he couldn’t seem to get it going good enough. Then he would tell her it was her fault.

She let him kiss her for a few minutes until she started to feel sick again. She pushed him back and lay an arm across her stomach.

“What’s wrong with you woman? You ain’t—”

“No!” she said. “Something I ate.”

He grabbed her shoulders. In the dark, his face looked boyish. He seemed to be enjoying the secrecy of the meeting. He told her to turn around and bend over. She didn’t say what she wanted to say, that she didn’t feel like it.

It lasted a little longer than it had lately. While she was bent over, she spied a sharp piece of metal on the ground. While he was carrying on behind her, she stared at it. It was just close enough where she could reach it.
Swing it around. Hit him with it
.

But she couldn’t do it.
I’m not Mawu.

And then he was quiet. And she knew he was through.

I
t was the Quaker woman who led her to Mawu. Lizzie had started to know the Tawawa Woods, the deep ravine in its center, the five mineral springs, Massie’s creek, but she still did not know them well enough to navigate directions. Once they arrived, she was surprised Mawu was so close. With that hair, she’d figured Mawu would be long gone by then. All of this time and she had been living right under the slavecatcher’s nose. Only Mawu could do something like that.

The first thing Lizzie noticed as Glory approached with the two horses was that she was pregnant. The woman’s rounded belly made her pause. Lizzie wanted to share in the news, touch it, give her a silent prayer. But she was in no place for such celebrations. She tried hard to feel warmth, especially since she’d known how much Glory wanted a child.

She forced words from her lips, “You’ve done it I see.”

Glory smiled and put a hand on her middle. “Yes. My very own. I’m hoping it’s a girl.”

“A girl?” Lizzie wanted to chastise her for such talk.

“Yes. If it is, I’m going to name it Eliza. Like your given name.”

Lizzie didn’t bother to hide her surprise. Why would this woman want to name a baby after her? Why not Mawu or Reenie or Sweet?

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t,” Glory said. “But I want to. I need this baby to have a strong love like yours.”

Lizzie shrugged and climbed onto the horse. It was a gentle mare and not as large as the one Glory rode. As they started off, Lizzie noted she was a better rider than Glory. And she took pleasure in the fact. She had learned a lot about horses from Drayle over the years. The one-eyed horse had finally been sold, and Lizzie remembered him now. This mare felt much less solid beneath her. She coaxed it to follow Glory’s horse off the trail.

Glory was delivering fresh goods to the hotel again. Her husband wasn’t sick anymore, so he was back in the fields. As they rode at a leisurely pace, Glory described the turnips and tomatoes she grew in her garden. Lizzie asked what Glory and her husband would do once the resort closed this summer. Perhaps they would return to taking their goods into town and selling them, Glory answered. Some were hoping the hotel would be sold to new owners who would maintain it and keep some of the help. Glory hoped for the same thing.

They picked up the pace a bit, and rode until they got tired. Then they rode some more. Just when Lizzie was about to suggest they stop for a rest, they came upon a cabin. It looked run over. Deserted. A tree grew right out of its side edge, as if the cabin had been built on top of its roots. It cracked the wall and angled south toward the sun. Mold covered the gaping hole. Glory jumped off her horse and tied him up. Lizzie descended more slowly, suspicious all of a sudden. Although she trusted this white woman,
they were still in slavecatcher territory and she didn’t want to be mistaken for the wrong runaway slave. If she disappeared, Drayle would assume she’d run away. And Glory would be able to collect a reward.

A curtain moved in the window. When Glory was certain none of the sounds around them were human, she walked up to the door. It opened without her having to knock. She motioned for Lizzie to follow. They stepped into the dark cabin before they could see who opened it. Behind the door was Mawu, a cloth wrapped around her hair, earrings dangling from her ears. She looked exactly the same, only thinner.

“Mawu!” Lizzie whispered. Mawu reached out for her. The embrace did not end quickly. Lizzie wanted to kiss her face, wanted to cover her up with joy.

“Miss Lizzie,” she said.

When they let go of one another, Lizzie looked around. The cabin was dark because the curtains were made out of a thick, opaque cloth. But even in the darkness, she could see its coziness. There was hardly any dust. The wood plank floors were swept clean. Lizzie wondered if Mawu had been expecting them. How did Mawu and Glory communicate? That had been a long ride.

“You looking good, Miss Lizzie,” Mawu said.

Something about her diction sounded different. Lizzie looked in the corner of the room. Three books sat neatly stacked. Had she learned to read? Or did those books belong to somebody else? Lizzie searched for signs of somebody else living there.

“It’s just me,” Mawu said, watching Lizzie. “Reenie long gone.”

Mawu brought out three jars of cold tea and the two slave women settled themselves into two ragged armchairs while Glory sat on something that looked like it was carved from a tree stump. A beetle came up through the floorboards. Mawu stomped it with her foot before sitting back down.

Lizzie crossed her arms over her stomach. “I think I might be having another one.”

Mawu’s eyes traveled down Lizzie’s body and back up again. “How long have you knowed?”

Lizzie unfolded her arms. She hadn’t talked to anybody about it yet, and it hurt to let her secret go.

“Not long. I don’t even feel it moving yet,” she said. “What am I going to do?”

“That’s the same thing I was gone ask you.”

Glory looked from Lizzie to Mawu.

“Kill it,” Lizzie said, before she could think.

Mawu’s face didn’t change, but Glory choked on her tea.

“Don’t,” Glory said. “Give it to me. I’ll take care of it and raise it right alongside this one. Don’t kill a baby from God.”

“Ain’t from God,” Mawu snapped. “From the devil, if anything.”

“You don’t know about God. You left your boy behind,” Glory said.

“He’ll be all right.”

“What kind of mother.” Glory left the statement unfinished.

Lizzie had never heard Glory speak so angrily before. She, too, wanted to know how Mawu could have left her son behind. Had she sent him word of her whereabouts? Did she plan to try to buy his freedom? Did she even care?

Glory was still staring at Lizzie as if to say
don’t you do that
. Lizzie knew she ought to feel bad about it, pitiful as Glory’s face was, but she didn’t. She really couldn’t say that she felt anything at all. It seemed like lately, her feelings had been drying up.

“Ain’t no other choice now, Lizzie. You got to escape. You got to get out now,” Mawu said.

Lizzie looked down into her glass. She’d heard somewhere that there were folks who could look at the bits of tea in their cup and tell the future. She counted the flakes of tea swimming in the
bottom of her jar, but she didn’t see a sign. The leaves didn’t form into anything that resembled a hatchet or a rifle.

“Course if it was me, I’d kill it. If you sick, it’s gone make it hard for you to escape.”

Lizzie thought about her children like she always did when escape crossed her mind. How could she get word to them? Tennessee seemed so far away. Like a different world.

“I reckon that man fancy he love you. You don’t still talk that nonsense about loving him, do you?” Mawu watched Lizzie.

That’s what she’d told Mawu before. She’d told of Mawu’s plan to escape because she loved her, but also because she loved Drayle. But something was shriveling up inside of her. The love she did have left felt old and useless.

“Where’s Reenie?” Lizzie asked.

“I don’t know. Us was together for only that first night. Us didn’t have no plan. Us was just running for our lives. Then us split up cause all the slave catchers was looking for two women together. I do hope she made it. I had a vision the other night that us gone meet up again some day.”

So Mawu still believed in her heathen religion. Most folks would have said they would meet up again in heaven. Mawu probably meant she would meet Reenie in Canada or Africa. Lizzie had begun to believe that slaves had a right to venture off course once in a while when it came to religion.

Lizzie looked down at Mawu’s hands and saw the burn scars. They were raised and welt-like and lighter-colored than the skin around them, and she could tell that the scarring went up her sleeves. When Mawu caught Lizzie staring, she did nothing to hide her hands.

“This is what you got to do. Everybody expect you to leave at night. That be when there is the most men out looking for runaways so they can get that there reward money. But you got to fool them. You got to leave in the middle of the day. You got to walk
just like you free. I got a man can make you up some free papers look just like the real thing. Course it’s gone cost money. You got money?” Mawu asked.

Glory took Lizzie’s empty glass and went to refill it. When she came back, she grabbed Lizzie’s other hand. Glory’s hand was cool and wet from where she had been holding the glass. She let go of Lizzie and sat back down on the stump.

“If you ain’t got no money, us can get some.” Mawu kept on without waiting for an answer. “You know Philip married that woman and now he a barber. Did you ever think he would go from being an outdoors man to cutting hair? They say he picked it up right quick. I bet he rich.”

“Philip?” Lizzie said absently.

“Yeah, Philip,” Mawu continued. “He’ll help if us ask him.” Mawu fixed Lizzie with a stare. “But my question is, is you ready? cause I ain’t gone help you if you is gone act the way you acted in the past.”

Lizzie tried to focus in on Mawu’s features. The woman’s face had not changed. It was still steady and cold. “Why did y’all leave without telling me, Mawu?”

Mawu stole a look over at Glory. Glory understood and announced she was going to check on the horses. When the door closed behind her, Mawu said: “Wasn’t no time.”

“What do you mean? You knew what you were doing long before you did it.”

“No. I mean, I knew what I tried to do. I tried to get rid of Tip once and for all.”

“You burned down that cottage to kill him.”

“He never said nothing bout it or they would have had the law after me. I would be a dead woman. But he knowed what happen. I believe the only reason he wants me back is so he can punish me hisself. Lord knows what would happen if he caught up with me now.”

“Why are you still around here then? You ought to be in Canada by now.”

Mawu put her glass down. She lifted out of her chair.

At that moment, Lizzie understood why her friend had remained. She had waited for her, the last of them.

“You got to leave, Lizzie. This your only chance. Promise me.”

Lizzie couldn’t say anything. She was too dizzy from Mawu’s love.

Mawu held on to Lizzie’s shoulders. “Promise me. Promise me, Lizzie.”

Lizzie shook her head. She couldn’t promise. She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even look Mawu in the eye.