Wench: A Novel Read online

  The four women eyed the dresses with the knowledge that they only had two days to sew. Some of the dresses were ripped, torn. Others had holes still bearing the cracked, empty shells of moth cocoons. But they were a far cry from the “negro cloth” some of the slaves wore back on the plantations. Negro cloth was just another name for a coarse cotton, and when they wore it, it scratched their skin.

  Lizzie chose one that the woman said was made of something called batiste and the color of a tangerine. Mawu commented that the dress was the perfect color for Lizzie’s dark skin and black hair. Mawu took a liking to a blue dress. It was not often that she got to wear color, and she didn’t believe she had ever worn anything blue.

  For Sweet, it was docility unleashed. She chose the only empire waistline dress of the bunch and ripped the sleeves off because they were too tight on her arms. Even after she had let the dress out, the constricted bodice would push her breasts into two engorged maternal mounds.

  Although they insisted that she choose first, Reenie chose an unbecoming dress. She was the only one of the four who did not plan a complete transformation. The dress she chose was out of season and would surely be too hot for a summer evening. It had a long train and high neckline. There were so many buttons down the back that it took two women to secure it. Some of the buttons were tight, and they decided they would need to let out an inch so the buttons wouldn’t bulge and pop. Sweet said it looked like Reenie was going to a funeral.

  On the night of the dinner, when the dresses had been sewn and they had oiled their hair and faces and Mawu had rubbed aloe onto an unexplained fresh scar on her right cheek and Lizzie had darkened each woman’s eyes with a smudge of shadow, they walked to the hotel, unescorted by the men, holding each other through the arms, coupled two by two, excited about being ladies for a change. Reenie walked in front with Sweet, and Lizzie and Mawu walked just far enough behind so they wouldn’t trip on Reenie’s train.

  The servants did not hide their curiosity as the slave women walked through the kitchen. Each woman had experienced a range of reactions from the slaves back home: jealousy, pride, pity. Here in Ohio, they had not spoken much about what the free colored people thought of women like them. This was partly because they did not care. They had each other, unlike down south. There, it was a lonely battle.

  They stepped carefully because the servants’ stairs were steep. At the top of the stairs, another servant met them and pointed the way to the library that had been set up as a dining room so as to spare the other guests the sight of white men and slave women eating together.

  They could hear the voices of the men as they approached the door. Once they were inside, the doors were closed behind them with a firm click of the lock. Each of them took in the room: the soft glow of the lamps casting an amber light, the smell of the leather-bound books, the white tablecloth and delicate dishes, the freshly cleaned floors. The room had no windows, and this fact along with the low ceiling made the room, despite its spaciousness, feel intimate.

  A trio of colored musicians filed into the room from a door within the bookcase and collected themselves in the corner. Sweet admired their clothing. She knew firsthand the difficulty of sewing the ruffles that streamed down the front of their white shirts. Their pants were black and tight like riding pants. Faces greased to a shine, they moved as if one body, silent and practiced. Once they had set up, one of them lifted his head and when he lowered it, they all hit the first note together.

  The music was light. It made Lizzie feel as if she would rise up off the floor. Even though there wasn’t even a hint of religiosity in the music, Lizzie couldn’t help but be moved by the unfettered talent of the freedman. She tried not to stare at the musicians as she took her place beside her Master. She did not want him to think she found them attractive.

  Lizzie knew for a fact that Drayle had suggested an evening such as this the summer before. The other men had protested, and it had never happened. Imagine, they’d said, if their wives knew they were letting these slave women dress up like ladies and dine with them at a full-service dinner table! This summer, the men had finally agreed to Drayle’s suggestion. It made Lizzie proud to know her Master had been so thoughtful.

  Drayle held out his hand. She reached out for him. He wore a thin summer suit and his sun-chapped face was freshly shaven. In her eyes, he was as handsome as a preacher. She touched his face. His cheek was cool in her palm.

  “Would you care to dance?”

  She answered in a voice that didn’t quite sound like her own. “Why thank you, Nathan.” She called him by the name that only Fran used. It was not lost on him. Three lines appeared in his forehead, and then relaxed into faint etchings.

  Lizzie sneaked a quick peek at the others. Mawu was standing next to Tip looking bored. From the looks of him, he was already drunk. Reenie was filling Sir’s pipe with tobacco as he engaged in a conversation with a man sitting in a high-backed leather chair beside him. Reenie tapped the edge of the pipe bowl against a nearby bookcase to settle the tobacco. She performed her chore methodically, as if she had done it countless times. Sweet’s man had plunged his face into her cleavage and Lizzie could hear her tinny laugh.

  “That’s some dress.”

  “Tangerine,” Lizzie said.

  “What?”

  “The lady that brought it said it is tangerine.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  Drayle moved her hips back and forth, and once they had settled into a comfortable rhythm, he rested the tip of his chin on her head.

  The lighting in the room was dim, so dim Reenie had trouble filling the pipe. It was as if the white men were afraid that if it were too bright in the room, they might remember they were about to dine with a group of well-dressed colored women.

  The hotel manager entered and stood in the corner, surveying the room. His eyes kept returning to the women. When the manager’s eyes found Lizzie, she tried to steer Drayle around so she could put her back to the manager, but Drayle was leaning too heavily on her. She knew that look in the manager’s eyes, and she did not want to be the object of it. She turned her head into Drayle’s chest and when she took another peek, she saw he was now focused on Reenie. Reenie’s high-necked stance had stiffened. The bag of tobacco dangled from her fingers as if forgotten.

  Someone rang a glass dinner bell and the couples took their places at the table. Mawu maneuvered Tip around to Lizzie’s side and slipped into the seat next to her. The northern guest sat on one side of the table, unaccompanied. No introductions of any kind were made.

  “They gone serve us?” Mawu whispered.

  “I reckon so,” Lizzie answered.

  A servant with bumps covering his chin and neck unfolded Mawu’s napkin and spread it across her lap with a flourish.

  “Ain’t this something?” Mawu fingered the cloth.

  Lizzie was fascinated by the free servants. They floated into the room like angels and held the dishes aloft like sacrificial offerings, announcing each dish as if they were presenting a guest. Lizzie tucked the display into her mind so she could try to emulate it later. She wanted to serve dinner back at the place like free colored folk did it. She wanted to slide the spoons onto the table with crisp, little movements, pour wine with a flourish at the end, shake out a napkin with a soft pop of the fabric. The servants announced a turtle soup. Lizzie could smell it as the bowl came her way. She did not wait for the others to be served, plunging her spoon into the thick, red soup. She tried to separate the flavors in her mouth: onion, tomato, cayenne. The turtle meat was a bit chewy, but well flavored.

  “I can make a real good turtle soup,” Mawu whispered to Lizzie, leaning over Tip. “This ain’t nothing.”

  “You mentioned this morning that you might have a horse for sale?” asked Sweet’s Master.

  “Yes, yes,” answered Drayle. “He’s only got one eye, but he’s fast as lightning.”

  “Good with children?”

  Drayle put down his spoon. “What age are we t
alking?”

  Sweet’s master pawed her hand. She rested the other hand on the lid of her stomach. “For Sweet’s oldest boy,” he said.

  Drayle picked his spoon back up. He did not look at Lizzie who was watching him and waiting for his response. Surely he would be honest about the horse, she thought.

  “A horse with only one good eye? That doesn’t sound like a deal,” said the northerner. He had a thick mustache that he kept licking with quick darts of his tongue. He obviously had not caught that Sweet’s master was intending to buy the horse for his slave son. “How much you want for it?”

  Drayle laughed. “We’re old friends. We can talk price later. I’ll make it worth the trip out to my farm, I can promise—”

  “Horses won’t do you no good if we go to war.” Sir sniffed.

  “Nobody’s going to war,” Tip said, belching loudly. “I’ll be damned if I let some Yankee take away my hard-earned property.”

  The northerner laughed nervously as if to assure them that although he was a northerner, he was no Yankee. “What would the country do with a bunch of freed niggers anyway?”

  The servant announced a beef dish.

  Mawu spoke. “Master Taylor say if us go to war, he gone free me first. Say he’ll be damned if the Yankees get me.”

  “Shut up, Betsy. I never said nothing like that.”

  This caught the attention of the other three women. Betsy? That was her given name?

  “Yeah, you did.”

  Tip pinched her on the arm, and although it looked playful, Mawu rubbed the flesh he had grabbed.

  The manager of the hotel entered the room again. He said something to one of the servants who came and leaned down beside Sir and whispered in his ear. Sir excused himself and followed the manager into the corridor.

  “Let’s talk about more pleasant things,” said the northerner. He rested his small hands on each side of his plate and licked his mustache. “How is the new Fugitive Slave Law working, do you think?”

  Drayle pulled at the lapels of his dinner jacket. “I’m proud to say that I don’t have such problems. My slaves are all trustworthy and docile. They would rather live on my farm any day than try to come up north and deal with these cold northern winters. Isn’t that right, Lizzie?”

  “Yessir,” she said in a soft voice.

  “If the federal government keeps sticking their nose in places it doesn’t belong,” said Tip, “then the Fugitive Slave Law won’t make any difference whatsoever. We’ve got to protect our own interests. Who are they to tell me, a God-fearing man, how to run my business affairs?”

  Lizzie had heard about this law. That was one reason she was scared of Mawu’s plan. She had tried to explain that to the other slaves, but they didn’t seem to care. They were used to slave patrols, they said. A northern dog was no different than a Southern dog, they said.

  “All you got to do is make the reward money high enough. That’ll catch a slave, for sure,” Tip continued.

  “I’m not worried about anybody ending slavery anytime soon.” Drayle stared directly at the northerner. “This country has been built by men like us.”

  The bumpy-faced servant refilled the men’s glasses with wine.

  Sir returned and Reenie searched his face.

  The manager beckoned to Sir from the doorway again, and he stood once more. They discussed something heatedly for a moment. Then Sir called Reenie over.

  Reenie’s napkin fell to the floor as she got up from the table. Sir took her by the elbow and a loud “no” erupted from her.

  “What’s going on?” Mawu asked no one in particular.

  The dessert plates sat untouched. Reenie and Sir’s voices drifted over to the table.

  “Naw, naw, naw.”

  “Shut up woman and do as I say.”

  “I ain’t doing it. Sir, please!”

  Lizzie pushed back her chair, but Drayle grabbed the loose fabric of her dress.

  Sir pushed Reenie into the hallway, and she pushed back. The manager stood looking up at her, for now that she was standing next to him, it was clear she was the taller of the two.

  Mawu managed to escape Tip and made her way over to the struggling couple.

  “Let her go.” Mawu grabbed Reenie’s other arm.

  “You stay out of this and mind your business,” the manager said. When he turned his head and the light caught his profile, Lizzie and Sweet could see that he was sweating.

  “Let her go, let her go, let her go,” Mawu said, pulling and breathing heavily.

  “Drayle,” Lizzie whispered. Drayle took a sip of his wine.

  Sweet whimpered and started to cry. Her master rubbed her back.

  Lizzie watched as Reenie’s body went limp, as if breathing out its last bit of energy into the darkened room. The soft sound of her false teeth clicking together ebbed until there was silence. Sir and Mawu let go of her.

  The manager raised his head. “There, there now,” he said to Reenie. Lizzie could see Reenie’s face clearly now. She had the look. The look of a woman who is done fighting. The look of a woman months after her children have been sold from her. The look of a slave who has decided it is better not to feel. All three of the women recognized what they saw on her face.

  Reenie followed the manager into the corridor and they disappeared. Lizzie watched the gaping hole, the space where Reenie had just stood.

  “How could you?” Mawu said to Sir.

  He cracked his hand across her cheek.

  “Don’t you ever come between me and my slave woman again, you hear me?”

  Tip rose out of his seat. “Goddamnit, that’s my property!”

  Mawu felt her face where the still-fresh scar had just been opened up again. She examined the blood on her fingers as if it weren’t her own. Sir returned to the table and a servant slipped through the side door and passed him a wet cloth to wipe the blood from his hands.

  “Now, what’s this y’all are saying about a one-eyed horse?” Sir curled his lips into a grin. The servant returned with a bottle of wine. Sir took it from him and drank a long swallow directly from the lip of the bottle.

  Lizzie looked at the light twisting through her empty glass. She couldn’t drink or eat another bite. The music and the sound of the men’s voices faded. She let the silence take her. When she finally looked up, the seat beside her was empty and Mawu was nowhere to be seen. Her master Tip was gone also.

  But across from Lizzie, in the place where Reenie was supposed to be sitting, was a yellow-haired white woman with red-rouged cheeks. Sir had his face in her neck.

  EIGHT

  Reenie and Lizzie were told to pluck and prepare the birds the men brought back from their hunting trip. The two women sat on the ground and spread the dozen or so birds out. The evening sun was behind them and the half moons in their armpits had dried. Each woman took a bird, dipped it in a washtub of hot water, and pulled out the feathers in handfuls, their hands slick against the warmed skin. Once they had established an easy, quiet rhythm, they spoke in hushed tones.

  “Tell me your story, Reenie.”

  Reenie looked up at her younger friend sharply. Stories didn’t get told unless they had to. Stories were for remembering, and none of the women wanted to tell how they had gotten there. When they told their stories, they preferred to tell the ones about that faraway place. They preferred to tell ones they had patched together in their heads, hundreds of oral remnants whispered in dark slave cabins.

  This was what Lizzie knew about Reenie: She lived on a plantation not far from Lizzie in Tennessee. They hadn’t known each other before visiting Tawawa, but when they spoke about it, they thought they might be kin. Two of Reenie’s cousins had been hired out the previous winter to work where Lizzie lived, and she had gotten to know them well. The first summer at Tawawa, Lizzie and Reenie had spent hours exchanging names, searching for a real connection and the fact that they hadn’t discovered any blood didn’t lessen the affection between them.

  Reenie had an exten
ded family on her plantation, and though some had been sold off over the years, they were remarkable for the numbers that remained. In fact, her plantation was made up of several families. The way Reenie told it, each of these families did their work together, and if one member fell ill, the others took up the slack. If a new slave was bought, the families would meet to decide which “family” he would join. Sometimes, according to Reenie, there was even a bit of friendly competition between families. This was different from Lizzie’s plantation, where the slaves toiled each for himself, suffering their individual punishments if they failed to complete a day’s work.

  “Why you asking?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “Wondering is all.” She did not say she had been worried about Reenie ever since the older woman had begun her nightly visits to the manager’s suite in the hotel.

  Reenie stuck her finger in a hole on the bare skin and dug out the bird shot. She tossed it to the side and continued to pull feathers, more slowly and deliberately than before.

  “He my brother,” she said, her voice low and flat.

  Lizzie almost dropped the bird she was dipping into the tub. “Who’s your brother?”

  She wiped at her runny eye with the back of her arm. “Sir.”

  Lizzie tried to digest the news. She had heard about such things.

  “So your daughter, the one that got sold off…”

  “Sho. She my daughter and my niece.” now Reenie was yanking the feathers out, one by one. Her dark forehead shone in the red dusk.

  “So I fixed myself,” Reenie said. “I fixed myself so he couldn’t make no more childrens. My family helped me. All the womens and mens gathered round me and prayed over me. All night, they went right on praying. Then right before the sun started to gather herself up, us fixed it so it wouldn’t happen no more.”