An Unlikely Friendship (16 page)

I screamed all their names. "Mama!" Where was she? Where was Grandma Sarry? Massa? Robert?

But the only one besides me who was on the place was Big Red. Even God was gone.

I
MUST HAVE FAINTED
. They told me later that Big Red went easy on me because I was only five years old. I wondered what he would do if I was grown-up.

But I was grown-up after that. Couldn't they see? I'd grown years that evening. If grown-up meant that you no longer trusted anybody. If grown-up meant that you trusted, even less, the part of you that was white. If grown-up meant knowing how stupid you'd been, thinking you were part of the family.

And if grown-up meant you knew you had one person in the world you could believe in, at least. Yourself.

L
ATER ON THAT NIGHT
, sleeping on my straw pallet on the floor, I overheard Massa and Mistress arguing.

"I won't have her watching Elizabeth Margaret anymore," Mistress said. "She's like all mixed-race women. Everybody knows they're bad breeders and bad nursemaids. They are heinous, cursed by the devil. Mulattoes are monsters. I won't have it."

He said something to her then, but I couldn't hear, this father of mine. But she quieted down. And they kept allowing me to be Elizabeth Margaret's nursemaid, heinous as I was.

I
RECKON THEY
decided I needed to see my daddy again because within two weeks' time Daddy came to Hampden-Sydney.

Before that, nobody said anything to console me about being whipped.

"You be a good girl from now on," was all Grandma Sarry said. But she made me some special gingerbread that was better than any cake I ever ate.

Mama just looked at me. "You gotta learn to behave, baby, 'cause there ain't a thing I can do for you if you don't."

"I know," I said.

"Thank heaven your daddy wasn't here. Sure as heaven, he'd try to do something. Thank heaven he wasn't here. But Massa makin' it up to you now. He's gonna bring your daddy here."

I wouldn't go near Massa or Mistress. Even though they gave me the baby to take care of again.

I wouldn't look at Robert at all. He came into the kitchen and tried to talk to me. "Come on over here and sit on my lap, little one. Like you always used to do."

I shook my head, no, surprised at how easy hate came. Surprised at how hate gave you back your dignity and made them understand that you were a person. Still, given all that, Robert was the hardest one to hate after all.

G
RANDMA
S
ARRY PUT
three chickens in a pot and made up a batch of locust beer. Locust beer was my daddy's favorite. So were Grandma's chickens.

Mama came into the kitchen singing. She was wearing a new calico dress. "We all is gonna celebrate tonight," she said. She was beaming. I never could recollect her beaming and singing at all. She went about downcast most of the time. Now it was as if a whole sky of stars had been given to her.

All because my daddy was coming to visit.

"What we got to celebrate?" Grandma teased.

Mama looked at me. "Massa gonna buy your daddy. Massa says he could use him here since Raymond died. Your daddy gonna take Raymond's place. Massa done fetched him."

My daddy could make bricks and he knew all about farm tools, too. I was struck with fear. "No, you can't let Massa do that."

"What's wrong with you, girl? Don't you want Daddy George here all the time with us?"

"Suppose he loses a harness," was all I could say.

"No, no, it ain't gonna be like that," Mama promised. "Don't you worry. Your daddy knows what he's about. He's worth his salt, don't you worry."

She went around singing all afternoon. I wanted my daddy here, sure 'nuf. But I didn't trust any of it. Or anybody.

"B
ABY
." D
ADDY FOLDED
me in his arms. "What devilment went on here? They beat you?"

"Yes. And Mama says if you were here, it wouldn't have happened."

He didn't answer. I waited, but no answer came. I was sorry, right off, that I'd said it. I could feel his sadness. And I knew my daddy wouldn't lie just to make me feel better.

He stayed. But I couldn't spend nights with him and Mama in their cabin because I was needed in the big house for Elizabeth Margaret.

And I missed a whole week of good times in the evening when work was done and they celebrated down in the quarters. It was just like corn-shucking time down there. Mama always had some good old baked meat on the fire and a pile of sweet 'taters in the ashes. There was plenty of cake and even some pulled-syrup candy. They drank locust beer and corn liquor. They danced far into the night.

When I complained that I was missing all the fun, Grandma Sarry told me, "You got the rest of your life to be with your daddy 'cause he gonna be here all the time now."

It was Massa who stepped in and said I should have a day off to spend with my daddy. That surprised me. And what surprised me more was how solemn he was when he said it.

I spent the day with Daddy down at Dry Fork Creek. Grandma Sarry packed up some cold chicken and sweet 'taters and Daddy brought a jug of locust beer. We caught catfish and perch and a heap of suckers on that warm June day. And later on Grandma Sarry cooked the fish and collard greens in the kitchen of the big house just for me and Mama and Daddy.

It was almost good. If I pretended, I could forget Massa had me whipped. And there was Mama happier than a coon dog on a hunt because Daddy was here to stay.

B
UT IT WAS NOT TO BE
. And that night, I found out why Massa had been so solemn. He came into the kitchen and read us a letter. It said that he couldn't buy Daddy because Daddy's own master was moving to Tennessee and needed him. My daddy was not for sale.

We were all struck dumb as jackasses in the rain. Mama burst into tears and ran from the room. Daddy couldn't speak.

"I'm sorry, George," Massa said. Then he, too, walked out.

"Where is this Tennessee?" I asked Daddy.

"It's south, baby."

South was bad. All the slaves knew it. The farther south you went, the worse your lot became. They beat you regular-like and worked you till you died down South.

Daddy knelt in front of me. He put a hand on each of my shoulders. "You listen to me, little Lizzy," he said. "The only thing that works out is what you do for yourself."

I nodded yes.

"And I'm doin' for myself. My massa let me hire myself out as a brickmaker. Some of the money goes to him and some I get to keep for myself. I needs one hundred and twenty dollars a year to buy myself. When I get enough I'll buy myself, all right. And I'll come back here to this Virginny and get my family. I promise."

I said nothing.

"You believe me, Lizzy?"

"Yes."

But I didn't. And I knew for sure that I'd never see him again.

"Learn your book, Lizzy," he told me. "Get good at something. Then buy yourself. It's the only way."

That I believed.

D
ADDY
G
EORGE'S MASSA
came to fetch him at the end of the week, and there were some blue devil minutes there when we had to tell him good-bye.

Mama couldn't stop crying as we watched his massa's wagon taking him away. I was still a little tyke then, but I understood my sorrow could not match my mama's. Grandma had to drag her back into the house and into the kitchen to dim her sobs, lest they anger Massa and Mistress.

Grandma spent the night with her in her cabin, and said she cried all night long. Next day when Mama came up to the big house to care for Mistress's younger children, I could see how cast down she was. She didn't talk to me, she didn't talk to the children who loved her, too. All my life I'd had to share her love with those children. And at times she was more of a mother to them than she was to me.

To make matters worse, Massa started to shower Mama with kindness to make up for the badness, like he always did. He sent special middlin's of meat to Grandma Sarry to cook for her and Mama and me. In the kitchen, Aunt Charlotte's girls, who were overworked anyway, got jealous and went to Mistress, who got more jealous.

Mistress never could forget, you see, how I came to be in this world, and what Mama had to do with it.

We were in the kitchen, just about to sit down to eat that special middlin' of meat, when Mistress came in, her hair all askew, tearstains on her face.

"I want you to stop putting on airs," she told Mama. "Your husband is not the only slave that has been sold from this family. And you are not the only ones who have had to part. There are plenty more men about here if you want to be married. Just find yourself another one. You found my husband fast enough."

My mouth fell open so wide bees could build a honeycomb inside. Before Mama could even think of answering, Mistress walked out.

T
HAT WAS THE END
of my childhood for me, if it didn't end when they whipped me. The years went on. Mama didn't marry. But the years took their pieces of the Burwell family, too.

Robert graduated from Hampden-Sydney and became a prig of a Presbyterian minister. John and Armistead graduated, too, and went out on their own. Benjamin was still in college. Anne married Hugh Garland, another prig, a Hampden-Sydney professor of Greek. Home yet were Mary, who would soon marry Hugh's brother; Fanny, who was sixteen; Charles, thirteen; William, eleven; and Elizabeth Margaret, now nine.

Since Elizabeth Margaret no longer needed a nursemaid, I went back to attending her mother. She did not like me, I know, but the only reason for that was because her husband was my real father. What kept me safe was that I never let on that I knew it, never acted upon it, never played one against the other. I could have, I knew. Other children in my position did. But I decided I'd rather take her orders, her coldness, than go work in the fields like other girls of fourteen. Like Jane. Never would I be made to eat worms. I'd die first.

I
WAS FOURTEEN
and I knew I was pretty. I knew it because Mama worried, because she tied my hair back in braids and always put a fresh white kerchief around the neckline of my dress so my bosoms wouldn't show. "You gotta be careful," she told me. "I wasn't much older when I had you. And it weren't my idea, Lizzy, believe me."

It was the first and only time she'd said anything about it to me. But I said nothing. I knew when to keep a still tongue in my head.

But I didn't really know how pretty I was until Eleanor, daughter of Reverend Paxton, asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding.

"You can make your own gown," she said. "You sew so beautifully. I have Mr. Burwell's permission to ask you. The gowns will be pink silk. The other bridesmaid's dresses are coming in from Petersburg. You can copy them."

"Oh, Eleanor, I don't know what to say."

"Say yes, Lizzy. You'll be the prettiest one I have."

"But what will people say?"

"You mean because you're mulatto? They won't say anything. They know my father freed his slaves and sent them to Liberia. They know what my family's beliefs are and they respect them."

And so I said yes. Mama had kept me at my sewing in the last nine years, so I'd graduated to making aprons and shifts and even a dress or two for myself. I knew I could do it. Mama said I had a special gift for sewing. I worked hard on that dress. I stayed up nights because Mistress wouldn't give me time during the days. She didn't like my being in that wedding. I heard her tell Massa so. But he won that argument.

Finally, two days before the wedding, I finished the bodice and the sleeves. I really wanted to be in that wedding. Just having Eleanor ask me to make my dress showed me that people knew what I could do. Of course I was flattered, and I wanted to show everybody not only the dress but me. How I had grown. How pretty I was.

I shall never forget it. The other bridesmaids and all of Eleanor's family praised my work and appearance. Everyone was nice to me. It was the first time I felt like a person since I was whipped, since Daddy had been taken from us.

Only one thing happened to ruin it. And it came from the most unexpected person. It came from Robert.

I was standing around sipping punch at the reception when Robert came up to me with a girl on his arm. "This is Anna," he said.

And then, "Anna, this is Lizzy, our slave girl. Don't let the dress and all the fuss over her fool you."

I stammered hello. Tears came to my eyes. But I held my head high.

"Curtsy," Robert ordered.

I understood then. Anna was not so pretty. She must be bowed to. I curtsied.

Later, when he was alone, Robert came up to me again.

"You didn't have to introduce me that way," I stammered.

"Yes, I did, Lizzy. You're getting too filled up with yourself. Too uppity. I did it for your own good. You don't want some master having to break you someday."

My heart fell. This from Robert? I knew he tended to be a prig, but when had this happened to him? What had they taught him in the seminary?

I chided myself. I'd vowed to hate him once, after I'd been whipped. I'd vowed to trust no white person who was for slavery. But I supposed I'd never given up on Robert. He was my most difficult lesson, still not learned. But sadly, to be learned in the future.

R
OBERT MARRIED HIS
A
NNA
soon after. Her real name was Margaret Anna Robertson from Petersburg. I was not in the wedding. I did not expect to be, did not want to be. But a month before, Robert came to me.

"Anna liked the dress you made for yourself for Eleanor's wedding," he said coldly. "Since money is a consideration, she would like you to make her bridesmaids' dresses. There will be two of them."

"I don't have time," I told him. "I have my chores. Your mama gave me no time to make my own dress. I had to work at night."

"Are you saying no to me, Lizzy?"

I did not answer.

"Never say no to your master," he reminded me.

"You're not my master," I told him. "You're my half brother."

I knew it was cheeky. I'd bantered with Robert in the past many times. Now I was pushing to see how far I could go.