A Free State Page 18

  He smiled at Fanny, and said, “That’s one of my favorites, too.” To Addie, he said, “May I play it for her?”

  Impossible to say no under the circumstances. Addie managed a smile and said, “Go ahead.”

  He began the familiar tune simply, on his banjar, and after his initial tour of the melody started singing:

  Way down on de old plantation,

  Dat’s where I was born.

  I used to beat de whole creation

  Hoein’ in the corn . . .

  I will admit that it was an odd sensation, listening to those lyrics we had sung with such gusto, coming from the mouth of one who had suffered under the lash. Addie was visibly uncomfortable. Still, Fanny and I joined in happily on the refrain,

  Angelina Baker! Angelina Baker’s gone;

  She left me here to weep a tear

  And beat on the old jaw bone . . .

  He sang the song but one time through, then played it twice on the banjar with wonderful variations, and even Addie allowed herself an exclamation of surprise and appreciation when he had finished. I was touched to see Fanny and the young man exchange a complicitous glance and smile at one another. The fellow carried himself like a young knight of olden times, I thought.

  “Ma’am,” he said, addressing Addie, “do you have a special favorite?”

  “Do you sing ‘Go Down, Moses’? Or ‘Thorny Desert’?”

  These two songs were abolitionist standards. Both were favorites of our friend, the well-known Tubman. I thought I saw William disguise a wince, or perhaps it was my own wince that I saw reflected in his face. At any rate, he sang the spiritual ‘Go Down, Moses’ a capella, once through, and Addie sat with her eyes closed, swaying slightly to the song’s cadences. When he had finished, she said, “That was quite beautiful. Thank you.”

  This fellow, I was certain, had had experience on the stage, or at least performing somewhere for audiences, for he had us entirely under his spell.

  He asked what my request might be, and I said, “Play one of your own favorites. Something that pleases you.”

  “Well,” he said, thoughtfully, adjusting one of his tuning pegs until it obeyed some law that only he perceived. A familiar melody materialized under his fingers now, with its irresistible rhythm, and he started singing.

  Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man,

  Washed his face in a frying pan.

  Combed his hair with a wagon wheel,

  Died with a toothache in his heel . . .

  We all joined in for the rousing chorus:

  Get out the way, Old Dan Tucker.

  You’re too late to get your supper!

  What fun it was. At length, Addie broke the spell by saying, “Young man, you must be tired from traveling, and I am afraid that we are imposing on your good nature by making you entertain us. Your bed is ready, below, and you should feel free to retire at any time.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Seward,” he said, “but you are not imposing. I hope I’m not imposing. This is fun.”

  Addie appeared a bit taken aback by his response, although it seemed an entirely credible statement to me; he seemed to come alive while he was playing and singing. He did retire, though, and we did as well.

  As we went upstairs, darling Fanny said, “I am so glad William is here with us!”

  “Did you enjoy that, sweetheart?”

  She nodded vigorously, and I kissed her, and Addie took her to her bedroom. As I prepared for the night I thought about how remarkable it was that a fellow in his situation could summon such gaiety and poise, and share it with others whom he scarcely knew.

  The next morning after breakfast I opened the basement door and went down to check on our “passenger.” He was sitting at a small table, finishing the meal Ella had prepared for him. This would be a day of finding him clothes and getting him ready for the next part of his journey. He stood up when I appeared, but I insisted that he sit back down, and I took a seat on the narrow bed, which I noticed he had made.

  “Did you sleep well?” I asked.

  “I did,” he replied. “Thank you. I like this room.”

  “You do,” I said. “What do you like about it?”

  “It brings back pleasant memories.”

  The notion that a slave might have any pleasant memories was surprising to me. I would have thought that a runaway would be glad to erase any memories of his servitude, and I said something to that effect.

  His face registered that peculiar smile-frown I had noted the night before. He merely nodded and said nothing.

  I had business, involving a visit to associates in Seneca Falls, which would consume most of the day into the afternoon, and I bade our guest relax and enjoy himself. The idea was that the lad would remain with us for two full days and three nights, renewing himself before being “conducted” on the final part of his journey to freedom. As I was about to take my leave he begged my pardon and asked if it were possible to borrow a book, for the day.

  He was, indeed, full of surprises. “A book!” I said.

  To save me the embarrassment, I suppose, of asking an impolite question or showing any more surprise, he said, “My mother taught me to read.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “Certainly. Come with me.”

  Addie had gone to market and Fanny was at lessons. Ella was somewhere about, as was Nicholas, and I saw no harm in leading the fellow upstairs to my library. In truth, the entire house was in the process of becoming a library, as Addie often complained, but I thought William might enjoy seeing my own sanctuary on the second floor, as it had some interesting prints and artifacts from my travels, along with a wall of books, among which I was certain he might find something worth perusing.

  As we entered the room his face registered a gratifying degree of surprise and appreciation. After a moment or two he asked me how I located a book, among so many.

  “They are arranged by subject,” I said, “and then by author, within each subject. History is here,” I indicated the area with my hand. “Here are philosophy, books on travel, botany . . .” I wondered what he thought, seeing it all there. Did it represent a window onto possibility, a vista of worlds to be attained, or did it represent instead an unscalable wall intended exactly to keep him out? I had my answer almost immediately.

  “Do you have any by Dickens?” he said.

  “Of course,” I replied. Absolutely extraordinary, I thought. I lent him the first volume of Pickwick, and American Notes, pointing out that the author had had interesting things to say about our peculiar institution of slavery. “This ought to keep you busy until we see one another this evening.”

  I got him settled again in our subterranean room and went on about my business for the day, yet I could not get him out of my mind. I found myself, to my surprise, wishing that his stay with us might be extended. It occurred to me that there might be a mutual profit in bringing him to Rochester and introducing him to Frederick Douglass, surely a visit that would be of interest to them both.

  Late that afternoon I arrived home, and there was a fine fire going, preparations for dinner in progress. Addie was going through some papers at the escritoire, and I stooped to kiss her cheek.

  “Is everything all right, dear?” I asked.

  “Everything is fine. Did you initiate a subscription to a newspaper? Or cancel a subscription?”

  “Not that I can think of,” I replied. “We take the Standard and the Times, I believe? Why do you ask?”

  She frowned, shrugged. “It is nothing. Someone came to the door this afternoon and spoke to Ella about newspapers, and she did not have a clear idea of what the man was saying.”

  “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know, Bill. He said something about newspapers. He probably had the wrong address.”

  “We really ought to make it an inflexible rule that Nicholas answer the door and not Ella,” I said.

  “Well, Bill, Nicholas was occupied, and Ella does the best she can . . .”

  “Yes, of
course; please let’s not quarrel. I will speak with her.”

  “I already have. Never mind.”

  Fanny, I knew, would be upstairs at her lessons, and I thought I would stop downstairs and see how our guest had spent the day.

  He was reading when I descended, and he put the book down and stood up. “How are you enjoying Dickens?” I asked. “Please sit down.” We took the same places we had taken that morning.

  “Have you been to England?” he said.

  “I have not,” I replied. “Why do you ask?” And then, “Oh. Of course.”

  “He doesn’t like America much,” he said.

  “I think their attitude toward us is mixed,” I said. “Perhaps we exercise a freedom that they wish for, and yet which their sense of manner, or propriety, tells them is somehow vulgar.”

  His face registered a degree of amusement at this remark, and I asked him what he had found amusing.

  “Dickens always sympathizes with people having a hard time,” he replied.

  “Yes,” I said. “That he does.” What a fellow, I thought. “Listen, would you enjoy it if we had cigars later, after dinner? Have you ever had a cigar? I could bring down a pair and we could have a proper visit.”

  He seemed faintly stunned by the idea, but he said if that was what I wanted to do he would be pleased to join me.

  “Wonderful!” I said. “I’ll bring some brandy as well.”

  At dinner, Fanny asked several times whether William would join us again and play the banjar.

  “Dear,” Addie said, “the young man is not here for our entertainment. I imagine that he has been ordered about quite enough in his short life.”

  Fanny’s feelings were hurt by the remark, and I said to Addie, “Perhaps the fellow can come and sit with us again for a short visit tonight? He is here so briefly.”

  When we had finished coffee I invited William upstairs. We all assumed our positions from the previous evening, and there was some stilted talk. I had the sense that the fellow would have felt more comfortable playing music for us. After a few minutes of this, William regarded Fanny and said, “Do you know how to make a fireplace match disappear?”

  “Throw it out the window!” she said.

  “That’s the best way.” he said. “But what if there is no window?” She appeared to think hard, and after some moments, the fellow said, “Would you like me to show you the best way?”

  “Yes!”

  “May I take a fireplace match?” he said, addressing Addie.

  “They are right there,” Addie said, indicating a shelf to the side of the mantel.

  William plucked one of the thin wooden sticks and broke off a stem about two inches in length, displayed it so that Fanny could see it, also meeting my eyes, and Addie’s, with an expression of great seriousness. He situated the match between index finger and thumb, made sure we saw it, and then with a plosive gesture opened his hand and the match was gone. As we fairly gaped, William’s face expressed a degree of discomfort, then pain, and he reached to his ear and pulled, as if a thorn were lodged there, and retrieved the troublesome length of matchstick, displaying it for us once again.

  We all applauded. Fanny was in transports of delight, and begged him to repeat the trick, and he did so, this time leaving his chair and retrieving the match from behind Fanny’s ear.

  “How do you make it disappear?” she pleaded.

  With mock solemnity, he replied that it took long training and great discipline.

  At length it was time for Fanny to go to bed, and Addie said she would retire as well. I said that I would be up in a while. William went downstairs, and a quarter hour later I descended the steps into the basement, managing to carry a decanter of brandy and two glasses, with two good cigars in my breast pocket. I opened one of the casement windows, located near the low ceiling and giving out onto the ground level, so that the cigar smoke would not seep upstairs and disturb Addie.

  “Do you drink brandy at all?” I asked, arranging things a bit and lighting another candle.

  “No,” he said.

  “Well,” I said. “Will you have one with me?” I set the glasses out on a little table and poured myself a modest draw, and another for him. “Here’s to your good fortune in the future, William.”

  “Thank you,” he said. We took our first sips of the fine, fiery brandy, which blazed a warm trail down the inside of my chest and into my stomach. He examined the liquid through the glass, against the candlelight. I remarked to myself how difficult, perhaps impossible, it was to see into the mind, or through the eyes, of one who had been born a slave. So many things that we take for granted must be nearly miracles to them.

  “Here,” I said, producing the cigars. “These are made in Havana. Do you know where that is?”

  “Cuba! That’s where Spanish Pete was from.”

  “Spanish Pete,” I said. “Tell me who he was.”

  “He used to sort the crops for market. Or he’d divide them into house vegetables, market vegetables.” He held the cigar to his nose. “That smells good,” he said.

  I was mulling what he’d said, since so many bondsmen were from the West Indies and spoke French, or variants thereof, rather than Spanish.

  “Do you know how Pete happened to come to where you lived? It was a farm, of course?”

  He nodded and said, “In Virginia. I don’t know how he got there. He was just there. He taught me how to speak Spanish.”

  “You can speak Spanish!” I said. “Say something to me in Spanish!”

  “Mariposa la basura de quanto varieades de supuesto!”

  “That is not Spanish!” I said. But he was laughing at the expression on my face. His accent, be it said, was perfect, although the words were utter nonsense. I found myself laughing along with him. “I hope you didn’t pay him for lessons!”

  “No,” he said. “It was all out in the barn.”

  I refilled our glasses and gestured to him to direct the smoke toward the window I had opened. “Addie—Mrs. Seward—does not encourage me to smoke in the house.”

  We smoked our cigars and drank our brandy and talked easily, without a fixed direction or agenda, and I won’t be overstating if I say that it was one of the most enjoyable hours I had spent in recent memory. He spoke of seeing and hearing traveling musicians when he was a boy—he was yet little more than a boy, for that—and of being shown the secrets of the banjar by an older man who worked in the wood shop at the farm. He spoke of playing for dances at the farm, and of the river that ran alongside the property, the boats that came and went. The smell of food cooking, and the tasks at the wood shop. When he spoke of the farm, an odd quality of melancholy, or nostalgia, seemed to reveal itself. He spoke of the afternoon sun as it came in through the wood shop door and illuminated the wood shavings on the floor. He spoke of the fellow, Enoch, who came back from being hired out in the city, wearing a red silk scarf, and the wonder this engendered in him, and of hearing the banjar for the first time. The world was a simple one as he rendered it—a place with a wood shop, a dairy, a mansion house. I had the oddest feeling that he, or some part of him, yearned for that relative simplicity, and I asked him about that. “You sound almost as if you miss the place,” is what I said.

  He reacted as if I had suggested the most preposterous idea imaginable.“Miss it!” he said. “I would not go back there for anything.” But on his face was the saddest expression I think I have ever seen. We went on to other things, but my mind stayed with that paradox which had presented itself. How would one manage to live in the world, carrying that peculiar burden of nostalgia for an intolerable situation? What were the costs of leaving a place whose familiarity both sustained you and threatened to extinguish you?

  He told me he had performed onstage, with a minstrel troupe for which he needed to black his own face, although he was evasive on the topic of where this was. I asked him if he had ever tried to compose a song of his own.

  He demurred at first, but at length he agreed to deliver i
t for me.

  “Just not at full voice,” I said. “Let’s not bring Addie’s wrath down upon us.”

  He set his glass down rather deliberately—I sensed that he was feeling the brandy’s effects—and, cigar clenched in his teeth, reached to the bed and picked up his banjar and set it in his lap, strummed down softly and did his usual string adjustments as I poured myself another small shot of the brandy. I gestured an offer to him but he declined.

  The banjar in tune, he began a jaunty rhythm on the strings and in short order commenced singing. I later wrote down the words as well as I could remember them:

  Hoe cakes in the mornin’

  Chicken at dinnertime

  Whiskey when I’m thirsty

  Heaven when I’m dyin’.

  It’s a fine old world for some folks

  And I take it as I can

  Today I’m just a Darky

  Someday I’ll be a man.

  I went down South to see my gal

  I did not go to stay

  Patateroller caught me

  And I could not get away.

  It’s a fine old world for some folks

  And I take it as I can

  Today I’m just a poor old slave

  Someday I’ll be a man.

  They beat me and they cursed me

  They tore off all my clothes

  They put me in that cotton field

  And called me Little Mose

  They had a man to watch us

  He sat astride a horse

  I never did find out his name

  We had to call him “Boss.”

  It’s a fine old world for some folks

  And I take it as I can

  Today they call me nigger

  Someday I’ll be a man.

  At night I dream of Freedom

  By day I dream the same

  Someday I’ll go to Canaan’s land

  And have a brand-new name.

  It’s a fine old world for some folks

  And I take it as I can

  I’ll head up North where folks are free

  And stand up like a man.

  When he had finished, he avoided my eyes, made a few adjustments to the strings, reached for his cigar on the table, as I sat, groping for words. I was quite undone by the song, despite, or perhaps because of, the happy rhythm that accompanied the sad tale and set it into sharp and painful relief. What manner of person would be able to sing of such difficulties with such a mixture of mockery and rue? Of humor and resolve? Who could contain such contradictions within himself without going mad?