Birth of a Dark Nation (28 page)

"Yes."

"Rebekah."

"Who?"

"Rebekah Deslondes. Listen, Justin, don't
panic. Sit down, relax, and let them visit with you. They are
people from our past, from our history. Let them talk to you. I
will be there soon."

"Okay," I said. I clicked off the phone and
put it on my desk. I walked to my empty chair and sat down timidly.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. The woman appeared to me once
more.

I tried not to panic.

"Are you Rebekah?" I asked. She nodded.

"Do you mean me any harm?" She said
nothing.

"Please…show me what you want me to see." I
opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by the slave apparitions
once more. They looked over me, and then walked away. Above me was
not the ceiling of my office, but the blue sky and blazing sun of
another time.

***

I finished my shopping at the Whole Foods in
Silver Spring and hurried back across town to get to Justin. The
passenger seat and floor of the van were covered with bags of
beans, fruits, vegetables, tofu, herbs, spices, and bottles of
water and juices. I was grateful that there were still organic
options in this era. It seemed as though forces conspired against
black people for generations. It was bad enough that they had to
endure the horrors of slavery, but after we left the plantations
and the south in general, it seemed like black folks couldn't even
get a good grocery store in their neighborhoods, much less clean,
organic foods.

I hurried and put the food away in our
refrigerator and walked over to Magdalene to help Justin, lunch bag
in hand. I knew that the fact that the memories were coming without
my prompting was a good thing. I was no geneticist, but it seemed
to me that the Razadi blood in him was bonding with his and
reproducing. Our memories were in our DNA; our blood was now his
blood.

Magdalene had never looked cleaner. Justin's
staff took major pride in this place and it showed, from the
polished glass doors to the smiling face of the assistant who
greeted me by name.

"How can I help you, Mr. Oliver?"

"Please, just Dante," I smiled at her. She
smiled back.

"Well how can I help you, Dante?"

"Your boss—Mr. Kena—left his lunch at home
again
. I was wondering if I could take it upstairs to
him."

"Oh, I can do that for you-"

"I'd kind of like to surprise him. If that's
okay with you, of course."

"Oh, okay, sure! That's really sweet of
you!"

I smiled.

"Thanks, Jennifer," I said. The world really
was changing. This evolution was more rapid than I had anticipated.
Men were able to love other men openly and freely, even in black
American communities. This love wasn't without its challenges, and
homophobia did still exist, but at least in Justin's workplace his
staff could accept who I was—and who I was to
him
—without so
much as a second glance.

I carried his lunch bag up the stairs
directly to his office, nodding at the technology dude and entering
Justin's office without knocking.

As I thought he would be, he was lying on the
floor, face up, as straight as a board. His eyes were closed, but
they moved beneath the lids as though he were in REM sleep. His
lips were moving with an attempt at speech, in a volume too low for
me to understand.

I locked the door behind me, put his lunch on
the desk, and sat on the floor beside him. He flinched as I
caressed his cheek.

"Justin, can you hear me?" I asked. He lips
quivered for a few moments and he finally stuttered my true
name.

"A…A…Aragbaye. Aragbaye."

"Yes, good. I'm here. Tell me what you
see."

"Camp. Camp. Campfire. Razadi. Slaves. Free
men. Slaves. Together. Meeting."

I propped Justin up and slid behind him,
cradling him in my arms and allowing him to rest comfortably. I
whispered into his ear.

"You're okay. You're safe. Take me there.
Take me back."

I leaned close to him until our skin touched,
and I remembered.

"Bernard, I am asking you. I am begging you.
Please, join us. Can't you see that this relationship between our
people—between slave and free—is the only way that we can all be
free? We can't do it ourselves. We don't have the access to
movement that you do. Do I have to remind you of all that the white
man has taken from us? Hmm? Do I have to remind you that my family
is broken? Shattered and scattered across the south. I have a son
who I will never see. I have parents I will never know. You have to
help us, Bernard. Peace is not the answer. Not as long as the white
man walks this earth. We have to conquer them. We do, you
and
I. We can do this together. Do it for our people, yours
and mine, but especially mine.

"We who do not remember our true homes. We
who do not know our true names. We who toil in the fields for trash
who wouldn't survive here on their own. It is time. It is time for
us to take the land which we till. It is time for us to rise up
against our masters with our scythes. With our hoes. With our
blades. With whatever we have available. It is time for us to take
back our own lives, and we can't do it without the help of our
brothers. Our brothers who have given us these gifts. The power.
The strength. The second chance at life. We need you, brothers.
Please. Join us. Join this rebellion. Join this war. Give us that
gift."

Babarinde, now known as Bernard, sat in
silence at the bonfire behind our plantation house, built with our
own hands in the harsh Louisiana heat. We lived in LaPlace, in the
Territory of Orleans, on a vast cotton plantation amid dozens of
our neighbors' sugar cane fields.

Charles Deslondes, a black overseer from a
neighboring sugar plantation, was pleading with Babarinde on that
November evening in 1810.

"Why are you silent, Bernard?" demanded the
angry woman with the high cheekbones. "Were you not aware of the
monster you would create?"

"You are not a monster," he replied.

"Of course I am," she hissed. "I am stronger
than my wildest dreams and the nightmares of my slavers."

Babarinde grinned.

"Ah, Bernard, you smile because you know. You
know what you've done for me, the gift you bestowed on me. And you
know it can't be undone."

"You had a terrible carriage accident,
Rebekah. I couldn't let you die."

"What you did was more than save my life,"
Rebekah said, walking around the fire to get to Babarinde. She
knelt at his lap and caressed his wooly hair.

"When that carriage I was driving hit that
stone and tossed me clear across the road, I thought I was done. I
didn't even see the horse run me over. But what you did for
me…coming out of nowhere, like an angel, opening your own vein and
giving me your blood to drink, pouring it in my open wounds. You
gave me life. You gave me a new life."

Babarinde frowned again and stood up, shaking
Rebekah's hands from him.

"I should have let you die."

"Why do you say such hateful things!" she
shouted, standing up from the ground.

"Because your people are not ready! Enslaved
blacks are scattered and divided. There is no central hierarchy or
particular loyalty-"

"Haiti rose!" Charles said. "We could be
next! And who knows, maybe your brethren somehow helped there,
too."

Babarinde vigorously shook his head.

"No. It wasn't us."

"But you're not sure," Rebekah added.

"Can any of us be sure?" Ariori said. His new
name was now Louis. "You all know that we are an old people—a very
old people—and we know Africa. And we know the Caribbean. And
maybe, just maybe, more of our people came to this hemisphere under
force, or trickery, or maybe by choice, in search of us. We don't
know. But Rebekah. Charles. All of you. It's just too dangerous. We
don't even know how this all works."

"We don't care how it works," Charles said.
"We just know that it works. You saved my sister and made her
better. Now please…make us better. Let us rise up and be our own
nation. Louis, Bernard, Pierre?"

He reached out his hand, gesturing toward
me.

"Pierre, I see it in your eyes. You long to
go back to your homeland. But you know you can't. Even if you could
cross the ocean without incident, you'd surely give the white man a
path directly to your ancestral secrets. So you can't come out of
the shadows and let the world know what you really are. But what if
you could recreate your nation here? What if out of the whiteness
of our oppressors could emerge a new nation—a dark nation of
brothers and sisters united in the blood?"

I looked down and then quickly up at
Babarinde.

"I think I'd like that," I said in response
to Charles, while making eye contact with Babarinde.

"Pierre!" Eşusanya said. He chose the name
Henri for our lives in Louisiana. "You be quiet. This isn't our
fight."

"Isn't it? Baba… Tonton Bernard. It's
time."

Babarinde turned to me, his eyebrows raised
in astonishment.

"Charles, Rebekah… Please, give us a moment."
Bernard requested.

Our five enslaved guests quietly ascended the
stairs into our home while the rest of us remained outside.

"Speak, Aragbaye," he said.

"Baba, we have been away from home for a long
time. And we know that we can't go back. Not now. We can't risk the
safety and sanctity of our families and our land. But I am tired.
And I am restless. I thought that Orleans would be a new life for
us. But being a free black here isn't much better than what our
enslaved brethren experience. And yes, they are our brethren.

"We've lived in Louisiana for six years now.
Six long years, and for what? What we saw on Dominica was nothing
compared to this. Do you realize that our people are building this
country? Yes, our people. African people. I am no longer
comfortable sitting in this big house, in the middle of a cotton
field, among dozens of plantations, when people who look just like
us can't leave.

"And can we leave? Really? Can any of us
truly walk about freely without fear?

"Can you, Eşusanya? How about you, Aborişade?
No. None of us can. Listen…I'm not saying that we should be
irresponsible. But Razadi fight for what's right—always!"

My hands trembled with excitement and I fell
on my knees before Babarinde.

"This is our home now. We have to take it.
For our people. Give them our gifts."

"Do you all feel the same way?" Babarinde
asked slowly.

The brothers broke the circle around the
campfire and approached Babarinde. One by one, they fell to their
knees with me in solidarity, even Eşusanya.

"I mean, it's time we had us an old-fashioned
rebellion, don't you think?" Eşusanya whispered.

"If it's good for Haiti, it's good for
Louisiana," Aborişade whispered in my other ear. I smiled.

All of us were on our knees before our
leader.

"Charles!" he shouted. "Get out here!"

Charles' boots could be heard clomping on our
hard wooden floors as he emerged onto our porch.

"Yes, sir?" he said.

"All these men want to help in your
rebellion."

"Will you allow them?" Charles asked. His
sister and companions fanned out behind him.

Babarinde extended his hand over us and we
all rose. He brought his wrist to his mouth and pricked a vein with
his fang. Blood trickled out.

"Come. My people will help."

Charles came to Babarinde, clasped his hand,
and brought his wrist to his mouth. He drank Babarinde's blood
unrelentingly. Baba's eyes closed in ecstasy.

"Know this, beloved," Babarinde growled. "If
this doesn't work, you're on your own. We've lost too much. We
won't lose it all."

Charles nodded slowly. I bared my wrist for
Rebekah, and she drank as well, gaining more power with each
gulp.

~

Over the next few months, our plot developed.
We would march to Orleans and take each plantation along the way,
liberating the slaves and recruiting them for our cause.

Each night, new slaves would appear at our
doorstep, traveling for miles from nearby plantations to get a sip
of Razadi blood. None of us knew how it worked. All we knew was
that when they drank our blood, they got powerful. They got bold.
In hindsight, they got reckless. And we were all too happy to play
into their recklessness, foolishly believing that we could truly
overthrow the white man in his own county. Maybe we were still
bitter about the kidnapping of Dominique Bellanger, who was long
dead by then. Or perhaps we never quite got over being tricked and
kidnapped from our own homeland.

The mild winter months came, and it was clear
the same transformation that you're going through now, Justin, was
happening to these slaves. They lost the taste for meat once they
had a taste for blood. When their vision worsened is when I felt
most sympathetic for them. What are cataracts in the eyes of slaves
but an excuse for more abuse?

Their vision improved and got better than it
ever had been. They grew their own fangs, hidden from their
masters. They were stronger, leaner, and faster. For those few
months, productivity was at an all-time high on their
plantations.

We wanted to wait until the spring to launch
the revolt. We wanted to be organized. We wanted to know how to
take this plot of earth, this land, this Orleans for ours once and
always. But Charles was impatient.

On the night of January 8, Charles and
Rebekah showed up on our doorstep.

"We have to go, Pierre," Rebekah said.

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Mercredi and Amos…they killed Gilbert
Andre."

"Master Manuel Andre's son?"

"Yes! They killed him with an axe! Then they
came next door and got Charles and I. We've got to go. The
rebellion has begun!"

"No! You're not ready!" I exclaimed.