Dessa Rose (23 page)

I didn't know nothing about all that, a course, but I knowed it
wasn't part of the plan for her to be showing herself off before no white folk. “Harker said you posed to be quiet and respectable.”

“Harker said I'm a high-class lady and to make everybody treat me that way,” she say real sharp.

The girl knocked at the door just then with the tea and we both held our tongues while she set the tray down. Just as the girl turned to go, white woman shove that green dress in my hand. “Iron this, Odessa,” she say. “You-all do have a flatiron, don't you?” smiling round at the girl. I felt like snatching her
and
that dress, but the girl was in the room and wasn't nothing I could do but take it. “Thank you,” she say kind of careless like. Then, “Guess I wear the shawl, too.” And she throwed
that
cross my arm, too.

Actually, I got that girl to touch up them clothes some; mad as I was I might would've burned them. It wasn't so much the dress itself that made me angry. I didn't think way out there what she wore could matter that much; I mean, Mr. Oscar had already noted her. It was just the idea of her acting like she didn't have to go according to plan; she could correct me but I wasn't posed to say nothing to her. I let her have that dress, but I was going speak to Harker about her ways.

There was a lot more to being a lady's maid than I had thought. It wasn't just the fetching and carrying, though Lord know it was enough of that. You be
toting
some hot water, let me tell you, specially in them two-story places. Which this was. Seeing at that baby wasn't no problem. She babble at you all the while you doing for her, then wrap them little pudgy arms around your neck when you pick her up. Never cried less she was hungry or sleepy or wet. No, Little Missy wasn't no problem. But seeing at Miz Lady liked to give me a fit.

White women wear some
clothes
under them dresses, child. Miz Lady hadn't had no call to rig out in full style since I'd knowed her, but she put it all on that night. There was slips and stays and shifts and hose and garters, petticoats and drawers (and I still feel that all this is unnecessary. You need all that to protect “modesty,” person have to wonder just what kind of “modesty” you got). I didn't bit more know how to do up all them hooks and
ties and snaps than nothing; she had to talk me through it. She wanted me to put her hair up, but I drawed the line at that. I still remembered that night I waked up with that stringy stuff all in my face, and I didn't want to touch it. She finally ended by braiding it in a big braid and piling it on top of her head—where it commence to fall right down.

After she left, I fixed my pallet cross the hearth, on the cool brick there that was even with the floor, hoping maybe I could catch some breeze down there. She woke me up with her giggling when she come in. I think that they'd been standing at the door saying good night for a long time, but she closed the door when she heard me stirring. The candle had guttered out long since, but I could see her by the light of the one she held. She was laughing. “Mr. Oscar the most engaging rogue,” she say. “Why, I had to leave the table, he had me laughing and blushing so much.” She hiccuped and laughed. Seeing her like that put me in mind of how she acted when I first seed her, all giggly and fly, like she didn't have two thoughts to rub together in her head. She'd been drinking, too; smelt like peach brandy to me. I hurried her out that dress and into bed, uneasy at having her like this—what if she'd slipped in front that white man? But steady, too. She wasn't acting no better than what I'd said and I had a earful I was going give Harker that next morning.

I was wakened by some muttering and it took me a minute to realize it was him and her in that bed. At first I was embarrassed and surprised. If she'd wanted to do that, I could have slept in the kitchen. And glad, too, cause this would show Nathan just what kind of old thing he'd taken up with. She get in heat and pick up with whatever was handy. Oh, I had a lot I was going to tell him and Harker, honey. Then I realized she was trying to get him
out
the bed; she was whispering but she still sounded angry, and scared. “Mis'ess?” I said; I didn't call out all that loud, just in case I was wrong, but she heard me.

“Dessa,” she called. “Odessa, help me get this man out the bed.”

Well, I got up and started looking round for something to hit him with. Nearest thing come to hand was a pillow and I started
pounding him all about the head with that. We was all shouting and carrying on by then. I could tell he was drunk—letting two womens beat him up with pillows! We managed to push him out the bed, tried to stomp him to death with our bare feet. He crawled cross that floor and got out the room somehow. I slammed the door and we pulled a chest cross in front of it. We leaned against it, panting a little now.

“That what you was using?” she ask, pointing at me. I still had one them pillows in my hand. She did, too, looking like a ghost in that white nightgown, her hair screaming every which where. I started laughing, trying to keep it quiet, you know; and she was laughing now, herself. The more we tried to be quiet, the more we laughed. Well, that peach brandy commence to act up about then and she barely made it to the slop jar.

I helped her over to the bed. She looked plumb miserable setting there. I wasn't feeling all that good myself. What if Mr. Oscar hadn't been drunk? I asked myself; and, What if he come back? Knees shaking now, and just wanting to get to that pallet.

“Dessa?” Miz Lady, calling me, patting the bed like she couldn't think of the word for it; but I understood. I didn't too much want to be by myself right then neither.

I laid awake a long time that night while she snored quiet on the other side the baby. The white woman was subject to the same ravishment as me; this the thought that kept me awake. I hadn't knowed white mens could use a white woman like that, just take her by force same as they could with us. Harker, neither Nathan could help us there in that House, any House. I knew they would kill a black man for loving with a white woman; would they kill a black man for keeping a white man off a white woman? I didn't know; and didn't want to find out.

I slept with her after that, both of us wrapped around Clara. And I wasn't so cold with her no more. I wasn't zactly warm with her, understand; I didn't know how to be warm with no white woman. But now it was like we had a secret between us, not just that bad Oscar—though we kept that quiet. I couldn't bring myself to tell Harker, neither Nathan about that night. Seemed like
it would've been almost like telling on myself, if you know what I mean. I was posed to be keeping an eye on her and something had almost got by me. Sides, I told myself, that bad Oscar had paid Miz Lady back twice over for coming on so hankty with me. But really, what kept me quiet was knowing white mens wanted the same thing, would take the same thing from a white woman as they would from a black woman. Cause they could. I never will forget the fear that come on me when Miz Lady called me on Mr. Oscar, that
knowing
that she was as helpless in this as I was, that our only protection was ourselfs and each others.

We reached Lake Lewis Smith and sold Harker and Ned there at Wilkerson. We hadn't looked to sell anybody so early but the man paid “sixteen fifty for the pair,” which Nathan said was a decent price, what with the country about Wilkerson not being planted so much to cotton. It hurt to see Harker, even Ned, led off again, back into that prison house. But I knowed, I
believed
that if anybody could get out again, it would be Harker; he had that kind of mind, you see. And if it was anybody could keep that pesky Ned in line it was him.

Miz Lady used some of this money to buy me some clothes. This was Nathan's idea; he said I didn't look like I belonged to no proper lady, proper lady wouldn't own me as no maid. What clothes I had was cut down and took in from some of her old things. These was clean and neat as I could make them, but they did look pretty cobbled up. Good enough for a hand, yes, but not for no respectable lady's maid.

She bought me two dresses, a plaid gingham and a sumac-colored cotton, two bandannas for my head and a kerchief to go across my shoulders, three full changes of underwear, shoes (not them old russet brogans they used to give slaves—if they gave anything at all—but sho enough shoes, good as a white person would wear), and some stockings. These was the most clothes I'd had in my life and I treasured them the more cause they was bought from selling Harker and Ned.

She also bought some pepper and two little snuff boxes for us to carry it in; got so we could open them with the flick of a thumb,
with either hand. And hatpins. A long one she kept pinned in the crown of her hat and a shorter one I wore in the folds of my shoulder kerchief, the point buried in the knot at my bosom. We wasn't troubled by no more bad Oscars again.

We could have sold Castor and Flora, Nathan and me, too, for that matter, several times over before that boat let us off in Winston. But we decided to keep to the story about Miz Lady's daddy until we reached Haley's Landing. This was a larger town than Winston, not big as some I had seen on the coffle but pretty big for that region. We waited for Harker and Ned in Winston at the south end of Lake Lewis Smith. They arrived shortly after we did and we went on to Haley's Landing.

Me and Miz Lady put up at the hotel there and lodged Nathan at the livery stable and Harker and them in the slave pen behind the jail. Then Nathan went with her to have some handbills printed up announcing a “private sale,” “through no fault,” of “likely negroes.” Back in them days, every negro was “likely.” “No fault” meant wasn't nothing wrong with the slave and in the bill of sale they was always “warranted sound.” Sometimes, so Nathan said, dealers would say “no fault” in their handbills and print this in the newspapers to make people think it was a planter on hard times selling and they could get a better deal. The “private sale” was to keep from having to sell to speculators and traders or anyone else didn't look right. We didn't want none of our peoples in the hand of a trader. Only way we was likely to get someone off a coffle was to buy them—we didn't fool ourselves about how lucky Nathan and us had been before—so it didn't hurt to be too careful. For this same reason, the handbills always said something about first choice going to planters and city residents “who want for their own family use.” (Nathan had all these sayings by heart and sometimes on a lonely stretch of road, we would pass the time making up rhymes with them. I can't member a one now, but the sayings from the handbills stays in my mind.)

Seem like every town we went through had a group of one-suspender white mens would sit in front the hotel or the tavern, lounge round the public fountain or the courthouse square. You wouldn't
think there would be enough
interest
, let alone
money
, among them to buy a slave. But time an auctioneer put up that deal packing case and commence his spiel over the “article,” there would usually be a sizable crowd. They hadn't tried to sell me from the block when I was on the coffle and I'd never seen an auction before. I'd heard about them, a course, how they looked in your mouth and felt your body. Often you was made to jump around and dance to show how spry you was. These was things I'd heard about, you understand. I'd never experienced this, never seen this for myself, till that day.

I stood in the crowd between Nathan and Miz Lady holding Clara and watched them mock our manhood. “Prime field hand,” the auctioneer say, “look at that arm,” jabbing at Castor's shoulder with his pointing stick. “Prime,” he say with his hand up to his mouth like he was whispering a secret. “The gen-u-ine article,” pointing now at Castor's privates. All the white men laughed; this was a big joke. Castor looked like he want to crawl in that box. “Guaranteed increases. Nary a sign of bad on him,” turning Castor round, raising his shirt to bare his back. “Enin-ine hundra dolla, nin-ine hundra—Sold for nine seventy-five.”

“Nigger went cheap,” white man in the crowd say. I pushed Clara at Miz Lady and left.

I heard Nathan calling me but I never slowed. I didn't want to hear no message from that white woman. He caught up with me and pulled me into an alley. I was crying and he held me against his chest. “It's just these last few times,” he say, “last few times and that's the end,” he rocked, “won't none of us be sold no more.” He was shaking; his tears rained on my head and neck. We rocked and crooned to each others, till we cried ourselfs out, then leaned against the wall, laughing a little, kind of shamefaced. “We been through some times, ain't we?” he say wiping his eyes. I nodded, wiping at my own face. Where would I be without this brother? I thought, wanting to hold him, to hug him again. “Dessa,” he say, taking my hand. “Dessa, I was bred in slavery.”

I snatched my hand back; I hadn't tried to make him see my part no more since that morning in the wood lot, and it hurt me
that he would bring it up now. It was like he'd used the closeness I was feeling for him to bring that white woman between us. And it made me mad, too. “So now a person a slave master if they don't like what you doing?”

“I know you ain't nowhere near being like the white man,” he say and grabbed my hand again. “Dessa—Dess, why can't I like you and her, too?”

It seemed to me that one rubbed out the other. Sides that, “I speaks to her,” I told him, “what more you want?”

“I want you to be my friend.”

“I wasn't the one stopped.”

He looked at me and finally he grinned. “You a grudgeful little old something, ain't you?” he say.

You see what I'm saying? Whatever I said, he would have something to say. Oh, I could make him angry, I could even make him sad. Someday I might act evil enough to drive him away; he might get tired of me being so hateful and leave. Till then, he would keep at me: Say “friend,” say “brother.” And whether I said yes or no to him, it wouldn't never be the way it used to be. I guess this was always my pain, that things would never be the same. I had lost so much, so much, and this brother was a part of what I'd gained. Nathan—he wasn't grinning then. No, he held my hand and looked at me steady on. You know—and I swear this what I thought then—it like a darky to risk what he
know
is good on “chance,” on “change,” on new or “another.” And what one did I know didn't have a little bit of that in them, from Dante on up? “Damn fool negro,” I told him, yet and still leaning against him.