Douglass’ Women (21 page)

I woke to knocking. “Are you all right, Miss? It’s past noon. Captain wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine. Tell your Captain I’m fine.” I stretched like a cat. Bloodstains were on my gown; I folded it carefully and put it deep inside my trunk. Surely, Douglass understands my gift to him. He felt the barrier to my womb and broke through.

He loved me. Each caress told me so. I sponged my body. The memory of him aroused me.

Sail on, great ship! The European community will welcome us. British royalty bespeaks a mingling of bloods—French, German, Spanish. Why not American? Why not Douglass and me?

I saw him. My heart quickened. I smoothed the blanket over my legs. On deck, the wind was biting. Spray lifted over the rail as the sun set, blood-red, in the wide sea.

Douglass sat in the chaise beside me. Like mine, his torso was inclined. If our chaises were closer, we could lie, propped as if by bed pillows. Shoulders touching shoulders. Arms touching arms. Hands entwined.

I’m embarrassed by my wanton thoughts. “Guten Abend.”

“Good evening.”

The wind snatched his words away from me, drowning them in the sea.

“Douglass.” I leaned forward. “I miss you.”

He nodded. “Miss Assing—”

“Ottilie.”

“Miss Assing. I’m aware of the great honor you’ve done me.”

“This is about love, not honor.”

“Please.”

Two sailors passed by and I hushed. My fingers were balled tight beneath my blanket.

“You cannot disregard what happened between us.”

“Miss Assing, I can do as I please. Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me? If I’m free, particularly on this blue, watery expanse without apparent boundaries, then I may choose. Choose to do as
I
please.”

“I don’t please you?”

Eyes cloaked, he leaned back. Long, taut legs stretched before him. His chin touched his chest. Such calm reserve belied the passion he showed last night. Or was it morning? Yesterday? The day before?

Time stretched like the sea as though I’d always been on this ship. Always and forever. Rocking, sailing with no clear boundaries, no clear notion about how to be the woman I dreamed of being. Mama dead. Oluwand slipping effortlessly into the sea.

I admit: my dream of being loved was bigger than my dream of America. This dream was the one hidden inside me, catching me off guard. Douglass was not like Papa.

“Is it true your wife cannot read?”

Douglass stiffened.

“Is she interested in anything other than domestic arts—cooking, cleaning, canning? Tell me, Douglass, is this the woman you dreamed of sharing your life? A peasant, is she not? Not well-bred at all.”

“Whereas you?”

“Very well-bred. The daughter of a physician and a teacher. I paint. I read. I write. Speak many languages. Read Greek. I understand the world of ideas.”

“You understand nothing.”

He got up and left me. I made myself small. Cried tears into the blanket. And if any passengers or crew saw me, I didn’t care.

For several days, I painted. All of it bad. I supposed he wrote. Successfully? I didn’t know. But we both grew tired of our own company and as though he’d never touched me in my most intimate places, I coolly invited him to dinner. “To talk of ideas,” I said.

We talked. He wanted to revise his
Narrative
. I offered to translate his first effort, to write articles for
Morgenblatt
. Germans will be very interested in you. The British too. Maybe I’ll be more successful at journalism than at painting.”

He laughed. “Will you show me your paintings?”

“No. I can’t get the colors right in this dark hole.”

“Will you paint Rosetta?”

I remembered her only as a bundle in her mother’s arms. “Of course,” I said, refilling his port. “Do you miss them?”

“Yes,” he replied, then moved on to Jefferson’s hypocrisy. “Jefferson was too selfish to free his slaves. George Washington too.”

“John Adams was truer to his principles.”

As we talked, I felt communion with Douglass. “This will be enough,” I thought. “Ideas are enough. I’ll be content.”

Then, both of us quieted. We sat, drinking port. I once got up to add new oil to the hurricane lamp. Resting in the chair, I let my head fall back, feeling the lull of the ocean, the quiet happiness of having Douglass again in a room with me. He rose and I watched him come toward me. He touched my arm.

I clasped the chair’s arms. I didn’t want to touch him. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to let him go.

“You still see me as mulatto.”

“Your color pleases me.”

“I want a woman who only sees me as I am. Beyond color to character.”

“What does Anna see?”

He turned away.

“Douglass, please. Aren’t you asking the impossible? Doesn’t your wife see your black skin?”

“Don’t speak of Anna.”

“Why? Are we both invisible to you?”

He was angry again. His fist pounded into his palm. “I’m the equal of any man.”

“Superior.” I wanted to touch him. Could I seduce him with passion? Probably. But if Douglass was to be won, it would be with the mind.

“Douglass, a free man is free to choose his desires. But you’re not free to choose how I see you. My desires are my own.”

He poured more wine.

“I think I loved you from the beginning. Desired you.”

“I’ve been taught not to want you.”

“Why shouldn’t you? I’m no white American.”

“In my mind, I’m free. Free to do as I please.”

“In your heart, too.”

“There’s Anna.”

“Only you can answer, ‘who is my wife?’ In a free world, acting like a free man, I believe you’d choose me.”

His fingers traced the lace at my bodice. “We should live in a world that is color-blind.”

“We’re beautiful together.”

“Ottilie?” Barely a whisper. His hands slid up my skirt, stroking my hips. His lips pressed against my neck. “I claim you because I allow myself to claim you.”

“I’m the wife of your spirit.” I kissed his brows, his rough skin where his beard begins. His soft lips.

He took my hand, guiding me to the bed, his hands undoing my buttons. “I’m the equal of any man.”

“More so.”

Flesh straining toward flesh, I gave myself up to his passion. I reveled in my own. I rode him. His member inside me, I rocked and moaned. I was riding to a new country. I wanted to cry out. Instead, I bit at his chest, his lips, and tasted the blood in his mouth. He turned me over, my face and breasts pushed deep into the pillow. He entered me. Over and over. I was satiated by his glory. But still he rode, his thighs rubbing against mine. His abdomen against my buttocks. I turned my head and saw us in my dresser mirror, his copper skin stretched high above my bright, white skin.

He lay flat upon me. Moving, thrusting. His black hair mingling with my blond tresses. Heat washed over me again. The two of us—such color, form, and symmetry. How I wished I could paint us lying together. Exhibit it for
the world to see. His face buried in my skin; my eyes, wide, dilated, swimming in joyous tears.

“What’s the matter?” Douglass asked, pulling out of me.

We were face-to-face. Our bodies slick, sticky. I clasped his manhood. “Have you bruised me, Douglass? Have you left bruises?” I felt his member elongating, growing harder. “Love me. Love me hard. Leave bruises.”

I thought he would tear me apart and swallow me but I gave him good measure. Matched his fire with my own. Oh, how he rode me. And when he tired, I did the riding. We loved until dawn. We made a new world of dreams.

I was who I was. Half Jew. Half Christian. Loving both the blackness and whiteness in this man. Can Anna do that?

“Anna, I trust you will find someone to read my words.”

—F
REDERICK
D
OUGLASS
,
1841

“I did what needed to be done. I depended
upon me. Why that be so terrible?”

—A
NNA
D
OUGLASS,
A YEAR BEFORE DYING
, 1881

New Bedford

I forgot to tell him about the bones. Forgot to tell Freddy that the bones would keep him safe as he crossed the water.

My trip north had brought me some joy, but much pain. But I never forgot those bones that sang to me as a child. Freddy say, “You don’t understand. You’ve never been a slave.” Don’t I have a heart? Living on the seacoast, I saw bones get washed ashore. Slaves killed, pushed, shoved, dropped overboard. “Been going on for a hundred years,” Mam taught me.

Well, I lived. Even in those hard times. Even though in a long time, I hadn’t heard the bones sing, I believed they wanted
me
to sing. Wanted me to take as much joy as I could from this cold, sometimes heartless world.

I took Miss Assing’s money. But I couldn’t take the portrait she’d left—a small cameo with black ribbon and a picture of Freddy’s face. She must’ve painted it and worn it around her neck, beneath her shift, warm against her bosom. I tossed her gift into the fire. I didn’t need paint to see Freddy’s face.

Early morning, I wrapped Rosetta well and went to the harbor. Not too close to Freddy’s ship. But I stayed on a rough hill, waiting, watching ’til his ship sailed.

When it was gone, I thought I should be gone. I never liked New Bedford. Neither white folks nor colored folks treated me natural. I’d go where no one knew I be Miz Frederick Douglass. I’d go where I could find honest work. Where I could raise my children in peace. Who knows when Freddy be home?

I sat and cried. I overstayed too long, for both me and Rosetta got chilled. My fingers and feet be numb when I get home. Rosetta’s nose be bright pink. I should’ve known better. I wasn’t “Lil’ Bit.” I was a woman grown. A mother like Mam.

I fixed tea and grits and took both the food and Rosetta into bed with me. “This be our party,” I say. “Farewell party.” Rosetta gurgled at my nonsense. I wiggled her toes, sang songs. I whispered about Baby Jesus and spirits in the sea. The wind be howling outside my window. The storm done come fierce and without mercy.

Garrison could write Freddy a letter. Tell him where I be. Where me, Rosetta, and baby growing inside me be.

We be building a new home until Freddy comes home.

Lynn, Massachusetts

Moving day everybody be my friend. Nobody wanted me to move. But I was tired of living in somebody else’s house. I’d make my own home. Make my own friends too.

Garrison let me keep the horse and cart. I was grateful and told him so.

It didn’t take long to get to Lynn. I picked it because it had a woman’s name—Lynn. It was another small town with plenty of hardworking colored folk. They made shoes. Drying and curing skin into leather all day. But the women I met were as friendly as pie. Soon as I arrived with my baby in a basket, my belly puffed up, women came out eager to help. Fluttering around me. Cradling Rosetta. Tethering my horse. Didn’t care who I was. Just cared that I needed a hand.

A woman with a mole on the side of her nose, shouted, “Girl, you going to need me. I’m the midwife.” She shook my hand, helped me down from the wagon. “I’m Miz Beasley. Just that. Miz Beasley.”

“I’m Anna. This be Rosetta.”

Miz Beasley squinted at me but said nothing about a husband. Her finger touched my wedding ring. Looking me in my eye, she said, “I know a sweet little house you can rent. A doll’s house.”

I gave her a big smile.

The house be small all right. Maybe too small for Freddy. But the gray cottage suited me and Rosetta just fine. It wasn’t grand. Just simple. It had a kitchen, a parlor, and two bedrooms. Space for a garden and all within spitting distance of the sea. I baked Miz Beasley a “thank-you” pie. Cherry with as much sugar as I dared.

The very next day, I sent a Penny-man to Mam. Told her I loved her. Told her she was soon to be a grandmother, twice over. I had one girl and be hoping for a boy. I watched the tin salesman go, hoping he be honest. Hoping he’d pass the message, like a bird, to another Penny-man headed further south. My words might tumble from several mouths before a Penny-man finally spoke them to Mam. But I’d be patient. It’d been nearly three years since I’d spoken to Mam, but I felt it in my bones that she be alive.

Freddy be alive, too. But I couldn’t send a Penny-man to him, so I sent my love by wishing on the stars. “Be safe.” “Come home soon.” “Rosetta and I miss you.”

Day and night, I thought of Freddy. I thought of him holding me, touching me. Sometimes my mind conjured him so real, I shivered, remembering him loving me.

Not a day went by when I didn’t think of him. Not a day went by I didn’t think of her. White women always had more freedom than a colored gal.

When I prayed on the North Star, I told Freddy what
thoughts be falling out of my mind. How Miz Greene tried to cheat me; how I’d planted my garden with tomatoes, lettuce, and snap beans; how I bought two chickens; how Rosetta crawled faster than a bug; how the new baby (I didn’t get to tell him about) be growing bigger each day. How I be making a home for us. How I scraped enough money to buy a desk for him, a table to eat. Right now, me and Rosetta be sleeping on quilts. But I be saving for a bed big enough to hold me and my husband twice over. I blushed. I thought the North Star be winking back at me.