Sarny (9 page)

“You’ve got a place to do your doings?” I asked. “
Inside?
”

“Yes, dear. It’s all the rage.”

“Oh my
God
!” A scream from in back of me and I turned to see Lucy standing there holding a box, staring up at the room. Mouth open and eyes wide.

“Don’t be swearing,” I said.

“Didn’t
you
?”

“It’s just her house,” I said, staying settled, but I couldn’t help smiling. “And ours. We’ve got a bath. Inside.” Was hard not to take on with it. I never in all my days thought anything like this was real and for me to be living in it—was hard to not take on with it. Inside bath. My Lord.

Miss Laura she went to one of the doors and opened it. “Here, see?”

Stuff in there didn’t seem real. Big copper tub with handles at one end, some kind of seat with a hole in the top—I knew what it was for but didn’t see how it worked, where it all went—and sink with a looking glass over it.

“What are the handles for?” Lucy asked. I wanted to but thought I’d already asked enough.

“Handles … oh, you mean the faucets. Those are for water. One for hot and one for cold. There’s a large tank on the roof, and water is pumped up there for the apartments. In the basement there’s a boiler that keeps it hot for the hot-water faucets.”

“You mean you just turn that handle and you’ve got hot water?” I couldn’t help myself. “That’s all you do?”

“Try it. The one on the left.”

I turned it. Wrong way of course, then the right way. Took a minute but then it was so
hot it hurt my hand. Turned it off. “I never thought there could be such a thing. In the quarters we had to heat water in the big cook-pot over the fire.”

Miss Laura she held up her hand. “There are no more quarters. Ever. From now on you won’t speak of them, and tonight you will both have a hot bath with French perfumed bubble soap.”

She left the room and opened another door. “This will be where you three sleep—the two of you and Tyler Two, until we can find him a home.”

We looked in the door. There was a bed and a table with a chair and another kind of half bed with a back on it—she called it a couch—and an oil lamp on the table with a milk-white chimney and there was a pointed thing in a stand on the table with some dark fluid in a little jar.

“What’s that?” I asked. “With the sharp end.”

“Why, it’s a pen. There is paper in the drawer of the table. You can write letters if you wish, and Bartlett will send them for you.”

I went to the table and pulled the drawer. Clean white sheets of paper. Pure clean. I pulled one out and put it on the middle part of the table. Took the pen and tried to make a mark but nothing came.

“You have to dip the point of the pen in the ink,” Miss Laura said. “Just a bit on the end.”

I dipped it. Black ink, black as me, and I wrote on the paper. Wrote BAG. In all big letters. Couldn’t help it. Wrote BAG.

“What is that?” Miss Laura asked.

“It’s the first word I ever wrote,” I said. “First word I knew. BAG. Learned to read in a pit school.”

Little sound and I turned and she was smiling at me, her eyes misting. She touched my arm and then she took me and hugged me and pretty soon Lucy she was there and the three of us were hugging and were my children there and Delie and Nightjohn and Martin I wouldn’t ever have been happier.

Want to talk more on that bath. That whole first night in New Orleans.

We unpacked and Miss Laura she sent out for food—I never heard of such a thing. They brought shrimp and chicken and red beans and rice in metal buckets and we ate at the table off plates you could see light through and drank something Miss Laura called a cordial in crystal glasses that caught light from everywhere some way. Tyler Two he went to sleep on the bed in our room. I got to giggling after drinking the cordial—Lucy she got plain silly—and when we’d cleaned up the dishes in
the kitchen where there was a sink and more hot water for washing, Miss Laura she said, “All right, who’s first for the bath?”

I didn’t want to be a hog for it so I held back but Lucy she didn’t want to appear hoggish either and finally Miss Laura she took a straw from the broom and broke it in two pieces and held them out partly hidden in her hand.

“Short straw goes first.”

I got the short straw and Miss Laura she took me in the bathroom, put a plug in the bottom of the tub and started water running. A little hot and a little cold but it still almost steamed.

“Take off your shift. You won’t be wearing it again.”

“What am I going to wear?” I pulled my shift over my head.

“I have uniform dresses for you and Lucy to wear, but tonight you’re going to have a silk gown.” She took a bottle off a shelf and sprinkled what looked like sugar in the water. Didn’t smell like sugar. Smelled like flowers, like lilacs and red flowers that grow along the stream. Smelled so good I made spit. Made me hungry but didn’t know for what. For summer, soft nights, soft talk, maybe Martin. The sugar made soapy bubbles that filled the tub.

“Get in.”

I stepped into the tub, stood there.

“Sit down. Lie back and relax. Don’t be nervous. Just relax. When you’re done, those cloths on the rack are towels. Dry with one of them, put the gown on and sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Miss Laura she left then, came back in a moment with two silk gowns, one for Lucy one for me, and left again without talking, closed the door soft in back of her.

I couldn’t believe it. Was in it, smelled it, felt it and couldn’t believe it anyway. Like being inside a warm flower. Smell all around, up, down, inside me in some way—soft lilac smell and hot water soaking. Laid there like a log. Water got deeper and deeper and I turned it off afraid it would run over and then just laid there, half floating, bubbles all up around me so I couldn’t see much past my nose.

Closed my eyes and let everything slip away, just slip away from me, and didn’t think on anything but the lilac smell until the water started to get cold and Lucy she couldn’t stand it any longer and tapped on the door.

“Are you going to be in there all night?”

I dried with a towel and put the silk gown on. So soft it was like more bath. Dried my hair and let Lucy in. Showed her what to do, started her tub, poured in some sugar and
told her about drying with the towel and the gown and went to my room.

Had in my mind writing something. White paper waiting, pen and ink right there. Had a thought on writing a letter to Delie telling her about things. Knowing she couldn’t read it because she was dead didn’t change it. Had it in my thinking to write to her anyway but I slid into the bed under the covers next to Tyler Two—Lucy she said she’d sleep on the half bed where Miss Laura she had laid some blankets—and there wasn’t anything else I could do but sleep.

Soft hot water, soft smell of flowers still on me, soft silk of the gown next to my skin and soft feeling of the fine sheets on the bed and there wasn’t anything for it but to sleep so I did and when I woke up it was a whole new world.

That first night Miss Laura she waited on us and that was fine. Fine. But she had hired us to do a job of work and when we got up the very next morning we had to get busy.

Miss Laura she seemed to know everything, know everybody, and she sat us down and told us our duties.

“Sarny, you will market and cook and help me socially. Lucy, you will clean and take care of the laundry and straighten the place up after any social event. As I said, you will be paid twenty dollars a month each plus room and board. Any questions?”

I didn’t much know how to cook ’cept for quarters food—cornmeal, beans and pork fat, and I was pretty certain she wasn’t talking about that kind of cooking. Didn’t know what she meant by marketing and had no thought at all in my mind how I was to help her “socially.” Started to keep quiet and knew it
would do no good. “I don’t understand how to cook, market or be social …”

She laughed. “Bartlett will show you at first. Don’t worry, you’ll pick it up fast. And Lucy, Bartlett will show you what to do as well.”

“What do we wear?” It was still early and Lucy she had sleep in her eyes. “We can’t do much in these gowns.”

“You will wear uniforms. Bartlett will show you where they are.”

After that any problem I had I just figured to ask Bartlett. He seemed to know everything.

“I’ll need coffee and a light breakfast—one egg, two pieces of toast with strawberry jam.” And she turned and went back into her room.

“Well,” Lucy said. “I guess we get to work.”

So we did and that first day it went about as bad as it could go. We put on our uniforms. Black dresses way better than the shifts. Bartlett he showed me how to make breakfast but it took me three tries to get an egg right and just figuring out the kitchen and the stove that burned some kind of gas would have been more than I could handle hadn’t it been for Bartlett.

Strong and quiet. Never said a bad word or made fun of me. Would just smile and say, “No, Sarny, try that knob over there. Turn the gas down a mite. Don’t boil the eggs quite
so hard. Miss Laura likes them soft on the inside and just turning hard on the white.”

“I ain’t ever going to get this …”

“Yes you will. Don’t you worry. It’ll all come easy to you. Just keep on keeping on and it will be fine.”

Then he’d go to help Lucy find a broom or mop and all the time Tyler Two he was hanging on Bartlett’s leg. He hadn’t started to talk yet but he was ’bout as wild as a pup, running back and forth, and he decided he belonged to Bartlett. Bartlett he was like a gentle bear. He’d pick the boy up and carry him with one hand while he showed us what to do, then set him down until Tyler Two he would run back and climb up his leg.

When I had the breakfast just right Bartlett he put it all on a silver tray and told me to take it in to Miss Laura.

I knocked on the door and went in and stopped again, mouth open, just like Lucy. Big room, high ceiling with a big bed in the middle. Bed had a roof on it. Four posts held the roof over the bed and soft cloth hanging down all around. Everything in gentle red so the room it looked almost hot. In one corner was a table like the one in our room and she was sitting there writing on small pieces of paper. She pushed the paper aside. “Put the tray down right here. I was just writing invitations
for the party I told you about—the one we’re going to invite Chivington to. Did you sleep well?”

I was so busy looking at the bed I didn’t hear what she said. “I’m sorry—what did you say?”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Oh yes. Slept like a baby. I felt like I was sinking into the bed all night and Lucy she slept so hard I thought she died.”

Soft laugh. “I’m glad you like it. I think I’ve needed someone like you for a long time.”

Had me a question and I didn’t want to ask it because it seemed too nosy but she saw it in my face. Woman knew everything. Saw everything.

“What’s the matter?”

“Just wondering what happened before we came. Did you do all this your own self?”

“No, of course not. Bartlett did some, and I had another girl. Her name was Susie, and she worked for me for almost two years. She was very good, but somebody stole her.”

“Stole her?”

She nodded. “It was still slavery times then. Susie was free, and I paid her the same as I’m paying you, but there were bounty hunters, and one day they took her when she was marketing. We never saw her again, never heard another word from her.”

“Oh my …”

“Yes. It was very sad. I tried to find her but she had simply vanished.”

“She might have been sold to the cane planters. They just worked people to death. We heard about them from Nightjohn.”

“Nightjohn?”

“He was a friend. More than a friend. Made me to read.” I told her the story, just a bit of it, how he came to know me.

“He sounds like a singular man.”

Didn’t know what it meant but liked the way it sounded. “Yes he was. Very singular.” I left then so she could eat her egg before it got cold.

Bartlett he was there waiting for me holding Tyler Two like a package under one arm. Lucy she was busy cleaning and Bartlett he went to the front door.

“We’ll do the marketing now. We need ’most everything there is to need. Lucky I had those eggs for the trip. There isn’t even any salt.”

I followed him outside and was surprised to find it was midmorning already. Sun was up, hot, little clouds here and there and such a bustle in the streets that it made me stare. I thought it had been full of busy people when we came the day before but it wasn’t even close. People were jammed next to each other
and everybody seemed to be yelling and pushing.

Bartlett he opened the gate and jumped in, dragging me by the hand, and we went along like chips in a river.

’Most everybody seemed to be selling something. The man with the dancing dog was still there. Man with no legs playing a fiddle on the other side of the street. No-count women, some black some white, all thick with paint were on balconies calling to men to come up, and weaving through the crowd were beggars and some men so drunk they could hardly walk. Middle of the morning and they were already drunk. In the road there were carriages jammed in with freight wagons all heading down to the river where I could see four big paddle-wheel boats that weren’t there yesterday.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Bartlett.

“No.” He shook his head and smiled back at me. “Sometimes it’s worse. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Heard somebody yell a curse and then the crowd parted like water around a rock and two drunk men had knives and were going at each other, cutting and stabbing until one of them got the other one in the stomach and the wounded man walked away holding himself
swearing. Crowd just closed up and kept moving.

There was so much happening I couldn’t tell where we were going but before we’d gone too far we came to a strip of road where there were booths. Had canvas awnings out in front to keep the sun off and I never saw so much food in my life. Couldn’t even find bacon grease and cornmeal or other quarters food. Was like there’d never been war.