The Freedom Maze (28 page)

Aunt Enid looked, if possible, even more spooked than she had before. “Do you mean to tell me, Sophie Martineau, that you imagine that you’ve spent the last six months as a
slave
?”

“Yes, ma’am. Except I didn’t imagine it. It was the shirtwaist and the tan and being barefoot, I think. And looking like a Fairchild.” Sophie looked at the bonnet on her lap. “Turned out to be a blessing in the end.”

“Lord have mercy.”

Silence fell. Sophie wasn’t inclined to break it. It was pleasant just to sit still, though she wished she could get out of the corset and the boots, take off the heavy skirt and jacket and be comfortable in her homespun dress again. How white ladies stood all this paraphernalia was a mystery to her. Even in summer, they wore petticoats and crinolines and long drawers and heavy cotton stockings.

A woman was calling her. Sounded like Old Missy.

“Coming, ma’am,” Sophie muttered, and pried her eyes open to see Aunt Enid peering into her face.

“Don’t you fall asleep on me, Sophie Martineau. I don’t know what to make of your story, and that’s a fact. But I can see with my own eyes that
something
out of the way has happened to you. Not even a nearly fourteen-year-old girl can turn into a young woman between 10 o’clock Eucharist and Sunday dinner. So let’s say, for the sake of a quiet life, that you haven’t run mad and you’re not lying —”

“Thank you for believing me,” Sophie said.

“I’m not saying I believe you. I’m saying . . . Well, I don’t quite know what I’m saying. What I do know is what Sister would say. She’d say you’ve lost your mind, and have you in some godforsaken hospital or other before you could say Jack Robinson.”

“Oh, Lordy.” Panic kicked Sophie’s brain awake. “I’ve got to change!” She looked at Aunt Enid uncertainly. “I don’t suppose you’d mind bringing me some clothes.”

With the subject of slaves and time travel safely behind them, Aunt Enid seemed to relax. “Don’t be silly, child. Of course I’ll bring your clothes. If you’ve got anything that’ll fit.”

Sophie considered. “A skirt, maybe? A short-sleeve shirt? I need underwear, too. And I’ll make a start getting out of all this. I might need help with the corset, though. It took Asia and Sally both to get me into it.” Tears prickled the back of her nose. Were they all right? Had Antigua got away? She’d never know.

She wished she’d been able to say good-bye to Canny.

Aunt Enid stood. “Asia? Never mind; I don’t want to hear. I’ll bring an old sheet to wrap that dress in.”

By the time her aunt returned, Sophie was down to corset and drawers. She had rubbed the powder off her face with her petticoat, taken the combs out of her hair, and ruthlessly twisted it into her usual braids.

“My land,” said Aunt Enid. “What have you done to your hair? You look like a —” She stopped dead, spread the sheet on the bench, transferred Miss Liza’s walking dress onto it, motioned for Sophie to turn around, and untied her laces.

“You can’t wear your hair like that,” she said carefully. “Two braids are fine, or one, now that you’re almost grown-up. But six is too — old-fashioned.”

“You mean only black folks wear lots of braids,” Sophie said.

“Negroes,” said Aunt Enid, working the laces loose. “The polite term is Negroes.”

The corset joined the other clothes, and Aunt Enid turned her back while Sophie took off the chemise and drawers and put on cotton underpants, the skirt to her seersucker suit, and a sleeveless cotton blouse. The blouse was too tight across her chest, and the skirt barely reached her knees. Feeling half-naked, Sophie tugged at the hem self-consciously.

Aunt Enid tsked fretfully. “You look a sight. Sister may be in the devil’s own temper, but she’s not stone blind. Come on in the kitchen and I’ll think what to do.”

Oak Cottage was like a house remembered from a dream. The kitchen, once the storeroom where Mr. Beau had cornered Antigua, was fitted with luxuries Africa couldn’t have imagined. Sophie thought she would have loved the icebox and the running water in the sink, but wasn’t sure what she’d make of the electric stove.

“Here.” Aunt Enid thrust an old denim gardening shirt into her hands. “Put this on. I need to get dinner while I’m thinking. It’s the blessing of God that Sister’s too put out to come down until I call her.”

She opened the oven to baste the roasting chicken. Noticing a bunch of greens in the sink, Sophie got a knife and a cutting board and chopped them up. When she went to look for a bowl to put them in, she saw Aunt Enid staring at her like she’d sprouted wings. “It’s getting a little wearing, being astonished every whipstitch. I suppose you miraculously know how to cook, too.”

“Just gumbo and such — nothing fancy. I watched Miss Liza make jelly once.”

Aunt Enid got her cornered muskrat look. “That’s as may be. Now sit down and be still.”

Obediently, Sophie sat and let her heavy eyelids drift shut. Next thing she knew, she was smelling something delicious and Aunt Enid was telling her to wake up. “You take this right on up to your room and don’t come down to dinner. I’ll tell Sister you took sick. It’s not even a fib. You look terrible.”

Sophie looked from her aunt to the tray in front of her. The heaped plate of chicken and greens was more food than she’d eaten at one meal for six months. The ice tea had a sprig of mint in it. She got up and put her arms around her aunt. “Thank you, Aunt Enid. I’m glad to be home. I missed you.”

Aunt Enid was shorter than she remembered, and smelled of lavender and garden soil. She patted Sophie on the back. “There, there,” she said. “There’s no need to take on. Run on upstairs now, and don’t worry about a thing. Sister will be driving back to New Orleans directly after dinner.”

Sophie ate her chicken and greens without tasting them; going to sleep was like falling off a cliff. She woke at dawn, convinced she’d overslept, that she’d be late getting to the sugarhouse and Mr. Akins would be mad.

It took her a minute to remember that she was back in 1960, where slavery was against the law, and Mr. Akins was dust. She also remembered that Mama had left without saying good-bye. Whatever had been changed by Sophie’s time in the past, it wasn’t Mama.

Feeling odd, Sophie went into the bathroom and rediscovered the glories of modern plumbing. She ran herself a scalding bath, scrubbed her skin with scented soap that didn’t sting, and washed the dirt and tangles out of her hair with shampoo and cream rinse. Aunt Enid’s threadbare towels seemed impossibly luxurious and fluffy, but Sophie couldn’t find a thing to wear that didn’t look downright indecent on her. She finally settled on Aunt Enid’s shirt and a cotton skirt, then braided her hair in two tails and went down to breakfast.

“You look like a charity child,” Aunt Enid said. “We’ll have to buy you some new clothes. Eat up and we’ll drive into Lafayette.”

Sophie would rather have stayed home, but it never occurred to her to say so. As soon as Ofelia’s rattletrap Chevy pulled up at Oak Cottage, Aunt Enid bundled Sophie into her old pink Thunderbird and headed for the road to Lafayette. Hanging on to the door, Sophie gritted her teeth against the noise and stink and wished horse-drawn carriages hadn’t gone out of fashion.

She’d completely forgotten about traffic. The first time a truck roared past the Thunderbird, she almost jumped out of her skin. Aunt Enid shot her a worried look, and she smiled reassuringly back. She didn’t want her aunt thinking she’d gone crazy.

In Lafayette, Aunt Enid took her to a dress shop. The salesladies clucked and exclaimed just like Asia and Hepzibah when they saw her gingham shirtwaist back in 1860, except that the salesladies were white and Sophie was a customer, so they had to be polite. It all made Sophie feel horribly uncomfortable. But by the time the purchases were paid for and wrapped, she’d recovered a little more of her balance. She knew she was back in the twentieth century, where there were cars and dress shops, and the black woman who brought her fried catfish at the Cajun Café belonged to nobody but herself.

It was very odd, though, to see the waitress lower her gaze when she put down Sophie’s plate and to hear her speak in a soft “white folks” voice, as if she was talking to Miss Liza. Odd and unpleasant. Even painful.

“Quit staring at that girl,” Aunt Enid said when the waitress had gone back into the kitchen. “You’ll embarrass her.”

Sophie felt a flash of anger. “She’s not a girl,” she said. “She’s a grown woman.”

Aunt Enid glanced around nervously, then leaned forward. “You are Mrs. Charles Fairchild’s granddaughter,” she said, very low. “Her
white
granddaughter. And Mrs. Fairchild’s granddaughter knows better than to talk about things she doesn’t understand in a public place where folk might hear her.”

Sophie opened her mouth and shut it again. There wasn’t any point in arguing with a Fairchild, even a nice one.

When they got back to Oak Cottage, it was late enough that Ofelia, who liked to get home before dark, was waiting on the gallery with her hat on. Aunt Enid hadn’t even stopped the Thunderbird before she was down the steps and in her own car. So she didn’t really see Sophie until she came into the kitchen next morning to see her frying up an egg for breakfast.

Ofelia took one look, threw up her hands, and ran out of the kitchen.

Pausing to take the pan off the burner, Sophie followed and found her backed up against the gallery steps, her hand to her chest. “Uh-uh,” she said. “Whatever you’re fixing to tell me, I don’t want to hear it. This place haunted with all kinds of strange goings-on and sadness. Only way I can do my work is to pay none of it no mind. And I got to work, or my babies don’t eat. I’m just the hired help. You need someone to talk to, you talk to God.”

Six months ago, Sophie might have cried or sulked, and Ofelia might have given in. Today, she said, “You’re right, Ofelia. I’ll do that,” and went back inside. She was disappointed, and a little hurt, but the last thing she wanted was to be like Old Missy and make folks mind her just because she was white and rich and free and they weren’t.

What had become of Old Missy, anyway? And what had happened to Oak River when the war started? Aunt Enid just looked at Sophie wall-eyed when she brought the subject up, so she turned to Grandmama, who just naturally assumed everyone was as interested in Oak River’s history as she was.

The first time Sophie took the coffee tray up to Grandmama, she was greeted with a scowl. “What are you doing here? Where’s Ofelia?”

“Ofelia’s busy, Grandmama. Here’s your coffee, just like you like it.”

At first, Grandmama kept wondering aloud what Enid was thinking of to leave her own mother at the mercy of a gawky girl. But by the time Sophie had found her favorite handkerchief and her fancy work, she’d calmed down some.

“Thank you, child,” she said at last. “I’m glad someone has thought to teach you manners since last week.”

Sophie smiled. Dealing with Grandmama wasn’t all that different from dealing with Old Missy, really. Both of them believed in their God-given right to run everybody’s life for them. Old Missy was just a little nicer about it. Had she ended up crotchety and bedridden, Sophie wondered. Or had she died before she’d gotten as old as her descendant? No, her descendant’s wife. Despite her family pride, Grandmama was only a Fairchild by marriage.

“Grandmama, I’d purely love to hear more about Oak River in the old days. Did you and Grandpa live in the Big House?”

Grandmama glared. “How old do you think I am, miss? Mr. Fairchild — your grandpa, that is — never lived in the Big House. His father, Stephen Fairchild, was raised there, but he brought his bride home to Oak Cottage. Your grandpa boarded the old place up after his mother passed on in 1926. I remember because I was expecting your mother.” She frowned, as if at unpleasant memories. “There wasn’t much left after the war. Things got lost and burned and sold to pay the high taxes the Yankees put on everything. Except for these old doodads.” She waved her hand at the crowding tables and chairs.

“What happened to the Big House?”

“The Yankees looted it,” said Grandmama. “Took every last piece of silver and jewelry in the house, down to Mrs. Fairchild’s pearl and gold earbobs, so the story goes. One of the proudest families in the parish, eight hundred acres of cane and nearly two hundred slaves to work them, and overnight, just about, they came down to nothing but a handful of servants and a load of debt.”

Who had stayed, Sophie wondered. Mammy, for certain, and Aunt Winney, and maybe Uncle Germany and Aunt Europe and Uncle Italy — the old ones who’d have a hard time making a new life away from Oak River. But what about Africa and Ned, Asia and Hepzibah and Sally and Samson? What about Poland and Flanders? What had happened to Canny?

But Grandmama wouldn’t know the answer to any of these questions.

“What happened then?” Sophie asked.

“I disremember,” said Grandmama. “There was a son, I know, worked like a slave to save the place. Had to sell off everything but the Big House and Oak Cottage and maybe a hundred acres, but they got along pretty well until the Depression. That’s when Grandpa’s daddy had to sell the rest of the cane fields.”

Sophie tried and failed to imagine Dr. Charles cutting cane or Mrs. Charles scrubbing floors. Sophie shuddered. If she’d been a terror to live with when life was good, what must she have been like when life was hard?