Pete Hamill - Forever

“No, I’m not looking for a priest, Mister Hughson. I’m not really what people would call a religious man.”

Hughson looked unconvinced.

“It’s all right to tell me, lad. If I’ve guessed correctly.”

“You’ve guessed wrong, Mister Hughson. With all due respect, sir. All I want is a glass of porter.”

Hughson filled a fresh glass and placed it before him. Cormac laid a piece of eight on the bar.

“Well,” Hughson said, smiling, “if you do remember what you came for, let me know.”

Cormac gave Hughson his back, sipping his porter while watching the hollering and dancing, the drunken British soldiers, the Africans pouring sweat and shouting secret words in their own languages, while Mary Burton moved among them all. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed. Her hips seemed to churn beneath her muslin skirt. Her eyes flirted. She has something to tell me, he thought; when will she tell?

Then he heard the back door open and turned to see the new arrivals.

There stood Kongo.

Behind him were two other Africans, both larger than Kongo, but it was clear that he was in charge. He was wearing a high-collared blue jacket, a coarse pale-blue workshirt, clean baggy trousers, and scuffed boots. It was the first time Cormac had seen him without manacles. Without being obvious, his eyes took in the entire room, the black faces and white, the fiddler, the smoke and food, Hughson and Sarah and Mary Burton. And, of course, Cormac O’Connor.

In his glance he told Cormac that he knew him, all right, but he didn’t know whether Cormac wanted that known. His nod was almost imperceptible. There was a still, frozen moment, everyone in the room sensing the possibility of danger. The Africans froze. The soldiers froze. The music paused and the only sound was an icy breathing. It was as if they expected constables or redcoats to barge in behind Kongo and his men. Then Kongo stepped forward, the sense of danger eased, and he moved to the bar, next to where Cormac was sipping his porter. The music resumed with a relieved burst, along with the stomping of the dancers.

“Cor-mac,” he whispered.

“Kon-go.”

He tapped a balled fist to his heart and then to Cormac’s chest. His friends nodded. Other blacks watched. The whites tried to look casual. Cormac laid some pieces of eight on the bar.

“No,” Kongo said, his voice insistent. “No.”

He pointed subtly at an African seated against the wall. Quaco. He came over. They talked softly, heads against ears. Quaco then spoke to Cormac in English, his voice very low.

“Kongo says you gave him drink when he thirsted,” Quaco said. “Now he must give you water in return.”

“All right.”

Hughson looked annoyed because Kongo asked for water.

“How can I get rich if he drinks water—and you join him?”

“He’ll probably pay you for it.”

“Aye, and then tell all these other buggers what a cheap bastard I am.”

He drew three porters and filled two glasses from a water jug. Kongo took one glass, Cormac the other. The African lifted his glass as if in a toast, then drained it. Cormac did the same. Kongo said a word. Cormac repeated it, without knowing its meaning. He could feel Hughson watching them, and others too. Kongo handed mugs of porter to Quaco and his men, one of whom now seemed familiar to Cormac from the dark hold of the ship. They sipped. Kongo gazed around the room again.

“Where do you know him from?” Hughson said. “You serve in Parliament together?”

“No,” Cormac said. “We shipped together.”

Then another black man came over and bowed his head to Kongo, who squeezed his hand. Then another, and still one more. They all said words that Kongo accepted as if they were gifts. Quaco saw Cormac watching.

“They know he has come for them,” he said. “They have wait a long time.”

“They waited for him? How could they know he was on the Fury ?”

“They just know he is to come. It is foretold.”

“Who is he?”

Quaco sipped his porter.

“Babalawo.”

A word Cormac didn’t know. An African word.

Babalawo.

That Tuesday, Cormac waited for Mary Burton on a bench at the north end of the Common. She was more than an hour late, her eyes jittery, the ends of her hair unkempt and loose. She was carrying an Old Testament.

“Can you read me some of these words?” she said abruptly. “I’m stuck with this ‘begat.’ And someone begat someone who begat someone else, all of these begatters.”

“Who gave you this?”

“Nobody,” she said. “I stole it from one of the preachers. He was lyin’ on the ground, shakin’ and rollin’, looking like a mad dog, his eyes up in his head. So I lifted it and watched him rollin’ for a while, figuring he was more in want of a doctor than a book, and then I went off with it. The next day I took it to Trinity, and they didn’t want me, certain they were that I was a papist, but I said no, I was no papist, I was a fine Protestant from the Church of Ireland and wanted to worship God and the King of England, but I couldn’t do it ’less I learnt to read. So the preacher, fella name of Wrightson, he starts to read it, and that’s when I start hearing ‘begat’ until it was coming out of his arse.”

Cormac laughed. “Did you say ‘feck’ to him?”

“No, but I came close.”

“And he let you into the classes.”

“Aye, after paying a visit to the Hughsons, and shamin’ both of them. I get an hour each mornin’ now. I learnt the letters first, and then on to the fecking begatters….”

“It gets better,” Cormac said, holding the book, riffling its pages. “You’ll love the story of Joseph and his brothers and the coat of many colors.”

“Will you read it to me?” she said, taking the book back into her hands.

“No, I want you to read it to me .”

She was quiet then for a long while as they watched passing couples, and occasional teams of redcoats, and carriages carrying rich people to the houses down beyond Wall Street. She held the book in her hands as if it were made of gold.

“I have to tell you something,” she said.

He waited, suddenly afraid that she would inform him that she was going to beget their child.

“There’s something going on at Hughson’s,” she said. “The Africans and the Irish together. They’re talkin’ about a risin’. About strikin’ at the English. About killing people…”

She stared at the ground. A cool wind blew in from the North River.

“Stay away from them,” she said. “Stay away from Hughson’s. They’re all a-headin’ for the gallows.”

She turned to the hill above the Common, where dead leaves were swirling in the fresh river wind.

“Stay away,” she said. “Stay away.”

Kongo was working in the Fly Market, a few blocks south of the Slave Market. He was the property of a housepainter named Wilson. But Cormac was so busy that autumn that he didn’t see much of the man Quaco had called a babalawo . He was just pleased to know that Kongo was alive. He stayed away from Hughson’s and the rumors of revolt, hoping that Kongo was not involved but knowing that no rising could go forward without him. He did run into Kongo in the streets as the African carried a stepladder and paint jars to a job, wearing a canvas girdle round his waist, from which hung his brushes. If Wilson, his owner, was with him (thin, solemn, red-faced, lonesome), they exchanged only nods. If Kongo was alone, they embraced and talked, for Kongo was adding new English words every day.

“Don’t go Hughson’s,” he whispered during one chance encounter. “Danger thar.”