Dolen Perkins-Valdez: Wench

The servants did not hide their curiosity as the slave women walked through the kitchen. Each woman had experienced a range of reactions from the slaves back home: jealousy, pride, pity. Here in Ohio, they had not spoken much about what the free colored people thought of women like them. This was partly because they did not care. They had each other, unlike down south. There, it was a lonely battle.

They stepped carefully because the servants’ stairs were steep. At the top of the stairs, another servant met them and pointed the way to the library that had been set up as a dining room so as to spare the other guests the sight of white men and slave women eating together.

They could hear the voices of the men as they approached the door. Once they were inside, the doors were closed behind them with a firm click of the lock. Each of them took in the room: the soft glow of the lamps casting an amber light, the smell of the leather-bound books, the white tablecloth and delicate dishes, the freshly cleaned floors. The room had no windows, and this fact along with the low ceiling made the room, despite its spaciousness, feel intimate.

A trio of colored musicians filed into the room from a door within the bookcase and collected themselves in the corner. Sweet admired their clothing. She knew firsthand the difficulty of sewing the ruffles that streamed down the front of their white shirts. Their pants were black and tight like riding pants. Faces greased to a shine, they moved as if one body, silent and practiced. Once they had set up, one of them lifted his head and when he lowered it, they all hit the first note together.

The music was light. It made Lizzie feel as if she would rise up off the floor. Even though there wasn’t even a hint of religiosity in the music, Lizzie couldn’t help but be moved by the unfettered talent of the freedman. She tried not to stare at the musicians as she took her place beside her Master. She did not want him to think she found them attractive.

Lizzie knew for a fact that Drayle had suggested an evening such as this the summer before. The other men had protested, and it had never happened. Imagine, they’d said, if their wives knew they were letting these slave women dress up like ladies and dine with them at a full-service dinner table! This summer, the men had finally agreed to Drayle’s suggestion. It made Lizzie proud to know her Master had been so thoughtful.

Drayle held out his hand. She reached out for him. He wore a thin summer suit and his sun-chapped face was freshly shaven. In her eyes, he was as handsome as a preacher. She touched his face. His cheek was cool in her palm.

“Would you care to dance?”

She answered in a voice that didn’t quite sound like her own. “Why thank you, Nathan.” She called him by the name that only Fran used. It was not lost on him. Three lines appeared in his forehead, and then relaxed into faint etchings.

Lizzie sneaked a quick peek at the others. Mawu was standing next to Tip looking bored. From the looks of him, he was already drunk. Reenie was filling Sir’s pipe with tobacco as he engaged in a conversation with a man sitting in a high-backed leather chair beside him. Reenie tapped the edge of the pipe bowl against a nearby bookcase to settle the tobacco. She performed her chore methodically, as if she had done it countless times. Sweet’s man had plunged his face into her cleavage and Lizzie could hear her tinny laugh.

“That’s some dress.”

“Tangerine,” Lizzie said.

“What?”

“The lady that brought it said it is tangerine.”

“Ah,” he said.

Drayle moved her hips back and forth, and once they had settled into a comfortable rhythm, he rested the tip of his chin on her head.

The lighting in the room was dim, so dim Reenie had trouble filling the pipe. It was as if the white men were afraid that if it were too bright in the room, they might remember they were about to dine with a group of well-dressed colored women.

The hotel manager entered and stood in the corner, surveying the room. His eyes kept returning to the women. When the manager’s eyes found Lizzie, she tried to steer Drayle around so she could put her back to the manager, but Drayle was leaning too heavily on her. She knew that look in the manager’s eyes, and she did not want to be the object of it. She turned her head into Drayle’s chest and when she took another peek, she saw he was now focused on Reenie. Reenie’s high-necked stance had stiffened. The bag of tobacco dangled from her fingers as if forgotten.

Someone rang a glass dinner bell and the couples took their places at the table. Mawu maneuvered Tip around to Lizzie’s side and slipped into the seat next to her. The northern guest sat on one side of the table, unaccompanied. No introductions of any kind were made.

“They gone serve us?” Mawu whispered.

“I reckon so,” Lizzie answered.

A servant with bumps covering his chin and neck unfolded Mawu’s napkin and spread it across her lap with a flourish.

“Ain’t this something?” Mawu fingered the cloth.

Lizzie was fascinated by the free servants. They floated into the room like angels and held the dishes aloft like sacrificial offerings, announcing each dish as if they were presenting a guest. Lizzie tucked the display into her mind so she could try to emulate it later. She wanted to serve dinner back at the place like free colored folk did it. She wanted to slide the spoons onto the table with crisp, little movements, pour wine with a flourish at the end, shake out a napkin with a soft pop of the fabric. The servants announced a turtle soup. Lizzie could smell it as the bowl came her way. She did not wait for the others to be served, plunging her spoon into the thick, red soup. She tried to separate the flavors in her mouth: onion, tomato, cayenne. The turtle meat was a bit chewy, but well flavored.

“I can make a real good turtle soup,” Mawu whispered to Lizzie, leaning over Tip. “This ain’t nothing.”

“You mentioned this morning that you might have a horse for sale?” asked Sweet’s Master.

“Yes, yes,” answered Drayle. “He’s only got one eye, but he’s fast as lightning.”

“Good with children?”

Drayle put down his spoon. “What age are we talking?”

Sweet’s master pawed her hand. She rested the other hand on the lid of her stomach. “For Sweet’s oldest boy,” he said.

Drayle picked his spoon back up. He did not look at Lizzie who was watching him and waiting for his response. Surely he would be honest about the horse, she thought.

“A horse with only one good eye? That doesn’t sound like a deal,” said the northerner. He had a thick mustache that he kept licking with quick darts of his tongue. He obviously had not caught that Sweet’s master was intending to buy the horse for his slave son. “How much you want for it?”

Drayle laughed. “We’re old friends. We can talk price later. I’ll make it worth the trip out to my farm, I can promise-”

“Horses won’t do you no good if we go to war.” Sir sniffed.

“Nobody’s going to war,” Tip said, belching loudly. “I’ll be damned if I let some Yankee take away my hard-earned property.”

The northerner laughed nervously as if to assure them that although he was a northerner, he was no Yankee. “What would the country do with a bunch of freed niggers anyway?”

The servant announced a beef dish.

Mawu spoke. “Master Taylor say if us go to war, he gone free me first. Say he’ll be damned if the Yankees get me.”

“Shut up, Betsy. I never said nothing like that.”

This caught the attention of the other three women. Betsy? That was her given name?

“Yeah, you did.”

Tip pinched her on the arm, and although it looked playful, Mawu rubbed the flesh he had grabbed.