Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Wench

The ground was hard and dry against Lizzie’s knees. She placed a palm against it to steady herself. Sunlight peeked through the cracks of the porch. She looked up. She could just make out their silhouettes.

“You right, Mr. Drayle. I couldn’t never treat him good as you. I ain’t rich and powerful like you-”

Lizzie and Mawu waited tensely, listening to the dull scrape of the razor gliding across a face.

“Well, how can you afford his price? I don’t get how you can afford to just throw away that kind of money and get nothing in return,” Sir said.

“Oh, he’s getting something,” Drayle said. “Philip is a first-class nigger.”

“That nigger is liable to run off and leave you,” Sir added, ignoring Drayle’s comment. The last couple of words were muffled as if the barber working on him had placed a hot towel over his mouth.

“You right, you right. I can’t afford it. Your man is gone have to pay me back,” the barber said.

“Philip is one of my best hands. I just don’t think I can let go of him.”

“I understand, Mr. Drayle. I do understand.”

The girl coughed. She placed the strop back into its carrying case. The barber tipped Sir up and brushed the clipped hair off his shoulders.

Hard-soled shoes dragged across the wood porch and stopped with a thud right above their heads.

There was silence for a few long minutes. Lizzie frowned. True, Philip was a hard worker and a good slave, but Drayle could buy another horse man. And it sounded as if this barber had offered Drayle a fair price. It wasn’t like they were haggling over price. Drayle could easily buy a new slave the next time the trader came through. If Drayle wouldn’t let Philip have a fair shake, then…She couldn’t complete the thought.

“Well, what you say?” It was Sir’s voice. “You gone sell the nigger or what?”

“That’s my final answer, I’m afraid,” Drayle said, so softly they almost didn’t hear him. “I just couldn’t let go of Philip. Francesca-that’s my wife-would never forgive me.”

“I understand, Mr. Drayle. I do understand,” the barber said.

Even though the bargain had not been struck, Lizzie couldn’t help but be proud of Drayle. He had discussed the matter with the barber as if he were a white man. Most slave owners wouldn’t even have entertained the discussion, particularly with a free colored. They would have dismissed him outright. They might have even dealt him a blow just to remind him that his papers meant nothing, that he was only a train ride away from washing a white man’s feet, sharing his woman’s bed, toting bales of hay across his striped back.

Mawu motioned to her. It was time for them to leave. In a few minutes, the men would be up and moving quickly and the house servant would be returning for the next buckets.

“What you think about that girl?” Mawu asked. “The barber daughter.”

“What?”

“She clean rooms in the hotel.”

Lizzie thought it was an odd question. Why was Mawu asking her about the barber’s daughter? What did she have to do with this? Didn’t Mawu understand the significance of what they’d just heard?

“You don’t know?” Mawu looked at her.

“Know what?”

“The barber’ daughter and Philip. Them two got something going on.”

“Since when?”

“Hell, I don’t know girl. Ain’t this your second summer?”

So that was how Philip had gotten the barber to make an offer for him. “And the daddy is already trying to buy him?”

“I reckon so.”

“What kind of love is that?”

Mawu looked at her. “The real kind, I reckon.”

Something had definitely been going on with Philip. Lizzie and Philip were as close as brother and sister, and Lizzie knew when his mind was occupied. She had thought he might have a thing for Mawu. Why hadn’t he told her? Lizzie squinted at the sun as they pumped.

“Girl, it’s only one way out of slavery,” Mawu said once the hotel servant came out and told them these were the final two buckets of water. They splashed water onto their faces and dried their hands on their dresses. Lizzie fingered her mole, and Mawu walked toward the cottages. Lizzie tried to catch up.

“What do you mean?” Lizzie asked.

They spotted Philip helping a white man load large sacks onto a cart. He looked over at them. Mawu sped up without giving Philip a second look and without answering Lizzie’s question. And Lizzie realized she would be the one giving him the bad news.

How many?” he asked her.

She had heard that some rivers flowed upstream, but she did not believe it. A slave had once told her that some insects and animals did not need a mate to have a baby. She did not believe that either. She’d once watched two flies, one humpbacked on the other, as if hitching a ride.

“How many?” he grabbed her by the shoulders and started to shake her.

Recently, Lizzie had stared into Massie’s creek and understood with a surprising clarity that life did not imitate its peaceful ripples. Her own experiences had always been as rutted as a rotting log. Even now things seemed to move without any kind of structure. She could see Drayle throwing things about, spit sliding down his chin.

And far away, she could hear her own voice murmuring inside her head.

“…And you were a part of this plot as well?” he demanded.

“No, no,” she protested, wondering how long she had been silent. “There weren’t any others. It was just Mawu’s idea. She’s the one who planned to run.”

“Should’ve known, should’ve known better.”

“What are you talking about? Any slave with half a mind would try it, Drayle.”

“So you’re saying you did think about running?” he grabbed her by the shoulders again.

Lizzie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to figure out how to lessen his anger. He was reacting worse than she had anticipated. His face was red. They weren’t back on the plantation. And it wasn’t like she had told him that Philip was plotting to escape. It was Philip who had every reason to run. Mawu wasn’t even his slave.

But Lizzie understood the anger even if she hadn’t expected it. She forgave him for it. He loved her, and he was afraid she would leave him, too. That was what made him so upset. Her leaving. His beloved Lizzie. The mother of his children.

“Don’t let him hurt her, Drayle. I just told you so you’d stop her.”

“I’ve got to tell Tip, Lizzie. I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t.”

Lizzie kissed him. “I’m just saying. Talk to him and don’t let him beat her hard. Just enough to keep her from-”

In the past week or so, after telling Philip that Drayle had refused to sell him to the free colored barber, she had noticed something new between the slaves. Tremors in their hands, unusually meek mock-smiles, glib “yessirs” and “thank yuhs.” Their movements were slack, tame, sluggish. She recognized the overextended supplications. And between the words, there was a quiet.

Lizzie did not believe Reenie would really try to escape. Reenie had family back at her place. But the forced nights with the manager could make any woman reckless. And George might follow her, if given a plausible chance. Maybe henry. Philip was more distant than she’d ever seen him, so she was counting him as a possible runaway, too.

She would have to warn Mawu, caution her to lay a trick on Tip so he wouldn’t beat her too hard. Lizzie didn’t believe in spells, but since Mawu did it ought to work. She began to think of ways to sneak out to Mawu’s cabin before the night was over.

Drayle planted both hands on her shoulders. “What am I thinking, my sweet Lizzie. Of course you wouldn’t leave me. Why would you come tell me about these plans if you were going to go with this woman? come here.”