Dolen Perkins-Valdez: Wench

Inside the cottage, Lizzie felt human. She could lift her eyes and speak the English Drayle had taught her. She could run her hands along the edges of things in the parlor-two chairs, a sofa, a wooden table, a tall oil lamp with a milkglass base, a cast-iron stove-as if they were hers. And she could sit.

When she cleaned, she could do so with the satisfaction of knowing it was for her own enjoyment. After sweeping the floor, she could slide her feet along the smoothness of it. And she made sure every soup bowl was unsoiled because it would be her lips and her mouth that drank from it.

She heard Drayle remove his boots on the porch and listened to the familiar scrape as he lined them up, leaned his fishing pole against the side of the house. Then the swish of clothes as he stripped off what he did not want to bring inside, shedding them like a second skin. Without seeing, she knew he would fold them over the porch rail, neither touching the other.

“What’s that smell, girl?”

“Stew.” She accepted his kiss. He smelled of pine and dirt. A piece of cottonweed had folded itself into his hair like a patch of gray. She plucked it out and slid it into the pocket of her dress.

“I don’t reckon that’s a stew I’ve ever smelled.”

She smiled. “Tip’s woman taught me how to make it. Say it’s Louisiana style.”

“Who?”

“Tip-I mean Mr. Taylor’s girl.”

He laughed. “Oh yeah? Tip. That new fellow. He sure caught a big one today. And he didn’t share it at all. I suppose his gal will have a hell of a time cleaning it and cooking it up this evening.”

This evening? After spending hours over her mama’s stew, Lizzie thought. She imagined Tip being true to his name, “tip-ping” over the bowl set before him until its contents ran red over the tablecloth, then shoving a pail of stinking fish meat into Mawu’s arms. She could see Mawu standing behind the cottages near the creek, slitting the fish under its gill, tossing the guts into the water.

While Drayle went and washed up, Lizzie finished setting the table. Each time she did this, she felt the presence of the other slave women scattered among the cottages. All of the dishes in the little white houses were alike. Rumor had it that the wife of the owner had chosen them, and while she had been frugal with the furniture, she had splurged on the dishes. It seemed silly to Lizzie because so many of the dishes were broken that first summer. In this kind of place, the men grew careless with their living-fell asleep in their plates, belched freely, pissed close enough to the house to be seen, took their slaves on the tables. Even Drayle, who was the most orderly of men, sometimes took her in odd places. No. Dishes didn’t have a chance.

Gold writing on the bottom of each dish curled into itself, too small for Lizzie to read even if she squinted. But she knew they were from some place special. Europe, maybe. The only thing Lizzie knew of Europe was that it was another land where white men ruled.

Drayle’s wife, Miss Fran, said slaves should eat with their hands because that was the way they did it in Africa. She said slaves didn’t need dishes and such. Some slaves back on Lizzie’s place had fashioned plates and spoons out of metal or wood. But many of them still ate with their hands.

Lizzie arranged the dishes just so, striving for perfection in the table. Drayle expected it. Even though she measured the distances between everything, he would sit down and rearrange everything one more time. He would judge her table with his eyes. This evening, she was especially aware of how important the table was. They had not had this talk in a while. It was time again. And she wanted nothing to distract him.

Wait till he has just finished the first bowl and is about to ask for the second. Stand, take his bowl and comment on how intelligent and well dressed the children are. Neat and respectful. Tell him to picture his beautiful children as slaves, sold off after his death to some mean old buzzard (not like him, nossir!) who would likely put them in rags and take away their books. Drop a dollop of cream on top of his stew and rub his shoulders. Remind him of that lawyer who always comes in the fall. Kiss him behind both ears…Be quiet and wait…

This was the plan, a variation of the script in her head she had repeated to herself all day. On the boat ride up, she had decided she would use time with him this summer to speak about her children once more. It was her second time crossing the Ohio River into free territory, and she felt the burning in her chest stronger than ever. Something in her moved as she thought of her children back on the place, unprotected by their mother, left to the whims of Drayle’s wife who sometimes favored them and sometimes didn’t.

And then there was this Mawu’s stew. Soften the white man. Lizzie usually didn’t trouble herself too much with religion, let alone superstition, but she was counting on this stew. She’d tasted it, and it was some of the best stew she’d ever had. It was so good she’d made gurgling sounds as she sloshed it down, spread it across her lips, stained them tomato-red. She wiped her mouth on the rag she used to lift the pot. Then she ladled some more. It tasted good, even cooled. The cottage was too hot to eat the soup too warm. The spices awakened her tongue in unfamiliar places.

Final touch: daylilies in a cup on the table.

All she had to do was get him to talk with that lawyer so she could make sure her children would be free. She would need to see the papers herself, of course. He would have to show them to her because she had heard stories of owners lying to their slave women about their fates should their masters die, and then when the time came, the women ending up on the auction blocks just like the others, removed of their favored status, stripped of their illusions.

Drayle drank the first bowl of stew faster than she could get her nerve up. She walked right up behind him and refilled the bowl, reminding herself to mention the beauty of their children. She counted four deep breaths.

“You know, Drayle. We’ve got these two beautiful children that look just like you. Your only son bearing your Christian name.”

“No doubt about that.”

“Our little Rabbit is so white, one day she could just up and disappear into the white race altogether.”

Drayle paused his spoon in midair for a second as if this thought had never occurred to him. Lizzie was glad she had named her son after him. Nathaniel Drayle, just like his daddy. Fran had opposed it, of course. At first, she had refused to call Drayle’s son anything at all, simply referring to him as boy. Get that boy a rag and wipe his nose. Put that boy outside, he’s mussing up my parlor.

Lizzie went on. “Just think. Our beautiful children sold off to some mean old slaveholder who doesn’t realize how precious they are. Nate beat till he has forgotten all of his catechism. Rabbit picking cotton. Your grandchildren slaves forever.”

“Oh, Lizzie,” he said, cleaning his lips with his tongue. “You imagine too much. I never should have taught you to read. Slavery won’t last forever, what with all this abolitionist talk going on. Shoot, I reckon by the time my grandchildren are born, they’ll be free as a bird. They’ll be little schoolteachers helping lift up all the other nigger children.”

Lizzie dropped the spoon.

“I’m sorry, Lizzie. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you.”

Lizzie forgot all about her carefully constructed plan.

“Drayle, free the children,” she whined. “For God’s sake, what kind of man lets his children be property? They are too soft for slavery. You have done nothing but protect us, but what’ll happen when you’re dead? What’ll happen if that old witch Francesca outlives you?”