Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.

— Thomas Jefferson

(as quoted on the wall of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.)

Thomas Jefferson spends his days arguing with men over pieces of paper or flattering them over plates of meat and glasses of wine. He argues interest rates with Dutch bankers, proposes trade agreements to the Spanish. He tries to convince the French not to pay ransom to the Barbary pirates. Some days are consumed entirely in journeys from palais to embassy to hôtel . On others he sits in his study dashing off letters as fast as he can think, then summons Petit and commands him to deliver the letters within the hour, only to have another packet of urgent missives waiting when Petit returns.

But all of this stops in the evening, when it is Thomas Jefferson’s habit to sit in front of the fire in the upstairs parlor, sipping from a bottle of wine and reading Latin or Greek. One such evening he has Vergil’s Eclogues open in his lap when Sally Hemings enters the room.

“Excuse me, Mr. Jefferson,” she says, and when he neither looks her way nor answers, she speaks again. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Jefferson.”

It is a long moment before he turns toward her, spectacles halfway down his nose. He seems not to have any idea who she is.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Not at all!” Thomas Jefferson is smiling now. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I was so—” He holds up his book, shrugs. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

She explains that she has come to fetch a miniature porcelain shepherdess that Polly left on an end table and will surely want in her room tomorrow when she comes home from the Abbaye de Penthemont. As Sally Hemings walks past Thomas Jefferson to the table where the shepherdess is standing, she asks, “What is it that you are reading?”

He lifts his book and reads, “‘Pastorem, Tityre, pinguis pascere oportet ovis, deductum dicere carmen.’”

When he looks at her again, she is smiling uneasily.

That’s Latin,” he tells her. “Vergil.”

She laughs. “Je soupçonnais que ce n’était pas du français!”

He also laughs and lowers the book into his lap. “Actually, what I read happens to be about a shepherd. A god tells him that his sheep should be fat but his poems should be lean.”

Sally Hemings picks up the shepherdess figurine and rolls it thoughtfully between her thumb and fingers. Her lips are pursed, and one eyebrow is lifted in exactly the expression Patsy wears when she is troubled.

“Is something the matter?” asks Thomas Jefferson.

“Oh…” She looks as if she is going to make her excuses and leave, but then she says, “I was just thinking how wonderful it must be to read.”

“Well, it is,” he says. Then he is silent, because he can see that she is sad. “You should get Jimmy to teach you. He’s an excellent reader. I taught him myself.”

She crumples up one corner of her mouth. “I asked him to, but he says I have no head for learning.”

“Nonsense! You’re a bright girl! It’s easy.”

He splays his open book over the arm of his chair and turns to the table where there is a heap of correspondence that he browsed through earlier in the evening. Taking a sip from his wine, he points to the figurine. “Put that down and come over here.” He examines the letter on top of the pile, then flips it over and opens the brass lid of a star-shaped inkwell. As Sally Hemings comes up beside him, he dips his quill and writes her first name in big letters.

She laughs. “That’s the one word I can read!”

“Good,” he says. “That’s a good start.”

He dips his quill again, and to the left of her name he writes, “I am.”

“Do you know what those words are?”

She doesn’t, so he asks if she knows what the first letter is. When she shakes her head, he tells her what the letter is called and explains the sounds it could signify, with the one in this case being the letter’s own name. Then he tells her what the names and sounds of the next two letters are and asks her to figure out what word they spell.

She drawls the sounds out as she says them over and over: “Aaaahhhh-emmmm, aaaa-emmmm.”

“You sound like a sheep!” he tells her. “Also, you’re trying too hard. Look at the other two words and see if that helps you.”

No sooner has he made this suggestion than she laughs out loud and reads the sentence.

“Brava!” cries Thomas Jefferson. “You’re already reading!”

She claps her hands beneath her chin and laughs again.

“Now let’s teach you to write!” Thomas Jefferson dips his quill once again and hands it to her, telling her to copy each letter.

She squeezes the quill between her thumb and the tips of her four fingers and holds it over the page as if she is trying to balance it on its point. She knows that what she is doing is wrong, but she doesn’t know how to correct it. While she is holding the quill in midair, a droplet of ink falls to the page and lies there like a black bead.

“No, no, no!” Thomas Jefferson laughs and takes the quill out of her hands. “Here.” He dips the quill again and puts it between her thumb and forefinger, then positions her other fingers with his own.

Her fingers are rough, but warm and very moist. Her face is just beside his, her gray eyes glinting avidly. She is smiling. Her breath is meaty and lush, and he can feel the warmth of her shoulder and arm, which are touching his own.

He lets go of her hand, and as she makes a rough approximation of the sentence he has written, he realizes — fully realizes for the first time — that she has become a beautiful young woman.

When she is finished, he gives her the piece of paper and says, “Show that to Jimmy. Tell him I command him to teach you to read and write!”

Sally Hemings clutches the page on both sides and reads it aloud over and over as she walks out of the room, leaving the porcelain shepherdess lying horizontally on the table where it was previously standing.

Later that night Thomas Jefferson decides that his vital fluids have gotten out of balance again. But the following day he discovers that his attempt at self-regulation has had no effect. It is the same the next day and the one after. After a week he discontinues the practice, lest he endanger his sanity.

Sally Hemings is a slave girl, he tells himself, three months younger than Patsy and partly African. How could he possibly have any sort of feeling for her? Absurd! Preposterous! He need only wait, and all will be well.

A landscape of wooded hills, green and yellow fields and scattered brick houses accelerates from the horizon, seeming to stretch as it approaches, and then shoots in a blur beneath the steel balcony of Sally Hemings’s invention. The sky is roaring. The studded balcony bucks on irregularities in the wind. It shudders and heaves, and Thomas Jefferson has to clutch the brass railing to keep from whirling into oblivion.

“Isn’t this wonderful!” says Sally Hemings, who is leaning out over the railing — so far out that she seems to be lying on empty air. “Come,” she says, her white shift snap-flapping ceaselessly along the length of her body. “It’s easy!” She reaches back toward him with her open hand. “Really! You’ll love it! It’s exactly like flying!”

“No,” Thomas Jefferson wants to shout. “It’s dangerous!” he wants to tell her. “Come back! Come back! You’ll fall.” But every time he opens his mouth, the wind crams his words back down his throat. Again and again he tries to speak, and every time his lips mouth silence.