Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

Thomas Jefferson commences by going through the alphabet letter by letter, explaining the possible sounds that each might make. When it becomes clear that she is confused by all the variations, he assures her that it will be much clearer when she actually tries to read.

The primer consists of twenty-six rhymed couplets, each featuring a different letter of the alphabet. He begins by reading aloud several of the easier ones — those without biblical or classical names in them. First he reads the couplet and then goes through it a second time, making the sound of each letter as he passes a pen point underneath it. The sounds he makes, especially as he exaggerates them for clarity, are nothing like English, and Sally Hemings cannot help laughing. “You sound like you’re talking in your sleep!” she says.

Thomas Jefferson also laughs. “I’ll get my revenge when it’s your turn!”

And, indeed, when he asks her to read “Whales in the sea / God’s voice obey,” the only words she manages to read on her own are “in” and “God’s” and even those require a lot of help. By the time they have decoded the couplet together, she is exhausted and embarrassed.

“It takes time,” says Thomas Jefferson, smiling. “You’ll catch on after a while.”

“Maybe it would be easier if the words weren’t so silly,” she says.

His brows buckle. “My dear Miss Hemings, I am beginning to suspect you are something of an atheist.”

“A what?”

“An atheist. Someone who doesn’t believe in God.”

“Oh.” She is not entirely sure he is joking. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you have laughed at every one of the religious couplets!”

He is smiling. She smiles, too.

“That’s because they are so funny. What language does God speak to fish? Bubble language? And what does he say, ‘Thou shalt love the man with the harpoon’?”

Thomas Jefferson leans back in his chair and tugs on the bottom of his waistcoat as if he has just finished a good meal. He looks her straight in the eyes — his own coppery bright in candlelight. “So you do believe in God?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. “I think so.” She is worried that she shouldn’t have spoken so freely, that she might come off as impious, but Thomas Jefferson seems pleased by her remarks.

“Do you believe that God is good?” he asks.

“Perhaps. In his heart.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean God wants to be good. And he tries to be good. And he is good a lot of the time. He made this beautiful world, after all. He made babies. He made sunsets and roses. But he also makes mistakes. He created diseases. Earthquakes. He made it possible for people to be cruel. People are cruel all the time.”

“But is that God’s fault? Or are people alone to blame?”

Thomas Jefferson continues to look at her intently, a slight smile on only one half of his face. Sally Hemings blushes.

“You must think what I am saying is stupid,” she says.

“Not at all. In fact, I have just been reading a dialogue by an eminent philosopher who seems to share your opinions, though he is not nearly so forthright.”

Her blush intensifies, and her right ear goes hot.

Thomas Jefferson smiles, leans forward and lifts his hand in her direction, but then he draws it back and folds his arms across his chest. “So what do you think: Is God the cause of cruelty?”

“Well…” For a moment Sally Hemings doesn’t know what to say, but then her original point comes back to her: “The preachers are always saying that God controls everything. And that he knows all, sees all. So if that’s true, then God is making people do cruel things, and so their cruelty is God’s fault. But that’s the thing I’m not sure I believe. I can’t believe that God would intentionally make people do cruel things. So maybe God doesn’t control everything. And people do cruel things on their own. But even if that is true, I still think that God is partly to blame, since he put the ability to be cruel into human beings.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense. That’s what I mean about mistakes. Maybe God wasn’t paying attention when he made people. Or he didn’t think it all the way through.” She glances at Thomas Jefferson, then looks away. “Or maybe he was just in a bad mood.”

“That makes him sound a lot like a human being.”

“I suppose. Except that he can do so much more than a human being can. He’s just not perfect.”

“But if he’s not perfect, then why worship him?”

“Because he made so many beautiful things, too. How could I not be thankful for those things? But maybe ‘worship’ is the wrong word. Maybe all I really feel is thankful. Though sometimes I’m also angry and disappointed.” She looks down into her lap, where she is massaging the center of her left palm with the thumb of her right hand. She glances up and shrugs. “But I probably shouldn’t say that.”

Thomas looks at her a long moment, then speaks in a measured voice. “I think everything you are saying is extremely courageous and rational.”

Sally Hemings does not know how to respond.

“Do you believe in the Devil?” Thomas Jefferson asks.

“I don’t know. I mean, of course, that could explain why bad things happen. God and the Devil are fighting over everything. But I don’t know, I find it harder to believe that someone would want only terrible things. That just seems too pointless to me. If I think about the Devil, if I really try to imagine him existing, he ends up seeming a lot like God — or a human being. Someone with good and bad sides. Good and bad moods. Maybe wanting to do right but also wanting other things. So… The main thing is that I don’t see the point in there being a Devil… or in there being two mixed-up magical people controlling the universe. So it makes more sense that there be only one. God.”

“Why not only the Devil?”

“I do think that sometimes, but it scares me, so I hope that I’m wrong. But on the other hand, if the Devil is running the world, he’s still made all the beautiful things, so maybe he’s just like God, and not that scary after all.”

“Do you ever think that there may be no God?”

“Sometimes. But how could this world just be here? Someone had to create it.”

“You could ask the same question about God. How could God just be here? And if it is possible for God to just be here — this being who is infinitely more complex than the earth, since he created it, just as the watchmaker is infinitely more complex than the watch — if it is possible for God to just be here , why not the earth?”

An openmouthed half smile comes onto Sally Hemings’s face. She shakes her head. “That’s an interesting idea. I never thought about that before.” Her smile broadens, and she is silent a moment. “I guess the real reason I believe in God is that it makes me feel happier to believe that someone is there, behind everything. And sometimes I feel his presence. Every now and then, when I am in a particularly beautiful place or I am feeling especially sad or afraid, I feel that God is there somehow.”

“Does he ever talk to you?”

“No. Not really. I just feel that he is there. But I don’t know if he really is. Maybe I only feel him because I want to.”

Now Thomas Jefferson is the one who seems not to know what to say. He shifts uneasily in his seat.

“What do you think about God?” Sally Hemings asks.

“I’m exactly the same as you. Except sometimes I think there is no God, but that God’s existence doesn’t matter, because we have the idea of God. Or rather, we still have the idea that God is good and that we should also be good. And the idea that we should worship the beauty of the world. And as long as we have such ideas, it almost doesn’t matter whether God actually exists.”