Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

— …

— I should hate you all the more for that.

— …

— What the fuck. Today’s the day I’m supposed to make you stand on a carton of dog food and hook your dick up to a car battery. You’re going to love that.

Close to a year has passed. Clouds tower in the burnished sunlight of an unnaturally warm September afternoon. First deep stillness, then a wind gathers in the trees and rushes across the lawn and into the house. Doors slam. Someone inside cries out “Oh!” The treetops hiss and thrash. The clouds darken. The sound of shattering glass.

Sally Hemings, coming up from the orchard with a basket of peaches for Ursula, thinks that before going to the kitchen she should check Thomas Jefferson’s chambers to make sure none of his windows are open and that none of his precious objects have been damaged.

She is just about to enter his doorway when she hears a voice in the front hall. Unable to believe she has heard right, she takes a few steps down the hall and sees a tall, slim man in a sweat-soaked yellow riding jacket. It is Thomas Jefferson, who was not expected for another two weeks.

His back is to her, and he is talking to Monsieur Petit, whom she hasn’t seen since Paris. Jimmy and Bobby must also be home, though she can’t see them or hear their voices.

As she hesitates in the hallway, torn between the desire to flee and another desire she can’t define (she tells herself it’s to see Monsieur Petit, whom she didn’t even know was coming to this country), Thomas Jefferson turns suddenly and looks right at her. “Sally!” he exclaims. His face is radiant. His hair is windswept from the road. He looks as if he is about to laugh. Just then there is a cool rushing of air through the house, and the front door slams with a bang. “It seems we’re in for a big storm!” says Thomas Jefferson, still looking straight at Sally Hemings. And then he does laugh.

It is night, and Sally Hemings, candle in hand, is descending the narrow staircase from the second floor, where she has just put away Maria’s clothing of the day, laid out her gown, shift, stays and petticoats for the morning and bade the girl herself sweet dreams.

Her candle just barely illuminates the white balusters and a moving sphere of bare wall, so she makes her way downstairs more by memory than sight. Just as her foot touches the floor at the bottom of the stairs, the door to her left cracks and opens. Another candle hovers in the darkness, accompanied by a crimped thumb and the knuckles of a forefinger, and then she sees Thomas Jefferson’s temple, cheek and the rightmost plane of his nose. “Oh!” he exclaims under his breath, and starts to push the door closed. Then he pulls it open again.

“Sorry, Sally! I didn’t know anyone was there.”

She has stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Good night, Mr. Jefferson.”

He, too, has stopped, with one arm, shoulder and leg through the doorway. “Yes,” he says. “You, too.” And then he smiles. “Sweet dreams, Sally.”

This morning is as steamy and hot as every morning of the last week, but the air is restless, and so it feels cooler — as if something like ordinary life might be lived again.

Sally Hemings steps out of her door, barefoot, in nothing but her shift and a shawl, on her way to fetch some water from the rain barrel. Thomas Jefferson, just passing by on his favorite horse, Eagle, calls out, “Morning, Sally.” Giving her a smile and a curt wave, he continues down Mulberry Row, toward the western woods and the riding trail that winds north, then down along the Rivanna and back along the East Road.

Later that morning, Maria’s beloved Aunt Eppes and her son Jack arrive for a visit of several days. After lunch, on Thomas Jefferson’s recommendation, they, too, go for a ride, and Sally Hemings decides to make the best of her free time by taking a walk down to the lake. She has only just crossed the field and begun to descend the steep, wooded path when she hears footsteps coming up rapidly behind her.

She turns and sees Thomas Jefferson striding down the path. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright, his step loping and strong.

“Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Sally,” he says cheerfully, doffing his hat. “A beautiful day for a walk.”

“Yes,” she says, then blushes and is silent, as he falls into step beside her.

“I have spent my morning,” he says, “devising ways to keep that petty Caesar, Hamilton, from handing our government over to bankers and speculators.”

“Why would he want to do that?” she asks.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” He smiles at her as if he is about to break into laughter — but in the next instant he is scowling and his voice is loud. “That man wants Congress to serve no one but his wealthy friends! He intends to establish a national bank, and I am certain that his entire purpose is to make beggars and sycophants out of the people’s representatives. He doesn’t care a fig for democracy, and won’t be satisfied until a king has been crowned in this country!” Thomas Jefferson falls silent a moment, then shakes his head and smiles. “I’m sorry. This morning I wrote a dozen letters to President Washington warning him about Hamilton, but consigned every one of them to the fire, and now I feel as if I am on the verge of another of my periodical headaches. I was, in fact, feeling no small degree of despair on that account when I saw you walking past and then I thought, ‘That’s exactly what I should be doing!’”

“Oh.” Sally Hemings doesn’t look at him. Her step quickens without her realizing it. But he keeps pace.

After a moment he says, “I think there is no better way to relax the brain than walking. The trick is to empty the mind and to give oneself over entirely to the landscape and to the physical exercise of the body. In my observation, people who walk at least two hours a day lead happier and longer lives.”

Sally Hemings is silent awhile. Then she says, “Is it working?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your headache. Has it gone away?”

“Oh.” He crumples his lips and shakes his head. “No. Not really. Well, maybe a little. But at least it’s not getting worse.”

They both fall quiet, and after a while some of the vitality seems to drain from his step. Sally Hemings wonders how long he plans to walk beside her and if she shouldn’t make an excuse to go back to the house.

Finally she says, “I didn’t know Monsieur Petit was coming.”

“Oh, yes. He’s going to be my chief of staff.”

“When did he arrive?”

Thomas Jefferson is silent a moment, then says, “A while ago.” After another moment he adds, “July, I mean. He arrived July nineteenth.”

The corners of his mouth turn down, and his brow rumples with consternation.

Sally Hemings doesn’t know what to say, and neither, apparently, does he.

They walk along without talking, and then he stops abruptly, and she does, too. He is smiling, but it is the sort of smile that is used to cover uneasiness. He seems about to reach for her hand but ends up clasping his own.

“I am afraid,” he says, “that you are going to think me the most incoherent of men.” His smile has shifted, almost to a boyish earnestness. “But I have a confession to make. I suspect you already know what I am going to say.”

Sally Hemings’s own head has begun to ache. A heat floods into her cheeks. “Then maybe there is no need for you to say it.”

“I want to,” he says. “I have to.” He looks into her eyes. “It’s just that over these many months I have been away, I thought of you constantly. I tried to stop myself, but there was nothing I could do.”