Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

— …

— This hasn’t exactly been a picnic for me. I mean, the way I see it, I’m just living out your sins. And after all this time, what’s the point? You know? My life’s a fucking nightmare.

— …

— So now I’m really free. Free to exercise my absolute freedom. If that’s not too much of a tautology. Or is it actually a contradiction?

The prisoner lifts his hands over his head and takes hold of the bars. He groans. Trembles. He stands. He speaks.

— Thank you.

— What are you thanking me for? You don’t know what’s going to happen yet. You, of all people, should know not to be so trusting. Didn’t I just tell you I’m fucking with your head? You’ll see. It’s a whole different world out there.

— I hardly remember it.

— What you remember doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone. All of it. You’ve been here much longer than you think.

— How long?

— An eternity.

— …

— So I’m just going to give you one piece of advice. Once you get past Quinn, or Rex (whatever; I don’t want to know the details), then you’ve got two choices: You go this way, you’re still in isolation. You go that way, you’re in the tunnels. Take the tunnels.

— Where do they go?

— Out. It’s a long way. You’ll probably think you’re never going to get there. But just keep going. There’ll be staircases. And people. A whole lot of people. Don’t worry about it. They’re harmless. Pretend you don’t even notice them and they’ll do the same to you. But just keep walking along beside them and, eventually, they’ll lead you up to the street.

— Thank you.

— I’m not going to say you’re welcome, because you’re not.

— You’re actually going to do this?

— I guess you’ll find out. But you’ll still be a fucking piece of shit. Don’t you ever forget that. I’m not doing this because I think you’ve redeemed yourself, or you’ve been rehabilitated, or transcended your sins, or any of that bullshit. Nothing makes the evil go away. The evil is eternal. Remember that.

— …

— It’s a fucking evil world in my opinion. The truth is that most people never get caught. Their lies last. They never have to endure their dark night of the soul. You’ll see. Maybe that’s why I’m sending you out there. You’ll be shocked. Everything is different. That’s a world in which you don’t make any sense. Believe me: You won’t even recognize yourself.

It is October 5, 1800, ten months after Thenia’s death, and Thomas Jefferson will stand for election to the presidency at the end of the month. He is fifty-eight, and Sally Hemings is twenty-eight.

She waits for him at the intersection of two paths, just past the lake. As he rides up, he reaches down with one hand and helps her climb into the saddle behind him. It is cold. She wraps her arms around his taut abdomen and squeezes him tight to keep warm. They talk about how they will have to build a fire at the lodge, and he says he’s not sure if they will have enough kindling. As they ford the river, she pulls down his collar and kisses him on the back of his neck, where his smell is so rich and savory.

She is happy today. She doesn’t know why. The sky is low with steam-colored clouds. Nothing special has happened, or not really. Her period is a month late, but her cycle has been irregular since Thenia, so it is too soon to draw conclusions. She hasn’t said a word to anybody about what she is thinking.

She’s just happy. She hasn’t been happy in such a long time.

The horse shambles out of the rushing water and then along the wooded bank. After a few minutes, the lodge comes into view, on a small rise, shaded by two brilliantly yellow beeches and a crimson-and-burgundy pin oak. As soon as the horse begins to mount the rise, Sally Hemings knows that something is wrong, and in the next instant she knows why: The lodge door is open, and dangling off the porch onto the steps is a red-and-white cloth — her apron.

“Shit,” says Thomas Jefferson.

Sally Hemings says nothing.

They stop beneath one of the yellow beeches. As he ties the horse to the porch railing, she picks up the apron, which is crumpled and stiff — as if it has been used to wipe up something messy, though it is unstained.

Inside the lodge the sheets are straggling off the bed and trail across the floor. The blankets are gone, as is a lantern and a hunting knife that Thomas Jefferson left on top of the mantelpiece. Otherwise the room seems undisturbed.

At first Thomas Jefferson merely turns in a circle in the middle of the room, a perplexed expression on his face. Then he gets down on his hands and knees and looks under the bed, then under a dresser on top of which the lantern had been resting. He gets back to his feet and kicks the bedstead.

“Damn it all to hell!” He kicks the bedstead again. “Goddamn it!”

Sally Hemings winces, not so much because his shouts disturb her as because she would still like to make love and thinks that Thomas Jefferson probably won’t want to now.

She sits down on the bare mattress. “It’s not so bad,” she says.

“I know.” He sits down on the bed beside her.

“We can replace everything the next time we come.” She puts her hand on his knee.

“It’s just that…” He shrugs. “This was our sanctuary.” He picks up her hand, gives it a squeeze, lets it go and stands up again and walks to the window. “I suppose I’ll just have to get John to build us some strong shutters and put a lock on the door.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“What do you mean?”

She leans back, putting one arm behind her head as a pillow. “If someone wants to get in here, they’ll just get in. The only difference a lock will make is that they’ll have to do more damage.”

Thomas Jefferson looks as if he is going to contradict her, but then he doesn’t say anything.

She smiles.

“I’ll have to think about it,” he says. “Maybe talk to John.”

Still smiling, still lying down, she extends one hand in his direction. “Come here,” she says.

He does.

A while later Thomas Jefferson is sitting on the porch reading a treatise on astronomy and Sally Hemings is crouched barefoot on a rock at the water’s edge, the skirt of her gown knotted around her waist. Her newly cleaned apron is spread on a bush beside her, drying in the intervals of brilliant white sunlight that come and go as the clouds drift over. She is clutching one of the bedsheets in the shallow water and lathering it with a block of soap. Warm fluid oozes out of her onto the rock as she crouches. Her wet feet are cold, as are her hands in the water. And the gusty wind, constantly blowing a loose hank of her hair across her eyes, is also cold. But none of that matters. She is just feeling happy today. That’s all. Just happy.

This is what Sally Hemings thinks: She is practical. She sees things as they really are. Thomas Jefferson is a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming. Because he is white and wealthy and has so often been lucky, his dream is a beautiful dream, in which he himself is beautiful and his work is to rebuild the world as the beautiful place he believes it has always actually been. He is almost done, he thinks. Every morning he rises convinced that with just a little more effort the world he is building will be perfect. Only the details need to be attended to. The beautiful world exists. In essence. History is on his side.

This is what Sally Hemings thinks: Thomas Jefferson is ruthless, corrupt and completely self-centered. He does nothing that he does not see as advancing his own interests, and he works to maintain a reputation for thoughtfulness and moral backbone only so that people will be less likely to recognize his naked grabs for power. He condemns the aristocracy as corrupt, trivial and effeminate, and yet he wants nothing so much as to possess aristocratic comforts and tastes. And so he is entirely willing to have a pianoforte sent all the way from London for Maria, who shares little of his own love for music, and he is willing to tear down a perfectly good house for no other reason than that he is unhappy with its proportions. And, of course, although he announces to the world that “all men are created equal” and have claim to certain “unalienable rights” and he proclaims repeatedly that slavery is an abomination and a curse upon the nation, he is nevertheless content, at night, by candlelight, to tot up the appreciation of his human property.