Butler, Octavia - Kindred

Margaret got up and dabbed at her eyes. “I don’t see how you can talk to me that way,” she said. “Just because of some nigger …”

Rufus just looked at her, and finally she left the room.

He relaxed against his pillows and closed his eyes. “I get so tired of her sometimes,” he said.

“Rufe …?”

He opened weary, friendly eyes and looked at me. The anger was gone. “You’d better be careful,” I said. “What if your mother told your father

you talked to her that way?”

“She never tells.” He grinned. “She’ll be back after ’while to bring me a piece of cake with fine white icing.”

“She was crying.”

“She always cries. Read, Dana.”

“Do you talk to her that way often?”

“I have to, or she won’t leave me alone. Daddy does it too.”

I took a deep breath, shook my head, and plunged back into Gulliver’s

Travels.

Later, as I left Rufus, I passed Margaret on her way back to his room. Sure enough, she was carrying a large slice of cake on a plate.

I went downstairs and out to the cookhouse to give Nigel his reading lesson.

Nigel was waiting. He already had our book out of its hiding place and was spelling out words to Carrie. That surprised me because I had offered Carrie a chance to learn with him, and she had refused. Now though, the two of them, alone in the cookhouse, were so involved in what they were doing that they didn’t even notice me until I shut the door. They looked up then, wide-eyed with fear. But they relaxed when they saw it was only me. I went over to them.

“Do you want to learn?” I asked Carrie.

The girl’s fear seemed to return and she glanced at the door.

“Aunt Sarah’s afraid for her to learn,” said Nigel. “Afraid if she learns, she might get caught at it, and then be whipped or sold.”

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I lowered my head, sighed. The girl couldn’t talk, couldn’t communi- cate at all except in the inadequate sign language she had invented—a language even her mother only half-understood. In a more rational soci- ety, an ability to write would be of great help to her. But here, the only people who could read her writing would be those who might punish her for being able to write. And Nigel. And Nigel.

I looked from the boy to the girl. “Shall I teach you, Carrie?” If I did and her mother caught me, I might be in more trouble than if Tom Weylin caught me. I was afraid to teach her both for her sake and for mine. Her mother wasn’t a woman I wanted to offend or to hurt, but my conscience wouldn’t let me refuse her if she wanted to learn.

Carrie nodded. She wanted to learn all right. She turned away from us for a moment, did something to her dress, then turned back with a small book in her hand. She too had stolen from the library. Her book was a volume of English history illustrated with a few drawings which she pointed out to me.

I shook my head. “Either hide it or put it back,” I told her. “It’s too hard for you to begin with. The one Nigel and I are using was written for people just starting to learn.” It was an old speller—probably the one Weylin’s first wife had been taught from.

Carrie’s fingers caressed one of the drawings for a moment. Then she put the book back into her dress.

“Now,” I said, “find something to do in case your mother comes in. I

can’t teach you in here. We’ll have to find someplace else to meet.”

She nodded, looking relieved, and went over to sweep the other side of the room.

“Nigel,” I said softly when she was gone, “I surprised you when I

came in here, didn’t I?” “Didn’t know it was you.”

“Yes. It could have been Sarah, couldn’t it?” He said nothing.

“I teach you in here because Sarah said I could, and because the

Weylins never seem to come out here.”

“They don’t. They send us out here to tell Sarah what they want. Or to tell her to come to them.”

“So you can learn here, but Carrie can’t. We might have trouble no matter how careful we are, but we don’t have to ask for it.”

He nodded.

“By the way, what does your father think of my teaching you?”

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“I don’t know. I didn’t tell him you was.”

Oh God. I took a shaky breath. “But he does know, doesn’t he?” “Aunt Sarah probably told him. He never said nothing to me though.” If anything went wrong, there would be blacks to take their revenge on

me when the whites finished. When would I ever go home? Would I ever go home? Or if I had to stay here, why couldn’t I just turn these two kids away, turn off my conscience, and be a coward, safe and comfortable?

I took the book from Nigel and handed him my own pencil and a piece of paper from my tablet. “Spelling test,” I said quietly.

He passed the test. Every word right. To my surprise as well as his, I hugged him. He grinned, half-embarrassed, half-pleased. Then I got up and put his test paper into the hot coals of the hearth. It burst into flames and burned completely. I was always careful about that, and I always hated being careful. I couldn’t help contrasting Nigel’s lessons with Rufus’s. And the contrast made me bitter.

I turned to go back to the table where Nigel was waiting. In that moment, Tom Weylin opened the door and stepped in.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. For as long as I had been on the planta- tion, it had not happened—no white had come into the cookhouse. Not even Kevin. Nigel had just agreed with me that it didn’t happen.

But there stood Tom Weylin staring at me. He lowered his gaze a lit- tle and frowned. I realized that I was still holding the old speller. I’d got- ten up with it in my hand and I hadn’t put it down. I even had one finger in it holding my place.

I withdrew my finger and let the book close. I was in for a beating now. Where was Kevin? Somewhere inside the house, probably. He might hear me if I screamed—and I would be screaming shortly, anyway. But it would be better if I could just get past Weylin and run into the house.

Weylin stood squarely in front of the door. “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want you reading!”

I said nothing. Clearly, nothing I could say would help. I felt myself trembling, and I tried to be still. I hoped Weylin couldn’t see. And I hoped Nigel had had the sense to get the pencil off the table. So far, I was the only one in trouble. If it could just stay that way …

“I treated you good,” said Weylin quietly, “and you pay me back by stealing from me! Stealing my books! Reading!”

He snatched the book from me and threw it on the floor. Then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me toward the door. I managed to

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twist around to face Nigel and mouth the words, “Get Kevin.” I saw

Nigel stand up.

Then I was out of the cookhouse. Weylin dragged me a few feet, then pushed me hard. I fell, knocked myself breathless. I never saw where the whip came from, never even saw the first blow coming. But it came— like a hot iron across my back, burning into me through my light shirt, searing my skin …

I screamed, convulsed. Weylin struck again and again, until I couldn’t have gotten up at gunpoint.

I kept trying to crawl away from the blows, but I didn’t have the strength or the coordination to get far. I may have been still screaming or just whimpering, I couldn’t tell. All I was really aware of was the pain. I thought Weylin meant to kill me. I thought I would die on the ground there with a mouth full of dirt and blood and a white man cursing and lec- turing as he beat me. By then, I almost wanted to die. Anything to stop the pain.

I vomited. And I vomited again because I couldn’t move my face away.