Butler, Octavia - Kindred

I moaned and tried not to think about it. The pain of my body was enough for me to contend with. But now there was a question in my mind that had to be answered.

Would I really try again? Could I?

I moved, twisted myself somehow, from my stomach onto my side. I

tried to get away from my thoughts, but they still came.

See how easily slaves are made? they said.

I cried out as though from the pain of my side, and Alice came to ease me into a less agonizing position. She wiped my face with a cool damp cloth.

“I’ll try again,” I said to her. And I wondered why I was saying it, boasting, maybe lying.

“What?” she asked.

My swollen face and mouth were still distorting my speech. I would have to repeat the words. Maybe they would give me courage if I said them often enough.

“I’ll try again.” I spoke as slowly and as clearly as I could.

“You rest!” Her voice was suddenly rough, and I knew she had under- stood. “Time enough later for talking. Go to sleep.”

But I couldn’t sleep. The pain kept me awake; my own thoughts kept me awake. I caught myself wondering whether I would be sold to some passing trader this time … or next time … I longed for my sleeping pills to give me oblivion, but some small part of me was glad I didn’t have

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them. I didn’t quite trust myself with them just now. I wasn’t quite sure how many of them I might take.

14

Liza, the sewing woman, fell and hurt herself. Alice told me all about it. Liza was bruised and battered. She lost some teeth. She was black and blue all over. Even Tom Weylin was concerned.

“Who did it to you?” he demanded. “Tell me, and they’ll be punished!” “I fell,” she said sullenly. “Fell on the stairs.”

Weylin cursed her for a fool and told her to get out of his sight.

And Alice, Tess, and Carrie concealed their few scratches and gave Liza quiet meaningful glances. Glances that Liza turned away from in anger and fear.

“She heard you get up in the night,” Alice told me. “She got up after you and went straight to Mister Tom. She knew better than to go to Mis- ter Rufe. He might have let you go. Mister Tom never let a nigger go in his life.”

“But why?” I asked from my pallet. I was stronger now, but Rufus had forbidden me to get up. For once, I was glad to obey. I knew that when I got up, Tom Weylin would expect me to work as though I were com- pletely well. Thus, I had missed Liza’s “accident” completely.

“She did it to get at me,” said Alice. “She would have liked it better if I had been the one slipping out at night, but she hates you too—almost as much. She figures I would have died if not for you.”

I was startled. I had never had a serious enemy—someone who would go out of her way to get me hurt or killed. To slaveholders and patrollers, I was just one more nigger, worth so many dollars. What they did to me didn’t have much to do with me personally. But here was a woman who hated me and who, out of sheer malice, had nearly killed me.

“She’ll keep her mouth shut next time,” said Alice. “We let her know what would happen to her if she didn’t. Now she’s more scared of us than of Mister Tom.”

“Don’t get yourselves into trouble over me,” I said. “Don’t be telling us what to do,” she replied.

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15

The first day I was up, Rufus called me to his room and handed me a letter—from Kevin to Tom Weylin.

“Dear Tom,” it said, “There may be no need for this letter since I hope to reach you ahead of it. If I’m held up, however, I want you—and Dana—to know that I’m coming. Please tell her I’m coming.”

It was Kevin’s handwriting—slanted, neat, clear. In spite of the years of note taking and longhand drafts, his writing had never gone to hell the way mine had. I looked blankly at Rufus.

“I said once that Daddy was a fair man,” he said. “You all but laughed out loud.”

“He wrote to Kevin about me?” “He did after … after …”

“After he learned that you hadn’t sent my letters?”

His eyes widened with surprise, then slowly took on a look of under- standing. “So that’s why you ran. How did you find out?”

“By being curious.” I glanced at the bed chest. “By satisfying my curiosity.”

“You could be whipped for snooping through my things.”

I shrugged, and small pains shot through my scabby shoulders.

“I never even saw that they had been moved. I’ll have to watch you better from now on.”

“Why? Are you planning to hide more lies from me?”

He jumped, started to get up, then sat back down heavily and rested one polished boot on his bed. “Watch what you say, Dana. There are things I won’t take, even from you.”

“You lied,” I repeated deliberately. “You lied to me over and over.

Why, Rufe?”

It took several seconds for his anger to dissolve and be replaced by something else. I watched him at first, then looked away, uncomfortably. “I wanted to keep you here,” he whispered. “Kevin hates this place. He would have taken you up North.”

I looked at him again and let myself understand. It was that destruc-

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tive single-minded love of his. He loved me. Not the way he loved Alice, thank God. He didn’t seem to want to sleep with me. But he wanted me around—someone to talk to, someone who would listen to him and care what he said, care about him.

And I did. However little sense it made, I cared. I must have. I kept forgiving him for things …

I stared out the window guiltily, feeling that I should have been more like Alice. She forgave him nothing, forgot nothing, hated him as deeply as she had loved Isaac. I didn’t blame her. But what good did her hating do? She couldn’t bring herself to run away again or to kill him and face her own death. She couldn’t do anything at all except make herself more miserable. She said, “My stomach just turns every time he puts his hands on me!” But she endured. Eventually, she would bear him at least one child. And as much as I cared for him, I would not have done that. I couldn’t have. Twice, he had made me lose control enough to try to kill him. I could get that angry with him, even though I knew the conse- quences of killing him. He could drive me to a kind of unthinking fury. Somehow, I couldn’t take from him the kind of abuse I took from others. If he ever raped me, it wasn’t likely that either of us would survive.

Maybe that was why we didn’t hate each other. We could hurt each other too badly, kill each other too quickly in hatred. He was like a younger brother to me. Alice was like a sister. It was so hard to watch him hurting her—to know that he had to go on hurting her if my family was to exist at all. And, at the moment, it was hard for me to talk calmly about what he had done to me.

“North,” I said finally. “Yes, at least there I could keep the skin on my back.”

He sighed. “I never wanted Daddy to whip you. But hell, don’t you know you got off easy! He didn’t hurt you nearly as much as he’s hurt others.”

I said nothing.

“He couldn’t let a runaway go without some punishment. If he did, there’d be ten more taking off tomorrow. He was easy on you, though, because he figured your running away was my fault.”

“It was.”

“It was your own fault! If you had waited …”

“For what! You were the one I trusted. I did wait until I found out what a liar you were!”

He took the charge without anger this time. “Oh hell, Dana … all right!

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I should have sent the letters. Even Daddy said I should have sent them after I promised you I would. Then he said I was a damn fool for prom- ising.” He paused. “But that promise was the only thing that made him send for Kevin. He didn’t do it out of gratitude to you for helping me. He did it because I had given my word. If not for that, he would have kept you here until you went home. If you’re going to go home this time.”