The Prophets(19)
Paul stood outside at the bottom of the stairs. He ascended them slowly, occasionally glancing back to see a stunned Amos, lost in the thoughts put into his mind by Essie. This was the closest he had ever been to the Big House. The four white columns at the front of it never seemed this huge before. He was afraid to take a step forward. He had the distinct feeling at the nape of his neck that once he passed through them, he might not make it back out.
In a sense, he was correct. He stood there at the bottom of the steps, between the two stone pots of red roses that anchored them, and wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. The sun was setting behind him. He couldn’t see the blood orange his back had become under its shrinking light. It had been other colors before: black, purple, red, blue, but this time honeyed enough to seem without pain.
“AMOS!”
Paul’s sharp tone shocked Amos back to life and he took to the steps two at a time, careful to remain bowed and behind.
“I beg your pardon, suh.”
He wondered if he should add a compliment, tell Paul that he had been taken by the house’s beauty. The white wasn’t pristine; Amos noticed some of the paint chipping, and a bit of mildew grew at the bases where wall met ground. And just now, a couple of leaves descended and scraped themselves against the floor of the front porch before coming to a complete stop in the company of a pair of oak rocking chairs. But the windows were gleaming, and the shutters that framed them were delicate enough to make him question whether anything horrible could possibly occur behind them. Would ivy cling so closely to a lover who failed it?
Once Paul crossed the threshold, Amos knew that he would have no choice but to cross it, too. There was still time to turn back. It would cost him skin, but it would heal. Maybe that was why toubab perpetuated the cruelties that they did: people seemed to be able to take it, endure it, experience and witness all manner of atrocity and appear unscathed. Well, except for the scars. The scars lined them the same way bark lined trees. But those weren’t the worst ones. The ones you couldn’t see: those were the ones that streaked the mind, squeezed the spirit, and left you standing outside in the rain, naked as birth, demanding that the drops stop touching you.
With all the reverence he could muster, he moved his legs past the doorway and suddenly felt small and unclean. Forgetting himself, he looked up. Even if he were to stand on his toes, he wouldn’t be able to reach the ceiling. And no matter how hard he tried, and he tried hard, he couldn’t spot a speck of dirt anywhere.
“Move faster,” Paul said, interrupting his thoughts. “Why are you all so slow?”
But any faster and Amos would have surely crashed into Paul, or worse, wound up beside him, which was also a crime. So Amos shuffled a bit, turning his one step into two quicker but smaller ones. That seemed to please Paul.
In the periphery, Amos saw Maggie dusting a piece of furniture, a chair with a cushion that had a scene embroidered into it. From his distance, it looked to Amos as though it might be a depiction of the Halifax cotton field itself, at high noon, when the sun is at its peak and the pickers are under the strictest surveillance, when the throat threatens to collapse and crumble from lack of water, and yet the overseers look at you as though taking a natural human pause is unthinkable, reminding you that it could be worse: you could be chopping cane at an increased risk of severed limb; you could be at the docks with men who hadn’t seen civilization in quite some time and wouldn’t discriminate one hole from the next; you could be pulling indigo, which meant your work would forever mark your hands as tools. Or you could be the property of doctors who needed cadavers more than they needed anything else. All of that to say: Be thankful that you’re a cotton picker and an occasional bed warmer. It could be worse.
Amos wondered if it was him Maggie was cutting her eyes at. Their interactions hadn’t been enough that he would deserve such regard. He knew she was a good friend to Essie, so she had to know that all of this was for her.
Did Maggie not understand his humiliation now would be his dignity later? She would regret the looks she was giving him as he trailed Paul on his way into the room where the door was now closed. She would marvel at his plan once he made it clear. Yes, it would be a tacit agreement if not an explicit one: in exchange for being learnèd in the ways of Christ, which meant being learnèd in ways forbidden by law, Amos would ensure docility was treasured over rebellion; earthly rewards, if there truly were any, were no match for heavenly ones. No blade should ever be raised against either master or mistress anywhere within the confines of Empty.
And further, disobedience would be likewise cast out. And wasn’t that, after all, exactly what Isaiah and Samuel’s obstinance amounted to? There was nothing wrong with the wenches given to them; Paul had already proven that. It was impossible that they were both infertile. So it had to be willful, some intentional measure to thwart Paul’s plan to multiply them as he saw fit. It was as though they believed that the line should stop with them and they would thus be able to spare the blood of their blood whatever it was they believed they, themselves, suffered.
Ha! Glory! What the whip couldn’t remedy, Jesus could. And that was a good thing!
But that wasn’t all. In the blank spaces between the letter was the spirit. And that held weight. Amos knew that success would also garner him sway. Not too much; a person should never think a toubab could be so brazenly molded, especially not by a darkie. All influence had to have the appearance of confirmation. And what he would eventually be able to have confirmed was that Paul had no further use for Essie. Hallelujah.