Song of Slaves in the Desert

by Alan Cheuse

  The white men, some of them of a company arranging the sales, shouted the blacks down, while other whites milling about, studying the wares, or poking and pinching Africans here or there so that black flesh suddenly turned white before the mark faded, kept their silence.

  I looked over at my cousin, the sweat running down my forehead into my eyes and stinging, stinging.

  “Is it always so hot in here?” I asked.

  “The heat aside,” my cousin said, “what do you think of this?”

  I shook my head, my entire body feeling inflamed by all that went on around us, blacks led around in their chains, white men shouting.

  “I can see,” he said, “that you have not prepared yourself for this. Here.” My cousin reached into his coat pocket and came up with a silver flask, proffering it to me.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Have a sip, sir, a sip only, and that will restore you.”

  “Very well,” I said, and took a sip from the flask, feeling even greater heat and the heady moment afforded by the fine brandy contained therein.

  I handed the flask back to my cousin, and he took a long swallow from the container, and, just before returning it to his coat, another.

  “Tell me,” I said, over the din, “How much does it cost to buy a slave?” From another pocket he took out a piece of coarse paper on which some printing had been made and handed it to me.

  OFFER OF SALE

  OFFERED BY CHARLES TRISTMAN THE FOLLOWING SIX SLAVES:

  MAREE, BLACK GIRL 16 YEARS OLD AT $1250.00

  MARYAN, BLACK GIRL 16 YEARS OLD AT $1250.00

  LUCY, GRIF GIRL 14 YEARS OLD AT $1150.00

  BETTE, GRIF GIRL 14 YEARS OLD AT $1150.00

  JANE, BLACK GIRL 12 YEARS OLD AT $1000.00

  JAMES, BLACK BOY 14 YEARS OLD AT $1200.00

  ALL OF SAID SLAVES ARE WARRANT SOUND AND HEALTHY IN BODY AND IN MIND AND SLAVES FOR LIFE…

  “What is a ‘grif girl’?” I asked.

  “A slave of mixed blood,” my cousin said. “That is, white and African. A mixture that always improves the stock.”

  My stomach turned at his words. While my cousin talked to me of high prices, of dollars, and the cost of a hardy male and the cost of a breeding female, I felt my temperature rise. After a few moments I thought I might, like some fragile female, fall to the ground in a faint.

  “I am afraid I am feeling somewhat ill.”

  “You are here to learn about our business,” he said, “and this is the first part of the first lesson.” Once more he offered me a drink from the flask. I hesitated, and he thrust the container at me, refusing to bend until I took another sip.

  “Now,” he said, after taking another drink for himself and giving me a bullying stare, “New Yorkers are famous for being bold, are they not? Stand tall, Cousin. Look and listen.”

  Thus, despite my fear that I might succumb to my growing misery, we stayed. With my mind abuzz from the powerful brandy I watched and groaned as the noise grew louder and the bosses urged first one and then another and another black in chains up onto the platform in the center of the building, shouting out names and prices and qualities. Vile sweat and fearful breath drenched the air and as bodies glistened in the heat men moved forward to press and study the flesh and bones of the darker people—some with mouths open in silent prayer, others muttering curses, most of them silent, mouths clenched.

  One man bid a slave to raise his arms, one at a time, over his head. Another asked a woman to turn and turn as he gazed at her breasts (and I gazed at him gazing and then gazed back at her, feeling myself become aroused, and scolding myself for that). And there in the middle of it I saw an unwanted if familiar figure, the man from New Jersey, still cloaked all in black, moving in a studious manner from slave to slave, the young black boy tagging along behind him. As if he felt my eyes on him he turned and stared directly at me.

  “Young New Yorker!” he called out. “We have some things to discuss!”

  “Do you know that man?” my cousin said.

  “From the voyage here,” I said.

  “I have seen him before,” my cousin said.

  The din grew louder as my cousin appeared to study the man for a few moments, and then turned to me. I felt even more unsteady on my feet and motioned to my cousin, himself with eyes downturned, that I did truly wish to retreat.

  “Perhaps it was a mistake to come here first,” he said when at last we left the market for the sweeter, fresher air of the pier-side. “But do not judge what we do by what you just witnessed. If you went into a hospital surgery and saw the surgeons sawing off limbs you might be disturbed but you would not think all surgeons did such things to all people they knew.”

  “I am not here to judge anyone,” I said, remembering the business of my purpose. “I am here to learn about the workings of the plantation.”

  “Of course,” said my cousin, leading me, flask in hand, from the place of misery.

  “Was it awful?” Rebecca said as we approached.

  I nodded.

  “It makes me want to run away from here,” she said. “Nathaniel, they do not do things like this up north, do they?”

  “No, no, they don’t,” I said. “Up north everyone’s free.”

  “Jews are free, I know.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Everyone is free. Or most everyone.”

  “Then I cannot wait to visit the North.”

  “Yes,” I said, “you two must come and visit us in New York.”

  Lapsing into polite chatter, punctuated by further sips from my cousin’s flask, I bathed copiously in my own sweat, and soon we made our way to the carriage. I confess that the memory of the auction crowd, bathed in brandy, quickly faded from my mind.

  Chapter Nine

  ________________________

  Koulikoro

  In the land of cloud and rain, first, they separated Zainab from her mother—she, as it turned out, was put into service as one of the caretakers in a nursery—leading her into a large compound where a fountain flowed in a central courtyard and many servants, some jet black, some as brown as the desert and herself, moved languidly to and fro as they carried out various tasks. Two tall dark women led her into a room off this courtyard where they undressed her and bathed her in warm water and rubbed her with oils. They gave her sweet food and something to drink.

  “I want my mother,” was the last thing she remembered saying before waking up under a carpeted canopy, with moonlight spilling down onto a small central pool. A huge man with a smooth face who smelled of animals held her in his flabby arms.

  “From this moment on, I am your mother, and I am your father,” the man said, and raised her face to his to give her a wet animal kiss. He reached down toward his waist, as if he were groping for lice or a hidden bag of gold, and before she knew it he had her lying on the carpet, her silks tossed aside, jabbing at her with a large purple-tipped growth from his groin. In he shoved and she screamed in fear that he would rip her apart.

  Two-thirds of a year later she felt the same way as she gave birth to her first child, a plump brown girl. Motherhood gave her pleasure. Not so for her own mother, not so when she caught a glimpse of her son carried off in chains to some unknown destination, not so when she heard that one of her sisters had died in child-birth and other, who after producing two children, ran off with one of the other slaves and died somewhere in the forests to the south.

  The news of the first death sent her mother into a despair from which she never recovered. She lasted a year, and then came a morning when she never awoke. Ten years after that first morning when the family fled from Timbuktu, Zainab had given birth to four children (one of whom, her second boy, had died within days of being born), and acquired a wealth of silk clothing, and still possessed that stone with the markings. She carried the object with her wherever she went, and at night she kneaded it in her palm, trying to recall the fading details of her father, the jar-maker, her last images of his smiling face and
the work of his hands, those plates and pots and jars, but mostly what came to mind was his outstretched hand, the small marked stone resting in his still palm.

  Zainab’s children grew around her, and she grew complacent in her silks, happy to have her health despite all the births, and happy with the attentions of the Master, the big man, the head of a large clan whose political branch ruled the empire of Koulikoro, who came to her a few months after each child had been born and wedded her again.

  How many wives there were altogether, Zainab wasn’t sure. The number waxed and waned, and then waxed again. She knew at least half a dozen others here in this compound, and she learned about other harems in other places where he lived, in the city, and in clan villages to the west and south. The women in the compound whispered about his power and reach, from the capital here all the way into the southern forests. His rivals, and he had some in outlying parts of the kingdom, acted feebly, as weak as ants. His powers, if not infinite, for only God had infinite powers, were many. He was big, and grew bigger, in his body and in reputation, and his wives felt big, as though their lives meant something more than what they seemed to be, because they belonged to the big man. But it wasn’t until the day of their fateful boat trip that she had any idea of the politics and intrigue that surrounded him.

  Heavy rains that winter had made for a large spring flow, and the river swelled beyond its usual borders, a perfect time for an excursion toward the mountains. Five large rafts, each with a tent and a surplus of slaves, who were cooks and tenders and body servants, one or two of whom she thought she recognized as the survivors of that long chain of captives who had accompanied her on her initial journey along the river all those years ago, and there were nurse-maids and young boys whose job was to do everything that none of the others did. The last raft transported the bodyguards and warrior-slaves, a mean-looking dozen or so of them.

  The sky, a light blue dome above them. The air, warm, a gentle wind rippling the pennants toward the east even as the boatmen poled the rafts westward.

  Zainab and her children—just imagine, because she could never have thought of this before she had given birth the first time, a clutch of children—sat on cushions on the lead raft, with the big man, and the others trailing behind her on another of the boats. Women at the shoreline working at their wash waved limp palms at the passing spectacle. From the second boat came intermittent sounds of flutes and drums as the wind carried the noise here and there along the brown swathe of water.

  All of this put a big smile on the face of the Master.

  “You are happy, Master,” Zainab said, addressing him, but averting her eyes, as always.

  “The kingdom is quiet, we float on the river, we take our food and drink…What could be better in life? May, God willing, in the years we have left, such calm always descend on us.” With a hand the span of which could encompass the heads of two of his small children, he gestured upriver. “As with those fishermen—” a group of men stood and sat in a boat with wings like those of a butterfly, with another boat just like it drifting a few yards behind—“may we find simple fare beneath the slow-flowing waters…”

  The Niger current lapped gently at the prow of their barge. A few minutes later and they turned toward the shore, where the chefs would make a feast and the musicians and dancers would perform into the night.

  As darkness set in around them and the drumming subsided Zainab, her belly full and her head a bit woozy from the heat of the day-long trip in the sun, felt herself sinking slowly into a familiar state, the dreamy false freedom of the lifelong captive whose only escape from her condition was sleep. And yes, she did dream, dreamed she was dreaming, and listening to a voice from the river.

  “Oh, dear girl, I have fallen as rain to meet you here, to assure you that whatever happens all will in the end be well. Lean toward me.” Zainab bent her head toward the stream. Out of the flowing current a hand arose and painted her forehead with water from the current. This made her feel so calm she said to herself as she slept that if life always felt like this—a gentle palm upon her forehead—she could live it all the way through.

  At which point she was torn from her sleep by shouts and high screams.

  Tall figures stood at the fire, waving sticks of flame.

  A gunshot rang out across the star-diffused sky, and other screams rose into the shadowy dark.

  “Mama!” Her youngest child, a boy as plump as the big man, shouted in her ear. “The fishermen! They killed my father!”

  Her daughters came screaming, and nightmares rode into the camp on camels higher than the tallest among the slaves, dark bodies of the beasts and dark bodies of the men blocking out the stars.

  These were indeed fishermen, fishers of men.

  And women.

  Chapter Ten

  ________________________

  This Charming City

  Free of the stink of the auction house, this charming city overtook me with its delightful houses, narrow structures that faced onto side gardens and stretched back further into gardens behind. There was as much foot traffic as in New York, and the edges of the streets were filled mostly with these walkers, almost exclusively black-faced, women with children slung over their backs in little bundles, and men with garden tools and others hauling crates and packages. But though all of these folk appeared to be working, there was much less of a hurry and hustle about the streets than in my native town, mainly because the heat was such that everyone, slave or free, had to carry about the extra burden of the temperature and its humid essence.

  “Here is the courthouse,” my cousin said, as we approached an impressively erected building, though of a miniature size compared to our New York structures. And the Episcopal church. And another church. And a meeting hall. At the corner a crowd of men on horseback, in rough country garb, jittered and huddled, their horses covered with dust. A short man with wiry hair sat high upon a tall stallion in the center of them, the horse so white it glowed almost blue.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  My cousin shook his head.

  “It is a man named Langerhans,” Rebecca said. “If man he is. He is more like something carved out of the mud…”

  As if he had heard her say his name—though over the noise of the horses and at this distance it seemed doubtful—the mud-man turned his head, following us as we moved by.

  “Halloo!” he called in our direction, touching a finger to his right eyebrow in a sort of salute.

  “Ignore him,” my cousin said to Rebecca as the white horse stepped closer.

  “Saw your nigger girl just now, carrying some basket or other,” the man said as his horse danced sidewise toward and yet away from us.

  “Thank you, Langerhans,” my cousin said, “as you are paid to keep watch, it’s good to know you’re on the lookout.”

  “You are welcome, sir,” Langerhans said, a shy grin spreading across his face. He showed dark teeth and it was not a pretty sight, and yet, overall, his visage was not unappealing.

  “But you are supposed to keep watch outside of town, not here,” Jonathan said.

  “We are just leaving, sir,” the man said.

  “Good, then good, just do your job.”

  With that, my cousin gave a snap of his buggy-whip and we moved along, putting those others behind us.

  “Who are they?” I said.

  “Patrollers. Poor nasty wretches,” my cousin said. “They make a living out of the misery of others.”

  “That’s how many of us up north think of you plantation owners,” I said. I no sooner spoke when I felt the heat of deep embarrassment spreading up my chest, neck, and face. “I am sorry.”

  “No need to apologize,” Rebecca said. “No need. We’re just going to have to show you a new side of things then,” Rebecca said. “Some of us are working to improve the African souls. Jonathan?”

  “Yes, although we have a lot of obstacles to overcome,” my cousin said, the look he gave me scarcely matching the restrained
tone of his voice. Clearly the brandy had soothed whatever troubled him, but not enough. “Now here is our place.”

  We slowed up and took in the trim stone building on our left, the synagogue called Beth Elohim on Coming Street.

  “Where we have recently had quite a revolution,” my cousin said. “For there were those who objected to the use of an organ in the service, and they seceded and met just across the way.”

  “I’m sorry I missed the war,” I said.

  “Oh, there will be more of it, I am sure,” said Rebecca, with a laugh. “A hundred Jews, and each has his own opinion about God.”

  “Our family remained with the majority,” my cousin said. “Rebecca’s family left with the secessionists.”

  “I hope that has not made trouble for you,” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” my cousin said, “but pleasant trouble. Rebecca, would you say it has spiced things up a bit between us?”

  “Yes, it is very romantic,” she said, “to meet across the line of dispute. Like Juliet and Romeo.” She looked at me in a way both shy and inquisitive. “Do you have a Juliet at home?”

  “I have a Miriam,” I said, and the words struck me like pellets from a gun. Yes, I did, did I not? My Juliet? I had never thought of her that way before.