Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  “We don’t need much wood this time of year,” one said.

  When he carried the wood into the kitchen to the wood box, Lonella told him to wash up at the well and then go see Miss Linda in the parlor. Jonah scrubbed his neck and face and hands and felt his heart thumping as he walked through the kitchen into the hallway. The house was finer inside than he’d guessed. A polished wooden staircase glided up to the second story. Pink flowery wallpaper, with white curtains and glass doors, made it look even fancier than the Williams house. Paintings of beautiful women wearing few clothes hung on the walls.

  Jonah found Miss Linda not in the parlor but in the sitting room off to the side. The couch had colorful stuffed pillows. Miss Linda sat at a kind of writing desk. A chair nearby had a cushion with a fish embroidered on it. “If it’s less than six inches put it back” was written below the fish.

  He bowed to Miss Linda and she didn’t ask him to sit down.

  “People who work for me don’t see nothing and they don’t say nothing,” Miss Linda said. “Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’re like a family here, and we’re a happy family.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This is just a whorehouse,” Miss Linda said and laughed. “But we make people happy here, and we make ourselves happy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do what I say and you won’t have any trouble,” Miss Linda said. She added that she would give him three dollars a week as well as his room and board. He would help out wherever he was needed.

  “Sheriff won’t bother you long as you work for me,” Miss Linda said. She was still pretty, but Jonah could see the wrinkles just under her face powder and rouge.

  Jonah had never been in a whorehouse before, but he’d heard of them. There was a place in Greenville that had both white girls and black girls. He’d heard Mr. Williams talk about it with his friend Sampson Hodge. It appeared that Miss Linda had figured out he was a runaway. It was like she’d looked right into his thoughts. That was a power she had over him. If she got mad at him, she could turn him over to the sheriff any time she pleased. He took the note out of the bib pocket of his overalls and showed it to her, and she began laughing and then tossed the note away.

  “I like you,” Miss Linda said. “What shall I call you?”

  Jonah told her his name was Ezra, Ezra Page.

  “Well, Ezra, I think we’re going to get along just fine.” She told him that if he was nice to the girls, they would be nice to him.

  “I have a friend named Mr. Wells,” Miss Linda said. “If somebody gets out of line he whips them. You understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I will get you some shoes,” Miss Linda said. “Nobody goes barefoot at Miss Linda’s.”

  “No, ma’am; I mean yes, ma’am.”

  There were five girls at Miss Linda’s, besides Miss Linda herself, and each had a room upstairs where they lived and took their guests. The youngest of the girls was named Prissy, and she had black hair and honey-colored skin, like she might be Indian, or part Indian. She was a little fatter than the other girls, and from the beginning she was friendly with Jonah.

  The maid called Hettie cleaned the rooms, and Jonah had to help her carry things up and down the stairs. When she gathered all the sheets off the beds and heaped them in a basket, Jonah carried the hamper downstairs to the back porch where they would be washed. There was nothing unusual about the bedrooms upstairs. They had fine curtains and furniture, and covers above the beds. Each had a picture of a naked woman, or a nearly naked woman, and that was all. Except for that, you would not have thought it was a whorehouse. The girls slept until noon most days, so most of the cleaning and washing was done in early afternoon.

  Jonah’s duties, as Miss Linda said, were to do whatever needed to be done. He lit fires in the morning and chopped and carried wood. He peeled potatoes for Lonella and hauled water from the well. He ran to the stores in town when Miss Linda needed cloth or lamp oil. He polished the stove in the parlor and the brass doorknobs on the porches.

  Mr. Wells was a tall man with scars on his face and a black mustache. He owned a tavern in town and appeared to be a business partner to Miss Linda. Sometimes he stayed in the kitchen in the evening when the guests were in the parlor or upstairs. He was always friendly, and he sometimes gave Jonah a quarter to shine his boots and brush his coat and hat. “Attaboy!” he liked to say to Jonah. Every time Jonah polished the boots, he saw the knife stuck in a slot inside the left boot.

  Miss Linda had said Mr. Wells would whip anybody that got out of line, but Jonah only saw him smile and say teasing things to the girls, at least until the second week he was there. Miss Linda had told Jonah to stay in his room in the evenings unless she called for him. Lonella’s room and Hettie’s room were in the basement beside his, and they were supposed to stay down there while the guests laughed and talked in the parlor above. The noise didn’t bother Jonah; he was usually tired and went to sleep early. It was near the end of the second week of his stay when he heard a scream in the middle of the night. He heard low voices upstairs and then steps outside his door, followed by a knock. “Ezra,” Miss Linda called. “Put on your clothes, I need you.” Jonah wondered if he should try to run away right then. Had someone found him out and sent for the sheriff? When he put on his shirt and overalls and shoes, he found Miss Linda waiting outside his door, holding a lamp.

  “Come with me,” Miss Linda said. He followed her up the steps to the kitchen and then up the big stairs to the second story. The door to each of the rooms was open and a girl stood just inside each door. The door to Prissy’s room was closed and someone sobbed inside.

  Miss Linda opened Prissy’s door and Jonah saw Mr. Wells inside holding Prissy down on the bed. Her dress had been pulled off her shoulders and she was naked to the waist. “Are you ready?” Miss Linda said, and Mr. Wells nodded.

  “Go out to the icehouse and break off a cake of ice the size of a brick,” Miss Linda said to Jonah as she handed him the lamp.

  The icehouse was in the backyard near the well. It was mostly underground, where blocks of ice were packed in sawdust. A ladder went down into the cold pit. Jonah set the lamp on a bench and broke a cake of ice off a large block with a hammer. Wrapping the ice in a sack, he climbed out of the pit and took the ice upstairs to Miss Linda. With every step he wondered if he shouldn’t just run away while he had a chance. And he wondered if Prissy might be sick and the ice was to be used to bring down her fever.

  Miss Linda took the ice from him and thanked him and told him to stand outside the door.

  “Don’t let anybody in,” she said.

  A shiver ran through Jonah’s guts as Miss Linda slipped back into Prissy’s room and closed the door. The other girls looked out their doorways at him.

  “No, no, no,” Prissy begged inside, sobbing.

  “I told you what I’d do if you ever stole from a customer,” Miss Linda said.

  “Won’t never do it again,” Prissy said.

  “Damn right, you’ll never do it again,” Miss Linda said.

  There was more talk inside, but Jonah couldn’t make out what was said. His knees shook so he could hardly stand. The other girls were all staring at him. Jonah looked away, at the darkness at the end of the hall.

  “Nobody steals in this house,” Miss Linda said.

  “Please,” Prissy said, and tried to repeat the word, but gasped and stammered instead.

  Jonah didn’t hear the sound of a slap or a blow. He waited for some indication of a whipping. All he heard was the sound of Prissy begging and sobbing, and water being poured. He shifted from one foot to the other and looked at the girls and then looked away.

  And then Prissy began to scream. It was a scream that began as a “No!” and rose to a shriek. It was the sound of a hundred sheets tearing at once and a thousand fingernails on glass. It was a scream of a woman giving birth, and the scream of madness. Prissy’s sc
ream seemed to rise out of the foundation and walls of the house, and soar through the ceiling and roof to the center of the sky and beyond. The scream tore at his ears and cut through his breath.

  It was time for the scream to stop, but it went on and on. Whatever they were doing to Prissy didn’t make her faint, but made her hurt in a way she couldn’t escape, even by passing out. The scream made Jonah sick and weak. The other girls had turned away, and some were crying. Jonah thought again of running away. He should escape into the night while he could. He should get far away from Miss Linda’s by morning. He was still thinking about what direction he could take when suddenly the screaming stopped. There were hurried steps inside the room, then the door to Prissy’s room opened and Miss Linda held out to him a pan of water. “Go empty this and wash it,” she said, then closed the door again.

  Jonah carried the pan down the hall as the other girls closed their doors one by one. The water in the pan was dark, dark as blood. They must have cut Prissy somehow. But then he smelled the water; it unmistakably smelled of shit. They had hurt Prissy so bad she had fouled herself. They had put the ice inside her in some tender place that hurt and kept on hurting, but wouldn’t show on the outside.

  They hadn’t whipped Prissy, for that would scar her skin, and bruises would make her less valuable. They’d done something inside her with the ice where no one would ever see it. But she and the other girls and he would never forget it. Prissy’s scream was a warning to them all. It seemed to Jonah that people were always thinking of ways to be cruel. Miss Linda had treated him well because she could use him. She’d guessed his secret and he had to do what she said. But if he didn’t do what she ordered, she’d punish him, hurt him as she had Prissy, and turn him over to the sheriff as a runaway.

  Jonah didn’t go back upstairs that night. He dumped the pan of water in the toilet in the backyard and washed the pan at the well. Then he set the pan on the shelf on the back porch and returned to his little room. Lonella opened her door when he reached the basement. “Miss Prissy, she alright?” Lonella said.

  “She ain’t alright,” Jonah said and went into his room and closed the door.

  Jonah didn’t sleep the rest of the night. He sat on his cot and thought about what he was going to do. He thought about how scared he was, scared of Mr. Wells and Miss Linda, of the sheriff with his guns and dogs. He was afraid of white people, and he was afraid of time, for summer was almost over and he was still far from the North. Soon as he got a chance, he had to escape from Miss Linda’s. Soon as he saved a little money and maybe found a map. He’d have to wait for the right time, and hope he recognized the chance when it came.

  JONAH DIDN’T SEE PRISSY downstairs for several days after that evening. The business at Miss Linda’s went on as usual. Men came every evening, men with fine horses and fine buggies, important men with fancy clothes. They came after dark and they left before daylight. Lonella told him that once the governor of Virginia had stopped at Miss Linda’s, and a senator always came when he was in the area. That was why Jonah was not supposed to see anything or hear anything or know anything. Most of the time he was supposed to stay downstairs, for too many servants made the guests nervous. They wanted to relax and enjoy themselves without worrying about witnesses. Prissy didn’t come downstairs for four days.

  Jonah had to carry meals up to her, and empty her chamber pot. The first day Prissy wouldn’t speak when he handed the tray to her. Her eyes and cheeks looked swollen, as if she had a bad cold. He took the chamber pot and started out the door.

  “Don’t you love to carry shit?” Prissy said.

  “No, ma’am,” Jonah said and closed the door. Lonella had told him that the less he said to the girls, the better it would be. “Don’t you say nothing, see nothing, or know nothing,” the cook had repeated.

  The next day when Jonah brought the tray to Prissy, she sat up in her bed and said she was sorry for what she’d said the day before. “I reckon you got no choice either,” she added.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You don’t have to ma’am me,” Prissy said. “I’m just a whore, a whipped whore.” She laughed, like she didn’t think it was funny.

  The third day when he came to Prissy’s room she asked him to never tell anybody what Mr. Wells and Miss Linda had done to her. “I don’t want nobody to ever know what they did that night,” she said.

  Jonah said he would never tell, but he wasn’t sure exactly what they had done to Prissy.

  “Bless you,” Prissy said, and then kept talking. She told him she was born in the mountains of Tennessee. Her mama was a Cherokee and her daddy a soldier. When she ran away from there, Miss Linda had taken her in and given her a home, just like she’d given Jonah a home.

  “You’d better keep running while you can,” Prissy said, and then went quiet again.

  Prissy took laudanum and Miss Linda gave her laudanum every afternoon before the guests arrived. But Prissy gave Jonah a dollar to go to the store in town and buy an extra bottle of laudanum. “Just so I’ll have my own supply,” she said.

  The fourth day Jonah went up to Prissy’s room with the tray, Prissy said she liked Jonah and would let him be with her, but Miss Linda wouldn’t allow it. Miss Linda knew everything that went on in the house and if she was intimate with Jonah they would both be punished.

  “Otherwise you could take your ease,” Prissy said, and grinned. It was the first time he’d seen her smile that week. The color was coming back into her cheeks.

  “You don’t have to stay here,” Jonah said in a low voice.

  “Where else would I go?” Prissy said and laughed.

  The fifth day Jonah didn’t take a tray up to Prissy’s room. She came down to the dining room for dinner and laughed and talked like she had before. Everybody acted as if nothing had happened, and when Mr. Wells came by he teased Prissy and told her she looked pretty as a princess, a Cherokee princess.

  BY THE TIME JONAH had been at Miss Linda’s for three weeks, he understood that Miss Linda and Mr. Wells had hired him, not in spite of the fact that he was a runaway, but because they guessed he was a runaway. That knowledge gave them power over him. Like the girls, he had no choice but to do what they told him to do. And the odd truth was they treated him well, at least as long as he did what he was told. He carried water and wood and lit fires, helped Hettie carry laundry, peeled potatoes for Lonella, and ran to the store in town when anybody wanted something.

  Lonella’s cooking was good, and Miss Linda had bought Jonah shoes and another pair of overalls, so he now had a change of clothes. Prissy even promised he could be with her, if she ever found a way so Miss Linda and the other girls wouldn’t know. Prissy had gotten over her sulk and acted like nothing had ever happened that night when they hurt her.

  It was easy being at Miss Linda’s, but Jonah knew he was still a slave, and that he was living on borrowed time.

  ONE DAY PRISSY WHISPERED to him when he carried out the chamber pot that she’d thought of a way they could be together. Miss Linda insisted that all her girls go to church on Sunday morning. They dressed up in their best and each carried a little Bible as they marched down the street to the Presbyterian church.

  “This Sunday I’ll say I have a headache and stay here,” Prissy said, grinning. Jonah had never been with any woman except Angel that night in the mountains, and sometimes he wondered if he’d only dreamed about that jubilee in the woods. But he knew it was a fact that Angel had traveled with him down the French Broad. He thought about how soft and smooth Prissy’s breasts were, and how attentive and kind she’d been to him. All week he thought about the prospect of being with Prissy on Sunday morning. It was lucky Miss Linda didn’t make the Negroes go to church. He told himself it was foolish and dangerous to think of being with Prissy. But each day and each night he would study on it. It scared him and thrilled him that Prissy, who’d been with so many different men, wanted to be with him.

  On Sunday morning Jonah carried water and wood as usual. A
nd he cleaned ashes out of the stoves and fireplaces. Lonella and Hettie would go to their own church on the other side of the town. While they were gone Jonah was supposed to polish the kitchen stove with black paste and shine the nickel fittings and handles. It was a job he hated, because he had to use the black paste and some of it always got smeared on his clothes.

  Miss Linda and the girls dressed up in their best, with bonnets and umbrellas, but Prissy said she had the headache and couldn’t go to service.

  “I don’t want no heathens in my house,” Miss Linda said.

  “I wish I wasn’t poorly,” Prissy said.

  “You rest up, girl,” Miss Linda said, “for tonight is going to be a busy night.”

  As soon as they were gone, and Lonella and Hettie left, wearing their own bonnets and carrying pink parasols, Jonah hurried to finish polishing the stove. He took another rag and rubbed the fittings until they shone like mirrors. He was so nervous he rubbed extra hard. He saw some of the black polish had fallen on the floor, and he rubbed and washed away the stain.

  The house was empty except for him and Prissy. Jonah scrubbed his hands on the back porch and climbed up to Prissy’s room. She laughed when he opened the door. She was lying in bed with her nightcap on, but soon as he closed the door she threw back the sheet to show she was wearing nothing else.

  “Come here,” she said, and reached for him.

  When Jonah was naked, he stretched out over her and she fitted him inside and wrapped her legs around his back.

  A few moments later he sensed a shift in the room.

  “Well, look at that,” somebody said from behind him.

  Prissy pushed away from him, and when he opened his eyes he saw the fear on her face. He looked behind him and saw Miss Linda and Mr. Wells standing in the doorway.

  “Good thing I came back for my tithe money,” Miss Linda said.

  Jonah rolled away from Prissy and reached for his overalls on the floor.