The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  As I approached I heard a woman yelling, and through the open door I saw the woman pacing about and Robert on the bed with his head hung between his hands. I watched from outside for a moment as the woman inveighed against Robert with a mixture of rage and pain.

  “I know you are leaving me here for some social with that Jennings girl,” she said. “I know you, Robert Ross. I know you are leaving me, and you had better be an honorable man and say it as such.”

  “Mary, it’s just like I done said—I am going to see my brother and my ma and pa,” said Robert. “Ain’t nothing but a Sunday. You know this. Look, there’s Jacob”—and at this Robert motioned out the door toward me—“I told you bout him. From the Harrison place. He got people that way too, ain’t that right, Jacob?”

  Mary turned to me, standing outside, looked me over, and rolled her eyes.

  “I ain’t never seen no Jacob,” she said.

  “He right there,” Robert said.

  “You ain’t never need any kind of partner for the walk before,” she said. “What done changed? I never seen this man before. I know he ain’t from around here. How bout I walk with you stead of him. I know what you doing, Robert Ross. I know all about that Jennings girl.”

  I was in the doorframe of the quarters. I now stepped inside. And saw Mary fully—a small woman with a righteous rage all over her. She really did know Robert, even if she did not directly know which way he was now heading. She looked me over again and said, “Jacob, huh? How bout I march over to the Jennings place and ask about you.”

  “We ain’t doing that,” I said.

  “Ain’t no ‘we.’ I do it by my lonesome, right now.”

  “No. I can’t let you.”

  “Really. So you saying you gonna stop me?”

  “My ambition, ma’am,” I said, “is that you will stop yourself.”

  Mary shot me an incredulous look. I had to move fast.

  “You right,” I said. “Ain’t no Jacob around here. But should you act as you now claiming to would bring pain upon you and everyone you love in a kind of way that go far beyond finding Robert sneaking around with a girl.”

  Behind me I heard Robert moan and say, “Baby…”

  “Mrs. Mary,” I said. “It is apparent to me that you have not been given the full shape of things. You are right. Robert is stealing away. Robert got to steal away, and there ain’t a thing you should want to do about it.”

  “Damn if I shouldn’t,” she said.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I really don’t think you should. I know he ain’t been straight with you, but I will tell you directly. Broadus bout to put this man on the block. And when he do, you will have a better chance of walking on water than seeing your husband in this life again.”

  “He been running that business for a year now,” she said, “and Broadus ain’t done nothing. Robert work too hard for them to move.”

  “Robert working hard is the first reason to move him. Strapping man like that fetch a good price. And what nigger ever been saved on account of working hard? You got that much faith in these people? I been giving this place a good survey. It is teetering. I done seen many a farm like it before. They selling folks off ’cause they got to. I seen it before. And I am telling you now, telling you straight, that your Robert got two choices—the auction block with Broadus, or to run with me.”

  If there was an official rulebook for the Underground, I was in violation of its most primary articles. Agents worked hard to be seen only by those they were conducting. And they never identified their true business, preferring any number of other stories. But I had given it all up, in hopes, with time against us, of swaying Mary to let us go.

  “The Underground offers the chance at reunion,” I said. “I hate to divide you. I know what it is, I tell you, I do. I am divided myself—got a gal down in Virginia who I think of every minute of every hour of every day. I was forced from her. But better to be forced north by the Underground than be forced deeper into the coffin. This is the only way, I am telling you.

  “I have heard the two of you are new with child, and I know what must weigh on you. I was an orphan, Mrs. Mary. My momma was sold away and my daddy wasn’t worth spit. I know you must be fearing that child coming up without a daddy, and I have a feeling for that stronger than you can know.

  “But you have got to get this, ma’am. Your Robert will be taken—either by us or by them, but he will be taken. You know who we are. You know what we do. And you know our sign. We are people of honor, ma’am. And I tell you, upon my word, we will not rest until you and your Robert are brought into reunion.”

  She stood there dazed and fell back a step. She moaned, “No, no,” and shook her head. And I remembered, in that moment, Sophia moaning when the hounds closed in. But just as swiftly I remembered something else—back in Virginia, at Bryceton, before we were to leave to rescue Parnel Johns. I remembered how much I distrusted it all, and how Isaiah Fields became Micajah Bland, and how his trust in me gave me trust in all the everything that followed. That was the spirit I summoned up just then.

  “My name,” I said. “My name is Hiram, ma’am. Your Robert Ross is my passenger and I am his conductor. On my life, ma’am, he shall not be lost. And nor shall you.”

  A soft tear rolled down Mary’s cheek. She gathered herself a moment and then brushed past me. “I swear, Robert, if this is a girl, I will find you, and I am telling you that this man, this Hiram and his high words, they will not save you.”

  I felt I should look away. They deserved the moment, for there would not be another in some time. But thinking back on all that I said, thinking back on Virginia, thinking back on Sophia, I could not move.

  Robert pulled her close. He kissed her warm and soft. “Not running to no girl, Mary,” he said. “I’m running for a girl, and that girl is you.”

  That fight with Robert and Mary set us back some. Without it we could have done the trip across the backwoods, and been to Harriet’s parents’ place well in time for our departure. But now we must take the roads, which was not ideal. Harriet, prophet that she was, had foreseen this—I had the passes. So it was to the roads then. I was trusting to Robert, who now directed us to the home of their mother and father, Ma Rit and Pop Ross. Harriet had kept every portion of the plan in its own box so that should any of us be taken, none—no matter how beaten and whipped—would be able to sketch the full picture.

  Robert was quiet for the first portion of the trip, reserving his words solely for directions. I let him be. Whatever my curiosities, the parting had been hard enough and I had no intentions whatever of asking him to relive it. But then it happened as it always does with me. At a certain point, Robert just started talking.

  “You know the plan was to leave her, don’t you?” he said.

  “Yep. And that’s precisely how it played,” I responded.

  “Ain’t what I mean,” Robert said. “Plan was to leave her for good. For me to get on by my lonesome, and find a new life up in the North.”

  “And your child?”

  “Ain’t no child—not of mine at least. I know that. And she know that.”

  We were quiet for a minute.

  “Broadus,” I said.

  “Broadus son,” Robert said. “Him and Mary bout the same age. Played together as kids. Then was parted, as we all are. I guess he had a thing for her even back then. And now a man, he thought he would make good on those feelings, no matter how fixed and honest Mary was. Maybe she felt the same. She surely ain’t stop him.”

  “And how was she to do that?” I asked.

  “Man, I don’t know,” Robert said in frustration. “How anybody do anything down here? But I am telling you, I’d be damned if I was gon be raising some white man’s child.”

  “So you run then.”

  “So I run then.”

  “Broadus wasn’t bo
ut to sell you, was he?”

  “No, he was. I ain’t know when but he was. For a while I thought that might well be a relief from my position. I did not have any desire to see Natchez, but if it helped me forget Mary, and my humiliation, perhaps it was for the best.”

  “A man being sold ain’t never for the best.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Robert said. “Harriet and the family got to me, pulled me out of my despair. Told me that some other life might yet await me in the North. They ask about Mary and the baby of course, and I tell Harriet no way I’m going with some other man child. She ain’t like that, ain’t like that much at all, but I tell her either it’s gonna be new life in everything, or I’ll just take my chance with Broadus.

  “But when time come to leave, when I really had to face up to what it mean to leave my Mary, I…I don’t know. Best I can say it is I got weak and started thinking maybe some of the old ain’t so bad. And then you come in and make your promise—”

  “I’m sorry about that, I thought—”

  “Nothing to be sorry about whatever. Fact is, you was saying what I was feeling. I can’t live without Mary. I don’t want no freedom that ain’t about some place with her….It’s just that child, raising some other man’s baby, it grind on a man in a kinda way….”

  “Yeah, it do,” I said. And I felt it. I understood. But I also had begun to understand more, for I was thinking not just of myself and my Sophia and not just of Robert and Mary, but that day, upstate, the day I met Kessiah. And I was thinking back to that great university of slaveries and tasks, and of the women in overalls, and the vast conspiracy to pillage half the world. And I was thinking of my part in that pillage, of my dreams, of the Lockless I had built in my mind, built mostly out of my Sophia.

  “We can’t ever have nothing pure,” Robert said. “It’s always out of sorts. Them stories with their knights and maidens, none of that for us. We don’t get it pure. We don’t get nothing clean.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But neither do they. It is quite a thing, a messy dirty thing, to put your own son, your own daughter, to the Task. Way I see it, ain’t no pure and it is we who are blessed, for we know this.”

  “Blessed, huh?”

  “Blessed, for we do not bear the weight of pretending pure. I will say that it has taken some time for me to get that. Had to lose some folk and truly understand what that loss mean. But having been down, and having seen my share of those who are up, I tell you, Robert Ross, I would live down here among my losses, among the muck and mess of it, before I would ever live among those who are in their own kind of muck, but are so blinded by it they fancy it pure. Ain’t no pure, Robert. Ain’t no clean.”

  25

  BY NIGHT WE’D ARRIVED at a small path, which led into a clearing and then to the Ross place. I saw a house and then a stable behind it. I remembered then that Harriet’s parents were free, and their children were not.

  “Can’t see my momma,” Robert said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “She wear her feelings out front, and if she was to see me, if she was to know, she’d holler like a baby, and when the white folks come to ask what happened, no way my momma could lie. Harriet left here ten years ago. I seen her since then, but she ain’t spoke to momma. Ain’t ’cause she don’t want to. But how could she?”

  At that Robert gave a whistle. After a few minutes, an older man, who I took as his father—Pop Ross, he called him—walked out and, looking in no particular direction, waved toward the back of the home. We circled around, picking our way through the surrounding woods. Partway around we caught a vision, through the window, of Ma Rit sweeping the floor. Robert paused, suddenly aware that he might never see her again, then he kept weaving his way back. Around the back we found the stable, and opening it there, I found the entire party seated and silent inside. We did not speak. Harriet emerged from the corner. Her eyes were glued on Robert. She took his lapels, shook them, and then pulled him close into the strength of her embrace. And there we sat in the stables, waiting upon the safety of the deepest part of night. Some took to the loft and slept. Pop Ross brought us food. But opening the door, he turned his head away without looking in and extended his right arm, waiting for whoever to take the tray.

  Twice I saw the old woman venture out to the entrance of the road, look off into the distance, only to return. I wondered if she had some notion of Robert coming.

  Now the rains started up. Ben and Robert peered through a crack in the stables, which framed the back window of the main house, and through that window they could see Ma Rit lit up by the fire, puffing on a pipe, with the forlorn weight of her missing children all over her face. Harriet, who had not seen her mother in years, did not want to see her now. She did not look through the crack. She would risk no farewell, even a distant one.

  Finally, Ma Rit extinguished the fire and went to bed. I looked out and saw that a heavy fog had rolled in. Now Harriet inspected each of us. It was time. We walked out. I saw Pop Ross at the door, blindfolded.

  “When they ask have I seen any of you,” he said, “I shall answer, with my word upon God, that I have not.”

  We walked out into the fog. Jane took one of the old man’s arms. Henry took the other and we fell into the muddy woods. And as we walked, Harriet’s father hummed quietly to himself, then took up the familiar tune of departure and one by one they too picked up the song and it was delivered in a low quiet murmur through our party.

  Going up to the great house farm

  Going on up, for they done me wrong

  Day so short, Gina. Night so long.

  Then the woods broke and we came upon a wide pond, the length of which we could not see past through the fog and the dark. The voices lowered until the only sound was the rain against the leaves above, and the falling water rippling against the still water.

  “Well, old man,” Harriet said, turning to her father, “time for me to take over.”

  I think they must have all gotten some understanding of what was to happen, because as soon as Harriet said that, Jane and Henry broke their embrace and everyone stepped into the water. Henry, Robert, and Ben formed a line at the front facing out onto the pond. Jane took my hand and pulled me right behind them. I looked back and saw Pop Ross standing there, blindfolded. Harriet walked over to him, circled once as if to take up every inch of him for her memory, then kissed him gently on the forehead. Then she touched his cheek and I saw the green light of Conduction pushing out from her hand, and by that light I saw the tears streaking down Pop Ross’s cheek.

  They stood like this for a few seconds. Then Harriet turned and took her place in front of her brothers and started walking out into the depths. Her brothers followed silently, and Jane and I followed them. Only I looked back and when I did I saw Pop Ross there, still blindfolded. And as we moved deeper into the pond, I watched him slowly slip away from us, slip away as memories sometimes do, into the darkness, into the fog.

  When we walked into the water, just as before, it was not water at all. By then Harriet was shimmering. She looked back past her brothers to me and said, “Don’t you fear a spell. I got a chorus this time. And the chorus got me.”

  She walked forward, burning brighter with every step, breaking the fog before us like the bow of a ship breaking the sea. Then she stopped, and the small procession behind her stopped too. Harriet said, “This here journey is done all on account of John Tubman.”

  “John Tubman,” hollered Ben.

  “Who, to my eternal heartbreak, could not join us. This is for Pop Ross and Ma Rit, who I well know shall be with us in the by-and-by.”

  “By and by!” Ben hollered. “By and by!”

  “We have found ourselves upon a railroad.”

  “By and by!”

  “Our lives be the track, our stories the rail, and I be the engineer, who shall guide this Conduction.”


  “Conduction,” he shouted.

  “But this ain’t no bitter tale.”

  “Go head, Harriet, go head.”

  “For I done my grieving in a time far past.”

  Now Harriet’s other brothers took up the response.

  “Go head. Go head,” they yelled.

  “John Tubman, my first love, onliest man I found fit to follow.”

  “That’s the word.”

  “I have put my name on it for fact—Tubman.”

  “That’s the word! That’s the word!”

  “It began when I was a small pepper, for slavery make my child hands into grinding stones.”

  “Hard, Harriet! Hard!”

  “A touch of measles nearly put me down.”

  “Hard! Hard!”

  “The weight stove me in. And vigilance came.”

  “Conduction!”

  “I walked out into the woods. Testified. Beheld the path.”

  “Conduction!”

  “But could not walk it till I was fully grown.”

  “By and by! By and by!”

  “I worked the labors of men.”

  “Well, go head, Harriet, go head!”

  “Got me an ox team.”

  “Harriet got a ox!”

  “Hired myself out. Broke the fields.”

  “Harriet got a ox! Harriet break the land!”

  “The Lord put travails before me. Made me hard as Moses before Pharaoh.”

  “Go head, Moses, go head!”

  “But I sing of John Tubman.”

  “Tubman!”

  “Man don’t like to be outshone by woman.”

  “Moses break the land!”

  “John Tubman was not that kind.”

  “There it is!”

  “My strength honored him. My labors made him soft before me.”