by Tara Conklin
It was here that Missus had taught Josephine to read. Books brought up from the library, Cooper, Dumas, Dickens, Poe, the names written in gold, the covers cracked, pages spotted dark with mold but still Josephine touched them only with her hands clean, with reverence, savored every word written there, each one a small victory. Letters formed carefully, again and again, the paper burned in the grate afterward, but a few secret pages carried under Josephine’s skirts, up the stairs to her attic room. “Don’t breathe a word to your Mister,” Missus would whisper. “We’d both be in a world of trouble.”
Josephine stopped her work on the canvas. This will be my last, she thought. The last picture made here in this room, and she felt a bottomless sinking, a different kind of fear, not the fear of discovery, of the hounds, of capture and punishment, but of the deep unknown, the world beyond the latched front gate about which she knew nothing. For a moment it stretched forward in her mind as colors and light, chaos and noise. If Nathan told her the route, if she found her way north, where would she stop? What would hold her there?
Josephine’s mother lay buried under a tall, sickly ash that grew in the slave cemetery, beyond the far wheat fields, to the east of the Bell family plot. Josephine had no memories of her mother though she had searched her mind, hoping for some image or smell, a song perhaps. Lottie said her name was Rebecca, carrying Josephine at her breast when Papa Bo bought them both at auction, and dead from a fever that would not stop in the months after her arrival at Bell Creek. A bad bargain, Papa Bo had raged. Josephine was six when Lottie first showed her the grave, just a rounding of earth, no marker, only the yellow ash leaves scattered about. Sometimes Josephine would go there, sit on the mound, listen for her mother’s voice in the wind, but not once had she ever heard a thing.
Josephine left the charcoal on the easel and moved to the corner and her stack of pictures. Perhaps she might bring something with her when she ran. Could she carry a canvas rolled tight, a folded paper tucked within her bundle? Was it foolish to think she might keep them dry and safe? Each of these pictures had created in her an expectation, a hope for the day. Will Missus go to the studio? Will her mood be charitable or mean? Will there be an ocher made up, a new pencil to use? The completion of each picture, of Josephine saying to herself—here, this is finished, I have done my best—seemed a small passing, and she would mourn in a way. A lightness would be gone from her step, the pure tedium, the unrelenting weariness would return. Until she began another. And another. There were so many pictures to make, and the time was always short, the days when Missus allowed her to paint never enough to finish all the scenes that appeared before her.
Josephine paused at one canvas and picked it from the pile, a painting of Lottie over which she had labored for many days. Lottie stood before the cabin she shared with Winton, flowers in her hands. Behind her, Josephine had painted the sea, using as her model a picture she had seen in a heavy book she took from the library, The Geography of the Sea, by a Frenchman with a long and frothy name. Josephine had never seen the sea, and this book contained glorious plates of swirling blues and grays, complicated graphs that measured precisely the shape and volume of a wave, maps and text that spoke of the sea as a watch, its cogs and levers and wheels seeming mysterious to the casual viewer but operating to certain concrete principles that students and sailors alike might master. But still, the Frenchman wrote, unlike a watch, there existed always an element of wild, the great unpredictable passions of the sea that might rise up to foil the learned predictions. This was what Josephine hoped for Lottie, and why she placed a sea there in the most unlikely of places, behind a slave cabin in the landlocked county of Charlotte, Virginia. There, an ocean raged and in it the seeds of disorder.
“Josephine! Josephine! Where are you?” Missus Lu’s voice came loud and insistent from the bedroom. “Josephine!”
No, the picture of Lottie was too large, too heavy to carry, but then another caught her eye, a drawing of Lottie and Winton together. And then one of Louis: gone these years now from Bell Creek but still in Josephine’s thoughts, always there. And one too of a younger Missus Lu sitting on the porch, a sketch made before her illness, when Josephine was just a girl, giddy from learning her letters and the feel of the paint on her brush. Working quickly, she rolled the papers tight as she dared and slipped the roll up the sleeve of her dress, but it fell ungainly against her wrist. She pulled them out and placed them again on the top of her pile. Later she would return and spirit them away, fold them into her bundle or fasten them to the inside of her skirts. Later.
“Josephine!”
“Coming, Missus. I am coming.”
Pale and watchful, Missus sat on her tall bed as Josephine entered the room. Missus’ nightdress was streaked with charcoal dust from the studio, her feet were bare and dark with dirt. Silently Josephine wiped Missus’ feet, hands, and face with a cloth wet from the jug, lifted her slender arms to wipe away the sour pungency beneath, and helped Missus to dress, easing first the petticoats then the dress over her slim hips, the tight arms, the bodice, and fastening the long back row of hook and eye. With both hands, Missus Lu lifted her hair away from the last fastenings, and Josephine inhaled sharply. A red lump rose from the back of Missus’ neck, just below the hairline, the skin stretched tight into a rounded point like someone inside was trying to elbow out. The tip was small, the size of a currant, but the lump widened at the base, spreading out and underneath the skin.
Josephine shifted her eyes away to finish the hooks and then began to fix Missus’ hair as she liked it, up at the sides, low in back. Her hands trembled. When had such a thing appeared?
“Hurry up, Josephine. Dr. Vickers’ll be here soon and me not even dressed.”
“Yes, Missus.” Josephine sped the comb through Missus’ hair, careful not to pull too sharp or to touch the lump.
“Dr. Vickers, he knew my daddy well,” Missus Lu said in a conversational tone, tilting her head for Josephine’s comb, seeming oblivious to the mark of sickness growing on her, and it was this ignorance that brought up a pressure within Josephine’s chest. At that moment the vast spider’s web of emotion she felt for Missus Lu was reduced to a single, simple strand of pity. “Why, I’ve known Dr. Vickers since I was just a tiny thing. Robert does despise him.”
Josephine did not respond but kept on with Missus’ hair, the strands heavy and slick with unwash. The last few weeks, Missus had refused to bathe, despite the heat. Water frightened her, she said. She believed it to be alive.
“Robert won’t even come in to see Dr. Vickers. Too busy with the picking, so he claims. But you’ll stay with me, won’t you?” Missus turned full around to face Josephine, pulling out the half-finished updo, and grasped Josephine’s wrists in her small, tight fists. “Stay with me.”
Josephine nodded. “Of course, Missus. I’ll stay with you.” She placed a hand on Missus’ shoulder and gently squeezed the thin muscle. “Don’t you worry.”
Missus Lu turned back, relieved, and Josephine finished with the hair, her eyes straying again and again to the knob at her neck. Mister was wrong. This was no passing spell. Missus would grow worse before she grew better, if she ever did—Josephine had seen prettier wounds than this lead to quick, ugly deaths. The pity twisted and burrowed in Josephine’s stomach, and she pulled down at the hair to cover Missus’ nape and wondered what marvels Dr. Vickers might summon to effect a cure for such an affliction.
Lina
THURSDAY
The polished top of Dan’s desk reflected a shimmering expanse of oily morning light. He looked refreshed, his shirt a glaring white, his tie a power red. His hair rose from his forehead in a freshly washed spirally frizz. A man sat in front of Dan’s desk, his back to the door. He did not turn as Lina entered.
“Good morning, Lina. Take a seat,” Dan said.
Lina sat in the empty chair to the man’s right. Behind Dan’s windows the sun hung like a curtain of heat and glare and unheard noise. The climate-controlled, custom-
made, solid walnut bookshelves that housed Dan’s collection of antique law books turned on with a gentle hum.
“This is Garrison Hall. He’s a second year in litigation—have you guys met?”
Lina glanced across. She saw a straight length of nose, fullish lips, a clear smooth cheek, skin the color of a dull penny. Garrison Hall was gazing straight ahead, his body the model of careful attention, his head angled just so. Lina was sure he had gone to Yale Law; he had that air of casual intensity, carefully cultivated. She shook her head no, as did Garrison, without looking at her.
“So. Well.” Dan shifted his gaze from Lina to Garrison and then back again. “We’ve got a new matter I thought you two might be interested in. It’s something of a departure for the firm, but this came to us through an important client we’d like to be able to assist. And the marketing folks seem to think it will raise the profile of the firm in a positive way. You know, diversity.” Here he smiled directly at Garrison, showing abundant teeth, more gum than Lina had seen on display before. Garrison nodded slightly, as though he understood what this was all about.
“So the project is this—we’ve agreed to assist a client, Ron Dresser of Dresser Technology, on a reparations claim, historical reparations. You may have heard about this stuff in the news. It’s new legal theory, really groundbreaking stuff. Dresser Tech works primarily in oil and gas, as you probably know, engineering and logistics work. Big projects for the government, petrochemical companies, that sort of thing. This lawsuit is something of a departure for them, to say the least.” Dan snorted a laugh, picked up a pen, and began to helicopter it with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Lina watched the pen twirl.
“The claim is for slaves, I mean ex-slaves, ancestors of slaves, great-great-great-grandchildren of slaves, to claim money from roughly twenty private companies that benefited way back when from slave labor. We’ve cleared them all with the conflicts department, so long as we isolate you two. No discussing this case with anyone. Understood?” Dan’s brow crinkled sternly. Lina nodded a solemn yes. “Now the federal government will also be an initial plaintiff, to maximize the monetary claim and for … well, for publicity purposes more than anything else. We’ll be using an unjust enrichment theory, mixed with crimes against humanity to get around the time-bar problem. It’s a stretch, of course”—Dan laughed, nervously it seemed to Lina—“but Mr. Dresser is pretty confident he wants to give it a go. And we’re happy to help him. So long as he keeps paying us for all the deal work we do for him.” Dan pointed to one of the deal toys on his desk, Dresser Technology etched in italic Palatino across a leaping crystal horse, an easy $5,000 worth of useless corporate kitsch.
“And you two immediately came to mind—I mean, Garrison, I understand some of your um, some of your ancestors were once, at some point in time, enslaved?”
Garrison nodded, the movement almost imperceptible. Lina could not hear his breathing.
“And Lina, I know you enjoyed that asylum case you did in law school. So here’s your chance for some more pro bono!” Dan looked at her brightly, eyebrows pushing toward the ceiling. “It’s not straightforward pro bono, of course. If we manage to get a settlement, or even win it, we’ll get paid. But we’re not billing in the normal way, so it’s similar to pro bono. It’s in the same spirit, if you know what I mean.”
“But I’ll still get full credit for the hours?” Lina asked.
“Of course.”
“And for bonus purposes?” This from Garrison.
“Obviously. Now, I’ll be the partner on this. You’ll be doing all the legwork but I’ll be steering the project. We’ll be meeting with Mr. Dresser tomorrow, eight A.M., to talk specifics.” Dan glanced at his watch, then toward the door. “Sooooo—great! Any questions?”
Lina opened her mouth to speak—about charging dinners and cabs—but Dan launched again. “Oh, and one last thing—we’re on a tight time frame here. Dresser Tech has a lot of ongoing defense-related contracts. It’s a busy time. Mr. Dresser’s got to stay in the good graces of the feds, but apparently he’s gotten a green light from within the administration to go ahead with this case. They focus-grouped it, I kid you not. Something to shift attention away from all this Abu Ghraib, WMD, yadda yadda. But our window is small. I don’t know all the specifics, only that we’ve got to get the initial complaint researched, written, and on Dresser’s desk in just over two weeks. I know that’s tight but”—he shrugged—“what can we do? We’ll get it done. It is what it is. Right, team? Great! Well, thanks for stopping by.”
Dan picked up his phone, fingers poised over the buttons, and smiled at them: leave.
IN THE HALL, WITH DAN’S office door closed behind them, Garrison turned to Lina. He was tall and narrow as a pencil. The intelligence in him, the watchfulness, was sharp as one of Oscar’s palette knives.
“Hi, Lina. Feels like we should meet again,” he said, smiling, and stretched out his hand.
“Hi.” Lina took his hand and eyed him, unsure about the niceness; unsolicited friendliness was a rarity at Clifton. He radiated authority and a measured calm, as though he were entirely unconcerned with what others might think of him. Lina thought that she might grow to like him, or hate him, or, more probably, she would never know him well enough to decide.
“You know, Dresser Tech does a ton of stuff in Iraq,” Garrison said, his voice low. “Like Halliburton, but more below the radar.”
“Hmm.” Lina had not known this, though she did not want to admit it.
“He’s tight with Cheney too, apparently. They’re golf buddies. Or hunting. One of those. Dresser’s taking a risk with this case, even with the green light. Suing the government? He must have a strategy worked out. I mean, don’t shit where you eat, right?”
Lina nodded tentatively. “I see what you’re saying.”
“Hey, we should have lunch sometime this week.” Garrison’s confidential tone gave way to a friendly buoyance. “Looks like it’ll just be the two of us working on this.”
“Usually I just eat at my desk,” Lina said.
Garrison stared at her blank-faced and Lina thought, without any degree of alarm, that she had effectively quashed his attempts at collegial chitchat. “You know, they do let first-year associates exit the building during daytime hours. The security guards won’t tackle you. At least not if you tip them.” He smiled, and all at once Lina’s jaw relaxed, a coiled tightness within her loosened, and she returned the smile.
“Lunch would be great,” she said. “Thanks for the invite.”
“Okay then. My secretary will set it up.” Garrison looked at his watch. “Crap, I’ve got to run. Conference call with London in five. See you later,” and Garrison slid down the hall, hands in pockets.
As Lina watched him go, she felt strangely heartened by the encounter. It was not unreasonable to think she might have a friend at the office, was it? Since she’d started at Clifton, her professional life had been confined to billing hours, attending client lunches and firm events, keeping afloat with a frantic dog-paddle in the competitive fishbowl where she and the other junior associates circled, sharp-eyed and wary. But Garrison’s calm chattiness seemed removed from all of that, as though he had worked out his own set of rules for navigating Clifton. Yes, maybe she could grow to like him.
Lina turned and headed toward the elevator bank. The layout of every floor at Clifton & Harp was the same. The secretaries, paralegals, and assistants sat in a warren of cubicle space located in the center of any given floor. The lawyers resided along the building’s perimeter in square-box offices with doors that closed and one wall of floor-to-ceiling window that opened them up to sunshine and vertigo. Like a gnat on an SUV windshield, that’s how Lina had felt when she first walked into her office. Like if she chanced too close to the glass wall, she would tumble noiselessly out into open air.
Lina exited the elevator and walked the east corridor toward her office. To her left, the secretaries buzzed and clacked and sipped. The secretaries w
ere an exotic, unfathomable breed, prone to wearing elasticized waistbands and acrylic fingernails that clattered in a high-pitched musical way across a keyboard. The secretaries never asked questions. They deciphered the lawyers’ scrawl as best they could, settled into their ergonomically correct workstations, suspended all independent thought, all personal convictions, and typed.
To Lina’s right, half-open office doors allowed her glimpses of heads bowed over papers or fixed tightly to the glow of a computer screen or cradling a gray telephone headset between shoulder and ear. A whispery quiet prevailed. The wall outside each associate’s office was adorned with a black plastic placard grooved in style-free white lettering that announced the resident of each particular zone, good solid names like Helen, Louise, Ted, James, Amanda, Blake. Lina’s ex-boyfriend Stavros had interviewed at Clifton but had not received an offer, an event that had seemed mystifying and tragic for a few short weeks but that Lina now considered to be for the best. Stavros had gone to a small intellectual property firm in San Francisco and seemed happy there—at least that’s what he’d said in the two e-mails he’d sent since starting work last fall. None of Lina’s law school friends had ended up at Clifton either; most were at other firms in New York though she rarely saw them. Everyone was hectic, overextended with cases, deals, billable-hour targets. Although born and raised in New York, Lina often felt now like a solitary newcomer to a thrilling, strange city, the City of Law.
Lina arrived back at her office. The perpetually poised Meredith was speaking loudly about hedging the yen, her voice echoing out of her office and down the hall. Sherri, Lina’s secretary, perched in her cubicle wearing a fluffy yellow sweater and large hoop earrings; she appeared to be reading the newspaper. Sherri’s dark hair flounced over her forehead and ears and down her back in a series of complicated layers and curls, a thing so large and effortful that Sherri’s head seemed more a display case for the hair than the hair an accessory to the head. Sherri was secretary to five other lawyers, all senior to Lina. Lina never asked much of Sherri, only to answer Lina’s phone when she wanted to avoid speaking to someone and, once, to proofread a two-page letter for typos. (Sherri had found none.)
