by India Millar
“I don’t know anything,” I pointed out.
“You just keep it that way, ma’am.” William blew out his cheeks in a sigh. “Keep old William’s skin in one piece if you do. Now you gotta remember, everything I going to tell you about happened when the old master was alive. Long before Master Simon went off and found you in foreign parts.” He looked at me imploringly, and sickness rose like a living thing in my throat. I could not speak and simply nodded. “Shula’s a mighty pretty girl. Bright skinned, as well. Not surprising, Master Simon took a fancy to her. He was a younger man then, and young men got appetites.”
He broke off and glanced at me, his eyebrows raised as if he was wondering if I understood his meaning. I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, but my body was ice in the intense heat before the storm. Shula who was a pretty woman. A woman who was uppity and considered herself above the other slaves. And Shula had had a daughter, and the child had been sold to another plantation without her mother. Sold by her master, Simon.
I made the connection instinctively.
“Shula’s daughter? She was Master Simon’s child?”
“Couldn’t have been no other,” William said softly. “Hair dark red, just like Master Simon’s. Eyes greenish-brown and skin so light she might have been taken for white at first glance. A real beauty. Master Simon didn’t never take no other slave. Just Shula,” he added consolingly, as if it might make me feel better.
I stared at Oscar, running his ears through my fingers. Oddly, there was no pain. Only a cold, cold place where my heart should have been. My thoughts flew back to Simon and Auntie. He had not told me about her either.
But this was infinitely worse. Not only had Shula been his lover, but he had had a child with her. A daughter, just like my Kazhua. Simon and I had been forced to abandon our child. I had always been sure that Simon grieved for Kazhua’s loss as much as I did. Now, I knew I had been wrong about him. Why should a man who had already brutally sold his own child into slavery without a single regret care about his other bastard child? I was bewildered. Suddenly, I wondered if I knew my husband at all. If I had ever known him.
I nodded at William and spoke quietly, trying and failing to hide the pain in my voice.
“I hope Shula finds her baby. I had to leave my daughter—our daughter—in Japan when Master Simon helped me escape. Her name is Kazhua, and she has red hair and green eyes, just like her father. Just like Shula’s daughter. I think about her every day. Don’t worry, William. I’ll never mention that I know about Shula to Master Simon. But I hope they don’t catch her.”
William stared at me for a long time. I stared into space, blinking back tears.
“I think Shula done got clean away, ma’am,” he said finally. “And I just know you gonna find your own daughter, in the end.”
Simon came back very late. So late, it was the early hours of next morning. He sank beside me and lay silently. I could barely hear his breathing for the sound of the rain pounding down on the roof and dripping from the veranda.
“You got her?”
“No. No trace at all, just like all the other slaves gone on the run lately.”
His voice was even with no trace of anger. Was it possible he was pleased Shula had got away? Was it even more possible that he still felt something for the mother of his child? Oddly, I found it in my heart to hope that it might be so. His next words disillusioned me.
“Don’t know how she’s done it, but I’d lay odds she’s trying to get to her daughter again. I’ve sent word to let the child’s owner know Shula might turn up and to get her back to me if she does.”
“And if you get her back?”
“She gets whipped. Properly this time, no matter what you say about it. And as soon as she heals, Mr. Callum Niaish can have her for whatever he’s willing to offer.”
He turned over and very soon began to snore, quite softly.
The rain stopped after a few minutes. I lay still, sure I could hear the thirsty soil drinking the wetness down before it could evaporate into the hot, hot air. And I thought, over and over again, What about our daughter, Simon? Did you mean it when you told me we would find her and bring her into safety, no matter how long it took? Did you really love her? Or even then did you resent her for being a bastard half-breed who should never have seen the light of day? Were you secretly pleased when we had to leave her in the Floating World?
My thoughts wore me down and I slept eventually, only to dream of running over endless fields with the dreadful slave hounds baying just out of sight.
Thirty-Two
Who travels for love
Finds a thousand miles to be
As short as one mile
Just as a rainbow lingers in the sky after rain did joy come back to us. Or more especially to Simon.
He never mentioned Shula, and I thought he had simply forgotten about her. I had not. I wondered every day if she had been reunited with her lost child.
When the unknown man was admitted to the great house, my heart sank. Was it news that Shula had been found at last? Was she perhaps on her way back to us? Then I realized the stranger was dressed as a gentleman, and that his accent was from Washington, not Virginia. Simon smiled politely at Mama Simone and me as he asked us to excuse him while he had conference with the stranger. I was not deceived. I read the excitement in his voice.
The men were closeted together for several hours. Simon showed him out himself. I heard them pause on the doorstep and the sound of polite laughter. Eager as I was to hear the news, Mama Simone was before me.
“Well, Simon?” She was almost coquettish, her head on one side and a simper on her lips. “Are you going to share the news with us? Something good, I hope?”
“The best possible news, Mama.” He rubbed his hands together happily. His palms made a noise like paper turning. “The government has decided to act on my information at long last. They’re mounting a naval expedition to Japan under the command of Captain James Biddle to try and force a trade deal. I met Biddle in Washington. He’s a good man. I’m sure he’ll be successful. I’m to go with them as interpreter and general factotum.”
I had no idea what “factotum” meant. It didn’t matter. Simon was going back to Japan. Back to find our daughter. I had been wrong. Hope came back to me at last. My whole body stiffened with joy.
“I am coming with you,” I said at once. Simon paced the length of the room and back, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped straight in front of me.
“You are not.” He spaced the words, emphasizing each with a jerk of his head. “It’s too dangerous for you. Do you think memories have grown short in the Floating World?”
“If it’s too dangerous for me, what about you? As you say, the Floating World has a long memory. If the authorities find you, they’ll execute you with great rejoicing, and your government isn’t going to be able to help you when they’re a world away. If either Auntie or Lord Dai find out you’re back, somehow they’ll have your skin. They’re never going to forget the way you insulted them.”
We were speaking rapid Japanese. Mama Simone’s head swiveled between us, her face tight with anger. Finally, she could stand it no longer.
“For God’s sake, speak English! Isn’t it bad enough that you’re going back to that heathenish place without you speaking in tongues so I can’t understand you?”
Simon ignored her, his whole attention on me. Mama Simone stood, her hand clutched to her heart.
“Stop it! I feel faint. I’m going to die, I know I am.”
She swayed theatrically, clutching her chair for support. When Simon said nothing, she straightened abruptly.
“You’re killing me. Just as you killed your father! Is that what you want, Simon?”
“Go to your room, Mother.” The silence following his command was so intense it could have been cut and served like tofu. “Go and lie down. Tell Suzanna to bring you your cordial. You’ll feel better after a good sleep.”
It hadn’t take
n me long to understand that Mama Simone’s tonic was actually laudanum. I was shocked at first. I had seen the effects of taking opium too often in the Floating World. I assumed Simon had no idea that his mother was consuming it in large quantities, and I had broken the matter to him carefully.
“Laudanum? Yes, of course she has it. All the ladies take it for anything from a headache to sleeplessness.”
“But it’s opium!”
“Not like the opium you know,” he said indulgently. “It’s much weaker. Even babies are given laudanum to help them with teething. Don’t worry about it.”
But I did, until I realized that a good spoonful of her tonic not only put Mama Simone to sleep for hours, but also greatly improved her mood for the rest of the day.
Now, I could feel her shock. But still she did not go. Not until Simon shouted for Suzanna and told her the mistress was not well and was to be taken upstairs. I was astonished when she went—with a backward glance of pure hatred in my direction.
“You cannot come back to Japan with me,” Simon said. “If it were possible, don’t you think I would love to take you?”
A ripple of suspicion made me wonder. Take me back—and leave me there? I said nothing, trying to order my tumbling thoughts.
“Listen, Terue-chan.” As if he had read my mind, Simon’s voice was suddenly very gentle. “I know you want to come back with me. I understand you want to try and find Kazhua yourself. Even if I thought I could somehow persuade Biddle to bring you along, I wouldn’t do it. You would be signing both our death warrants. If I’m in danger, with all the support of the American government behind me, what chance would you have? Auntie would hear you were back straight away. And she wouldn’t rest until she got you. Is that what you want? To find yourself in the Hidden House for the rest of your days? Because that’s what she’d do to punish you. She wouldn’t kill you. That would be too easy. Instead, she’d make your life a living hell. You know she would.”
I rubbed my hands across my cheeks and was astonished to find they were wet with tears. Simon was right. My head knew that, but my heart refused to listen.
“Kazhua? You will bring her back to me? You promise?”
Simon kneeled in front of me and lifted my hands to his mouth, kissing them gently. I stared at his bowed head, willing myself to believe.
“I will find her,” he said softly. “I will find our daughter and I will bring her back with me. Here, where she belongs. I promise you that.”
I nearly told him then that I knew about Shula. Knew that she had borne his child. The child he had sold away from her mother. But I did not speak for fear of casting a shadow on my hopes about my own child.
I worried about Simon returning to Japan, but it was far worse for Mama Simone. For the first time, I realized she was an old woman. I had always thought of her as vigorous, as one who time would not dare touch. Now, she walked with a stoop. She took to her room—and no doubt her laudanum—far more frequently. I thought that her skin became almost transparent so one could see the blood coursing through her veins beneath. And she breathed so loudly her nose whistled with the effort.
Reluctantly, I mentioned it to Simon, but he shrugged off my concerns.
“We all get old, Terue-chan,” he said. “But I doubt Mama will take any harm while I’m gone.” He laughed shortly. “She would never dream of dying without me being there to see it.”
How long had he seen through Mama Simone’s play acting and not seen fit to tell me he knew? But this was not the time to argue about it. Instead, I said, “How long will you be gone, husband?”
Simon shrugged, but I was not deceived by the gesture. I waited with dread for his answer.
“I’ll not try and fool you, dear one,” he said brutally. “I have to go to Washington first. I’ll be there for a few months, briefing Biddle and waiting for the final preparations. The journey will take months. Exactly how long will depend on the weather. I have no idea how long we’ll stay in Japan. But all in all, I’m going to be gone for perhaps a year.”
I had been apart from Kazhua for many times as long as that. If it took another year to bring her back to me, what was that to the time that had already passed us by?
“Come back to me, Simon,” I said simply. “Bring our daughter back with you and bring yourself back safely. I’ll pray for both of you every day until you’re both back here.”
I did not say which god would hear my prayers, and Simon did not ask. I was grateful for that.
Mama Simone refused to come to the railway station to see Simon off. I guessed she thought she was punishing him, but Simon was obviously too excited to care.
He leaned out of the carriage door, clutching my hands.
“Take care, dear one,” he said earnestly. “I think Tom will be able to run things well enough in my absence. I’ve instructed the attorney to pay that vulture Olders enough to keep him off your back until I’m home again. I’ll try and write, if I can. If not, don’t worry. When I come back, I’ll have Kazhua with me. I promise you that.” He nodded at William, switching abruptly to English. “William, I’m leaving the mistress in your hands. You look after her well for me or I’ll take it out of your hide when I get back.”
William grinned as if he had made a joke. I wondered if he had. They were brothers, after all.
The train whistle shrilled and I stood back. Simon leaned out of the window, waving at me until he was just a blur in the distance. William waited for me and walked behind me to the carriage.
When we got back to the plantation, Mama Simone had taken to her bed.
Tom came to me daily for instructions, just as he had with Simon. At first, I thought he was just being polite, but before long, I came to understand that Simon had been wrong. He genuinely needed to be told what to do. He looked at me hopefully, his hat twisting in his hands. For myself, I was deeply torn. If it were in my power, I would have freed all of the slaves at once. Offered to pay them wages if they would stay with me. But how could I? I had promised Simon that I would take care of the plantation until he returned. I was tormented. I either betrayed myself or I betrayed my husband’s trust.
Of the two, I preferred the pain of betraying myself.
So I listened to Tom carefully when he told me about yields and babies born and slaves past their best who needed to be retired to processing work. After a while, I understood enough to ask him if this year’s crop was better or worse than last year’s and frowned with him when he shrugged.
“The weather ain’t been kind, ma’am. Too damp for the good of the cut tobacco. The harvest is going to be all right, but not as good as Master Simon hoped.”
When the request for Mama Simone to go and see the attorney came, I didn’t bother telling her. I went myself and listened to the lawyer’s dry phrases with great attention and was shocked.
“My husband told me that Mr. Olders had been given enough money to keep him contented until he returned,” I interrupted.
“Well, yes. That’s what I advised, and I thought Mr. Olders would be happy, right enough.” The attorney had a round, pouting mouth. He pursed his lips now and I almost laughed, it looked so like a button had been sown onto his face. “But it appears that Mr. Olders has heard your husband is going to be out of the country for a while, so I guess he’s decided to push his advantage while he can.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” The attorney raised his eyebrows, looking as startled as if I had reared up and bitten him. “Does he have any right to demand more? Can you put him off, at least until this year’s crop is sold?”
“Easiest thing would be to give him some more money,” he said finally.
I was about to tell him that there was no money, but I held the words in my mouth. I did not trust this lawyer with the button mouth and eyes that refused to meet my gaze. If I told him the truth, I guessed it would not be long before word got back to Mr. Olders.
“Easy is not always right,” I said instead. “Please tell Mr. Olders that he has
already accepted his due from us. There will be no more money until my husband returns.”
I watched his eyes slide away from me and knew I was right. This man of the law who my husband trusted was as reliable as a snake.
“I’ll tell him, Mrs. Beaumont. Daresay he won’t be best pleased, though.”
I shrugged as if was nothing to me and wished the attorney a polite good day. As I walked away, I was seething.
But Tom and Mr. Olders were only a part of the discomfort that was my lot each day. The worst part of my life without Simon was Mama Simone.
A few days after Simon left for Japan, she suddenly decided it was finally time to cast aside her mourning. Perhaps it was the dreary, dusty black that had made her appear so thin, so delicate, but as soon as she donned her half-mourning mauve, she looked to me as if she had shed ten years overnight.
No longer were visitors told that she was unable to attend any events or return their visits. Now, she told me that I was expected to accompany her on the morning visits to our neighbors.
“Don’t worry, you won’t be expected to join in the conversation,” she assured me with cruel disdain. “Just sit and smile and drink tea.” She glanced at me and played her trump card. “If Simon were here, he would expect you to come with me.”
I shrugged and let it go. Let her play the grande dame, if it pleased her. All that would change when Simon returned with my dearest Kazhua. I prayed for my daughter’s return daily. Prayed to the gods of my childhood and Simon’s god for good fortune. With every day that passed, I counted it as one day less until she—and Simon, of course—would be back with me.
I soon found that my optimism for the future was just about the only pleasure left to me. Mama Simone was right. It was as if I had been reduced to less than a shadow without Simon at my side. I was given tea and offered cakes, but other than that nobody said a word to me. When we rose to leave, Mama Simone was embraced. I was given a polite nod. I shrugged it off, pretending I had not noticed the deliberate discourtesy.
