The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation. …
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1790
THERE WAS not one black person to be seen as Sally Hemings stood in the white mob disguised by her color, shoulder to shoulder with other tense women and men who had come to Jerusalem. It had taken her and Eston one week to get to this place; yet she had felt compelled to be here in the chill of this November day, a long, once elegant cloak covering her from head to foot.
The remnants of Nat Turner’s army, twenty-eight in all, had been destroyed or apprehended, and thirteen of them, including the woman, had been executed—all without confessing. There remained only Nat Turner; only Nat Turner had confessed, and this was his trial. As reports and rumors of Turner’s revolt had spread through Virginia, Sally Hemings had been so affected by it that she, who for almost thirty years, had never ventured outside the boundaries of Monticello, now stood in this place, in awful danger, against the will of her sons.
It was as if Nat Turner’s giant hand (for she thought of him as being immense) had pushed her into this heaving crowd that seemed to rest in the hollow of some enormous bloody bosom, now calmed and stroked by the awe of true massacre.
She felt as if this man had taken her hand and lifted her out of the loneliness after Nathan Langdon, after the destruction of her diaries. Now, alone, she faced the truth of her life: she had loved the enemy. She had denied and denied and denied the mesmerizing violence of Turner and his avengers that had been around her and in front of her and a part of her, always. Nat Turner, the nullifier of her life.
The silence was deep and sensual; she felt the fear and hatred and dread of her blackness like twin asps at her bosom. She had begged and pleaded and finally forced Eston to bring her here without being able to give a reason, but now she knew there was one: to force back invisibility forever, to confront her life. The danger was immense. Blacks, slave or free, all over Virginia, were hidden, crouched behind locked doors or plantation masters. Reprisals had been heavy, sweeping through counties as far away as Alberdale, as far south as North Carolina. Already more than a hundred blacks had been killed in the orgy of revenge that followed the two-day insurrection. Fifty-five whites had been killed. The number glowed before her. Blacks had perished because of the color of their skin, but for whites to perish for the same reason was revolution!
They were not invincible!
It was like the day she had stood in the yellow salon in Paris and listened to her brother James describe what was going on in the streets of the city. Blue blood had proved as red as peasant. White blood would flow as easily as black. Virginia had begun to bleed. This day’s wound was staunched for the moment, but, like some royal disease, it would result in a never-ending hemorrhaging. Invincibility, Sally Hemings knew better than most, was in the mind. Her head whirled. She saw now the contradiction of her life. The weight of every moment of it. The weight of power was being exchanged. Just as, for two delirious days, the power of life and death had passed from white hands to black, so the power over her life and death passed at last from her master’s hand to her own.
The thought rocked her back on her heels. She swayed slightly, and as she did the crowd stirred with her as the courthouse door opened. Sally Hemings clutched her son’s arm with both hands as Turner stepped, stumbled, and was half-dragged into the dappled sunlight.
Eston’s arm trembled under her clutching hands. They were without doubt the only black witnesses to this awful moment.
The pale woman standing beside her bastard son had thought she knew all about real power. Sally Hemings had spent forty years of her life in daily contact with one of the most powerful men in America. She had seen his friends and his enemies sweep in and out of their mansion in quest of power or in homage of it. She had never understood until now, however, why men lusted after it with such ferocity; why they fought, killed, slandered, flattered, begged, worshipped, begot sons in its name. All the Burrs, the Hamiltons, and the Washingtons that she had seen come and go had never been able to convey the meaning of it as well as this black man about to have terrible things done to him. He was now being dragged, spit upon, and kicked. He seemed half-crazy; wounded, a hunted animal, caught. Yes, this man’s dignity had become real power to her. There was something almost obscene about seeing it here, so naked. This man had killed her enemies. For her! He had taken them on and fought them to his last breath. For her! He had stood while she had done nothing for herself all these years except submit. She wanted to cover the convicted man with her cloak. To blot out a vision of herself more terrible than she had ever imagined. She felt herself sinking into this white world as into a watery grave.
She raised a hand above her head as one does in drowning, but it was really to signal Nat Turner that he was not alone. Her hand was dragged down by her distraught son, in whose blue eyes she saw tears of fear and loathing.
Nathan Langdon made his way through the restless ugly crowd. He had ridden two days from Washington City to get here. He was haggard and uncoordinated in his movements; his face showed the same savage and perpetual bewilderment that had clouded his features since his precipitous departure from the Hemingses’ cabin three months ago.
He shoved and pushed at random, but it was like trying to move some great mountain of flesh. People felt neither pressure nor pain. Shoulders and elbows knocked and prodded into tissue without the least response from the victim. Langdon even found he was shoving women in his frenzy to reach the courthouse before it adjourned and spewed out the criminals.
It was a nasty day, with sudden bursts of occasional sunlight. It seemed the right climate for the drama of the trial.
He too had been compelled to this place for reasons he only dimly perceived. He knew they had something to do with Sally Hemings. He was here to find out something about her, but also about himself; about Virginia, about slaves and insurrection and murder. People from all over the Tidewater region were calling Turner’s rebellion an aberration, yet all Langdon’s instincts told him this was not so. This event was logical and inevitable. There was no mayhem here. Here was systemized homicide as the perfect and indelible equation to slavery. There had been talk of slave armies, thousands of men marching on Jerusalem, killing and raping and burning by the hundreds. The governor of Virginia had even begun to muster an army to meet the insurgents, and there had been talk of the federal army marching from Fort Lauredale in Maryland. Panic had seized the capital, yet Turner had been captured less than fourteen miles from where he had started his crusade.
The race from Washington City to arrive in time for Nat Turner’s condemnation—one couldn’t call it a trial, since he had confessed beforehand—had also been a sudden decision. Sally Hemings’ words had echoed in his head like the rhythm of his horse galloping toward Jerusalem: “You haven’t understood anything! You haven’t understood anything!” He smelled the restless, straining crowd, the odor of death like singed hair, the overexcited bodies swaying in some kind of primitive dance of retribution. . . .
Turner was mad! Of course he was. Being an atheist, Langdon had only contempt for religious fanatics. It was Will Francis, Turner’s aide-de-camp, who fascinated him, for here was pure, unadulterated logic, unclouded by biblical hysterics. My God! What was he thinking? How could he be rationalizing insurrection? What had become of him? His eyes narrowed against the brief glare of the sun, but soon the ray disappeared behind the clouds.
But Francis, ah, Francis … Francis had killed more than twenty-five of the fifty-five people murdered.
Langdon was sweating under his greatcoat as he burrowed his way toward the red brick courthouse. He now had no hope of reaching the courtroom or getting inside, although he had used what little influence he had to get a seat.
He had to see Nat Turner and Will Francis with his own eyes. His very life depended on it. If Nat Turner existed, then all he had been taught to believe was false.
Nat Turner, the nullifier of his life! Nathan’s personal bewilderment seemed to flow into the larger drama.
Nathan Langdon had thought of Nat Turner as gigantic and black. But the man who was dragged into sight was of medium size, not more than five feet eight, slender, and a light-brown color. This visionary had made a full confession of his crimes. Crimes committed in the name of justice. God knows how many innocents in Virginia would pay, thought Nathan. He had to urge the Hemingses to leave Virginia with their mother. She was no longer safe here.
Nathan passed so close to Sally Hemings that day he could have touched her cloak. Not in his wildest speculations would he have imagined, however, that the delicate recluse would be in this heaving, bloodthirsty mob. He had been promised that this could never happen, and that was what he had intended to tell his sons. Now he wouldn’t be able. He stared intently at the dark figure being dragged through the crowd. Women and men were spitting, screaming, and cursing—especially the women. The man seemed but a sack of flesh; all spirit had fled him.
Later, Nathan learned that Nat Turner’s body had been skinned; grease made of the fat, and souvenir money pouches made of the skin.
Eston Hemings knew his mother was in a near-hysterical state by now, and looked around wildly to find a way out of the crowd. They were jammed tight into this solid block of humanity. There was no escape. His mother was screaming that Turner was accusing her of something, but that she was not guilty. He could not make out what it was she was saying over the din of people. He bit his lip in exasperation. He was terrified. His bowels were gripped with spasms as if he were about to be seized and herded with the insurgents.
He knew in his heart he was as guilty as Turner. They were all guilty. Every slave or ex-slave had as much murder in his heart. His terror broke loose and spread out over the crowd, mixing with the miasma of stagnant hate that rose from the packed bodies. Nausea overcame him. His mother—he must get her away from here. He must get himself away. Not only away from here, but out of Virginia, out of the slave states. Madison was right. As long as there were slaves, there would be murder, and as long as there was murder, retaliation could fall on anything and anyone who was exposed. That included all Hemingses.
Eston turned his back on the courthouse and Nat Turner, placing himself in front of his mother to protect her. He put both his arms around her and leaned back using all the muscles at his command to secure a little breathing space around her head. Her pale face was transfixed; small beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead; she drew her cloak around her. Her mouth was slightly open, and her eyes glinted.
Eston understood now why she had made the long and dangerous journey to Jerusalem. Her obsession with Turner’s rebellion, his trial, his execution—all that made sense to him. With the same intensity that had made her refuse to see Nathan Langdon, she had devoured every scrap of information she could obtain about Nat Turner. If Nathan Langdon had given a meaning to his mother’s life, then Nat Turner had taken it away. He doubted if Langdon would even recognize her now. He had seen his mother change from a young woman to an old one, the amber eyes turn a dull brown, the jet-black hair streak with gray, almost overnight, the slender body dehydrate and fold like parchment. The glow of continual fever gave her an iridescent glow like that of a religious fanatic. But to what or to whom?
She sat for hours now staring into space. She would either talk to herself or fall silent for days. Sally Hemings had agreed to leave Monticello. But Eston worried that she would not survive the hardship of the journey West. He saw life running out of this proud, passionate, and secret woman.
Eston continued to fight to give his mother breathing space, but she seemed transplanted to another space, another time.
“O God,” she whispered, “now forgive me for ever loving him.” And Eston wondered which man she meant.