There was no way his friend could imagine his struggles, nor could he imagine his. “You’re right, Thomas. All of us have some darkness we must fight, even if it is only ourselves.” The worse thing Thomas Gray could imagine was death. “If it is God’s will for me to live, then I will live. If the price for speaking the truth is death, then I am willing to pay the price.”
Nat Turner needed to convince himself of the truth of what he spoke. He needed to let go of life in this world. “I will die anyway. But there is no doubt that nothing will change if no one tries to stand against it. If no one stands, hundreds of years from now, things will still be the same. Greedy, selfish men and the wicked spirits that fuel them will not give up what they have stolen without a fight.”
Thomas Gray’s horse bowed its head to nibble at the grass, and Nat stroked its mane. “You are my friend, Nat. Perhaps the only friend I have who understands me, the only friend I can tell that I am dissatisfied with my life, the only friend who says, listen to your heart. Maybe I am as selfish as the others who would keep you a slave. I would rather have you alive as a slave than to see you martyred to some romantic notion.”
“Cruelty is not romantic. It is a blow to the body, the heart, the mind, the spirit. There is nothing romantic about that.”
“Maybe you are who they say you are—a fanatic—and I am a fanatic for listening to you.”
Thomas’s smile reminded Nat Turner of their boyhood summers. “If I am a fanatic, is it any wonder?
“I see possibility in everything around me. It is who I am. God made me. If He intended me to be nothing more, why would He have me to see flowers and wonder what can be made from them? I hear the wind and see it blow the trees and I wonder what can be done with this wind. Can I harness it to draw the plow through the fields? Can I press leaves or skins to make parchment? Can I use black powder to make fireworks? What if? What if? I cannot stop dreaming.” Nat felt the anger draining from him. They were boys again.
“This life that men have decided for me means that I cannot dream. I am punished for dreaming, for having a mind, for using the mind that God has given me. I see white men do things and I think, I know a better way. But if I want to stay alive, I must pretend to be a brute.
“Then, if stealing my hope was not enough, my family is stolen. What man can exist without family? What man is not crazy without love?
“Why would God set up such a world? If I know to do good and I do not do it, that is sin. This system forces me to sin, to pretend I do not know what I know. It forces me to do less and be less than I can be. That is sin.”
“You drive yourself crazy, Nat. I tell you, Candide, that your religion, your mythical god, is at the heart of all this.”
“You don’t believe that, Thomas. Scientists do harm, artists do harm, even lovers do harm, but you do not speak against them. The miracle, the proof of God, is that I still exist after all that the captors have done to me. The miracle is that I still love and still hope. The miracle is that I somehow still call you friend. You would not like who I would be or what I would do without God in my life.” He heard the bitterness in his voice. This was not the conversation he had planned.
“You speak of all white men as if we are one, as though each of us is responsible for one man’s foul doings. I am no Nathaniel Francis, I am not like John Clarke.” Thomas Gray’s face flushed.
“You stand with him as one. You are a slavery man.”
“Why do you rail at me, Nat? You have known me since we were children. It is not I who beats slaves. I am good to those I own. They are better off with me than if they were free in this world, unprotected. Why trouble me?”
“You are my friend and it is true that you do a little good, but it does not erase the wrong.
“Perhaps you are better, wiser, and more talented than Nathaniel Francis and all the rest of us, Thomas.”
“What are you talking about, Nat? You are one of the most brilliant men I know.”
“But you believe you are better. Be honest; part of what you cherish about our friendship is the difference in our stations. No matter how smart I might be, you are smarter. No matter how many books I have read, you have read more. No matter how great my vocabulary, yours is greater.”
“You think wrong of me, Nat Turner.”
“Don’t hear in what I say that I do not love you, my friend. I have enjoyed being in the presence of your sharp mind and even sharper tongue, to hear you expound on things that would otherwise be hidden from me.
“But let us just suppose for a moment that I am correct—that you think yourself greater—better, wiser, and more articulate. Even more, let us assume that you are right in your thinking.
“What good is it, my friend, to be smarter, wiser, and more talented than everyone around you if you do nothing with your talents? What good are your superior gifts if you bury them or drown them in alcohol?
“What good is it if you use your knowledge and words to harm others? What good is it if you only use your many words to break others’ hearts and weigh them down?”
Thomas Gray was frowning. He picked at the leather strap he held in his hands.
“It is better to be poor.”
“I could have your head for speaking to me this way.”
“You could.”
“You play upon my friendship, my affection for you. Sometimes I think others are right. You have the devil in you, Nat Turner. I have done nothing to harm anyone.”
Nat Turner was tired; tired of explaining and reasoning, tired of trying to help people understand what seemed so simple. He was weary of being hated because he wanted to do good while those who did wrong were rewarded. No one called them devil. Society celebrated men like Nathaniel Francis, gave awards to men like those he had seen beating the pregnant woman on the banks of the Great Dismal Swamp, called them heroes. “What is it that I have done wrong that I am called devil?”
“This is craziness you speak.”
“It would be no wonder if I were crazy, if I lunged at every white face I saw. Enough has been done to leave me crazy. Giles Reese buys my wife, misuses her so that his children are born between her thighs. Then he calls both his children and mine slaves; the law supports him. The church agrees with him, participates with him, in the name of God. I am the one who is crazy? The miracle is that I still hope. It would be more rational to poison my wife, tie my baby in a weighted sack, and throw him in the river to die. That would be rational.”
“Nat, you are being melodramatic again. If the truth is told, slavery benefits both of us. If you were not a slave, you’d be in some godforsaken jungle. I think you are choosing to see only the bad. You have food, you have clothing, and a roof over your head. You have a pretty wife and a family. Those who complain about beatings and punishments bring it on themselves. I do not see what is so bad.”
“You have no idea what has been stolen from me.” Before him, Nat Turner saw the rolling, green hills of Ethiopia. He felt sea breezes blowing on his face.
“You have no idea how I suffer. We are friends. We are brothers, but your joy in the midst of my despair is proof that our friendship is shallow. I am bound in chains, but you do not try to free me.”
“Nat, you sound as though you are ready to say the word, claim it as your own.”
“What word? Freedom? Abolition? I am ready to be the word!”
“If you say abolition in the South, Nat, you might as well say traitor or rebellion. White men will have your head.”
“What is better? If I satisfy myself with the life slavery men want for me, I am as good as dead. I stand against the very will of God.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “And how would you know God’s will, Nat?”
“He speaks to me.”
“He speaks to you?”