Conyers, Georgia, 1847
THE HOT GEORGIA sun is beating down on all of us, ’fectin me most ’cause I’m the only one that got to walk in it. Cynthia sent me to the apothecary to get some medicine for Bernadette. I forgot the sheet of paper with the medicine’s name written on it but I already know. It’s the same as always. Coca leafs.
The heat is keeping the streets mostly clear except for the white children playing in ’em, a few shades darker than usual, their winter skins brown. White women are posed under the shade of storefronts with their pink and blue dresses on, fanning themselves softly like it ain’t that hot. But in the shack far behind the shops, black women are sitting side-by-side across the porch, wide-legged and perched back on their hands, welcoming a breeze. Their skirts are scrunched up to their waists showing their hand-washed britches.
White men roll by on horse-drawn wagons crumbling rocks beneath ’em and spraying out dirt, stinging my arm. Some old bits of grass get caught on my face and stick to the sweat. And other men are walking around with no shirts on, or thin garments with their nipples and nuts showing through their clothes. It ain’t fair they tell women to wear something like a baggie sleeve from neck to ankle even in a heat wave. The religious ones tell her it’s what God wants. To honor her body. When really it’s to make women servants to those men’s sin because they cain’t see women the way God intended—not everybody’s a possible lover—sisters and brothers, maybe. But those men blame her instead of asking God to cleanse and fix them. Around women, those men are always halfway in hell. Double-minded.
I stagger up the porch steps and into the brothel. Inside’s as hot as out and Cynthia’s complaining in the corner like it’s gon’ make God turn off the heat.
“It’s about time,” she say to me. “Put it on the counter and go wash your hands out back.”
I love the way Jeremy play piano.
He looks like a stray cat sitting over there all spit-cleaned and skinny. He’s playing a slow and easy melody, erasing the stains of this place. Even though Cynthia hired him to play for the house, I think he only plays for me.
He’s real good with his fingers.
Cynthia told him she gon’ cut ’em off if she catch him touching my hand again when I pass him by to serve drinks. So I don’t go near him this time. Instead, I pass Bobby Lee and another man sitting at the side table near the mouth of the hallway. It’s the first time I’ve seen Bobby Lee this close without his hat pulled all the way down and his arms crossed high on his chest.
Down the hall, in the back room, the washbasin is filled with already-dirty water but it’s cleaner than me so I rinse my hands in it. I can still hear Cynthia yelling, “It’s too damn hot to screw!” and, “Percy, move over. It’s already hot as hell in here. I don’t need you breathing on me, too.”
But Jeremy’s music stirs. It covers the squeal of her voice with the smoothest song I ever heard. It’s the only slow song he know.
I bury my face in a cool towel, pat it slowly, then pinch my cheeks sore to remind myself not to smile too happy if Jeremy look at me ’cause Cynthia might see.
He don’t never look at no other girls. The only reason he’s here at all is the debts he got to pay off, even some he owe Cynthia. She told him he needed to stop selling his family heirlooms and get another job. It’s why she gave him one. It’s like she thinks she’s part responsible for him. Knew Jeremy’s daddy before he passed. His daddy sold her this brothel even though she a woman. Almost impossible to repay the favor.
When I get back in the saloon, Cynthia’s standing across the room squirming in her low-cut dress, picking at her lace stockings. She cracks her toe knuckles when she takes her feet out of her heels.
I take a pitcher of water from near the front door and pour two short glasses full while I watch Sam through the window. He’s out front talking to some plantation owners. Been out there since before I left. I don’t know why Cynthia ain’t called him in yet ’cause whatever news he getting cain’t be good and he should be working. Ray joined ’em a second ago and already he riled up, pacing, and threatening to hurt somebody.
“Bring me some water,” Cynthia tell me, keeping her eye on them outside.
I meant to bring her the water directly but I caught Jeremy smiling at me. It makes me flush.
I pick up the pitcher and pour water on the wrong side of the glass, drench my dress, splash the floor.
“I can damn well do it myself,” Cynthia say, getting out her chair, coming for her pitcher. Sam and Ray come back through the door.
“Who you out there talkin to?” Cynthia say to Sam.
“Authorities,” Sam say. “Found the body of a plantation owner over in Alabama. Don’t know who did it. Got the rest of ’em scared.”
My stomach lurches.
“Goddamn niggers, that’s who!” Ray say. “And . . .”
“I didn’t ask you, Ray,” Cynthia say.
“Then you tell her, Sam. Tell her what some nigger did.”
Jeremy’s melody starts to fade from my hearing, and the sound of my own heart is loud as a drum at my ear.
Sam goes behind the bar, leaving Ray standing next to me and everybody else waiting for Sam’s answer. Even Jeremy stops playing.
My hands tremble and I hug the pitcher to my chest to stop ’em. Without a word, Sam picks up a wet glass and dries it.
“The whole household was killed,” Ray say. “The nigger stud, too. Three bodies, all . . .”
My hearing goes.
He spits as he talks. His words become noiseless sprays on my hands—soapsuds of colorless spit bubbles piled into tiny dome clusters there. They stretch and thin and turn from pink to yellow, then pop in rhythm, one after the other, leaving tiny white circles on my brown skin.
“No one knows who did it,” Sam say, bringing the noise back. “Anything more is gossip.”
“Ain’t gossip,” Ray say. “It’s the truth. Somebody dark was seen running from the scene.”
“Could’ve been a shadow,” Sam say. “Everybody looks dark at night.”
“Not as dark as the nigger who did it. I’d bet on it. Bounty hunters followed his tracks for miles. Damn near to this place.”
“Wasn’t nowhere near here,” Sam say. “Happened ten miles from Faunsdale. That’s still seventy or more miles from here. Could’ve gone anywhere.”
I hold my breath, feel sweat on my face. Jeremy begins his piano again. His low notes like a funeral hymn inside me.
“So it was a him,” Cynthia say.
“At least six-one, six-two, six-three foot tall,” Ray say, stretching his arms up high like I did the night I ran with the coat above my head. “That’s what the witnesses said. Broad shoulders. But I heard some of their females get big as seven foot in Alabama.”
Ray reaches for the water pitcher in my hand and tugs at it. His quick movements almost send me out my damp skin. I want to let go of it but I cain’t. My hands done taken root in it. Our eyes meet. Dead center. His brown eyes are cold blue. He say, “Where you say you from?”
“None of your damn business, is where,” Cynthia say. “Five feet nothin, she is.”
“She black. Maybe she know who done it.”
“Give that fool the pitcher, Naomi, after you pour me the water I asked for twenty minutes ago.”
“I’m puttin my hat in it,” Ray say. “Me and my cousins. We gon’ find who done it, get the reward.”
I unstick my fingers from the pitcher and pour a glass for Cynthia and take a deep breath before I give it to her, feel my racing heartbeats slow—just a little.