Back to Wando Passo by David Payne (books to improve english txt) 📕

his father, his grandfather, old Mr. Sam—freed this Pompey at his death. For forty years,” he says, lighting up, “he’s worked…as a free smith…in Charleston. Do you know why he came back?” Harlan poses his question to the room triumphantly, waving out his match. “I’ll tell you why. To ask—no, not to ask, to beg—his old marse’s grandson to reenslave him. And do you know why Pompey wanted that? In order to acquire his badge so he can pass the roads and ply his trade without being harassed by the constabulary. This is happening everywhere. That’s what it’s come to for your free brethren in Charleston, Jarry. The town is an armed camp. Assuming we did let you go, that’s what awaits you there.”

“I don’t intend to go to Charleston.”

“No? Then where do you intend to go? You cannot emigrate. There are eleven Federal ships now riding off the Charleston bar. Unless you mean to hold your breath and swim to Africa, I’m at a loss to understand what you intend to do.”

“I am sure there will be difficulties,” Jarry answers. “There are difficulties now. Every morning I awake to a fresh crop and deal with them the best I can, as they arise. I’m confident I’ll deal with those that freedom brings in the same way. The difference is…”

“Yes?” says Harlan. “Give it us.”

“The difficulties here and now are yours and undertaken for your sake; then and there, they will be mine.”

“Yes, yes, that’s well and good,” says Harlan mincingly. “That answer sounds quite fine, but it doesn’t deal with the reality of what awaits you. You’re like a child. You see this flame called freedom. It’s beautiful and bright, and you say ooh and ahh. Those who are wiser, who have experience of it, tell you it will burn, but you know better. You will put your hand into the fire no matter what they say, but I’m here to tell you, Jarry, it will burn you, it will hurt.”

“Perhaps, but I feel sure that it will never hurt or burn as hot as slavery has.”

Impertinent! Addie thinks reflexively. But there’s something dignified and even rather sad in Jarry’s face and bearing that has weight, and that weight lingers after reflex fades. She holds her breath and thinks, No, no, you mustn’t speak to him like that. You’ll only hurt your cause.

“You are ungrateful, Jarry. You are an ungrateful nigger.”

“I won’t hear you call your brother that,” says Percival.

“He’s not my brother. It may please you to consider him your son, but a servant and a slave is all he’ll ever be to me. If Jarry were white and capable of a brother’s loyalty, he’d have long since volunteered to see us through the war. We wouldn’t have to ask.” Now Harlan turns to him. “How many Negroes, Jarry, are there in this state, I wonder, standing, as you stand, in your good suit, discussing—is it Byron?—and the prospect of their manumission with their masters? Not many, I can tell you. You should fall down on your knees and thank Almighty God for the privileges you’ve received. This family made you what you are.”

“What I am,” says Jarry, “is a slave. That is what this family made me.” His voice is strong; his eyes are flashing now. The tense hush in the room is like that which follows the detonation of a bomb.

Harlan’s face has taken on a sober and forbidding look, and Addie feels her heartbeat in her throat. “God made you black, not me. You’re right, though, Jarry. A slave is what you are, and what Father, practicing a foolish leniency with you these many years, has allowed you to forget you are. What I’ve long suspected and hesitated to believe, I now see is true. I think you know that if you leave us, we’ll be harmed and maybe ruined, and that is not only a matter of indifference, it’s what you seek.”

Jarry leaves the mantel now. He walks into the center of the room and turns. When he begins to speak, his voice is soft, but he’s panting slightly. Addie sees his shirtfront rise and fall. “You’re mistaken. I’ve never wished this family ill. I understand your goal, that it is to preserve this property for your wife and any future children you may have. If I were in your place, I’d feel the same. But I am forty-two years old and have no wife or child. Since I was fifteen—for twenty-seven years—I’ve worked to make Wando Passo what it is. There’s twice the acreage under cultivation now that there was then. I could have worked no harder had it been mine to inherit, yet I knew I never would, and I never coveted it. I knew the day would come when I’d walk away with nothing but my freedom and the chance to start my life, which Father promised me, sitting in this very room. He gave his word, and I gave mine to him. He shook my hand. I’ve kept my end. Now I ask that he keep his. I have no legal power to compel you, but I believe your honor compels you.”

“Now you will lecture me on honor? I don’t believe honor can compel a man to break the law and ruin himself and his descendants for the sake of one spoiled, selfish nigger, who’s too great a fool to know his own best interest. I’ll tell you something, Jarry, when and if you ever get the thing you’re seeking, you’ll travel far through the wide world before you find another place where you’ll be treated better than you have been here, or even half as well.”

“I may be treated worse,” he says, “but I’ll never have to look across the river at those dikes and see the years I put into them, which are lost and which I can’t call back.”

Harlan narrows his eyes and stares incredulously into Jarry’s face. “You hate us, don’t you, who’ve never done you