TransAtlantic Page 7

  He paced the verandah. A cold wind whipped off the water.

  —They’re waiting for you, said Webb.

  He reached out for Webb’s hand and shook it, then went back inside. A chill went around the room from the open door. They took their coffee in small china cups. The women were gathered around the piano. He had learned how to play Schubert on the violin. He could lose himself in the adagio: even in the slowness, they were thrilled by the deftness of his hands.

  THEY CONTINUED SOUTH. Just over the River Barrow they took a wrong turn. They entered wild country. Broken fences. Ruined castles. Stretches of bogland. Wooded headlands. Turfsmoke rose from cabins, thin and mean. On the muddy paths, they glimpsed moving rags. The rags seemed more animate than the bodies within. As they passed, the families regarded them. The children appeared marooned by hunger.

  A hut burned at the side of the road. The smoke looked like it was issuing from the ground. In the fields, near stunted trees, men stared balefully into the distance. One man’s mouth was smeared with a brown paste: perhaps he had been eating bark. The man watched impassively as the carriage went by, then raised his stick as if bidding good-bye to himself. He staggered across the field, a dog padding at his heels. They saw him fall to his knees and then rise again, continuing on into the distance. A dark young woman picked berries from the bushes: there was red juice all down the front of her dress as if she were vomiting them up one after the other. She smiled jaggedly. Her teeth were all gone. She repeated a phrase in Irish: it sounded like a form of prayer.

  Douglass gripped Webb’s arm. Webb looked ill. A paleness at his throat. He did not want to talk. There was a smell out over the land. The soil had been turned. The blight had flung its rotten odor into the air. The potato crop was ruined.

  —It is all they eat, said Webb.

  —But why?

  —It’s all they have, he said.

  —Surely not.

  —For everything else they rely on us.

  British soldiers galloped past, hoofing mud up onto the hedgerows. Green hats with red badges. Like small splashes of blood against the land. The soldiers were young and frightened. There was an air of insurrection about the countryside: even the birds seemed to howl up out of the trees. They thought they heard the cry of a wolf, but Webb said that the last wolf had been shot in the country a half century before. Creely, the driver, began to whimper that perhaps it was a banshee.

  —Oh, quit your foolishness, said Webb. Drive on!

  —But, sir.

  —Drive on, Creely.

  At an estate house they stopped to see if they could feed the horses. Three guards stood on the gate. Stone-carved falcons at their shoulders. The guards had shovels in their hands, but the handles of the shovels had been sharpened to a point. The landlords were absent. There had been a fire. The house smoldered. Nobody was allowed past. They were under strict instructions. The guards looked at Douglass, tried to contain their surprise at the sight of a Negro.

  —Get out of here, the guards said. Now.

  Creely pushed the carriage on. The roads twisted. Hedges rose high around them. Night threatened. The horses slowed. They looked ruined. A gout of spittle and foam hung from their long jaws.

  —Oh, move it, please, called Webb from the inner cab where he sat knee to knee with Douglass.

  Under a canopy of trees the carriage came to a creaking stop. A silence pulled in around them. They heard a woman’s voice under the muted hoofshuffle. It sounded as if she was invoking a blessing.

  —What is it? called Webb.

  Creely did not answer.

  —Move it, man, it’s getting dark.

  Still the carriage did not budge. Webb snapped the bottom of the door open with his foot, stepped down from the inner cab. Douglass followed. They stood in the black bath of trees. In the road they saw the cold and grainy shape of a woman: she wore a gray woolen shawl and the remnants of a green dress. She had been dragging behind her a very small bundle of twigs attached to a strap around her shoulders, pulling the contraption in her wake.

  On the twigs lay a small parcel of white. The woman gazed up at them. Her eyes shone. A high ache tightened her voice.

  —You’ll help my child, sir? she said to Webb.

  —Pardon me?

  —God bless you, sir. You’ll help my child.

  She lifted the baby from the raft of twigs.

  —Good God, said Webb.

  An arm flopped out from the bundle. The woman tucked the arm back into the rags.

  —For the love of God, the child’s hungry, she said.

  A wind had risen up. They could hear the branches of the trees slapping each other around.

  —Here, said Webb, offering the woman a coin.

  She did not take it. Bent her head instead. She seemed to recognize her own shame on the ground.

  —She’s not had a thing to eat, Douglass said.

  Webb fumbled in his small leather purse again and held out a sixpenny piece. Still, the woman did not take it. The baby was clutched to her chest. The men stood rooted to the spot. A paralysis had swept over them. Creely looked away. Douglass felt himself become the dark of the road.

  The woman thrust the baby forward. The smell of death was overpowering.

  —Take her, she said.

  —We cannot take her, ma’am.

  —Please, y’r honors. Take her.

  —But we cannot.

  —I beg you, a thousand times, God bless you.

  The woman’s own arms looked nothing more than two thin pieces of rope gathering upwards towards her neck. She flopped the child’s arm out again and massaged the dead baby’s fingers. The inside of its wrists were already darkening.

  —Take her, please, sir, she’s hungry.

  She thrust the dead baby forward.

  Webb let the silver coin drop at her feet, turned, his hands shaking. He climbed up onto the wooden board beside Creely.

  —Come on, he called down to Douglass.

  Douglass reached for the muddy coin and placed it in the woman’s hand. She did not look at it. It slipped through her fingers. Her lips moved but she did not say a thing.

  Webb hit the reins hard on the shiny dark back of the horse, then drew back just as sudden, as if he was moving the carriage and yet not moving it at the same time.

  —Come on, Frederick, he called. Get in, get in. Hurry.

  THEY GATHERED PACE. Through bogland, shoreside, long stretches of unbelievable green. The cold spread its arms. They stopped to buy more blankets. They drove, then, silently, through the dark, along the coast. They hired a man to run a lantern in front of them until they reached an inn. The small globe of light cast the trees in relief. The man fell after eight miles: there were no open inns on the road. They huddled in the carriage together. They did not mention the dead child.

  It rained. The sky did not seem at all surprised. They passed a barracks where soldiers in red uniforms were guarding a shipment of corn. They were allowed to feed and water the two horses. An old man stood on the road near Youghal throwing stones at a dark-winged rook in a tree.

  There was nothing they could do about the hunger, said Webb. There was only so much a man could achieve: they could not give health to the fields. Such a thing happened often in Ireland. It was a law of the land, unwritten, inevitable, awful.

  THEY ARRIVED ALONG the quays of Cork in the autumn chill. The evening was clear. There was no breeze. A great damp stillness. The cobbles shone black.

  They pulled the carriage in to 9 Brown Street where the Jennings family lived. A beautiful stone house with rose gardens along the tight walkway.

  Douglass swung open the door of the carriage. He was exhausted. He moved as if some axle inside him were broken. All he wanted to do was go to bed. He could not sleep.

  Negro girl. Ran away. Goes by name Artela. Has small scar over her eye. A good many teeth missing. The letter A is branded on her cheek and forehead. Some scars on back, two missing toes.

  For sale
. Able colored man, Joseph. Can turn himself to carpentry. Also for sale: kitchen appliances, theological library.

  Available immediately: Seven Negro children. Orphans. Good manners. Well presented. Excellent teeth.

  HE CAME DOWN the staircase, carrying a lit candle on a patterned saucer. The stub of candle threw his shadow askew. He saw himself in several forms: tall, short, long, looming. He slid lightly on the stairs. In the arc of stained glass above the front doorway he could see the stars.

  He contemplated walking outside a moment, but he was still in his nightclothes. He continued barefoot instead along the wood-paneled corridor and entered the library. The room was all books. Long stretches of argumentative intent. He ran his hands along them. Beautiful leather covers. Rows of green, red, brown. Gold and silver imprinted along their hard spines. He held the candle aloft, turned slowly, watched the way the light flickered from shelf to shelf. Moore, Swift, Spenser. He set the candle on a circular table, moved to the ladder. Sheridan, Byron, Fielding. The wood was cold against the sole of his foot. The ladder was set on wheels and attached to a brass rail. He climbed to the second rung. He found that if he reached for the shelf with his hand he could propel himself along. He pushed himself slowly at first, back and forth. A little quicker, more recklessly, and then he let go.

  He would have to be quiet. Soon the house would begin to stir.

  Douglass pushed again, off the shelf, along the row of books. Climbed another rung. Higher now. There was a whiff of tallow in the room. The candle had extinguished itself. His mind swung to his young children. They would allow this, he thought. They would not judge it, their very serious father guiding himself on the ladder past the window, the sun coming up over the quays of Cork, the stars almost gone now, dawn a gap in the curtains. He tried to imagine them here, in this house of high bookshelves.

  He dropped from the ladder, retrieved the stub of candle, made himself ready to tread the stairs when the door creaked open.

  —Mr. Douglass.

  It was Isabel, one of the daughters of the house, in her early twenties. She wore a plain white dress, her hair pinned high.

  —Good morning.

  —A fine morning, yes, she said.

  —I was just looking at the books.

  She flicked a quick look at the library ladder as if she already knew.

  —Can I get you breakfast, Mr. Douglass?

  —Thank you, he said, but I think I’ll return to sleep now. The journey from Dublin got the best of me, I’m afraid.

  —As you will, Mr. Douglass. You do know there are no servants in this house?

  —Excuse me?

  —We fend for ourselves, she said.

  —I’m happy to hear that.

  He could already tell these friends of Webb were unusual. Owners of a vinegar factory. Church of Ireland. They did not display their wealth. The house had a humility to it. Open to all visitors. The ceilings were low everywhere but the library, as if to force a man to bend down everywhere except near books.

  Isabel glanced towards the window. The sun was making itself apparent above the small line of trees at the end of the garden.

  —So how do you find our country, Mr. Douglass?

  Douglass was surprised at the forthrightness of her question. He wondered if she was interested in the courage of honesty—that the countryside had shocked him, that he had seldom seen such poverty, even in the American South, that he found it hard, even now, to understand.

  —It’s an honor to be here, he said.

  —An honor for us to receive you. And your journey was pleasant?

  —We traveled the back roads. There was much to see. Some beautiful places.

  In the silence she drifted towards the window. She looked out to the garden where the light continued to climb, agile against the trees. He could tell there was something more she wanted to say. She fingered the edge of the curtain, wrapped one of the threads around her finger.

  —There is a hunger afoot, she said finally.

  —Certain parts of the journey were bleak, I must admit.

  —There is talk of a famine.

  He looked at Isabel again. She was thin and ordinary, certainly not pretty. Her eyes were a sharp green, her profile plain, her bearing natural. No jewelry. No fuss. Her accent was genteel. She was not the sort of woman likely to open the windows of a man’s heart, yet there was something about her that daubed the air between them bright.

  He told her of the dead child he had seen on the road. He noticed the words move into her face, inhabit her: the road, the raft of twigs, the dropped coin, the roof of trees, the way the light had fallen around them as they drove away. The story weighed her down. She wrapped the fringed thread so tight that the top of her finger was swollen.

  —I will send someone out to see if they can find her. On the road.

  —That would be kind of you, Miss Jennings.

  —Perhaps they will help her bury the child.

  —Yes.

  —In the meantime, you should rest, Mr. Douglass, she said.

  —Thank you.

  —And later you must permit my sisters and me to show you around. There is much in Cork to be proud of. You’ll see.

  He could hear the rest of the house stirring, the floorboards above them creaking. He bowed slightly, excused himself, went into the hallway. He was tired, but there was work to do: letters, articles, another attempt at a preface. His book was going into a second printing. It was an exercise in balance. He would need to find the correct tension. A funambulist. He would not pander any longer. He trod the stairs, entered his room, unfolded his pages to edit them. Took out the barbells. Rested his head against the side of the writing desk. Lifted the barbells. Began, all at once, to lift and read, lift and read.

  Within moments he heard a clicking of hooves outside the window. Isabel was riding out the gravel road. From his high window he watched her go until her coat of royal blue became a speck.

  THE CARPETS WERE lush. His pillows freshly laundered. His hosts had cut new flowers and put them in the window where they nodded in the breeze. A Bible had been placed on the bedside table. The Crace and Beunfeld Bird and Wildlife Guide. Charlotte, A Tale of Truth. The Vicar of Wakefield. The Whole Booke of Psalmes, with the Hymnes Evangellical, and Songs Spirituall. At the roll-top writing desk, he found an inkwell, blotting paper, blank journals.

  It was a relief to be back to privilege again: the journey through the countryside had agitated him.

  Famine. The word had not occurred to him before. He had seen hunger in America, but never a countryside threatened with blight. The smell still clung to him. He poured himself a deep bath. Soaped his body. Put his head in under the water, held his breath, sunk deeper. Even the noises of the house itself were a balm: he could hear laughter echoing up through the rooms. He climbed from the water, wiped the steam from the window. It was still a surprise to see the rooftops of Ireland. What else lay out there? What other ruin?

  The sound of leaves falling.

  Quieter than rain.

  He finished his writing, put the barbells away, lay on the bed with his arms behind his head, tried to doze, couldn’t.

  The call to dinner came from downstairs. He wiped his hands in the washbasin, dressed himself in his cleanest linen shirt.

  THE FAMILY’S FOOD was served in a country style: rows of plates, bowls, soups, vegetables, and breads were placed on a giant wooden table and the diners walked along to choose what they wanted. There were, it seemed, many among the Jennings family who did not eat meat. He spread a thick sardine paste upon his bread, ladled the salad. At the table the guests jostled and laughed with one another. The Waring family. The Wrights. Other guests came: a vicar, a taxidermist, a falconer, a young Catholic priest. They were delighted to meet Douglass. They had read his book and were eager to talk. It seemed the house was open to all denominations and ideas. An extraordinary volubility of speech. The situation in America, the position of the abolitionists, the possibility of war, the
pandering to southern trade laws, the terrible deeds that had been perpetrated upon the Cherokee Indians.

  Douglass found himself happily besieged. None of the formality of the Webb household. The talk spun into incredible tangents. Seldom before had all the vectors of the conversation gone through him alone. Webb watched from the far end of the table.

  Part of Douglass wondered if they were laying a trap for him, but, as the hours went on, his ease deepened.

  He was surprised to see that the women remained at the table alongside the men. Isabel stayed quiet most of the time. She ate sparingly. She wet her finger and picked the crumbs from her plate. There was a shyness about her, but whenever she entered the conversation she seemed to do so on the tip of a knife blade. She was quick to draw blood and then retreat. Douglass had never seen anyone quite like her before. He found himself discombobulated when, in a conversation about Charles Grandison Finney, she turned towards him and asked how exactly Mrs. Douglass felt about the issue of public prayer.

  He felt a rush of warmth to his collar.

  —Mrs. Douglass?

  —Yes, she said.

  —Her position is quite clear on all such matters.

  He saw Webb move slightly in his chair. The Irishman was chewing at the edge of his dinner napkin.

  —She would no doubt be aligned, said Douglass.

  He was sure Isabel had not meant to embarrass him, but the heat seared him. A seep of sweat at the brow. He balanced a cup of tea on the saucer without it rattling, then pronounced the meal delicious, excused himself, moved towards the stairs, touching Webb’s shoulder as he went.

  He had not written to Anna or his children in a few days. He would do so straightaway.

  Upstairs, he caught sight of himself in the looking glass. His hair had grown higher, thicker, more Negro. He would let it be.

  There was no lock on the door. He wedged a chair against the door handle. He unwrapped the barbells from the shirts in which he hid them. There were times he was still walking into a church in Tuckahoe. The wooden crossbeams. The singular plane of light sloping east to west during morning services. The glimpse of a red-tailed hawk arcing out through the window. The high sound of the organ. The smell of grass carried in through the wide white doorway.