Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V (35 page)

“I still gots a room to finish cleaning.”

“I’ll help you,” said Margaret.

Fishy almost laughed out loud. “You the strangest White lady.”

“Oh, I suppose that would cause comment.”

“You just set here,” said Fishy. “I be back soon. Then I be on your half-day. They have to let me go out with you.”

*      *      *

Denmark spent a fruitless morning asking around about a White man who suddenly went empty. He’d knock on a door, pretending to be asking for work for a nonexistent White master—just so the slave who talked to him had a story to tell when somebody asked them who was at the door. The slaves all knew who Denmark was, of course—nobody was more famous among the Blacks of Camelot than the taker of names. Unless it was Gullah Joe, the bird man who flew out to the slaveships. So there wasn’t a soul who didn’t try to help. Trouble was, all these people with no name, they had no sharp edge to them. They vaguely remembered hearing this or that about a White man who was sick or a White man who couldn’t walk, but in each case it turned out to be some old cripple or a man who’d already died of some disease. Not till afternoon did he finally hear a story that sounded like it might be what he needed.

He followed the rumor to a cheap boardinghouse where yes, indeed, two White men had shared a room, and one of them, the Northerner, had taken sick with a strange malady. “He eat, he drink, he pee, he do all them thing,” said the valet who had cared for their room. “I change him trouser three times a day, wash everything twice a day.” But they had left just that morning. “French man, he gots a letter, he pack up all, take away that empty man, now they be both all gone.”

“Did he say where he taking the sick man?” asked Denmark.

“He don’t say nothing to me,” said the valet.

“Does anybody know?”

“You want me to get in trouble, asking question from the White boss?”

Denmark sighed. “You tell him that Frenchman and that Northerner, they owe my master money.”

The valet looked puzzled. “Your master dumb enough a-lend them money?”

Denmark leaned in close. “It’s a lie,” he said. “You
say
they owe my master money, then the White boss tell you where they gone off to.”

It took a moment, but finally the valet understood and retreated into the house. When he came back, he had some information. “Calvin, he the sick man, he gots a sister-in-law here. At a boardinghouse.”

“What’s the address?”

“White boss don’t know.”

“White boss hoping for a bribe,” said Denmark.

The valet shook his head. “No, he don’t know, that the truth.”

“How’m I going to find her with no address?”

The valet shrugged. “Be maybe you best ask around.”

“Ask what? ‘There’s a woman with a sick brother-inlaw named Calvin and she living in a boardinghouse somewhere.’ That get me a lot of results.”

The valet looked at him like he was crazy. “I don’t think you get much that way. I bet you do better, you tell them her name.”

“I don’t
know
her name.”

“Why not? I do.”

Denmark closed his eyes. “That’s good. How about you tell me that name?”

“Margaret.”

“She got her a last name? White folks has a last name every time.”

“Smith,” said the valet. “But she don’t look big enough for smith work.”

“You’ve
seen
her?” asked Denmark.

“Lots of times.”

“When would you see her?”

“I run messages to her and back a couple of times.”

Denmark sighed, keeping anger out of his voice. “Well now, my friend, don’t that mean you know where she lives?”

“I do,” said the valet.

“Why couldn’t you just tell me that?”

“You didn’t be asking where she live, you ask for the
address
. I don’t know no number or letter.”

“Could you lead me there?”

The valet rolled his eyes. “Sixpence to the White boss and he let me take you.”

Denmark looked at him suspiciously. “You sure it ain’t tuppence to the White boss and the rest to you?”

The valet looked aggrieved. “I be a Christian.”

“So be all the White folks,” said Denmark.

The valet, all anger having been stripped from him long ago, had no chance of understanding pointed irony. “Of course they be Christian. How else I learn about Jesus ’cept from them?”

Denmark dug a sixpence out of his pocket and gave it to the valet. In moments he was back, grinning. “I gots ten minutes.”

“That time enough?”

“Two blocks over, one block down.”

When they got to the door of Margaret Smith’s boardinghouse, the valet just stood there.

“Step aside so I can knock,” said Denmark.

“I can if you want,” said the valet. “But I don’t see why.”

“Well if I don’t knock, how’m I going to find out if she be in?”

“She ain’t in,” said the valet.

“How you know that?”

“Cause she over there, looking at you.”

Denmark turned around casually. A White woman, a White man, and a Black servant girl were across the street, walking away.

“Who’s looking at me?”

“They
was
looking,” said the valet. “And I know she can tell you about that Calvin man.”

“How do you know that?”

“That be him.”

Denmark looked again. The White man was shuffling along like an old man. Empty.

Denmark grinned and gave another tuppence to the valet. “Good job, when you finally got around to telling me.

The valet took the tuppence, looked at it, and offered it back. “No, it be sixpence the White boss want.”

“I already paid the sixpence,” said Denmark.

The valet looked at him like he had lost his mind. “If you done that, why you be giving me more? This tuppence not enough anyway.” Huffily, he handed the coin back. “You crazy.” Then he was gone.

Denmark sauntered along, keeping them in sight. A couple of times the slave girl looked back and gazed at him. But he wasn’t worried. She’d know who he was, and there was no chance of a Black girl telling this White lady anything about the taker of names.

“That him,” said Fishy. “He take the names.”

Margaret saw at once in Denmark’s mind that he could not be trusted for a moment. She had been looking for him, and he had been looking for her. But he had a knife and meant to use it. That was hardly the way to restore Calvin’s heartfire.

“Let’s go down to the battery. There are always plenty of people there. He won’t dare harm a White man in such a crowd. He doesn’t want to die.”

“He won’t talk to you, neither,” said Fishy. “He just watch.”

“He’ll talk to me,” said Margaret. “Because you’ll go ask him to.”

“He scare me, ma’am.”

“Me too,” said Margaret. “But I can promise you, he won’t harm you. The only one he wants to hurt is Calvin here.”

Fishy looked at Calvin again. “Look like somebody done hurt him most all he can be hurt till he be dead.” Then she realized what she had said. “Oh.”

“This name-taker, Denmark Vesey, is quite an interesting fellow. You know that he isn’t a slave?”

“He free? Ain’t no free Blacks in Camelot.”

“Oh, that’s the official story, but it isn’t so. I’ve already met another. A woman named Doe. She was given her freedom when she became too old to work.”

“They turn her out then?” demanded Fishy, outraged.

“Careful,” said Margaret. “We’re not alone here.”

Fishy at once changed her demeanor and looked down at the street again. “I seen too many damn cobblestones in my life.”

“They didn’t turn her out,” said Margaret. “Though I have no doubt there are masters cruel enough to do so. No, she has a little room of her own and she eats with the others. And they pay her a small wage for very light work.”

“They think that make up for taking her whole life away from her?”

“Yes, they think it does. And Doe thinks so, too. She has her name back, and I suppose she has reason enough to be angry, but she’s happy enough.”

“Then she a fool.”

“No, she’s just old. And tired. For her, freedom means she doesn’t have to work anymore, except to make her own bed.”

“That won’t be enough for me, Miz Margaret.”

“No, Fishy, I’m quite sure it won’t. It shouldn’t be enough for anyone. But don’t begrudge Doe her contentment. She’s earned it.”

Fishy looked back and became agitated. “He coming closer, ma’am.”

“Only because he’s afraid of losing track of us in the crowd.” Margaret steered Calvin toward the seawall. Out in the water they could see the fortresses: Lancelot and Galahad. Such fanciful names. King Arthur indeed. “Denmark Vesey is free and he earns his living by keeping the account books of several small businesses and professional offices.”

“A Black man know his numbers?”

“And his letters. Of course he pretends that he works
for a White man who really does the work, but I doubt any of his clients are fooled. They maintain the legal fiction so that nobody has to send anyone to jail. They pay half what they would for a White man, and he gets paid far more than he needs to live in Blacktown. Clever.”

“And he take the names.”

“No, actually, he collects them, but he takes them somewhere and gives them to someone else.”

“Who?”

Margaret sighed. “Whoever it is, he knows how to shut me out of just that part of Denmark’s memory. That’s never happened to me before. Or perhaps I simply didn’t notice it. I must have skimmed past this man’s heartfire before, searching for the taker of names, but because only part of his memory was hidden, I would never have noticed.” Then she thought a little more. “No, I daresay I never looked in his heartfire, because he has his name, and so his heartfire burns brightly enough that I would have assumed he was a White man and not looked at all. He was hidden right out in the open.”

“You a witchy woman, ain’t you, ma’am?”

“Not in the sense that White folks use the word,” said Margaret. “I don’t do any cursing, and what hexes I have to protect me, those were made by my husband, I do no such work. What I am is a torch. I see into people’s heartfire. I find the paths of their future.”

“What you see in my future?”

“No, Fishy,” said Margaret. “You have so many paths open before you. I can’t tell you which one you’ll take, because it’s up to you.”

“But that man, he don’t kill me, right?”

Margaret shook her head. “I don’t see any paths right now where that happens. But I don’t tell futures, Fishy, People live and die by their own choices.”

“Not even your own future? Your husband?”

Margaret grimaced. “I did try to get my husband to
change his life. You see, on every path where he doesn’t get killed sooner, he ends up dying because of the betrayal of his own brother.”

Fishy took only a moment to realize the connection. “Be maybe you don’t mean
this
brother?”

“No, I
do
mean this brother.”

“Then why you not let that name-taker man cut his throat?”

“Because my husband loves him.”

“But he going a-kill him!”

Margaret smiled wanly. “Isn’t that the strangest thing?” she said. “Knowing the future doesn’t change a man like my husband. He does what’s right no matter where the road leads.”

“He
always
do what’s right?”

“As much as he understands it. Most of the time he tries to do as little as possible. He tries to learn, and then teach. Not like Denmark Vesey. He’s a man who
acts
.” Margaret shuddered. “But not wisely. Cleverly, yes, but not wisely, and not kindly, either.”

“He squatting under that tree yonder.”

“Now is the time, Fishy. Go to him, tell him I want to talk to him.”

“Oh, Miz Margaret, you sure he don’t hurt me?”

“He’ll think you’re pretty.” Margaret touched her arm. “He’ll think you’re the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.”

“You joking now.”

“Not at all. You see, you’re the first free Black woman he’s known.”

“I not free.”

“He bought a slave once. Hoping to make her his wife. But she was so ashamed of being owned by a Black man that she threatened to expose his ability to read and write and tell the authorities that he’s a free Black in Camelot.”

“What he do?”

“What do you think?”

“He kill her.”

“He tried. At the last moment he changed his mind. She’s still his slave, but she’s crippled. Mind and body.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that story,” said Fishy. “I wasn’t going to let him talk love to me. He scare me too bad.”

“I just thought you should know.”

“Well, you know what? It take away some of my scared, knowing that about him.”