Queen (83 page)

    He didn't move or speak. Night came, and still he sat there. Then, without

    understanding how it happened, he knew she wasn't going to come back from

    the well, ever again. He knew he would never see her, living, again, and

    prayed that her soul was in some sweet and gentle resting place.

    For a great and simple truth had overwhelmed him. He had known it for so

    long, all his thinking life; perhaps he had put it out of his mind because

    it made the world too complicated. The implications of it now were so

    frightening, he could not, at this moment, bear to consider them.

Black people did have souls.

He turned and looked at the body.

"Oh, my love," he said.

And he wept.

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it was as if someone had turned out a lamp in Queen's heart, or God had

snatched the sun away. Although the awful truth of Easter's death had burst

into her soul at the moment of her mammy's going, Queen understood that it

was to a place she could not follow, and disbelief fought with knowledge. A

tiny part of her nursed, cherished, the idea that her mammy was only resting

somewhere, and would come to her again, but the greater part knew Easter's

loving embrace was gone forever, and she was filled with an unassuageable

sense of loss. Anger battled with despair, and loneliness was the champion.

Under Sally's careful instruction, she had gone about the necessary

business, and had sat outside the weaving house for hours waiting till Jass

had finished whatever it was he still had to do with her mother, clutching

the winding sheet to her, and keening softly. When Jass left the weaving

house late that night, Queen went in, and kissed and caressed her dead

mother, and wept her distress. Then, refusing Cap'n Jack or Sally's help,

she had washed Easter's body, gently as a daughter should, and made her hair

pretty, and wrapped her in the winding sheet.

    As she tended the body, unanswerable questions assailed her, of which the

    greatest concerned Jass, for now he was her nearest living relative, apart

    from Cap'n Jack, and the living link of love with her mother. For she knew

    it must have been love, and knew it was a love that fell outside the

    parameters of conventional domesticity. As a slave, it was not strange to

    her that Easter so willingly accepted the limits that their society imposed

    on their relationship, and to have had the small proofs she did of the

    Massa's love was a treasure sweeter to Queen than any she could imagine. It

    was what she wanted now, some word, some look, and, most wondrous of all,

    an

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506 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

embrace, from her father, but it never came. Apart from that one, tiny,

anguished look that Jass had given Queen, when she had thought she had

seen into his soul, Jass ignored her, and this added to Queen's sense of

bereavement. She had thought that he loved her, but now, in her time of

greatest need, his reassurance did not come. Cap'n Jack was kind to her,

and Sally, but they could not fill the void in her heart. On the night

that Easter was buried, Queen could not sleep. Comfortable and warm in her

tiny cot, she could not bear to think of Easter lying in the wet, cold

earth, eaten by worms. It was Sally who was able to persuade her that the

ground would be kind to her mother, and cherish her mortal remains while

her spirit found a greater comfort.

Jass was not thoughtless of Queen, nor did he intend to hurt. It was

simply that he was trying to find a way to cope with his own grief, his

own loneliness, and to avoid considerations of his world turned upside.

He longed to fight for his country, but he no longer believed in the cause

his country fought for. Jass now believed that slavery must end one day,

for the forces of the world and his own heart were against it, but he

could not let his country be vanquished by his brothers. Queen was the

physical embodiment of the contradictions that raged within him. Restless

and dispirited, he spent most of his days in Florence, anxious for news

of the war, and getting drunk with men who were too old to fight, and boys

who were too young. He was bitter because he had been forced back into

idleness, while good men, friends, were dying.

    Neither side appeared to be winning, and the list of the dead was growing

    daily. Almost everyone who came to The Forks had a friend or cousin or

    brother or son who had paid the ultimate sacrifice.

It was winter. Barren, inanimate winter. The trees were lifeless and bare.

The slave graveyard, so prettily situated in the other seasons, was

desolate now. It suited Queen's mood, for the weeks had not eased her

sense of loss. A simple wooden cross marked Easter's grave, among so many

dead. Next to her lay Julie, who had gone so very recently, and Ephraim

who had also died of the fever. Not far away was Solomon, who had

    QUEEN 507

escaped from The Forks of Cypress once, and been recaptured and brought

back, and never ceased to bore them with the tall tales of his freedom. Over

yonder was Tiara, who had helped Queen to be born, and had been kind to her

when she was little. She was gone soon after Queen moved into the big house,

and lay beside her husband, Micah, in perfect peace.

    Queen came here almost every day, to tend the grave and keep it neat and

    clean. And to talk to her mammy, who was, to her, still a living creature,

    safe, in God's comforting arms. Jass's return had not made everything all

    right again; if anything, their physical circumstances were worse. The war,

    which everyone had thought would be over in a few short months, dragged on.

    Food was scarce; all they had was what the farm could provide. It would

    soon be Christmas, but no one could find any reason for cheer.

    Queen, wrapped in a blanket to keep her warm, sat by her mother's grave and

    told her these things. She was cold and lonely, she worked too hard, and no

    one ever seemed grateful for all the things she did; they accepted them as

    if it were her place to care for them, and demanded as much from her as she

    could give, and then demanded more. To them she was a slave, she knew, and

    it was her duty to slave for them, but Queen could not accept that she was

    only a slave. No one understood that Queen looked after them all because

    they were her family.

    If only she weren't so tired all the time. If only her mammy were here,

    with her, to help.

    "I miss you, Mammy," she whispered, too exhausted even to cry.

    She sat for a while and pulled a few old weeds from the grave. Not many,

    because it was winter, and not even weeds grew in winter.

    She became aware that she was not alone. Someone else was standing in the

    trees near her, watching her.

It was Jass. 4

Wearily, Queen dragged herself to her feet.

"I sorry, Massa," she said, knowing her place.

    He shrugged his shoulders. Place didn't matter very much, here. Neither of

    them said anything because they couldn't think of anything to say. Gossip

    was irrelevant, sacrilegious here, and all the news was bad.

508 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    But the silence was awkward. More than Massa and slave, they were not as

    much as father and daughter. Yet he had to speak to her. If her loss was

    as keen as his own, could they not find some little comfort from each

    other?

"Do you come here often?" Jass asked, and Queen nodded.

"You work very hard," Jass said. "Thank you."

    Queen closed her eyes, and felt warm again. At least the Massa understood

    how hard she worked. At least her father had said thank you.

    "I'm sorry we're not more help to you," Jass said, and it was Queen's

    turn to shrug.

    "Not your place, Massa," she told him. She did not understand his mood.

    He was here with them, safe from the war.

    "Sometimes I wonder where my place is," he said, and his bitterness

    confused her.

    Why did he hate himself so? Queen wanted to go to him, hold him, tell him

    they loved him. Tell him that she loved him. She didn't, because she

    didn't know how. No one had ever taught her. She wondered if her mammy

    had ever told him how much she had loved him. Or he her.

    She turned away, unable to cope with his bleak, winter mood, but her need

    for him was too strong. She turned back, but he was gone.

Jass walked down the hill from the slave graveyard. He had wanted to be

there alone, to sit and talk with Easter for a while, but Queen was there,

and he felt guilty at disturbing her. The child had so little; he could

not take away what little she had. He had found no comfort from her;

rather her evident sense of pain had increased his own. Thoughts of death

and dying filled him. The family cemetery was at the bottom of the hill,

and he went to it, and stood at the graves of his daughters. Cap'n Jack

had said they died easy, but that wasn't true. No one died easy.

    He yearned to be away at the war. He wasn't sure what the cause was

    anymore, except the protection of his place and his family, and they had

    to be protected. He tried to block his mind to the matter of slavery,

    because to deny the rightness of it was to deny the South, and everything

    Jass understood himself to be. What was important was the South, not for

    the

    QUEEN 509

maintenance of slavery but for its sheer survival. Militarily, the South

seemed to have a small advantage; at any rate, they had not lost. Perhaps

the North had originally underestimated the skill and ferociousness of

their enemy. Perhaps they had misunderstood the whole rationale of the

war. The South was fighting for its very existence; the North was fighting

only to win. But the North had the resources to assemble a vast war

machine, Jass knew, and when that was in place the possibility of a

Southern victory required every possible man.

    One of those men was Jass. Discharged from the army but determined to

    fight, he had talked with his brother William, who had presented a

    solution. William, a Confederate state senator, knew all the ins and outs

    of political intrigue. He intended to raise a company, the Franklin

    Rifles, and would pay for their uniforms. He would present his company

    to the army command; it would be accepted into service and William given

    a commission considered appropriate.

    There was no reason why Jass could not do the same. He could afford to

    do so, and the army would infinitely prefer to have his troops under its

    command than roaming renegade free.

    He told them at dinner, and Lizzie was predictably angry. As usual,

    Parson Dick was listening in the pantry, and relayed the news to Queen

    in the kitchen.

"Miss Lizzie don't like it," he said.

    "Miss Lizzie don't like nothing," Queen sniffed, busy with the meal. "Set

    them taters out for me, Poppy," she called to her unwilling assistant.

    "And you get that meat out to them, Parson Dick, you hear?"

    "Not much point. Nobody's eatin', 'cept young Massa William." Parson Dick

    was enjoying the row in the dining room.

    Queen didn't want her father to go, and was as angry as Lizzie. She

    banged a pot on the stove. "Ain't none of our business," she snapped. "We

    cook it an' serve it. lf'n they eat it or not's up to them. "

    Parson Dick took the stewed rabbit into the dining room. When he was

    gone, Queen's energy deserted her. Why did he have to go? He was wounded,

    he had no reason to fight. Why did he want to leave them alone again,

    when they needed him here?

510 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Lizzie tried so hard to be reasonable, but could not see Jass's point.

    He couldn't protect them if he was hundreds of miles away.

    "What if the Yankees come?" she said for the umpteenth time. "A handful

    of raggedy slaves can't protect us."

    Parson Dick bridled at the word "raggedy" but presented the rabbit to

    Sally.

"They'll never get this far South," Jass insisted.

"They might," Lizzie countered.

    "Then it's up to me to try to stop them!" Jass was angry, and Lizzie and

    Sally both knew it was pointless trying to change his mind when he was

    this determined.

    There was a small silence while Jass fumed and Lizzie sulked. Sally tried

    to restore order.

    "Well, now, rabbit," she said. "We haven't had meat for a while."

    "A scraggy ol' thing Massa William shot this morning," Parson Dick told

    her, and winked at William, who, alone of those at the table, was pleased

    that his father was going back to war. The fathers of most of his school

    friends had gone, and even though William understood that Jass had been

    wounded, he wanted a soldier father, especially an officer. He hadn't

    understood why Jass enlisted as a private the first time.