Wench (23 page)

L
izzie had been told they were leaving that very day. Drayle wasn’t taking any chances. He’d had Lizzie tied to the front porch of his cottage all morning long. She’d been sitting there all day, lapping up water out of a bowl like a dog. She put her whole face in it trying to cool off. Could she drown in that bowl if she stuck her face in it long enough?

“You ought to be happy about seeing your children,” Fran said through the window. “They’ll be waiting on you.”

My children ain’t the only thing I love. If I was allowed
,
I reckon I’d love myself
,
too.

It was clear to Lizzie that Drayle had not told Fran about his plan to send Nate to Ohio to be educated. Did Drayle really think Lizzie would try to escape when her son’s future rested on her decision to return south with him? She supposed he had her tied up because he did not want to risk having his plan disrupted. Lizzie scoffed at his ignorance. Surely he realized that if she had planned to escape, she would have done so long before then.

Drayle had a cart brought around to carry the trunks up to the hotel. Lizzie wondered about her rag bundle. Her two dresses. The necklace Mawu had given her.

“I need my things,” she called out to Fran.

“What things? You act like you own something,” Fran said as she came out of the door. She squatted and placed a cracker on Lizzie’s tongue. “I put them in my trunk,” she added.

Lizzie chewed and looked out over the pond. The cabin that Mawu burned down the summer before was gone. There wasn’t anything there now but a square patch of dirt with weeds shooting through. The other cabins looked empty, doors swinging back and forth in the wind. Lizzie was glad the hotel had been sold to a missionary group for a colored school. The land would belong to God now. She looked over at the spot where Sir had beaten Mawu in front of all of them, and she hoped the missionaries could bring some holiness to the place.

The water wheel turned.

She remembered how she used to want to learn to be a lady. To learn to hold her skirt over the ground. It had never worked for her. It seemed like each time she had tried to grab a fistful of fabric, it got caught between her feet and tripped her up.

A thought stopped her. What if he had lied? What if he had told her he was going to educate Nate just to make sure she returned?

She dismissed the thought. Drayle had told the truth. She could feel it.

As she leaned against the porch post, she thought of Rabbit and what she would teach her. This was what she would say:
Don’t give in to the white man. And if you have to give in
,
don’t give your soul over to him. Love yourself first. Fix it so you don’t give him children. If you ever make it to freedom
,
remember your mammy who tried to be good to you. Hold fast to your women friends because they are going to be there when ain’t nobody else there. If you don’t believe in God
,
it’s all right. God believes in you. Never forget your name. Keep track of your
years and how old you are. Don’t be afraid to say how you feel. Learn a craft so you always have something to barter other than your private parts.

What kind of craft could Rabbit learn? Big Mama had made soap, but she had lost both eyes because of it. Philip had trained horses. Lizzie could cook. She thought of Sweet and her ability to sew. It had sustained her while she was mourning. Maybe she would make certain that Rabbit knew how to sew. Then she thought of Reenie’s ability to birth a baby. That was a skill that could come in handy, for sure.

Drayle climbed the steps of the cottage. He leaned down and kissed Lizzie on the head.

“How is my darling?”

“Not understanding why you tied me up. I ain’t going nowhere.”

“I know. I just don’t want to have to go looking for you. You ready, Francesca?” he called.

“I’ll walk on up by myself,” she answered.

He smiled at Lizzie. She tried to make sense of it, this smile of his that looked for all the devil like he meant it.

She watched him walk in the direction of the hotel. He disappeared into its crumbling whiteness.

M
awu told her this story the last time she saw her. It was about her name. She said that she was named after an African god who made everything and everyone—man, animal, and plants. She said she didn’t believe in Adam and eve. The old root doctor who lived on her plantation had told her this story and renamed her after an African god named Mawu. He said this Mawu had a twin named Lisa. So when she met Lizzie, Mawu suspected she was her other half because of her name. But then Lizzie told on her and Mawu became doubtful.

When Mawu returned to Louisiana, the doctor told her Lizzie might still be the one. Even if she were a traitor. So she came back to Tawawa and gave Lizzie a second chance. To learn Lizzie’s true heart, not the one that had been tainted by slavery. So during the entire second summer of her visit to Tawawa house, Mawu studied Lizzie to see if she had this strength. And she concluded that Lizzie did. She said she recognized it. That’s why she waited on her in the end. Because Lizzie’s heart was her heart. Her twin. Lizzie was Lisa.

So according to the hoodoo man, these two—except they weren’t really two, they were one—made everything in four days. On the first day, they made mankind. They made everyone out of clay and water and gave them features like kinky hair and brown skin. On the second day, they made the earth so mankind had somewhere to reside. They put plants and animals on the earth so the people could eat and live. On the third day, they gave mankind reason, separating them from the animals. They gave the people the power to speak and think. On the fourth day, Mawu-Lisa gave them the tools they needed to farm the land and clear the forests in order to build their houses.

Mawu was the moon and Lisa the sun. Mawu cold, and Lisa hot. Mawu the night and Lisa the day. Mawu the earth and Lisa the sky. Mawu the west, Lisa the east. The rootworker told her that even though Mawu was considered to be the mother and the wise one and the creator, Lisa was the one with the strength. Lisa was as strong as a man!

All Lizzie could say was,
a woman helped create the world?

The story made Lizzie believe in something. So even though she was going back to Tennessee, she wasn’t the same woman. She was something else.

When she thought of her two children, she thought of Mawu-Lisa and she prayed to them that her children could possess the same strength she had gotten on account of her name. All these years, she realized, she had been putting her faith in Drayle to free her children. Now she had to put her faith in herself.

At night, before she went to sleep in her cabin down in the quarters, she remembered Mawu’s story and told herself that she was a god, a powerful god. Each and every day, she reminded herself of this so that she wouldn’t fall backward. She was more than eyes, ears, lips, and thigh.

She was a heart. She was a mind.

T
his is a work of fiction. Tawawa Resort did exist, however. Located near Xenia, Ohio, it opened in 1852 and closed in 1855. It is documented by historians that Southern slaveholders frequented the resort with slave entourages, and that these visits were a reason for the decline of the resort’s popularity. The presence of slave concubines is part of local oral history.

The land and surrounding area were sold to the cincinnati conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, and it established the Ohio African University in 1856. With the onset of the civil War, enrollments declined and the original campus was closed. In 1863, the property was purchased by the African Methodist Episcopal Chuch and was renamed Wilberforce University; it continues to be the nation’s oldest, private, predominantly African American university. It is believed that the children of the unions between the slave women and the slaveholders were among the early students at the university.

I
did not do this alone. Many people helped. Thank you to those who helped with research: Michaela hammer, my student research assistant; University of Puget Sound for research funds and the Mellon Sabbatical; Jacqueline Y. Brown at Wilberforce Stokes Library; Elizabeth L. Plummer at Ohio historical Society; Gwenyth G. Haney at Dayton history; Peggy Burge at Collins Library. Thank you to Bread Loaf and Tin house Writers conferences. Thank you to my manuscript readers Colleen McElroy, Kathryn Ma, and Kirsten Menger-Anderson. Thank you to my mentors for unflagging support: James A. Miller, Randall Kenan, Richard Yarborough, Tayari Jones, Helena Maria Viramontes, Lawrence Jackson, Hans Ostrom. Thank you to my sister, Jeanna McClure, for inspiration. Thank you to my agent Stephanie Cabot, and her colleague, Sarah Burnes. I am grateful for the opportunity you gave me. Thank you to my editor, Dawn Davis, for patient guidance. Thanks, again, to my parents who always encouraged my love for books.

Finally, thanks to my best friend and husband, David, for sharing me with this book and these characters for these last few years. Your intellect and honest feedback kept me going when I faltered. And for my little Elena, who taught me what Lizzie’s love for her children meant to her.