Douglass’ Women (14 page)

“I don’t know this name.”

“You will.” He displaced reams of papers, books, quills, and asked me to sit in a chair long used for storage. “What can I do for you?”

“It is I who wish to do for you. Help your cause.”

“You’ve read my paper, the
Liberator.”
It was more statement than question.

“No.”

Garrison sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. It creaked with his weight. “I don’t have time for this. Lives are at stake. There are things I must do, Miss,” he raised his brows, “Assing.”

I sat up straighter. “Yes, Miss. Fräulein.” I saw him weighing my absence of an abigail, a companion. There was no man to lend me countenance. No wedding ring to bespeak respectability.

“Well, good day to you, Fräulein.” His hand swept through his hair, and once again he was busily searching through his papers, upsetting a flurry of quills. “I have much to do.”

“I’ve just left the
Indian Queen
. A slave—a woman—committed suicide rather than remain in her Master’s care.”

Mr. Garrison said nothing. He studied me. I didn’t flinch.

His eyes shifted to newsprint, his hands shuffled broadsides. “Of course, perhaps you could help distribute papers. Or hold a tea to raise monies? We are always short of money.”

“I am independent.”

“Are you now?” he inquired softly. And I saw him deciding that I was wealthy. Saw him change his opinion, his use for me.

“Neither father nor husband rules me. I wish to give my heart to a cause.”

“Abolition is an uphill struggle. Tumultuous. Dangerous. Not for the fainthearted.”

“Nor is traveling the ocean. Nor being a woman. Nor being a German Jew.” I regretted my words as soon as I
spoke them. I didn’t trust Herr Garrison. Still, I went on: “None of these things are for the fainthearted.”

“I’m surprised, Fräulein. With your blond locks and blue eyes, I would’ve guessed you for a German but never a Jew.”

“Half Jew. My mother was Christian.”

“How interesting.”

Garrison moved from around his desk and studied me like I was some rare creature, a butterfly, perhaps, caught, then dissected under a microscope.

“Your family has been persecuted?”

I nodded. But my answer was only partly true. Mama and I had never suffered. Yet, perhaps this was the link to the new promised land.

“Herr Garrison, being Jewish, even half, as much as being a woman makes me eager to help end slavery. Any curtailment of freedom is wrong.”

“I know little of Jewish fate. Nothing of the trials women claim. Though I do find you quite interesting. Have you heard of miscegenation, Fräulein?”

I shook my head.

“You should,” he said, returning to sit behind his desk. “A most interesting concept. Nonetheless, there is but one battle I care to wage. Were you colored, I would be more interested in your thoughts, your speech.” Fists propping his head, he bent over his desk, his pen scratching out lines in an article. “In a few months, if you haven’t gone home, come see me. I’ll put you to work.”

“Are you always this arrogant?” I stood, trembling.

“Fräulein Assing, I don’t have time for anyone—male or female—who seeks to fill their empty lives with the colored cause. I don’t know what dream you’re pursuing, but
either give me your money and leave or come back when you know something more of what I do, what I’m trying to do, and what it means to be an abolitionist in America.”

“What about what it means to be black in America? Do you claim to know that too?”

“Touché, Fräulein. You have a mind. Come back when you fill it with America’s history. Not Germany’s. Not Jews’. Not women’s. But fill your mind with white cotton and black hands. Good day, Fräulein. Come back, if you dare. I have work to do.”

I turned, hastening away from his patronizing face.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Fräulein Assing?”

I looked back. In his outstretched hand, Mr. Garrison held his paper. The
Liberator
.

I wanted to rip the paper and throw it at him. But the word “liberator” held me.
Liberation
. Mr. Garrison was perhaps right. I couldn’t free others without freeing my own mind. I didn’t like this Mr. Garrison. But he was right, there was little in my head about American slavery. Much in my heart, but little in my head.

I took his paper. “Good day.”

“Guten Nacht,” he called out, chuckling.

As I stepped out of the building, I realized how cramped and ill-smelling both his office and Mr. Garrison were. Printer’s ink made a poor perfume.

A light snow braced me, uplifted my spirits. A man in a cape was lighting streetlamps with a rod of flame. Candles glowed behind curtains. Smoke streamed out of brick chimneys and mingled with the moist air. Part of me recognized how beautiful the world was … how, in some places, the heart was warmed by a fire’s glow. But my heart was coldly furious with Garrison. Furious with myself for accomplishing
so little. Furious I’d given Garrison information that might hurt me.

Evening approached. The sun set orange over the horizon and I could see the watery expanse where Oluwand rests. A few months before, I’d left Germany. A few hours before, I’d left ship. A few minutes before, I’d spoken to a man who thought me frivolous. Now evening. My first night in America begins. Old life versus new. And I’d already faltered.

“Ma’am, ma’am.” Across the street, Moses waved his scarf at me. Even his dusty mare neighed, flicked her tail. Courage. I knew someone kind in America.

Tomorrow, I’d begin anew.

I surprised Garrison and returned.

“I’ve read your
Liberator
. Every issue. Fräulein Griffiths’ essays.
The Narrative of Gusta Vasa
, America’s
Declaration of Independence
, John Adams’s musings on the rights of man, and much, much more. Unless your cause has been won, you still need my money, my help, and my offer to work.”

Garrison laughed and as though he’d never offended me, said, “Fräulein Assing, how delightful to see you. Just the woman I need. We have a new slave who’s just escaped. Splendid man. Exceptional, I’d almost say. The Anti-Slavery Society is sponsoring him. Him and his new wife. Would you care to help?”

I spent my days and nights hand-lettering posters announcing the Society’s meeting and its speaker, Frederick Douglass. Garrison wanted hundreds of posters, thousands of flyers. Herr Moses and I traveled throughout the town and countryside. I nailed with my own hands dozens of leaflets on trees, on solicitors’ and government doors. It was thrilling. So many goodly Americans. Upholding the cause of freedom. I was part of it. Even proofing Garrison’s paper, staining nearly every one of my gowns with ink, made me happy. I worked harder than I ever had in my life and Garrison
came to depend upon me. I read his correspondence and gave him summaries. Brought him food when he forgot to eat. Sometimes deliveries were made and Garrison would disappear. There a minute ago, then gone. I’d be forced to pay the supplier. I let Garrison play his cat and mouse. I had a trust—a small one. Papa’s grief had prevented him from working. So, I was careful. I saved on oils; I was so busy working for abolition, I rarely had time to paint. All day and late into the night, I wrote letters, posters, headlines proclaiming, “Frederick Douglass, A Slave, Is Here.” Then, finally,

TONIGHT HE SPEAKS.

I dressed with care, wanting to look my best. I wore no jewels, swept my hair into a chignon after the French, and wore my best black silk. When I looked into the mirror (a long cheval glass) I thought perhaps I was too pale. My days of reading had worn creases and dark shadows beneath my eyes. With my tongue, I wetted my dry lips. Excitement high, I felt my heart thundering, my breath inhaling shallowly. Now I’d live. I’d step inside my dreams.

Almost six o’clock. I’d told Mr. Garrison I’d meet him in the hotel lobby.

I gathered up my fur, for New Bedford had its chills like Germany, and turned to go. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of motion, some shadow dart across my room.
Oluwand
. I don’t know why I spoke her name. It expelled from me like an unbidden prayer.

I shuddered. The clock chimed six. I rushed from the room.

The meeting hall was impressive. It overflowed with passionate people, and the din was almost deafening. Shouts about “Freedom,” “Fighting for the Negro soul,” “Southern greed and corruption” exploded from conversations. No one questioned my place here as a woman. Nor was I segregated. Mr. Garrison had found me a chair in the first row, slightly right of center stage. I was in the thick of pandemonium and from time to time, I could see Mr. Garrison brushing his hair back, talking to one person then the next, issuing orders about proper placement of chairs upon the stage. There were to be several speakers, but Mr. Garrison’s new protégé was to be last. Garrison was clearly nervous. I could tell by how often his fingers combed his hair. I saw him shake hands with each speaker—white and black. But it was the last, a man sitting in the farthest row, in the last chair, that he stayed with the longest. I could barely see this man. Mr. Garrison blocked my view. And the man himself kept his head bowed, as if in prayer or contemplation. His dark locks fanned forward and his features were indiscernible.

Garrison stepped up to the podium. The program began. I pitched forward on the edge of my seat.

Oh, the speeches. My head was filled with so many remarkable ideas and my heart was wrung hard by so many desperate stories about the colored people’s plight. Nothing in my reading prepared me for the moment of hearing about hardships in slaves’ own voices. The power of the word was extraordinary. I thought, “Hearing one slave speak, how could anyone not be moved? How could anyone wish to hold a being with intelligence and soul?”

Again, Mr. Garrison took to the podium and announced, “Now for our last speaker of the night, an escaped slave, a man most worthy of belief.” The excitement in the hall had become almost unbearable. Men stomped their feet, catcalling, clapping their hands. Mr. Garrison raised his arms high.

“Good friends, allow me to present the fugitive slave, the self-educated man, the remarkable Mr. Frederick Douglass.”

Everyone was on their feet clapping with abandon. I was, too. People chanted, “Douglass, Douglass,” and I called out the name as well. I was flushed, so taken by the energy around me, I glanced away from the stage, and missed when Mr. Douglass stepped to the podium. But the people to the back, right, and left of me, grew quiet. Somber. They grew still, everyone holding their breath, waiting for something extraordinary.

I looked up on the stage. I grew quiet too.

Herr Douglass was the most striking man I’d ever seen. His skin was burnished copper, as though the sun had lightly and continually kissed him. Just standing there, speaking no words, he seemed larger than life, as though he could command an army. Beautiful. This man was truly beautiful. Douglass’ hair caressed his shoulders and the head, which had been bowed during all the prior speeches, now seemed incapable of any shyness, false humility, or reticence. He’d been merely waiting, harnessing his energy for this moment.

We all sat in our chairs and when the shuffling feet stilled, the murmurs and coughs died down, and every eye was fixed upon the stage, Herr Douglass, Mister Frederick Douglass, an escaped American slave, began to speak.

“I was born a slave.” His voice was melodious, strong. “I seldom got to see my mother. Feel her caress, hear her voice, or see her face. She would walk miles to sleep beside me for a few hours. I thought she was an angel, a ghost I dreamed about. But she was my mother, trying to give the gift of a mother’s love.”

The strategy was brilliant. Even taken by him, I could understand the intelligence crafting his speech. What person could not identify with wanting a mother’s love?

“Slavery demeans familial ties. I do not know my birthday. White children know their birthday, but I never did. No less important, I did not know my last name except for that of my Master’s. I will not say his name here. For even as I stand here, a search party, hound dogs, are hunting me. Slavery will give me no rest. The Fugitive Slave Act continues to strip me of rights, of my ability as a man to shape my own fate.” He went on, his cadences moving through me, upsetting the world as I knew it.

Fate
. It was here, before me. This was why I had crossed the Atlantic. To hear Mr. Douglass. To hear how my dream of freedom was but an echo of an entire race.

It humbled me.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Douglass. He was majestic, proud as the audience leapt to their feet, shouting, clapping, stomping his praises. I heard the wonder expressed: “Never has a slave spoken more eloquently”; “God has sent a deliverer”; “How can anyone believe this man has no soul?”; “What ape speaks thus?” Indeed.

I’d witnessed magic. A slave convincing fellow Americans of his humanity. He’d the “gift of tongues”—the
words, the timbre, the tone to move women to weep and men to herald him.

I kept seated in my chair as pandemonium about me increased. The receiving line was long and from my vantage point, if I remained seated, I could better study the lines and planes of Mr. Douglass’ face. I would’ve been content to do so for hours.