Queen (59 page)

the sale or purchase of land, or affect the lives of the many slaves he

owned, and he was continually concerned with the price of cotton. He took

his duties and responsibilities seriously, and sometimes felt old before

his time, and often, oh, he longed to be silly.

    But he was also different because he was mature in another area. His

    relationship with Easter, and the emotional security it provided, took

    the frivolous edges from him. He missed her, but without any sharp sense

    of loss because he knew she would be there for him when he returned. He

    never wrote to her because she couldn't read, but sent occasional bland

    messages to her in correspondence with his mother.

    He wrote to Lizzie, inconsequential letters with formal endearments, and

    received volumes of gossipy pages in response, filled with trivia about

    Florence, and The Forks, and the extravagances of her mother. And it was

    a letter from Lizzie that informed him that some slave, the weaving

    woman, had miscarried, shortly after Jass's departure. The father, Lizzie

    insisted, was unknown.

    Jass stared out at the night, concerned more for Easter than for himself,

    for he knew how important the child was to her. He neither knew nor cared

    if Lizzie was aware of the truth, but correctly guessed that she was not.

    She made no great issue of the matter; it was two sentences in a page

    devoted to happenings at The Forks, and she moved immediately to other

    news. Jass guessed that Cap'n Jack had not known of the pregnancy-at

    least he had never mentioned it-and decided

356 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

not to tell his slave of the miscarriage, but he wrote to his mother,

asking her to buy a small present and give it to Easter.

    The young men from the Song Club were practicing some little distance

    away under ivy-covered arches, and the sweet melody lulled Jass, and

    caused him to think of the power his seed contained, the ability to

    create life, and the prospect of a child by Easter became dearer to him,

    perhaps because of the loss.

    To compensate for this, he threw himself into student activities, but

    again, because of his position, the others would often defer to him when

    decisions had to be made.

    He fenced, and rowed on the lake, and joined the Debating Club, where the

    increasing division between the North and the South was a frequent topic.

    More than half his fellow students were from the South-the college had

    a reputation for providing a classical education to young Southern

    gentlemenbut there were sufficient Northerners, and some of those avowed

    abolitionists, to provoke lusty arguments. Jass listened attentively to

    the calls for emancipation, and agreed with many of them, but in his

    heart he could not reconcile the appalling conditions in which so many

    blacks lived in the North with the comparatively comfortable conditions

    that his slaves enjoyed. Someone told him this was an excuse, a way to

    justify their subjugation, and Jass wondered if this was true, and al-

    lowed that it might be. George Pritchard, in particular, both in formal

    debate and casual conversation, urged Jass to free his slaves, to strike

    a blow for liberty, to establish the first plantation in the South that

    paid its labor, but while it was an ideal that Jass had long ago

    espoused, he would only smile at George, and tell him the time was not

    yet right.

    "The time is now," George insisted. "For I tell you, old man, you cannot

    survive with slavery."

    Jass never responded to this, but inside he heard a small voice telling

    him that they could not survive without slavery.

    He wondered why his mind had changed, and knew that he was, to an extent

    at least, scared of his own position. To try such a bold experiment would

    bring the wrath of the South on his head, might destroy the plantation

    that was under his stewardship, might bring about his family's financial

    and social destruction, and Jass was not brave enough for that.

    MERGING 357

    And tucked away in a tiny comer of his heart was something else. Jass did

    not really believe that The Forks of Cypress was "his." His father had

    thought that-the successful maintenance and expansion of the estate had

    been lifeblood to James-but Jass felt himself more of a caretaker,

    looking after something that already existed for the benefit of someone

    yet to come.

His son.

    As the months passed, the idea of having a son, a child, an heir, became

    increasingly important to Jass, who, often, wanted to be rid of the

    burden that had come to him. Sometimes he yearned to be with Wesley, out

    there, in the nowhere, with Easter beside him, living in a simple log

    cabin along a crystal stream, farming a few manageable acres, and letting

    the rest of the world do what it would. The rest of the world was too

    complicated.

This new world was fascinating to Cap'n Jack. He did not enjoy most of the

aspects of college life. His privileged position at The Forks was taken

from him; here he was just a slave, treated by everyone but Jass as

inconsequentially as the other slaves and servants. The bunkhouse in which

he slept was cramped and uncomfortable, the food provided was barely

adequate, and his companion blacks were either servile, in the case of the

slaves, or trouble stirrers in the case of the servants. The nights were

spent in endless argument, the servants urging the slaves to rebel, to

escape, or fight their bondage, and the slaves begging the servants to

leave them be or complaining or making plans to run away, which none of

them would ever do.

    But, oh, the days! The days of Cap'n Jack were magnificent. Since it was

    believed that none of the slaves could read or write, they were allowed

    to squat on the floor at the back of the classrooms in case their masters

    should have need of them. Thus Cap'n Jack, who could read and write, was

    introduced to worlds he had never known existed.

    Helen launched a thousand ships, and made men immortal with a kiss.

    Achilles killed and died for love of Patroclus. Romulus founded Rome and

    Cleopatra destroyed Antony for love. Charlemagne conquered Europe and

    Harold invaded

358 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

Britain. Columbus discovered America and Byron found Greece. France

deposed a monarch and instituted a terror, while England created an empire

and lost America. A multitude of inquiring minds and provocative artists

were paraded before him: Homer, Socrates, Plato, Horace, and Cicero; da

Vinci, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Titian; Erasmus, Copernicus,

and Galileo.

    No one told him of the slaves who populated Greece and Rome and added to

    their glory. No one told him of the great, lost kingdoms of Africa,

    except that of Sheba and its queen who beguiled a biblical king.

    It was George Pritchard who led the way. "But if Sheba came from Africa,"

    he said to the professor, "was she black?"

    The room fell silent. None of the students had ever considered this. The

    professor had.

    "We do not know that the realm of Sheba was actually on the African

    continent," he said. "More probably, the southern Arabian peninsula-"

    George smiled. "Then she was--he trod carefully"swarthy at least?"

Cap'n Jack listened intently.

    "Swarthy, yes, undoubtedly swarthy, I think that's an admirable word,"

    the professor agreed.

"Brown, that is?" George pushed his point.

    "Well, brown, perhaps light brown, like many Semitic peoples. I can't see

    that it matters." The professor was not happy with the direction.

    "No, I don't suppose it matters at all." George was all innocence. "It

    had simply never occurred to me that Solomon loved a mulatta."

    Jass turned slightly pink, and grinned, and there were some sharp hisses

    of disapproval from other students.

    "That's a very abrupt way of putting it," the professor said, "but I

    think there is a lesson here. The beauty of the Bible is that it exposes

    us to the complete range of human experience. It tells us how to worship,

    how to live, how to behave, even, in Leviticus, what to eat. It also

    tells us, very clearly, what we should not do."

He'd dealt with precocious students before.

    MERGING 359

    "Solomon may very well, as you so.coarsely put it, Mr. Pritchard, have

    loved a mulatta. It is a not uncommon syndrome even today, in certain

    iniquitous places. The city of New Orleans, I believe, is awash with it.

    But Solomon broke his covenant with God, and fell from grace."

    He looked sternly at his class. "So I urge you young gentlemen to think

    very carefully before giving way to the lusts of the flesh. Only in

    Christian marriage with Christian white women will you attain your true

    potential."

Suddenly he shouted at them.

    "All else is base fornication!" he thundered. It had exactly the effect

    he knew it would. Some cheered, some tittered, and some blushed.

    Except Jass, who was, for an instant, transported back years in time, to

    another place, where a wild Tennessee Preacher had accused him of the

    same thing.

    And except Cap'n Jack, who had experienced what he thought was a

    revelation.

    He stayed on the shore that evening while Jass rowed on the take. He

    stared at the setting sun, and thought of the mulatta Queen of Sheba, who

    came from Africa, or someplace very close to it, as his people had come

    from Africa, and he allowed himself to dream, for a moment, that his

    ancestors might have served as attendants to the queen who had stolen a

    great king's heart and worshiped in the temple of Solomon. For the first

    time in his life, he had a sense of personal history.

    His mind raced on, entranced by what he had learned, and fascinated by

    how much more there could be to learn. He had heard the debates about

    slavery and believed in his heart that it must end one day. What

    concerned him was what happened then. He shared Jass's fear that his

    people of the South might be reduced from slavery to live in

    circumstances similar to so many in the North, and he knew now that the

    only possible way to avoid this lay in education. He had to be ready, his

    people had to be ready, for the glory days of freedom that must surely

    come.

    Unknown to anyone else, Cap'n Jack became the most avid student at the

    college. He squatted at the back of every class, his books on his knee,

    partly covered by a little rug, listening intently to every word that was

    said. He soaked up knowledge.

360 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

There was much he didn't understand, Greek was beyond him, but he picked

up a few words of Latin and French. This actual book learning was of

little importance to him; what mattered was the discussion that the books

provoked, and he understood that simple reading, in itself, was not

enough. It was where the knowledge took your mind that was paramount.

Because he had no formal basis of learning, it was not, in any sense, a

rounded education, but he became a jackdaw of knowledge, piecing together

scraps of information until they formed, in his mind at least, a

representative whole.

During the breaks, Jass and Cap'n Jack would travel together, to New York

once, which frightened both of them a little with its pure, hectic energy,

and to Connecticut, where the dazzling colors of fall made both of them

gasp in wonder. They went to Delaware and stayed with George's family,

where Cap'n Jack was allowed to sleep in the main house, albeit in a

little attic room with one of the family's white staff, and was treated

as an equal servant. It disturbed Jass, for the Pritchards were a caring

family, committed abolitionists, who employed blacks and whites on an

equal basis. They did not force their beliefs on Jass, except by example,

and the excellent example they set made him feel guilty, for this was the

world that Cap'n Jack had envisioned, in the days of Jass's youth, and

then Jass had believed it was eventually possible. Since the death of his

father, he had come to believe that this utopian ideal was not possible,

not in the South at least, perhaps because he thought it might be

destructive to what he was supposed to maintain.

    To Cap'n Jack it was another revelation. This was the way things should

    be and could be, the way he had envisioned them without any evidence that

    they actually existed somewhere, except in that vague, dreaming Up South

    of freedom that the slaves imagined the North to be. Freedom itself was

    not enough, he knew that already: Without some basis for advancement,

    which was contained in that simple word educashun, freedom was only a