David (14 page)

“He says,” I said, reading from the Reverend King's own copy of the
Nicomachean Ethics
, “‘But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.'”

I looked up, closed the book. At the end of our hour together the Reverend King would allow himself a rare moment's ease, rest one long leg over the other and settle back into his desk chair while listening to me talk, occasionally clarifying or explaining something, but mostly just enjoying my enthusiasm for the new world of books and ideas he'd helped me discover. This time he stayed where he was, at straight-backed attention behind his desk, rubbing his chin with his right hand like he was trying to determine if he'd shaved that morning. The room, which ordinarily smelt like old books, smelt instead of axle grease. His chair must have just been oiled.

“It's Aristotle who provides the foundation for Aquinas' entire theology,” he finally said. “As you know. As we've already gone over. That's where his importance for us lies.”

I knew it was time for me to go—if the Reverend King had a meeting that ended at four o'clock, odds were he had somewhere else he had to be or someone else he had to meet
with at four-fifteen—but I wasn't done. “But he's—I mean, it seems to me—that Aristotle is saying that some people are naturally slaves and that others are naturally masters.”

“Yes, and he's obviously wrong.” The Reverend King stood up, my usual cue to do the same.

“But if Aristotle—”

“All you need to know of Aristotle, David, you already know. I think it's best now if we turn our attention to next week's material. Duns Scotus was a particular favourite of mine when I was studying at Edinburgh. I think when you read him, you'll understand why.”

The Reverend King walked to his study door, stood there with his hand on the handle waiting for me to gather my books together. Once I had, “But Aquinas . . .” I said.

“Yes? Aquinas what?”

“But Aquinas, he didn't believe that some men are born to be slaves.”

The Reverend King looked as if I'd just asked him if he himself believed the same thing. “Of course not. Saint Thomas Aquinas was a Christian.”

I smiled, shook the Reverend King's hand, told him, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome, David. And if you happen to see Mr. Brown on your way out, please tell him to come right in. The poor man's entire tobacco crop has been laid waste this year, I'm afraid, and he and his poor wife with another little one on the way, too. There simply must be something that can be done to help him.”

*

Lead arms and legs; a fog-lost mind; smoke-blown days: only when I'm ill do I understand what happy people must feel like. Happy people like my mother. Yes, my mother.

My mother, born a slave, but whose father was a talented carpenter who paid his master two hundred dollars a year for the right to work his trade and manage his own affairs. “Weren't no better carpenter in all southwest Louisiana than your grandfather,” she'd say. “And Master Williams, he know it, too, he knew he make more money letting him go about his line of work than if he stuck him off in some field all day.” Thank God for small favours from business-savvy slave owners. And give you this day your daily bread, and whatever crumbs lie left over, please allow me to keep them to feed and clothe and house my own family.

My mother, stooped and shackled her final years by rheumatism, for whom even the previously most ordinary movements—twisting the lid off a jar of preserves, handling a broom, holding a glass of water—were never not accompanied by a lightning bolt of bright white pain dependably trailed by a thundering of muted moans and winces and sighs, but who was grateful until the day she died to do what she barely could, just thankful that the Good Lord still saw fit to give her a task, no matter how small, to carry out as her own.

The last year of her life she used a stick—
attempted
to use a stick—the slightly increased mobility it afforded offset by the difficulty of bending and curling and keeping ten tortured fingers how and where they didn't want to be. Once, coming home and seeing her before she saw me, I stopped in the road and watched as she used her stick, not to help her move, but to flail at some yellow leaves that had fallen onto the stone path that ran to our front door. Slowly, with both hands and with obvious pain, she'd wind up—six inches, at most, from start to follow-through—and whack away one or two offending leaves with her makeshift broom, then quickly replant the stick's end into the earth to steady herself until, secure again, she'd take another swipe at a couple more defiling leaves. I watched until she'd hobbled her way down the
entire length of the walkway, until every leaf was gone. I watched her limp inside the house, sore but satisfied.

On the walk home from Sophia's last night, the tiredness I'd ignored behind the bar became an achiness in my joints and a shortness to my breath that I couldn't disregard once I'd slowed down long enough to let my body admit what it was feeling. Henry and I went immediately to bed, a good night's sleep as good a cure for what ails you as anything.

Most of the time. Today, all day, lead arms and legs, a fog-lost mind, the day smoke-blown and drifting, drifting toward time for me to get back behind the bar, influenza-ill or not. I've never missed a shift in eight years, never lost a single night's income. I woke up near dawn to let Henry piss and for me to do the same, then slept straight through to the afternoon.

When Henry got me up—cold nose to my hot face, time to go, David, time to go to work—I felt for my legs and, surprise, there they were. I stood up from the bed and waited to tip over, but didn't. Not entirely right, no—putting on my pants a dizzying dance; my mouth as dry as my nose was wet—but right enough, anyway, to get through the night and then home again and back to bed. And with enough strong tea and an only slightly earlier than usual closing time, I did.

This morning, still shaky, still sniffling, still sore in places I'd forgotten I had, I spent the day upright at least, resting in my chair until it was time to go to Sophia's. I watched the tree in the front yard through the window for almost the entire afternoon without once being bored. The dry toast I forced myself to eat stayed inside my stomach. Henry never left my side, never once complained I wasn't my fun old self anymore. This must be what happy people feel like, I thought. It's not the same as being alive, but it's not bad.

*

For all the time I spent with Mrs. King—which wasn't much, although, compared to everyone else, it was a lot—we didn't do much talking. Sometimes she embroidered, mostly she played the piano, eventually she mainly sat at her small bedroom window watching the world get by just fine without her. But even when she didn't speak, I knew she liked having me there. Or at least didn't mind, which, coming from her, was probably the same thing.

If Mrs. King did offer anything more than an intermittent “Sonata Number 7, D Minor, it's sometimes referred to as the Tempest Sonata,” it wasn't because of anything I asked. When Mrs. King did undertake to talk at paragraph length, it wasn't so much with me as at me, a gentle
ex nihilo
monologue one couldn't help but feel would have been delivered whether she was with company or not.

Recital temporarily over but fingers still on the keys, the piano's last melancholy notes still alive in the air, she'd look up like she'd suddenly remembered something that, unless she repeated it aloud, she'd forget again, perhaps forever.

“Once things become settled, I'm going to go away. I'm going to go away to Vienna for a long, long visit. I plan to attend a different musical event every evening, so it won't be surprising if I occasionally sleep late in the morning. But no one could possibly object to that. Once they review my schedule, how could they possibly object to that? Once things become settled, I plan to visit Vienna and attend a different musical event every evening. People forget: beauty is such very, very hard work.”

I didn't know what “Once things become settled” meant, but I did know that she never mentioned the Reverend King in her travel plans. In fact, the only time I can recall her ever mentioning him by name was once when, mid-sonata, she abruptly stopped playing. I listened along with her to the sound of nothing until, eventually, I heard what she must have
heard, the heavy steps of the Reverend King coming into the house and then going into his office, office door shutting behind him.

“What's wrong?” I said. “It's just the Reverend King.”

Mrs. King folded her hands in her lap; turned slowly on the piano bench toward the window. As if addressing it instead of me, “The Reverend King doesn't approve of Beethoven,” she said. “The Reverend King says that Beethoven isn't good for my health.”

I don't remember precisely when Mrs. King stopped talking or when I quit visiting her, but I can remember the first time she wouldn't play the piano.

I'd been working at my Latin all Saturday afternoon and was looking forward to both the walk to Clayton House in the fresh fall air and the clearing of my head of the delicate differences between
municpeps
and
municipalis
and
municium
. Hearing Mrs. King's music was like what happened inside the snow globe Mrs. Brown had given my mother one year for Christmas. Once you shook it, the snow would wildly whip about its watery insides for a few moments until eventually, tranquilly, falling past the tiny painted picture of a quiet country church. When Mrs. King played the piano, it was the same old clutter stuck inside your head, but everything would be lifted up and rearranged, and when she was done, your brain felt rested and refreshed, although you knew nothing had really changed.

I did what I always did, opened her door without knocking, but slowly, so I wouldn't startle her. I'd never had to ask her to play the piano because she always seemed to be playing, the muffled music of Clayton House morning, noon, and night. This time Mrs. King wasn't at the piano or in her chair with her knitting needles, or even in bed, which she sometimes would be even in the middle of the afternoon. Those times I'd stay standing just inside the doorway and ask
after her health, to which she'd always answer, “I'm fine, child, just a little tired is all,” and the next time I'd come by, there would be music again.

This time Mrs. King wasn't doing anything, only sitting in her chair looking out the window.

“Good evening, Mrs. King,” I said.

Mrs. King didn't answer, so I invited myself in, sure she simply hadn't heard me. Standing beside her chair now, “Good evening, Mrs. King,” I said.

“Please just leave it on the table,” she said.

I glanced around the room, not knowing what she wanted me to do. “Put what on the table, Mrs. King?”

“I'll eat it later,” she said. “I promise I'll eat it later.”

She thought I was my mother. I was standing right next to her, but she thought I was my mother. “Why don't you play the piano?” I said.

Mrs. King kept staring out the window, so I looked too. Whatever it was she was seeing, she was the only one seeing it. Either that or she was seeing the same thing I was—nothing.

“Please play the piano, Mrs. King.” It seemed very important that the room stop being so quiet.

“I'm not hungry right now,” she said. “I promise I'll eat it all later.”

“There isn't any food. I don't care about any food. Come to the piano and play, Mrs. King, just play for a little while.”

“Just leave it on the table. I promise I'll eat every bite later.”

The room was so quiet, I thought my eardrums would burst. “Please play, Mrs. King,” I said. “Please just play the piano.”

But Mrs. King just kept looking out the window. I closed her bedroom door, slowly, behind me.

I didn't have anyone else to talk to about it, so I talked to George. This is what best friends are for.

Actually, I had already spoken to someone—the Reverend King—about what was bothering me, but his answers sounded less like explanations and more like reasons to stop asking questions. It was like the time I was ten and played in the poison ivy. Nothing—particularly not scratching, the only thing that seemed to offer even temporary relief—could stop the itching except for the smelly medicine that George's father finally mixed up. Only this time there wasn't any medicine.

“Leviticus, chapter 25, verses 44 through 46,” I said. “‘You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.'”

I looked up from the bible opened across my knees. I was sitting atop the big hill. George was standing at pond's edge, casting and recasting his fishing line. I'd waited for him on the steps of the potash factory. I knew he'd listen to me if I agreed to let him go home first and get his fishing pole. Being an apprentice at the factory put more money in his pocket but a lot fewer fish on the end of his line.

“Well?” I said.

“Well, what?”

“Well, doesn't that bother you?”

“Why would what anyone did in Egypt two thousand five hundred years ago bother me?”

Instead of answering, I flipped until I found the passage I had bookmarked in Exodus with a piece of torn newspaper. “How about this? Does this bother you? ‘When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.'”