Sarny (10 page)

Bartlett he jammed through the people and started in to buying. Bought rice and beans and a shoulder of pork and all sorts of different vegetables. Each time he’d ask how much it cost and no matter what the seller told him he’d shake his head and offer less. Then they’d go back and forth until they worked out a price and then he’d point to me and tell the seller, “This is Sarny. She’ll be doing the buying from now on.”

They’d nod and he would move on without picking up what he’d bought.

“Are we going to take it all on the way back?” I asked.

“Oh no. They’ll deliver it right to the house. They all know who Miss Laura is. She pays once a month and never misses. They all love her. All right, now you try.”

We were at a booth where they sold fish.
Didn’t know anything about fish but I remembered the shrimp from the night before and pointed to a box of them. “I’ll be wanting those.”

“Oh you will, will you?”

Found myself looking on a man ’bout as big as Nightjohn had been. Carried himself straight up and down. Deep black with a wide smile and eyes that seemed on the edge of laughing. Found myself looking on my next husband. But I didn’t know it then.

Then I just thought he was some city sharper figured he was going take a country girl first time she tried buying something. Wasn’t about to let that happen.

“How much do you want?” he asked.

“ ’Bout like this.” I made a double heaping handful of them. “How much for this much?”

“Be ’bout thirty cents,” he said.

Didn’t even know much about money then but I shook my head. “That’s twice too much and you know it.”

“Twice? It ain’t even enough.”

“Bring it down or I’ll move on to another booth. Must be somebody else selling shrimp around here.…”

“But if you go I won’t see that fancy smile again.”

“Shining me won’t help. Bring the shrimp
down.” But I could feel myself smiling and cheeks warming up just the same.

“I will if you’ll tell me your name.”

“Sarny. Now bring them down.”

“I’m Stanley,” he said. “And I want you to come back to my booth again when we can just talk some. Will you do that?”

“Not likely. You’ve probably got a bunch of girls come and talk to you.”

“Not like you, Sarny. Not like you.”

“I can’t stand here and jaw all day long. You send those shrimp to Miss Laura’s. Also send a couple of those fish over there.”

“Catfish?”

I nodded. “And don’t be trying to charge an arm and a leg for it. How much is it?”

“That would be twenty cents a fish.”

“Too much.”

“All right—fifteen cents.”

Never ate on a catfish but had heard about them from other slaves and knew you fried them in a pan with bacon grease or lard. We moved on then before Stanley he could get to talking again.

“That was good,” Bartlett said. “They always ask about twice as much as they figure to get, so you did good.”

Tyler Two he started in to fussing and Bartlett he stopped at a booth where they had a jar
of some kind of sticks with stripes on them. He got three of them and gave one to me.

Sweeter than honey. “What is it?”

“Hard candy. You like it?”

I nodded and kept it in my mouth and from that day on I had me a piece of hard candy every day. “Maybe we’d better get some sent back to Miss Laura’s,” I said. “You know, so Lucy she could taste it too.”

He smiled and nodded and told the man in the booth to send back a parcel of them and we went on to finish marketing. So much new happening that my mind was taken up with it but I still couldn’t forget Tyler and little Delie. The market was filled with children and every time I saw one about the right size I would start for him or her but of course it was never them.

Half a day we spent at that market. We must have bought enough food for a whole town.

“Who’s going to eat it all?” I asked Bartlett as we started back for the house, still looking on every small body I saw, still hoping.

“Oh, don’t worry on that. It won’t last more than a week. Miss Laura she has guests ’most every night and they always want a dinner. Food don’t last long.”

Must eat like hounds, I thought. Must be some powerful hungry guests.

That man Chivington he brought my children right to me ’cept he didn’t know he was doing it.

Miss Laura she had Bartlett deliver the invitations to all the people and the day of the party she took Lucy and me aside and sat us down and told us we had new duties for the party.

“Sarny, you will prepare all the hors d’oeu—”

“Prepare what?”

“Just ask Bartlett. Anyway, you will prepare them and put them on trays, and Lucy, you will serve them. Just go around and offer them to people. Bartlett will handle the drinks. When you’ve finished with preparing the food, Sarny, I want you to greet people at the door and take their coats. You can put them in on your bed but put them down neatly. After that you can help Lucy with the
food and Bartlett with the drinks. Any questions?”

“How many people are coming?” Lucy she tugged at her dress to get it down. Everything she wore seemed to want to show her legs.

“I invited sixty but I doubt they’ll all come. Then there’s a four-piece orchestra for music, and some of the men may bring guests. I couldn’t say for sure—perhaps forty.”

Had to learn on numbers. They didn’t mean anything but it didn’t matter. We had our duties and I went running to Bartlett to learn how to make the fancy food.

Little things. Bit of cheese here, smoked fish there. Little corners of cut bread and some black fish eggs that tasted of salt so bad I couldn’t eat them.

“They’re called caviar,” Bartlett said. “They come from Russia.”

“What’s a Russia?”

“It ain’t a what, it’s a place. A country far from here.”

Had learned some on that. Knew that there were other places, that the world was round, all that from reading stolen papers. But I didn’t know all the names or even very many and while I was thinking on it I went to Miss Laura. She was talking to Lucy about how to hold the tray.

“Excuse me, Miss Laura, but is there some other way to learn things so I don’t always have to be coming to you and asking?”

“Why, of course, Sarny. You can read books. I have some in the study but not very many. But I will start getting them for you if you wish.”

And that’s how I started into learning. Figure reading is all right but you have to have something to read about and I didn’t know so much I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. Just had to pick a place and start in to learning.

No time then. I worked on the food all day with Bartlett showing me now and then to get me started and by eight o’clock that evening when the guests were supposed to start coming I had me about twenty trays’ worth and had gone a far way into the food that we had bought.

Had just a minute or two and I went into the bathroom and made sure I was clean—had a bit of flour on my cheek—and just left the room when the gong went off for the front door.

Was a tall man, thin, alone, ’bout the sickest-looking man I ever saw still alive, wearing dark clothes and had his hair all greased back.

“Am I too early?”

“No sir. Miss Laura she’ll be just so glad to see you.” ’Bout made myself sick I shined him on so much. But Miss Laura she said to make them all feel welcome and happy. I took his coat into our room and turned just in time for the gong to go again.

Then again and again and pretty soon they were coming so fast I couldn’t keep up. Turns out Miss Laura she had invited all men and they had all come and many of them brought women with them. Not their wives, other women. Bell just kept dinging and I was running back and forth like grease on a griddle ’bout to go crazy and once I opened the door to a big man, heavy but not fat, and I looked up to take his hat and coat and Tyler and little Delie walked right past me into the room full of people.

Didn’t see them at first because I was looking up and never, in all my days, did I expect it. Took the hat and coat and turned and they were standing there dressed in funny little suits that made them look silly. Tyler had a turban on.

“Tyler?” It was like a beef getting hit with a hammer. Just stood there. “Is that you?”

“Mammy? Are you my mammy?”

“Well, boy, what did you think?”

“
Mammy!
” Little Delie she knew right away. She threw herself at me, jumped up in my
arms and then I was down on my knees kissing and hugging both of them. Knocked that silly thing off Tyler’s head and hugged them so hard their eyes bulged.

“Now see here.” Man reached down. “What do you think you’re doing with those children?”

Man was lucky I didn’t have a gun or knife. Just hung on to them and the man was lucky because I couldn’t see nothing but my two children right then. I hadn’t lied to Miss Laura. I could easy kill him where he stood.

Couldn’t stop hugging them. Picked them both up and walked away with them and the man he put his hand on me, was going to stop me, but Miss Laura she saw what was happening and came over.

“Are these your children?” she whispered in my ear soft, and I nodded.

“I’ll handle this.”

“He touches them again I’ll gut him like a hog.” I was crying but felt cold inside.

“I said I’ll handle it.” She turned away and back to Chivington, all smiles and gushy. “William,
darling
, the most amusing thing has just happened. You simply
won’t
believe it. I hired these two girls back in Georgia, and it seems that one of them had lost her children …”

And off she went, took Chivington with her,
and I took Tyler and little Delie into my room. Couldn’t put them down. Couldn’t stop holding them, hugging them.

“Mammy, why are you here?” Tyler asked.

“Come looking for the two of you and this nice lady helped me. I knew you’d come to New Orleans with that man—did he hurt you?”

Tyler shook his head. “No. He just got us from that man who took us from you. I guess he paid for us. He brought us here and has been feeding us good and taking care of us all right ’cept he isn’t you. I got to missing you something bad.”

“Me too.” Little Delie she held my arm like a harness clamp. “Missed you more every day.”

“You’re with me now. We’ll never be apart again.”

“Who is that?” Tyler he saw Tyler Two sleeping on Lucy’s couch.

“That’s a little boy we found back in the war. His folks were killed and he can’t talk.”

“What’s his name?”

“I called him Tyler Two—number two. You’re Tyler One.”

“But he’s white—how’d you come on a white boy?”

“We just found him. Don’t worry on him.
Miss Laura she’s looking for a good home for him. Are you sure you’re all right?”

He nodded and I hugged them again and the door popped open. Miss Laura she was there, smiling, and she closed the door in back of her.

“It’s all right. I’ve got the silly fool thinking he’s done a good thing, saving your children for you. God, men are so … so simple.” She looked on the children. “They both look like you. Hello, young man, how are you? And your little girl?”

“I’m fine, miss. How are you?” Tyler One said. Delie just smiled.

“Well, I’m fine too. But I have to get back to my party. You stay here, Sarny, we’ll work around you.”

“No. Let me put them down to sleep and then I’ll come help.”

They didn’t want me to leave them and it ’bout made me cry all over looking on them but I shushed and shooed them and kissed them and told them I’d be right outside the door if they needed me. Put them to bed on the floor under a blanket with my smell on it. When they were asleep I kissed them one more time and went back out into the party.

Never saw so many people in one room. Four men had come with musical instruments
and they were playing at the end by the piano but you couldn’t hear much of it. Everybody had broken up into little groups and they were all drinking and talking and one would talk louder and that would make the next talk louder.

Just noise.

I worked my way through to the kitchen and helped Lucy who was about going crazy with it.

“My children are here,” I said. “I’ve got them back.”

She threw her arms around me. “Miss Laura she told me! I can’t believe it—just walking in the door like that.” She had tears in her eyes. “Lord, I’m happy for you, Sarny,” Lucy said. “But now—get to handing things out. There’s too many of them for me to keep up.”

I grabbed a tray and we kept going back and forth and when the food ran out I started helping Bartlett carry drinks and before long everybody was so silly they didn’t miss the food.

Went like that all night. Crazy. Just back and forth and Bartlett he would pour something in glasses and we would carry it out on trays and then come back for more. They drank whatever he poured. He’d run out of one and
pour something else and they’d drink it and not notice anything had changed.

I checked on my babies time and again and they were sleeping soft, holding the blanket against their little faces. Then I’d go back to the crowd.

Crazy. Never saw folks so crazy before ’cept Waller and he was mean crazy. Would get so mad he would spit at the mouth like a hound slobbering.

This was different. Happy crazy. Men dancing with women, women dancing with women, men dancing with men. All laughing and screaming at each other over the noise.

One man, fat and red in the face, stood up on the table. I thought it would break but it was as stout as the man and he held up his glass and belle red like a bull, “
To the end of the war
,” and I thought must not be any rebels in this room; must not have been many rebels in New Orleans at all, leastways not real ones. He drank everything in his glass and everybody in the room drank and somebody yelled, “
Trust Laura to have the best end-of-the-war party anywhere!
” And they all drank to that.

Then another man climbed on the table and looked right at me and held his glass out and yelled, “
To the end of slavery!
” They all turned to me and drank to that and one of
them, short man, looked like a frog and had a scar down his cheek Miss Laura she told me later was from a duel with a man who called him ugly to his face, he tried to pick me up and carry me around the room but I gave him a little tap on the head with an empty tray I was carrying and he put me down. Heavy old tray. I worried that he might go down but he didn’t seem to notice it and the party went on.