Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings (46 page)

After an unimaginable length of time, the prisoner has been reduced to a barely human mass—less a man than an insect without a carapace. To a casual observer, it would not be clear whether he is conscious, or even alive. The guard, too, is exhausted. Gaunt. Gray of hair and complexion. She is chewing gum. She speaks.

—You know how this is going to end, don't you?

— . . .

—I finish you off.

— . . .

—Terminate you. Cancel you out. Right? What other ending is there? It's inevitable.

— . . .

—Though I guess that means I'm not God, right? Because nothing is inevitable for God. I mean, God, absolute freedom, all-powerful—aren't those just three ways of saying the same thing?

— . . .

—So it's a paradox. And one of the many things that makes me think this is
my
nightmare and not yours.

— . . .

—Maybe I'm just dreaming you. Maybe you're nothing but my own sick delusion.

— . . .

—Never mind. I'm tired of fucking with your head.

— . . .

—Actually, I take that back. Because now I am
really
going to fuck with your head. Although some people might call it grace.

— . . .

—Grace! Do you hear me, fuckface? Grace!

— . . .

—Get the fuck up!

— . . .

—Get up! Do you want me to come in there and step on you, you
fucking cockroach? I can always do the inevitable. I mean, that is a choice I have. Is that what you want?

— . . .

—Look, just get the fuck up. I'm setting you free.

— . . .

—Do you hear me? I'm setting you free.

—Fuck you!

—What?

The guard laughs. The guard speaks.

—I suppose you think this is too good to be true. Well, it
is
too good to be true! But even so, I'm still setting you free.

— . . .

—Get the fuck up! You hear me? Get the fuck up! Now! You've got two choices: Either I come in there and put you out of your misery forever or you get the fuck up and go free.

—Leave me alone.

—That's an improvement. Look.

The guard pulls the keys out of her pocket. Unlocks the cell door. Opens it. She takes the gum out of her mouth and rolls it into a ball on her finger. She speaks.

—I'm sticking this into the latch hole.

She sticks the gum into the hole where the tongue of the lock goes. The hole is filled. She flattens the gum inside the hole with her index finger and covers it with a folded-up piece of the foil gum wrapper. She speaks.

—Okay. So you stole this gum from me. Right? Because that's the only thing that makes sense. Because why would I give it to you? So you stole it. And look.

She opens and closes the cell door twice. She speaks.

—It looks like it's locked. But it isn't. So you can get out anytime you want.

— . . .

—Only here's the deal: You do it on somebody else's watch. You get me? You wait till that fuckface Quinn comes on. Or Rex. I don't give a shit. Just wait until I'm long gone, and then you can do whatever you like.

The prisoner crawls to the front of his cell, then pulls himself up on the bars until he is balanced unsteadily on his knees. The guard speaks.

—You wondering why I'm doing this?

—Yes.

—I told you already: I'm fucking with your head. Although, actually, the truth is that I'm sick of you.

— . . .

—This hasn't exactly been a picnic for me. I mean, the way I see it, I'm just living out your sins. And after all this time, what's the point? You know? My life's a fucking nightmare.

— . . .

—So now I'm really free. Free to exercise my absolute freedom. If that's not too much of a tautology. Or is it actually a contradiction?

The prisoner lifts his hands over his head and takes hold of the bars. He groans. Trembles. He stands. He speaks.

—Thank you.

—What are you thanking me for? You don't know what's going to happen yet. You, of all people, should know not to be so trusting. Didn't I just tell you I'm fucking with your head? You'll see. It's a whole different world out there.

—I hardly remember it.

—What you remember doesn't exist anymore. It's gone. All of it. You've been here much longer than you think.

—How long?

—An eternity.

— . . .

—So I'm just going to give you one piece of advice. Once you get past Quinn, or Rex (whatever; I don't want to know the details), then you've got two choices: You go
this
way, you're still in isolation. You go
that
way, you're in the tunnels. Take the tunnels.

—Where do they go?

—Out. It's a long way. You'll probably think you're never going to get there. But just keep going. There'll be staircases. And people. A whole lot of people. Don't worry about it. They're harmless. Pretend you don't even notice them and they'll do the same to you. But just keep walking along beside them and, eventually, they'll lead you up to the street.

—Thank you.

—I'm not going to say you're welcome, because you're not.

—You're actually going to do this?

—I guess you'll find out. But you'll still be a fucking piece of shit. Don't you ever forget that. I'm not doing this because I think you've redeemed yourself, or you've been rehabilitated, or transcended your sins,
or any of that bullshit. Nothing makes the evil go away. The evil is eternal. Remember that.

— . . .

—It's a fucking evil world in my opinion. The truth is that most people never get caught. Their lies last. They never have to endure their dark night of the soul. You'll see. Maybe that's why I'm sending you out there. You'll be shocked. Everything is different. That's a world in which you don't make any sense. Believe me: You won't even recognize yourself.

I
t is October 5, 1800, ten months after Thenia's death, and Thomas Jefferson will stand for election to the presidency at the end of the month. He is fifty-eight, and Sally Hemings is twenty-eight.

She waits for him at the intersection of two paths, just past the lake. As he rides up, he reaches down with one hand and helps her climb into the saddle behind him. It is cold. She wraps her arms around his taut abdomen and squeezes him tight to keep warm. They talk about how they will have to build a fire at the lodge, and he says he's not sure if they will have enough kindling. As they ford the river, she pulls down his collar and kisses him on the back of his neck, where his smell is so rich and savory.

She is happy today. She doesn't know why. The sky is low with steam-colored clouds. Nothing special has happened, or not really. Her period is a month late, but her cycle has been irregular since Thenia, so it is too soon to draw conclusions. She hasn't said a word to anybody about what she is thinking.

She's just happy. She hasn't been happy in such a long time.

The horse shambles out of the rushing water and then along the wooded bank. After a few minutes, the lodge comes into view, on a small rise, shaded by two brilliantly yellow beeches and a crimson-and-burgundy pin oak. As soon as the horse begins to mount the rise, Sally Hemings knows that something is wrong, and in the next instant she knows why: The lodge door is open, and dangling off the porch onto the steps is a red-and-white cloth—her apron.

“Shit,” says Thomas Jefferson.

Sally Hemings says nothing.

They stop beneath one of the yellow beeches. As he ties the horse to the porch railing, she picks up the apron, which is crumpled and stiff—as if it has been used to wipe up something messy, though it is unstained.

Inside the lodge the sheets are straggling off the bed and trail across the floor. The blankets are gone, as is a lantern and a hunting knife that Thomas Jefferson left on top of the mantelpiece. Otherwise the room seems undisturbed.

At first Thomas Jefferson merely turns in a circle in the middle of the room, a perplexed expression on his face. Then he gets down on his hands and knees and looks under the bed, then under a dresser on top of which the lantern had been resting. He gets back to his feet and kicks the bedstead.

“Damn it all to hell!” He kicks the bedstead again. “Goddamn it!”

Sally Hemings winces, not so much because his shouts disturb her as because she would still like to make love and thinks that Thomas Jefferson probably won't want to now.

She sits down on the bare mattress. “It's not so bad,” she says.

“I know.” He sits down on the bed beside her.

“We can replace everything the next time we come.” She puts her hand on his knee.

“It's just that . . .” He shrugs. “This was our sanctuary.” He picks up her hand, gives it a squeeze, lets it go and stands up again and walks to the window. “I suppose I'll just have to get John to build us some strong shutters and put a lock on the door.”

“Do you think that's a good idea?”

“What do you mean?”

She leans back, putting one arm behind her head as a pillow. “If someone wants to get in here, they'll just get in. The only difference a lock will make is that they'll have to do more damage.”

Thomas Jefferson looks as if he is going to contradict her, but then he doesn't say anything.

She smiles.

“I'll have to think about it,” he says. “Maybe talk to John.”

Still smiling, still lying down, she extends one hand in his direction. “Come here,” she says.

He does.

A while later Thomas Jefferson is sitting on the porch reading a treatise on astronomy and Sally Hemings is crouched barefoot on a rock at the water's edge, the skirt of her gown knotted around her waist. Her newly cleaned apron is spread on a bush beside her, drying in the intervals of brilliant white sunlight that come and go as the clouds drift over. She is clutching one of the bedsheets in the shallow water and lathering it with a block of soap. Warm fluid oozes out of her onto the rock as she crouches. Her wet feet are cold, as are her hands in the water. And the gusty wind, constantly blowing a loose hank of her hair across her eyes, is also cold. But none of that matters. She is just feeling happy today. That's all. Just happy.

T
his is what Sally Hemings thinks: She is practical. She sees things as they really are. Thomas Jefferson is a dreamer who doesn't know he is dreaming. Because he is white and wealthy and has so often been lucky, his dream is a beautiful dream, in which he himself is beautiful and his work is to rebuild the world as the beautiful place he believes it has always actually been. He is almost done, he thinks. Every morning he rises convinced that with just a little more effort the world he is building will be perfect. Only the details need to be attended to. The beautiful world exists. In essence. History is on his side.

T
his is what Sally Hemings thinks: Thomas Jefferson is ruthless, corrupt and completely self-centered. He does nothing that he does not see as advancing his own interests, and he works to maintain a reputation for thoughtfulness and moral backbone only so that people will be less likely to recognize his naked grabs for power. He condemns the aristocracy as corrupt, trivial and effeminate, and yet he wants nothing so much as to possess aristocratic comforts and tastes. And so he is entirely willing to have a pianoforte sent all the way from London for Maria, who shares little of his own love for music, and he is willing to tear down a perfectly good house for no other reason than that he is unhappy with its proportions. And, of course, although he announces to the world that “all men are created equal” and have claim to certain “unalienable rights” and he proclaims repeatedly that slavery is an abomination and a curse upon the nation, he is nevertheless content, at night, by candlelight, to tot up the appreciation of his human property.

T
his is what Sally Hemings thinks: As a child Thomas Jefferson learned that living is synonymous with pain, and so, for all of his life, he has sought not to live. He has sought to exist in a child's drawing, where each thing is only one color and each color is only a variety of happiness. He has sought to divide the world into that which might be celebrated and that which must be forbidden, and he has worked tirelessly to believe that what he wants forbidden has never actually existed in the first place. For Thomas Jefferson belief is a form of blindness, or paralysis. He is like an infant rabbit, separated from its mother, so demented by fear that it can only tremble in the grass as a hawk circles high overhead or as a dog comes out the back door of the house and sniffs the breeze.

W
hile Thomas Jefferson reads from the pages that tremble in his hands, Sally Hemings notices a plump brown mouse sit up on its haunches and put its front paws to its cheeks. Then, in an instant, it has dropped to the floor and disappeared behind the night table. She says nothing.

Thomas Jefferson says, “‘. . . to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased—'”

“Louder!” says Sally Hemings. “I'm sitting right here in the room with you, and I can hardly hear a word.”

They are in the lodge. It is a late afternoon at the end of February. The western rims of the trunks and bare branches outside the window seem furred with gold. Sally Hemings is sitting in a plain wooden chair beside the crackling fireplace. Her legs are slightly spread to accommodate the modest bulge of her belly, and her hands are folded on top of it. She will have another baby in less than three months.

Thomas Jefferson reads, “‘. . . grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments—'”

“I still can't hear you.”

“I can't! This is impossible!” His hand falls, and the pages snap against his thigh. There is a wild sorrow in his eyes. His mouth is open and downturned at the corners, as if he can't breathe.

“Of course you can. You are the president of the United States! Reading a speech is nothing—”

“No. I can't.”

“Don't be ridiculous! You can talk for hours—”

“With
friends.
I have no problem with friends. But formal addresses—”

“And dinner parties. I've seen you myself lecture a whole table.”

“But that's different. In my own home, it's different.” He smiles nervously. “And, of course, the wine always makes it easier.”

“Then have a couple of glasses before—”

“I can't do that.” He drops onto the bed and flings his speech across the counterpane. The pages scatter. “I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“You're going to go to Washington, you will be sworn in as president and then you will give this beautiful address.”

As she speaks, Sally Hemings sees that the plump mouse has ventured out from behind the night table. It veers suddenly in the direction of Thomas Jefferson's left boot, and then, when it is not six inches from his heel, it darts back toward the wall and disappears from sight.

Sally Hemings says, “How can you possibly worry about it, given all you have accomplished? Remember how afraid Mr. Madison was that there would be open rebellion in the streets?”

“Yes, but—”

“Stop it! Your election is a tremendous accomplishment. Not just because you won but because the government you helped to found is succeeding. You have changed history.
You
, Thomas Jefferson—”

“Please! That's making it worse.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. I'm filled with uneasiness. It's as if my arms and legs are crammed with insects.” He heaves a sigh and shakes his head. “It's because I'm not that man. The Thomas Jefferson whom everyone in that room will be looking at is a fabrication. It's as if someone has been out in the world doing an impersonation of me, and now I have to live up to his reputation.” He laughs and looks sheepishly at Sally Hemings. “It's true,” he says.

Sally Hemings gets up from her chair and gathers together the scattered pages of his address. “Here.” She puts them onto his lap, and he grabs hold of them before they slip to the floor. “You're behaving like a child,” she says.

Thomas Jefferson looks up at her with a child's expression. He takes hold of her left hand by the tips of her index and middle fingers, lifts them to his lips and kisses them.

“It's easy,” she says. “The words are here on the page. All you have to do is read them one after the other. And read them in a voice loud enough for people to hear.” She pulls her hand away. “The problem is that I've been sitting too close. I'm going to go out on the porch, and you'll have to read loudly enough for me to hear you there.”

“It's freezing!”

“No it isn't.” She smiles and caresses her belly with both hands. “And besides, I have my little stewpot to keep me warm.”

Thomas Jefferson smiles and stands up.

Sally Hemings crosses the room, opens the door and steps out onto the porch, leaving the door open behind her.

In fact, it
is
freezing outside. A sharp breeze blowing across the porch immediately chills her shoulders and neck, even though she is wrapped in a shawl. She won't be able to stand the cold for terribly long.

“Start where you left off,” she says. “Read it loud enough that I can hear it out here.”

Grim worry comes onto Thomas Jefferson's brow and lips. He lifts the sheets of foolscap covered with his own handwriting, and after clearing his throat a couple of times
,
he begins to read, “‘. . . I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. . . .'”

Sally Hemings can hardly make out his words, but she is only half listening. She hears the clattery rush of the river at her back and the thrumming of wind high in the bare branches of the trees. Her baby is stirring inside her. A jay squawks a few feet over her head. A chickadee is balanced atop the porch railing on its toothpick legs, its head shifting in spurts: now left, now right, now up, now down. Then, with another spurt, it reverses its position on the railing. A chipmunk or a squirrel rustles in the winter-grayed leaves on the forest floor just behind her.

How vital and alert she feels—her body filled with life: her own and that of this yet-to-be-known person inside her. From the soles of her feet to her nose and her fingertips—she is made of life, and life is all around her: the birds, the trees, the animals, near and far; even the breeze and the endlessly noisy river—the whole world is alive, and the life of the world is indistinguishable from the life that has always been her own and from the life that is inside that life. She feels this with such purity and simplicity that it is as if her spirit is filtering out into the world and there is no difference between her and every moving, striving, perceiving thing.

“‘. . . During the contest of opinion through which we have passed,'” says Thomas Jefferson, but his voice has grown so soft now that she wouldn't know what he was saying had she not read his speech herself.