Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings (47 page)

T
homas Jefferson cannot speak. He is in a gigantic room within the half-built Capitol Building, where barn swallows dart to and from their muddy nests on cornices and gables, copper sunbeams angle through the interstices of labyrinthine wooden scaffolds and pigeons turn in circles on dusty floorboards making their fretful
whurr
s
.
Thomas Jefferson is the newly elected president. His mouth is moving, but he cannot speak. His eyes pass from word to word—“‘the task is above my talents'”—and those same words vibrate in his throat and between his palate and tongue, but they become nothing in the open air. He knows this from the sympathetic entreaty in James Madison's eyes, Alexander Hamilton's happy sneer and John Marshall's buckled brow and open mouth. He knows this from the coughs that echo in a room where his words do not, and from the rainlike rustle of scores of shifting feet, and from the creaking of at least as many chairs. “‘A rising nation spread over a wide and fruitful land . . .'” The words echo within Thomas Jefferson's whirling skull, but they cannot pass his lips. His sweating fingers slick the wooden podium and warp the paper when he turns a page. He tries to raise his voice, but his throat only constricts. His voice is a duck's voice, and he can hardly breathe. He knows that the most important words are coming soon:
We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
He knows that for the first time in history, the rule of a nation has passed from enemy to enemy without bloodshed and that this is a cause both for celebration and for grave concern, because there is no guarantee that the peace will prevail. And he knows that his primary challenge will be to act according to his own principles without offending too many of those who find his principles abhorrent. The most important words are coming closer and closer. They loom and they loom. Now, here they are: “‘We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.'” But the words do not pass his lips. He knows because the rainlike rumble has grown thunderous, and the coughs are hard to distinguish from guffaws. “‘Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?'” With every word the
veracity of his opening remarks—which he had thought merely ceremonial humility—only becomes more clear: Yes, it is true; his talents really are entirely inadequate to the task with which he has been charged. “‘Equal and exact justice to all men,'” he reads, and “‘freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus . . .'” These are all mere murmurs in a room resounding with disappointment and happy mockery. He is not even halfway through his address, and he doesn't know how he will ever make it to the end.

O
nly days into his presidency, Thomas Jefferson decreed that henceforth he would deliver all official addresses, including the State of the Union, only in writing, a practice that was honored by all succeeding presidents, up until Woodrow Wilson, who reestablished the tradition of orally presenting the State of the Union address in 1913. Over the remainder of his life, Thomas Jefferson would deliver only one more formal address, at his second inauguration, but this address, like its predecessor, was barely audible.

T
he festive strains of a handful of violins commence as a glowering, white-wigged, bulldog-mouthed man—Chief Justice John Marshall, it would seem—administers the oath of office to the young actor, whose copper-colored wig now has patches of gray at the temples. But almost instantly, the young actor's stoic, handsome face fades into a field of yellow, which turns out to be the wall of a brilliantly lit room drifting from right to left like the hull of a ship leaving a dock. A cluster of musicians looms into view, all of them wearing trim blue frock coats and white wigs, and tilting prissy, V-shaped smiles at one another over the strings of their instruments, and then just as suddenly the musicians shrink and fall away, until it becomes clear that they occupy only one corner of an enormous room aglitter with silver, crystal, hundreds of candle flames and the jewelry of women, whose wedding-cake gowns billow and sway around their invisible legs, as they themselves are swirled around the room by yet other trim, bewigged men in blue-and-gray frock coats.

Now it is the actor in the copper-colored wig who looms into view, and he is clearly the tallest and most handsome man in the room and the only one not wearing a white wig. For a moment his face is so large and the room behind him is hurtling so dizzyingly from left to right that Thomas Jefferson feels as if he is an infant being carried in the man's arms. But then the man's head swings around, and he is revealed to be dancing with a very young woman, who is also very beautiful in a faintly comical way involving a towering hairstyle and a large black beauty dot stuck to her skin a little below and to the right of her perfect mouth. The beautiful woman's eyes gleam as she whirls in the light of ever-multiplying candelabras, and her lips are pressed together in a smile unlike any that Thomas Jefferson has ever witnessed, but one that would seem to indicate her smug certainty that she will bed the widower president once the music has ended, the guests have departed and the last of the candles has been snuffed by a less-than-approving servant.

Just as Thomas Jefferson is becoming alarmed at what might happen next, the woman's towering coiffure looms so large that it makes the whole theater go black, while the notes of a single violin rise above the rest. When,
at last, the head whirls away, it turns out to be not that of the woman but of the actor in the copper-colored wig, who is coatless, in an open-necked white shirt, playing a violin—although the balletic movements of his bow are entirely unrelated to the notes resounding in the darkness.

As he shrinks and the room around him grows larger, it becomes clear that he is not dancing with his violin but is seated on a stool at an ordinary wooden table in a mud-chinked log cabin, lit by a solitary candle. Swatches of calico are nailed over the window, and a battered, long-handled frying pan hangs from a rafter.

Finally the room has loomed so large that Thomas Jefferson is able to see that the beautiful young woman with the honey-brown skin is also sitting at the table, smiling guardedly as she watches the actor in the copper-colored wig play the melody he has only just been dancing to. She has no beauty spot. Her loose hair makes a gold-tinged cloud around her face, which is a celebration of convexities and dimples. If the beauty of the woman dancing at the inaugural ball might be characterized by the odor of a very fine French perfume, this young woman's beauty is like the smell of a forest when rain has just begun to fall.

“There you have it, Sal,” the actor in the copper-colored wig says as he lowers violin and bow to his lap. “You didn't miss a thing.”

The golden young woman's smile momentarily broadens but then all at once shuts off. “You play beautifully,” she says as she gets up from the table and turns her back.

She hurries to a window, and now the dark theater is loud with the noises of crickets, peepers and a bullfrog. When the actor in the copper-colored wig comes up to her, his handsome brow furrowed intelligently, she pushes him away. “No,” she says, and hurries to a corner, where she lowers her face into her hands.

All at once the actor in the copper-colored wig is standing behind her. He hesitates for a long moment before lifting his hands lightly to her shoulders. “Oh, Sal,” he says sorrowfully, and for another long moment she seems determined to reject him. But then, in an instant, she has turned, and, revealing just the faintest flash of a smile, she presses her forehead against his chest.

He wraps his arms around her, shifting her head so that now her cheek is against his chest, and she pulls him suddenly closer, until, in silhouette, they form, together, that classic tableau of masculine protectiveness and grateful female vulnerability.

I
t turns out that Thomas Jefferson is neither dirigible nor cloud nor breeze, but a bronze monument hundreds of feet high, and all of us are trapped inside him, though some of us claim to have come here voluntarily. “He is a great man,” these people argue. “We should be honored to live inside him.” But how can any of us know what sort of man he might be? To us he is only darkness and other people. The air in here is dense with the breath of those who do not eat well and with the corporeal emanations of those who do not wash. We do a lot of blind stumbling, sometimes over the bodies of people who are exhausted, or who have fallen to the floor in a drunken stupor, or who, perhaps, will never again get to their feet. There are a lot of curses, mumbled prayers, grumbles, wails and shocked, infuriated and orgasmic shouting. We are a shabby species, capable of gallows humor, perhaps, but little in the way of greatness. We are venal. We are ignorant. Most of all we are terrified. And we are almost always self-deceived. Why should anyone imagine that Thomas Jefferson might be any different? “Because we fabricated him ourselves,” say those who wish to be hopeful. “Because we built him out of our desires and dreams and our disgust with who we are.”

M
y brothers, sister Harriet and myself, were used alike. We were permitted to stay about the “great house,” and only required to do such light work as going on errands. Harriet learned to spin and to weave in a little factory on the home plantation. We were free from the dread of having to be slaves all our lives long, and were measurably happy. We were always permitted to be with our mother, who was well used. It was her duty, all her life which I can remember, up to the time of father's death, to take care of his chamber and wardrobe, look after us children and do such light work as sewing, and Provision was made in the will of our father that we should be free when we arrived at the age of 21 years. We had all passed that period when he died but Eston, and he was given the remainder of his time shortly after. He and I rented a house and took mother to live with us, till her death, which event occurred in 1835.

—Madison Hemings

“Life Among the Lowly, No. 1”

Pike County
(Ohio)
Republican

March 13, 1873

I
t is August 16, 1801. Sally Hemings is twenty-eight, and the air this day is so heavy and hot that the sun seems tarnished and the heaps of cumulus, even at noon, are rust-tinged and indefinite through a haze of steam. It is hard to breathe. Evelina, the servant Thomas Jefferson has provided her, has taken three-and-a-half-year-old Beverly down the hill to spend the afternoon with his grandmother, as he has almost every day for the last year. Holding her three-month-old daughter against her shoulder, Sally Hemings crouches on her front porch and, with one hand, lifts the wooden cover off a bucket of greasy water and drops in the baby's soiled clout.

A scrape of a shoe over gritty dust.

Then a voice: “At least this time it's a white one!”

As she reels around, the bucket cover thumps to the porch floor and rolls into the yellow grass. “Jimmy! Oh, my word! Jimmy!”

“Hey there, Cider Jug!”

Jimmy stands in the middle of the road, grinning as if he's just pulled off a very successful practical joke.

“Oh, my word!” Sally Hemings repeats as he steps up onto the porch. “Oh, Jimmy!” She flings her free arm around him. “Oh, Jimmy! Oh, Jimmy!” She hugs him as hard as she can with her one arm, but he remains inert in her grasp and has the acrid funk of someone who has gone weeks without changing clothes or washing.

She lets him go.

“When did you get here?” she says.

“Just this minute. You're the first person I've seen. Been walking from Charlottesville since before sunrise.”

Despite the heat he is wearing a frock coat and a linen shirt, buttoned to the neck. His shirt is sweat-darkened and his velvet collar marked by multiple lines of salt sediment. He seems to have shrunk since the last time she saw him—coming on two years ago now (just before Thenia was born, she suddenly remembers). He's gone gaunt, his cheeks look sucked tight against his teeth and there is a deep vertical line on the right side of his mouth. He's only thirty-six, but he looks fifty, or older.

“Come inside,” she says. “You must want something to eat.”

“No, no, no!” he says. “Nothing for me!”

“Don't be ridiculous, Jimmy! You look like a scarecrow.”

“I'm not hungry. I never eat in the morning.”

“But it's nearly time for dinner.”

An irritated perplexity comes onto Jimmy's face, and he is silent a moment before nodding at the infant on Sally Hemings's shoulder. “At least this one's white.”

Now it is Sally Hemings whose expression is perplexed and worried. She lowers her daughter and holds her with both hands so that Jimmy can see her. “Here you go, Little Bug,” she says. “Time to meet your Uncle Jimmy!”

The little girl, having been disturbed from sleep, goes red in the face, and grimaces as if she is about to cry. But then, with a gurgly peep, she settles back into slumber.

Sally Hemings laughs happily.

“Beautiful,” says Jimmy, though not with any feeling. “A boy or a girl?”

“A girl. Her name is Harriet.”

“Harriet!” Jimmy's eyes widen, and the corners of his mouth turn down. “Don't you think that's bad luck?”

“No!” Sally Hemings cries. “I love that name. And I like to feel that the spirit of her sister lives on in her. Mr. Jefferson feels the same way.”

Jimmy shrugs. “Well, at least she's white.”

Sally Hemings pulls the baby back up to her shoulder. “Stop saying that, Jimmy! Why are you saying that?”

“It's better to be white.” Jimmy shrugs again. “That's all I'm saying. Better for the baby and better for you. I heard about the other one.” He smiles at his sister as if they are complicit in some evil.

Sally Hemings is so angry her knees are trembling.
The other one!
He never even saw Thenia. How dare he talk about her that way! He'd promised to write, but he never wrote a single letter—not even to say he was sorry she had lost her baby. All this time she'd been thinking he didn't know. But he
did
know—somehow—and he'd never even bothered to write.

“What are you doing here, Jimmy?” she says at last.

“I'm back!” He smiles and holds out both hands, as if he has just materialized before her eyes. “Mr. Jefferson just can't live without me. He's been trying to get me to come back ever since I left. But I just kept telling him, ‘No. Too busy!' I was running my own very successful business
venture in Baltimore. A restaurant,
à la française
. In the very best part of town. All of my customers were white—and rich. And they just loved me, even though I spat in every plate as it went out of my kitchen. I really did that. None of them ever knew, of course. I'd stir it up. I did that just so I could always remember that I was better than the whole bunch of them. I really did. They loved me, and I didn't give a damn about them. That's the truth. God's own truth. But then I started to get sick of the whole thing. Didn't know why I was doing it. And that's when Mr. Jefferson got in touch with me again. Wrote me this letter saying, ‘Please come cook for me in Washington. Peter can't cook worth a damn. Please come cook for me again, and I'll give you ten dollars a month.' I said, ‘You give me
twenty
dollars a month and that's a deal.' And he said yes, so here I am!”

Sally Hemings's anger has turned to something much more like fear. She doesn't believe a single word Jimmy has said—especially about being rehired. Thomas Jefferson is due back any day now, and then Jimmy's lie will be exposed and he will be utterly humiliated. And what will that do to him? Is he still drinking so hard? He looks like a man who drinks and does nothing else. But maybe it's good that he is back with his family. Maybe that's the real reason he came home.

“Are you sure you wouldn't like some food?” she says. “I've got some fresh corn bread inside. Or some water? Would you like some water? You must be thirsty.”

“No, no,” he says, holding up both flat palms as if to keep her at bay. “I'm fine. Maybe I'll have something to eat when I go see Mammy.”

And with that he backs off the porch and sets off down the road, without saying another word.