They all turned in Tip’s direction, but Lizzie knew they had each carefully shuttered their eyes to keep from seeing. From the look of Mawu’s limp body, it appeared the girl had passed out. Lizzie thought she herself would pass out, too. She could not pick up her feet, move her arms. She had only told on Mawu because she cared about the woman, admired her.
Tip undid his pants and mounted Mawu from behind, pulled her up onto her knees. With the first thrust into her, Lizzie knew Mawu was still conscious. Mawu yelled like an animal, a shriek so cold and shrill that Lizzie knew that he had done something unnatural. And he had done it in front of all of them.
One of the white women uttered a high-pitched “oh” and placed a handkerchief to her mouth. But neither of them stopped looking. A line of blood trailed down Mawu’s thigh.
When he was done, he said in a hoarse whisper that carried above the wind as he turned toward them: “If I hear word that any of you other niggers is thinking about escaping, I swear as God is my witness I will do that and worst to every last one of you. I will make you wish you was in the fields under the lash. I will make you wish you was dead. And I won’t leave a mark.”
Lizzie tried to stop the pain in her head. The resort had lulled her into feeling human again. Had she glanced around at the others, she would know it had done the same to them. They had forgotten to protect themselves.
“Don’t touch her. Don’t nobody touch her,” Tip said, stumbling back to his cottage.
The slaves started to move off, heading back to their unfinished tasks as if nothing had happened. Only Lizzie stood rooted. Her eyes clung to the ground a few feet away from Mawu’s still body. She put her forearm into her mouth and bit down until she tasted blood. She wanted to hurt herself.
She sucked at the blood until it no longer flowed, until she felt dizzyingly empty.
ELEVEN
Somewhere between Mawu’s beating and Philip’s disappointment and Reenie’s long walks to the hotel each evening, their spirits buckled one by one. Sweet allowed her pregnancy to get the better of her and simply sat down. Reenie’s lips set into a straight, emotionless line. Mawu no longer talked back, the words she did speak taking on an air of vapidity. Philip was chained at night, no longer trusted. So it was no wonder that Lizzie sought out the white woman then.
Although they never said it outright, it was clear to Lizzie the women were upset that she had told. Yet even their anger could not compete with her guilt. She was the one who took tense breaths each time she saw Mawu’s bruised face. She was the one who recoiled when one of them turned a stiff, humped shoulder in her direction.
Shame stretched Lizzie’s face into false smiles, placed a kind word here and there on her lips, extended a ready helping hand. She imagined them talking about her in the quiet when she wasn’t around.
She had been dreaming of the path to Glory’s farm, so she found it without a problem. After catching sight of the lone figure in the field and glancing around for watchful eyes, Lizzie rapped on the door. Glory answered and stared at her evenly, either unsurprised or hiding it. Only when the two women had settled comfortably in the main room of the cabin near the window where Glory could keep an eye out for her husband did Lizzie shake off her head scarf, swat at the fly that had been nagging her since she entered, and relax her hands in her lap.
Thin, faded quilts sagged across the backs of each chair. Out of respect, Lizzie tried not to lean back into the one on her chair. In the corner, a pot-bellied stove sat rusted, still full of the ash of the winter, as a reminder the hot, sultry summer would soon end and snow would fill the cabin doorstep once more. Three hooks on the wall, two holding overalls for a smallish man, freshly washed, as if each morning Glory’s man stepped into his slops, laced up his boots, spooned up his meal, and walked out the door.
“Thirsty?”
Lizzie nodded and started to get up, but Glory beat her outside and returned in a moment with a tin of cold water.
“Best thing about living around here.”
“What?” Lizzie patted her neck dry with her scarf. The air in the room felt oily.
“The water.”
Lizzie took the cup, announced a clear distinct thank you. She felt she was mimicking somebody else’s manners. It was odd, having this waxy-faced white woman serve her. The cup might even be the same one Glory’s husband drank out of. Northern white folks were something else entirely.
“Something bothering you?”
Lizzie hadn’t known it until that very moment, but something was bothering her. Her feet. The blister on her left thumb. Her stuff down there, worn sore by the endless nighttime activity. She fumbled with embarrassment, tried to forget she was sitting before a strange white woman, groped with the knowledge that Glory could not understand her. The gulf was too deep, too wide.
Lizzie, wake up! come quick!”
Lizzie heard the sibilant whisper through her window. It was loud enough to wake her but not Drayle. She hurried out of bed, knowing the nighttime call could only mean one thing. Sweet was ready to deliver. By the time she got outside her cottage, the servant was gone, returned to her room, her errand complete. A light flickering in one of the cottage windows beckoned Lizzie like a finger.
Lizzie got to work before they had a chance to ignore her. Reenie sat beside Sweet drying her forehead with a cloth. Mawu dipped a pile of rags into a pot of boiling water. Lizzie gathered a stack of blankets, linens, some moth-eaten, others torn, stained. In the quarters back at her plantation, the women used a birthing chair. Here, Sweet would deliver on the bed. Lizzie shook out the blankets and layered them, one on top of the other, so they would provide a barrier between Sweet’s labor fluids and the hard bed below. Momentarily disturbed, dust swirled and hovered in the moist air like stars.
Lizzie gave Reenie the signal everything was ready. Reenie spoke softly to Sweet who lay there, wet with exhaustion, her eyes slits of discomfort.
“I need for you to stand.”
As soon as she said it, a labor pain racked Sweet’s body and she heaved herself up, the bones in her neck jutting out like cords. She moaned, low and vicious, more like a growl. She was a mean birthing woman and spit venom at Reenie. As the pain gathered strength, Sweet grew louder. Even though the cottage was already so hot the walls were damp with moisture, Lizzie closed the windows. It would do none of them any good if Sweet’s swearing woke the men. She slid a pasteboard square from beneath the stove, shook off the loose soot, and fanned Sweet with it.
“Get up, now. Get up,” Reenie urged when Sweet’s pains had subsided.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You got to get up and walk so you can bust your bag of waters.”
Reenie helped to lift her up. She and Mawu walked Sweet around the room for over an hour, supported her when she had a pain so strong it made her collapse. Lizzie sat and watched.
“I can’t walk no more,” Sweet said.
They got her back onto the bed. Lizzie sat behind her and cradled Sweet’s head between her legs. She remembered her own labors. Reenie reached into Sweet’s womb and worked her hand around. They waited, hoping Reenie would be able to find the bag quickly.
When the pain started up again, Reenie drew her hand out. Sweet had several more labor motions while Mawu rubbed her feet and Reenie talked her through it.
Reenie was as good as anybody at birthing a baby. But Sweet didn’t look good. No birthing woman ever looked good in Lizzie’s opinion. She had seen what looked to be easy, quiet, and simple turn into a death scene. She had seen woman and child survive large amounts of blood while another woman and child died in the clean of a warm blanket.