Page 24 of Under the Tulip Tree
Frankie stopped talking then. We sat in silence a long time. I knew I should record her words, but I couldn’t bring myself to write them down. The images they conjured were too hideous.
“I ’spect I might have done all right at the new place where I was sold if I’d had any sense, but I was so filled with hate and anger, no one could do nothin’ with me.” She heaved a sigh. “After I was caught stealing eggs, I was sold again. And again. I finally landed on a big place outside of Nashville. By then I’d discovered I could get extra food and privileges using my body, and I became pregnant when I was fifteen. It was a girl child, but she was tiny and sickly anddidn’t live long. I got pregnant three more times but lost ’em all. Master whipped me and said I was worthless if I couldn’t bear chillens. I stayed away from men after that.”
She paused. “That is, till I met Moss.”
I looked up from my notebook where I’d begun recording her story again. “Moss. Who was he?”
“Moss lived on a neighboring plantation. My master paid the neighbor to use some of his slaves from time to time, especially during harvest. Moss come over with several others. He was handsome, and he knew it.” She chuckled softly. “Moss and me became known as a pair. Slaves weren’t allowed to marry, but that didn’t stop us from taking up with someone we liked. One day Moss told me he was itching for freedom. Said he had a plan to run away and wanted me to go with him.”
I felt my eyes widen as I wrote down her words.
“On the night we was to run off, I tried to get Moss to change his mind. I was scared, but he convinced me we could make it north. I thought about Mammy praying for freedom all those years before and wondered if maybe this was the answer. After everyone was asleep, we snuck out into the fields and started running. Someone must’ve seen us, for it weren’t long before we heard the dogs.” Frankie shivered and closed her eyes as though the yowling animals were just outside the door. “We ran for our lives, but in the end, Moss lost his. They shot him first, then let the dogs finish him off.”
A lone tear ran down her cheek.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Itseemed unimaginable to me that this elderly woman seated in her cozy living room had once been a runaway slave, chased by dogs, and forced to watch her lover gunned down. What insanity had the world known to think such things were right?
“The beating I got when they dragged me back to the plantation nearly killed me.” Her voice was hushed, the words measured. “There were many times afterward I wished it had.”
Saturday morning sunshine filtered into my open bedroom window, along with an unusually warm breeze for this time of year. No interviews were scheduled on the weekend, and I planned to spend the day typing up my notes. When Mr. Norwood drove me home yesterday evening, I didn’t mention Frankie wasn’t anywhere near the end of her story or that I’d assured her I would return as time permitted. After hearing her tale thus far, it didn’t seem right to limit her to the generalities of the government questions. I had other interviews to conduct, which I would begin on Monday, but I found myself far too immersed in Frankie’s life story to quit now.
There was something else I hadn’t mentioned to him. As I listened to her tell of being sold and how Mr. Hall watched it happen without saving her, I suddenly had the feeling I’d heard the name Hall before. Not simply in passing or belonging to a school classmate, but closer, more familiar. I wasn’tsure when or where I’d heard it though. I hadn’t wanted to interrupt her emotion-filled story, but I hoped to ask Frankie some questions about the Hall family when I saw her again.
My thoughts strayed to Mr. Norwood as I made my way downstairs. He’d been quiet the first couple miles of our ride home, but after a while he started talking about growing up in Chicago. His stories of the boardinghouse his parents ran and the diverse clientele who stayed there intrigued me, and I found myself far more interested than I’d intended. When he said he wanted to be a novelist someday, I admitted I hoped to work for a large magazine in New York. We ended up having a pleasant conversation, and I wondered if perhaps I’d judged him too quickly that first day.
Mama sat at the kitchen table in her bathrobe with a cup of coffee and an old issue ofLadies’ Home Journalwhen I entered the kitchen. “Do you want breakfast? I didn’t have a chance to run by the market. We’re out of eggs and milk, but I see you brought home a loaf of bread. Where did you get it? It looks homemade.”
A small smile lifted my lips as I remembered how Frankie insisted I take home a loaf of her freshly baked bread when our time came to an end yesterday. “The woman I’ve been interviewing made it. I told her about Dovie’s yeast rolls and how much I miss them, so she gave me some of the bread she baked.”
Mama frowned. “We don’t need to accept charity from strangers, Rena. I hope you aren’t telling people about our circumstances.”
I bit back words that would only cause an argument and moved to the stove to pour myself some coffee. “Mrs. Washington wasn’t offering charity. She simply wanted to share some bread with me.”
“Washington? You haven’t told me why the government is interested in this woman’s life. Who is she?”
Now I’d gone and done it. I still hadn’t decided what to tell Mama about Frankie. When she learned I was spending time in Hell’s Half Acre talking with former slaves, I knew I’d never hear the end of it. A well-bred young woman from Nashville’s society wouldn’t step foot in that neighborhood, let alone take a job that required doing so.
But more than the money I was earning, which would greatly help my family, I was gradually coming to understand how little I knew about the world I’d grown up in here in the South. I’d studied slavery and the Civil War in school, but the history I’d been taught never told tales like those I’d heard from Frankie the past two days. Slave labor was a necessity in those days, and they lived and worked on plantations and farms in much the same way laborers do today. Or so I’d believed.
Yet if what Frankie said was true—and I had no reason to think it wasn’t—it put plantation owners like my ancestors in a completely new light. I didn’t know much about their lives or how they’d treated their slaves, but according to Grandma Lorena, her grandparents and great-grandparents had owned a large number of slaves. Had they been benevolent masters? Or had they been the type that would beat and sell off children?
But I couldn’t say any of that to Mama.
“She’s seen a lot in her lifetime. Mrs. Washington is... is...” My heart pounded. Could I tell Mama the truth?
“Is what?”
The moment of bravery passed. “Mrs. Washington is 101years old.” A sense of shame engulfed me, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to divulge the color of Frankie’s skin. Not yet.
“My goodness. Does she still have all her sensibilities?”
“She seems very sharp.”
The door to the study opened then, interrupting our conversation. Dad stepped from the darkened room, his hair and clothes disheveled. When his gaze landed on me, he seemed surprised. “What are you doin’ here?” He glanced around, a confused expression on his whiskered face.
“It’s Saturday. I don’t have to work.” My cool words hit their mark. Dad looked ready to retreat into his dungeon.
Mama stood and poured another cup of coffee. “Come sit down, dear. Rena was just telling me about the woman she’s interviewing.”
