Chapter Fifty-eight
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The first time it happened just after she had been reading and talking about what she had read with the doctor—a novel about, of all things, the South Pacific, about sailors stranded on an island with natives who reminded her of some of the African stories she had heard in the cabins. He had made his rounds, and then left for town. She returned to the kitchen to prepare for Precious Sally’s evening meal, her mind filled with that South Sea story, and with another part of her mind marveling at how reading could carry you away out of your present life, out of slavery, even, at least while you were reading the story.
A knock on the wall, and Isaac came into the room.
“How are you today, Liza?”
“Fine,” she said. “We just been reading together.”
“What you reading?”
And she told him, and he agreed that it sounded like a fine story, something he might like, and though he was a little behind her in his ability to read he said he would try it.
“It’s so funny, Isaac,” she said. “I read the words, and it gives me such a fine feeling beyond them. It is something we should do all the time.”
“I hope to do better at my reading,” Isaac said.
“You should,” Liza said. “I swear, it’s how we get free even if we’re still chained to this place.”
“Yes, yes,” Isaac said. “I will try it, because I do feel chained. Even by these Hebrews I feel chained like their old ancestors, just like the Israelites in Egypt.”
Liza stood at the cutting board, preparing vegetables for the meal.
“You been reading, you been reading your Bible.”
“I have,” Isaac said. “I surely have.”
“The religion in the Bible?”
“Yes?”
“It’s only one kind of freedom. These novels the doctor’s been giving me.”
“The ones you talking about?”
“And other ones,” Liza said. “Lots of others.”
“They ain’t about religion.”
“Some are, some aren’t. But they all make me free in my mind in so many more different kinds of ways than the Bible makes me free. Brother, I am beginning to love them more than I can say in words.”
“That’s what you were saying.”
Liza giggled.
“In words, yes. Now that’s a joke!”
That was when he came into the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” he said to Isaac.
The whiskey fumes spread out on his breath like morning mist.
“Fetching some water to Liza,” he said.
“Get out. Fetch something else somewhere else. Get to the barns!”
“Massa,” Isaac said, retreating out the door.
Jonathan moved toward her and Liza retreated—unfortunately—toward the pantry.
“You whore!” he shouted at her, shoving her through the open door. “Fornicating with that boy,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Fornicator,” he said, swatting her with the back of his hand.
Fear roared through her blood and she tried to squeeze past him but he shoved her back inside the pantry and pulled the door closed behind him.
“No, please,” she said, in a voice that reminded her, even as her fear rose in her blood, of how she spoke in dreams.
He batted her with his fist and she stumbled back against the shelves. Sacks of sugar and grain slipped down around her feet. In a nightmare of motion he pulled at his trousers, pushed her down, and planted himself on top of her, hip to hip. As he began to fumble at her with his fingers, she writhed in desperation, unable to free herself from his weight. He took himself in hand in preparation for coming into her, and she slapped at his face.
He grabbed her wrist, and they fought for a moment, her blood still racing, before she felt herself giving way beneath the heavy press of him. Her blood turned to tears, now coursing through her body like rain-water.