Friday Fiction: Slavery's Ghost (Part Five)

"What are your own religious convictions?"

          He wagged his finger at me.

          "Now, I told you, no state secrets. If I had broadcast my opinions during the elections, I doubt I could have been President, and even now I do have political friends. I'd not have them tarred with my own skeptical brush."

          "You are a skeptic, then? After all the reports of strange things from the Bureau?"

          "I do not doubt that there are many strange, unexplained phenomena on this earth, Mr. Jandt. I do not see any reason to posit an unprovable world beyond or behind it."

          "You do not believe in God?"

          He shrugged.

          "I am a deist. It seems to be a philosophical necessity for there to be a First Cause to begin the universe. But for there to be a personal power, that cares what mankind does or furnishes an ultimate fate? I see no indication of such a being."

          "And Christ?"

          "A very good man, who had some legends grow up about him. I have done work on a version of the New Testament, in fact, purging it of some obvious fairy tales that have become attached to the Great Teacher. I certainly do not think he was the Son of God. It would be akin to saying he was the nephew of the Law of Gravity. The morality of the Natural Law is sufficient for any good man."

          "Mm-hm," I said, making my notes. "Now about your slaves ..."

          "I inherited most of them from my father, and others belong to my wife. I cannot simply cut them loose, unprepared. They are a responsibility."

          "Worth quite a lot of money too. They labor in your farm and factories."

          "I intend to set them free upon my death..."

          "When you are beyond any earthly need of them. But your father. May I ask, did he or any other members of your family mistreat them in any way?"

          He drew back. The distance was in his eyes again.

          "That depends on your definition of mistreatment, I suppose. Nothing mortal, no. If anything, I would say loving, as far as it goes."

          "I believe I understand you. Do you feel guilt about this?"

          "I do not believe in inherited guilt. I may well have brothers and cousins among my people: it is another reason I care for them but cannot acknowledge them. It has even been used as a stick by my political opponents to beat me. I say nothing, to either affirm or deny. But if I did pleasure myself among them, my wife not objecting and the girl willing, why shouldn't I?"

          "A woman who cannot say no, as a slave to a master, cannot really say yes, though, can she?" I shook my head. "No matter, sir. When did your father die?"

          "I was fourteen."

          "What kind of man was he?"

          "What can I say? He was the master, the king of his castle, absolute on his ground. Distant. Unapproachable. Demanding."

          "How did you feel when he died?"

          "To be honest? Liberated. I was already growing in my studies. Music. History. Mathematics. He couldn't understand what I wanted to do. I could follow my own way. But not all at once.

          "For a while I was under the thumb of an executor, and in the hands of James Maury, an educated man, but very pious. I learned much literature from him, but his Anglican religiosity put a bit of a brake on my notions. By the age of twenty-one I was free."

          "Your trail of liberation seems quite progressive. From your father, from church, and finally from King George. Tell me, do you think there is any authority to which you are beholden?"

          A wintery smile.

          "Perhaps only to the judgement of history. And by the time it comes, shall I care?" He reached over and pulled the bell. "Come, I think it is time to dine."

We had a very pleasant meal, but Jefferson ate very little and Frobisher even less. He had whiled away the day growing dyspeptic with worry in the library and burning a hole in his stomach at afternoon coffee. By the time we retired to a bedroom on the east side of the second floor my old friend was worn to rags with the questions he had longed to ask but was too polite to bring up at the dinner table.

          "Well? Is there any progress?" he asked, pulling off his boots.

          "Oh, most certainly. This is no fraud. He is surrounded by loyal people, who I do not think would ever let harm come to him and seem to have little reason to wish it." I laid my suit out over a chair.

          "Any theories about what it is then? A ghost? A sending? A walker?"

          "I have the beginning of a thought. I have one more person to question, and I don't think I will be long in meeting him."

          Frobisher slumped.

          "You mean the thing itself." He rubbed his forehead. "You know this sort of being is notorious for not showing up when expected."

          "I know." By now I was down to my nightshirt and looked like something of a ghost myself. "But this spirit ... I don't think it can help but appear."

          I sighed and got between the sheets.

          "The problem, I believe, will be to get it to go away."

 

          Frobisher finished undressing, doused the lamp, and got into bed. It had been a long day, and soon we were fast asleep.

          I awoke with an urgent need for the chamber pot. I reached out for the side table, and my hand was staid by a body interposing between I and it.  My eyes flew open. There, in the moonlight, was the Slave's Ghost.

          I had heard descriptions of the thing all day, but to see it was another thing altogether. It was hunched, almost gnomish, but with powerful shoulders that trickled with blood, black and wet in the moonbeams. It was shackled at both wrists and ankles, and there was blood there too. The pitiable state of its body, combined with the power of violence that seemed to quiver throughout it, ready to leap forth and avenge, struck my soul. I stood dumb for a moment staring into its unblinking fiery eyes. Then my training came through.

          "If thou hast any sound," I began, throat dry, "Or use of voice, speak to me: If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do ease and grace to me, Speak to me."

Yes, it was Shakespeare. There is no magic in the words, except that they can be memorized and used when your brain is paralyzed. They ask the old, old questions.

           "If thou art privy to thy country's fate," I went on, "Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak! Or if..."

          "Tell him," it rasped. If a hole from a grave choked with weeds could speak, it might sound like that. "You have guessed. Tell him, not for death, but for my life. No more warning from me. Tell him."

          His eyes fixed on me; his form thinned until nothing was left but his stony gaze. Then that vanished, leaving only moonlight. I turned and looked at Frobisher, who snored under his nightcap. He had never even stirred.

(To Be Continued ...)