Copper Sun

Besa said that a band of unusual-looking strangers are coming this way, Mother,” Amari informed her. “He seemed uneasy and went to tell the village elders.”

“We must welcome our guests, then, Amari. We would never judge people simply by how they looked—that would be uncivilized,” her mother told her. “Let us prepare for a celebration.”

“You know, certain people are chosen to survive. I don’t know why, but you are one of those who must remember the past and tell those yet unborn. You must live.”

“But why?”

“Because your mother would want you to. Because the sun continues to shine. I don’t know, but you must.”

“Perhaps it is better to die,” Amari told her sharply.

Afi sighed. “If you die, they win. We cannot let that happen.”

“They have already taken everyone I loved,” Amari replied, ashamed to look Afi in the face. “And tonight they take the only thing I have left that is truly mine. Death would be a relief.”

“You will live because you must,” Afi said sternly.

“Afi,” she whispered, “the land is lovely. I thought it must surely be an ugly place.”

“Yes, it is beautiful to look at. Remember that when the ugliness overtakes you,” Afi told her. “Find beauty wherever you can, child. It will keep you alive.”

“Will you be wantin’ her mama, sir?” the auctioneer said to Mr. Derby. “I offer her to you first, out of respect, you see.”

Polly watched as Mr. Derby, who had walked up to the stage to claim his property, glanced at the older woman standing next to the slave girl, then said, “No, Horace, but thanks for the offer. Family ties only confuse the poor creatures. They’ll forget each other as soon as the sun sets. Trust me.”

Polly wondered if Negroes from Africa had feelings and intelligent thoughts or if that gibberish they spoke was more like the scream of monkeys or the barking of dogs.

“I am Polly, and I work for Mr. Derby just like you.” She hesitated, then added, “Well, not exactly just like you. You’re a slave, which means you belong to him.”

“Slave,” the girl said clearly. Her eyes narrowed and her lips drew back fiercely over her teeth as she said the word. She knows exactly what that word means, Polly thought.

Amari took a deep breath and grabbed a yam from Teenie’s basket. “My mama,” she began, then tears filled her eyes and she gave up trying to explain. She closed her eyes and sniffed it. She could almost smell her mother’s boiled chicken and yams.

“You know, my mama came from Africa too,” Teenie told her. “She teached me what she knew ‘bout Africa food. Long as you remember, chile, it ain’t never gone.”

Teenie paused, then said, “For me, it was the overseer, Willie Badgett. Eventually, they gets tired of you and moves on—but the terribleness of it just goes to another slave woman.”

“Money ain’t everything, chile. And ain’t none of his money belong to her—she got ‘bout as much chance to use his money as you do.”

“Yeah, but she ain’t no slave,” Lena insisted.

“Pretty close to it,” Teenie said. “He decide where she go, who she talk to, what she wear—everything. She just sleep in a better bed than you do!”

“And that’s just the first part. Then you gotta tend to the plants and flood the fields and cut the stacks and thresh the seeds—seem like it go on forever. That’s what be in your future, Miz Africa. And when he get old enough, this here boy’s future too.”

Polly looked at Cato in disbelief. “They’d put Tidbit out there?” she asked, horrified. The thought of little Tidbit sweating and working in the dangerous swampy water made Polly feel ill.

“Do you think Mrs. Derby knows what Clay is doing?”

“She know,” Amari said angrily.

“Maybe she can help you,” Polly offered tentatively. “She seems to be very pleasant.”

“She need help herself,” Amari replied sharply.

Polly tried to understand, but she couldn’t truly fathom the depths of Myna’s apparent distress. Slave women were always called to the bedrooms of their masters—it was simply a fact of life. Myna should understand that by now and be getting used to it.

“My beautiful baby,” she murmured over and over. Finally calmer, she looked up at Teenie and the girls. “I must explain,” she whispered, “before I die.”

“You ain’t gonna die, Miz Isabelle,” Teenie assured her. “You is fit and fine. Everybody feels a little poorly after havin’ a baby.”

Tenderly, Mrs. Derby touched the infant’s velvety brown face. “You don’t understand. My husband will kill me,” she said with certainty.

[...]

“He would never do such a thing!” But Teenie knew that Mr. Derby was probably quite capable of murder and would be within the limits of social acceptability to do so for this impropriety.

He took a deep breath, then said quietly, “I am ashamed to be a human being this morning. I witnessed not just murder last night, but violence and cruelty and vicious hatred. By saying nothing, I feel I am as responsible as my so-called friend who pulled the trigger.”

Amari and Polly exchanged stunned looks.

Dr. Hoskins continued. “I am just one man. I don’t know how to fight everything that is happening around me. I don’t understand how one man can own another. And I don’t know how to stop it.” He looked around at the deep woods and the darkness within them. “But I can help the three of you.”

“My name be Amari,” she informed the two of them.

Polly opened her eyes and looked at Amari with a slight frown. “What’s wrong with the name they gave you?” she asked. “We’re used to it now.”

Amari took a deep breath of the woodsy air. “Not Myna no more. Amari.” She spoke with clarity and certainty.

If you say so,” Polly said with a shrug. “I suppose it is a good name for a free woman.”

“Free!” Amari exclaimed in quiet exultation. She had no intention of ever using that slave name ever again.

Amari sat close to Polly for warmth and companionship, looking at the fire, thinking not of the horrendous fire that had destroyed her village, but of the smoky cooking fires that decorated the front of each household as the women prepared the evening meal. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell the pungent fish stew.

“Of course, child. Everybody has slaves. How do you think we handle this land? But my Patrick is a good man and does not mistreat his property. Our slaves like it here.” Amari couldn’t understand how the woman could see no wrong in owning slaves as long as they were well treated.

“It’s like this: if my Patrick brings home a new slave like he did last week, for example, that’s his right as master and man of this house, and I dare not interfere. As a woman, I ain’t got muckle to say about those kind of decisions. But when I got the chance to decide for myself, I find it gives me pleasure to choose to help you be free. That’s the truth, and I did not know it until I spoke the words.”

“You know, I never really knew any black people before I came to Mr. Derby’s place. I mean, everybody had slaves, of course, but I never actually thought about them. And I certainly never had a black friend before,” she admitted.

Amari looked away. “Sometime I hate white people,” she admitted softly. “I never hate before I be a slave.” She stretched her arms. “I never even see white person until they attack my village. It be hard to have hate feeling and like feeling at same time.”

“What did your mama keep a-tellin’ you while you be with her?”

“She tell me stories about Africa and about her own mother, and she tell me, ‘Long as you remember, ain’t nothin’ really gone.’”

Amari, blinking away tears, hugged him. “You gonna always remember?”

“I ain’t never gonna forget nothin’ she done tell me,” the boy said with great seriousness. He squeezed the leather pouch.

What shall I do? Amari thought helplessly. She willed herself to imagine her mother who would know what to say and how to comfort her. All of her mother’s dreams of growing old and watching her grandchildren play had been brutally dashed into the dust. This child carries the spirit of my mother, Amari realized suddenly, as well as the essence of her father, little Kwasi, the murdered people of her village, and the spirits of all her ancestors.

She inhaled sharply as she thought of Mrs. Derby, of the infant who had been given no chance to live, and of all the other women, both black and white, who continued to suffer as property of others.