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Authors: Taylor M. Polites
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at their camp in Nashville.
All those things remembered are nothing next to what I felt before the war. Back then everything was certain. Like the rising and setting of the sun each day. Like the seasons and the rains that come and go. I guess I remember most the garden on Allen Street, spread out around our home with groves of trees and trimmed boxwoods and wide lawns that went to the bluffs over the river. You could look across the valley to the hills in the distance and almost see forever.
That feeling of before the war, that sense of being in this quiet town on the banks of the Oosanatee, a name like so many Indian names that blanket this place, a name that seemed to dictate the languid cadence of the days. Oosanatee. I remember late summer, when the air moved so gently it was like a caress. I remember lying on the shade-dappled lawn, somnolent in the thick clover, feeling my body vibrate with the buzz of the earth, the beautiful, almost fluid warmth of the sun soaking through me. The river, flat and winding through the trees below, glittering with sunlight. The little Oosanatee set deep in a forested valley with the scent of clover and jasmine in the air like the land of the lotus-eaters.
The memory is so real to me. It brings tears to my eyes. And then I married Eli, and we all became afraid of each other. My family. My friends. The people I had known my whole life. Our world had changed so much, I guess none of us knew whom to hate and whom to love anymore. We became afraid of our neighbors. Afraid of our freed slaves, people we used to say were our family. But we have learned to live with fear. We have become accustomed to it. We gladly traded the chaos of the war for it. Better to know what to fear than to fear all the things that you don’t know.
“Miss Gus.”
Emma’s voice. She is watching me from the door.
“Miss Gus,” she repeats. Her skin is dark—not coal black, but dark brown, like a chestnut. She has grown thick as she has aged, and she was never tall to begin with. I guess I didn’t realize how much older she is than I. Probably by twenty years. Maybe a little less. She doesn’t know her age herself, since she was purchased as a young girl to help in the kitchen when my parents were first married.
When I was born, she must have been young. A young woman. Maybe my age when I was first married. But now the gray has grizzled her hair, which she keeps pulled back in a tight chignon. There are deep lines that crease from her eyes to the corners of her mouth. And her hands are thick and calloused. Tough hands that have seen years of work. She stands at the door wearing the same simple black dress she always wears, as if she is in some perpetual mourning. She looks at me as if I were twelve again. Just like the days before the war. I wonder if she would go back there as easily as I would. I can’t imagine what her answer would be if I asked her, and I would never ask her.
She has been with me my whole life. I have never been afraid of Emma. Never. She is devoted. Quiet. Sad. She smiles at me, a faint smile. It is because of the new dress. Or this veil. “There are ladies downstairs asking for you. I’ve been putting them in the music room.”
An irrepressible smile spreads across my face and I pull down my veil. I must look like some sort of haunt. Emma shakes her head, still smiling, and I follow her down the stairs.
The hall is filled with voices from the front parlor, masculine voices that make little effort at being subdued, although the coffin must be there by now. Mike is there. His voice is higher than the rest, loud and slurred. Buck is not among the men I can hear. Perhaps he will not come. If he were here, surely I would feel it.
The music room is across the hall from the front parlor. Emma weaves through the crowd. They fall silent as I pass, and soon there is a hush. Emma opens the door to the music room.
It is dark. The shadows and black cloth seem to blend. Great swells of
All those things remembered are nothing next to what I felt before the war. Back then everything was certain. Like the rising and setting of the sun each day. Like the seasons and the rains that come and go. I guess I remember most the garden on Allen Street, spread out around our home with groves of trees and trimmed boxwoods and wide lawns that went to the bluffs over the river. You could look across the valley to the hills in the distance and almost see forever.
That feeling of before the war, that sense of being in this quiet town on the banks of the Oosanatee, a name like so many Indian names that blanket this place, a name that seemed to dictate the languid cadence of the days. Oosanatee. I remember late summer, when the air moved so gently it was like a caress. I remember lying on the shade-dappled lawn, somnolent in the thick clover, feeling my body vibrate with the buzz of the earth, the beautiful, almost fluid warmth of the sun soaking through me. The river, flat and winding through the trees below, glittering with sunlight. The little Oosanatee set deep in a forested valley with the scent of clover and jasmine in the air like the land of the lotus-eaters.
The memory is so real to me. It brings tears to my eyes. And then I married Eli, and we all became afraid of each other. My family. My friends. The people I had known my whole life. Our world had changed so much, I guess none of us knew whom to hate and whom to love anymore. We became afraid of our neighbors. Afraid of our freed slaves, people we used to say were our family. But we have learned to live with fear. We have become accustomed to it. We gladly traded the chaos of the war for it. Better to know what to fear than to fear all the things that you don’t know.
“Miss Gus.”
Emma’s voice. She is watching me from the door.
“Miss Gus,” she repeats. Her skin is dark—not coal black, but dark brown, like a chestnut. She has grown thick as she has aged, and she was never tall to begin with. I guess I didn’t realize how much older she is than I. Probably by twenty years. Maybe a little less. She doesn’t know her age herself, since she was purchased as a young girl to help in the kitchen when my parents were first married.
When I was born, she must have been young. A young woman. Maybe my age when I was first married. But now the gray has grizzled her hair, which she keeps pulled back in a tight chignon. There are deep lines that crease from her eyes to the corners of her mouth. And her hands are thick and calloused. Tough hands that have seen years of work. She stands at the door wearing the same simple black dress she always wears, as if she is in some perpetual mourning. She looks at me as if I were twelve again. Just like the days before the war. I wonder if she would go back there as easily as I would. I can’t imagine what her answer would be if I asked her, and I would never ask her.
She has been with me my whole life. I have never been afraid of Emma. Never. She is devoted. Quiet. Sad. She smiles at me, a faint smile. It is because of the new dress. Or this veil. “There are ladies downstairs asking for you. I’ve been putting them in the music room.”
An irrepressible smile spreads across my face and I pull down my veil. I must look like some sort of haunt. Emma shakes her head, still smiling, and I follow her down the stairs.
The hall is filled with voices from the front parlor, masculine voices that make little effort at being subdued, although the coffin must be there by now. Mike is there. His voice is higher than the rest, loud and slurred. Buck is not among the men I can hear. Perhaps he will not come. If he were here, surely I would feel it.
The music room is across the hall from the front parlor. Emma weaves through the crowd. They fall silent as I pass, and soon there is a hush. Emma opens the door to the music room.
It is dark. The shadows and black cloth seem to blend. Great swells of
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