THE BOOK OF NEGROES (25 page)

SOLOMON LINDO AND I SAILED from Charles Town on the
Queen Charlotte.
Through day after day of sailing, the waves rose and tumbled and foamed at the mouth as if calling out to me,
you will never see land again.
The water looked dark and menacing enough to kill a person with its chill. I dreaded retreating into my tiny apartment below deck, and would have stood day and night above water level had it not been for the air that grew increasingly cold as we sailed north. Lindo tried every day to speak with me, but I excused myself from any discussions about his correspondence.

Negro servants in white breeches and red vests served boiled crabs and roasted peanuts to Charles Town merchants who were happy enough to make friendly with them out on the open sea, but I wasn’t allowed to enter the dining hall for white passengers and refused Lindo’s invitations to join him in his private cabin. He seemed bent on taking the trip as a
time to relax and socialize with me, and was miffed that I kept my distance from him.

On the third day of the voyage—the only mild and sunny part of the trip—men and women from planting or merchant families lounged in chairs on the deck, attended to by Negroes bringing Madeira, cigars and oranges. Lindo unpacked his portable chess set and asked me to sit with him, which I accepted only because my legs were too tired to stand any longer. People thought it a novelty that I could play. Lindo challenged a man in a straw hat and with red, sunburned forearms to play me, and they wagered two guineas on the outcome. Lindo had shown me all the strategies years ago, when our relations had still been cordial. Dominate the centre of the board, at first. Aim your bishops like cannons, and place your knights like spies. Leave the enemy no room to move. Control, attack and pin the king. It was an ugly game, I thought, but it kept me from having to chat with Lindo or to hear him drone on about the evaporating indigo market. The man with the sunburn was astonished to find himself checkmated and enraged to see Lindo turn the guineas over to me.

“She earned them,” Lindo said, shrugging.

I knew better than to look into the eyes of my opponent, and slid the gold into my clothing.

We sailed into the harbour later the next morning. It was only upon approaching land that I saw that New York was an island, like a long leg with all the people shoved into the foot.

“They call it Manhattan,” Lindo said, “after the Indian word for ‘hilly island,’
Manna-hata
.”

My spirits had been low during the entire trip over. However, as I looked out at the streets choked with buildings and counted some fifteen church steeples—the tallest of which grew as high as a giant tree—the weight of the past began to lessen.
Manna-hata
offered a comforting sort
of chaos. Island or no island, perhaps it would be the sort of place in which I could take refuge.

On the wharf, we were swarmed by a shouting mob. A Negro threw my valise and Lindo’s trunk on a cart and demanded a shilling from Lindo, who complied. Following the baggage man, we headed into streets packed with people, carts and horses. There were wooden buildings, but ones made of brick too. The buildings were sharp and rectangular, neat and trim. We hadn’t travelled for long when we passed the outskirts of an area that had no proper buildings, but rather an odd collection of shanties, shacks and tents with corners poking out at all angles, like broken bones. Moving in and out of the mud alleys and paths were Negro men and women, some carrying scraps they must have pillaged from the shipyards: broken spars, ripped sails and long strips of wood bent like ribs.

“Canvas Town,” Lindo said. “Stay away from it, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Who are those people?” I asked.

“The Canvas Town Negroes,” he said. “A ne’er-do-well lot always willing to relieve you of your goods.”

“Are they free?” I asked.

“The question is how they live,” he replied.

I took another look in the direction of the Negroes entering and leaving their shacks, hauling canvas and water. One woman even had a pot cooking over a low fire. They appeared to move about unmolested.

“Let’s not tarry now,” Lindo said, and asked the baggage man to hurry up.

We left the edge of Canvas Town and entered another built-up area. I read the names of every street. Broadway. Wall Street. William. We came to Broad Street, and then Pearl. Under a hanging sign that said The FRAUNCES TAVERN, our porter opened the doors to a hotel.

A tall, well-built and light-skinned Negro with a blue chintz shirt and a watch on a chain stood behind the registration desk, smiling. “Welcome,”
he said, in a lilt that was neither American nor African. “Sam Fraunces,” he said, shaking Lindo’s hand, “but you can call me Black Sam or just Sam if you prefer. I know you haven’t been here before, because I never forget a guest.” He turned to me and shook my hand too. “And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I haven’t seen you before. I’ve been wanting to meet you, though, for a long time. Yes I have.”

I grinned.

West Indian, that’s what he was. Probably Jamaican. I had heard Jamaican accents in Charles Town, but no Jamaican or other Negro could have owned a tavern there. And this wasn’t just a tavern. It was a ten-room hotel in a two-storey redbrick building with a reputation for good food so widely established that people had mentioned it on the ship from Charles Town.

“I’m afraid I don’t know your names,” he said.

Lindo introduced only himself.

“From your bags, I surmise you have come a distance,” Sam said.

“Charles Town,” Lindo said.

I saw a smile tug at the corners of Sam’s fine, wide-lipped mouth. Steady and solid, calm and confident. “Will the lady be requiring—”

“Yes,” Lindo cut in, “separate rooms. I require a spacious room and please bring up a table and chair, as I have business to conduct.”

“We’ll see to that, sir,” Sam said.

Lindo began to sign a registration book. He wrote,
Solomon Lindo and servant
, lost his patience, and said he had to get cleaned up and tend to some affairs in town before the close of business.

“But the form, sir, and the payment,” Sam said. “Sorry, but no square money. I only take silver.”

“She’ll take care of it,” Lindo said, handing me a pouch.

While Sam Fraunces arranged for a porter to escort Lindo to his room, I wrote my name into the registration book:
Aminata Diallo
. I took it as
a good sign that I was free to write my own name in New York City. The mere act of writing it, moving smoothly, unerringly with the quill in the calligraphy that Mrs. Lindo had so patiently taught me, sealed a private contract that I had made with myself. I had now written my name on a public document, and I was a person, with just as much right to life and liberty as the man who claimed to own me. I would not return to Charles Town. Never mind that April in New York felt as cold as December in Charles Town. Never mind the horse droppings and shouting porters and clamouring men pushing and shoving on the wharves. Never mind any of that. It was already clear to me that there were Negroes circulating freely in New York. I would somehow find my place among them. I would not submit again to ownership by any man.

Solomon Lindo and the porter went upstairs.

Sam retrieved the quill from me and placed it in its holder. “If you don’t mind me saying, I have never seen a lady write so bold and pretty.”

I smiled and met his dark, curious, dancing eyes.

Sam Fraunces folded his hands and glanced at the registration book again. “A most intriguing name,” he said. “A-mee …”

“Meena,” I said. “You can just call me Meena.”

“That’s easier than it looks,” he said. “Is Mr. Lindo your …”

“Owner,” I said. I wanted him to know my situation. Something about this man’s confidence suggested that he could help me. “But not for long,” I added.

The tall man busied himself with his stack of registration papers and mumbled in a low voice, “New York is a place of opportunities.”

I too lowered my voice. “Can you help?”

The boy who had taken Lindo’s bags upstairs had returned for mine. Sam cleared his throat. “Room 4,” he said, pointing to my bag. When the boy left, Sam said, “Have you eaten lunch?”

“No. We were four days at sea and I had no appetite.”

“And how is your appetite now?” Sam said, grinning again.

“It has returned.”

“Then I’ll bring you something of my own making,” he said. Sam’s porter showed me to my room. I opened the shutter and looked out the window at a sea of activity. A young Negro was playing a fiddle on the street. He spotted a well-to-do-looking white man, ran up to him and played the fiddle while walking alongside the gentleman, who finally parted with a coin. The fiddler glanced around, saw another white man in a waistcoat, and ran toward him.

I stepped back from the window, lay down on the soft bed and, listening to the pealing of church bells and the clattering of horses’ hooves, fell asleep.

I HAD NEVER BEFORE HAD THE EXPERIENCE of watching a tall black man open my door, slip in with a tray of steaming food and set it down on a table near my bed.

“Apologies,” he said, “but you did say that you were hungry.”

I had fallen asleep dressed just the way I was, and felt a little awkward swinging my legs off the bed to stand and smooth the wrinkles from my clothing.

“Would you prefer to eat in solitude?” he asked.

“If you have the time, you may sit with me, for I have never cared to eat alone.”

He smiled. “Most civilized, and I accept.” He slid onto a chair across the table from me. “Mr. Lindo departed while we were preparing your meal,” he said. “What sort of business is he in?”

“Indigo,” I told him.

“He said the two of you would be going to a concert this evening, and asked me to remind you to be ready for seven.”

I sat at the table to eat. He had made bean soup with a dose of pepper
hot enough to take me back home. On a side plate was cornbread, sweetened with honey and coconut milk. He also brought me fresh crab cakes. He said the way to make a decent crab cake was to roll just a touch of bread crumbs, melted butter and cream into the crabmeat. It was so good that you wanted to treat it tenderly.

“Crab is not something to overpower with energetic spicing,” he said. “Crabmeat wants to melt quietly on the tongue.”

I was ravenous. Between mouthfuls, I asked him questions. Sam Fraunces had been born and raised in Jamaica. His father was a slave owner and his mother a slave who had been set free by the father. Sam himself had been sent on his way when he was fifteen, with enough money to travel to New York and invest in a business. He had kept his money well guarded and had managed restaurants for two years until he understood the business in and out, and had made all the connections he needed with suppliers. He then got a mortgage to buy the current building and opened a restaurant called The Queen Charlotte.

“They say she’s the Black Queen,” I said.

“Some say that, and others dispute it,” he said. “But nobody gives a fig about it around here. The British—the whole lot of them, King and Queen included—aren’t exactly the best-loved people in New York.”

Sam did not want his tavern and hotel to be associated with British royalty, so he renamed it the Fraunces Tavern.

“Better for business,” he said. “The Tories can dine here, and feel fine. The Americans can dine here too. I say—you obliterated those crab cakes. I’ll take that as a compliment. And let me return one: you are a very handsome woman.”

I set my fork down gently. “I appreciate the meal and your company,” I said, “and don’t wish to be impolite, but …”

He put up his palm. “Let me spare you the indelicacy,” he said, shifting in his seat. “One sort of appetite doesn’t automatically lead to another.”

“I’m sure a man in your position has many opportunities,” I said.

He grinned and did not deny it. I thought he might turn to leave immediately, but he folded his hands one over the over, let his lips settle into a more tranquil pose and said, “From the moons on your face, I suspect that your journey began long before Charles Town. I can’t help every person who walks in my doors, but I will do what I can for you.”

“Is it possible to escape in New York?” I said.

“Canvas Town is where most go,” he said, “but white men sometimes send in raiding parties and grab whoever they can—their own slaves or free Negroes.”

Having found a sympathetic source of information, I brought out all my questions.

Yes, Sam said, I could most probably find a way to sustain myself in New York. He might have some work for me.

“What about a ship to Africa?” I asked.

“Impossible,” Sam said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“To even dream of it is madness,” he said.

“Why?”

“Ships don’t sail from New York to Africa. They go to England first, unload sugar and rum and tobacco and the indigo that your Lindo so fancies, and then they sail to Africa.”

“So from here it is possible for a person to get to Africa,” I said.

“A shipper, merchant or slave-trader, yes. Via London. You? No. Never. What Liverpool ship captain would waste his time taking you to Africa? He would just sell you into slavery again, and you’d probably end up in Barbados or Virginia. And if you did somehow make it back to Africa, the slave-traders would just pack you up and send you right back over here.” I looked down at my hands.

“Don’t lose faith,” he said. “This is the best city for you. New York has
places to hide, and offers many kinds of work. I made out just fine when I came here.”

“But you came free.”

“And you are already free where it matters most, in your mind. This is the best place in the Thirteen Colonies. It’s the best place in the world. Forget London. New York is what you want.”

I had a thousand more questions—where could I hide, how would I work and what would I do to feed myself?—but Sam Fraunces was out of time.

“I expect a full tavern at dinner,” he said.

THAT NIGHT, SOLOMON LINDO TOOK ME to hear a cellist play a solo concerto by J.S. Bach in the Trinity Church—the one with the highest steeple in town.