HeartFire Page 0,89

bad, only this time I don't know if I can take it. She not so strong, ma'am. I take the stick outen her hand, I beat her back, how she going a-like that, you think?"

"It wouldn't feel good, Njia-njiwa."

The girl winced at the sound of her name and wept again. "Oh, Mama, Mama, Mama."

"You poor thing," said Margaret.

"Don't you pity me, you White woman! I clean your filth just like all the rest!"

"Good people clean up after the people they love," said Margaret. "It isn't the cleaning that you mind, it's being forced to do it for people you don't love."

"People I hate!"

"Fishy, would you rather I call you by that name?"

"Don't you go saying my true name no more," said Fishy.

"All right, then. How about this? How about if I say I had you helping me today, and I pay your mistress a little to compensate for having taken you away from your duties?"

Fishy looked at her suspiciously. "Why you do that?"

"Because I do need your help."

"You don't have to pay for that," said Fishy. "I be a slave, ain't you heard?"

"I don't want your labor," said Margaret. "I want your help."

"I don't got no help for White folks," said Fishy. "It be all I can do not to kill you right now."

"I know," said Margaret. "But you're strong. You'll contain these feelings. It's good to have your name back. It's as if you weren't alive before, and now you are."

"This ain't no life," said Fishy. "I got no hope now."

"Now is when your hope begins," said Margaret. "This thing you've done, you and the other slaves, giving up your names, your anger - it makes it safer for you, yes, it makes it easier, but you know who else it helps? Them. The White people who own you. Look at the other slaves, now that you have your anger back. See what they look like to the master."

"I know how they look," said Fishy. "They look stupid."

"That's right," said Margaret. "Stupid and contented."

"I ain't going a-look stupid no more," said Fishy. "She going a-see it in my eyes, how much I hate her. She going a-beat me all the time now."

"I can't help you with that right now," said Margaret. "I'd buy you away from her if I could, but I haven't that much money. I might rent your services, though, so you don't have to spend time with your mistress until you've got these feelings under control."

"I never going a-control these feelings! Hate just going a-get bigger and bigger till I kill somebody!"

"That's how it feels now, but I assure you, slaves in other cities, in other places, nobody takes their pride and hides it away, but they learn, they watch, they wait."

"Wait for what? Wait to die."

"Wait for hope," said Margaret. "They don't have hope, but they hope for hope, for a reason to hope. And in the meantime, there are many White men and women like me, who hate the whole idea of slavery. We're doing all we can to set you free."

"'All you can' ain't worth nothing."

Margaret had to admit the truth of what she said. "Fishy, I fear that you're right. I've been trying to do it with words alone, to persuade them, but I fear that they're never going to change until they're made to change. I fear that it will take war, bloody terrible war between the Crown Colonies and the United States."

Fishy looked at her strangely. "You telling me there be White folks up North, they willing to fight and die just to set Black folks free?"

"Some," said Margaret. "And many more who are willing to fight and die in order to break the back of King Arthur, and others who would fight to show that the United States won't get pushed around by anybody, and - why should you care why they fight? If the war comes, if the North wins, then slavery will end."

"Then bring on that war."

"Do you want it?" asked Margaret, curious. "How many White people should die, so you can be free?"

"All of them!" cried Fishy, her voice full of loathing. Then she softened. "As many as it takes." And then she wept again. "Oh, sweet Jesus, what am I? My soul so wicked! I going to hell!"

Margaret knelt beside her, facing her, and dared now to lay her hand gently on Fishy's shoulder. The girl did not recoil from her, as she would have earlier. "You will not go to hell," said