a ride off him—the pony. She opened her mouth to ask, but forgot what she was to say, for Nimrod said that if she was his woman she could come and visit him in town. Which was very, very, very funny, yet July could not remember why.
And Nimrod said that he would talk to her massa about making her free because he was an important black man in town, a freeman. And again he mentioned the pony. Which reminded July of a song she sang that Miss Rose had taught her about a pony. It went la, la, la, de dum, de dum. No. It went de dum, de dum, la, la. Was he holding her hand? Did Nimrod have her hand in his? They were running through the house and she could not keep up, for the walls were moving in and out.
But the bed was cold and soft. She did fall upon it and wish to sleep. But. But. It was the massa’s room. The massa’s big-big bed. No, no, no, the massa would not like her in his bed. He hated the smell of niggers. The massa would have her flogged. ‘Massa no like us in his bed,’ July told Nimrod.
And Nimrod said, ‘There be no white bakkra here—we don’ chase them from this island. Black man gon’ rule now.’ And the way he looked upon her with a sly eye was so, so, so funny.
The pillows were soft, but when July closed her eyes she began to fly. Up to the ceiling she went, then soaring down, swerving swiftly, then swooping around. ‘Me flyin’ in the room, Mr Nimrod. Me a bird.’ Only when she opened her eyes was she back upon the bed.
And there was Nimrod, resting upon one elbow saying, ‘But you is very handsome, Miss July.’
This did make her chest jump with a hiccup before she said, ‘You wan’ marry me, Mr Nimrod?’ And his look was so serious that she could do nothing but laugh, especially when Nimrod leaned over her to press his lips upon hers.
July was not woken by Nimrod snoring his foul breath into her face. Nor by the constant bucking of the cloven-hoofed donkey that was surely trapped within her head and butted and butted and butted her skull for release. No. It was the massa, John Howarth’s, voice shouting, ‘Oh, Caroline, leave me alone, for pity’s sake. You’re back now. What more is there to it?’ that startled July awake.
A feather pillow under her head, morning sunlight through shutters, a blue bowl upon a nightstand, a clock, a rug, a chest with drawers—she was still lying, trespassing, within the massa’s bed! She parted her lips to call Nimrod awake, but her mouth was as dry as a flour barrel. ‘Mr Nimrod,’ she croaked, for her voice had a devil’s gruffness. She had to shake him.
Rudely roused, his two eyes fixed her with an ill-tempered glare before he listened and heard all at one time. Then, moving fleet as a winged being, those two trespassers leaped from the bed and scurried beneath it, just as the massa flung open the door to the room yelling, ‘Caroline, please, please, have you any idea of the seriousness of what is happening here. Have you? Oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . Shut up,’ then slammed the door behind him.
Two corpses could not have lain as still as Nimrod and July beneath that bed. While the massa paced the room from this side to that—his boots shedding mud across the floor, then pounding it to dust as he went back and forth, back and forth—they lay lifeless, yet keen as hunted runaways.
All the while, the massa was mumbling a lamentation of garbled words. This droning, sometimes punctured by howls of, ‘It’s intolerable,’ or ‘How could they?’ went on and on and on. July was too feared to gaze upon Nimrod when the massa suddenly stopped with his pacing, lest she detect some fright within Nimrod’s eyes at this tricky situation. The massa scraped the legs of a chair along the floor, then sat down heavily upon it, just in front of them. And Nimrod, with an almost imperceptible movement of his shoulder, managed to convey that he did not understand what the massa was doing.
Trapped within this stifling quiet, July began to fret—how long would they have to stay hid? She needed to piss water. But the massa remained still. The blazing, striped shadow from the