them, but the books were what held my eyes. I had seen books before—there were always one or two of us down on the Street who could read and who kept old journals or songbooks in their cabins—but never so many, shelves from floor to ceiling on every wall. I did my best not to stare. I knew what happened to coloreds who were too curious about the world beyond Virginia.
Diverting my eyes from the books, I saw my father, dressed down to his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, seated in one corner of the room, watching me and watching Roscoe. Turning my head, I saw in the other corner a boy, older than me, and white. By some trick of the blood, I knew at once that this was my brother. My father waved his hand lightly, effortlessly, and I saw that Roscoe recognized in this motion that he must take his leave. And so he turned, as though executing a military maneuver, and disappeared back behind the sliding wall. And I was there alone with my father, Howell Walker, and with my brother, and they both regarded me in curious silence. I reached into my pocket and found the copper coin and fingered its rough and uneven edges.
3
MY ASSIGNMENT CAME DOWN from my father to Desi to Thena to me—make myself useful. So each day I would rise before the sun, as did all the Tasked, and walk about the house, fitting in where I could—raising the kitchen fires for Ella, the head cook, fetching the milk from the dairy, retrieving the trays after breakfast—or labor outside with Roscoe, washing and grooming the horses, or in the apple orchard with Pete, grafting saplings. There was always work to be done, for while the needs of the house had not diminished, the numbers of the Tasked had, and that was my first inkling that even here in the house the Tasked could be sent Natchez-way. I worked energetically, more still when, from time to time, I would catch my father glancing my way with a thin sidelong smile. He’d found a use for me.
It was autumn of my thirteenth year, four months after I took up residence in the main house. My father had called for a social to celebrate the season. All day a kind of private fatigue blanketed those who tasked in the house. Early that morning I brought the eggs up to Ella, whose large and welcoming smile I’d come to regard as a natural portion of the morning. But nature was beside itself this day, so that when I came upon Ella with my wicker basket of eggs, she only shook her head and motioned for me to put the eggs on the table where Pete stood picking through a bushel of apples.
Ella sidled next to Pete, cracked and separated six eggs, and then beat the whites. She spoke just above a whisper and would not give full vent to her feelings. “They don’t think about nothing and nobody,” Ella said. “It’s wrong, Pete. And you know it’s wrong.”
“It’s all right, Ella,” he said. “It’s worse things to be wrathy about.”
“Ain’t wrathy. Just want some consideration. Is that too much? Was supposed to be small supper tonight. How it spread out to the whole county?”
“You know what it is,” Pete said. “You know what is going on with them.”
“No, I don’t,” Ella said. “Hi, get me that rolling pin. And get that fire going, will you?”
“You got eyes, you know. It ain’t like it was. The gold leaf ain’t what it was. All the old families gone west. Tennessee. Baton Rouge. Natchez. Them kinda places. Ain’t too many left. And those that’s still here feel a tightness between them. They holding on. Small supper bigger to them now. Don’t none of ’em know who moving out next. This goodbye might be they last.”
Now Ella laughed quietly to herself but it felt boisterous and mocking, wide enough that I wanted to join her though there was nothing funny going on. “Hi, that thing there, baby,” she said, motioning to the shelves. When she called me baby, I got warm inside. I left the fire and took the dough cutter off the shelf and brought it over. Ella was still laughing to herself. She looked up and gave that large and welcoming smile.
Then the smile shrank and she looked dead at me, looked through me almost, and then turned to Pete, “I don’t care nothing for they feelings.