fool the servant. It is a luxury to be so grandly deceived, to live among perjury and invention. Whatever your aspirations, Hiram, I know that you have never enjoyed such splendor. You are a scientist. You have to be.
“But these fools, these Jeffersons, these Madisons, these Walkers, all dazzled by theory, well, I am convinced that the most degraded field-hand, on the most miserable plot in Mississippi, knew more of the world than any overstuffed, forth-holding American philosophe.
“And the lords and ladies of our country know this. This is why they are so in thrall of the dance and song of your people. It is an unwritten library stuffed with a knowledge of this tragic world, such that it defies language itself. Power makes slaves of masters, for it cuts them away from the world they claim to comprehend. But I have given up my power, you see, given it up, so that now I might begin to see.”
She held the pipe in her hand, and shook her head. “Yes, you do see, you do understand, but you are not yet wise. Your pursuit of this design, your embrace of a man who is, in fact, a villain…well, this thing with you, this Conduction that pulled you out of the river, you are not the first, you know? You know the story—Santi Bess and the forty-eight coloreds—”
“That never happened?” I interrupted.
“Indeed it did,” Corrine said. “And its implications are the very reason you find yourself here before us. Did you know that before her departure, there was no Freetown in Starfall? Did you know that Georgie’s entire treachery—a slavery in liberator’s clothes—is really the treachery of the lords of this country?”
At the mention of Georgie’s name, memories flowed back, old memories of a man who had been as family. Thoughts of Amber and their baby. Had Amber known? I thought of our last conversation, how she tried to dissuade me. And I wondered at what precise moment Georgie decided to hand me off. And I wondered how many he had handed off before me.
“It’s a good trick,” Hawkins said. “Gotta give him that—they give shelter to Georgie and his pals, and he gives them intelligence and eyes. So the next time a Santi Bess come, he laying in wait.”
“But that can’t happen, can it, Hiram,” said Corrine. “Because Santi worked by a different power—the same power that pulled you out of the river Goose, the same power that freed you from our patrol.”
Now I looked around the room. Things began to assemble together, and a set of questions slowly formed but all I managed to ask was one.
“What is this?”
Corrine reached for a handbag. She produced a paper and held it up.
“You were given to me, body and soul, by your father,” she explained. “He signed you over because your flight disgraced him. It was another blow to his heart, already weakened by the loss of Maynard, and he answered the blow with rage. He wanted nothing to do with you. But I convinced him that you were too valuable to lose, and so he signed you over to me. For a healthy price, of course.”
Now she rose and walked over to the door.
“But you are not mine,” she said, and at that she opened the door. I could see stairs and the upper portion of a banister. “You are not a slave. Not to your father. Not to me. Not to anyone. You asked what this was. It is freedom.”
These words did not fill me with delight. The questions now overran me. Where had I been? Why was I left in a hole? How long had I been under? What happened to the ordinary man? And more than anything, what had become of Sophia?
Corrine returned to her seat. “But freedom, true freedom, is a master too, you see—one more dogged, more constant, than any ragged slave-driver,” she said. “What you must now accept is that all of us are bound to something. Some will bind themselves to property in man and all that comes forthwith. And others shall bind themselves to justice. All must name a master to serve. All must choose.
“We have chosen this, Hawkins and I. We have accepted the gospel that says our freedom is a call to war against unfreedom. Because that is who we are, Hiram. The Underground. We are who you were searching for. But you found Georgie Parks first. I am sorry about that. At great expense, and risking exposure,