Woman Overboard

Chapter 4 : Animals (2)

Alessandra

August 21st, 1820

(8:51 PM)

Aless sat on her ladderback chair, feeling exposed and uncomfortable. Across from her, Afiba tapped her long nails against the table, her gave unrelenting. Aless stared back, determined not to be intimidated by her.

Captain Igbi, she figured, could be as much as a decade younger than she. What right did she, a girl, have to make Aless, a woman, feel frightened?

She knew that beneath the fragile lies she had constructed for herself, she had an underlying animosity toward Afiba about more than her age. She watched the chocolate brown skin around Afiba's mouth crinkle as she frowned, the bronze layer rippling on her throat as she swallowed. When she looked at her, she couldn't help it: the first thing she saw was black.

Black. Negro. Slave. Other words circled through her heads, ones she had to be careful not to say. It had been a long time since Aless had been in contact with negroes. In her years at sea with Daniel, they mostly raided British and French trade ships, which guaranteed a monochromatic experience.

However, as Charleston was a hotbed for incoming slave ships, it had always been impossible not to think about the Africans. Over the past five years, Aless had adopted largely apathetic stance toward slavery.

Daniel, in his ever-radical ways, had been a fervent supporter of the abolitionist movement. Whenever he had the chance, he would try to talk her out of her dispassionate viewpoint. It never worked.

She remembered how, growing up with slaves, her mother would often quote obscure bible passages to soothe her conscience. Aside from this, her other argument was the one excuse Aless heard reiterated tirelessly throughout her childhood: "They aren't very smart. They would die on their own."

And, as a child, she had never doubted this. Until she entered adolescence, slavery was never presented to her as anything less than benevolent.

Now, watching Afiba watch her, Aless wondered if her parents had truly believed captivity beneficial to the slaves, or if they had simply been in denial.

After a long stretch of silent, Afiba raised an eyebrow and said, "You's feelin' better, now?"

Aless looked down, feeling her cheeks heat with embarrassment. She had spent the hours after her reluctant rescue in the captain's quarters, the only place she was guaranteed privacy. Afiba owned precious little, but Aless found among her possessions a tattered bible that she spent the time reading, begging god to reach through the pages and guide her. Yet, no guidance came.

After that, she had cried for a little while longer, which she assumed Afiba was referring to now. "Yes," she answered, too quickly. "Trust me, I am usually--"

"I ain't worried 'bout what you's usually like," Afiba told her. "These ain't usual times, anyhow."

Aless nodded. "This is true."

Afiba sighed, looking from Aless's face to her hands. "Look, I ain't gonna judge ye for any more than I've seen of ye so far, a'ight? An' so far, you seem like a good 'nough lady with a broken heart."

"No," Aless growled. "I do not have a 'broken heart', thank you very much. What you witnessed on The Elizabeth was just a bit of petty sentimentality, okay?" She glared at Afiba, trying to project her true self through her eyes. "I can see that you have a predetermined idea about me, and I do not much appreciate it."

Afiba pressed her lips together, scraping at the edge of the table with her fingernail. Little ruffles of wood, rolled up like miniature cigars, followed her nail, falling to the ground at the end. "That ain't fair," Afiba said, starting on a new row of wood.

"What do you mean?"

"Well . . ." she began scratching harder, digging her nail further into the table's soft surface. "You ever stop to look at the way yer crew's been treatin' mine? It's on'y been a couple o' hours, an' my crew's already downrigh' miserable. I ain't gonna let that go on much longer, ye un'erstand?"

Aless furrowed her brow, trying to meet Afiba's eye. The other captain kept hers glued to the table. "Captain?" she said, trying to get the girl's attention. Still, she evaded her gaze. "Afiba. Afiba, look at me."

She raised her eyes, which shone amber as bourbon in the candlelight. Aless met her eye. She was reminded of the day Danny took her rabbit hunting on the property, and she caught the bunny's darting, yellowish eye just before the shot rang out.

"We appreciate everything you have done for us,"Aless told her. "Without the generosity of you and your crew, we would be stranded at sea right now, or dead at the bottom of it."

Afiba cleared her throat. "Well, If y'all're so grateful, why you gotta have such botched ways o' showin' it?"

"What?"

"They bin treatin' my friends like they're animals!" Afiba exclaimed. "My little girl, Hany? She ain't much older than yer little cabin boy. She comes runnin' to me jus' a couple hours before dinner, sobbin' cause some white man called her a pig! Now, that ain't okay with me. Y'all ain't gonna stay here if tha's how yer gonna treat us."

Aless blinked. "I - I'm sorry. Really. My crew, they didn't mean anything by it --"

"I don' care what they mean!" Afiba yelled. "All I know's that if they's gonna treat people I love like slaves, Imma throw 'em overboard, an' that's that."

"Afiba," Aless begged. "Really, they don't know any better --"

"Then they oughta learn, goddammit!"

Silence ensued. The watched each other without seeing, both hovering between indignant and resigned. Aless stared at Afiba, guilt creeping into her mind as she thought to herself, she won't hurt us.

It was true. This woman, this girl, could never leave a crew of twenty people to their dark fate, whatever their race might be. Beneath this leather-hard exterior, Aless knew Afiba was nothing less than a small, frightened animal, trying to preserve her dignity by making herself look larger like a frightened cat or an angry porcupine.

The curious, motherly part of her wanted to reach across the table and calm her, find that soft, vulnerable interior that so evaded her now.

Instead, she nodded and said, "You are correct. But you must understand, they were never taught any differently. I cannot control them, at this point."

Afiba sighed, breaking away from their staring contest. "I came here to be free, ye hear?" she said. "I ain't gonna let you people treat me like I ain't."

Aless fumbled for words. "Give them time," she pleaded. "Let them see that you aren't like they think. It will get better."

"Why should I trust you?"

Blinking, Aless opened her mouth, then closed it. Here she sat, a woman with skin pale as snow, across from a girl with chocolate brown skin and watchful, wary amber eyes. She stared, fishing for something to say. "Well," she began. Well . . . "Well, that's the thing about trust, isn't it? It's just taking a shot in the dark and hoping it pays off. There isn't a reason."

Afiba frowned, sparing her a glance. "Jus' tell me: did ye ever own slaves?"

Aless felt a pang in her heart that spread through her like an electric shock. "My parents did," she admitted.

"Was they animals to you?"

The shock pinged through Aless's veins, shaking her very core. Animals. Were they animals? She remembered watch from the window as the whip slapped down on the back of a child, walking down the lane of slave cabins where they slept packed together, chilled to the bone in the winter and feverishly hot in the summers. Were they animals to her, herded together in an unsanitary pen of shame and filth? Were they animals, bred to work and suffered, fed and clothed out of necessity for labor? Were they?

She met Afiba's eye. "No," she said. "Never."