The Underground Railroad

A collection of imposing metal instruments lay on a nearby tray. He picked up one of the most terrifying, a thin spike attached to a glass cylinder. “We’re going to take some blood,” he said.

“What for?”

“Blood tells us a lot,” the doctor said. “About diseases. How they spread. Blood research is the frontier.” The nurse grabbed Cora’s arm and Dr. Campbell stabbed the needle in. This explained the howls she had heard in the hall outside. She made her own contribution. Then she was done. In the hall, only the men remained. The chairs were full.

That was her last visit to the tenth floor of the building. Once the new hospital opened, Mrs. Anderson told her one day, the offices of the government doctors were relocating. The floor was already fully leased, Mr. Anderson added. Mrs. Anderson’s own doctor ran his practice on Main Street, above the optician. He sounded like a capable man. In the months that Cora had worked for the family, the mother’s bad days had markedly reduced in number. The tantrums, the afternoons she spent locked in her room with the drapes shut, her severe manner with the children occurred less frequently. Spending more time outside the house, and the pills, had worked wonders.

When Cora finished her Saturday washing and had supper, it was almost time for the social. She put on her new blue dress. It was the prettiest one at the colored emporium. She shopped there as little as possible on account of the markup. From shopping for Mrs. Anderson, she was horrified that things in their local establishment cost two or three times as much as those in the white stores. As for the dress, it had cost a week’s wages and she was forced to use scrip. She had been careful about her spending for the most part. Money was new and unpredictable and liked to go where it pleased. Some of the girls owed months of wages and resorted to scrip for everything now. Cora understood why-after the town deducted for food, housing, and miscellany like upkeep on the dormitories and schoolbooks, there was little left. Best to rely on scrip’s credit sparingly. The dress was a one-time affair, Cora assured herself.

The girls in the bunk room were in a state of great excitement over the evening’s gathering. Cora was no exception. She finished primping. Perhaps Caesar was already on the green.

He waited on one of the benches affording a view of the gazebo and the musicians. He knew she was not going to dance. From across the green, Caesar seemed older than he had in his Georgia days. She recognized his evening clothes from the stacks in the colored emporium, but he wore them with more confidence than other men his age who hailed from plantations. The factory work agreed with him. As well as the other elements of their improved circumstances, of course. In the week since they last saw each other, he had cultivated a mustache.

Then she saw the flowers. She complimented him on the bouquet and thanked him. He complimented her on her dress. He had tried to kiss her a month after they emerged from the tunnel. She pretended it didn’t happen and since then he had joined this performance. One day they would address it. Maybe at that time she would kiss him, she didn’t know.

“I know them,” Caesar said. He pointed at the band as they took their places. “I think they might even be better than George and Wesley.”

Cora and Caesar grew more casual about referring to Randall in public as the months passed. Much of what they said could apply to any former slave who overheard them. A plantation was a plantation; one might think one’s misfortunes distinct, but the true horror lay in their universality. In any event, the music would soon cover their talk of the underground railroad. Cora hoped the musicians wouldn’t think them rude for their inattention. It was unlikely. Playing their music as freemen and not chattel was probably still a cherished novelty. To attack the melody without the burden of providing one of the sole comforts of their slave village. To practice their art with liberty and joy.

The proctors arranged the socials to foster healthy relations between colored men and women, and to undo some of the damage to their personalities wrought by slavery. By their reckoning, the music and dancing, the food and punch, all unfolding on the green in the flickering lantern light, were a tonic for the battered soul. For Caesar and Cora it was one of their few opportunities to catch each other up.