The Underground Railroad

That first day, Cora acquainted herself with the life of the park, the patch of green she’d seen across the street from the house. She pressed her eye to the spy hole, shifting around to capture the entire view. Two- and three-story wood-frame houses bordered the park on all sides, identical in construction, distinguished by paint color and the type of furniture on their long porches. Neat brick walkways crisscrossed the grass, snaking in and out of the shadows of the tall trees and their luxurious branches. A fountain warbled near the main entrance, surrounded by low stone benches that were occupied soon after sunup and remained popular well into the night.

Elderly men with handkerchiefs full of crusts for the birds, children with their kites and balls, and young couples under the spell of romance took their shifts. A brown mutt owned the place, known to all, yipping and scampering. Across the afternoon, children chased it through the grass and onto the sturdy white bandstand at the edge of the park. The mutt dozed in the shade of the benches and the gigantic oak that dominated the green with majestic ease. It was well-fed, Cora observed, gobbling down the treats and bones offered by the citizens. Her stomach never failed to rumble at the sight. She named him Mayor.

As the sun approached its zenith, and the park bustled with midday traffic, the heat transformed the hidey-hole into a wretched furnace. Crawling to different sections of the attic nook, searching for imaginary oases of cool, became her principal activity after her vigil over the park. She learned that her hosts would not visit her during the day, when their girl Fiona was working. Martin tended to his store, Ethel came and went on her social rounds, but Fiona was always downstairs. She was young, with a prominent Irish accent. Cora heard her going about her duties, sighing to herself and muttering invectives toward her absent employers. Fiona did not enter the attic that first day, but the sound of her steps turned Cora as stiff as her old sailing mate Skipper John. Ethel’s warnings the first morning made their intended impression.

On her arrival day there were additional visitors-Martin and Ethel’s daughter, Jane, and her family. From the daughter’s bright and pleasant manner, Cora decided she took after her father, and filled in her broad face using Martin as a template. The son-in-law and the two granddaughters were an unceasing commotion, thundering through the house. At one point the girls started for the attic but reconsidered after a discussion about the habits and customs of ghosts. There was indeed a ghost in the house, but she was done with chains, rattling or no.

In the evening the park remained busy. The main street must be nearby, Cora thought, funneling the town. Some older women in blue gingham dresses nailed white-and-blue bunting to the bandstand. Garlands of orange leaves added a flourish. Families staked out spots before the stage, unrolling blankets and removing supper from baskets. Those who lived next to the park gathered on their porches with jugs and glasses.

Preoccupied by her uncomfortable refuge and the parade of misfortunes since the slave catchers found them out, Cora did not immediately notice an important feature of the park: Everyone was white. She had never left the plantation before she and Caesar ran away, so South Carolina gave Cora her first glimpse of the mingling of races in towns and cities. On Main Street, in stores, in factories and offices, in every sector, black and white mixed all day as a matter of course. Human commerce withered without it. In liberty or bondage, the African could not be separated from the American.

In North Carolina the negro race did not exist except at the ends of ropes.

Two able young men helped the matrons hang a banner over the bandstand: Friday Festival. A band took its place onstage, the sounds of their warming up gathering the scattered parkgoers. Cora hunkered and pressed her face to the wall. The banjo man displayed some talent, the horn player and fiddler less so. Their melodies were bland in comparison to those of the colored musicians she’d heard, on Randall and off, but the townspeople enjoyed the denatured rhythms. The band closed with spirited renditions of two colored songs Cora recognized, which proved the most popular of the night. On the porch below, Martin and Ethel’s grandchildren squealed and clapped.