The Underground Railroad

Ethel sat in the corner of her husband’s childhood bedroom. Her knitting piled in her lap, she stared at Cora. She felt her patient’s forehead. “Better,” Ethel said. She poured a glass of water, then brought a bowl of beef broth.

Ethel’s attitude had softened during Cora’s delirium. The runaway made so much noise moaning in the night and was so ill when they lowered her from the attic nook that they were obliged to let Fiona go for a few days. Martin had the Venezuelan pox, they told the Irish girl, caught from a tainted bag of feed, and the doctor forbid anyone to enter the house until it had run its course. He’d read about one such quarantine in a magazine, the first excuse that came into his head. They paid the girl her wages for the week. Fiona tucked the money into her purse and asked no more questions.

It was Martin’s turn to absent himself while Ethel assumed responsibility for their guest, nursing Cora through two days of fever and convulsions. The couple had made few friends during their time in the state, making it easier to abstain from the life of town. While Cora twisted in her delirium, Ethel read from the Bible to speed her recuperation. The woman’s voice entered her dreams. So stern the night Cora emerged from the mine, it now contained a quality of tenderness. She dreamed the woman kissed her forehead, motherly. Cora listened to her stories, drifting. The ark delivered the worthy, bringing them to the other side of the catastrophe. The wilderness stretched for forty years before others found their promised land.

The afternoon stretched the shadows like taffy and the park entered its period of diminished popularity as supper approached. Ethel sat in the rocking chair, smiled, and looked through the Scripture, trying to find an appropriate section.

Now that she was awake and could speak for herself, Cora told her host that the verses were unnecessary.

Ethel’s mouth formed a line. She closed the book, one thin finger holding her place. “We are all in need of our Savior’s grace,” Ethel said. “It wouldn’t be very Christian of me to let a heathen into my house, and not share His word.”

“It has been shared,” Cora said.

It had been Ethel’s childhood Bible that Martin gave to Cora, smudged and stained by her fingers. Ethel quizzed Cora, dubious as to how much their guest could read and understand. To be sure, Cora was not a natural believer, and her education had been terminated sooner than she wished. In the attic she had struggled with the words, pressed on, doubled back to difficult verses. The contradictions vexed her, even half-understood ones.

“I don’t get where it says, He that stealeth a man and sells him, shall be put to death,” Cora said. “But then later it says, Slaves should be submissive to their masters in everything-and be well-pleasing.” Either it was a sin to keep another as property, or it had God’s own blessing. But to be well-pleasing in addition? A slaver must have snuck into the printing office and put that in there.

“It means what it says,” Ethel said. “It means that a Hebrew may not enslave a Hebrew. But the sons of Ham are not of that tribe. They were cursed, with black skin and tails. Where the Scripture condemns slavery, it is not speaking of negro slavery at all.”

“I have black skin, but I don’t have a tail. As far as I know-I never thought to look,” Cora said. “Slavery is a curse, though, that much is true.” Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.

Under the Georgia sun, Connelly had recited verses while scourging field hands for infractions. “Niggers, obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.” The slash of the cat-o’-nine-tails punctuating every syllable, and a wail from the victim. Cora remembered other passages on slavery in the Good Book and shared them with her host. Ethel said she didn’t wake up that morning to get into a theological argument.

Cora enjoyed the woman’s company and frowned when she left. For her part, Cora blamed the people who wrote it down. People always got things wrong, on purpose as much as by accident. The next morning Cora asked for the almanacs.