The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Author:Colson Whitehead
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2016-09-13T04:30:00+00:00

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.

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