Passing for White by Tanya Landman

Author:Tanya Landman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781129029
Publisher: Barrington Stoke

We took our seats. My heart was thudding, my palms were damp. It felt like it would be a long time before I would calm myself.

The train pulled out of the station. That might have been the end of it, but Dough Lady wouldn’t stop talking. She turned to me, laid a hand on my arm. Her white fingers pinching my skin. Nails pressing into the cloth of my jacket.

“Oh I hope your boy doesn’t turn out to be as worthless as my Samuel,” she said. “Running off like that! Why’d he do it? You know, I treated him like my own son.”

Strange, the way memories catch you sometimes. Things you think are buried and long forgotten rise, clear and sharp, in your mind.

All of a sudden I was a child again, sitting on the back step one day with Miss Abigail. I must have been around three years old. I guess she was nine or ten.

The difference in our ages was enough for her to make a pet of me. When I was a baby she dressed me up like a living doll. Used to pick me up, carry me about the place.

When I started walking she taught me to act like her, speak like her. “Like a little lady,” she said. I guess it was akin to having a talking parrot or a dancing dog. A monkey, dressed in human clothes. I kept her amused. But God forbid I should overstep the line.

That particular day I went too far. She was playing one of those girls’ games, wondering who she was going to marry. Drawing word pictures of imaginary men with blond hair and green eyes. Tall, strong, handsome gentlemen, who’d fall in love the moment they clapped eyes on her. Who’d shower her with jewels and dresses. A man who’d die for love of her.

“I’m going to marry a Russian prince,” Miss Abigail said. “Or maybe the King of England.”

I wanted to join in, so I said the first thing that came into my head. “I’m going to marry the President of the United States.”

The next thing I knew I was face down in the dirt. She’d hit me so hard she knocked me clean off the step and into the yard. She was sitting on my back hissing into my ear. “You’ll marry a nigger. Black as coal. And you’ll have a passel of nigger brats.”

And now?

Why, I’d lay money on the fact that when Miss Abigail knew I’d run she’d say exactly the same as Dough Lady. I could see it as clearly as if she was standing right in front of me. A soft whisper, tears in her eyes, and a wounded look on her face. “Why’d Rosa run? We treated her so well. Like one of the family.”

A wave of sickness washed over me. How could white folks tell themselves such lies? I thought of my father, pinning my mother up against the wall, lifting her skirt. Of Miss Abigail’s husband, creeping between my sheets.

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