Adan didn’t really understand what he was doing, but he was never a man who tried to over think something. When he was out at sea he tended to let the wind carry him where it would. Evelia had blown into his life and he was inclined to see what became of it. He had been surprised at himself when he offered to escort her to wherever she needed to go but once it had been said there was no taking it back, and he didn’t think he wanted to anyways.
He wasn’t necessarily a secretive person, but he had told Evelia what seemed like his life story without hesitation, including the naughty bits that could get him in a whole heap of trouble if told to the wrong person. Her own story while lacking in plot twists, did seem to scream with a quiet desperation. From what he could tell, that desperation came from her extensive education, which at first had intimidated him. Under pressure from husbands and fathers most high class women stopped learning when they had fulfilled the obligations of the republican motherhood ideology. She had already learned more than what motherhood required of her. It seemed that Evelia would never stop learning. She craved knowledge and had worked hard to keep a current understanding of the work coming out of the scientific community which it turned out was a hard thing to accomplish in the antebellum south, especially for a girl.
During the afternoon she had hinted at scientific discoveries that seemed more like magic than science. He began to understand that she was not allowed to speak of her readings often as she rambled on about the current inventions utilizing electricity. He could tell that she was extremely frustrated because she had worked to acquire all of this knowledge and wasn’t allowed to do anything with it. Ignorance in this circumstance was truly bliss, and Evelia Sheffield was far from ignorant. She was required to keep silent and well behaved but inside she was beating against her restraints.
As they had walked arm and arm, he had watched her speak about Volts demonstration of a glowing wire and had admired her beauty. He was sure that she had looked grand in her tangerine dress, but for some reason he thought she had looked incredible when he saw her exit the brothel room in a common dress, her hair in a simple braid over her shoulder. Perhaps it made her seem more attainable, for while he had pushed it to the back of his mind, the thought that she was completely off limits had never truly left him.
He watched her now as she looked at the spectacle that was the Congo Square on a Sunday afternoon for the first time in her life. He stood to the side of her and watched her breath in and out as the ground rumbled with the rhythms of the Dark Continent. Congo Square was a three acre park on the fringes of the city and every Sunday afternoon it hosted a gathering of almost every city dwelling slave and freemen from miles around. Paths criss crossed the grassy lawn of the park and large majestic oaks stood proudly among the scattered azaleas and gardenias. New flowers bloomed, adding strokes of pinks, reds and whites amid the apple green spring time grass and leaves. Earlier in the day, a breeze had blown in from the gulf giving the day a lovely temperate feel, but under the afternoon sun the breeze had stilled and a thick steam began to hover over the landscape.
Tents and tables lined the paths, manned by slaves and freemen selling hand-made goods including jewelry, instruments, woven fabrics and baked goods. Unlike other locations in the south slaves in New Orleans could make money by selling items in Congo Square made in the little spare time that they had. If a slave was able to make enough money, they could buy their own freedom. It had resulted in a large and rich community of freemen within the city.
Dark chocolate men stood in a semi-circle near the center of the park under a large oak tree with handmade drums of various sizes. Others played violins or make shift guitars and flutes. They stood beating out complementary yet distinct rhythms or playing simple Caribbean style melodies wearing cream or brown cotton trousers and no shirts, the sweat dripping off of their smooth rippled chests. The music was never scripted and while some songs were memorized and taught to new comers, most of the music was improvised on the spot as the talented musicians listened and played off of each other. Each player came from different musical traditions and backgrounds and their styles collided and swirled together resulting in melodies and rhythms that defied definition. A crowd of spectators stood around the musicians in various states of undress. The afternoon temperatures were beginning to spike and these people were not afraid to show a little skin in order to escape heat exhaustion.
At the moment a women was dancing barefoot in the center of the circle. She had a long cotton skirt that she had pulled up above her knees. A long belt of fabric was tied around her breasts exposing her stomach. Her hair was tied back under a rag. Strings of shells wrapped around her wrists and ankles and they rattled with her movements. Her feet stamped at the ground forcefully with the drums and leaning over she swung her arms wildly and rolled her head. She followed the movement with a jerking arching of her back thrusting her chest in and out causing her bosom to bounce with the motion.
Adan saw Evelia gasp in reaction to the movement. He smiled and asked, “What do you think?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never heard anything like it. All of the music I have ever heard is melodic. This is so… rhythmic and deep. And the dancing is so wild and fluid like water bouncing on a beating drum. All of the dances I have ever seen are so rigid in comparison.”
As she said this, a man dressed in cotton pants with a red sash tied around his waist stepped out and joined the dancing women, taking her hand and gyrating in unison with her. Other couples began to join them as the music increased in tempo and yet the movements of the dancers seemed to slow in his vision. The drums thudded through the ground and penetrated his body as the volume began to rise. As the dancers moved, their bodies bounced and body parts and hair seemed to suspend in the air with the breath of each thud of the drums sending droplets of glistening sweat flying from their bodies. The new spring time growth on the large majestic oak over-shadowing the scene began to rustle and sway in time with the beat and he noticed that Evelia unconsciously began to sway to it as well, nodding her head ever so slightly.
“Well think about the differences between the people who make the music.” he said casually.
Her brow drew together as she thought about what he had said. “The dances I have seen are rigid because they are always trying to maintain control. This… this is about release, about a need to express and be… to be free. It is a cry for freedom. I understand it.”
The sun was hanging lazily above the horizon setting the scene in warm tones. The sweat dripped off of the revelers as they moved with each other and gave birth to a musical tradition that was greater than the sum of its parts. For one afternoon a week a people came together in this spot and danced away the oppressive weight that attempted to make them less than human. Adan loved coming here. His mother had been a slave and he heard and understood the underlying message in the music and movements here. In the early days of his pirating career he had helped to bring people into servitude. After seeing the dancers in Congo Square, he had never taken part in the smuggling of slaves again. He could see that Evelia had truly never seen slaves as people before but there was something very special about Congo Square. Here unlike anywhere else in the antebellum south, slaves could openly express their humanity, and it was hard for any witness to not be moved by the song even if they didn’t really understand the lyrics, but somehow Evelia did understand. The freedom song had spoken to her, and it made her even more attractive.
He slid behind her slowly. He felt the urge to touch her, to pull her in into an embrace, and express his desires for her through the dark rhythms. He knew it was stupid to desire her so much. Even if she felt the same way, what could come of it? Yet he couldn’t stop himself when he raised a hand and moved it over her arm swimming in the space above the fabric of the dress, wishing desperately that the fabric wasn’t there. He swayed with her and bit his lips as he allowed the tips of his fingers to brush her arm. She turned her head slightly finally aware of his proximity. He held his fingers in place not daring to move until her response gave him some clue on if he should proceed.
She said in a breathy voice, “It’s ironic, those are slaves out there, yet I am so jealous of them right now. They are wearing less than the ladies at that brothel. It’s completely indecent, yet I’m standing here burning up in this dress and I would give anything to be able to wear something like that.”
The sudden image of her wearing the slave clothing made him bite down hard on his lip to keep a groan from escaping his lips. His fingers were unable to maintain the distance any longer and his hand touched her and rubbed against the itchy thin fabric of her sleeve. She leaned into the movement and as his hand traced up her arm, her hand reached back and touched his thigh. His heart thudded with the music and they continued to sway as he drew his fingers up her arm. When he reached her shoulder he scooped around her, pulling her momentarily close to him before gently grabbing her other shoulder and pulling her to slowly face him.
She looked up at him and he could see his own desire for her reflected back at him. He began to trace his hand back down her arm and then placed it on her waist. With his other hand he cupped her face. Her own hands came up and settled on his arms. She said slowly after swallowing, “This is inappropriate.”
His chest clenched hard but he did not take his hands off of her. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Absolutely not, I’m only saying that you should.” He had had the same thought many times but no matter how much he knew it was true he could not bring himself to stop. It was hard to think with the beating of the drums driving through him. They were still swaying uncontrollably with the music as if his body was disconnected from his head. With every thump of the drum, like a heartbeat, their bodies drew closer together and the sway became more pronounced.
“I agree; we should stop. I know that I could never be satisfied with this, because I have to leave you at that academy tonight. I keep trying to stop…” The thumping of the drums had roused his own heartbeat and they now beat in competition within his ears. He involuntarily pulled on her waist drawing her still closer to him. His hand ran around her and pressed against the small of her back. His other hand fell from her face and grasped her other hand and their fingers intertwined.
“I don’t want you to stop. I want you to dance with me.” At that moment a group of voices exploded from amongst the cacophony of drums singing praises and he pulled her close to him as he moved against her unable to restrain himself any longer. He could feel the sweat prickle on his forehead as he moved with the beat pulling her in a circle. She picked up the heavy skirt of her dress and held it up so that neither of them would trip over it as they moved unchoreographed to the wild unscripted music radiating out of Congo square like the heat radiating from the sun to the west. The dance seemed both fast and slow as he moved against her, both of their breathing heavy from exertion and her braid bouncing in long arcs. He could not help but express his desire for her in his movements and for a moment they both forgot all of the thoughts that restrained him in the first place. It didn’t matter. Only this moment mattered.
The song finally came to an end as the last remnants of the sun stood just above the horizon. When it ended, the silence that took its place was deafening and Adan held Evelia close to himself as he breathed the evening air in gulps. Evelia’s face and neck were covered in a sheen of perspiration and strands of her hair curled about escaping from the long braid that was now unraveling down her back. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes looked alive. As he looked into her eyes, his mind refocused on the impossibility of their situation. The dance they had shared had been instinctual and he had relented to the needs of his body. Now as he looked at her, he knew that he was in a whole heap of trouble, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He leaned forward and kissed her deeply as the last edge of the sun sank below the horizon.
ns 15.158.61.45da2
