“But … he uses us to make you obey. I know he does.”
“He does. That’s his way.” She touched the smooth, red-brown skin of the girl’s face. “Nneka, none of this should concern you. Go and tell him what he wants to hear, then forget about him. I have endured him before. I will survive.”
“You’ll survive until the world ends,” said the girl solemnly. “You and him.” She shook her head.
They went into the house together and to the library where they found Doro sitting at Anyanwu’s desk looking through her records.
“For God’s sake!” Anyanwu said with disgust.
He looked up. “You’re a better businesswoman than I thought with your views against slavery,” he said.
To her amazement, the praise reached her. She was not pleased that he had gone snooping through her things, but she was abruptly less annoyed. She went to the desk and stood over him silently until he smiled, got up, and took his armchair again. Margaret took another chair and sat waiting.
“Did you tell her?” Doro asked Anyanwu.
Anyanwu shook her head.
He faced Margaret. “We think Joseph may have undergone transition while he was here. Did he show any signs of it?”
Margaret had been watching Doro’s new face, but as he said the word transition, she looked away, studied the pattern of the oriental rug.
“Tell me about it,” said Doro quietly.
“How could he have?” demanded Anyanwu. “There was no sign!”
“He knew what was happening,” Margaret whispered. “I knew too because I saw it happen to … to Stephen. It took much longer with Stephen though. For Joe it came almost all at once. He was feeling bad for a week, maybe a little more, but nobody noticed except me. He made me promise not to tell anyone. Then one night when he’d been here for about a month, he went through the worst of it. I thought he would die, but he begged me not to leave him alone or tell anyone.”
“Why?” Anyanwu demanded. “I could have helped you with him. You’re not strong. He must have hurt you.”
Margaret nodded. “He did. But … he was afraid of you. He thought you would tell Doro.”
“It wouldn’t have made much sense for her not to,” Doro said.
Margaret continued to stare at the rug.
“Finish,” Doro ordered.
She wet her lips. “He was afraid. He said you … you killed his brother when his brother’s transition ended.”
There was silence. Anyanwu looked from Margaret to Doro. “Did you do it?” she asked frowning.
“Yes. I thought that might be the trouble.”
“But his brother! Why, Doro!”
“His brother went mad during transition. He was … like a lesser version of Nweke. In his pain and confusion he killed the man who was helping him. I reached him before he could accidentally kill himself, and I took him. I got five children by his body before I had to give it up.”
“Couldn’t you have helped him?” Anyanwu asked. “Wouldn’t he have come back to his senses if you had given him time?”
“He attacked me, Anyanwu. Salvageable people don’t do that.”
“But …”
“He was mad. He would have attacked anyone who approached him. He would have wiped out his family if I hadn’t been there.” Doro leaned back and wet his lips, and Anyanwu remembered what he had done to his own family so long ago. He had told her that terrible story. “I’m not a healer,” he said softly. “I save life in the only way I can.”
“I had not thought you bothered to save it at all,” Anyanwu said bitterly.
He looked at her. “Your son is dead,” he said. “I’m sorry. He would have been a fine man. I would never have brought Joseph here if I had known they would be dangerous to each other.”
He seemed utterly sincere. She could not recall the last time she had heard him apologize for anything. She stared at him, confused.
“Joe didn’t say anything about his brother going crazy,” Margaret said.
“Joseph didn’t live with his family,” Doro said. “He couldn’t get along with them, so I found foster parents for him.”
“Oh …” Margaret looked away, seeming to understand, to accept. No more than half the children on the plantation lived with their parents.
“Margaret?”
She looked up at him, then quickly looked down again. He was being remarkably gentle with her, but she was still afraid.
“Are you pregnant?” he asked.
“I wish I were,” she whispered. She was beginning to cry.
“All right,” Doro said. “All right, that’s all.”
She got up quickly and left the room. When she was gone, Anyanwu said, “Doro, Joseph was too old for a transition! Everything you taught me says he was too old.”
“He was twenty-four. I haven’t seen anyone change at that age before, but …” He hesitated, changed direction. “You never asked about his ancestry, Anyanwu.”
“I never wanted to know.”
“You do know. He’s your descendant, of course.”
She made herself shrug. “You said you would bring my grandchildren.”
“He was the grandchild of your grandchildren. Both his parents trace their descent back to you.”
“Why do you tell me that now? I don’t want to know any more about it. He’s dead!”
“He’s Isaac’s descendant too,” Doro continued relentlessly. “People of Isaac’s line are sometimes a little late going into transition, though Joseph is about as late as I’ve seen. The two children I’ve brought to you are sons of his brother’s body.”
“No!” Anyanwu stared at him. “Take them away! I want no more of that kind near me!”
“You have them. Teach them and guide them as you do your own children. I told you your descendants would not be easy to care for. You chose to care for them anyway.”
She said nothing. He made it sound as though her choice had been free, as though he had not coerced her into choosing.
“If I had found you earlier, I would have brought them to you when they were even younger,” he said. “Since I didn’t, you’ll have to do what you can with them now. Teach them responsibility, pride, honor. Teach them whatever you taught Stephen. But don’t be foolish enough to teach them you believe they’ll grow up to be criminals. They’ll be powerful men someday and they’re liable to fulfill your expectationseither way.”
Still she said nothing. What was there for her to sayor do? He would be obeyed, or he would make her life and her children’s lives not worth livingif he did not kill them outright.
“You have five to ten years before the boys’ transitions,” he said. “They will have transitions; I’m as sure as I can be of that. Their ancestry is just right.”
“Are they mine, or will you interfere with them?”
“Until their transitions, they’re yours.
“And then?”
“I’ll breed them, of course.”
Of course. “Let them marry and stay here. If they fit here, they’ll want to stay. How can they become responsible men if their only future is to be bred?”
Doro laughed aloud, opening his mouth wide to show the empty spaces of several missing teeth. “Do you hear yourself, woman? First you want no part of them, now you don’t want to let go of them even when they’re grown.”
She waited silently until he stopped laughing, then asked: “Do you think I’m willing to throw away any child, Doro? If there is a chance for those boys to grow up better than Joseph, why shouldn’t I try to give them that chance? If, when they grow up, they can be men instead of dogs who know nothing except how to climb onto one female after another, why shouldn’t I try to help?”
He sobered. “I knew you would helpand not grudgingly. Don’t you think I know you by now, Anyanwu?”
Oh, he knew herknew how to use her. “Will you do it then? Let them marry and stay here if they fit?”