He walked to the door, looked outside, and then pushed it closed. He lowered his voice to a whisper.
“You need to know something, Ailey. Nobody in this department ever says they don’t want African Americans in the doctoral program. They say it’s a coincidence that there haven’t been any. Or they say they can’t find one that’s qualified. Okay, well, now you’re here, full of qualifications, and taking the hardest classes and making the highest grades. But they just happened not to give you the mentoring you’ll need to continue to the doctoral program. And that’s how that goes, Ailey. When we come to these all-white spaces, we have to be tough. We can’t show any weakness. I know that’s difficult, but that’s the way it is, and that’s why I’m so hard on you. And I will continue to be hard on you, Ailey, because I want to prepare you for what’s coming. It’s gone be the Thrilla in Manila when you enter the doctoral program. They will throw everything they have at you. If you fail, they’ll say, oh, that’s too bad. You just weren’t smart enough. If you succeed and earn the degree, despite all the obstacles they put up, they’ll take credit for your success and congratulate themselves for fostering a nonprejudiced environment. But, Ailey, you aren’t going to fail, because I am going to help you with every ounce of power that I have, all while pretending that I’m not helping you. For example, you and I never had this conversation. Do you understand me?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, sir.”
“I have faith in you, Ailey. We’re going to get you to that promised land, and then I’m gone find a tenure-track Black faculty member to replace me, and then I’m gone retire and take myself back to D.C. to a chocolate-covered neighborhood! Nah’mean?”
We laughed, and sat there for a long time, talking. He told me, when I spoke again with Uncle Root, please let him know that his book on African American families in the City had been life-changing. Dr. Whitcomb must have read that book five times, back at Harvard. When I gave my apologies, saying I needed to get back to making notes on my research, he told me no apologies were necessary. Dr. Whitcomb understood my obsession. And please keep him updated on my progress in the archives. He especially wanted to hear about my Wood Place kin.
*
At four thirty, I returned the documents I’d been reading to Mrs. Ransom, flipping the pages of my legal pad to prove I hadn’t stolen anything, as a Frenchman five years previously had done. The international market for historical documents was surprisingly brisk.
“I notice you’ve been looking at those Pinchard records. What are you writing about?” She patted a wayward curl into place with the rest of her bouffant.
I stood at the counter, trying not to dance: I’d skipped a pee break.
“I’m not sure. Just doing research for Dr. Whitcomb’s class.”
“Oh, Charles! He’s such a nice man. We’ve helped him with his books over the years. He always puts us on his acknowledgments page. Did he assign this family to you?”
“No, ma’am. My mother’s people have lived on that land for generations.”
“In Chicasetta?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A sudden smile; the teeth unusually white for someone her age. She placed her hand on top of mine.
“Oh my goodness! My daddy’s people are from Milledgeville!”
We remained at the counter almost an hour, chatting, though the collections were supposed to be closed. I confided that I didn’t ever want to live in the City again. I regularly traveled to Georgia to see my family and wasn’t the countryside so pretty and peaceful? And since Mrs. Ransom had roots in Milledgeville, which Flannery O’Connor story was her favorite? Had she ever been to Andalusia? The house was fallen and musty, but the grounds were beautiful. The pond, the old barn, that old mule that refused to give up the ghost. The smell of wisteria.
I had turned to leave when Mrs. Ransom remembered the daguerreotypes—one of them was the only image of slaves in the Pinchard papers.
“Photographs?” The excitement hit my bladder with renewed force. I tried not to run, calling over my shoulder that I’d be right back. I needed to visit the ladies’ room. Please don’t close the library on me. When I returned, she’d set me back up at my table, along with a new set of gloves and two rectangles of folded paper, each about five by three inches. I sat down, pulled on the gloves, and carefully touched one of the papers. When I opened it, there was an image of five white people. I immediately rewrapped that image and turned to the other paper, which had writing on it—what I assumed were the names of the picture’s subjects: “Leena, Eliza Two, and Rabbit, April 1858.” It was dated fifteen months before the fire Samuel Pinchard had recorded in his journal, the one that he’d noted had killed Rabbit and Leena, two of these girls.