Natasha Trethewey

The lies I could tell, when I was growing up light-bright, near-white, high-yellow, red-boned in a black place, were just white lies. I could easily tell the white folks that we lived uptown, not in that pink and green shanty-fled shotgun section along the tracks. I could act like my homemade dresses came straight out the window of Maison Blanche. I could even keep quiet, quiet as kept, like the time a white girl said (squeezing my hand),Now we have three of us in this class. But I paid for it every time Mama found out. She laid her hands on me, then washed out my mouth with Ivory soap.This is to purify, she said, and cleanse your lying tongue. Believing her, I swallowed suds thinking they'd work from the inside out.

You can get there from here, though there’s no going home. Everywhere you go will be somewhere you’ve never been. Try this: head south on Mississippi 49, one- by-one mile markers ticking off another minute of your life. Follow this to its natural conclusion—dead end at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches in a sky threatening rain. Cross over the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand dumped on the mangrove swamp—buried terrain of the past. Bring only what you must carry—tome of memory, its random blank pages. On the dock where you board the boat for Ship Island, someone will take your picture: the photograph—who you were— will be waiting when you return.

Homo sapiens is the only species to suffer psychological exile. — E. O. Wilson I returned to a stand of pines, bone-thin phalanx flanking the roadside, tangle of understory—a dialectic of dark and light—and magnolias blossoming like afterthought: each flower a surrender, white flags draped among the branches. I returned to land’s end, the swath of coast clear cut and buried in sand: mangrove, live oak, gulfweed razed and replaced by thin palms— palmettos—symbols of victory or defiance, over and over marking this vanquished land. I returned to a field of cotton, hallowed ground— as slave legend goes—each boll holding the ghosts of generations: those who measured their days by the heft of sacks and lengths of rows, whose sweat flecked the cotton plants still sewn into our clothes. I returned to a country battlefield where colored troops fought and died— Port Hudson where their bodies swelled and blackened beneath the sun—unburied until earth’s green sheet pulled over them, unmarked by any headstones. Where the roads, buildings, and monuments are named to honor the Confederacy, where that old flag still hangs, I return to Mississippi, state that made a crime of me—mulatto, half-breed—native in my native land, this place they’ll bury me.

Like the moon that night, my father — a distant body, white and luminous. How small I was back then, looking up as if from dark earth. Distant, his body white and luminous, my father stood in the doorway. Looking up as if from dark earth, I saw him outlined in a scrim of light. My father stood in the doorway as if to watch over me as I dreamed. When I saw him outlined — a scrim of light — he was already waning, turning to go. Once, he watched over me as I dreamed. How small I was. Back then, he was already turning to go, waning like the moon that night — my father.

What's left is footage: the hours before Camille, 1969—hurricane parties, palm trees leaning in the wind, fronds blown back, a woman's hair. Then after: the vacant lots, boats washed ashore, a swamp where graves had been. I recall how we huddled all night in our small house, moving between rooms, emptying pots filled with rain. The next day, our house— on its cinderblocks—seemed to float in the flooded yard: no foundation beneath us, nothing I could see tying us                      to the land. In the water, our reflection trembled, disappeared when I bent to touch it.

I was asleep while you were dying. It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow I make between my slumber and my waking, the Erebus I keep you in, still trying not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow, but in dreams you live. So I try taking you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning, my eyes open, I find you do not follow. Again and again, this constant forsaking. * Again and again, this constant forsaking: my eyes open, I find you do not follow. You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning. But in dreams you live. So I try taking, not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow. The Erebus I keep you in—still, trying— I make between my slumber and my waking. It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow. I was asleep while you were dying.

In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi. They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong—mis in Mississippi. A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the same as slaves, the train slicing the white glaze of winter, leaving Mississippi. Faulkner’s Joe Christmas was born in winter, like Jesus, given his name for the day he was left at the orphanage, his race unknown in Mississippi. My father was reading War and Peace when he gave me my name. I was born near Easter, 1966, in Mississippi. When I turned 33 my father said,It’s your Jesus year—you’re the same age he was when he died. It was spring, the hills green in Mississippi. I know more than Joe Christmas did. Natasha is a Russian name— though I’m not; it means Christmas child, even in Mississippi.

1 In which I try to decipher the story it tells, this syntax of monuments flanking the old courthouse: here, a rough outline like the torso of a woman great with child— a steatite boulder from which the Indians girdled the core to make of it a bowl, and left in the stone a wound; here, the bronze figure of Thomas Jefferson, quill in hand, inscribing a language of freedom, a creation story— his hand poised at the word happiness. There is not yet an ending, no period—the single mark, intended or misprinted, that changes the meaning of everything. Here too, for the Confederacy, an obelisk, oblivious in its name—a word that also meant the symbol to denote, in ancient manuscripts, the spurious,corrupt,or doubtful; at its base, forged in concrete, a narrative of valor,virtue,states' rights. Here, it is only the history of a word, obelisk, that points us toward what's not there; all of it palimpsest, each mute object repeating a single refrain: Remember this.

We tell the story every year— how we peered from the windows, shades drawn— though nothing really happened, the charred grass now green again. We peered from the windows, shades drawn, at the cross trussed like a Christmas tree, the charred grass still green. Then we darkened our rooms, lit the hurricane lamps. At the cross trussed like a Christmas tree, a few men gathered, white as angels in their gowns. We darkened our rooms and lit hurricane lamps, the wicks trembling in their fonts of oil. It seemed the angels had gathered, white men in their gowns. When they were done, they left quietly. No one came. The wicks trembled all night in their fonts of oil; by morning the flames had all dimmed. When they were done, the men left quietly. No one came. Nothing really happened. By morning all the flames had dimmed. We tell the story every year.

Do not hang your head or clench your fists when even your friend, after hearing the story, says,My mother would never put up with that. Fight the urge to rattle off statistics: that, more often, a woman who chooses to leave is then murdered. The hundredth time your father says,But she hated violence, why would she marry a guy like that?—