TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

her feet. The thorns encircled her shoulders. Then the masters put the lid on and hammered it shut. They rocked it back and forth a few minutes. They read again from the Holy Book.
    Then the barrel went down the hill, tumbling.
    THE CROWDS WERE enormous. He had spoken alongside Father Mathew. He found a language in the temperance movement. The papers still called him the black O’Connell. Posters were pasted up all around the city. His fame spread, day by day. He picnicked with twenty-four women from the Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society: they delighted in the large lounge of him underneath a spreading oak tree, a dainty blue napkin at his throat, the gurgle of a brook behind him. The women unloosened the bonnets at their necks and raised their faces towards the sun. They hung on his every word. Later, the group walked together, carrying picnic baskets and parasols, out over the long grass and back towards a wooden bridge. Douglass dared to take off his shoes and socks and waded briefly in the cold water. The women turned away and giggled. The water darkened the cuffs of his trousers.
    Newspaper reporters clamored to see him. Whole pages were devoted to his lectures. He had collected hundreds of pounds to be shipped back to Boston. He had sold over two thousand books. He would go on to Limerick next, then to Belfast. From there he would go to England where he would negotiate his freedom, buy himself back, return to America, a freeman.
    There was a great welling inside him. His voice had always come from others, but when he stood to speak now, it felt more distinctly his own. There were times he wished he had a thousand voices and could throw them in so many directions, but he had just one, and it served asingle purpose: to annihilate slavery. He was almost glad one afternoon when, walking past an ale house on Paul Street, he heard someone say that a
nigger
had just walked past, a filthy
niggerboy
, did he not have a home to go to, he wouldn’t find bananas in that direction, did he not know there were no trees to swing from in Cork, Cromwell had taken them all already, go on now,
nigger
.
    He stopped, swelled his chest, held his ground, almost a fake fury, then walked on in his camel-hair vest.
Nigger. Filthy nigger
. For the first time, the word felt strangely welcome. An old shirt that he would have to wear in the future. Something to unbutton and tear off and rebutton again and again and again.
    A FEW DAYS before he left Cork—a day that would stay with him quietly, a flag, a kite, a remnant—he heard a knocking at the door on Brown Street. He was in the midst of writing. His forearms were splattered with ink. His back ached from the bend over the desk. He pushed back in the chair and listened to the voices drifting up from below, then leaned into the work of writing once more.
    Later that evening he bathed and dressed and descended the stairs for dinner. A young woman sat at the end of the table, next to Isabel. She seemed at odds with the manner with which she had been seated. Hunched, awkward, but pretty. With fair hair. Her skin so very pale. He thought he knew her, but he did not know from where. She stood up and said his name.
    —Good evening, he replied, still confounded.
    A hush came over the table. It was obvious to him that some other response was needed. He coughed into his fist.
    —Such a pleasure to see you, Madame, he said.
    He could feel the embarrassment swell the room.
    —Lily is leaving for America, said Isabel.
    It was then that he recognized her. She seemed so very different out of her uniform. Younger even. He remembered her shape on the stairs. She had, it seemed, left the employ of Mr. Webb and journeyed from Dublin.
    —She will leave from Cove in a few days, said Isabel.
    —That’s wonderful, said Douglass.
    —She walked here.
    —Good Lord.
    —Lily was inspired by you. Isn’t that right, Lily?
    —By me?
    A small panic seized him. He could see a blush come over the young woman’s face.