Margaret didn’t need an explanation. She saw it now in Fishy’s memory. “Every vile thing that your master has done to you. Every insult by every White person. The happy life with your mama that got taken away. No wonder you wanted to kill somebody.” Margaret stepped closer. “And yet you didn’t. All that fire inside you, and all you did was come out into the garden and hide.”

“When she find out I didn’t do my work she going a-beat me,” said Fishy. “She going a-beat me bad, only this time I don’t know if I can take it. She not so strong, ma’am. I take the stick outen her hand, I beat her back, how she going a-like that, you think?”

“It wouldn’t feel good, Njia-njiwa.”

The girl winced at the sound of her name and wept again. “Oh, Mama, Mama, Mama.”

“You poor thing,” said Margaret.

“Don’t you pity me, you White woman! I clean your filth just like all the rest!”

“Good people clean up after the people they love,” said Margaret. “It isn’t the cleaning that you mind, it’s being forced to do it for people you don’t love.”

“People I hate!”

“Fishy, would you rather I call you by that name?”

“Don’t you go saying my true name no more,” said Fishy.

“All right, then. How about this? How about if I say I had you helping me today, and I pay your mistress a little to compensate for having taken you away from your duties?”

Fishy looked at her suspiciously. “Why you do that?”

“Because I do need your help.”

“You don’t have to pay for that,” said Fishy. “I be a slave, ain’t you heard?”

“I don’t want your labor,” said Margaret. “I want your help.”

“I don’t got no help for White folks,” said Fishy. “It be all I can do not to kill you right now.”

“I know,” said Margaret. “But you’re strong. You’ll contain these feelings. It’s good to have your name back. It’s as if you weren’t alive before, and now you are.”

“This ain’t no life,” said Fishy. “I got no hope now.”

“Now is when your hope begins,” said Margaret. “This thing you’ve done, you and the other slaves, giving up your names, your anger—it makes it safer for you, yes, it makes it easier, but you know who else it helps? Them. The White people who own you. Look at the other slaves, now that you have your anger back. See what they look like to the master.”

“I know how they look,” said Fishy. “They look stupid.”

“That’s right,” said Margaret. “Stupid and contented.”

“I ain’t going a-look stupid no more,” said Fishy. “She going a-see it in my eyes, how much I hate her. She going a-beat me all the time now.”

“I can’t help you with that right now,” said Margaret. “I’d buy you away from her if I could, but I haven’t that much money. I might rent your services, though, so you don’t have to spend time with your mistress until you’ve got these feelings under control.”