Whenever this happened, though, he couldn't help but wonder -- why do such
thoughts come to me even when I pray? Maybe I'm as righteous as Abraham; maybe it's the
Lord who sent these desires to me. Didn't I first think of this while reading scripture? The
Lord can work miracles -- what if I went in unto the newbought girl and she conceived, and
the Lord worked a miracle and the baby was born White? All things are possible to God.
This thought was both wonderful and terrible. If only it were true! Yet Abraham
heard the voice of God, so he never had to wonder about what God might want of him. God
never said a word to Cavil Planter.
And why not? Why didn't God just tell him right out? Take the girl, she's yours!
Or, Touch her not, she is forbidden! Just let me hear your voice, Lord, so I'll know what do
to!
O Lord my rock;
Unto thee will I cry,
Be not silent to me;
Lest, if thou be silent to me,
I become like them
That go down into the pit.
On a certain day in 1810 that prayer was answered.
Cavil was kneeling in the curing shed, which was mostly empty, seeing how last year's
burly crop was long since sold and this year's was still a-greening in the field. He'd been
wrestling in prayer and confession and dark imaginings until at last he cried out, "Is there no
one to hear my prayer?"
"Oh, I hear you right enough," said a stern voice.
Cavil was terrified at first, fearing that some stranger -- his overseer, or a neighbor --
had overheard some terrible confession. But when he looked, he saw that it wasn't anyone he
knew. Still, he knew at once what the man was. From the strength in his arms, his sun-browned face, and his open shirt -- no jacket at all -- he knew the man was no gentleman. But
he was no White trash, either, nor a tradesman. The stern look in his face, the coldness of his
eye, the tension in his muscles like a spring tight-bound in a steel trap. He was plainly one of
those men whose whip and iron will keep discipline among the Black fieldworkers. An
overseer. Only he was stronger and more dangerous than any overseer Cavil had ever seen.
He knew at once that this overseer would get every ounce of work from the lazy apes who
tried to avoid work in the fields. He knew that whoever's plantation was run by this overseer
would surely prosper. But Cavil also knew that he would never dare to hire such a man, for
this overseer was so strong that Cavil would soon forget who was man and who was master.
"Many have called me their master," said the stranger. "I knew that you would
recognize me at once for what I am."
How had the man known the words that Cavil thought in the hidden reaches of his
mind? "Then you are an overseer?"
"Just as there was one who was once called, not a master, but simply Master, so am I
not an overseer, but the Overseer."
"Why did you come here?"
"Because you called for me."
"How could I call for you, when I never saw you before in my life?"
"If you call for the unseen, Cavil Planter, then of course you will see what you never
saw before."
Only now did Cavil fully understand what sort of vision it was he saw, there in his
own burly curing shed. A man whom many called their master, come in answer to his
prayer.
"Lord Jesus!" cried Cavil.
At once the Overseer recoiled, putting up his hand as if to fend off Cavil's words. "It
is forbidden for any man to call me by that name!" he cried.
In terror, Cavil bowed his head to the dirt. "Forgive me, Overseer! But if I am
unworthy to say your name, how is it I can look upon your face? Or am I doomed to die
today, unforgiven for my sins?"
"Woe unto you, fool," said the Overseer. "Do you really believe that you have looked
upon my face?"
Cavil lifted his head and looked at the man. "I see your eyes even now, looking down
at me."
"You see the face that you invented for me in your own mind, the body conjured out
of your own imagination. Your feeble wits could never comprehend what you saw, if you
saw what I truly am. So your sanity protects itself by devising its own mask to put upon me.
If you see me as an Overseer, it is because that is the guise you recognize as having the
greatness and power I possess. It is the form that you at once love and fear, the shape that
makes you worship and recoil. I have been called by many names. Angel of Light and
Walking Man, Sudden Stranger and Bright Visitor, Hidden One and Lion of War, Unmaker
of Iron and Water-bearer. Today you have called me Overseer, and so, to you, that is my
name."
"Can I ever know your true name, or see your true face, Overseer?"
The Overseer's face became dark and terrible, and he opened his mouth as if to howl.
"Only one soul alive in all the world has ever seen my true shape, and that one will surely
die!"
The mighty words came like dry thunder and shook Cavil Planter to his very root, so
that he gripped the dirt of the shed floor lest he fly off into the air like dust whipped away in
the wind before the storm. "Do not strike me dead for my impertinence!" cried Cavil.
The Overseer's answer came gentle as morning sunlight. "Strike you dead? How
could I, when you are a man I have chosen to receive my most secret teachings, a gospel
unknown to priest or minister."
"Me?"
"Already I have been teaching you, and you understood. I know you desire to do as I
command. But you lack faith. You are not yet completely mine."
Cavil's heart leapt within him. Could it be that the Overseer meant to give him what
he gave to Abraham? "Overseer, I am unworthy."
"Of course you are unworthy. None is worthy of me, no, not one soul upon this
earth. But still, if you obey, you may find favor in my eyes."
Oh, he will! cried Cavil in his heart, yes, he will give me the woman! "Whatever you
command, Overseer."
"Do you think I would give you Hagar because of your foolish lust and your hunger
for a child? There is a greater purpose. These Black people are surely the sons and daughters
of God, but in Africa they lived under the power of the devil. That terrible destroyer has
polluted their blood -- why else do you think they are Black? I can never save them as long as
each generation is born pure Black, for then the devil owns them. How can I reclaim them as
my own, unless you help me?"
"Will my child be born White then, if I take the girl?"
"What matters to me is that the child will not be born pure Black. Do you understand
what I desire of you? Not one Ishmael, but many children; not one Hagar, but many
women."
Cavil hardly dared to name the secretest desire of his heart. "All of them?"
"I give them to you, Cavil Planter. This evil generation is your property. With
diligence, you can prepare another generation that will belong to me."
"I will, Overseer!"
"You must tell no one that you saw me. I speak only to those whose desires already
turn toward me and my works, the ones who already thirst for the water I bring."
"I'll speak no word to any man, Overseer!"
"Obey me, Cavil Planter, and I promise that the end of your life you will meet me
again and know me for what I truly am. In that moment I will say to you, You are mine,
Cavil Planter. Come and be my true slave forever."
"Gladly!" cried Cavil. "Gladly! Gladly!"
He flung out his arms and embraced the Overseer's legs. But when he should have
touched the visitor, there was nothing. He had vanished.
From that night on, Cavil Planter's slavewomen had no peace. As Cavil had them
brought to him by night, he tried to treat them with the strength and mastery he had seen in
the face of the fearful Overseer. They must look at me and see His face, thought Cavil, and
it's sure they did.
The first one he took unto himself was a certain newbought slavegirl who had scarce a
word of English. She cried out in terror until he raised the welts upon her that he had seen in
his dreams. Then, whimpering, she permitted him to do as the Overseer had commanded.
For a moment, that first time, he thought her whimpering was like Dolores's voice when she
sept so quietly in bed, and he felt the same deep pity that he had felt for his beloved wife.
Almost he reached out tenderly to the girl as he had once reached out to comfort Dolores.
But then he remembered the face of the Overseer and thought, this Black girl is His enemy;
she is my property. As surely as a man must plow and plant the land God gave to him, I must
not let this Black womb lie fallow.
Hagar, he called her that first night. You do not understand how I am blessing you.
In the morning he looked in the mirror and saw something new in his face. A kind of
fierceness. A kind of terrible hidden strength. Ah, thought Cavil, no one ever saw what I
truly am, not even me. Only now do I discover what the Overseer is, I also am.
He never felt another moment's pity as he went about his nightly work. Ashen cane
in hand, he went to the women's cabin and pointed at the one who was to come with him. If
any hung back, she learned from the cane how much reluctance cost. If any other Black, man
or woman, spoke in protest, the next day Cavil saw to it that the Overseer took it out of them
in blood. No White guessed and no Black dared accuse him.
The newbought girl, his Hagar, was the first to conceive. He watched her with pride
as her belly began to grow. Cavil knew then that the Overseer had truly chosen him, and he
took fierce joy in having such mastery. There would be a child, his child. And already the
next step was clear to him. If his White blood was to save as many Black souls as possible,
then he could not keep his mix-up babies at home, could he? He would sell them south, each
to a different buyer, to a different city, and then trust the Overseer to see that they in turn
grew up and spread his seed throughout all the unfortunate Black race.
And each morning he watched his wife eat her breakfast. "Cavil, my love," she said
one day, "is something wrong? There's something darker in your face, a look of -- rage,
perhaps, or cruelty. Have you quarreled with someone? I would not speak except you -- you
frighten me."
Tenderly he patted his wife's twisted hand as the Black woman watched him under
heavy-lidded eyes. "I have no anger against any man or woman, said Cavil gently. "And what
you call cruelty is nothing more than mastery. Ah, Dolores, how can you look in my face
and call me cruel?"
She wept. "Forgive me," she cried. "I imagined it. You, the kindest man I've ever
heard of -- the devil put such a vision in my mind, I know it. The devil can give false visions,
you know, but only the wicked are deceived. Forgive me for my wickedness, Husband!"
He forgave her, but she wouldn't stop her weeping until he had sent for the priest. No
wonder the Lord chose only men to be his prophets. Women were too weak and
compassionate to do the work of the Overseer.
That's how it began. That was the first footfall on this dark and terrible path. Not
Alvin nor Peggy ever knew this tale until I found it out and told them both long after, and
they recognized at once that it was the start of all.
But I don't want you to think this was the whole cause of all the evil that befell, for it
wasn't. There were other choices made, other mistakes, other lies and other willing cruelties
done. A man might have plenty of help finding the short path to hell, but no one else can
make him set foot upon it.
Copyright © 1989 Orson Scott Card
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