A Mercy
Toni Morrison鈥檚 books are epics of the failure of the country鈥檚 conscience. 鈥淲hen I began, there was just one thing that I wanted to write about, which was the true devastation of racism on the most vulnerable, the most helpless unit in the society 鈥� a black female and a child,鈥� she told The New York Times in an interview.
Almost 40 years into her career, a black female child is still at the heart of her writing. In the Nobel Prize-winner鈥檚 first novel in five years, A Mercy, she goes back further in history than her most searing and poetic novel, 鈥淏eloved,鈥� to look at the foundations of slavery in an America 鈥渂efore it was America.鈥�
The chances for mercy to thrive in a new land are weighed on a small farm in New York. Four women who were acquired by farmer-turned-trader Jacob Vaark in various ways 鈥� marriage, purchase, repayment of debts 鈥� have forged an unlikely family, partly out of proximity but also out of a deep, thwarted hunger for motherhood 鈥� either to have one or to be one.
There are also two indentured male servants (whose contracts never seem to end), so the farm is a small collective of every type of servitude possible years before the country turned exclusively and implacably to the enslavement of black Africans. This might seem like a contrived set up for a morality play, but once Morrison鈥檚 writing takes over readers will not notice.
鈥淲hite men, by and large, are not powerful figures in black women鈥檚 literature,鈥� Morrison remarked in the same New York Times interview. While the women are definitely the center of 鈥淎 Mercy,鈥� Morrison offers a more complicated portrayal of a white male in Jacob Vaark.
An orphan himself, Jacob has a tendency to collect strays. His wife, Rebekka, came over from England when she was 16 鈥� essentially sold by a family that didn鈥檛 want to feed her anymore. Her 鈥減rospects were servant, prostitute, or wife, and although horrible stories were told about each of those careers, the last one seemed safest.鈥�
Given her low expectations, Rebekka is thrilled with Jacob (and he with her). They seem destined to have a happy marriage 鈥� until their children all die, one after another, leaving Rebekka 鈥渦nleavened,鈥� in Jacob鈥檚 words.
Her companion, Lina, is a native American whose tribe was destroyed by disease when she was a child. She was raised by Presbyterians until 鈥満＝谴笊駃zed and capable,鈥� they sold her to Jacob.
The final member of the household is Sorrow, a seemingly vacant girl who escaped from a shipwreck and who Jacob agreed to take in exchange for some lumber.
While in Maryland in 1682, seeking repayment on a debt, Jacob visits the tobacco farm of a Senhor D鈥橭rtega. D鈥橭rtega has no money, so he offers him another form of portable wealth: a slave.
Jacob initially recoils but ultimately accepts a little girl named Florens when asked to by her mother.
鈥淔rom his own childhood he knew there was no good place in the world for waifs and whelps other than the generosity of strangers,鈥� Jacob reflects. 鈥淓ven if bartered, given away, apprenticed, sold, swapped, seduced, tricked for food, labored for shelter or stolen, they were less doomed under adult control.鈥�
So he brings Florens back home to his wife 鈥� the act of 鈥渕ercy鈥� of the title. But Florens never recovers from being 鈥渁bandoned鈥� by her mother, whom she believes chose her baby brother over her.
And the act of acquiring her opens Jacob to the possibility of doing more than just dabbling in slavery.
While repulsed by what he sees as the overindulgence and excess of the D鈥橭rtegas, Jacob becomes determined to acquire the same kind of house and trappings, and another trader explains how: the sugar plantations of Barbados 鈥� where the labor is free and infinitely replaceable.
At the Vaarks鈥� farm, Lina mothers Florens and Rebekka is mildly amused by the little girl who 鈥渉owever slight, any kindness shown her she munched like a rabbit.鈥�
If the quality of mercy on display here is dubious, the blessings are even more so. By 1690, Jacob has just died of smallpox, never having had a chance to live in the mansion he spent years constructing, and Rebekka, still childless, is ill with the same disease.
The now teenage Florens has been sent to find a free African blacksmith who is believed to have healing powers. If Rebekka is dependent on Florens鈥檚 speed and Lina鈥檚 nursing, the other three women are in terrible trouble if Rebekka dies. With no mistress, Lina realizes, they will be easy prey.
鈥淭hey once thought they were a kind of family because together they had carved companionship out of isolation,鈥� someone says of the residents of the Vaark farm.
Like a dream deferred, if a mercy is hidden too long, it tends to explode 鈥� as Morrison shows in her knockout final monologue. It鈥檚 a spare, dark fable 鈥� and at under 200 pages, a swift, kaleidoscopic trip into tragedy.
Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor.
