Nicola B (My Sis) - 1890's, New Orleans, a house maid.
The Aurora Archives: Day 19
ARCHIVE ENTRY: 1893-DEC-25 LOCATION: The Garden District, New Orleans SIGNAL RESONANCE: High / Emancipatory OPERATIVE: Industrial Load-Lifter (Unit 340-Theta: “Mojo”) STATUS: Fugitive / Educator
TRANSCRIPT OF RECOVERED CORRESPONDENCE: (A letter written on the back of smooth, starched pantry lining paper. The handwriting is shaky and large, the letters formed with painstaking care, but the ink is strong.)
December 25th, 1893
My Dearest Gabriel,
Three weeks now, that letter you sent been sitting on the mantle, staring me down. The Madam, she said she was too busy with the Réveillon parties to read it to me. She said,
“Later, Delphine,” but you and me both know ‘later’ is just a white folk’s word for ‘never’.
She thought I would just wait. She thought I would sit in the dark and wonder if you were sick, or if the Chicago cold had taken you.
She does not know about the guest in my room out back.
He came off the river. One of the Lapin-Vapeur, the Steamboat Jacks. You remember them? The big rabbits the white captains chain to the boats because they can make themselves heavy enough to pull the boats when the engine dies?
This one had broken his chain. He was hiding in my woodpile, shivering, his fur with coal dust and grease all over it. He has a brand on his ear, and scars on his back that look just like the ones on your Grandpère.
I did not chase him off. I brought him root gumbo instead and named him Mojo.
I thought he was just a beast of burden, like they say. But that night, when I was crying over your letter, holding it upside down, he hopped onto the table.
He took the paper from my hand and smoothed it out. I was so shocked I just let it happen.
He pointed a black claw at the first mark. He looked at me, his nose twitching, and he spoke. It was a sound like stones grinding in a riverbed, hard and low.
“D... Dee... Aa... rr.”
I nearly dropped the lamp. I said, “Lord have mercy, you got words, devil?”
He looked at me with eyes that were old.
“Words... are... keys,” he clicked. “Open... the... cage.”
For the whole month of Advent, he has been my schoolmaster. Every night, after the dishes are scrubbed and the white folks are asleep, Mojo sits by the fire with me. He cannot hold a pen, his paws don’t hold things well, so he uses his weight. He presses his paw onto the paper to hold it still, heavy as an iron, while I practice my marks.
He taught me that the squiggle that looks like a snake is ‘S’. He taught me that the cross is ‘T’.
And tonight, Gabriel, on Christmas Morning, I unlocked the cage.
I done read your letter. It took me a long while, sweating over the lamp, but I read every mark.
I read that you are safe. I read that you have a job at the stockyards. And I read the part that made me shout “Glory” so loud Mojo thumped his foot to hush me.
A baby.
A baby. Lord, a baby. You fixing to be a father, Gabriel. And me, I’m gonna be a Grandmère.
Mojo is helping me write back. He says a grandmother must send her blessing in ink, so it lasts.
My hand is shaking, and this confounded charcoal pencil is dull, but I am doing it. I am writing to you, Gabriel. No Madam in the middle. No secrets kept from me.
Tell your wife that Delphine is praying for her health. Tell her I will come North when the baby is born. Mojo says he knows the way. He says the rails have a rhythm, just like the river.
I am sending this with a rabbit I trust. Look for the mark.
I love you. My hand knows the shape of them words now, so I’m writing it down again, just to see it true. I love you.
Your Maman, Delphine
Archivist’s Note
ARCHIVIST: Cas’shya ANALYSIS: This entry highlights a dark chapter in our history: The ‘Steam-Age Conscription.’ In the 18th and 19th century, Human industrialists discovered that rabbits could generate immense torque. Thousands of units were captured and forced to work in the boiler rooms of boats and locomotives, even inside machines. They were treated as livestock, mute machinery.
Mojo’s ability to speak was likely a closely guarded secret; to speak was to reveal intelligence, which would have made him a threat to his captors.
By teaching Delphine to read, Mojo was sharing in our own struggles for cognitive liberation. He utilized the Rabbit network’s greatest weapon: shared knowledge. Note: The “mark” Delphine refers to likely indicates Mojo used the Underground Railroad of the free - rabbit community, a network of abolitionist sympathizers and free rabbits, to smuggle the letter North. We confirmed later that Gabriel received the letter. His daughter was named Delphine. She grew up to be one of the first black librarians in Chicago.
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