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A review by axmed
In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
5.0
“Names mean so little to me,” she said.
“Come now!” I chided. “A lover such as that must have had a name you whispered in the dark.”
I was poking fun at her, but she did not pick up the jest.
“Names can be bought,” she said somberly, “and changed. Stolen too, mind you. Which is perhaps why you ask—perhaps why you still do not believe, yes? I am that woman in Chiron’s text. How did he say? A Negro woman, and free?”
She paused to smile at me, and then her eyes drifted around the prison walls, and she snorted as if to laugh at the irony that the passage of time had imbued in those words.
“But you ask of a real name,” she went on. “His was a changed name already, true. And we took new names in that village. Long names, full of meaning. But when I met him, his name was John. And that, simple and empty as it was, was always good enough. He filled it with his spirit.”
“Come now!” I chided. “A lover such as that must have had a name you whispered in the dark.”
I was poking fun at her, but she did not pick up the jest.
“Names can be bought,” she said somberly, “and changed. Stolen too, mind you. Which is perhaps why you ask—perhaps why you still do not believe, yes? I am that woman in Chiron’s text. How did he say? A Negro woman, and free?”
She paused to smile at me, and then her eyes drifted around the prison walls, and she snorted as if to laugh at the irony that the passage of time had imbued in those words.
“But you ask of a real name,” she went on. “His was a changed name already, true. And we took new names in that village. Long names, full of meaning. But when I met him, his name was John. And that, simple and empty as it was, was always good enough. He filled it with his spirit.”