Washington Black

Titch decides to ask Erasmus for additional slaves to help carry the equipment for Cloud-cutter and assemble it on top of the mountain. Wash and Titch wait for Erasmus to meet with them at the house. When Erasmus does not appear, Titch decides to set out within the house to find him. Wandering through the corridors of the house, Wash and Titch come across Émilie, a pregnant 11-year-old old slave Wash used to know. They then find Erasmus ironing a shirt, and Titch asks him for 15 strong men and women to help with Titch’s endeavors. After some disagreement, Erasmus agrees to lend Titch nine slaves. Erasmus also tells Titch that their cousin Philip will be visiting the island; this news troubles Titch. Erasmus asks Titch to pick up Philip from Bridge Town.

Erasmus gives Titch nine of the sickest, smallest slaves to work on the Cloud-cutter. Titch gives them a day of rest and food and then sets them out to cut a trail up to the peak of the mountain and set up a system of pulleys to haul equipment. When the slaves avoid Wash and will not speak to him, Wash realizes that from their perspective he has been “swallowed whole by the white man’s world” (63).

Titch asks Wash to prepare a room for Philip, and Wash worries about what Philip’s arrival will bring. The next day, Wash accompanies Titch to pick up Philip in the carriage. Philip is around the same age as Erasmus and Titch, and Wash learns that the men grew up together. Philip is prone to anxiety and melancholy. Titch tells Wash stories about his family, indicating that Titch’s father and mother do not get along well.

Wash has never been to town before. The bustling settlement fascinates him. He is uneasy when they pick up Philip, and Philip makes fun of Wash’s name, thinking it a grandiose name for a slave boy. The two men talk about their family, and the carriage passes a filthy cage full of runaway slaves.

Speaking from the present, Wash describes Philip as “a man of his class” who idles the day away (71). Philip chides Titch for letting Wash draw, implying that it is dangerous to give slaves ideas. Wash sometimes draws Philip after he has passed out after eating, but quickly burns the drawings.

Erasmus returns to the plantation but is ill and refuses to see Philip. The slaves continue to bring the Cloud-cutter up the peak, eventually assembling everything at the top of the mountain. Titch, Philip, and Wash hike to the top of Corvus Peak to observe the progress. Titch attempts to demonstrate the hydrogen that will power the aircraft to them. While Titch is readying his demonstration, Philip asks for sandwiches, prompting Wash to attempt to fetch them before Titch is ready. When he does so, the hydrogen explodes, burning Wash across his face.

When Wash first wakes up, he thinks he might be back in Dahomey with Big Kit, but he soon realizes that he is still on the plantation. Wash wants to see his face, and although Titch is reluctant, he carefully unwinds the painful bandages, revealing a badly damaged eye and gruesome weeping wounds. Wash thinks that he looks like “a grotesque creature” (79). These new injuries remind Wash when, working beside Big Kit, she kicked him and cracked three ribs without meaning to. After recovering from that injury, Wash was surprised to hear Big Kit weeping in the night, calling him “my son,” and he understood that his injuries “had pained her greatly” (81).