Washington Black

As Titch leads them inside, Wash reflects that Titch looks different, and he thinks about embracing him but cannot. Wash thinks that “some indefinable thing had shifted in his features, his eyes especially—these was beneath his gaze such concentrated pain that for a moment I thought, It is not him, we have come to the wrong place” (362). They all eat dinner, and while Titch will not meet Wash’s eyes, he makes pleasant conversation. Recognizing his fragile state, Tanna is gentle and polite with Titch. Wash is curious about the boy accompanying Titch, and Wash sees in him a correlate with his younger self, and “a pain rose in [his] throat” (364). The conversation is uncomfortable and stilted, and soon they all retire to bed.

Tanna sleeps in the cot, Wash in the living room, and Titch and the boy in a tent outside. Wash dreams of Ocean House, and then of Big Kit, and then wakes. Disoriented, Wash wanders into Tanna’s room and accidentally wakes her. They talk together, and Wash expresses a worry that Tanna thinks he might lead her on an endless journey with no roots or firm place to call home, or if “this trip would finally satisfy my erratic pursuit of an unanswerable truth” (368).