Centuries of June (19 page)

“Fourteen, I said to the man, who seemed to be glowing in the bright sunshine. I am fourteen years old. Just as I spoke those words, I saw my mother and two sisters being led away by their new master, and I broke free, running to them, anxious not to be parted. My mother wailed when I embraced her and she hugged me to her breast. Please don’t beat her, she said to the auctioneer.
Ma chérie
, she cried, be a good girl. Do as you are told, and then the man pried me out of her arms, screaming in tears, and I did not ever see her again, though I can still picture the three of them walking away until all that remained were their bare footprints in the dust, and then I felt the hand of the master fall upon my shoulder.

“M. LaChance was his name, which made me smile against my will, and he said he was sorry to have only enough money for one and asked if I had lived all my fourteen years in Saint-Domingue, and I answered,
Oui
. He asked if I had ever ridden on a boat, and I answered,
Non
. We climbed into a cabriolet and were whisked off to the docks, and when I began to weep once more, this strange round man patted me on the knee. He said, We shall have an adventure in that case, for we are bound for Orleans, and I asked if that meant we would be going to France,
thinking that at least I should see Anna again, but he just laughed till his face turned red. No, M. LaChance said, New Orleans in Louisiana, and I burst into bitter tears at the cruel irony embedded in the very name of our destination.

“The journey across the Gulf was a long one, and I traveled belowdecks with eight other blacks, slaves one and all. In the daytime, we were allowed to stand on the deck across the open waters, but once we neared the port at the mouth of the Mississippi, the mosquitos would like to assassinate a body with their bites and they showed no pity upon any breathing thing. Clouds of gnats, too, would swarm and some flew into my mouth and nose and lodged themselves in the corners of my eyes. I was relieved to be off the ship. Waylaid in the country of the Tchactas, we disembarked in an Indian village, and the chief there dressed just like a Frenchman and spoke the language of the traders, as do many other tribes along the river. In the chief’s cabin, a white man from faraway Canada looked stricken when he first joined eyes with mine. He could not stop from looking at me. He was the biggest and tallest man I ever did see, with a red beard that made his face look afire, and I heard him offer M. LaChance a good price if he could buy me and make me his bride. Had not the master thought the whole matter a mere peccadillo, I may have had a different history, but he just laughed at the Cajun, and we moved on in the morning and reached Nouvelle Orleans in a week’s time.”

T
he old man stopped abruptly, for the last phrase had been written along the length of the little finger on her left hand and the chapter ended in midair. He had to locate the beginning of the next part of her story and so began to delicately search along her skin for the proper place. Perhaps by accident, he stepped too close and lost his balance, and reaching out to break his fall, his hand landed squarely upon her
breast.
“Pardonnez-moi,”
he said, but she just chuckled softly and replied,
“Je connais la chanson.”
He withdrew his hand and resumed his investigation by sight.

Outside the small window, something thumped and fluttered against the glass, and when I lifted back the curtain, I saw an enormous pale green moth struggling to reach the light inside the bathroom. A dozen little ones were pasted on the screen. Beyond them the late-night shadows revealed nothing. All of the houses in the neighborhood stood dark and silent as a mountain range, their occupants asleep in their comfy beds. I envied them their peace and dreams, and for the first time since my head had been struck and I had fallen, I wondered if I, too, were not merely sleeping in my bed next to my beloved and the whole night some hallucination brought on by a lunchtime burrito. The old man, Marie, Alice, Jane, Dolly, the baby at our feet, all mere players in some elaborate dream. Perhaps even the bicycles on the lawn, the entire June day stretching into this bizarre night. To check, I pinched my thigh, as one is always told to do, but the sharp pain was real enough.

“Voilà!”
the old man exclaimed. The story continued across her clavicle and next ran down the length of her right arm.

“W
e arrived in the biggest city in all of Louisiana on the 8th of December, 1768. Some folk in the old part of town followed the Lyonese custom of celebrating la Fête de la Lumière, for on the windowsills of their houses burned candles in colored glass jars, a magical sight, like stars glowing red and yellow and blue. It was like walking in a rainbow at midnight. On the corner of a pretty little street stood the house, two storeys high, with an iron rail fence running the width of a mezzanine, and facing the street, a black walnut door opened to a front parlor. He lit a candle and placed it in my hand. The flame danced like a phantom in the darkness. No one greeted us, perhaps because of the lateness of
the hour and our unpredictable arrival date, but the quiet inside unsettled me. M. LaChance had told me all about his family and the domestic situation during our long travels from the island, and I had hoped for some greeting other than this ghostly absence. Instead, the Master whispered a good night and pointed with his walking stick to a room beyond the kitchen. You will find Hachard down there, dead asleep, he said, but you rouse her and she will show you to your bed. We will get to work in the morning. With that, he toddled toward the staircase. With each step, the floorboards creaked and groaned beneath his prodigious corpulence.

“Is that you, my angel? Hachard asked when I entered the tiny room and shook her from her slumber. No, it is me, Marie, the new girl the Master has brought back from Saint-Domingue. She stepped into the candlelight, close enough for me to see the gray in her hair and the dark circles around her eyes. Four of her front teeth had escaped from her mouth, and the wind whistled in her words. Confusion danced in her gaze, but at last she figured out just who I was. I have been waiting for you, she said, but you are just a young girl. Old enough to marry, I said, old enough to care for myself. Hachard laughed at my audacity, revealing more empty spaces at the back of her mouth. We shall see, but first some rest after your long journey. Taking the candle in her claws, she guided me to a cot at the foot of her bed, and I fell into the blankets without undressing. I was nearly asleep when I heard her disembodied voice rise in the darkness. Do you know how to cook?
Oui
, I answered. We shall see, we shall see.

“In the morning, we rose and dressed before the dawn, and I met the rest of the family LaChance. The mistress of the house, Madame Dominique, proved the opposite of her husband in every respect. Where he was fat and jolly, she was thin and dour. Where he favored white linen and played the fop, she dressed in black.
Revêche
. But perhaps all the children made her so, for though she could not have been
but thirty, she had squeezed out six, the oldest a boy two years younger than me, and the youngest but a baby. One and all they were round like their father, little balls of dough.”

D
olly laughed. “The Roly-polies.”

“Your description,” said Jane, “reminds me of a Botero painting. The fat man and his six little dumplings.”

Marie watched the old man, making sure that his wandering eye stayed fixed upon her right forearm. “Of course! I had not thought of Botero before, but the children and their father could have stepped right out of his canvas. Plump pullets, but good dears when they were young and had been fed.”

This time the old man had kept a finger on the spot, and when their colloquy had ended, he was able to resume without further pause.

“M
y job was to be a nanny to the children and to apprentice to Hachard in the housekeeping. She had been in service to the family from the childhood of M. LaChance and was now an old woman near fifty and could not move about as quickly for the pain in her joints and a stiffness in her hands and feet that left her fingers and toes twisted and gnarled. The Mistress insisted that Hachard continue to cook the meals, but every other household chore fell upon me—the cleaning, the slops, sweeping, washing, and serving the dishes, and besides all that, to help look after the little ones. That duty was my easiest burden. Lazy creatures on even the finest days, they barely moved when the rainy season arrived, and come July and August, in the oppressive heat, they lounged behind the heavy draperies, reading their books or quietly playing cards or other games of chance. The two little girls had their dollies, and the boys would sometimes chase each other with wooden
swords, but mostly they ate and slept and did their lessons with an old white woman who came to the house. The babies napped in the shank of the afternoon up until they were five or six years. But the mere presence of the children was a blessing, for they reminded me of my own Anna and my sisters and thus relieved in small measure the anguish in my soul.

“Very quickly—that first day in fact—I realized why Madame made Hachard to continue preparing the food, for she cooked most exquisitely in the French manner, unlike many of our neighbors who seemed to ape the worst of English—or merciful God, colonial—cuisine. No, Hachard performed magic with simple, fresh ingredients, and drew on a kind of cooks’ club of her neighbors in the Quarter. Old slaves who actually ran the homes would be entrusted to visit the stalls in the square to buy fish or meat or produce from the cartmen who rolled along the street calling out their wares. Hachard above all was the best, cooking with touches of the Creole and Cajun, of France and Africa. I had not eaten so well in Port-au-Prince and, I imagined, not even King Louis himself ate so well in Paris. Though my heart was empty, my stomach was full.

“In this way the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. I was kept very busy. All that Hachard could no longer manage, she assigned to me. The simple things—the sewing and mending, plucking a hen or shucking corn, cleaning the dishes or dusting and polishing—did not trouble me, for my mother had shown me and often enlisted my assistance. Even the ordinary washday was tolerable, if, with so many children, never-ending. Worst of all, when we stripped the beds and took down the curtains and the soiled linens, perhaps once each season of the year, my back would like to break from the heaviness. Poor Hachard could not bear to steep herself in hot water, which would linger in her joints and pain her fiercely. Recompense for every odious task was time in the kitchen as sous chef to Hachard—chopping ingredients
or making the sauces or roux. As she cooked, Hachard spoke aloud each ingredient, every step—a pinch of salt, three spoons of butter, keep stirring till the sugar melts and thickens, and I seized every word, memorizing in spite of myself all of her secrets. Perhaps she was consciously passing the traditions, or perhaps she was merely grateful for the company. Someone to talk with despite having little to say.

“Once a month, Madame LaChance granted Hachard a day to herself, and the old girl would spend half the morning making herself ready, changing from her work clothes into a dress of faded cornflower, then having me comb out her hair, and she’d powder beneath her arms till she smelled sweet as a baby. I asked her the first few occasions where she was going and if I could go with her, and she just hushed me and said, Never you mind, child. Or, Maybe when you are old enough to keep yourself clear, Marie, but those rascals would be on you now like wasps on a sugar stick. Late those Sunday evenings, she would return and sneak in through the back door, careful not to make a sound, hair wild and unkempt, her dress circled with sweat, her mouth bruised and swollen as a ripe peach. A few times she smelled of spirits and smoke, and once, in that first year, she cried out as she lay her body down upon the bed. Oh, the brute he would have liked to kill me. I sprang to her side to see if she was indeed hurt, and in the darkness, she touched her rough palm against my cheek and whispered,
Ma chérie
, I would not quit this kind of night for anything. With him, I am
toujours gai
and it is the only reason to keep on living.

“The next morning she woke early and had me draw a bath outside, despite the torpid weather. Even at dawn in July, the air hangs heavy and presses down upon a body till you can hardly breathe. She undressed slowly and eased herself into the water, mindful of every aching bone. I sat beside her on the lip of the trough and dipped a cloth into the water and wrung it onto her hair, rubbed the knob of her spine, and massaged her shoulders. That feels nice, child, you are a good girl. For the first
time, I noticed the scars on her skin. Where did you get these welts, Miss Hachard? From being whipped, she said. Why did they whip you? For asking too many questions, she said and slid farther into the water. We are to have a new governor, she said at last. The Spaniards are to send someone to replace Ulloa at last. The whole town will be overrun with the Spanish.

“The lords of misrule were in charge, yet rumors persisted that the Spanish king would send in a new man, and indeed, the Master and Mistress spoke of the prospect nearly every week. I asked Hachard in the tub, Who do the men say it shall be?
Mon Dieu
, she spat out the words, they say it is an Irishman. She shivered in the cooling water. Now help me out of this bath before I die of pneumonia.”

T
he old man had come to the end of another little finger, but this time he thought to ask where to look for the continuation of the story. Marie pointed toward her heart, and he could see the first line rise and fall along the curve of her breasts. The giant moth beat against the screen and settled on a patch nearer to the light. We all leaned closer to listen. Feigning a storyteller’s professional disinterest, the old man stared at the words inked on her chest and began again.

“A
dozen ships came sailing up the river, flying the Spanish ensign, and the whole town turned out to the levee to make them welcome. The Master and Mistress wore their finest linen suits, despite the heat, for they were to be on the dais with the other gentry in a place of honor for the official ceremony. Hachard and I were to bring the children along later and watch with the assembled on the grounds overlooking the square, and I never saw such a spectacle and a throng. As the Spanish arrived, there was singing and dancing and drinking and smoking and
gaming and Lord-knows-what going on, the lid off the pot and the ragout boiling over. The youngest baby, Georges, raised such a fuss that I must needs carry him in my arms the whole time, so I was tamed, and it seemed like forever for that first ship to dock. While we waited, an older man sidled up to Hachard, and they exchanged habitual pleasantries, and I am sure I saw his hand upon her shoulder more than once that whole time. I wondered if this Big Fella was the man who made her
toujours gai
, but I dared not ask. The first to disembark from the ship were black sailors, and I said to the Big Fella, I did not know they allowed slaves to sail the boats. And he said, They are not boats, but ships, and they are not slaves, but freedmen from Habana in Cuba. How can this be? I asked, and he said, Little Chick, not all black men are in chains.