Remembrance

by Rita Woods

  “It looks … melted.” Toya was still staring at it. “What’d she do? Microwave it? Man, Orr’s gonna lose her shit. She has a hissy when she even has to replace paper clips.”

  Gaelle shook her head, and once again she had the sensation of tilting into another place. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you come back in here if you’re still feeling ‘dizzy,’ you feel me?”

  She grinned. “Yes, I do feel you.”

  * * *

  Gaelle stood for a long time in the middle of the front room that served as her living room, slush from her shoes melting onto the threadbare rug. She glanced around the sparsely furnished space. She didn’t know what she should be doing. Despite all her years in Cleveland, her only real friend here was Toya, and it was barely 6 a.m. in California, too early to call Rose. Sinking to the couch, she stared through the room’s one narrow window.

  The old woman flashed in her mind, and she held up her hands to examine them once again. Other than the faint tremor, there was nothing unusual about them: long, bony fingers like Grann’s, short, ragged nails—she was really trying to stop biting them—skin the color of hickory wood.

  Nothing unusual at all.

  But there was.

  “Cho tankou soléy la,” Grann said. Hot as the sun.

  She remembered all those doctor visits, Grann scraping money together to take her to see specialists in Port-au-Prince, insisting that there had to be something wrong with her, because she was always so hot, always felt like she was burning with fever. She remembered the needles, the bright lights, the sharp smell of disinfectant. But they’d all said the same thing, all those doctors. That it was just how she was born. That she had a fast metabolism. She wasn’t sick. She just ran hot as a furnace, like Toya said. She stared at her hands. It was nothing.

  She could keep her coffee from getting cold, warm Toya’s fingers. A weird trick of her body’s chemistry, a nice perk on a winter day.

  Except this morning it hadn’t been nice. It had been terrifying.

  She had never felt so hot. Had never used it against anyone.

  She leaned her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. In a few hours it would be late enough to call Rose. They would talk about her finals, the cold weather here in Ohio, figure out a way to get her home for the holidays. She would tell her sister about the remote and they would laugh.

  The knock on the door startled her. She glanced at her watch. She almost never got visitors. Even the Jehovah Witnesses avoided navigating the broken concrete driveway that led to her front door.

  “Yes?”

  A young white man stood smiling at the door. Young white men were a rare enough sight in the neighborhood that she stepped back, startled, immediately suspicious.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “May I help you?”

  “My name is Beck Gardner.”

  She said nothing, waiting.

  “You haven’t responded to any of the letters we’ve sent you.”

  She frowned. “Letters?”

  “I’m the new owner of this property. This one and the one next door. We’ve sent several letters informing you that you have ninety days to find a new place to live.” He glanced down at the papers he held in his hand. “Well, sixty-four days now.”

  “What?” She blinked, confused. “What happened to Mr. Howard?”

  Marvin Howard was the elderly man who owned the carriage house and the decrepit mansion in front of it.

  “Mr. Howard lost this property to the bank almost a year ago.”

  He held the papers out to her, but she stood unmoving, staring at them. With a sigh, he bent and placed them on the floor behind her. Straightening, he stood there, as if waiting for her to speak, but she was gazing, stunned, at the envelope on the floor.

  “You’ll need to vacate the premises by the end of February, Ms. Saint Pierre. You understand?”

  She didn’t answer, and after a moment he turned and walked away.

  She stood there for an eternity staring at the envelope before slumping to the floor and picking it up. There had to be some mistake. They could not do this, could they? Take her home away? Where would she go? This was the first place, the only place, she’d lived since they’d been forced to flee Haiti. They could not, they would not take this away from her, too. She sat for a long time in front of the still-open door, oblivious to the cold, oblivious to the fact that the envelope she’d crumpled in her fist had burnt to ash.

  Margot

  1857

  “Mar?” Veronique’s bony finger jabbed her between the shoulder blades. “Mar, are you awake?”

  Margot arched away, but there was nowhere to go on the tiny mattress, except onto the floor.

  “Mar…”

  “Allez dormier,” hissed Margot.

  For a long moment the only sound was the chirping of the crickets on the other side of the wooden shack’s thin walls. The single window was open for circulation, but the air was a living thing pressing down on them. Margot sensed her sister, lying behind her in the dark, trembling with the effort of keeping silent. With a grunt, she flung herself onto her back, swatting damp hair off her cheek.

  “Alright! Spit it out,” she hissed. “Before your head explodes.”

  Veronique pushed herself up on her elbows. Margot could just make out her silhouette in the dark.

  “What do you want for your birthday?”

  “My birthday?”

  The word sent a jolt of rage through Margot. She dug her nails into the rough ticking of the cornhusk mattress. Her birthday. She’d been promised her freedom for her last birthday. Instead, she’d been ripped from her home, her family; sold away like livestock to the sort of people she never would have even spoken to on the streets of New Orleans. What could a birthday ever mean to her again? Veronique leaned close and Margot could feel her sister’s breath against her face.

  “My birthday is months away,” she said, finally.

  “Oui, but this is something to think about before the day, non?”

  Margot bit her lip to hold back the retort.

  “I know what I will give you.”

  Margot grunted. “And what is that, oie?”

  “I am going to get you a ticket on that freedom railroad.”

  “Ce qui?” Margot bolted upright, hissing in pain as her head struck her sister’s. “Are you mad? You have been talking to those noirs again, non? To those garçons? Francis? Ned?”

  Veronique said nothing. Margot sucked her teeth and rolled from the cornhusk mattress.

  “I have told you not to speak to them. They are field slaves … common.”

  “They are kind.” Veronique pushed her face close enough for Margot to read her expression. She was frowning, her eyes that of Grandmere’s, disapproving. Margot looked away, shamed. She rubbed the space between her eyes. Each beat of her heart sent a pulse of pain through her head.

  “Yes,” she conceded. “They have been kind to us. But they speak of this … this railroad, this road that carries slaves to freedom—where they can disappear and never be found. Even if it were not foolishness…”

  “It is not foolishness…!”

  Margot placed a hand over her sister’s mouth. Veronique’s lips were soft and cool beneath her palm, even though her face was twisted in anger.

  “Even…,” Margot went on, her voice hard, “even if it were not foolishness, it is foolhardy to speak of. Do not think the blancs do not listen to the whispers of leurs esclaves. If they hear the talk of escape, of running away, then it gets only worse for us.”

  “How worse?” Veronique’s mouth moved against her fingers. Margot jerked her hand away.

  “Do not be stupide,” she snapped. She glared at her sister in the darkness. “You know how it could be worse. These … people…”

  She could never bring herself to speak the name of the white people to whom she now belonged. Could not, even now, think of them as her masters.

  “They a
re not so terrible,” Margot went on. “At least here, the woman is too sick to take notice of us, and the man is always in his fields with his tobacco. All we have to do is keep the house.”

  “And mind those ugly, stupid enfants,” sniffed Veronique.

  Margot laughed bitterly. The master’s children truly were four of the dimmest, most unattractive creatures she had ever laid eyes on—with their thin, limp hair and sallow skin, their noses constantly running.

  “Oui,” she agreed. “And mind the ugly, stupid children.”

  Veronique coughed and said nothing.

  “Goose, oie,” said Margot finally. “We are together, you and I. Non?”

  Veronique leaped up and threw her arms around her neck, surprising her. She returned the embrace, frowning. When had her sister gotten so thin, so insubstantial? Her light shift felt as if it held only bones. And there was something else. As she held her sister, she felt a vibration beneath her hands, soft as a cat’s purr, but unpleasant. It spread up her arms and into her chest, turning the world to shades of muddy blue and gray, souring the spit in her mouth. She could taste the bad moving through Veronique’s lungs, filling them with poison.

  “Je t’aime, Margot.” Veronique sank back to the mattress, pulling her sister with her. “Sing to me.”

  Margot inhaled sharply through her nose, forcing back a howl of despair. She hated them. All of them.

  Catherine Hannigan. James Hannigan. Ninette Rousse. Every blanc who walked the earth. All those forces in the world she couldn’t control, that had torn her away from Grandmere and landed them here.

  “Je t’aime aussi,” she said roughly. “Though I have no idea why. Your head is as hard as a cooking pot and just as empty, and you are sure to get us both in trouble one of these days.”

  Veronique giggled and tucked her head beneath Margot’s chin. Margot closed her eyes and breathed in her sister’s scent: sweat and apples and smoke from the woodstove. She forced herself to ignore the sharper, sickly smell that drifted just underneath. She breathed deeply, waiting until she was sure that the tears wouldn’t overwhelm her, and then she began to sing.

  Dodo l’enfant do.

  L’enfant dormira bien vite.

  Dodo l’enfant do.

  L’enfant dormira bientôt.

  Sleepy time the little one sleeps.

  The little one will sleep soon.

  Sleepy time the little one sleeps.

  The little one will sleep soon.

  * * *

  Carefully, Margot untangled herself from Veronique. The little girl snorted then rolled on her side. In her sleep she coughed, a rough, low-pitched sound. Margot watched her for a moment, then leaned to lay her hand on her sister’s back. Almost immediately, the vibration stirred beneath her palm.

  “Oh, bébé,” murmured Margot. Veronique coughed again and Margot stroked her hair, running the fine strands between her fingers, tensing each time a cough wracked the thin body. After a while, Veronique’s breathing seemed easier, each cough coming farther and farther apart.

  Margot stood and made her way out into the night. A giant hickory tree grew a few yards from the shack door, and she made her way to it, slouching at its base. The night was still warm but a breeze stirred the air, freshening it.

  The tree sat on a high rise of land, and by the light of the quarter moon Margot could make out the dark shadows of the rolling hills. Everything was wrong here. The way the land rose and fell in no discernible pattern, the dry, dark earth. Even the moon seemed to hang oddly in the sky. She had the overwhelming sense that somehow her spirit had made its way into someone else’s body and become trapped in this terrible life. In her mind’s eye, she could clearly see herself, the real Margot, wandering, soulless and lost, through the streets of New Orleans.

  A single tear made its way down her cheek. She wanted to go home. She wanted Grandmere. She wanted the color to come back into her sister’s gaunt face. She took a deep breath and then she was sobbing, her fists pressed against her mouth to muffle the sound.

  It had been the old woman, Madame Rousse, who had come to them. Margot had been in the backyard beating dust from the parlor carpets. Veronique was emptying ash from the fireplace into the rose beds.

  Margot felt her before she saw her and turned to find the old woman standing on the stone path that led from the outdoor kitchen. Ninette Rousse had stood silently staring, her lips pressed into a hard line, her eyes bright blue in the morning light. Margot would remember that always, how old Madame’s eyes were the color of bluebells.

  Veronique had come from the garden then, and the two sisters stood side by side, waiting wordlessly for Madame to speak, forever it seemed, and when she finally had, Margot had not been prepared for the words.

  “Ma petite-fille est une imbécile,” she said, shaking her head.

  Without another word, she turned, and the girls watched her walk away, her gold-tipped walking stick clicking loudly on the flagstones that lead back to the house. Five days later they’d been loaded into a carriage. They were to be sent by boat up the Mississippi to a family friend of the Rousses’. Girard was not driving, and Margot wondered dully if he had been sold as well. Grandmere was nowhere to be seen.

  The night before, her shrieks had echoed through the Prytania Street house, begging the mistress, pleading with her to spare her granddaughters, but she had nothing to bargain with.

  Finally, in the early hours of the morning, Fortuna Rousse had curled together with her granddaughters by the fire in their room one last time, trying to pour a lifetime of love and hope into them. At dawn, just before Madame Rousse sent for them, she fastened a tiny locket around each of their necks. Inside each one was a curl of her hair, fine, steel gray. She touched her lips to their foreheads, then left their room.

  Madame Rousse and Mistress Hannigan had been there to watch them leave. The old woman stood stiffly in the doorway, her eyes hidden in shadow. Mistress Hannigan at least had the decency to shed a tear.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. I am so sorry.”

  She tried to hug Veronique, but the girl shrank away, as if she were one of the poisonous snakes that swam the black water of the bayous near Far Water. Catherine Hannigan stood in the drive then, crying and crying, her face flushed, her red hair a tangled mess down the back of her wrinkled dressing gown.

  “Catherine!”

  Ninette Rousse stepped from the shadows of the doorway, her eyes hard and flat as stones. She glared at her granddaughter until the younger woman fell silent, her arms limp at her sides, her eyes fixed on the side of the wagon, unable to meet the gaze of the two girls she was selling away.

  Madame Rousse stepped to the wagon and grasped Margot’s hand. Margot tried to jerk away but the old woman’s grip was as strong as a teamster’s. She pulled her close.

  Eyes the color of bluebells.

  “Be brave,” she said. “Always be brave.” She released Margot’s hand, then turned and disappeared into the house.

  Slowly, the wagon pulled out of the drive and turned onto the street, heading for the port. Margot gripped her sister’s hand and gazed back at the house, hoping for one last glimpse of Grandmere.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  The wagon jerked to a stop and Margot and Veronique exchanged a look. Running down the street after them was Catherine Hannigan. Her dressing gown billowed around her, exposing her thin nightdress. Margot winced, embarrassed for her, even as she was aware that it should no longer matter to her.

  “I have something for you,” panted Mistress Hannigan when she caught up to them. She thrust a cloth-wrapped bundle into Margot’s lap. Margot glanced up at the driver, an American, who sat scowling up at the sky. She peeled the cloth back. Laying in the center of a sheet of folded muslin was a ham, and next to that lay a small Bible. Veronique made a noise.

  Margot looked up. Her former mistress was smiling, her expression hopeful. Margot stared with narrowed eyes at the white woman, until the mistress’s smile col
lapsed and she backed slowly away from the wagon.

  “Bien,” whispered Catherine Hannigan. “Alright, you can go then.”

  The wagon began to move once again down the bricked street. Margot stared at the Bible and the ham in her lap until she felt Veronique’s hand on her arm. She looked up. Her sister was pointing at the ham and silently laughing, her mouth wide, her shoulders shaking. Margot blinked, and then she began to laugh as well, ignoring the looks of the white driver.

  She leaped to her feet, Veronique’s arms locked around her waist to hold her steady and keep her from being thrown out onto the street.

  “Maîtresse!” she yelled. Her voice echoed off the houses in the early morning fog.

  Catherine Hannigan looked up and Margot launched the ham at her. Their former mistress screamed and stumbled backward, the ham landing with a wet thud harmlessly, more than a foot in front of her. Veronique handed Margot the Bible. It was small, not much larger than a teacup, but heavy. Margot took careful aim, and just before they turned south onto Washington Avenue, hurled it with all her strength.

  Mistress Hannigan was still staring at the ham in the street; they could hear her sobs all the way at the corner, and the Bible struck her like a miniature cannonball, just above her left breast. She cried out and fell—her legs bare and sickly white—in the middle of Prytania.

  The two girls cheered and hugged each other, laughing all the way to the port. At some point, though, Margot couldn’t remember exactly when, the laughter had turned to tears.

  Margot laughed now, though it was bitter in her mouth.

  What fools! To throw perfectly good meat into the street.

  Now, from the shack behind her, Veronique was coughing again. The sound pricked at Margot like the point of a knife. She rubbed the chain that held the locket between her fingers.

  Don’t be sick. Let this just be the thin Kentucky air.