Cane River

by Lalita Tademy

  The week between Christmas and New Year’s would pass without any heavy fieldwork. Only music and food, singing, dancing, and drinking. Visiting, fishing, courting, and sleeping-in until after the sun was already up. Friends and family gathering in the light of daytime. Mothers nursing their babies according to the baby’s need instead of the plantation bell. Traveling to other plantations to see family. The luxury of planning. Planning the flow of each day for one full week.

  No cotton would be planted, hoed, or picked. When the plantation bell sounded, it would mark the passage of time, but it would not begin the march to the north field before sunrise. No backs stooped over this week except to work a personal patch or bend over a checkerboard. No long sack hung around the neck to drag between endless rows of cotton plants. No weighing of each basket at twilight to measure performance against quota. No bold script recording one hundred and seventy-five pounds next to the name Palmire in the big plantation book. Two hundred and three for Gerasíme. Forty-six for Solataire, just starting out at the age of eleven as a one-quarter hand.

  Suzette wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve while she threw pine chips into the cookhouse fireplace. The flames spat and burned hotter.

  “Christmas morning, and we’re the only ones working,” she grumbled under her breath.

  “Don’t try to match up one misery against another,” Elisabeth said. “Field or house, we’re all in the same web, waiting for the spider to get home.”

  Elisabeth never broke her rhythm as she stirred the batter for griddle cakes. She had spent the night down in the quarter with Gerasíme and was in a very good mood. “Besides, that’s no talk for Christmas,” she went on. “This is the Lord’s day.”

  If Suzette was cheerful, her mother’s response was likely to be full of gloom. If Suzette was sulky, it would be something full of false hope and cheer. But even as she was complaining, Suzette’s heart wasn’t really in it. Tonight was the big quarter Christmas party at Rosedew.

  Some of the slaves owned by their smaller neighbors would be coming, including the three from François Mulon’s farm. Suzette wished that Nicolas would come, but the gens de couleur libre kept to their own for social occasions. It seemed to Suzette that Nicolas saved his smiles for her since their communion classes, and she certainly saved her thoughts for him. She still kept the scrap of cowhide he had given her close at hand, most times in her apron pocket or hidden beneath her pallet. Nicolas had dreams, planning to have his own place along Cane River by hiring himself out. But Nicolas or no, Suzette intended to have fun tonight.

  Only thirteen, Suzette had already sold some of her baking along Cane River. She had even been rented out once to the Rachal place for one of their big parties. She sometimes sneaked her cooking to her family, but tonight they could enjoy their treats out in the open, without the risk of being caught.

  Determined to make this Christmas feast the best yet on Rosedew, she and Elisabeth had been cooking for days. They would serve up portions for the Derbannes separately, but the rest was for the tables that had been set up in the barn, where the entire quarter would gather. On Christmas Day everyone could have as much to eat as they wanted.

  Suzette did a few sample steps of the waltz with an elaborate dip at the end in her mother’s direction. Elisabeth laughed, and peace was restored.

  “Can I wear my first communion dress for the party?” Suzette asked.

  “I hope it still fits,” Elisabeth said. “You’re growing more curves every day.”

  “I heard M’sieu Louis talking to M’sieu Eugene Daurat,” Suzette said. “He said the week off between Christmas and New Year’s is just a way to make the hands more manageable the rest of the year. To let them blow off steam so they don’t get ideas about running.”

  “Let us blow off steam,” Elisabeth corrected. “We’re all in the same web.”

  “Anyway, he invited M’sieu Eugene to come to the big contest.”

  “Suzette, I want you to stay away from that little man as much as you can. Try not to be alone with him.”

  “He means no harm, Mère.”

  “The man already struts around this place like he owns it. Like everything here is his for the taking. Tell me you’ll take care.”

  Eugene had been nice to Suzette, always had an easy smile for her.

  “Yes, Mère.”

  “We’re ready,” Elisabeth said, making one last inspection of the griddle. “Let’s go on up to the house.”

  * * *

  There was a small crowd from the quarter outside of the big house. Gerasíme, hair wild and eyes alert, drew his jacket tighter around his body against the chill. He had chosen a place nearest the front door to stand, and his children, Palmire, Apphia, and Solataire, flanked him. Suzette and Elisabeth headed toward them.

  “First light come and gone,” Gerasíme said when he saw Elisabeth. “They’re starting late.”

  As if on cue, Louis, Françoise, and Oreline came out onto the front gallery still in their nightclothes. Louis rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  “What are you all doing here?” he asked gruffly.

  “Christmas gifts,” they shouted back in one voice.

  “Surely it isn’t Christmas already?”

  Gerasíme spoke up. “M’sieu, it surely is.”

  Louis looked doubtful and slowly drew his fingers through his hair.

  “I may have something I could find to give,” he said at last, and with a great flourish he drew the cover off the makeshift table set up against the front of the house.

  Underneath were forty-eight Christmas stockings, each filled with nuts, oranges, apples, pecan candy, and a ten-hole harmonica for each hand over the age of five. As they came forward to receive their stocking, Louis greeted each by name. All men got a jug of whiskey, each woman a length of muslin and gabardine, and everyone received their new blanket for the year.

  Suzette and Elisabeth slipped away while Louis was still handing out gifts and began to serve up the breakfast of scrambled eggs, smoked ham, flapjacks with cane syrup, and café noir. There was to be an uninterrupted flow of food of every description all day long, and it would be considered a sad failure if anyone left the tables hungry.

  * * *

  By the time Louis, François, Oreline, and Eugene Daurat made their appearance at the annual celebration in the quarter, dressed in their finery, the party had been going for some time. By custom they knew not to stay too long. Heaping platters of meat, vegetables, breads, and sweets were arranged on makeshift tables. Gumbo waited in the heavy black kettle steaming over an open fire. Old Bertram carved pieces from the crackling porker barbecuing in a deep pit.

  “Time for the big contest,” Louis announced, leading the way to one side of the barn. “Who’s first?”

  “Old Bertram’s the oldest,” came the shout back.

  They cleared a path, and Old Bertram came forward. Louis handed him a bow and arrow.

  Outlined on the side of the barn in charcoal was the crudely drawn picture of a cow, and Old Bertram drew back the arrow and let it fly. The point made a soft thunk, landing near the top of the cow image’s tail.

  “Looks like Old Bertram gets tail stew,” Gerasíme said, laughing.

  “I call that close enough for rump roast,” Louis said.

  Old Bertram looked very pleased with himself. He would get to keep a piece of the meat from that section of the cow to be slaughtered the next day.

  “See if you can do better,” Old Bertram sniffed, giving up the bow and arrow to Gerasíme.

  Gerasíme took aim, and his arrow tip landed squarely in the center.

  “Short loin!” Louis called out, and the crowd whistled and cheered.

  Some of the men had gotten such a head start on the whiskey, they had trouble hitting the target at all on the first try.

  After the big contest, Gerasíme picked up his fiddle and the dancing began. Suzette watched her mother with delight. Elisabeth danced in the clearing with the others, her good lace scarf
pulled across her shoulders and tied neatly in front of her ample chest, first flying up and then falling down with each movement. Eyes wide and full of spirit, she picked up her long skirt to give her feet more maneuvering room, looking at her partners but more often over at Gerasíme, playing his fiddle under the oak tree. Elisabeth smiled and winked at Gerasíme, broadly, in front of the entire quarter, in front of the Derbannes and their guests, and Gerasíme winked back.

  Suzette found herself responding to the gaiety of the music, finally getting her chance to dance. She pulled first one and then another into the center of the dance floor, teaching anyone who didn’t know the steps and wanted to learn. She danced the quadrille waltz and the fais do do, while her father played the fiddle. The fais do do was her favorite, with six couples taking the lead from Gerasíme as he called the figures in French faster and faster in a contest between dancer and musician.

  The dancers leaned on one another in exhaustion when the number was over, laughing and panting, hearts racing, adrenaline left over. Suzette closed her eyes, and she could see herself in her white dress in the chapel at St. Augustine with Nicolas beside her. When she opened her eyes, Eugene Daurat was staring at her fixedly, familiarity in his gaze, as if there were some secret between them. Suzette pulled her eyes away from his, her confusion laced with a trace of shame, although she knew she had done nothing wrong. The music started up again, and her little brother, Solataire, tugged at her hand to dance.

  After the set finished she decided to take herself away from the noise and closeness for a moment. The party would go on until almost dawn.

  “You are a wonderful partner, brother,” she said to Solataire with a fond smile. “I am counting on another dance as soon as I return.” She had not felt so free since she was a child.

  It was a crisp December evening, cold enough for Suzette to see traces of her own breath on the frosty air, but she had worked up a sweat. She headed off dreamily through the woods to cool off and to think in peace about the things tugging at her mind. Her family. Nicolas.

  It was a relief not to be under the watchful eye of so many masters in the big house, and for once Suzette felt grateful to be surrounded by people who looked like her. Living in the big house had made her forget this other self. She had been ashamed by the way her mother talked, the coarse clothes her sisters wore. All the distance and embarrassment had been forgotten tonight, until she’d looked over Solataire’s shoulder and caught herself in the mirror of Eugene Daurat’s eyes.

  She walked sure-footed through the thick mass of pine trees, all the way down to her thinking rock on the bank of Cane River, a place she had found a few years past, after Oreline grew into more confidence and stopped pulling at her every minute.

  As Suzette looked off across the river, standing by her rock, she heard the soft squish of boots against mud, signaling a man’s approach. Someone had followed her to her secret place.

  “Ah, ma chère, I thought you would never stop walking,” Eugene Daurat said as he emerged from the woods, slightly out of breath.

  “I’m going right back.” Suzette glanced nervously in the direction of the party, as if she could wish herself back to the center of the dance floor, surrounded by other people. “I just came away from the party to cool off.”

  “And are you so cool already?”

  “It felt good to walk, M’sieu Eugene.”

  “Better for the young than for those of us who are older, I’m afraid,” he said. “That’s a pretty dress. A little thin for this time of year, but you make it look just right. If you are cold, I could lend you my coat.”

  “I think I should get back now, M’sieu.” Her voice sounded thin and tinny to her own ears.

  “Just stay here with me for a little bit until I catch my breath. I might not be able to find my way back without you.”

  The frightful pounding behind Suzette’s small breasts would not slow its pace. She wanted to run but was afraid of insulting such a close friend of the master and mistress’s. And he had said her dress was pretty.

  “The music will guide you back.”

  “Just give me a minute, Suzette.”

  He sat on the rock, in no particular hurry.

  “You seem different tonight than you do in the house,” Eugene said. “Why is that?”

  “Mam’zelle Oreline and I practiced the steps of the quadrille for the soirée last summer. I hadn’t had a chance to dance them so much before.”

  “I see. You dance them as well as any I’ve seen. Even in France.”

  “Really?”

  “Oui. When I saw you dance, you reminded me of my home in France. A town called Bordeaux. I miss it.”

  Suzette was curious. “Why would I remind you of France, M’sieu Eugene?”

  “In France, they are full of life. You are full of life.” Eugene patted a spot next to him on the rock. “Come, sit next to me for a moment.”

  What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? Was he making fun of her? Did the Derbannes know he was here with her, talking like this? Suzette edged closer toward the rock. “It isn’t right, M’sieu Eugene. I can just stand.”

  “Nonsense,” Eugene said. “You’re cold. No more discussion. Come here.”

  Suzette cautiously balanced herself on the far flat edge of the rock, sitting but leaning away from the doll man.

  Eugene moved closer to Suzette and put his coat around her. “I think you are so vibrant, Suzette. So full of joie de vivre. You make me forget myself.”

  She was trembling and could think of nothing to say.

  “The Derbannes say you are a good Catholic girl. Maybe you weren’t thinking so much of the church when you were dancing tonight, eh? You have babies yet, little Suzette?”

  “No, M’sieu.” Babies? Babies were for after she and Nicolas Mulon made plans.

  The moon’s rays shimmering on the water’s surface broke in odd places, confusing her. She felt rooted to this spot, Eugene now sitting by her side on her special rock, his arm around her shoulder. It wasn’t real, being talked to in such soft tones by a white man with a last name. He shifted his position and rested his hand on her knee, as if it were his right. Would it show poor upbringing to protest? To run? Suzette stared at Eugene Daurat’s little feet, unwilling to bring her eyes up any farther than that. Casually he reached under her dress, under her bloomers, his hand cold and deliberate against her bare skin. She heard the sound of his jagged breathing and smelled the sharpness of liquor as it oozed from his pores.

  “Lay back, Suzette.”

  “I am a good girl, M’sieu.”

  “Yes, I am sure you are.”

  His voice didn’t sound the same, as if it were coming from somewhere lower and deeper as he pressed her back onto the unforgiving rock. He moved above her, making strange noises in his throat while he undid the buttons of his britches with his free hand. He was heavy for a man so small. Everything was moving slowly, as if it had nothing at all to do with her. Like during a bad storm when the water rose on the river so fast that you could only watch it spill the banks, and nothing any man did could stop it. He moved back and forth, back and forth, pinning her, and she froze in the inescapable certainty of the moment. Nicolas, she thought unexpectedly. Nicolas should come and pull the doll man away, take her back to the party, ask her to dance; but try as she might she could conjure up only his name and not the kindness of Nicolas’s face. Eugene’s knee pried her open and he pushed into her, delivering pain to a central place. He stayed on top of her, dead weight grinding her hip and shoulder into the rock, catching his breath as if he had run a long race, forcing her to breathe in the flat smell of brandy and cigars that escaped from him as she could not.

  “Merci, ma chère,” he said raggedly, but he still didn’t move.

  When at last he got up from her, careful not to get mud on himself, he looked away and busied himself straightening his clothes.

  “You’d better go back now and join the party,” he said.

  It
was over. Suzette looked down, and even in the dull moonlight she could see that her beautiful white dress was streaked with traces of scarlet. She would need to wash it out in secret, she thought, make sure her mother never saw the stains. She needed to figure out how to change her dress and go back to the party before she was missed, what to do next. She wanted to ask the doll man his advice. The cold of the night pressed in as she waited for him to initiate some further connection, but he made no move toward her, had nothing else to say. Uncertain, with Eugene’s back still to her, she forced herself up and started to walk in the direction of the music, listening for a sound, any sound, that would tell her the proper thing to do. There were party noises in the distance, festive sounds. She heard night calls from the woods, skittering creatures out prowling for food or trying to avoid becoming some bigger prey’s next meal. There were river noises, gentle and soothing, as the edges of the water lapped at the red banks of the shore in a centuries-old ceremony of give-and-take.

  But all that Suzette could make out was a sound just this side of hearing, like dreams drifting out of reach, slight as a soft spring wind.

  4

  T he March winds arrived with an abrupt ferocity, buffeting the land and the workers in the field with equal determination. Before daybreak each morning the quarter emptied out and labor gangs split off and headed in separate directions, some holding down their hats, others with the wind whipping at the hems of their long, threadbare skirts. A set went off to the east, leading the oxen to lip up the cotton lots and to prepare the new season’s beds for corn and potatoes. Another took off to the west to burn logs, shrub, and cut down last year’s cornstalks. Even the quarter hands and half hands were pressed into service until dusk to pick up and clear the spent cornstalks or gather the manure behind the animals. By first weeding four weeks later, a hint of the coming warmth had begun to work its way inside the chill of the heavy Louisiana air.

  Suzette stayed low in the bushes and watched her sister Palmire and the other hoe women off in the distance, trudging out to the fields, balancing their heavy hoes over their shoulders. First light from the rising sun glinted off the heads of the hoes, broad as shovels and hammered out of pig iron. The tool took tremendous strength to lift and skill to manage, and her sister was considered one of the best. Deaf and dumb was not a liability in clearing weeds and thinning the newly sprung cotton seedlings.