“John and Jacob.”
Elisabeth moved stiffly to the fireplace to put another log under the kettle. Philomene sat quietly until her grandmother started talking again.
“They sent me straight to Cane River from there, without giving me a chance to say good-bye, not even to my babies, although Lord knows they wouldn’t remember me. They put me on a boat in the hands of a friend of the family, and sent me to New Orleans. I had already been sold to someone they knew here, to Louis Derbanne’s father, Pierre Derbanne. Both of those were French Creole men you never knew, here and gone before you were born. I didn’t know any French at all, and that’s all they spoke. They put me in the kitchen because of my baking in Virginia, and when old Pierre died, I got passed around to his son, Louis, and came on here to Rosedew. I was blessed to meet up with your grandfather Gerasíme. Lord, that man had to be patient, I was so torn up. When the babies started coming again, I thought I couldn’t have any more boys. But I loved my girls and watched them grow. First Palmire, deaf and dumb from the birth and special, then Apphia, and your mother, Suzette. And finally a boy, Solataire. I got to be grateful for every season that passed and we were still together. I saw them all grow up, and now there are grandchildren. The Lord gives us what we need sometimes.”
Elisabeth managed a fragile smile. It never went beyond her mouth.
“I don’t know what happened to either one of my boys I left in Virginia. They would be your kin, your uncles.
“You find all the happiness you can with Clement, Philomene, and you bring us children when the time comes. Family stays family no matter where they are or who they are. I can see the truth of your glimpsings. Go find the boy. Talk to him as straight as you talk to me.”
* * *
The assessors arrived in waves over the course of the next two weeks. They set about with great purpose, never alone. They came on horseback, riding the length and breadth of Rosedew on both sides of the Cane River, first looking in this direction or that, taking out some metal instrument, consulting one another, checking and rechecking. Then, seemingly satisfied, they made marks in their books. They visited all of the structures on the plantation, the smokehouse, cookhouse, barns, springhouse, toolsheds, corncribs, quarter cabins, marking them off one by one. They handled each piece of equipment from the large to the small, inspecting the condition of the cotton gin and the gristmill or the balance of the weighing scales. They ran their colorless hands over the tools and harnesses as if they were getting ready to use them, but they never did. Inside the main house they went from room to room as if they were in pursuit of a secret, their boots tracking in mud from outside that Elisabeth knew either she or Suzette would have to clean. She watched them feel the smooth dark mahogany of the armoire, count the bedsteads, eye the silver, and finger the intricate patterns of the fireplace mantels, all the while scribbling notes in their journals.
They left the slaves for last, as they tallied up the life of Louis and Françoise Derbanne, gathering them in early from the field one day, before twilight, and instructing them to wait under the ancient oak at the edge of the big house. The spread and grandeur of the tree made them look small, old and young huddled together. They had been given double rations for the last few weeks, and the overseer had been ordered not to mete out any fresh lashes before the sale.
The assessors worked from the inventory that had been taken ten years before, after Louis Derbanne passed away. All they had to do was add the names of those who had been born in the last decade and subtract those of the ones who had died or been sold since. They didn’t have to guess at the slaves’ ages again or the spelling of names. Not one new slave had been bought in the last ten years. Times had been too lean.
The assessors sat behind a makeshift table, four grim-faced white men selected with great care, whose job it was to estimate where the bidding should start for each of the lives passing in front of them.
The slaves clustered together in their family groups, glancing over at the assessors behind the table with the big journal. Elisabeth and Gerasíme formed the center of one of the groups, their children fanned out around them. Suzette brought out Gerant and Philomene from the big house and took her place with her mother and father as they waited. Elisabeth’s second daughter, Apphia, held tightly to all three of her children. Laide clung to her mother’s dress, too old at eleven to suck her thumb but mouthing the back of her hand. Apphia carried infant Florenal high on her hip and with her free hand held on to three-year-old Euphemie. Solataire, Elisabeth’s youngest, talked quietly to those around him. His wife and children were on the Greneaux plantation, and Elisabeth knew he was praying to be sold there. Palmire had come alone in silent surrender. Her three children had already been taken from her. What difference could it make what they did to her now?
The assessors were ready. After conferring among themselves, they nodded to the overseer to begin.
“Get yourselves old to young. First men, and then women. Old to young,” the overseer called out loudly from behind the table.
There was confusion, as if they had been torn apart from each other already. They looked to one another for understanding. This wasn’t even auction day yet.
The overseer moved menacingly toward the clumps of families under the oak tree. He caressed the coiled whip at his hip next to his flask but did not remove it from its place.
“Are you deaf? Line up old to young. Don’t force me to put you in line myself.”
Gerasíme was the first to understand. Elisabeth watched her husband as he moved quickly toward Old Bertram, whose clouded eyes and swollen leg made it difficult for him to move. Gerasíme led him slowly by the arm to the assessors’ table and then plunged back into the knotted group to find Athenase, the next oldest man on the plantation.
“It’s just getting into a line for today,” he said under his breath to everyone he passed, “and then you go back to your families.”
They sorted themselves by looks and by remembrance.
“I was picking a hundred pounds a day when he was still sweeping cow paddies out the road,” said one.
“I’m older. I remember the drought of ’22,” said another.
All of the men went first, oldest to youngest.
Then it was the women’s turn. Only mothers with babies in their arms were allowed to come before the assessors’ table as a family group. The process went smoothly, carefully, once everyone understood what was expected. A dollar figure was suggested and debated among the assessors. When they came to agreement they marked it down in the book. A special notation was made for any defect, physical or mental. On auction day it was honorable to provide full disclosure among gentlemen, seller to buyer, of any damaged merchandise.
Elisabeth heard each of her children assessed, as well as herself and her husband. The overseer winked and smiled at his betters behind the table, proud to display his knowledge.
“A strong, healthy buck. Prime field, no injuries. Strong as an ox. No defects. No less than fifteen hundred dollars. . . .
“He has the hernia, pulls up now and again. Past prime, but useful to get others to work. With the fiddling, he should bring twelve to thirteen hundred. . . .
“Auntie’s getting slow, but good for the house and cooking. Eight hundred would be fair. . . .
“Deaf and dumb, but you won’t find better with a hoe. The lash gets her attention, if there’s need. Bidding should start at nine hundred dollars. . . .
“The uppity one is set aside, she and her daughter both.”
The assessors kept steadily at their work until each one of the slaves was accounted for. They finished as the sun disappeared behind a dense thicket of pine trees to the west.
* * *
The slaves avoided looking at one another after the inventory. They trudged back to the quarter against the murky darkness in silence, shoulders hunched and jaws slack. Even the children did not speak.
They made fires and quickly prepared the evening meals. Some hardly ate at all,
wanting just to go to bed and close their eyes until the morning light.
Elisabeth and Gerasíme lay down on their narrow pallet pushed up against the far corner of their one-room cabin.
“We have dollars on us now,” Gerasíme said.
“We always had dollars on us,” Elisabeth said.
“This is different. The sale is certain.”
They lay on the pallet without speaking, Gerasíme’s chest to Elisabeth’s back, his knees tucked up behind hers under the threadbare blanket. Finally Elisabeth thought he had fallen asleep, until she heard his voice punch through the darkness.
“You been a good wife. If we don’t end up on the same place, I don’t want another.”
“I’m through, too.”
“We made some fine children, wife.”
“We did, husband.”
When the plantation bell rang out the next morning, they were still folded together in the same position.
9
E ugene Daurat wiped at his puffy eyes. He had slept fitfully the night before, dreading the arrival of the second day of the auction, but he took his role as executor to the Rosedew estate too seriously to waver now. The day was cold and soggy, like his spirits. Rain had come down in sheets for most of the night, raising the river to dangerous levels and leaving the ground soft and yielding. The heaviest rain had eased its pounding after sunup, but already the day had seen several driving showers. Despite the weather, the turnout was a good one. Most of those who attended were locals from the different communities along Cane River who had known the Derbannes. They came from Natchitoches, Cloutierville, Isle Brevelle, and Côte Joyeuse. But they also came from beyond Cane River, from as far north as Campti and as far south as Monette’s Ferry and Point Coupée.
There had been endless details to take care of, contracting the assessors, advertising the upcoming sale in the Natchitoches Chronicle for the required thirty days, and setting up the property for sale. Eugene had been consumed for weeks with preparations. Although he considered himself very capable in the art of trade, he had not felt up to the challenge of peddling human beings himself, so he had hired an experienced auctioneer from Natchitoches. There were twenty-nine slaves to be auctioned off before the day was out, and his devotion to the memory of Louis and Françoise Derbanne obligated him to get the best price for each one.
He had Solataire put planks down across the cypress-lined entrance of Rosedew to keep the wheels of the carriages and wagons from sinking into the mud, starting at the front gate and ending at the barn. Chairs and benches had been placed around the big house, but it quickly became clear that the day was so stormy, they would have to squeeze into the barn. They crowded in as many chairs as they could, but there was only enough space for the ladies to sit.
The opening day had gone as well as could have been expected. Rosedew itself, along with the house and all of its outbuildings, had been sold to Henry Hertzog, a no-nonsense neighboring planter with a wide, solid face and stocky build.
Eugene pulled out his watch. The auction was scheduled to begin at three o’clock, but people had started arriving shortly after dinner, coming early to get a closer look at whatever particular Negro they had in mind to buy, or to visit with the neighbors they knew would attend. Buyers and spectators exchanged pleasantries, waiting for the start.
Everything was ready, except that Dr. Danglais had not yet arrived. If he didn’t come soon, they would have to begin without him. The sooner the auction got under way, the sooner it would be over.
Eugene kept to the front of the barn near the partially open door, where he could view both the packed-tight crowd inside and any late arrivals. Women and men formed separate groups. Several branches of the Rachals were represented, Emanuel Rachal from Cloutierville and Antoine Rachal from Isle Brevelle from the white side of that family and Jacquitte Rachal from the free colored. The Widow Greneaux sat and chatted with Oreline and Tranquillin, Narcisse Fredieu’s new young wife. Eugene noted that Henry Hertzog had not come back for the second day, although his brother, Hypolite, stood with a small clump of men that included Narcisse and Joseph Ferrier, Oreline’s husband.
Doralise and her married daughter, Elisida, stood off toward the back of the barn. Doralise was stone-faced, hard-edged, and detached, and Eugene was careful not to exchange glances with her in this mixed crowd.
Dr. Danglais made a noisy arrival through the open front gate, his horse’s hooves drumming against the wooden planks and churning up sodden clods of mud. Eugene went out into the light rain to greet the doctor, helping him dismount. Eugene did not want to go back into the barn but knew that he must.
* * *
The barn had the dank, sour-damp smell of decomposing hay, wet horseflesh, and bodies packed too close.
Eugene escorted the doctor to the back of the barn, weaving past the seated ladies and the groups of standing men. They stepped behind the quickly erected barrier of corded hay where the slaves waited. Old Bertram separated himself from the others and stepped forward.
Dr. Danglais gave Old Bertram a tight-lipped nod. “I do not forget how you looked after me when my father died,” he said.
Eugene looked behind Old Bertram at the Rosedew slaves gathered, some looking frightened, some dazed. Pressed close together against the side wall of the barn were Suzette, Gerant, and Philomene.
Gerant was his only son, Philomene his only daughter. The boy had Eugene’s small ears and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Suzette had called Gerant clever with his hands, and it was true, the boy had a gift. He could work with wood, carving complicated and pleasing shapes as well as figuring out how to take odd pieces of wood and put together a chicken coop, carve a butter paddle, or craft tools. But he always seemed withdrawn and shy.
Philomene was another matter entirely. Eugene found his chestnut-haired daughter unsettling, sometimes even frightening. Philomene’s jaw, when she concentrated, set along exactly the same lines as those of his mother’s. Her long hair was a springy explosion around her head, making her look too fierce for a nine-year-old girl, and her eyes were hard and flat.
Eugene pulled Suzette to the side. Keeping his voice low, he told her, “I will be buying in Gerant.”
Even as Eugene saw the relief catch hold in Suzette’s face, Philomene dropped Gerant’s hand, stepped over to them, and motioned for Eugene to stoop so she could whisper in his ear.
“My name is Philomene Daurat,” she said in her high little-girl voice. “I already saw you choose Gerant instead of me to live with you.” She swallowed hard and went on, “And you will leave all of us in the end, even Madame Doralise.”
Eugene stared at Philomene for a long moment, as if frozen, and then took Dr. Danglais by the sleeve and walked him out toward the front of the barn. Suzette was too meek to put the idea into Philomene’s head that the girl could take his last name. Where had that come from? And those other things she said. He would never leave Doralise. He didn’t know what to make of this strange girl, his daughter.
Eugene had not planned it to turn out this way.
At one time he had really meant to free the children, but Gerant and Philomene had seemed to be doing just fine on Rosedew whenever he visited, and the years had slipped past. He had been preoccupied with his own affairs and his obligations to the Widow Derbanne. But he did think about them, he did bring them gifts. Gerant would accept them shyly, but Philomene would reach out for them without hesitation, as if they were her due. By the time he looked seriously into what it would take to give them their freedom, the rules had changed. The laws discouraged even his inquiries. If he could get around the new decree that slaves could not be freed until they reached the age of thirty, they would still revert to being slaves if he did not move them out of the state within one year. And even if he managed to buy them and take them out of the country, what would he do in France, starting over again with two mulatto children?
How had everything become so complicated?
Eugene set
tled Dr. Danglais into the front of the crowd and gave the auctioneer his nod to open the proceedings. They brought Old Bertram out first.
* * *
There was a carnival tone in the air. Auctions were serious business, but they were community entertainment as well, social gatherings not to be missed. A few of those in the barn looked away discreetly as Apphia pleaded for her daughter Laide, sold away to a planter from upriver. When Amandee, a man who could lift a two-hundred-pound bale of cotton, began to sob loudly as the mother of his children was loaded into a wagon, leaving him behind, many in the crowd were unmoved. It was business. It was necessary.
Mothers and fathers were the most likely to be separated. Brothers and sisters were sold in different directions. Sweethearts could only hope they would still be within walking distance of one another.
The spectators embraced what they considered to be the kindnesses of the day. Mademoiselle Landry buying Dick and Lucy as a pair. The benevolence of Joseph Ferrier and his wife, Oreline, taking in the cook’s daughter and one of her children and her deaf-mute sister as well. Old Dr. Danglais buying Old Bertram, long past his prime, for his own house. Jacques Tessier buying Eliza and her son, Clement, together. Monsieur Plaissance buying Auntie Jeanne, close to eighty and nearly blind, for $25, just because she had been his wife’s wet nurse.
The auction was considered a success. All of the slaves were sold, most above the opening bid. There was a brisk market for slaves in 1850. Once the bidding started, bargains were quickly struck, money changed hands, mortgages drawn up, payment schedules arranged. Eugene signed off on the proceedings and gathered together the papers sealing all the transactions of the last two days.
Cane River Page 10
