Cane River

by Lalita Tademy

  Emily’s skin was smoother and more fair than Joseph’s, because she always took such care to cover herself against the danger of the darkening rays of the sun, and he was an outdoorsman. Her hair was as straight, her nose as thin, her penmanship hand straighter and stronger. Everyone told her she was beautiful, had been telling her that since before she could understand their words. They also told her she was better, meant for better things. But she was colored and Joseph was white, and to most those were the defining facts that mattered. In the cotton house there were no such discussions, no such limitations.

  * * *

  After the initial upheaval, those ancient women Emily came from took the news of her impending motherhood in stride. Their presence had cocooned her for as long as she could remember, and although their disappointment at the beginning stung, they helped her without blame in every way they knew how through the carrying and delivery. By the time little Angelite arrived, the baby was absorbed seamlessly into the cabin as if she belonged to all of them.

  Each of the elders was eager to demonstrate her mother cures. When a wasp stung Angelite, Philomene applied tobacco juice and the swelling went down. When Suzette visited, she would hold the baby and rock for hours, using her finger to rub Angelite’s gums, giving the little girl some relief from the violation of her emerging teeth. Once, as Emily helplessly watched Angelite struggle for air, her great-grandmother Elisabeth fried down a piece of mutton, added turpentine and salve to the suet, soaked a piece of flannel in the fat, and put the warm concoction on the baby’s chest until her breathing eased. Occasionally the women disagreed among themselves about the most effective remedy for this cough or that fever, and Emily would just wait for the winning strategy to emerge. As if she had not helped to move four younger brothers from diapers to long pants, or had not taken care of the little sister who struggled to live in that first year of her life before giving up the fight.

  It was comforting to have so much knowledge at her disposal, always an extra set of hands when needed, especially with Joseph gone so often.

  * * *

  Joseph still lived across the river in the back of his store, and Emily’s place was on Philomene’s farm, even after Angelite was born. She rose before dawn every morning, sometimes leaving the baby with Elisabeth, sometimes carrying Angelite with her for the day, and crossed the river to help Joseph. She felt daring, adventurous, venturing out beyond Cane River and across the Red River into an entirely different parish.

  Emily carried herself above the side glances and the sly whispers. Insatiable tongues told stories about the Frenchman and the quadroon, endlessly cataloging what was wrong, what was unnatural, about the two of them being together. It wasn’t the appearance of the child that sparked such heated interest from the people in the woods and in the town; it was Joseph’s dogged insistence on including both Emily and Angelite in his talk, in his thinking, in his plans.

  30

  “T hese children are yours,” Philomene said, the flushed skin of her face stretched taut and her eyes narrowed. Narcisse had reached a dangerous age, an age when men’s thoughts turned to their own mortality, when they examined all they had managed to build in a lifetime of work and could feel only the urgency of where it would go when they were dead. By law he needed legitimate children to pass his inheritance to. If his children had been white, he could adopt them. If Philomene had been white, he could have married her. It was an impossible situation for a man obsessed with heirs. Philomene had seen his mind working the problem for some time, even as he supported and defended his colored family. “You may be getting yourself ready to walk on to something new, but that doesn’t change you being the father.”

  Philomene and Narcisse sized each other up, like a pair of old fighting cocks preparing to spar one last time. They were especially careful, either capable of drawing first blood, each searching for the best possible opening.

  Philomene looked with uncompromising eyes at the man grown soft around the middle, deep lines etching his forehead. Getting ready to leave her after twenty years and seven children, two lost in infancy. Philomene had to give him due credit. He still kept himself clean and neat, and his beard was recently trimmed with a precision and patience reserved for the very rich or the very vain. The truth of the matter was that he had really left her the year before. They had just not spoken of it.

  The power she exercised over him for years had diminished, until what they held between them now was mostly habit and old scars. And their children.

  As soon as Philomene heard he was to have a child by Clemmie Larioux, she knew her time had run out, the spell broken. It hadn’t taken long for the news to travel the byways of Cane River that Narcisse had gone back to white. Clemmie had been safely delivered of his white child, a girl. By all accounts Clemmie was poor white trash living in the piney woods hill country, probably another shadow union for Narcisse. Philomene was sure he would marry again, if he proved to himself he could produce a legitimate male heir by a more respectable woman.

  It always seemed to come to this. No matter what happened early in their lives, whatever choices these Frenchmen made in their youth, in the end the need for a legitimate heir reasserted itself, all the stronger for being ignored. The need became as singular and focused as their original lust had been. There was no way around it. The best Philomene could hope to do now was protect her children from indifference and desertion.

  Narcisse squared off. “I know they’re my children,” he said. “When have I ever turned my back? You’ve lived a good life from it, too. Both Emily and Eugene can read. I didn’t have to do that. Nick, Henry, and Joseph will get their turn. Not one has ever gone hungry. They hold their heads up, dress better than most. You’ve lived in the same house for over ten years, your only task to raise them. I saw to that.”

  “My only task?” Philomene’s tone was strained, but she kept her voice steady and didn’t allow him to bait her. She had to think clearly. There was much more at stake than her pride. Her family depended on her to manage the situation. “You think I don’t know you’re ready to go?” she said. “That I don’t know about Clemmie?”

  “Mademoiselle Clemensieu to you,” Narcisse snapped. “She’s a white lady. You show her respect.” He eased back immediately, seeming to think better of attack. “All these years gone, years with you saying I could only have children by you. I love each of my children, and I’ll do right by them. I need an heir. It’s time to take care of my line, get back to my own kind.”

  “You will do whatever pleases you,” Philomene said. “But you still have these five children, and a grandchild. They are your line, too. Some of them barely out of short pants, some not walking yet. They have needs.” She paused and her eyes narrowed, judging the timing. “And another on the way.”

  Narcisse hit her, a sudden blow to her face with his closed fist. She hadn’t seen it coming. It happened so swiftly that Philomene registered the flat, hollow sound before the pain. She stayed where she was, staring at him, not even bringing hand to face to touch her swelling jaw. No more glimpsings could protect her now. They stood facing one another, both breathing hard.

  “You’ll say anything now to keep me from going,” Narcisse said. “How do I know there really is another child? It won’t change my plans.”

  Philomene stood erect, saying nothing, and a long moment passed.

  Narcisse broke the silence first, a compromising quality to his softened tone. “I’ll still give you something from time to time.”

  “Something and time to time are not what I’m looking for,” Philomene said. “You have plenty of land, and we deserve some of it to build our own place. And a stake to get us started. A cow, a horse, and some chickens. We can work the place ourselves, while you move on to your legitimate heirs.” She spat out the last as if it were blood collecting in her mouth.

  In spite of the growing redness, she kept her face steady and unyielding, and she stared directly into Narcisse’s eyes. He glared back at her, a l
ook mixed with anger and contempt. This was her last stand with him. They both knew it.

  “I’ll give you whatever I have a mind to give you, and nothing more,” Narcisse said. “You’d better keep a civil tongue. I don’t know who you think you are, making demands, hanging on beyond your time. You think you can steal all of these years from me without consequence, making me believe I could never have white children, and then try to tell me what I have to do for you?” His face had turned a dark, mottled color, and there was an angry twitch to his mouth as he talked. “You think you are so high and mighty that you can make up anything else, and I’ll believe what you say? I gave you a decent life. A slave, and I treated you better than you had any right to expect.”

  Philomene silently stood her ground. She knew this man, and if anything could influence him, it would be the dawning acceptance that there would be another child. The last few months had not all been tight silences, absences, or arguments, especially after the death of their little Josephina.

  “I should have known all along you didn’t have the power to see into the future,” Narcisse said. “All these years thinking you could find out about Bet through glimpsing, and you’re as blind to that as anything else that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Bet?” Philomene’s voice faltered. She had no idea where they were headed as the familiar direction of their confrontation lurched off course. Narcisse never talked about Bet and Thany, and she never talked about Clement. It was one of their wordless agreements. Her daughters had been dead for almost twenty years. She still sometimes went alone to visit the site where Bet and Thany had been buried in their single grave. A stunted willow tree grew over the lonely spot on what used to be Ferrier’s farm.

  “You hold yourself above other people with your glimpsings,” Narcisse went on. “You tricked me, but the whole time you had no idea that your daughter was just a few miles away. You’re not as clever as you think.”

  “What are you saying, Narcisse?” There was no bite left in Philomene’s words, no strategy, no calculation, no demand.

  Narcisse hesitated. “Bet is alive,” he said. “She didn’t die in the yellow fever epidemic. Thany couldn’t recover after the fever, but Bet was stronger, and she fought harder.”

  Philomene backed away from Narcisse, one wobbly step and then two.

  “Oreline had just taken sick and couldn’t leave her bed. I was the only healthy one still able to move around on Ferrier’s farm by then. A boy came from my plantation, just minutes after I watched Thany die. I had been gone for two days, and they sent him because they were worried. Bet was sick, but still fighting, so I sent her away with the boy to one of my farms downriver. There was a slave woman there, Aunt Sarah, a good nurse. I was so tired already, and I hadn’t been able to save Thany. I thought she could look after the baby better than I could, while I stayed on with you and Oreline. It seemed the best course at the time.”

  Narcisse spoke in a monotone, as if the too long hoarding of the story had ground down all of the contours. “After a few days, Oreline was getting better. She only had a mild case, and even you were starting to come around a little, but it was clear you couldn’t take care of a baby in your condition. You could barely lift your head. Even after your delirium passed, you were so weak that you didn’t have any idea what was going on around you. I just left things the way they were, and said both babies had died. I’m not sure why. Oreline wasn’t part of it.”

  Narcisse found his way to the moonlight chair and slumped into it. “I thought it was better to wait and see whether Bet recovered before telling you any different. A family down on my place raised her as Elisabeth, without knowing any of this. She didn’t move after freedom. She married a boy down there.”

  Philomene barely breathed. All she could think of was the terrible loneliness she had felt after the yellow fever, when she woke up to find everyone in her world gone, a loneliness so deep that she thought she would die from it. Even the attentions of Narcisse Fredieu seemed preferable to that. Bet, alive? She heard a raw, low guttural sound that seemed to have neither beginning nor end, but when she looked past Narcisse to find the source, she found it came from her. She couldn’t stop.

  Narcisse stared at her uncertainly. He looked as if he were waiting for something more. She had seen the expression before, whenever they talked of the glimpsings. Narcisse seemed almost contrite to Philomene, his face a curious mass of slits and folds and whiskers. He struck her as odd and ridiculous, and she started to laugh, great gulping laughs, so deep that she could hardly catch her breath. The longer she laughed, the more alarmed Narcisse looked, but he kept his distance across the room. At some point she couldn’t remember why she was laughing, and she stopped. Silence hugged each corner of the room like a shroud.

  “Philomene, listen to me. I have land near where Bet is living, down at the mouth of Cane River, near the Grant-Natchitoches Parish border. I’ve always intended to deed you that piece of land, and you can raise the children there. Bet will be just a few minutes away. It’s not too late to get to know her.”

  Philomene didn’t respond, pacing absently.

  “Get out of my chair,” she said finally.

  “Philomene, let’s talk.”

  She turned her back, unable to look at him. “Get out of my chair,” she said again, to the wall.

  She heard scraping noises that let her know he was standing. Philomene turned and crossed the room, passed in front of Narcisse but was careful not to touch him. She curled herself into her chair, pulling her knees into her chest.

  Narcisse walked out of the room then. Through the open bedroom door she saw him stop to say something to Emily in the common room. Emily gathered the family to her as Narcisse disappeared, and they gave Philomene worried glances.

  Philomene rocked, stroking the smooth arms of the moonlight chair under her fingertips, embraced by the chair that had cost Clement his life. She was dimly aware of Emily coaxing her to come to their bed, but Philomene couldn’t leave the chair, not until she had a sense of what direction her life should take. At some point she dozed, and when her eyes opened again it was still dark outside. She was covered with a quilt someone must have put over her as she slept. Philomene thought of Emily, the daughter she knew so well, and now Bet, the daughter she had not been allowed to know at all. Half-sisters.

  Slowly in the night a plan began to take shape. Philomene beat back the temptation to let herself drift into the comfort of hating Narcisse. It would only get in the way, and she didn’t have the time. She had to make sure she settled on the land he promised, quickly, and that it was legal. She would move and take her family with her. All of them.

  By first light Philomene was ready to go find Bet.

  * * *

  Philomene saddled their horse and set off downriver with little Joseph, missing close to a day’s work around the farm. She got back shortly before nightfall and called everyone into the kitchen, putting Joseph down in the crib. Her children gathered around her, Emily holding Angelite, and Eugene, Nick, and Henry.

  When Philomene spoke, her voice was level. “You all have an older sister now. Soon we will move near her to a new place. Your sister’s name is Bet. She’s nineteen, older than Emily, and already married. Next Sunday she’ll join us for dinner. You’ll treat her like our own.”

  She ignored the bald look of surprise from her sons and the darting flash of something she couldn’t quite identify that distorted Emily’s features for a moment. Reproach, jealousy, anger?

  Philomene’s tone precluded questions.

  * * *

  After Narcease Fredieu had used up most of her [ Philomene’s ] life he bought much land and moved Her and the children on it.

  --Cousin Gurtie Fredieu, written family history, 1975

  * * *

  Each Sunday was set aside for family on the new place. Short of fever or flood, everyone was expected for Sunday dinner at Philomene’s. There was no great distance to travel. By 1880 they all lived on her property.


  Philomene asked them one by one to live with her. “One hundred and sixty-three acres, signed over legal,” she told them.

  “I always knew you had it in you,” said Elisabeth.

  “We need more room, with all these families and children. If you get the materials, I can build the houses,” Gerant offered.

  “Yellow John and I would like nothing better than to be a part of your family,” said Doralise.

  “Isaac is strong, and we can both help,” said Bet in the quiet, generous way Philomene was coming to understand. “Anything to be close to you.”

  The houses and the land belonged to Philomene, but she took the third position behind Suzette and Elisabeth in Sunday’s kitchen. Her grandmother presided over dinner preparations from her chair by the rough-hewn kitchen table, passing judgment on the dishes as they were being prepared. She gave advice on coaxing the lumps out of gravy, whipping the butter and sugar together to get the fluffiness for sweet-potato pie, and heating the grease exactly hot enough, the secret to frying the best chicken. No one dared say to Elisabeth that they considered themselves accomplished cooks, taught at her own knee.

  At eighty-one Elisabeth conserved her movements, navigating slowly from chair to couch to bed after so many years spent standing. Her eyesight frequently failed her, especially for close work, and at night, no matter how bright Philomene turned the light up for her, Elisabeth had to give up her needlework. Even stitching quilts was more than her stiff fingers could manage. But she continued doing what she could and oversaw everything. She could still pluck a chicken clean by feel, and she gave counsel to her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren. From her central spot in the kitchen, Elisabeth was as much a part of Sunday dinners as the heaping bowls and platters of food that made their way to the table in the chipped and mismatched containers. Elisabeth always had her big wide-mouthed tin bowl near, handy for shelling peas or washing greens or a hundred other uses, and it was she who officially started Sunday dinner each week while everyone else went to early-morning Sunday mass. Elisabeth celebrated God in her own way.