Six days out of seven, from daybreak to dusk, the plant was busy with crushing cane, boiling juice, clarifying, thickening and crystallising the sugar, and drying it in sugar cones. But today the place was empty, except for the party of Huguenots. From afar, going by their gesticulating, it looked like they were discussing a feature of the mill construction. But they were not. Their conversation had turned, as always, to their favourite subject.
‘I say we just take a rowboat,’ said Monsieur Coulin, a master carpenter, while inspecting the wedge of a mortise and tenon joint.
‘The problem,’ said Professor Bourget, the surgeon, ‘is what to do with it.’
‘We hug the shoreline until we reach the south coast,’ said Monsieur Roche, a stocky mason who spoke in a tenor voice.
‘We would risk getting caught by Spaniards,’ said a lanky solicitor by the name of Lautre.
‘Then it’s out of the rowboat and into the whale’s mouth!’ said the professor.
‘No, no,’ said Coulin, ‘I’ve heard that English vessels water there on their way to Jamaica.’
‘Madame Grosjean told me they like to put in at a place called Cow Island,’ said Mademoiselle Duvivier, who was not too shy to add to a predominantly male conversation. In fact, despite her prisoner status, ironically she had never experienced such freedom. She even enjoyed walking among Huguenot men without a chaperone. She continued. ‘It is not far from the south coast, I am told.’
‘That may well be, Mademoiselle,’ said Monsieur Lautre. ‘Nonetheless, I still think it safer and wiser to bide our time a while longer until a Dutch fluyt puts into the bay.’
‘With all due respect,’ said Monsieur Roche, ‘we’ve been saying that for the past three weeks, and we’ve still seen neither yards nor prow of a cargo ship, have we?’
‘I fear we are not likely to either,’ said Jacob, ‘given the current state of affairs back in Europe.’
‘To look on the bright side,’ said Monsieur Lautre, ‘at least we have been able to send word home.’
‘Did they go?’ asked Jacob to Marianne.
‘Yes, my uncle,’ she said, ‘they went this morning with the store keeper to Le Cap Français.’
The church bells began to chime, announcing the end of the long Catholic mass. The company instinctively took their leave from each other in twos and threes to avoid any risk of being accused of congregating, which was punishable by imprisonment.
‘My dear niece,’ said Jacob, ‘will you walk with me a while?’
Marianne and Jacob had kept up their little ruse of being related to avoid rousing suspicions whenever they met to organise the assemblies, which they did often. It also let everyone know that the young lady was not alone in this strange, torrid, and colourful world. Even Huguenots, as she passed by alone in the street, would give their regards to her uncle.
*
The two of them headed in the direction of a newly dug well which was on the opposite side of the plantation, and barely a hundred yards from the slave shacks under the trees. Delpech had positioned it so that it would provide the most efficient water supply for Monsieur Verbizier’s new fields of sugarcane.
‘We must find another place to assemble,’ said Jacob. ‘I fear we are watched, and I suspect it is only a matter of time before Madame Grosjean’s house is closed, and then where will the poor woman go?’
‘She says she is fully aware of the risks,’ said Marianne. ‘But she says that it uplifts her to no end to feel the grace of God in her home again. And she says it will not be long now before she is taken to her husband and her son.’
‘But I fear they could send you away too, Marianne. I promised your grandmother I would look after you.’
‘You need not fret, I can look after myself,’ said the young woman with an endearing laugh. ‘Now, you said you would teach me how to find fresh water, do you remember?’
‘Indeed, I do.’
‘Heaven knows, I might need to know one day if I become marooned on an island.’
‘We are marooned on an island, my dear,’ said Delpech, with a chuckle which allowed him to disguise his smile at seeing her so grown up, and a fine figure of a woman at that.
Marianne, who had come to understand his moods, knew at that instant his mind was not preoccupied as it usually was by his family and the grief of losing Louise, his three-year-old daughter. It was one of those rare moments that relaxed his rather handsome features.
He opened his jacket and brought out the Y-shaped slender branch he used for locating water veins, a method dowsers used on his farms in Montauban.
‘Oh, wonderful,’ she said, clasping her hands together.
He handed her the foot-long dowsing stick as they approached the well.
Looking over her shoulder, she said: ‘You are sure this is not witchery?’
‘Bah, no,’ said Jacob. ‘Even Father Jeremy uses one. We had a good chuckle together when he saw me locating the other wells. Now, let us see if you have the gift.’
Black slaves were now walking, some running, back to their quarters in the Caribbean sunshine. They had been locked up inside the church for three long hours and were eager to spend what was left of their free day as they pleased.
A band of barefooted youngsters skipped past them.
‘M’sieur, M’dame,’ they hurled out as they ran excitedly towards their usual play area beneath the leafy trees.
To think that these young wretches would live their whole lives in servitude brought a frown to Jacob’s brow. Then again, perhaps they would not be unhappy after all. Perhaps they would find comfort in God’s grace, he thought. At least, this way, their daily objectives in life would be clear. They would not become beggars, and they would not be hindered by ambition. Moreover, their own civilisation was very rudimentary, was it not? So perhaps this was the life that was meant for them. Was it not a lesser evil than remaining in ignorance of the Lord?
‘Forgive them. They are excited,’ said Marianne, sensitive to his fleeting change of mood.
‘Oh, it is not that,’ he said, waving the thought away like a fly. ‘Right, hold the forked end lightly at the extremities. That’s it. Now walk slowly towards the well.’
After a few slow strides, she said, ‘My word, I can feel it moving.’
‘Keep walking slowly.’
‘Oh, look, my uncle—incredible. It is working—it is dipping.’
‘The water vein is right under your feet then, my niece!’ laughed Jacob, both proud and touched by her wonderment. There was still the little girl beneath the veil of budding womanhood. ‘Now you know what to do if you get marooned on a desert island!’
By now a little group of slave women and their children had gathered around them to marvel at the magic, which always gave cause for wonderment.
A child of three or four wriggled down the hips of its young mother. The young woman was engrossed in the spectacle of the white girl learning magic—the same magic performed by the elders of her village in west Africa, just half a day’s walk from the Youbou River. The little girl tugged at her mother’s dress and pointed towards the slave shacks near the trees. She was thirsty.
Marianne walked in zigzags, experimenting with her amazing new power.
Two minutes later, Jacob looked up to see how far they were from the well, so that he could trace the trajectory of the underground water vein with his eye. Then he saw a little girl in a short-sleeved dress, running barefoot towards the well. It should have been covered over. But Jacob could see that it was not.
‘My God, no! Stop the child!’ he cried out. The little girl gave a glance over her shoulder as she toddled on; the next instant, she was gone. There was a short scream. The mother, seeing her daughter disappear into the ground, let out an agonising cry as she sank to her knees, clasping her face in despair. Jacob wasted no time in dashing to the gaping hole in the ground, thirty yards ahead. It was a fourteen-foot drop to the bottom, which was still plugged for the interior walls to be sealed, so it conta
ined no water.
He braced himself, then looked over the rim.
The child let out a wail of shock, fear, and pain on seeing the face of the white man looking down from above. But at least she had survived the fall.
Without a second thought, Jacob ripped off his jacket, stepped into the well, and descended the wooden ladder.
As he approached the bottom, he saw the whites of the child’s large eyes, staring fearfully up at him. ‘Don’t be afraid, my girl,’ he said in the same soft voice he used when his own children had hurt themselves. ‘Good girl, there’s my sweet,’ he said as he managed to squat astride her.
She was sobbing. ‘Legs,’ she said. ‘Legs hurtin’.’
In the dimness of the well, Jacob felt her legs. Her scream of pain when he touched the limp right foot told him the lower right leg was probably fractured. He only hoped that was all the poor child had broken. He felt the rest of her tiny body, her pelvis, her ribcage, her arms.
‘I’m going to take you to your mama, my girl. To Mama,’ he said.
‘Mama,’ said the child. ‘Wanna go home,’ she sobbed.
‘Yes, Mama’s waiting. Now, tell me your name, my sweet.’
‘Lulu,’ said the girl, bravely swallowing another sob.
It was the pet name of his daughter, his darling little Louise, who died while he was incarcerated in France for his faith.
Was it the words, the emotion, the adrenaline? Or was it something else that made him suddenly feel ashamed? Down in that dark pit, he now saw through the fallacy of the slaveholder society. How could he, even for a single instant, have fallen for the false normality of servitude?
‘My God, I have been blind!’ he said to himself as he ripped off his belt and, looking up, cupped his hand to his mouth. ‘Marianne!’ he called. ‘Marianne, throw me something I can wrap around her legs. A belt, some string, whatever is closest to hand.’
Two seconds later, a white woman’s shawl was falling towards him. He fastened the belt around the child’s legs below the knee amid little yelps of pain. But Lulu was very brave. He tied the shawl around her calves just above her feet, so that the wounded leg was fastened to the good one. Then he scooped up her crumpled body in his big hands.
‘Good girl, Lulu,’ he said, trying to reassure her. ‘Such a brave girl. Now hold on tight, there’s a good girl. And don’t let go.’ The child held onto his neck as if for dear life. He could feel her shivering, her soft skin against his neck, her woolly hair on his cheek. How brave she was for such a mite.
It was a changed man that Mademoiselle Duvivier saw climb out of the well. The anguish etched on his face was the anguish of a father.
‘Marianne,’ he said, panting from the ascent, ‘I want . . . you to fetch Monsieur Bourget . . . fast as you can. Tell him a child has broken her leg.’ He then looked at the nearest slave and said, ‘Bono, you go with her and bring back anything the doctor needs.’
‘But, M’sser . . .’
‘Don’t stand there, man, run!’
The mother’s relief was palpable as she put her hand on her child’s head and mumbled reassurances in her native tongue. But the child kept hold of the white man who had told her not to let go, and he was already striding in the direction of the slave quarters.
‘Come, Madame, take me to your hut,’ he said to the mother.
Five minutes later, he was standing in a windowless hut. Its roof was covered in palm leaves, its walls made of wattle. He lay the child down on a wooden board where the mother had laid a woven palm-leaf mat. The bone had not broken through the skin, but the fracture was evident from the swelling. The child looked alert while her mother bathed her grazed face; she must have hit the wooden ladder, which must have broken her fall.
Jacob was examining the splinter in her hand where she must have grabbed the ladder rung, when there came a sudden commotion from the gathering crowd outside, and a raised voice.
‘What in God’s name is going on here!’ thundered Monsieur Verbizier, lowering his head through the doorway.
Jacob, who had never seen the man in such a wicked mood, told him what had happened. The planter said he would have the bastard who left the well uncovered stripped and whipped.
‘There is really no need,’ said Jacob. ‘She will be all right . . .’
‘I’m not talking about the brat. I am talking about discipline, Sir! Give them a loose rein, and the place will be like a savage village in no time!’
Verbizier looked about him in disgust at the shack, where small dead birds were strung up to be roasted on the spit that evening. Jacob continued his examination, but the child began to tremble with a new fear and reached for her mother.
The planter continued: ‘And what if a mill worker had fallen in? Then what, eh? We are hard put to finish the harvest as it is!’ Turning to the doorway, where a crowd stood at a respectful distance, he hurled: ‘If no one owns up, I’ll have the lot of you thrashed!’
Jacob got to his feet. ‘It was me,’ he said. ‘I was showing the well to my niece. You will have to flog me instead! Now leave us, I beg you, you are frightening the child!’
‘What?’ said Verbizier, who stood as stunned as if he had received a slap on the face.
‘You are frightening the child! Now leave us, I pray,’ said Jacob, seething now, though keeping his voice down so as not to scare the patient further.
Verbizier knew when a man was beside himself. He knew too when to retreat in order to get what he could out of a person before the relationship ended. Pity, he thought. Delpech would have made an excellent plant manager.
He gave the Huguenot a stern once-over, turned, booted a chicken out of the doorway, and stomped out with orders to cover the well before someone else fell down it.
Professor Bourget arrived seconds later, followed by Mademoiselle Duvivier, who was carrying a leather bag. The slave named Bono was behind her, carrying a chest which he put down inside the hut. It had been presented to the doctor to enable him to carry out chirurgical and medicinal work in the colony. Given his past career as a surgeon in the king’s army, Bourget had acquired vast experience and had quickly become a respected figure in Leogane.
It was a clean fracture. But the surgeon had to open the area to remove bone debris. He then set the fractured ends of the bone in place so that it could properly mend. Next, asking Jacob to hold the lower leg firmly, he wrapped it in a bandage, placed a wooden splint beneath it, and bound everything together with tape ligatures. Lastly, he thrust other splints beneath the tapes all the way around the dressing, and then made sure they were tightly in place. Throughout the operation, the mother, whose name was Monifa, tried to comfort her daughter while Mademoiselle Duvivier held the child’s arms. She writhed in pain before falling unconscious.
At the end of two hours, Jacob stepped outside into the bright afternoon light. He reflected on the fascinating view into the world of medicine, and the powers of knowledge the Almighty had given to man. He was sitting in the shade of a tree when the young black man named Bono came up to him. Jacob knew his name because he was one of the well diggers. The man gave a bow. Jacob rose to his feet as Bono said, ‘Thank you, M’sser.’
Jacob, seeing the young man had tears welling in his eyes, realised with mortification his blunder. He said, ‘You are the child’s father.’
The man nodded.
‘I am sorry,’ said Jacob, touching the man’s shoulder. ‘I should have asked and sent someone else with Mademoiselle Duvivier. You should have gone with your daughter. Please forgive me.’
Bono gave a brief nod, and with dignity, he said, ‘I forgive you, M’sser, and I thank you.’ Then he went back into the hut.
Jacob reeled the sequence of events through his mind like a magic lantern. The child’s fall—the mother’s collapse—the child’s fear—the father’s gratitude. How could he have been tricked into believing, even for a wicked second, that these people were any less human in any way, shape, or form than the white man? How dare he have d
oubted, even for an instant. He would never let himself become so base again.
He let himself slump against the tree and soon found himself pondering the Code Noir that Verbizier had spoken of. There was one article which he was glad of, article 47. It forbade husbands and wives from being separated from each other and their offspring. Delpech saw this as a fundamental right for all men and women of honourable intent.
‘Monsieur Delpech, are you all right?’ said a soft and spirited voice. It was the voice of Mademoiselle Duvivier. Jacob looked up and felt tears water his eyes.
He was grieving not only over his shame, but for his own child who had died without him, for his destitute wife who was now a refugee in a foreign land, and for his other children abducted in France. Who was watching over them now? he wondered.
SEVEN
The elegant French resident had summoned the fat syndic to his study. They were sitting on either side of the deep walnut desk that stood delicately and with solidity on scrolled feet in front of the bookcase crowded with leather-bound works of law.
‘Ever since the council ordered the deacons to remove the wretched fugitives, there have never been so many of them in Geneva, Sir,’ said the resident. ‘How do you account for that?’
‘It is as I said, my Lord,’ returned Monsieur Gallatin. ‘Now that April is upon us and the winter eviction truce is over, there are more departures than ever before. But there are also even more refugees entering through the city gates.’
‘What am I to tell the king?’ said the resident, leaning forward and pressing his fingers upon his desk.
Sinking his chin into his collar, the fat syndic said: ‘With all due respect, my Lord, you might tell him to stop sending imprisoned Huguenot nobles from his kingdom so that he may confiscate their fortunes.’
‘It is not to confiscate their fortunes, Sir!’ said the resident, holding up a correcting finger. He got to his feet, gesticulating as he spoke. ‘It is so that their fortunes, or want of, may bring them round to their senses.’
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