The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

by Sandra Gulland

  It was busy in the village; I confess I was hoping to see the new boy, but there were only sailors who’d come over from Fort-Royal for the cock-fights. I kept my eyes to the ground, the way the nuns had taught.

  At the dock we bought a bonito and three coral fish from a fisherman with light frizzy hair. He stared at me while we went through his catch. Then he said something to Sylvester and laughed in a way that made me blush.

  We walked back up to the village square to buy pawpaws, guavas, avocado pears and tapioca. At a table displaying pictures of the saints, little mirrors and beads, a woman told us about the runaway slave who had turned into a dog and eaten a baby on the Desfieux plantation. Just atthe frightful part the new boy’s mother arrived, followed at some distance by the boy, laden with parcels.

  His mother nodded at me, her eyes deep set. “I saw you at church,” she said. She talked like a nun, proper. Between sentences she pressed her lips together.

  I nodded. She introduced herself as Madame Browder, a British name. The boy’s name is William.

  “We’re at the foot of Morne Croc-Souris,” I told them.

  Mimi spat onto the dirt.

  “On the river?” Madame Browder asked, tucking a wisp of red hair under her plain white téte.

  “Farther on, La Pagerie.” From across the bay, I could see a gommier making its way slowly to the shore. A swarm of gulls hovered above it like mosquitoes in rainy season.

  “We’re closer in toward town,” Madame Browder said.

  “The old Laignelot homestead,” Mimi said. She was scratching the ears of a mangy dog. “Neighbours, if you go by the river.”

  I felt I should invite them for tea and cakes, but I dared not, remembering my mother’s harsh words: béké-goyave. I was saved by Sylvester pulling up in the wagon. Hurriedly I took my leave.

  “Sweet eyes,” Mimi teased on the way home, jabbing me with her elbow. “I saw you making sweet eyes.”

  Sunday, August 9.

  William and his mother sat near the front of church this morning. Mother, Manette (who is better now) and I sat on a bench several rows behind. All through mass I watched him, my heart fluttering like a trapped baby bird.

  August 10.

  I sneaked down to the lower pond this afternoon for a swim. But when I got there I saw the new boy William Browder. He was fishing, his pantaloons rolled up to his knees. He startled when he saw me, as if heshouldn’t be there. He pulled his line out of the water, a long length of white horsehair attached to a bamboo pole.

  “Caught anything?” It was hot and I longed to go in, but I didn’t know if I should, now that he was there. Instead I sat down on the bank. I picked a long blade of razor grass and split it so I could whistle through it.

  “How do you do that?” William Browder asked, rolling down his pantaloons.

  I showed him and we sat whistling.

  “Why did you move to Trois-Ilets?” I asked finally. Cul-de-sac à vaches—cow-field—that’s what we call it. “Not that it’s my business,” I added, in an attempt to show manners.

  “It was hard for my mother in Saint-Pierre,” he said. He looked up at the sky. A hawk was circling. “It’s hard for her here, too.” He shrugged.

  I’d heard that his mother used to be an actress, that she’d fallen in love with a sailor in the British navy during the Seven Years’ War. Imagine having a mother like that, I thought. An actress! The shame and the glory of it. An actress couldn’t be buried in a church graveyard, or even marry—the Church forbade it.

  “You’re English? But you don’t have an accent.” I swatted at a red ant crawling up my arm.

  “My father was from Scotland actually.”

  I didn’t know where Scotland was, but I was relieved he wasn’t British. The British are not Christian—they eat children.

  “I never knew him,” he went on. He stretched out on the grass, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers.

  “Never?”

  William looked at me. His eyes were the lightest blue I’d ever seen. “I remember his face, remember him smiling. But that’s all.”

  “My father is rarely home, so I don’t suppose it’s that much different,” I told him.

  “When I was young,” William said, “I liked to think that my mother and father had loved each other very much, and had parted tragically. I thought that better than some long drawn-out marriage where the husband and wife only grow bitter and cold.”

  A fish jumped from the water, making rings over the glassy surface of thepond. I thought of my own mother and father, of the bitterness between them. Had there ever been love?

  William pushed his hair away from his eyes. “I’m a romantic, I guess.” He smiled. “Like my hero, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.”

  I got to my feet, uneasy. No one, most especially a boy, had ever talked to me about such things. I feared it was improper and didn’t know how to respond. “I must go,” I said.

  “Yes,” William said, also rising. He stood before me, awkward and hesitant, no longer a mysterious young man, the son of an actress who had been tragically loved, but instead only William, a béké-goyave in patched clothes.

  I hurried up the trace. At the stone bridge I glanced back. William was watching me.

  “Tomorrow?” he called out.

  I ran up the hill, my face burning.

  Wednesday, August 12.

  All morning I told myself: I’m not going to go, I’m not going to go. And then, after chores, there I was, heading for the swimming pond.…

  William grinned when he saw me coming down the trace. I pretended to be surprised to see him there. I didn’t know what to say so I sat on the bank and threw pebbles in the water. Then I ran home singing.

  If anyone ever found out, I hate to think what might become of me.

  I will never go again.

  September 2.

  Whenever I can I go to the fishing pond. William is often there. Mostly we sit and talk. I tell him how I long to go to France, to Paris, how I feel there is so much to experience and see, how exciting it is to be young and looking forward to it all, how hard to be told your dreams are impossible.

  William is the same. He longs to see the world. He reads the journals that come over on the boats. He tells me all about the things that are going on in the American colonies. He talks of “freedom” and “equality.” He asks me what I think about it all, but I tell him I don’t read, so how do I know?

  “You don’t have to read to know how you feel about something like freedom. It’s in your heart,” he says, “not in words on a page.”

  This afternoon he read a passage from a book: Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.* “Born free,” he said. “Imagine that.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Free and equal.”

  “Slaves, too?”

  “A master and his slaves.” He paused. “A king and his subjects.”

  “Is that what’s written in that book?” I regarded it with apprehension, as if it might burst into flames before my eyes. “But William,” I said, “if that were true, the world would—” I stopped. I couldn’t think of a word big enough.

  “Yes!” he said.

  Friday, September 18.

  William and I have quarrelled. It started when I told him Mimi casts my cards, that she’s teaching me how.

  “How can your life be in those little pieces of paper?” he demanded.

  “I just know the cards are right. I have seen that it is so.”

  “You can’t believe in freedom then,” he said.

  “Show me freedom!” I cried, and he had no answer. For there is no such thing.

  September 20, 8:30 P.M.

  William has apologized and I have accepted. He confessed that it distressed him to think that there might be no such thing as freedom, that everything was written. “Then what would it matter what a person did?” he asked.

  I told him about Catherine, and the fortune the old woman had givenher, and how it had so tragically come
to pass. Then I told him about the fortune the old woman had given me.

  “Do you believe this is your destiny—to be Queen of France?” he asked.

  “How frightful that would be,” I said. A flock of crows were making a racket in some bushes down in a ravine.

  William picked a bough of scarlet bougainvillea and crowned my head. He stood back to look at me. “You would make a lovely queen,” he said.

  I turned away, for I felt so shamelessly beautiful in his eyes.

  He made a mock bow. “But who will be your king?”

  The bougainvillea fell from my head. I stooped to pick it up. I stood and faced him, suddenly dizzy. “You?”

  Then he kissed me, and I allowed him to do so.

  October 16.

  This afternoon William and I hiked up the mountain in hopes of seeing the green flash.* We waited until just after dusk, but even so, we did not see it, for too much kissing.

  Sunday, November 1, All Saints’ Day.

  Oh … holidays, holidays, holidays, I’m so anxious for them to be over.

  This morning, after lighting candles at Catherine’s tomb, Mother, Manette and I returned to a holiday “feast” at home: boiled green bananas and féroce. The féroce tasted terrible without salt, which we have had to do without ever since the British have blockaded the port.** We said a prayer for Father, who is engaged in conflict in Sainte-Lucie. I’ve not seen William for five days.

  December 15.

  The British have captured Sainte-Lucie. Father is safe—he’s on his way home.

  New Year’s Day, 1779.

  Today I brought William a gift of ginger sweets. “You have found the way to my heart,” he said. Sometimes he talks like that—like an old-fashioned knight.

  It was hot so we stayed in the water a long time. When we got out we stretched out on the bank to dry. He untied my hair. Then he kissed me and held me close. There were no sounds, no birds singing, only the beating of my heart. I pulled away then, for it frightened me, this.

  “Where have you been?” Mother said when I got home. The shadows had grown long.

  “At the river with Mimi,” I lied.

  “Your cheeks are burned,” she said. “You’re neglecting to wear your bonnet.”

  It is night now, late. The hills are silent. I couldn’t sleep so I got up and lit a candle and opened this dear little book, that I might write down the thoughts that burn in my heart.

  I love William. I love William. I love William.

  *From The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

  * A narrow line of green that can occasionally be seen as the sun sets or rises. It is believed to bring luck to those who see it.

  ** France was unofficially supporting the American War of Independence against England by providing supplies to the American troops from Fort-Royal, so British ships blockaded the port.

  In which I am betrothed

  Friday, January 29, 1779.

  The letter from Paris came today. Aunt Désirée wrote Father: Whatever, just bring a girl, me or Manette, it didn’t matter. “We must have one of your daughters.” She urged Father to act with haste; the young chevalier might change his mind if forced to wait too long.

  There was a note to Father from the Marquis as well: “The one whom you judge most suitable for my son will be the one whom we desire.” He enclosed permission to have the banns read and left a space where a name should go.

  Father looked at me. “Well, Rose—your prayers have been answered,” he said, writing out my name on the form.

  I looked away.

  “What a funny girl you are. Always crying when you’re happy.”

  I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. “Yes, Father,” I said.

  January 31.

  At church this morning I saw William. I made our signal and he acknowledged it.

  Back home, I hurried with my chores. I asked leave to go down to the river—with Mimi, I said, praying for forgiveness for lying, especially on a Sunday.

  Mother consented and I was gone before she could think otherwise, down the trace and into the forest. At the bridge I stopped, my breath coming in short jabs. Why was I running? I proceeded at a walk, my troubled thoughts catching up with me. What was I going to tell him?

  William was fishing at the pond. He turned when he heard me on the path.

  “I’m glad you could come,” I said, standing nervously beside him, as a stranger. “I have something to tell you.” I heard the cry of a raven.

  William pulled in his line. There was a live frog on the hook.

  “Father received a letter from his sister in Paris,” I said. “His offer has been accepted.”

  “What offer?”

  “I’m to be betrothed—to a man in France.”

  William fiddled with the hook, trying to slide the frog off. He cursed under his breath and did not beg my forgiveness for doing so.

  “I’m to go live in Paris. I will be a vicomtesse.” In spite of myself, there was pride in my voice.

  William looked at me. His eyes seemed unnaturally blue.

  “Are you not going to say anything?” I felt uneasy.

  William threw his fishing gear into his basket. “Thank you for telling me? Is that what I’m supposed to say?” He untied his dusty donkey from a gum-tree branch.

  “William …” I put one hand on his shoulder.

  He jerked away, pulling himself onto his donkey’s back. Then he kicked her, taking off down the trace at a trot.

  I sat by the river, trying hard not to cry.

  Sunday, April 11.

  This morning, after mass, Father Droppet read the banns of marriage between Alexandre-François, Chevalier de Beauharnais, and Marie-Joseph-Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie.

  Manette made monkey eyes at me. Everyone turned to stare. I felt Father Droppet had been speaking of someone else, not me.

  Now this is the big news in the village: at last I will be married, and to a rich man in Paris, to a Beauharnais, the son of the former governor of all the Windward Islands. I will be Madame la vicomtesse. I am regarded as an adult now and I feel older, I admit.

  May 8.

  Mother is having a dress made for me, in the Parisian style, an amaranth brocade with gauze around the sleeves and neck. I’m not to wear it until I reach France. That way at least I’ll have one thing decent to wear, she said. I go for my first fitting today.

  Monday, June 7.

  Mother insists I learn a proper toilette. I’m to wear a corps de baleine, a corset with stays so stiff it pushes my bosom up and forces me to sit straight. It even hurts to breathe. “When can I take it off?” I asked after one long hour sitting at my vanity, applying pommades.

  “You must never take it off,” Mother said, showing Mimi how my hair is to be powdered. “You are a woman now.”

  June 23.

  I’m sixteen today—how quickly youth passes. Mimi gave me tarot cards of my own as a gift. “Blessed by holy water,” she whispered.

  Carefully, I laid them out. In the tenth position was the hanged man, his hair hanging down.

  “Life turned upside-down,” she snorted. “That’s you!”

  Saturday, July 10.

  Father is having difficulty getting enough money to pay for passage. I overheard him having an argument with Uncle Robert. “I’ve loaned you enough already, Joseph!” I heard Uncle Tascher say.

  July 16, 3:00 P.M.

  Father finally has enough money. Uncle Robert gave in. Now Father has to find a ship that can take us. With the war on, it won’t be easy, he says.

  I worry, for his health is poor.

  “You won’t survive this voyage, Joseph,” I heard Mother tell him this morning. “And then where will we be?”

  “It’s my only hope. Those doctors in Paris know things,” he said, coughing.

  What if Mother is right? What if Father dies?

  July 28.

  We leave in two weeks. Mother has had the two big sea chests hauled up to the parlour
and there are stacks of clothing everywhere. There is so much to be done, deciding what to take, what to leave behind.

  Mother is intent on sending Da Gertrude with me, but Da Gertrude begs to stay. The journey would kill her, she says.

  “It’s Lasyrenn that scares her,” Mimi whispered.

  Lasyrenn, the voodoo spirit of the sea, the mermaid with the long black hair. Lasyrenn just below the surface of the water, calling.

  July 29.

  Mimi’s coming with me!

  Sunday, August 8.

  We leave for Fort-Royal day after tomorrow, and the day after that we sail. At Saint-Domingue we will change over to the Ile de France, a naval store ship which Father warns might not be too comfortable. The frigate La Pomone will accompany us all the way to France, to defend us in case we’re attacked by the English at sea.

  “I don’t like sailing when there’s a war on,” Father told me, “but if we wait for peace, we will never get there.”

  It’s scary, but thrilling—what if we were in a battle!

  1:00 P.M.

  A wind rises, bending the palms. The hot air rushes at my skirts, pulling my plaits loose, my dangling silver earrings. It is midday, but dark asmidnight. Inside, in my room, I fasten the wooden shutters with some effort and light a wax taper on my toilette table. I scribble over the pages, seeking a path to my heart, one word, one name: William.

  From somewhere a breeze catches the flame and snuffs it out, plunging me into dark.

  August 9.

  Dawn was breaking when I got up. I slipped on my clothes and went out into the fields. Sucre was hard to catch. I had to use a custard apple to tempt her. Finally I got a bridle on her and headed off toward the river, my petticoats up around my thighs, my pony’s warm body between my legs.

  I waited by the stone bridge. Before long William came poking along the trace on his donkey, reading a book. He was surprised when he saw me.

  “Come up the mountain with me,” I said.

  “You’re betrothed.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow!”

  That seemed to startle him.