Sugar Money

by Jane Harris

  ‘Only rumours. I had to see for myself. And stop saying that word.’

  ‘Who is the father? Do you know?’

  The stick he was holding snapped in two with a loud crack. He tossed aside the broken pieces and stood up.

  ‘No. Go and eat something. I’ll see you back at the huts.’

  He started downhill, toward the river. I listen carefully as he went, hoping to hear some trace of him above the racket of the night – one breath or a footstep – but he made no more sound than a shadow. Within a twinkling, he was gone.

  Never once had I seen him so discomposed. My brother was known for his steady head. Now, he seemed off the hooks and high-strung. It made me sick with nerves.

  Something scuttled in the dirt behind me and I jumped up, sweating, armpits prickling, but I could see nothing beneath the trees. With Emile gone, I bethought myself very small there, alone on the hillside, beneath the vast Milky Way. The ground tilted neath my feet. I felt panicked and winded, as though someone had close their fist around my heart. Quick-sharp, I slung the satchel of herbs over my shoulder and headed back to the cabins on the side of the hill.

  The yard look deserted; the remnants of the meal cleared away. I walked up to the ramshackle hut at the end and set the satchel inside. No sign of the old couple or Céleste though a light still burned behind the jalousie of her cabin. Hearing soft voices inside, I crept closer and was about to listen at the wall when the door flaps flew open and Angélique almost fell over me.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ she said, crossly.

  ‘Gone to talk to Saturnin.’

  Behind her, inside the hut, I could see an old smut-lamp on the table and Céleste, slumped in a chair. She gazed out at me, her face a mask of sadness.

  ‘Shoo away from this hut now,’ said Angélique, to me. ‘I left some food for you in the kitchen, wrapped up.’

  At that, Céleste hauled herself to her feet with the help of the rickety table. Her belly so big it made everything a simmy-dimmy.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let me talk to him. Come inside, Lucien.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I step past Angélique and close the door flaps on her scowling face, leaving her outside. Céleste came toward me as I turned, opening her arms to embrace me. I was surprise when my cheek touched her throat. Beforetimes, I had stood no higher than her waist. Her swollen belly – solid and wide as a boulder – pressed against me. She smelled like vanilla. Then she step back, holding me by the shoulders to take a better look at my face. I could see the beat of the pulse in her throat; beads of perspiration on her upper lip.

  ‘Forgive me for ignoring you, child. I was confuse, seeing your brother here after all this time, then him running off like that.’

  Could this be true? Had she recognise me, after all? I wanted to speak up, to say something, but my mind had gone blanker than Canada snow. Rather than stare at her, I glanced about at the few stick of furniture: two touchwood chair, the lamp on the table, a thin mat on the floor; other than that the hut contained only a few female garment hanging from nails on the wall.

  ‘I want to hear your news, of course,’ Céleste said. ‘But later. Just tell me now, is it true? Did the Fathers send you? Do they really want Emile to take us to Martinique?’

  ‘Me and Emile. Yes.’

  ‘In secret?’

  ‘Correct.’

  She gave me a searching look as she lowered herself into her seat. As for me, I found it hard to contemplate her without dropping my gaze to her belly. I wanted to ask: who is he? What is the name of the man who has put this thing inside you?

  ‘You’re sure it’s not Emile himself?’

  Her question startle me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This notion to take us to Martinique – is Emile behind it? Is it just his idea?’

  ‘Absoliman pa.’

  ‘How can you be sure? Were you there when the Fathers spoke to him?’

  ‘Of course. He spoke to us both together – Cléophas.’

  ‘You swear on that?’

  ‘I was there in the morgue the whole time, I swear.’

  She looked perplex.

  ‘And you haven’t run away?’

  ‘No. The Fathers are building a new distillery. They need more hands to build it and they need more sugar, more money, more slave. And they cannot afford to buy new. Cléophas says you all belong to them since the old days. They just want you back.’

  Nothing I said seem to reassure her. She kept staring at me with the same anxious expression, a deep line between her eyebrows. I wanted to stroke it away. Now that I could see her face more clearly, it struck me that she had been crying. Her eyes seemed larger than usual, swollen and glistening. The way the lamplight hit her cheekbones and forehead, she seem to glow.

  ‘And how does Emile propose we get away in secret?’ she said. ‘Some forty slave? Does he think we can fly?’

  I felt glad she had ask this for it gave me a chance to play the big Don Diego. Pulling myself to full height, I set my hand on my hip and rested my foot on the spindle of the second chair, taking my ease like a Béké planter.

  ‘Well, there is a way to do it. We go to Petit Havre, not to town. Too busy down there day and night, we’d be caught before we made it to the carenage. No, we go after dark, through the forest, avoid the road.’

  ‘With old people, people in shackles? Some with babies? And me, like this?’ She gestured at her own self. ‘All in the pitch dark? Is madness.’

  I dusted off my fingers to show her how easy it might be done.

  ‘Like eating pastry,’ I said. ‘I could do it myself.’ Though, for true, it’s unlikely I could have found the way alone. That afternoon, I had paid scant attention to our route since Emile knew where to go. I just followed him, more or less, and mostly failed to note the landmarks and so forth. Howsomever, I was loath to seem uncertain or childish to Céleste and so concluded: ‘We can get to Petit Havre, pa ni pwoblèm.’

  ‘Lucien, ché, listen. No matter where we go from, this is dangerous. Taking us all halfway up the island. We might get caught. He could … it could get us all killed.’

  ‘We won’t be caught,’ I told her. ‘Like I said, we go through the forest.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Well, let’s see. I need to talk to your brother.’

  With that, her gaze fell to the swell of her belly. This might have been the moment to ask her about it but I found myself struck dumb, any question I had clogged in my throat. Presently, she looked up at me.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a zigizi trapped in a cup. Was he like this when you left? I never saw him so agitated. He seems crazy.’

  ‘He’s not crazy, he’s—’ I stop myself.

  ‘What? What is he?’

  ‘You know what he is.’

  She sighed again and the light in her eyes dimmed as though a cloud had passed across the face of the moon.

  ‘But … the Fathers will keep him after this, yes? If we go to Martinique – me and him – we would both be at the hospital, in St Pierre, is that so?’

  I recalled Cléophas in the morgue, his vague promise that the Fathers might grant Emile his freedom or buy him back and let him set up quarters with Céleste.

  ‘Hard to tell,’ I said. ‘They might keep him – but they might just send him back to the Dominicans in St Marie.’

  ‘How far is that from St Pierre?’

  ‘A long hike. Impossible to get there and back in a day.’

  Not that I wanted to hurt her feelings exactly. But the way she had said ‘me and him’ without a thought for any other person made my inners ache. A far-away look crept into her eyes. She rubbed her hands across her face.

  ‘Go and eat now, ché,’ she told me. ‘Get some rest.’

  Some things never change. Back in the old days, she was forever telling me to do this, do that. I just stood there, biting my cheek.

  ‘We can talk more tomorrow, Lucien. You can tell me about yo
ur life in St Pierre. I miss you so much. I thought of you every day. Come here.’

  When I made no move, she reached out and took my hand.

  ‘Little britches,’ she said. ‘My little britches. You’re so tall now. You’ll soon be a man before you know it.’

  Well, she may as well have spat in my eye. I dropped her hand, took a step back.

  ‘I am a man, already,’ I told her.

  She put her head on one side as she contemplated my face.

  ‘Perhaps you are,’ she said. But her last words to me were: ‘Take care of yourself, child. And tomorrow don’t go getting yourself in the mèd.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  No sign of Chevallier or his woman outside in the yard but I could see a dim light burning in their big cabin. In the open kitchen, I found the food Angélique had left, wrapped in banana leaf, some cold fish and plantain. I stood there and dog them down. As my eyes became accustom to the gloom under the kitchen roof, I began to make out the figure of a fellow lying near the embers of the fire. Something familiar about him. For true, he resemble my former playfere Vincent. I tiptoed closer and knelt down for a good look. It was him, no question. He appear to be asleep. Vincent was a few years older than me and apparently full-grown now but I would have known him anywhere. In one hand, he clutched a flask of Kill-Devil; in the other, a monster crab – long kickeraboo by the stench.

  I was about to leave my old friend to his rest when he open his eyes and stare straight at me. Then he gave a yawn and murmured:

  ‘Gwan-mè said you came back.’

  ‘Me vwala,’ I replied. ‘Come to take you to Martinique.’

  He yawned again.

  ‘So they tell me.’

  ‘Sent by the Fathers. I’m the only man they trusted.’

  Vincent let fly a belch.

  ‘What about your brother? They sent him too.’

  ‘Correct. But mainly they wanted me for the job. Your friend smells bad.’

  Vincent look puzzled for an instant then gave a reeling glance at the dead crab in his hand. He must have been drunk as an Emperor.

  ‘Found him on the road,’ he said.

  ‘Where did you find the Kill-Devil?’

  ‘Tails,’ said he.

  ‘Where is Tails?’

  A laugh exploded out of him such that the sweet musk of rum hit me in the face.

  ‘Rat tails. You kill enough rat and show the doctor the tails, he gives you taffey.’

  ‘You get your Christmas taffey soon,’ I told him.

  ‘Not soon enough. I wanted it tonight.’

  He drop the crab and stash the flask in his pocket. Then he closed his eyes. It occur to me that within the past year his father Joseph had hung himself from a tree. No wonder he sought the sweet oblivion of rumbullion.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Dodo. Let’s put you on your mat.’

  However, Vincent took exception to being roused. He swung at me with his fists as though he no longer recognise me, ergo I soon gave up and let him rest where he lay.

  ‘What is he like?’ I asked. ‘This Dr Bryant?’

  Vincent gave a long sigh.

  ‘You don’t want to know. Him and Bell – they are bad as each other.’

  ‘Your gwan-pè said something about them not flogging.’

  ‘Sometimes they make Saturnin do it. But mostly, they find other ways.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Nail your ear to a wall. Bell did that last night to Augustin.’

  ‘I know. But what else? Chevallier refuse to tell us.’

  ‘Bell likes to cut toes, chop them off with an axe. Cuts hands. The week he got here, he cut the hand off Polidor for eating cane.’

  ‘What about the doctor?’

  Vincent swore hard.

  ‘His favourite punishment he calls “Martial Medicine”. You want to know? Well, here it is.’

  He took a deep breath and let it out again, slow. Then he told me. It was a punishment first carried out on a man-nurse known as Martial, hence the name. Soon after Bryant arrived in Grenada, Martial had attempted to run away but he had only got as far as the carenage when they caught him. He was drag back to the hospital and Bryant had him taken down to the mill. First, they tied him up in the bilboes, trussing his head so he couldn’t move. Then they forced old Choisie to excrement in his mouth after which they gagged Martial for five hours and wired his mouth shut.

  ‘Once they make you do that, you are broken,’ said Vincent. ‘Five or six times now, they have done it, to different field hand. That’s how they punish my father.’

  ‘What did he do?’ I asked. ‘Why was he punished?’

  ‘For eating leftovers from the hospital kitchen,’ Vincent replied. ‘No question, he was never the same after that. Killed himself a few week later.’

  I just sat there, not knowing what to say. Who could imagine such a punishment? It was unthinkable cruelty. To lose a toe might be preferable.

  ‘You see?’ said Vincent. ‘You wish I hadn’t told you now.’

  He rolled over onto his hands and knees and from there thrust himself upright, almost – but not quite – falling as he lean down to grab the crab. Then he weaved across the yard to one of the middle cabin and hauled himself up the step and inside. When I followed him to the threshold, he was scrabbling around in the dark. After a while, he appeared in the doorway, a small burlap sack in his hand.

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said.

  Still reeling from what he had just told me, I found it hard to take in.

  ‘Not going where?’

  ‘Not going to no Martinique, be a slave all over again for those monk. French or Englishman. Makes no difference. I’m getting out of here.’

  ‘Where to?’

  He glance toward the high forest, somewhere out there in the dark.

  ‘Going to find the Maroon. Lucien, my friend, boug mwen, I intend to stay here in this island, hide out and cause some trouble about this place for these Goddams.’ He laughed: ‘Hee hee!’ Then he grab my shoulder and breathed rum into my face. ‘But keep quiet. Say nothing to my gwan-mè or gwan-pè. Not my sister either. Less Thérèse knows the better, then if anyone asks her, she need not tell a lie. So you must keep your mouth shut, kompwan?’

  ‘Wi.’

  He held onto the door frame as he clambered out of the hut and down the steps.

  ‘Ovwè, Lucien. Sorry for running off when you just got here.’

  ‘No need to go now. We leave on Christmas Eve. Stay until then.’

  He thought for a moment, then said:

  ‘No. If I wait that long I – I might lose heart. Here – take this.’ He thrust the stink-crab into my hands. ‘Bon chans, Lucien. Good luck.’

  He grab the back of my neck and pull me toward him, pressing his forehead against mine. Then – as though the ground beneath him was a tilting deck on the high seas – he staggered like a sailor out of the yard, away from the quarters, toward the back of Hospital Hill and the mountains beyond.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hard to say how long I stood there, staring after Vincent into the darkness, trying to take in what he had told me about Bell and Bryant, their gruesome methods of punishment. Some cloud came creeping across the stars, bringing with them the threat of rain. Presently, the smell of fishrot began to turn my stomach and so I threw the crab into the embers of the fire. Deciding to try and get some rest, I turn toward the ramshackle hut and almost leapt out of my shirt at the sight of a silent figure looming toward me out of the night. La Diablesse! No, it was my brother. Mary and Joseph! He could out-slink a cat.

  ‘Where’s Céleste?’ he asked, abruptly.

  The light had gone out behind her jalousie. I pointed at the little cabin.

  ‘In there. She wants to see you.’

  Emile ground his jaws together, chewing nothing but his own pegs. Then he set off across the yard. Upon reaching the cabin he paused and rubbed his hands all over his face like a madman. I had just begun to wonder whet
her he might have lost both heart and mind when – at last – he climb the step and tap the wall with his fingertips.

  ‘Céleste … se mwen.’

  After a short pause, I heard movement behind the door, then one of the door leaves opened a crack and my brother slipped inside. The flap closed and then – silence.

  By and by, I wandered over to idle in that vicinity. I could hear the murmur of voices inside the cabin but they spoke so low it was impossible to hear their words, hence my eavesdrop short-lived. At least the two of them were talking. Perhaps if he spoke to her, Emile would compose himself and stop acting jumpy as a cricket.

  I was about to go and get some rest when all at once the murmurs in the little cabin grew louder and more agitated. Then tout and suite, my brother came storming out and down the step, leaving the doors flapping. I heard Céleste say:

  ‘Wait – listen, ékout-mwen—’

  But my brother strode across the yard, all set to disappear down the shortcut to town, a steep track through woodland. I hurried over and intercepted him at the edge of the trees.

  ‘Wait. What’s the matter? Côté ou ka allé? Where you going?’

  He spoke in my ear.

  ‘I can’t stay here. I’m going to find LeJeune and Thérèse, see if they want to come with us.’

  ‘You should rest. Wait for dawn.’

  He kept staring down at the hospital, tugging at his own hair and breathing through his nose like an agitable horse. Despite the sultry night, he was shivering. I had never seen him in such a mistempered frame of mind. With Emile unhinged, the very fabric of the world might unravel. If only I could get him to lie down and rest, he might collect himself.

  ‘Listen,’ I told him. ‘You’re dead on your feet. Wait a few hours and I’ll go with you, pa ni pwoblèm. We’ll go before dawn, whiles Céleste and the rest still asleep. We’ll be gone by the time these macaroons sit up and scratch their tail-bone.’

  Something in what I said must have struck him – perhaps the prospect that we might be gone before Céleste awoke. I saw him waver and took his arm.