by Jane Harris
‘Hah!’ cried Angélique.
‘– either purchased here in these Isles aforesaid by Les Frères de la Charité between the years One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-two and One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty or born to the said Negroes during that period or thereafter—’
So on and so forth it went, in the most inscrutable jargon, with so many ‘aforesaids’ and ‘bona fides’ such that my recollection is less than perfect. Certainly, my brother and I were described; I remember that part: ‘Two Mulatto, male, one Emile, also known as Mandingo, Light Brown colour, impressively tall and well-made, known to be keen-witted, about twenty-eight years of age – and Lucien, his brother, a boy of Light Brown colour, also clever, can speak both French and English to a fair standard. The boy is thought to be about twelve years of age.’
‘What do they know,’ I muttered, my face hot.
‘Hush now,’ said Emile. ‘Listen.’
The next part explained that we were to be sent to Grenada to reclaim the Negroes of the Fort Royal Hospital and their descendants, including all the field hand and any slave that had been hired out, who were all ‘the bona fide property of Les Frères de la Charité, as both Père Lefébure and the Comte d’Ennery shall and will Truly warrant and forever defend—’ et cetera, et cetera.
Then there was a short list of the hospital slave with a brief description of their appearance. A gloom descended as Thérèse spoke each name aloud for to our minds no good ever came of having your particulars recorded in a document. Thereafter, a longer list of field hand: their names with descriptions of each person, beginning with Saturnin and the men, then lastly the women and children. In conclusion, the deed stated that the two Mulatto were commanded and authorise to deliver all the said Negroes to Père Lefébure at L’Hôpital des Frères de la Charité in Martinique.
‘Thus done and passed in my office in the town of St Pierre, Isle aforesaid, in the presence of Père Cléophas Boudon and Père Roget Boniface, witnesses of lawful age and residing in this Isle who hereunto Sign their names together with the Said parties and me the Notary, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-five. There being no seal of office I have hereunto affix my private seal.’
Thérèse flicked the broken disc of wax with her finger.
‘I bon,’ she said. ‘That’s it – except for their signatures.’
‘Read them,’ said Céleste, darkly.
We waited whiles Thérèse peered at the page. The various hand-writings were troublesome to decipher, I knew, having attempted it myself.
‘First is … Victor-Thérèse Charpentier, Comte d’Ennery, Governor. Then … Père Edmund … Lefébure. Père … Cléophas Boudon. Père … Roget Boniface. The last one is Pierre Henri Emerigon, Notary.’
Céleste gave a sniff.
‘All French. No Englishmen names?’
‘None.’
‘Vwala,’ said Céleste. ‘Might as well throw that parchment in the fire for all the good it will do us.’
She rose to her feet with some difficulty, leaning on Angélique and Thérèse for support. Then she began to make a deal of bloucoutoum as she gathered up the empty calabash into her skirts.
‘Céleste,’ said Emile. It was the first time he had spoken to her since he fled the yard the previous night. ‘Let me explain.’
She gave a dry laugh, her eyes blazing.
‘Explain? Explain how you will get us all into hot water.’
He gazed at her swollen belly.
‘Perhaps you should go and lie down,’ he said. ‘You probably need to rest.’
Céleste pulled in a deep breath as though she might blow fire at him but then she stormed off toward the kitchen with the empty calabash clattering in her jupe.
Emile watched her go then turn to the others.
‘This is what you must weigh up. Do you want to come with us, knowing that no Englishman in Grenada has given his authority? Is it worth the risk? You have to balance that against your situation here. I’ll say the same to the field hand tonight once we have read them this document.’
He glanced around at their faces. Everyone remain silent for a spell. Léontine – who had been listening whiles she kept lookout – came back to the fire. She tossed a stick into the flames and a shower of sparks flew up and disappeared into the night.
‘Well, I want to go with you,’ said she. ‘No question.’
Chevallier gazed hopefully at Angélique.
‘I tell you, it’s tempting,’ said he. ‘I can’t take much more of this bordel here.’
‘What about you, Gwan-mè?’ Léontine asked.
The old woman shook her head.
‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘But listen, ché,’ her man said. ‘The Fathers would make Augustin a nurse again in their hospital over there. And I can see my ownown sister again.’
Angélique spat in the fire.
‘I have to think about it.’
‘Me too,’ said Thérèse. ‘I could never leave Vincent. And I – I have a better life now in town than I ever did here.’
Léontine turned on her, a look of disbelief on her face.
‘You are getting too cosy down there, kouzin. You could be hired on elsewhere any moment – plaf! – if you displease them.’
‘For true,’ said Chevallier, his eyes still on Angélique. ‘Bryant might get a better offer and hire you on again. You could end up in a bad place, girl – very bad.’
Thérèse grip the handle of her parasol. She looked as though she might cry.
‘But if I go over there they might put me to cut cane. I’m better off here with the Governor. And what about Vincent? You can’t leave him behind.’
There was silence for a spell then Angélique said:
‘Child, he might be gone to the mountain.’
‘And if he is in the mountain you’ll never see him,’ Chevallier added. ‘Even if he turns up and goes with us to Martinique, you’ll still be left here by yourself.’
Thérèse was silent for a moment. Then she said:
‘It’s not worth the risk. I’m sorry, but I’m staying here in Grenada.’
Angélique nodded, frowning.
‘That’s your decision, ché.’
‘Well, I’m going,’ said Léontine. ‘I want to be with family – Gwan-pè and Emile.’
‘He’s not your family,’ I told her.
‘That’s what we must do,’ cried Chevallier. ‘We must decide as a family.’
‘We will, ché, we will,’ said Angélique.
They seem to forget that not all of us were related to them. At least Emile and I had each other. The only one among us with no blood ties at all was Céleste – though now, I suppose, she had her baby, albeit just a scrap in her belly.
I glanced up to see what she had made of this last part of the discussion, but no sign of her anywhere and so I sprang to my feet and wandered over to her hut. The door flaps lay open. She was inside, putting on a clean apron. When she saw me at the threshold, she gave me a wan smile.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Listen, I need to speak to your brother.’
These words did nothing but fill me with alarm. Her belly made her apron jut out in front. Another picture of her with Bryant came into my mind. I blinked it away.
‘What is it? I can tell him.’
‘No. Just tell him I want to see him, without everybody listening. Promise?’
I nodded.
‘Good boy.’
Her eyes glistened as she smoothed back her head-tie. She embraced me, kissed the top of my head. Then she stepped past me without another word and hurried down the path to the hospital.
By this time, the first bright stars had begun to prick the evening sky. When I turn back to the yard, I could make out Chevallier and Angélique by the fire, filling their pipes. No sign of my brother and the others. I hurried over.
‘Where’s Emile?’ I ask the old couple.
‘Down to the plantation,’ Chevallier
said. ‘Thérèse is going to read them the Attorney Power. Léontine went to stand lookout.’
I could scarce believe it. They had forgotten all about me. Tambou!
Mortified, I stood there for a moment. My brother would take two jeunes-filles with him, leave me behind. Well, devilled if I was going to sit with the old buffleheads. Besides, Céleste wanted to speak to Emile: he would want to know about that.
I slipped into the trees and skelted down the path. A short distance along I saw them up ahead, shadowy figures walking single file, foot and foot behind, Emile bringing up the rear. He must have heard me coming because he glanced over his shoulder, then stopped and waited until I caught up with him.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.
‘With you,’ I replied, my face blazing, for the girls had turn to stare at me.
‘No,’ said Emile, with a touch of exasperation. ‘Léo and Thé-Thé know every inch of this place, all the calls and shortcut. You’ve been too long in Martinique.’
Sometimes, the way he talk made me cross as a crab in a bucket. Calling people nurse-names as though he was their sweetheart. Léo – Thé-thé. To hear him spout on like that put me off going with them – almost. I threw my arms wide, mortal affronted.
‘I know how to conduct myself. I can stand lookout same as them.’
Emile took a long look at me and sighed.
‘Talking to you is like talking to a stone wall. I have no time for this. Go back.’
‘Please do not insult me,’ I cried.
But I no longer had his attention. He turned and set off again. He was gone so fast, the girls had to scuttle to keep up, the three of them soon melting into the darkness, leaving me standing there. I waited for a spell to let them get ahead then crept after them, my brother and his two little amorets. I would show him that I was not a baby any more.
Chapter Thirty-One
Since Emile could hear a mouse tiptoe in the grass, I took care to keep my distance and lingered far behind them quite to the River Road and the plantation. I gave them time to cross the St Jean and only then did I venture over the highway myself, careful to check that it was empty of travellers. From there, it was but a spit and stride to the footbridge and the cabins on the far side, now all lit up by flambeaux. Beyond the village, the produce ground: rows of plantain and so forth, grown by the slaves for their consumption. And, in the darkness beyond that, the cane-fields spread out along the valley with the low slopes of Morne St Eloy rising up behind.
I crept across the bridge, bessy-down in case some colonial type might see me against the night sky. Despite this precaution, one lookout knew all about me for I heard a pigeon call somewheres along the riverbank, a warning to those in the quarters. Sure enough, when I reach the entrance to the cabins, Saturnin stood waiting. He look me over like I was a pullet and he was fixing to wring my neck.
‘Your brother said it might be you. Likes to tell people what to do, don’t he?’
In reply, I gave a shrug, feeling a twinge disloyal.
‘He can do what he likes in Martinique,’ said the driver. ‘For now, I can think of a spot where I can use you on lookout. Guess where Bell is?’
‘Di mwen.’
‘In town, celebrating early Christmas. This ought to be a quiet night. Let’s go, little yellowman.’
Without another word, he set off into the yard. I hurried after him, glad to stand lookout. I was just gratulating myself on my manliness when someone leapt on my back with an ear-piercing shriek. I thought the jig was over until I remembered Choisie, one of the old ancients. Poor Choisie lost his mind before I was born and his peculiar pleasure was to throw his stinky carcass onto the back of any unsuspecting mortal. No need to turn my head and look; the smell of him and the way his bony fingers dug into my flesh were all the reminder needed. Old Choisie. A miracle he was still alive. And then I remembered what Vincent had told me about ‘Martial Medicine’. It was Choisie who had been made to extrement in the mouth of his father. In as long as it took me to remember this, the driver tangled with the old goat, trying to break his grip on my shoulders. They tussled for a spell until, finally, Choisie sprang loose and scurried off, his strange shuffling gait familiar to me from beforetimes.
Saturnin shook his head in exasperation, then led me on across the yard past a few figures assembled around one of the flambeaux. He pause to speak to a grey-haired pipe-smoker, a man I recognised as Old Raymond. Raymond use to borrow a bible from John Calder, though Calder said the old fellow couldn’t read; he just like to leaf through the pages. Léontine crouched nearby, talking to someone curled up on the ground, a scrawny man with a bloodstain bandage around his head and an iron weight chain to his ankle. Took me a short while to recognise him: Augustin. My guts turned over at the sight of the dark patch on the bandage where his ear had once been. Léontine saw me and I would have gone over and spoken to them except Saturnin finish with Raymond and jerked his head at me.
‘This way,’ he said. ‘Let’s find your brother.’
Whiles Raymond hobbled off toward the produce ground, I followed the driver to the largest cabin. A couple of field hand loitered on the step, peering inside, but Saturnin push past them and they fell back to let us through. A waft of stale air hit me in the face as we cross the threshold. By the light of a few lantern that hung from the rafters, I glanced around. The cabin was almost full of people: men, women and children; some seated on the ground, half a dozen or so on ramshackle benches and the rest standing. The mood appear to be one of subdued agitation. Some of the slave stared back at me, smileless. The odour of so many bodies press together was overpowering.
On one of the benches, sat two women, both in spike collar, their names I remembered as Magdelon and Cléronne. Despite the crush of bodies in the cabin, the others left a space around those two; they were in isolation. Nobody wanted to encounter those sharp metal spikes.
Emile and Thérèse stood at the front, struggling to light a smut-lamp with the help of a woman whose name (I seem to recall) was Charlotte.
The strongest young bucks had assembled at the back. Tired of waiting, they had engaged in a game of Crackers, a test of manhood whereby players lay biscuits on a table and thrash them with their genital part. The winner is the man who can break a cracker by thrashing it the fewest times. As we came in, one of them thumped his cracker to shatters and then jump back, laughing and snapping his fingers at the others. Another man – sour-faced at losing – glanced over in my direction. I believe his name was Montout. When he saw me he scowled. ‘Damn banana boys,’ he said. ‘It’s an infestation.’ And he leapt about, pretending to stamp on cockroaches. His compeers began to laugh and a few women urge them to hush. This disturbance made my brother glance up and when he caught sight of me he turned on the driver.
‘What’s he doing here? I told you to send him back to the hospital.’
‘I’m put him in the field,’ Saturnin replied. ‘You wanted lookouts. He can go in the near cane-piece, next to Léontine.’
Emile was about to protest when Thérèse accosted Saturnin.
‘I need more light to read. Have you no lanterns that work?’
‘Lanterns,’ scoff the driver. ‘Where do you think you are – the Governor residence? What’s the matter with that one?’
He nodded at Charlotte, who had just unhooked a lamp from a rafter. She held it aloft for Thérèse, who peered at the Power of Attorney.
‘I bon,’ she said. ‘That will have to do.’
‘Get rid of the boy,’ my brother told Saturnin then he turn to me. ‘Go back, or there will be trouble.’
Well, I had been about to tell him that Céleste wanted to see him but, after that, he could whistle if he wanted any message from me. Meanwhile, as though to imply that Emile was no better than a hysteric woman, the driver flapped his hand in the air.
‘Boy is fine,’ he said. ‘I’m put them in the field.’
‘You need to hear this document,’ Emile told him.
‘As much as the rest of them.’
In response, Saturnin spat on the floor and pointed to the wet spot in the dirt.
‘I’ll be back before that there is dry.’
With a shake of his head, Emile turned away – a dismissal.
‘Annou alé,’ said Saturnin to me. ‘Let’s get Léontine.’
He strode out of the cabin. I was about to follow when Montout piped up again:
‘Little milk-face, you want to play me at Crackers?’
He waved his member at me whiles his friends laughed and snapped their fingers in exultation.
‘Let him be,’ scolded Charlotte. ‘He don’t want to show us his peeny lolo.’
This cause yet more laughter. Humiliated to be the butt of all derision, I turned and fled, only to bump into Augustin on the step. He grab my hand, wild-eyed.
‘Lucien,’ he said. ‘Mwen kontan wè zot.’
The clothes he wore were tattered and filthy, his legs streak with mud; at least, I hoped it was mud. His ankles had been rub raw by the shackles. I could smell the putrid blood on his bandaged head.
Another burst of laughter from inside made me shrink from the cabin.
‘Never mind them,’ said Augustin. When he saw me give a searching glance about the yard, he pointed toward the produce ground. ‘They went that way.’
‘Mèsi,’ said I, but he still had a grip on my hand. He gazed into my eyes, a desperate expression on his face.
‘I’ll see you on the boat to Martinique,’ he said.
‘Wi, I hope so.’
I tried to edge past him but still he clung to me.
‘Oh Lucien. I cannot tell you how much I would like that.’
His eyes began to fill with tears. I squeezed his hand and manage to extricate myself, leaving him standing on the step. My pity went out to him but – at the same time – it was disconcerting to witness a grown man cry. Emile had seem to wash his hands of me. And, though I tried to tell myself it was of no consequence to be mocked by the field hands, I found the humiliation unsettling. All in all, I felt as though the very foundations of the world were somehow in jeopardy.
