Centuries of June

by Keith Donohue

  “Very quickly—that first day in fact—I realized why Madame made Hachard to continue preparing the food, for she cooked most exquisitely in the French manner, unlike many of our neighbors who seemed to ape the worst of English—or merciful God, colonial—cuisine. No, Hachard performed magic with simple, fresh ingredients, and drew on a kind of cooks’ club of her neighbors in the Quarter. Old slaves who actually ran the homes would be entrusted to visit the stalls in the square to buy fish or meat or produce from the cartmen who rolled along the street calling out their wares. Hachard above all was the best, cooking with touches of the Creole and Cajun, of France and Africa. I had not eaten so well in Port-au-Prince and, I imagined, not even King Louis himself ate so well in Paris. Though my heart was empty, my stomach was full.

  “In this way the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. I was kept very busy. All that Hachard could no longer manage, she assigned to me. The simple things—the sewing and mending, plucking a hen or shucking corn, cleaning the dishes or dusting and polishing—did not trouble me, for my mother had shown me and often enlisted my assistance. Even the ordinary washday was tolerable, if, with so many children, never-ending. Worst of all, when we stripped the beds and took down the curtains and the soiled linens, perhaps once each season of the year, my back would like to break from the heaviness. Poor Hachard could not bear to steep herself in hot water, which would linger in her joints and pain her fiercely. Recompense for every odious task was time in the kitchen as sous chef to Hachard—chopping ingredients or making the sauces or roux. As she cooked, Hachard spoke aloud each ingredient, every step—a pinch of salt, three spoons of butter, keep stirring till the sugar melts and thickens, and I seized every word, memorizing in spite of myself all of her secrets. Perhaps she was consciously passing the traditions, or perhaps she was merely grateful for the company. Someone to talk with despite having little to say.

  “Once a month, Madame LaChance granted Hachard a day to herself, and the old girl would spend half the morning making herself ready, changing from her work clothes into a dress of faded cornflower, then having me comb out her hair, and she’d powder beneath her arms till she smelled sweet as a baby. I asked her the first few occasions where she was going and if I could go with her, and she just hushed me and said, Never you mind, child. Or, Maybe when you are old enough to keep yourself clear, Marie, but those rascals would be on you now like wasps on a sugar stick. Late those Sunday evenings, she would return and sneak in through the back door, careful not to make a sound, hair wild and unkempt, her dress circled with sweat, her mouth bruised and swollen as a ripe peach. A few times she smelled of spirits and smoke, and once, in that first year, she cried out as she lay her body down upon the bed. Oh, the brute he would have liked to kill me. I sprang to her side to see if she was indeed hurt, and in the darkness, she touched her rough palm against my cheek and whispered, Ma chérie, I would not quit this kind of night for anything. With him, I am toujours gai and it is the only reason to keep on living.

  “The next morning she woke early and had me draw a bath outside, despite the torpid weather. Even at dawn in July, the air hangs heavy and presses down upon a body till you can hardly breathe. She undressed slowly and eased herself into the water, mindful of every aching bone. I sat beside her on the lip of the trough and dipped a cloth into the water and wrung it onto her hair, rubbed the knob of her spine, and massaged her shoulders. That feels nice, child, you are a good girl. For the first time, I noticed the scars on her skin. Where did you get these welts, Miss Hachard? From being whipped, she said. Why did they whip you? For asking too many questions, she said and slid farther into the water. We are to have a new governor, she said at last. The Spaniards are to send someone to replace Ulloa at last. The whole town will be overrun with the Spanish.

  “The lords of misrule were in charge, yet rumors persisted that the Spanish king would send in a new man, and indeed, the Master and Mistress spoke of the prospect nearly every week. I asked Hachard in the tub, Who do the men say it shall be? Mon Dieu, she spat out the words, they say it is an Irishman. She shivered in the cooling water. Now help me out of this bath before I die of pneumonia.”

  The old man had come to the end of another little finger, but this time he thought to ask where to look for the continuation of the story. Marie pointed toward her heart, and he could see the first line rise and fall along the curve of her breasts. The giant moth beat against the screen and settled on a patch nearer to the light. We all leaned closer to listen. Feigning a storyteller’s professional disinterest, the old man stared at the words inked on her chest and began again.

  “A dozen ships came sailing up the river, flying the Spanish ensign, and the whole town turned out to the levee to make them welcome. The Master and Mistress wore their finest linen suits, despite the heat, for they were to be on the dais with the other gentry in a place of honor for the official ceremony. Hachard and I were to bring the children along later and watch with the assembled on the grounds overlooking the square, and I never saw such a spectacle and a throng. As the Spanish arrived, there was singing and dancing and drinking and smoking and gaming and Lord-knows-what going on, the lid off the pot and the ragout boiling over. The youngest baby, Georges, raised such a fuss that I must needs carry him in my arms the whole time, so I was tamed, and it seemed like forever for that first ship to dock. While we waited, an older man sidled up to Hachard, and they exchanged habitual pleasantries, and I am sure I saw his hand upon her shoulder more than once that whole time. I wondered if this Big Fella was the man who made her toujours gai, but I dared not ask. The first to disembark from the ship were black sailors, and I said to the Big Fella, I did not know they allowed slaves to sail the boats. And he said, They are not boats, but ships, and they are not slaves, but freedmen from Habana in Cuba. How can this be? I asked, and he said, Little Chick, not all black men are in chains.

  “I pondered this assertion as the sailors and soldiers spilled down the gangway, and last the entourage of the governor made its way to the stage that had been erected in the center of the square. From my vantage, I did not get a close look, but I could see the Irishman at last, no powdered wig but black hair like a raven set against his pale skin, and the fine coats and breeches of a gentleman, festooned with ribbons and medals on his chest. Warm applause greeted him, a few rowdies hooting in the anonymity of the crowd. M. LaChance and the others sat to listen to the speech, and the rest of us held our space and strained to hear. The new governor spoke to us first in Spanish, and a few words that echoed our own language made sense to me, but then he repeated his oration in French, bestowing upon the people of New Orleans blessings from God and felicitations from King Carlos, a surprise to hear that name, and to announce not only a new prosperity ahead but a return to law and order as well. And then he started again his greetings, but the third language made no sense, though his voice bore the words as if in a song both natural and sweet. What is that tongue? I asked. Is Governor O’Reilly speaking Irish? The Big Fella laughed at me and said, No, that is the language of the English passed through an Irish mouth. Sort of like a fart passed through a flute. Hachard slapped him on the shoulder at that remark, but she was secretly smiling. We all were happy that day, though it was the only time I ever laid eyes upon O’Reilly, yet I was to hear more of him in the months ahead, and he was to change my life entirely. He gave me hope.”

  A low chuckle from Marie interrupted the old man’s recitation, and he straightened his back and raised his eyes to inquire as to the source of her levity. He had been poised at a spot just below the curve of her breast. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but your hair was tickling me.”

  He flattened the silver cock’s comb sprouting atop his head. “A thousand apologies, Mademoiselle.” When he removed his hand, his hair sprang straight up, and all of the women giggled. Something about that wild hair and those wire-rimmed glasses reminded me of a public personage whose face had often appeared in photographs once upon a time, but still I coul
d not attach a name to the man. With a curt, proper bow, he bent to his work.

  “Not four days after the arrival of O’Reilly and his black freedmen, soldiers from Cuba posted the broadsides around town announcing the arrest of the Acadian ringleaders of those who had chased the former governor Ulloa from New Orleans. I had to beg the Master to be let go into town for the execution, and at first he refused my request, saying it was not fit for a colored girl to see. More clever by far, Hachard simply informed the Mistress that she must needs go into the markets that morning and I was to accompany her to fetch home the parcels. What is that you are buying? Madame asked. Is it so heavy that you need the girl? Tabac, said Hachard, from Habana, and my friends tell me coquille d’huître big as a small hen are to be found, and you know how the Master loves des huîtres.”

  Puzzled by the word, the old man stopped.

  “Oysters,” Marie volunteered.

  “Yes, Madame answered, every time he eats the oysters, he fills me with another baby. She reached into her purse and produced another coin. If you must buy oysters, she said, buy a surfeit of fat ones so the old goat will be too stuffed to move and will leave me alone tonight. Merci, Hachard curtsied, and we were on our way.

  “The French thugs had been quickly tried for crimes against the Spanish king when they kicked out his governor, and O’Reilly had ordered some rebels exiled for life at Morro prison in Habana, and their lands were confiscated by the government. The five ringleaders were executed, perhaps—I don’t know—as an example to others with treason in their hearts. We were desperate to see the firing square. A great crowd shielded the scene as we arrived, but word ran from person to person that the prisoners were bound and blindfolded and made to stand like stalwarts against the wall. No sooner had this news reached our ears than the loud volley of muskets, several shots all at one command, and then another solitary ball as if some man who suffered the first round had been dispatched with a second. The crowd parted in a moment, and the troops marched past, their elegant uniforms clean and menacing, and I was shocked to see that three of the eight musketeers were black like me and two others mulatto of some mixed blood. A black killing a white was unthinkable, but such are the changes brought by the Spanish Irishman.

  “From that moment on, he became known as Bloody O’Reilly, though I do not know how he is called in Spanish. Eight slaves dragged away the bodies from the wall until all that could be seen were pocks in the soft plaster where the balls had either missed their targets or passed through the victims. A few handfuls of sawdust blotted the blood on the ground, and I confess that my heart was sore for those men, whatever sin on their souls, and in my imagination, the Irishman darkened any sense of liberty I may have felt at being at the market.

  “But do not judge the chess match by an opening gambit. Stories about the governor’s actions sifted through the whites and eventually settled upon our people, where the news was most welcome. He would stand no disrespect from the French and expelled the foreign merchants from the city with the sole exception of Oliver Pollock, another Irish. How they stick together. But most of all, the governor seemed to be on the side of the downtrodden. The Big Fella explained to Hachard, who passed the notion to me, that O’Reilly, being a member of a long-suffering people, could not bear to join the service of his nation’s oppressors, the English, and so he became a Wild Goose and flew off to Europe, first to Austria and then to Spain. Hachard said, He is like us in one respect, to have known the heel of the boot.

  “The Master and Mistress quarreled often about the man and whether the Spanish or French were better for Orleans. In all my years with the family LaChance, little else caused such rows. The Master was a genial sort; keep him fed and laid in bed, and nothing would ruffle him. We cannot change kings at will, he would say. Better to prosper in New Spain than pine for Old France. But Madame behaved like the nombril du monde …

  The old man asked, “What would we say?”

  She shrugged and pointed at her belly button.

  “Let’s say she was ‘the center of the universe,’ and for her it was French or nothing. She would say, Who does O’Reilly think he is, that great Ass of Dublin. I had to hide my laugh behind my hand at her words, for she did not like any show of understanding on our parts.

  “After the Creoles were put down, O’Reilly sent many of those black soldiers back to Cuba, but those remaining behind made their presence felt every morning and evening with a drum tattoo and the playing of their fifes and horns. Many times the troops marched down our street, and through the window, a smarter and finer dressage was not to be found. And they went to work supervising gangs of men to shore the levees and build a bridge and to construct the banquettes so folks would have someplace to walk without dragging their hems through the muck and mire. In short, the governor brought a sense of discipline that had been missing to the fair city. It was so good to see law and order imposed upon those who for so long imposed upon us. Even the Master has his Master to obey.”

  With a creak and a groan, the old man unhinged his spine and slowly straightened from his crouch to a full standing position. He had been bent over to read the part of the story that began at the hip and ran into the problem of the nether lands, the words disappearing into a thicket covering her pubis. I empathized with the delicacy of his conundrum as he looked my way for moral support or some technical instruction, but all I could do was shrug. The women in the room offered no assistance, nor did they seem particularly aware of the nature of his predicament. Obliviously chatting among themselves in the interlude, Dolly, Jane, and Alice could have been three sisters at a wedding for the fourth, throwing an invisible shield about the bride, subtly resenting the attention paid to her while acknowledging her role as the center of attention. The bride herself, Marie that is, rolled her eyes as she intuited the cause of the old man’s indecision.

  “Zut de flûte! You have been ogling and objectifying me thus far. Be a man and read on.” She reached out and grabbed him by the ears, and then tugged him to his knees. He cried out and accepted his subjugation. Clearing his thoughts with a long sigh, he read on from hips to toes without hesitation.

  • • •

  “The greatest change, however, was to the Code Noir—the legal protocols by which the French kept control of their slaves. O’Reilly, governed by the precepts of the Spanish code—Las Siete Partidas—and by his long experience in Puerto Rico and Cuba, gradually liberalized the rules. As with every other civic law that made our lives better, we only learned of this by word passing mouth to ear, yet in time, four things became clear even to us slaves.

  “First, he freed the red man. No Tchacta, Tanikas, or Natches, or any other Indian would be enslaved—”

  Dolly clapped once and said, “I like this Irishman more and more.”

  “There was a woman of Hachard’s acquaintance, who lived farther along the levee, long thought to be African, and she made her claim by speaking without stop in the mother tongue of her tribe, and her master, whether from guilt or merely to shut her mouth, freed her on the spot. For the second part of the new code allowed masters to free their slaves without obtaining permission of the cabildo or governor or anyone at all. Under the Code Noir, an official decree for just cause was required for emancipation, but this put the matter in the master’s hands. The third great change was to allow the person to own their own property and not, as the French had it, forfeit their rights to the master. After O’Reilly, we could now own money, make a contract with anyone for services on our own time, and receive an inheritance. A girl of my own age, the daughter of a freedman parted from her and living in Pennsylvania, was sent a note upon the unfortunate man’s demise that she was now the owner of a farm larger in acreage than her own master’s plantation. The irony would have been unbearable if not for the fourth part of O’Reilly’s reforms. She was able to buy her freedom by selling a parcel of land and paying her owner. The governor had granted the right of coartación to all slaves in Louisiana, just as the blacks of Cu
ba had enjoyed. Contracts were allowed with our masters to set a price for our freedom, and in essence, we could now purchase ourselves. A special council had been established to hear our cases and take our complaints and judge any abuse. If a master refused a contract of manumission, he could be brought before the court. If a master overstepped his bounds most cruelly, he could be ordered to sell that slave to someone kinder who might treat us as genuine humans and not mere chattel.

  “One year after I had first met Hachard, on the night of the Festival of Lights, we talked in her little room about our plans for freedom, with our voices low, so as not to wake the children, but she could scarce contain her enthusiasm. The Big Fella, she whispered, says there are many people who would pay a king’s ransom for the treat of a Sunday dinner from the pot of old Hachard. And he says that Mr. Pollock, the Irish merchant who is friend to the governor, will pay a handsome price to unload the ships when the wheat comes in, or the cider barrels. We have made a pact, Marie Delhomme, the first to acquire the money shall save for the other. He must love you very much, I said, and you him. A quick laugh lit the darkness. My dear, you are a child with a view of life that is too romantic for an old crow, but we like each other well enough. I felt foolish, but excitement overpowered my shame. How much will you need to pay to buy your life? Phtt, I am an old woman of little use, and the Master should pay me to go. She mentioned a figure in French money, and I asked her for the amount in Spanish currency, for I no longer understood the French sums. We shall see, said Hachard, what M. Foiegras has to say, but I hope the price is low.

  “The matter was settled at Christmastime, after the children had been sent to bed, and the Master and Mistress lingered over the roast goose. Madame LaChance sat like a stump, her arms crossed over her breast. But his lips and fingers glistened with grease, and Monsieur wore on his face a look of utter contentment. Perfect, he told Hachard as we cleared the bird from the table. Delicious, as usual. Merci, she said. Since it is the day of thanksgiving for our Lord’s birth, she said, perhaps you have given thought to our conversation? With the sharp point of a knife, he picked at his teeth and sucked in the bits of meat as he talked. Our conversation? The coartación? The price, Monsieur? Leaning back in his chair till he nearly toppled over, he said, We could never let you go, Hachard, for how then would we eat so well? But Master … One hand rose in the air to silence her, but she pressed on: I shall teach little Marie my every secret. Fat chance, he said, but let’s say you do. Ce n’est pas un perdreau de l’année. How is 100 piastres? A fair price, no?