Island Beneath the Sea (33 page)

On the third day, when the barges had left with their cargo of weary visitors, musicians, servants, and lap dogs and the slaves were cleaning up the scattered trash, an agitated Owen Murphy brought the news that a band of Maroons were coming upriver, killing whites and inciting the Negroes to rebel. It was known that American Indians were sheltering runaway slaves, and others were surviving in the swamps, transformed into beings of mud, water, and green water growth, immune to mosquitoes and serpents' poisons, invisible to the eye of their pursuers, armed with rusted knives and machetes and sharpened rocks, wild with hunger and freedom. First it was heard that there were about thirty attackers, but within a few hours that number had risen to a hundred and fifty.

"Will they come here, Murphy? Do you think our blacks will join them?" Valmorain asked.

"I don't know, monsieur. They're nearby, and they can overrun us. As for our people, no one can predict how they will react."

"And why can't that be predicted? They receive every kind of consideration here--they would not be better off anywhere. Go talk with them!" exclaimed Valmorain, pacing around the drawing room, extremely perturbed.

"These things are not arranged by talking, monsieur," Murphy explained.

"This nightmare is following me! It's useless to treat the blacks well! They are all incorrigible."

"Be calm, brother-in-law," Sancho interrupted. "Nothing has happened yet. We are in Louisiana, not Saint-Domingue, where there were a half million up in arms Negroes and a handful of merciless whites."

"I must save Maurice. Get a boat ready, Murphy," Valmorain ordered. "I am going to the city immediately."

"No, not that!" yelled Sancho. "No one moves from here. We are not going to scurry away like rats. Besides, the river isn't safe; the rebelling blacks have boats. Monsieur Murphy, we are going to protect the property. Bring all the weapons you can lay hands on."

They lined up the weapons on the dining table, and Murphy's two older sons, thirteen and eleven, loaded them and then distributed them among the four whites, including Gaspard Severin, who had never pressed a trigger and could not aim with his trembling hands. Murphy looked to the slaves, locking the men in the stables and the children in the master's house; the women would not move from the cabins without their children. The majordomo and Tete took charge of the domestics, disoriented by the news. All the Louisiana slaves had heard the whites talk about the danger of an uprising, but they thought that happened only in exotic places, and could not imagine it. Tete charged two women with looking after the children, then helped the majordomo bolt the doors and windows. Celestine reacted better than expected, given her character. She had worked frenetically during the festival, quarrelsome and despotic, competing with the cooks from outside: "Lazy and impudent," she muttered, "being paid for what I am doing for free." She was soaking her feet when Tete came to tell her what was happening. "No one will be hungry," she announced, and with her helpers went into action to feed everyone.

They waited that entire day, Valmorain, Sancho, and the terrified Gaspard Severin with pistols in hand, while Murphy mounted guard in front of the stables and his sons watched the river to raise the alarm should it be necessary. Leanne Murphy calmed the women with the promise that their children were safe in the house, where they had been given cups of chocolate. At ten o'clock that night, when they were so fatigued that no one could keep on their feet, Brandan, the eldest of the Murphy boys, came on horseback with a torch in one hand and a pistol at his waist to announce that a patrol was approaching. Ten minutes later the men dismounted in front of the house. Valmorain, who by that time had relived the horrors of Saint-Lazare and Le Cap, received them with such a show of relief that Sancho was embarrassed for him. He listened to the report from the patrol and ordered bottles of his best liquor uncorked to celebrate. The crisis had passed: nineteen black rebels had been arrested, eleven were dead, and the rest would be hanged at dawn. All the others had dispersed and were probably headed to their refuges in the swamps. One of the militiamen, a redhead about eighteen years old, excited by the night of adventure and the alcohol, assured Gaspard Severin that from living so long in mud the men they hanged had feet like frogs, gills like fish, and a caiman's teeth. Several planters in the area had joined the patrols with enthusiasm for the hunt, a sport they rarely had opportunity to practice on a big scale and swearing to crush the insurgent Negroes to the last man. The losses on the white side were minimal: a murdered overseer, a planter, three wounded patrolmen, and a horse with a broken leg. The uprising was suffocated quickly because a domestic slave had given the alarm. Tomorrow, when the rebels are hanging from their nooses, that man will be free, thought Tete.

The Spanish Hidalgo

S
ancho Garcia del Solar came and went between the plantation and the city; he spent more time on a boat or on horseback than in either of the two destinations. Tete never knew when he was going to appear, his horse winded, in the house in the city, day or night; he was always smiling, noisy, gluttonous. One early Monday he fought a duel with another Spaniard, a government official, in the Saint Antoine gardens, the usual place for gentlemen to be killed or at least wounded, the only way to avenge honor. It was a favorite pastime, and the gardens, with their leafy trees, offered the needed privacy. In the house no one knew anything about it until time for breakfast, when Sancho arrived wearing a bloody shirt and asking for coffee and cognac. Laughing heartily, he announced to Tete that he had only a scratch on his ribs, whereas his rival was left with a slash across his face. "Why were you dueling?" she asked as she cleaned the path of the sword thrust, so near the heart that had it entered a little deeper she would be dressing him for the cemetery. "Because he looked at me the wrong way," was his explanation. He was happy he didn't have a dead man on his back. Later Tete found out that the duel had been over Adi Soupir, a quadroon with disturbing curves whom both men claimed.

Sancho would wake the children in the middle of the night to teach them card tricks, and if Tete objected he lifted her off her feet, gave her a couple of whirls, and proceeded to explain that no one can survive in this world without a trick or two, and it was best to learn as soon as possible. At six in the morning it would suddenly occur to him that he wanted roast pig, and she had to fly to the market looking for one, or he would announce that he was going to the tailor, disappear for two days, and come home stupefied with whiskey, accompanied by several comrades to whom he had offered hospitality. He dressed with great care, although soberly, scrutinizing each detail of his appearance in the mirror. He trained the slave who ran errands, a fourteen-year-old boy, to wax his mustache and shave his cheeks with the Spanish gold-handled razor that had been in the Garcia del Solar family for three generations. "Are you going to marry me when I grow up, Uncle Sancho?" Rosette would ask. "Tomorrow if you wish, precious," he would answer, and plant a couple of big smacks on her cheek. Tete he treated like a relative fallen on bad times, with a mixture of familiarity and respect, spiced with jokes. Sometimes, when he suspected she had reached the limit of her patience, he brought her a gift and gave it to her with a compliment and a kiss on the hand, which she accepted with embarrassment. "Hurry and grow up, Rosette, before I marry your mother," he would tease.

In the mornings, Sancho went to the Cafe des Emigres, where he joined friends to play dominos. His entertaining hidalgo fanfaronades and his inalterable optimism were in sharp contrast to the French refugees, shrunken and impoverished by exile, who passed through life lamenting the loss of their wealth, real or exaggerated, and discussing politics. The bad news was that Saint-Domingue continued to be sunk in violence; the English had invaded several cities along the coast, though they had not been able to occupy the center of the country, and for that reason the possibility of the colony's achieving independence had cooled. Toussaint, what is that bastard named now? Louverture? Now there's a name he invented! Well, that Toussaint, who was on the side of the Spanish, turned coat and is now fighting at the side of the republican French, who without his aid would be nowhere. Before he changed over, Toussaint massacred the Spanish troops under his command. You judge whether you can trust that kind of rabble! General Laveaux promoted him to commandeur in the Cordon Occidental, and now that monkey goes around in a plumed hat. Makes me die laughing. What we have come to, my compatriots! France allied with Negroes! What historical humiliation! the refugees exclaimed between games of dominos.

But there was also optimistic news for the emigres, since in France the influence of the monarchical colonists was growing and the public did not want to hear another word about the rights of the blacks. If the colonists won the necessary votes, the Assemblee Nationale would be obligated to send enough troops to Saint-Domingue to end the revolt. The island was a fly on the map, they said, it could never confront the power of the French army. With victory, the emigres could return, and everything would be as it was before; there would be no mercy for the blacks, they would kill them all and bring fresh meat from Africa.

As for Tete, she learned the news from gossips in the Marche Francais. Toussaint was a wizard and a seer; he could send a curse from afar and kill with his thoughts. Toussaint won battle after battle, and no shot could penetrate him. Toussaint enjoyed the protection of Jesus, who was very powerful. Tete asked Sancho--she didn't dare bring the subject up with Valmorain--whether some day they would return to Saint-Lazare, and he answered that they would have to be insane to go back into such a slaughterhouse. That confirmed her presentiment that she would never see Gambo again, even though she had heard her master making plans to recover his property in the colony.

Valmorain was concentrating on the plantation rising from the ruins of the previous one, and spent a good part of the year there. In the winter season he moved unwillingly to the house in town. Tete and the children lived in New Orleans and went to the plantation only in the months of heat and epidemics, when all the powerful families escaped from the city. Sancho made hurried visits to the country because he still clung to his idea of planting cotton. He had never seen cotton in its primitive state, only in his starched shirts, and he had a poetic vision of the project that did not include his personal effort. He hired an American agronomist, and before the first plant had been put in the ground was already planning to buy a recently invented cotton picker he believed was going to revolutionize the market. The American and Murphy proposed alternate crops, so when the soil grew weary of cane they would plant cotton, and then the reverse.

The one constant affection in the capricious heart of Sancho Garcia del Solar was his nephew. Maurice had been small and fragile when born, but he turned out to be healthier than Dr. Parmentier had predicted, and the only fevers he suffered were from nerves. He made up in good health what he lacked in toughness. He was studious, sensitive, and quick to weep; he would rather sit contemplating an anthill in the garden or reading stories to Rosette than participate in the Murphy boys' rough games. Sancho, whose personality could not be more different, defended him from Valmorain's criticism. To prevent disappointing his father, Maurice swam in cold water, galloped on unbroken horses, spied on slave girls when they were bathing, and rolled in the dust with the Murphys till their noses bled, but he was incapable of shooting hares or cutting open a live frog to see what was inside. There was nothing of the boastful, frivolous, or bully about him, unlike other boys raised with the same indulgence. Valmorain was worried that he was so quiet and soft hearted, always ready to protect the most vulnerable; to him those seemed signs of a weak character.

Maurice found slavery shocking, and no argument had been able to make him change his mind. Where does he get those ideas when he has always lived surrounded with slaves? his father wondered. The boy had a deep and unremitting vocation for justice, but he had learned early not to ask too many questions in that regard; the subject was not welcome, and the answers left him unsatisfied. "That isn't fair!" he would say before any form of abuse. "Who told you that life is fair, Maurice?" his uncle Sancho would reply. It was the same thing Tete said. His father delivered complicated speeches on the categories imposed by nature that separated human beings and are necessary for the equilibrium of society, and how it must be taken into account that commanding is very difficult, it is much easier to obey. Maurice lacked the maturity and vocabulary to debate with him. He had a vague notion that Rosette was not free, as he was, though in practical terms the difference was imperceptible. He did not associate that girl or Tete with the domestic slaves, and much less with those in the field. He had had his mouth washed out with soap so often that he stopped calling Rosette his sister, but not enough to make him stop loving her with that terrible, possessive, absolute love that solitary children give. Rosette returned his love with an affection free of jealousy or anxiety. He could not imagine life without her, without her incessant chatter, her curiosity, her childish caresses, and the blind admiration she showed him. With Rosette he felt strong, protective, and wise, because that was how she saw him. Everything made him jealous. He suffered if she paid attention, even if for an instant, to any of the Murphy boys, if she made a move without consulting him, if she kept a secret from him. He needed to share with her his most intimate thoughts, fears, and desires, to dominate her and at the same time serve her with total abnegation. The three years that separated them in age were not noticeable. She seemed older than she was, and he younger; she was tall, strong, clever, vivacious, daring, and he was small, naive, withdrawn, timid; she intended to swallow the world and he lived crushed by reality. He lamented in advance the mishaps that could separate them, but she was still too young to imagine a future. Both understood instinctively that their complicity was forbidden; it was made of crystal, transparent and fragile, and had to be defended with eternal pretense. In front of adults they maintained a reserve that Tete found suspicious, and for that reason she spied on them. If she caught them in corners hugging each other, she pulled their ears with excessive fury and then, repentant, covered them with kisses. She could not explain to them why those private little games, so common among other children, were with them a sin. During the time the three of them shared a room, the children felt for each other in the dark, and later, when Maurice slept alone, Rosette visited him in his bed. Tete would wake at midnight without Rosette by her side and have to go on tiptoe to look for her in the boy's room. She would find them sleeping, arms around each other, still in childhood, innocent, but not so innocent that she could ignore what they were doing. "If I catch you in Maurice's bed one more time I am going to give you a thrashing you will remember for the rest of your days, do you understand?" Tete threatened her daughter, terrified of the consequences their love could have. "I don't know how I got here, Maman," Rosette would cry with such conviction that her mother came to believe she walked in her sleep.