Island Beneath the Sea (42 page)

"Your plantation on Saint-Domingue was burned, your overseers were murdered, all your slaves escaped to join the rebels. Tell me, my son, do you believe you would have survived without the aid of this woman?"

Valmorain took the paper and glanced over it, breathing heavily.

"This has no date,
mon pere.
"

"Of course, it seems you forgot to write it in your haste and your anxiety to escape. That is easily understood. Fortunately, Dr. Parmentier saw this paper in 1793 in Le Cap, and that is how we can estimate that it dates from that time. But that is not important. We are among Christian gentlemen, men of faith, with good intentions. I am asking you, Monsieur Valmorain, in God's name, to effect what you promised." The sunken eyes of the saint bored into his soul.

Valmorain turned toward Parmentier, whose eyes were fixed on his cup of wine, paralyzed between loyalty to his friend, to whom he owed so much, and his own nobility, to which Pere Antoine had appealed in masterly fashion. Sancho, in contrast, could scarcely hide the smile beneath his bristling mustache. The matter pleased him enormously; for years he had been reminding his brother-in-law of the need to resolve the problem of the concubine, but it had taken nothing less than divine intervention for him to pay attention. He did not understand why he kept Tete if he no longer desired her; she was an obvious nuisance to Hortense. The Valmorains could get another nursemaid for their daughters among their many female slaves.

"Don't worry,
mon pere
, my brother-in-law will do what is just," he offered after a brief silence. "Dr. Parmentier and I will be his witnesses. Tomorrow we will go to the judge to legalize Tete's emancipation."

"Agreed, my sons. So now, Tete, from tomorrow on you will be free," Pere Antoine announced, lifting his cup in a toast.

The men made the gesture of emptying theirs, but none of them could swallow the concoction, and stood to leave. Tete stopped them.

"Just a minute, please. And Rosette? She has the right to be free too. That is what the document says."

Blood rushed to Valmorain's head, and he could not catch his breath. He clutched the head of his walking stick with pale knuckles, scarcely containing himself from lifting it against the insolent slave, but before he could do that the saint intervened.

"Of course, Tete. Monsieur Valmorain knows that Rosette is included. Tomorrow she, too, will be free. Dr. Parmentier and Don Sancho will see that everything is done in accord with the law. May God bless all of you, my sons...."

The three men left, and the priest invited Tete to have a cup of chocolate to celebrate. One hour later, when she returned to the house, her masters were waiting for her in the drawing room, seated side by side in high-backed chairs like two severe magistrates. Hortense was rabid and Valmorain offended; he could not get it in his head that this woman whom he had counted on for twenty years had humiliated him before the priest and his closest friends. Hortense announced that they would take the affair to the courts, the document had been written under duress and was not valid, but Valmorain would not allow her to continue in that direction. He did not want a scandal.

The masters showered the slave with recriminations that she did not hear because merry bells were jingling in her head. "Ingrate! If all you want is to go, then go immediately. Even your clothing belongs to us, but you can take it so you do not leave naked. I will give you half an hour to get out of this house, and I forbid you ever to enter again. We shall see what becomes of you when you are out in the street! Offer yourself to the sailors like any strumpet, that's the only thing you'll be able to do!" roared Hortense, striking the legs of her chair with her whip.

Tete left the room, closed the door carefully, and went to the kitchen, where the rest of the slaves already knew what was happening. At the risk of attracting her mistress's wrath, Denise offered to let Tete sleep with her and leave at dawn so she would not be in the street at night without a safe conduct. Tete wasn't free yet, and if picked up by the guard would end up in prison, but she was impatient to leave. She embraced each of them with the promise to see them at mass, on the place Congo, or in the market; she did not plan to go far. New Orleans was the perfect city for her, she said. "You won't have a master to protect you, Tete, anything can happen to you, it's very dangerous out there. How are you going to make a living?" Celestine asked her. "The way I always have, working."

She did not stop in her room to collect her meager possessions; she took only her document of freedom and a small basket of food, crossed the square almost floating, turned toward the Cathedral, and knocked on the saint's door. Sister Lucie opened it, holding a candle in her hand, and without a question led her down the hall joining the dwelling with the church to a badly lighted room where a dozen indigents were sitting at a table with plates of soup and bread. Pere Antoine was eating with them. "Have a chair, daughter, we've been expecting you. For now, Sister Lucie will provide you a corner to sleep in," he told her.

The next day the saint accompanied her to the court. At the exact hour Valmorain, Parmentier, and Sancho appeared to make legal the emancipation of "the woman Zarite, who is called Tete, a thirty-year-old mulatta of good behavior and loyal service. By way of this document her daughter Rosette, a quadroon of eleven, belongs as a slave to the aforementioned Zarite." The judge ordered a public notice hung so that "any person who has a legal objection should present himself before this Court in the maximum period of forty days from this date." When the ceremony, which lasted barely nine minutes, was ended, they all left in good spirits, including Valmorain. During the night, once Hortense slept, weary from rage and lamentation, he had time to think things through and realized that Sancho was right; he should let Tete go. At the door of the building he touched her arm.

"Although you have inflicted a great injury on me, I hold no rancor against you, woman," he said in a paternal tone, satisfied with his own generosity. "I suppose you will end up begging, but at least I shall save Rosette. She will continue with the Ursulines until she completes her education."

"Your daughter will thank you for it, monsieur," she replied, and danced off down the street.

The Saint of New Orleans

T
he first two weeks Tete earned her food and a straw mat to sleep on by helping Pere Antoine in his many charitable tasks. She got up before dawn, when he had already been praying a good while, and accompanied him to the prison, the hospital, the asylum for the mad, the orphanage, and a few private houses to give communion to the old and the sick abed. The whole day, under sun or rain, the frail figure of the priest with his dark brown robe and tangled beard moved around the city; he was seen in the mansions of the wealthy and in miserable huts, in convents and brothels, seeking charity in the market and cafes, offering bread to mutilated beggars and water to slaves in the auctions at the Maspero Echange, always followed by a pack of starving dogs. He never forgot to console the punished in the stocks installed behind the Cabildo, the most unfortunate of his flock, whose wounds he cleaned with such awkwardness, being as nearsighted as he was, that Tete had to take over.

"What angel hands you have, Tete! The Lord has pointed you out to be a nurse. You will have to stay and work with me," the saint suggested.

"I am not a nun,
mon pere
. I cannot work for nothing forever, I must look after my daughter."

"Do not give in to greed, daughter; service to one's neighbor has its payment in heaven, as Jesus promised."

"Tell him to pay me better right here, even if only a little."

"I will tell him, daughter, but Jesus has a lot of expenses," the priest replied with a sly laugh.

At dusk they would return to the little stone house, where Sister Lucie would be waiting with soap and water to clean up before eating with the indigents. Tete would soak her feet in a basin of water and cut strips to make bandages while the priest heard confessions, acted as arbiter, resolved quarrels, and dispelled animosities. He did not give advice, which according to his experience was a waste of time; each person commits his own errors and learns from them.

At night the saint covered himself with a moth-eaten mantle and went out with Tete to rub elbows with the most dangerous rabble, equipped with a lantern since none of the eighty lamp posts in the city was placed where it would help him. The lawless troublemakers tolerated him because he responded to their curses with sarcastic blessings, and no one could intimidate him. He did not come with an attitude of condemnation, or a determination to save souls, but to bandage knife wounds, separate the violent, prevent suicides, succor women, collect corpses, and lead children to the nuns' orphanage. If out of ignorance one of the Kaintucks dared touch him, a hundred fists were raised to teach the foreigner who Pere Antoine was. He went into Le Marais, the most depraved place along the Mississippi, protected by his inalterable innocence and his indistinct aureole. There oarsmen, pirates, pimps, whores, army deserters, bingeing sailors, thieves, and murderers gathered in gaming dens and whorehouses. Tete, terrified, inched forward through clay, vomit, shit, and rats, clinging to the Capuchin's habit and invoking Erzulie in a loud voice while the priest savored the thrill of danger. "Jesus watches over us, Tete," he assured her happily. "And if his attention wanders,
mon pere
?"

By the end of the second week, Tete had battered feet, an aching back, a heart depressed by human misery, and the suspicion that it would be easier to cut cane than distribute charity among the ungrateful. One Tuesday in the place d'Armes she ran into Sancho Garcia del Solar, dressed in black and so perfumed that not even flies approached him, very happy because he had just won a game of
ecarte
from an overly confident American. He greeted her with a flowery bow and kiss on the hand before several astonished gazes, then invited her to have a cup of coffee.

"It will have to be quick, Don Sancho, because I am waiting for
mon pere
, who is off healing the sores of a sinner, and I don't believe he will be long."

"Aren't you helping him, Tete?"

"Yes, but this sinner suffers from the Spanish illness, and
mon pere
does not let me see the man's private parts. As if that were a novelty for me."

"The saint is completely right, Tete. If I were attacked by that--may God forbid!--I would not want a beautiful woman to offend my modesty."

"Don't make fun, Don Sancho; that misfortune can happen to anyone. Except Pere Antoine, of course."

They sat down at a table facing the square. The owner of the cafe, a free mulatto acquaintance of Sancho's, did not hide his surprise at the contrast presented by the Spaniard and his companion, one with the air of royalty and the other that of a beggar. Sancho also noticed Tete's pathetic appearance, and when she told him what her life had been during those two weeks he burst out laughing.

"Sainthood certainly is a burden, Tete. You have to escape from Pere Antoine or you will end up as decrepit as Sister Lucie," he said.

"I cannot abuse Pere Antoine's kindness too much longer, Don Sancho. I will leave when the forty days of the notice in the court ends and I have my freedom. Then I will see what I am going to do; I have to find work."

"And Rosette?"

"She is still with the Ursulines. I know you visit her and take gifts in my name. How can I repay you for your goodness to us, Don Sancho?"

"You owe me nothing, Tete."

"I need to save something to support Rosette when she gets out of the school."

"What does Pere Antoine say of all this?" Sancho asked, stirring five spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of cognac into his cup of coffee.

"That God will provide."

"I hope that is the case, but perhaps it would be a good idea if you had an alternate plan. I need a housekeeper--my house is a disaster--but if I hire you the Valmorains will never forgive me."

"I understand, monsieur. Someone will hire me, I'm sure."

"The slaves do all the hard work, from tending the fields to raising the children. Did you know there are three thousand slaves in New Orleans?"

"And how many free persons, monsieur?"

"Some five thousand whites and two thousand of color is what they say."

"That is, there are twice as many free persons as slaves," she calculated. "How can I help but find someone who needs me? An abolitionist, for example."

"An abolitionist in Louisiana? If there are any, they are well hidden," Sancho laughed.

"I don't know how to read, write, or cook, monsieur, but I know how to do things in the house, bring babies into the world, sew up wounds, and heal the sick," she insisted.

"It will not be easy, woman, but I am going to try and help you," Sancho told her. "A friend of mine claims that slaves are more expensive than employees. It takes several slaves to grudgingly do the work one free person does with good will. You understand?"

"More or less," she admitted, memorizing every word to repeat to Pere Antoine.

"A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead, that is their incentive."

"At Saint-Lazare, Monsieur Cambray's whip was the incentive," she commented.

"And you've seen how that colony ended, Tete. You cannot impose terror indefinitely."

"You must be a disguised abolitionist, Don Sancho; you talk like Monsieur Zacharie and that tutor in Le Cap, Gaspard Severin."

"Don't repeat that in public, you will cause me problems. Tomorrow I want to see you right here, clean and well dressed. We are going to call on my friend."

The next day Pere Antoine left alone to do his tasks, while Tete, wearing her one dress, recently washed, and her starched
tignon
, went with Sancho to apply for her first job. They did not go far, only a few blocks along picturesque Chartres with its shops of hats, laces, buttons, cloth, and everything that exists to nourish female coquetry, and stopped before a small two story house painted yellow, with green iron railing on the balconies.