Chapter 11 - New Day, Old Nightmares
March, 1753 - Louisiana, Damascus Plantation, New France
The more challenged a love is, the stronger it becomes.
Elisa awoke full of excitement. She had just turned fourteen and she would become one with her beloved today. Oh, how she had lived for that day! Her mother had always told her that at fourteen she could marry. Of course, her mother had no idea how soon that wedding day would come. All day long she sang and danced as she awaited her beloved’s return from the sugar cane fields.
On more than one occasion that day her mother cautioned, “Elisa, don’t you dare fool around and drop none of their crystal.”
“Oui, Mama,” Elisa said with a smile.
She was so happy that even her mother’s constant fretting could not steal her joy. Twenty years earlier, an Englishman who was visiting New Orleans from Georgia lost Elisa’s mother and ten other slaves in a card game. Elisa had heard English and French since birth and spoke both fluently, but her mother still struggled with the latter. Elisa’s mother, Ola, understood French just fine, but butchered the language when she tried to speak it. Ola said she had a thick tongue. Their master seemed to enjoy the comic relief. Elisa and her mother both worked in the big house. Ola was a good looking brown-skinned woman. She was loved by everyone in the house, except for the master’s wife who always looked to give her a hard way to go. Elisa, Ola’s only child, was very fair-skinned with long dirty blonde hair that curled when she washed it. Elisa was so fair that she could pass for white which explained their mistress’ distain for Ola.
Elisa’s betrothed was a sixteen year old field hand. He already could out work any two men on the plantation. Elisa liked that he was so well respected for his hard work, but she loved him for his charm, kindness, and dashing smile. It was all that Elisa could do not to tell all who would listen that by sunset she would be married. Elisa’s beloved had made arrangements with a traveling preacher to marry them. They were to meet underneath the bridge on the edge of the property. Once they were married and had consummated their bond, how could anyone object?
It was a Tuesday. On Tuesdays, Elisa had to prep the evening meal for her mother to cook. When her mother entered the cookhouse, Elisa was free for the rest of the evening. Although she’d often come back after dinner to help her mother wash the dishes, she would not that evening. She felt bad about that since she knew how hard her mother worked. But alas, this was her wedding day, surely her mother would understand.
Elisa worked feverishly, cutting, cleaning, and seasoning the freshly-killed chicken for the main house. Though her mother was never late, Elisa kept an eye on the sky. She hoped her mother would arrive before the sun set.
At long last, Ola entered the cookhouse. She tied an apron around her waist and nodded to Elisa which was the signal that she could depart and enjoy her evening off. Elisa literally skipped and sang her way out of the kitchen.
Elisa stepped into the small room she shared with her mother and dressed herself in the one flowered dress she owned. It was the same dress she wore whenever she was not working. When she was ready, Elisa bolted out the door. She held her dress up enough to allow her legs room to run and blazed down the dirt road towards the river. Once she got to the bridge, she scurried down the side to the river bank below.
The preacher man and her beloved waited for her below the bridge. Her husband-to-be held a handful of daises he’d picked on his way there from the cane fields in one hand and a broom in the other. He smiled at Elisa and her heart skipped with joy.
It was a quick ceremony. Only ten minutes later, they were married and had sent the preacher on his way. Before God, they laid out a blanket right there beneath the bridge and took knowledge of one another. There, in the darkness, they agreed to tell their parents of their wedded bliss. They didn’t have a cabin of their own or even a single bed between the two of them. All they had was their undying love. That was enough.
When Elisa arrived back to the big house and found the servant door unlocked, she was surprised. In the past, her mother had threatened to lock the door should she returned home past dark. Ola had just finished their evening chores and was getting ready to soak her feet. Everyone marveled at how young Ola looked, but her feet appeared much older her thirty-six year old body. Elisa asked her mother to sit so she could pour the hot water over Ola’s feet. Elisa knelled before her mother and started pouring the water.
Then, she said matter-of-factly, “Mama, I’m married.”
Ola didn’t have to ask to whom but she did ask, “So, where y’all gonna live? Whose bed y’all gonna sleep in?”
“We’re gonna work all that out, Mama,” Elisa replied.
“Mmmm,” was all that Ola said.
Elisa wasn’t used to her mother being silent about much of anything and had thoroughly expected to have a major argument about her marriage.
Elisa decided that she was far better off with a quiet Ola than a fussing one. So, she left her mother’s side to wash up and retire for the night. Elisa was still awake when her mother joined her in the bed that they shared. Still, her mother said nothing. Elisa knew her mother well and this quiet began to make her uneasy.
After breakfast the next morning, Elisa was outside washing up the morning dishes when a flatbed wagon drawn by two horses pulled into the courtyard. Two white men sat up high driving the horses and one slave rode in the bed. Another white man rode the most beautiful horse Elisa had ever seen. He dismounted his horse and greeted master with some papers. Then, five field hands struggled to drag another bound and hooded slave from the stable. Elisa stood up. It looked like master was selling someone. Something about the hooded slave looked familiar to Elisa. She began to walk towards them. The bound man continued to struggle. When the hood was removed, she saw it was her beloved. Instantly, Elisa began to run, screaming “No!”
Before she reached them, one of the field hands grabbed Elisa, lifted her into the air, and carried her away. As she was being carried away, Elisa noticed that the man in the wagon bed was speaking to her beloved. Her beloved immediately calmed down. The man in the wagon bed instructed the others to unbind him. After he was released, he climbed into the wagon with the stranger. The stranger motioned for the man holding Elisa to bring her forward. At the foot of the wagon, the stranger took a hold of Elisa’s chin and looked into her eyes. Where her beloved’s skin was the color of chocolate, the stranger’s skin was coal black, but his eyes were fiery.
The stranger said in English, “You can take her away.”
He turned to the man who had been on the horse, “I thought I saw something but there’s nothing there. Let’s see if we can make New Orleans by nightfall.”
“Bien, Paul,” the rider said.
The field hand still held her fast as Elisa began to scream, “No, take me with you! Please, take me with you! Please! Please…”
The rider, wagon, and her beloved rode off towards the bridge where Elisa had been married the night before.
Suddenly, Elisa noticed that her mother, Ola, was at her side trying to comfort her. She had been speaking to her, but this was the first time Elisa had heard her since she began running towards the wagon. Elisa fell to her knees as the wagon moved further away.
When Elisa saw master looking at her, she ran to him and grabbed his leg screaming, “Pere, Pere, Pere…” which she never called him unless they were alone.
She had the sense that he wanted to explain but could not. Nor could he respond to her calling him father out there in the courtyard in front of everyone although the color of her skin would have made a denial absurd.
Ola grabbed her daughter by the shoulders to lift her up.
“Elisa, it’s for the best, darling. With your looks and ability to speak French, you can have a better life than any slave we know. You can meet a rich man and travel world.”
Elisa wailed, “But, he was my world, Mama, and he’s gone. My world is gone!”
Master’s daughter or not, slaves were expected to do their grieving on their own time whenever that might be. As Elisa grieved for the theft of her beloved, little did she know that plans were already in the works to send her away as well. But, destiny had its own plans.
Ola was the first to notice. On two consecutive mornings, Elisa had awoken only to run outside to vomit. On the third morning this occurred, she was certain of her daughter’s condition. That morning when Elisa returned to their small shared room Ola informed Elisa that she was pregnant.
After the initial shock, Elisa smiled. She was positively beaming. Elisa thought her mother, Master and Master’s wife were all out done by this change of events. She even dared to hope that this development might lead to her being reunited with her beloved. She knew that her people’s families were broken up all the time. They learned to make the best of these events and to go on living as quickly as possible. But Elisa, at fourteen, wasn’t quite ready to give up her dreams.
Although Elisa was married, Ola and Elisa’s father treated her as though she had been knocked up by some traveling pelt salesman. They kept her indoors as much as they could. When she started to show, they dressed her in long flowing cotton. Everyone on the plantation knew that she was pregnant. But, when visitors came, particular attention was paid to keeping Elisa out of sight. Elisa cooperated. She had learned that her father still planned to send her to a fancy boarding school in New Orleans after the holidays. She didn’t want any bad word getting out about her beforehand. When she reached New Orleans, she planned to find her beloved. The baby could room with her until she did. It was an overly optimistic plan, but she chose to focus on her possible happiness in the days to come.
One benefit of her pregnancy came during the last six weeks of her pregnancy when she was allowed to forego any heavy lifting. She still had her dinner and cleaning duties, but there’d be no firewood hauling or anything else that was better suited to men folks. During this time, she had more time to read. Reading was one of her favorite pastimes. No other slave on the plantation was allowed to read, except Elisa. Her father realized that she needed to be a proficient reader if she was going to pass for white high society. He didn’t know she had shared her books with her beloved and had taught him to read.
Elisa’s water broke the week before Christmas. Ola served as her midwife and her half-sister, Lauren, assisted. After hours of labor, Elisa bore a beautiful baby girl. After the baby was cleaned and wrapped in fresh, clean cotton towels, Master stopped by the cookhouse to get a glimpse at his new grandbaby. At first, he smiled when he saw the lily-white complexion and straight dark hair. But then he peaked under the soft cotton cap covering her head and saw her cinnamon colored ears. He frowned, turned on his heel, and walked away.