Island Beneath the Sea

  As soon as I had a chance, I spoke with my master to remind him that I would be thirty that year and was due my freedom.

  "Who will care for my daughters?" he asked me.

  "I will, if that is what you want, monsieur."

  "You mean that everything will be the same?"

  "Not the same, monsieur; if I am free, I can leave if I want, none of you can beat me, and you will have to pay me a little so I can live."

  "Pay you!" he exclaimed with surprise.

  "That's how coachmen, cooks, nurses, seamstresses, and other free persons make a living, monsieur."

  "I see you are very well informed. Then you know that no one employs a nursemaid; she is always part of the family, like a second mother, and later like a grandmother, Tete."

  "I am not a part of your family, monsieur. I am your property."

  "I have always treated you as if you were family! Well, then, if that is what you plan, I will need time to convince Madame Hortense, though it is a dangerous precedent and it will cause a lot of gossip. I will do what I can."

  He gave me permission to go see Rosette. My daughter had always been tall and at eleven she looked fifteen. Monsieur Murphy had not lied, she was very pretty. The nuns had succeeded in curbing her impetuousness but had not erased her dimpled smile and seductive gaze. She greeted me with a formal curtsy, and when I hugged her she went rigid. I think she was embarrassed that her mother was a cafe au lait slave. My daughter was what mattered most to me in the world. We had lived like a single body, a single soul, until my fear that she would be sold, or that her own father would rape her, as he had me, had forced me to separate from her. More than once I had seen the master feeling her, the way men touch girls to know if they're ripe. That was before he married Madame Hortense, when my Rosette was an innocent little girl and he set her on his lap with affection. My daughter's coolness hurt me; to protect her, I might have lost her.

  Nothing was left of Rosette's African roots. She knew about my loas, and Guinea, but in the school she had forgotten all that and become a Catholic; the nuns were nearly as horrified by voodoo as by Protestants, Jews, and Kaintucks. How could I reproach her for wanting a better life than mine? She wanted to be like Valmorain, not me. She talked to me with false courtesy, in a tone I didn't recognize, as if I were a stranger. This is how I remember it. She told me she liked the school, that the nuns were kind and were teaching her music, religion, and to write with a good hand, but no dance because that tempted the devil. I asked about Maurice, and she told me he was fine but that he felt lonely and wanted to come back. She knew about him because they wrote each other, as they'd done ever since they were separated. The letters took a long time to arrive, but they kept sending them without waiting for answers, like a conversation between fools. Rosette told me that sometimes a half dozen came the same day, but then several weeks would go by with no word. Now, five years later, I know that they addressed each other as "brother" or "sister" to throw off the nuns, who opened their students' correspondence. They had a religious code for referring to their feelings: the Holy Spirit meant love, prayers were kisses, Rosette posed as the guardian angel, he could be any saint or martyr from the Catholic calendar, and, logically, the Ursulines were devils. A typical letter from Maurice said that the Holy Spirit visited him at night, when he was dreaming of the guardian angel, and that he waked with a desire to pray and pray. She answered that she prayed for him and had to be careful among the hordes of devils that were always threatening mortals. Now I guard those letters in a box, and though I can't read them, I know what they say because Maurice read me some parts, those that were not too daring.

  Rosette thanked me for the gifts of sweets, ribbons, and books that came, though I didn't know who sent them. How could I buy anything for her without money? I thought that Master Valmorain sent them, but she told me he had never visited. It was Don Sancho who gave the gifts in my name. May Papa Bondye bless the good Don Sancho! Erzulie, mother loa, I have nothing to offer my daughter. This is how it was.

  A Promise to Be Kept

  At the first possible opportunity Tete went to talk with Pere Antoine. She had to wait a couple of hours because he was making his rounds at the jail, visiting prisoners. He brought them food and cleansed their wounds and the guards did not dare stop him because word of his holiness had spread everywhere; some claimed that he had been seen in several places at the same time, and that sometimes a luminous plate floated above his head. Finally the Capuchin monk returned to the little stone house that served as his dwelling and office with his basket empty, wanting only to sit down and rest, but other needs awaited him and it was some time before sunset, the hour of prayer, when his bones took their ease as his soul rose to heaven. "I greatly regret, Sister Lucie, that I do not have the energy to pray more and better," he would say to the nun who attended him. "And why do you need to pray more, mon pere, if you are already a saint?" she invariably replied. He welcomed Tete with open arms, as he did everyone. He hadn't changed; he had the same sweet eyes of a big dog and the smell of garlic, he wore the same filthy robe, his wood cross, and prophet's beard.

  "Where have you been, Tete!" he exclaimed.

  "You have thousands of parishioners, mon pere, and you remember my name," she said, moved.

  She explained that she had been at the plantation, and showed him for the second time the yellowed and brittle document of her freedom that she had been keeping for years, though it had done nothing for her because her master always found a reason to postpone what he had promised. Pere Antoine put on some thick astronomer's spectacles, took the paper over to the one candle in the room, and slowly read.

  "Who else knows of this, Tete? I'm referring to anyone who lives in New Orleans."

  "Dr. Parmentier saw it when we were in Saint-Domingue, but he lives here now. I also showed it to Don Sancho, my master's brother-in-law."

  The priest sat down at a table with wobbly legs and wrote with difficulty, for the things he saw in this world were enveloped in a light fog, though he saw things in the other world with clarity. He handed her two messages spattered with ink stains and gave her instructions to take them herself to the two gentlemen.

  "What do these letters say, mon pere?" Tete wanted to know.

  "For them to come speak with me. And you, too, must be here next Sunday after mass. In the meantime I will keep this document," said the priest.

  "Forgive me, mon pere, but I have never been parted from that paper," Tete replied with apprehension.

  "Then this will be the first time." The Capuchin smiled and put the paper in a drawer in the table. "Don't worry, child, it is safe here."

  That broken down table did not seem the best place for her most valuable possession, but Tete did not dare show misgivings.

  On Sunday half the city gathered in the cathedral, among them the Guizot and Valmorain families with several of their domestics. It was the one place in New Orleans, aside from the market, where white people and those of color, free and slaves, mixed together, though the women were seated on one side and the men on the other. A Protestant pastor visiting the city had written in a newspaper that Pere Antoine's church was the most tolerant place in Christianity. Tete could not always attend mass--that depended on Marie-Louise's asthma--but that morning the baby waked feeling well, and they could take her out of the house. After the mass, Tete turned over the two girls to Denise and announced to her mistress that she had to stay a while; she needed to talk with the saint.

  Hortense did not object, thinking that at last the woman was going to confession. Tete had brought her satanic superstitions from Saint-Domingue, and no one had greater authority than Pere Antoine to save her soul from voodoo. With her sisters she often commented that the Antilleans were introducing that fearsome African cult in Louisiana, as they had seen when, out of healthy curiosity, they went with their husbands and friends to the place Congo to witness the Negroes' orgies. Once it had been nothing more than shaking and twisting and noise, but now there was
a witch who danced as if possessed with a long, fat snake coiled round her body, and half of the participants fell into a trance. Sanite Dede she was called, and she had come from Saint-Domingue with other Negroes and with the devil in her body. It was something to see the grotesque spectacle of men and women foaming at the mouth and with their eyes rolled back, the same ones who later crawled behind the bushes and wallowed like animals. Those people adored a mixture of African gods, Catholic saints, Moses, the planets, and a place named Guinea. Only Pere Antoine understood that hodgepodge and, unfortunately, allowed it. If he weren't a saint, she herself would initiate a public campaign to have him removed from the cathedral, Hortense Guizot made clear. People had told her of the voodoo ceremonies in which they drank the blood of sacrificed animals and the devil appeared in person to copulate with women from the front and the men from behind. It would not surprise her if the slave to whom she entrusted nothing less than her innocent daughters participated in those bacchanals.

  In the little stone house the Capuchin, Parmentier, Sancho, and Valmorain were already seated in their chairs, intrigued; they did not know why they had been called. The saint knew the strategic value of the surprise attack. The ancient Sister Lucie, who came in shuffling her house slippers and with difficulty balancing a tray, served them an ordinary wine in chipped little clay cups and withdrew. That was the signal that Tete awaited to go in, as the priest had ordered.

  "I have called you to this house of God to rectify a misunderstanding, my sons," said Pere Antoine, taking the paper from the desk drawer. "This good woman, Tete, should have been emancipated seven years ago, according to this document. Is that not so, Monsieur Valmorain?"

  "Seven? But Tete has just turned thirty! I couldn't have liberated her any sooner!" the one addressed replied.

  "According to the Code Noir, a slave who saves the life of a family member of the master has an immediate right to freedom, whatever her age. Tete saved the lives of you and your son Maurice."

  "That cannot be proved, mon pere," replied Valmorain with a disdainful sneer.

  "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

  The 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.