The maid was in the kitchen, the baby in her arms as she cooked a soup for lunch. I could smell curry and chicken gravy. The maid had set out johnnycakes on a platter and was drinking a cup of steaming balsam bush tea. Hot food in hot weather, local people say. Such meals heat you up inside and then when you finish and put them aside, you feel cooler. I recognized the maid from the market—an African woman named Rosalie, who had always lived with the Petit family. Her accent was the same as ours, a rich Creole French. When she turned from the stove to see me standing there, she took a step away. The baby in her arms had golden hair and dark blue eyes, nearly violet in color. She waved her small hands at me. Perhaps this was another sign.
“May I hold her?” I asked.
The maid grasped onto her. “Maybe you’re a spirit,” she said, uneasy.
“I’m not. You know Adelle, who works for us. I’m Moses Pomié’s daughter.”
She wasn’t convinced it was safe to have me in the house. “You might have come to steal her.”
“I didn’t. I was invited to this house by Monsieur Petit.”
“He didn’t invite you to hold this child. As you can see, he’s not here. I am. So it’s my decision.”
I understood that if a person made a pledge to a ghost, she would fear being haunted if she failed to keep her word. I would have to win them both over, the maid and the spirit of the mistress of this house. I gazed at the stove. There was a heavy cast-iron pot, and the fragrance of the food was unmistakable.
“Curried lime chicken soup. That’s my favorite, I must say. I’d like your recipe.”
“I don’t give my recipes to strangers.”
By then we were speaking informally, as if we knew each other. “I’m not really a stranger.” I picked up a wooden spoon from the table. “May I?”
Rosalie shrugged, so I took a taste.
“I could never make a soup as good as this one.” Indeed, it was very good. But my compliment got me only so far. Rosalie was still wary, so I told her the truth about my visit. “Monsieur Petit has asked to marry me.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard so. Not that he mentioned it to me.”
“I’ll likely say yes.”
“You’re here due to love?”
We gazed at each other. I saw that very few lies could get past this woman. “Due to circumstance.”
“Because he won’t love you,” Rosalie informed me. She was a straightforward woman, not yet thirty. “Just so you have that clear in your mind. That won’t happen. He already loved someone.”
“Fine,” I said. At that time I didn’t care about love. I didn’t even believe in it, since it had never affected me.
Rosalie saw that I was studying Hannah. She was darling, so pretty she looked like a bluebell in a garden.
“She’s a very good baby.” Rosalie shifted the child in her arms. “Maybe you’ll spoil her.”
“I won’t. You won’t let me.”
Rosalie threw me a look. She knew what I meant. If I came to live here, I would keep her on. I would share the baby with her. She decided to let me hold Hannah. As soon as the child was in my arms, she gazed into my eyes as if we somehow knew each other.
“She doesn’t like strangers,” Rosalie said, “but she’s taken to you.”
I smoothed the baby’s hair. I felt something close to my heart. “Do you think you can love someone who doesn’t belong to you?”
Rosalie nodded. “I know that you can.”
MY HOUR IN THE Petit house passed quickly. The sea had turned a darker green, and pelicans wheeled across the sky. When I left, only Monsieur Petit was waiting at the gate. He looked appealing from a distance, and I noticed that his suit was more elegant than most, presumably tailored in France. There I was in my cotton skirt and blouse, my hair unbraided. I felt like a child beside him as we met and shook hands. Parrots in the treetops called when we went up the hill. It was another good sign to see parrots nearby. The Danish government had sent over mongooses to kill the many rats that made their home around the wharves, but since rats were nocturnal, the mongooses had turned on other prey, attacking our parrots. Now there were fewer than a hundred left in the wild, mostly in the mountains, where the foliage was deep enough for them to hide from these predators.
As we walked on, I realized that I no longer considered this to be purely a business arrangement. I felt dizzy, and there was a lump in my throat. I had fallen in love, not with Monsieur Petit but with the children.
We were silent as we strolled through town, unpracticed in the art of conversation with one another. When we reached my parents’ house, Isaac Petit gently placed his hand on my arm. I didn’t shrink from his touch as I’d imagined I would.
“You didn’t give your opinion of the children. Were they well behaved?”
“Very much so. The maid has done well with them.”
“You will, too. Children need a mother.”
“I’ve already told them that children can have only one mother in this world. I would not dream to think I could take your wife’s place.”
Monsieur Petit nodded. I saw his grief pass over his face. “You will do well all the same,” he told me.
“I want Rosalie to continue on.”
“Of course. She’s always been with us, and you’ll need help.”
He was an agreeable man, more attractive than I had first thought. No wonder my predecessor had fallen in love with him, and slept in his bed rather than have a room of her own.
Throughout my life my mother hushed me whenever I tried to speak my mind, but if I kept silent now, I would never be able to be honest with this man, so I decided to say what another woman might keep to herself.
“When you think of the woman who is your wife, I will not expect you to think of me first,” I told Monsieur Petit.
He kissed me on both cheeks, as a father might have. Jestine would have been disappointed. She would have wanted him to kiss me on the mouth, and place his hands on my waist and draw me near. But I was pleased and relieved. I was so young I believed that, when it came to a marriage, there could be matters more essential than love.
“So we have an agreement?” I said.
He laughed and looked at me. “You would have been a good businesswoman.”
But such a thing did not exist in our world, not unless it came to making a marriage that would benefit all concerned.
“I’ll make a good wife,” I assured him. “One you won’t have to love.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Elixir of Life
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, ST. THOMAS
1818
RACHEL POMIÉ PETIT
Adelle and Jestine and I worked feverishly on my dress, sewing until our fingers bled. We used cornstarch to stanch the bleeding. “You may need this on your wedding night,” Adelle told me. She explained how a woman bled the first time she was with her husband; she said this was natural, for a marriage was a blood pact. The wedding was in a matter of weeks. Adelle had given me some information concerning what went on between men and women; the rest I discovered from watching donkeys in the fields and listening to the whispers of the pirates’ wives.
“You think he’ll be like a donkey?” Jestine laughed at me. “Why marry a man at all?”
Both Jestine and Adelle thought I was making a mistake to do my father’s bidding, but I didn’t care to hear their opinions or warnings.
“She doesn’t want to talk about love,” Jestine told her mother with a grin. “She wants to marry a donkey.”
“Just a man,” I said. “One who understands my father’s business.”
“Maybe she’s right.” Adelle shrugged. “Since she’s not bound to know love in this marriage.”
What was a husband, after all, if not a partner? Why should I ask for more than that? Why should I ever want it?
EVEN IF JESTINE WOULD have agreed to attend my wedding service, my mother made it clear the ceremony was only for people of our faith. The marriage prayers were recited at the same altar where
Monsieur Petit’s wife’s funeral had been held. The synagogue was a dark building, but when light came through the windows it became a radiant place. My mother was pleased that I was to marry Monsieur Petit, and because she approved she gave me her wedding veil, smuggled from Saint-Domingue, the only thing she’d taken other than her jewels. “You’re not as foolish as I thought you were,” she told me.
I supposed it was a compliment.
“Marry from here.” She touched her head. “Not here.” She hit her chest. “Love will do nothing for you.”
As soon as she offered her approval I began to doubt myself. If she thought something was right, it was usually wrong. But it was too late for me to have second thoughts. I’d given my father my word.
On the day of the ceremony I asked that branches from the flamboyant tree be placed in a vase on the altar to honor the first Madame Petit. Her husband would now be mine. He looked very somber and handsome and much too old for me. During the ceremony the boys were solemn and quiet, and Hannah did not call out once. Everyone said she was an exceptional baby, calm and sweet-natured. The wedding contract, a lavishly illustrated document bordered by gold leaf, had been signed the evening before. Time moved quickly during the service; the synagogue was so close and crowded and hot. My mother beamed with pride, which gave me a case of nerves. I felt myself grow wobbly. I refused to faint, but my heart was so loud it was all I could hear. I concentrated on a vase of pink flowers at the altar beside the branches of the flamboyant tree, placed there by Jestine, who knew bougainvillea to be my favorite flower. And then it was done. I was a married woman.
The marriage dinner was in the garden of my parents’ house. Tables had been set out, and silvery lanterns were strung from the trees. Everyone was there, all of the old families from St. Croix and Saint-Domingue, and some of the newer families from Amsterdam and Morocco. My father’s good friend, Monsieur DeLeon, gave a speech in which he declared that every bride should have a father as wise and kind as mine. Though I agreed, I couldn’t wait to get out of my heavy wedding dress, which Jestine had already decided we would dye blue so I might get some use of it in the future.
Jestine now worked beside Adelle as a maid in our house, and had helped cook the food for the dinner, but on this night she came as a guest, invited by my father. She wore a pale pink taffeta dress. She and I had both had our hair braided by Adelle’s deft hands. There were little white pearls scattered through my hair, and pink pearls threaded through Jestine’s hair. People said we looked so alike we might have been sisters. I introduced her to Monsieur Petit, who took her hand and said it was a pleasure to meet such a dear friend of his wife’s. Without thinking I laughed when he called me his wife. It seemed like a joke, some wild mistake. Monsieur Petit crinkled his eyes when he smiled; he wasn’t the least bit insulted. I carried Hannah in the crook of my arm during the party. The boys ate cake and my father let them take sips of wine. When it grew late, I had to send the children home with Rosalie, even though Samuel held on to my skirt and said he was afraid of the bats his brother said perched on the window ledge. I whispered for him not to worry. “When I get to the house I’ll take a broom and chase them away.”
The night was hot and long. I drank rum punch until I was dizzy. As the evening was ending my mother took me aside. After all these years of disapproval and silence, she suddenly wanted to begin an intimate conversation concerning what went on between a husband and wife. I suppose she thought it was her obligation to do so.
“You may not like your husband’s desires, but it is your duty to fulfill them, and in the end you’ll become used to him. Do not fight him, and do not think he means to murder you when he takes you in his arms.”
I nearly laughed out loud. “Thank you,” I said, “but you don’t need to say any more. My husband will instruct me.”
My mother gazed at me, eyes narrowed. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
Perhaps she thought I was experienced in matters of a physical nature. In fact, I wasn’t, which was why I’d had so much rum. A carriage took us away. Usually a bride’s carriage would be decorated with ribbons and flowers, but in deference to the first Madame Petit, ours was plain. The black carriage horse was the same one that had brought her coffin to the cemetery. I went upstairs, relieved to take off my wedding clothes. Most people avoided a summer wedding, and now I understood why. It was too hot for the heavy clothes one had to wear for such an occasion. I was happy to be in my muslin undergarments, barefoot, my hair freed from the tight plaits that Adelle had decorated with pearls. The little beads scattered onto the floor, and they sounded like falling rain. Though I had never spent the night here before, I had the sense of being at home. I peered into the nursery to watch Hannah sleep, then went to look in on the boys. True enough, bats were perched on the window ledge. In the morning I would instruct Rosalie on how to place sharp shells and bits of broken glass along the casements to keep these creatures away. For now, I merely opened the window and shook a handkerchief until the night creatures flew to the treetops.
When I turned, Monsieur Petit was there.
I cared nothing for love, yet I was terrified of all I was yet to learn about my husband’s desires. My mother had frightened me with her instructions.
“We are married,” my husband reminded me.
I said I knew.
“What else do you know?” He was gazing at me in a way he hadn’t before.
“Nothing,” I admitted.
I thought of Jestine and Aaron and the way they were drawn to one another, even when they didn’t wish to be. When I’d asked Jestine to teach me all she knew about love, she’d declined. “If I told you, it would all sound silly or ugly, but when it’s you it will be different. You have to learn for yourself.”
Monsieur Petit brought me to bed and taught me what people did in the dark. He undressed me and I let him, though I had it in my head that I could escape into the baby’s room at any time, turn the key, and sleep on the floor. Monsieur put his hands on me and I let him do so. He told me he wouldn’t hurt me, but everywhere he touched me I began to burn. He moved away from me to ask if I was all right. I nodded and waited for what came next. I found myself to be a bit disappointed. I’d had certain expectations, and Monsieur Petit didn’t act in the manner I’d expected. I’d heard women in the market say that a man would become a beast of sorts, a slave to his desires. Certainly my mother had prepared me for some sort of violence, which in a way interested me. I thought of Perrault’s story of Bluebeard, who’d had so many wives, each one mad for him despite the ill treatment they received.
Monsieur Petit, however, was quiet, possessing a tenderness I hadn’t anticipated. He didn’t rush anything between us, merely held me to him. I could feel the way he wanted me, and that was curious to me. It wasn’t love, but he seemed to possess a sort of passion for me, perhaps a hunger he’d had since his wife had been gone. He had one hand on the small of my back. The other hand slipped between my legs. Who was I that I wanted this? I felt the heat spread out inside of me in a way I didn’t understand. I could not think clearly. I believed I saw a shadow in the velvet chair against the wall. I could have sworn I heard a sigh from that area as well. A single breath. I moved away from Monsieur Petit and gazed in that direction. I had the sense that we were being watched, although aside from the two of us, the chamber appeared empty.
“Is something wrong?” my husband asked me.
I shook my head and closed my eyes. If the first Madame Petit was with us, that was her right, but it was also my right to ignore her. Before long it seemed I had drifted out of my body, as if my spirit were flitting above us. I could watch myself on the bed below. I was inside a dream, but I could feel a stab of heat inside me. Perhaps I was shivering, as if I had flown away with the moth outside the window of my bedchamber, a place where I would never sleep again.
Monsieur Petit said again that if I liked he could wait for me to become more used to him, but I said no. We were married, and because this was
our wedding night I asked if on this single occasion he would think only of me rather than of his first wife. I would never ask this of him again, and when he did call me Esther on other occasions I never once complained.
THERE WAS SO MUCH to learn about the children and the household in the first weeks I might have easily become overwhelmed, but I had Rosalie to educate me, and she was a good teacher. She told me she had been born in this country, on the grounds of one of the old Danish farms, and that she had been cooking since she was a little girl. I stood beside her in the kitchen, both of us in our aprons, our hair covered by scarves. I learned the recipes for lime chicken soup and for all her other dishes. I soon became expert in cooking the children’s favorite food, the fongee porridge of cornmeal with vegetables that I myself had always enjoyed. The children’s play in the muddy garden made for masses of laundry, which were hung out on two rope lines nearly every day. The clean clothes smelled like sea air, and before Rosalie pressed them with a heavy iron she sprinkled them with lavender water. David was already attending the school at the synagogue, but Samuel followed me around from room to room. I allowed the children to stay up late, for I hated to discipline them. Often Monsieur Petit read in the drawing room while I played games with the boys.
“You worried you wouldn’t love them, now I’m worried that you love them too much,” Rosalie warned.
“There’s no such thing.” I laughed.
But Rosalie said I was wrong. We sat on the porch and drank ginger tea. In a low voice she told me she’d had a baby who had died. She had loved him too much and so she took his death as a punishment from God for being too proud. The baby spit up blood and turned so hot he was on fire in her arms. The milk he drew from her breast boiled in his mouth, and perhaps that was what killed him, she whispered, his own mother’s milk. She was crying as she spoke, the wound was that fresh even though the baby had been gone for several years. I slipped my arms around her and insisted that neither her God nor mine would be so cruel as to do such a thing. A baby could not drown from drinking milk. He’d clearly had yellow fever, and that was no one’s fault. I was young, and I thought I understood grief, but I knew nothing. I had no idea of how deep a mother’s sorrow could be.