I waited for the moon to be born before breaking my chains and coating my eyelids with the bitter milk of plants collected in the past. Sweaty, moist, the ship hold slept on. Senseless, futile sleep, which persisted, nevertheless, each day. Guided by a ray of light, I stepped over dreamless bodies. Vermin swarmed all about—fleas, rats, worms—each taking care of its dark needs. Wretched labor that emerged from the shadows, rustling here and there with no modesty or compassion. Among the shadows with no savior, sometimes faces. Gaunt, pallid. A limp hand, an exhausted heart. Nothing that hinted of rest. Of movement forward after a pause.
Voices were already tumbling from the bridge. Night was approaching. Relentless cold. Far from the officers’ cabins, wrapped in thin blankets of wool, sailors whiled away time. Shuffling cards, whistling, focused on what lay directly ahead, not daring to defy the ire of a sky whose threat never let up.
Courted by lightning, the opaque mass above suddenly started to moan. Arched its back, hips swaying above the fevered sea. The moon veered to red. The waters awakened, hurled foam against the ship’s hull. All held their breath, then nothing. Nothing more. The ocean had sunk into slumber, reminding sailors of their austere servitude, and man of the foolishness of his existence.
Taking advantage of the lull, I slipped into the big room where the master of the seas was finishing his meal.
The man, who couldn’t see me, was plunged deep in thought, mopping his plate with bread instinctively, much like walking, and peering sadly through the porthole from time to time. Abruptly, he rose from the table and walked toward what must be his bedroom. There, sitting down at the secretary made of wood and mother-of-pearl, the only luxury he allowed himself, he took up his plume.
How was the weather in Nantes?
*
A thick fog had dulled the city. Men sighed, dreading the hour when, subject to the tick-tock of time they would leave the bedroom, walk through the foyer, swallow icy morning winds whole. Out on the uneven, bricked pavement, some braved the cold before disappearing into the gray cloak of fog. In the misshapen city, the clock had started to chime. Seven o’clock. The stone city of Nantes yawned and stretched. Trembled under the weight of the first carriages drawn at a well-mannered trot by horses who’d forgotten the time when they galloped with the wind.
Across from the River Erdre and not far from a church with still-snoring bells stood the house of Captain Louis Mosnier. Severe in form, an edifice of tuffeau stone with, emerging from its walls, heads of laughing Negroes.
On the second floor, behind the transom windows could be seen the captain’s wife. Marie-Madeleine. Porcelain pale in her purple velvet dress whose wimple was all that could be seen from outside. Marie in winter, attentive to the spectacle that would soon unfurl before her eyes. Early morning, the banks of the Erdre River come alive, shouting For sale! Stop, thief! For rent! It was true that everything came at a price here, and a captain’s salary barely covered household expenses. “Unless. Unless we decide to rent out the ground floor. What good is it to possess empty apartments? Would be a good idea to study the Quennecs’ proposal, that couple who arrived from Montoir two nights ago and whose visit . . . What luck! There’s the husband going past! Nose in the air, wearing a bourgeois hat. What nerve! The kind who would go to any length to settle in Saint-Germain! He can always try! The old Chapeau-Rouge residents would never permit it. What did a common surgeon from the provinces imagine he would do with the Francs-Maçons? The world belongs to those who think it does! Haven’t we already seen little people take an interest in the big things of this century? When my Louis returns, I’ll have to talk to him.”
I APPROACHED the windows, Marie-Madeleine stepped back, bringing a handkerchief to her lips and ringing the little handbell nervously. The door opened, the maid entered. Her step heavy, cheeks rosy, she carried a small heater, which she placed at the feet of her mistress before withdrawing from the room.
Reclined on her sofa, Marie had returned to her thoughts of Louis, this man thirty-seven years her senior, whom she’d wed in a marriage of reason, and whose return she would await whatever happened, with no thoughts other than those of a married woman. Nearly six months had passed since they’d bid their farewells in Paimboeuf, down the river, there where the slave ships passed through. When the vessel had set sail, she remembered standing on the dock for hours, long after the last waves had swallowed the still-flaming white sails.
Even as great cold descended on the city, she hadn’t moved, still searching the horizon with a ferocious eye, this unknown zone from where people came back rich, a hero, or dead. And then the forgetting had settled in or, more accurately, growing accustomed to the absence, The captain still hadn’t appeared, leaving behind a portrait and this round belly, which in the doctor’s words, augured a delicate delivery. She slid a hand under her skirt that sailed over her skin, then shook her head slightly as if to quiet the tiny voice that had recently threaded its way into her dreams, following her into the wee hours. Judging by the dark circles on her haunted face, the voice had sung all night. Marie shivered.
She had known no other man before Louis. Had remained a mama’s daughter, darning sheets, polishing silver, knowing nothing of the world but its skies, and nothing of love but the laughter that sometimes escaped the neighboring houses. Thus, Louis viewed her as a timid child with delicate health, one he would need to protect. Sea captain for a good forty years, he had decided that this voyage to Saint-Domingue would be his last. In the spring, God willing, he would fix up the ground floor for the offices of a new Masonic Lodge. “Universal thinking,” “Mankind on the move,” or some such thing. God willing, and why wouldn’t he be, he would have a son. A decent man, a freethinker who would dream of traveling the world, would travel it, and then give talks on the subject at the impressive Great Exhibitions.
As Marie-Madeleine slips into a languid slumber, a violent gale sweeps through the bedroom. Furnishings and walls hiccup, as though taken by fever, and are near collapse when the soothsayer appears. I throw myself at her feet, kiss her hands heavy with amulets.
“By the grace of the spirit on high, you who know the leaf and the head, tell me how to save our people from this misfortune!”
“Only command, great father priest, and I will obey.” Just as in his temple, in the country, the master reflects, amid the rumbling of drums, invokes Vodun. May he possess him. Vodun descends, the priest stamps his feet and utters hoarse cries. It’s the spirit speaking and moving within him.
“The child of the White man must die,” he chants. “On the night he comes out, he will go. I have begun the task but some remains still. You alone can help me.” Upon orders of the master, I draw near the woman, lift her skirt and petticoat to spoil her belly. My prayer completed, I hear the voice of the great initiated speak. Tell of a country far away, well beyond the blue line. There where the White man’s vessel sets sail, where our people are being tested. In that footless and rootless country, there are men who have inherited the science. One of them will liberate us. The wind flies off, the priest disappears, and I am alone once again, in this city capped with slate tiles, gripped in the vise of the wind and the scent of the sea.
Into the sleepy Loire I wade. Swim until the river awakens abruptly, accelerates in its rush to join the great water. The Sea!
I am a fish. I frolic in a cool gulf before retracing my path to chase after the sea.
I’m lifted high by the azure blue. Guided by the wind. I’m flying, leaving France. Heading south! Southwest. I am an eagle. Tracking the bonito and white tuna. Before the stars sink into the sea, I will soar over the Azores. Cross into the tropics, see emerge the island of the man who knows and sees. But now the gods decide otherwise. Mowed down by a cloud, I falter and lose my way in a sky of soot. What is this? This wind closing around me and dragging me from my path? I plummet down, where the waters yawn open, a gaping abyss, where the ancient city, forever cut off from the sun, casts its spell. Nostalgia of men. Capricious. Magnetic.
At the heart of the buildings guarded by atlases, sleeps an entire shadowy people. Djinns watch over, with their fairy song, keep the tigers of the sea at bay. Luring, with magnetic breath, travelers driven by misfortune into these remote and cursed regions. Their memories erased by strong potions, they live at the mercy of jailers who are worshipped as masters and gods. Their bodies go without heart. Their life without thought. I shiver. Think of the ship hold. Time is short. I must find the man.
THE SUN has reached its peak when I break through the top crust of the waves. The winds have subsided, whitecaps are rocking. A glide of flying fish splashes and escorts me. Several leagues from the Tropic of Cancer, a dark mass breaks the horizon’s flat line. Is it the island? The island where the White man docks his boats? It can’t be, the terrain is too flat. How, in this land, this place, could we reach shore and pray to our gods? There’s another isle to the right, high, as if cut from a single block of stone. The island is steep. I climb. The island is mute, dreading the lava spew. From its crest, where I look down over the great whole, I call on man-God. You who know the leaf and the head, where are you?
Moments before dusk, a languorous song breaks the silence. Animal tears, like the croaking of toads, calling out to me. I’m here! I am almost here. Finally here: Saint-Domingue. Ayiti of the mountains. The great island of croaking rain.
*
The north end of the island. The toads keep watch, as I slip under the door of the great-hut. The wooden floor is cold. The light faint. Around the table of manchineel wood, five shadows are supping.
“Mostly in the evening,” concludes a woman without conviction, “in the evening, mostly.” Her hand brushes her pale forehead reminiscent of Amandine’s doll. Amandine, the master’s daughter.
“Courage, Isabelle [the Mistress], only a few more months to hold on. When exactly will you be going home?”
A Negro woman walks through the room, all go quiet. A precaution. Then: “Who can say? Look what happened at Beaunay last month. They burned everything, everything! The workshop, the gardens, the mill, the house. There’s nothing left now, nothing! And the worst part is that no one saw anything. Seems the fire started all of a sudden. I don’t know any fire that catches without help.”
The voice trembles. Anger.
“They will pay dearly for this, mark my words. I will not be intimidated by this vermin. The longer the flea stays under the skin, the more likely it will nest there. Our Negroes have grown too comfortable. They need to be put back in their place, in the lower courtyard with the chickens.”
They titter nervously, then cross into the other room, the salon where French doors open onto the garden.
“My heavens, what a night! It’s so dark out there.”
“Because of the rain, Madame.”
“Of course, I’d forgotten.” The voice trails off, disappearing into the clinking of teaspoons. “The last time was on the fifth. It’s my habit to note the rainy days in my book. Robert [the master] thinks I’m becoming obsessive, those are his words. But for me, it’s a distraction from boredom. This country is so hard, and it is so hot here, don’t you think?”
The silence weighs heavy. The bodies move. A little farther away, the women are trading memories. One of them leaps to her feet, screaming. Thinks she feels some kind of beast under her foot. A toad, a mouse, a snake.
“Good God, Gérard, do something, you know I have an absolute horror of reptiles!”
A man’s hand grabs the kerosene lamp, searches.
“I had to kill half a dozen of them yesterday. Grass snakes. Must be the season.”
“People say it’s they who attract them.”
A woman sighs.
“At night, with their drums!”
She takes a sip of alcohol. Her hands are trembling.
“Those bamboulas, we should put a stop to them.”
“A happy slave is a slave who works. I leave it to you, in your wisdom, to think through the consequences. Madame, perhaps you imagine that these Blacks rub shoulders with cunning? Nonsense, they are no more wicked than you!”
The odor of Negro in the passageway. First, his shadow, then the body crosses the threshold and comes into the room.
Master to Bienvenue: “Melody has worms, we have to purge her, and don’t you dare let me catch you riding her, or you will have me to answer to. For the docks, be ready at seven o’clock. We’ll take the main road.”
The frizzy head bows, the body backs out until it reaches the rail.
Mistress to Master: “Remember, tomorrow evening we have an engagement.” To the dinner guests: “The West is coming to us. The Le Torts, do you remember?”
A little later, that same night.
Far from the Negro huts with their crumbling walls, where the cousin is growling, the same solemn song is rising, the lament of the shoeless. Sudan. Congo. Guinea. By the glow of the tallow candles, the masklike faces, ebony flesh, all ponder the man’s face made up like a warrior.
As I slip in near them, the earth starts to shake. The sky thunders, Black people scatter. A gale rears up, rushes through, and here I am again, beyond the island, beyond the night.
*
France. The bedroom in Nantes.
Three lines crease the forehead of Doctor Roche. At his patient’s bedside, he sits quiet, just listens to the mad gallop of her pulse. From the maid who requested his services this morning, he has learned nothing. “What do I know?” she grumbled, when they crossed paths in the hallway.
In the bedroom with curtains pulled, Marie-Madeleine sits up straight. Sweeps the room with terrified eyes, saying: “I’m out walking. I don’t know where, but the air is heavy and damp, as if the rain refuses to come. I’m hot, cold, shivers course over my body, the fevers, perhaps. I long to sit down, but the path is obstructed, shadows by the hundreds, laid out head-to-foot. Finally, the street empties, I lie down on my side like an animal. That’s when I hear the voice, the song of the mourners kneeling before their Christ or whatever. The moon goes dark. The sky uncoils its beads. It rains hard. The pool of water grows, and I shrink. Steps. Coming toward me. Someone wants to eat my belly. Please, not my child! I want to implore him but my mouth can’t move like a mouth, can’t utter a sound. The water is rising . . .”
Out of breath, Marie-Madeleine asks: “It’s just a dream, isn’t it, only a dream?”
She clutches the sleeve of the learned man’s frock coat, her head bobbing up and down until her body falls back, slack. Still at her bedside, Doctor Roche observes. Dry. Hypothesis (probably nerves). Counts and recounts, ten months of pregnancy and still nothing.
Suddenly in a hurry to be out of this house, the good doctor buttons his coat. Stumbles down the stairs, running into the maid on his way down. Excuses himself. It’s dark in this house. I’ll be back tomorrow, he pronounces, crossing the threshold out to the street under the mocking eye of the sculpted mascarons over the door. From behind half-open curtains, I watch him stride quickly toward the church. The bells ring, a coach passes on the street. A horse breaks loose and, as it races away, slams into the man.
*
When she had finished bathing Amandine, Isabelle de Bougainville headed for the kitchens. Seven times already she had gone there this morning, and after each of these inspections, hurried back to her bedroom to open her large rose-colored notebook.
Begun on the day of her arrival in the colonies, this journal now held nearly one thousand eight hundred written pages. A document she intended to publish, far more mannered, she argued, than all those dreary works produced by random travelers with little concern for authenticity or style.
Catholic on principle and convinced that all humans beings were descended from a single, original couple, Madame de Bougainville had not been able to reconcile the notion, widespread among the Residents, that Negroes were not people. Thus, she accorded especial place in her writings to a study of their customs and ways, a study it pleased her to call Negro psychology.
Upon return from her eighth trip to the kitchen, however, she had no heart for the work. She’d just been assailed by a dark premonition. Without knowing why, she sensed that this night would never see dawn, would no longer sing, as it had in the past, the glory of some and misfortune of others. The end of a world? This prospect, more than death itself, frightened her (Isabelle de Bougainville was not a woman to insult God). Could it be that their efforts had all been for naught? That the world they had so carefully built here would disappear without a trace, with no one to tell the story?
After crying, and as if wanting to hold onto what would soon no longer be, she parted the blinds and drank in the scene that lay before her. She smiled: the dovecote really was . . . fantastic.
Fidèle pulled the pigs out of the oven when the first guests came through the gate and walked up the path, bordered with orange trees, to the big-house of the Bougainvilles. Rain threatened, so the little group retreated to the salon, each with a glass of Bordeaux, since there was no ice for orangeade.
“That’s all people ever talk about anymore: colored people, colored people! Now they’re demanding rights! God forbid they end up gaining equality under the law!
“Still, they’re better than the Negroes.”
“It’s all the same race. What’s part of that species cannot be dissolved.”
“But they do have white blood in them.”
“The wines of Provence don’t agree with me.”
“Instead of putting up a fierce resistance, perhaps we should think more about making them feel a bond with us.”
“I must admit, I find it difficult to share your passion.”
“If you had a better grasp of the art of politics, you’d understand the interest of such a method.”
“By authorizing commerce with Negroes and, dare I say, Negresses, we have gotten ourselves into a real fix, and we have only ourselves to blame!”
“They will probably arrive in the next ship. I suppose the prices will be just as extravagant.”
“Have we been backed so far into a corner that we will just let it happen? Really, Monsieur, if we fail to intervene, those mixed-bloods will soon bring us to heel! Look at Théofraste, for example, he now owns as many slaves as any among us.”
Isabelle de Bougainville rose. “The meat must be ready.”
It is ready. The two wild pigs bathe in their sauce. At the table, the conversation continues, dwindles, goes in circles until a woman with red hair complains of violent stomach pains.
“They claimed the meat was not fresh. Brown pig is always tricky. I know very well that something else was going on. They poisoned Marguerite, just as they will kill us all. I would confide all this to Robert, but he wouldn’t believe me. Robert never believes me.” (A Poitou woman in the colonies, Isabelle de Bougainville, p. 1812)
In the same book is written a little further on:
“The cart driver Bienvenue has escaped. Our bursar almost brought him down, but the slave managed to escape. Before taking off, he poisoned our hens, dear Mélodie, and the rest of the livestock. Two of our best curassow pheasants were found dead, massacred, in the dovecote. We will never find any others like them and I must confess that this discovery has deeply affected me.
“In the fugitive’s shack were seized a number of gris-gris. These amulets are used by certain Negroes to bring good luck and to traffic with the devil. By what furtive means were these sordid trinkets able to come across the waters? I don’t know but presume that these Blacks have more than one trick in their sack. Also found under the straw mattress was a wooden ‘doll.’ With several needles stuck in its body. Leaves for hair. On its back had been carved the letter M, for Marguerite.
“As punishment and as a warning to others, five Negro women were put in the nabot, three are now in jail. We also hanged six of the brute’s accomplices. Soon we will lack the hands needed to run the sugar factory.”
*
Night has taken over, and the island its mysteries. Lying on a rush mat, Bienvenue presses wild guava leaves to his fresh wounds. The bleeding soon slows. After rubbing his body with soot, he places a string of amulets around his neck and takes the path up into the mountains. Up there, his tribe is waiting, twenty men at the most, keen to see their chief, the great Makandal.
Curled up in the branches of an old mapou tree, I watch them greet his return with joy. Form a circle around him. Hail to you, oh Makandal, son of the loas and the gods of Guinea.
On a seat carved into the trunk of a sampa tree, the hero takes his place, soon joined by his most faithful snakes. One of them rears up, has sensed my presence, splits the ground, slithers over to me, coils himself around my body, and victorious, deposits it at the feet of his master. A clamor among those in attendance, then the man motions for silence. Asks.
“What estate?”
“I come neither from fields of cane, nor places where tobacco is grown. I come from farther away, well beyond the line. Guinea is the name, Guinea the source, the mama-country, to which our spirits will return. Those who are here are from there, but most have forgotten. The sea washes away memory. The sea drinks the earth.
“Who sent you?”
“Hogbonu, the great papa priest. He saw you in his dreams, he knows you have the gift. I am here to transmit his science to you. Will teach you how to deceive the human heart, move like water, run faster than wind.”
“What do you want in return?”
“The same as you. Our freedom.”
DAWN IS coming. We have to act fast, erase all traces of our presence here. Already, their rifles echo. Dogs bark in the distance. Take the route to the south, go back up the river, cut across the plains. Plunge into the ravine, sleep.
The next day, climb. Up to the peak named Mount Noir by those who are from here. It is steep, full of gorges and canyons. The chasms form a border, cut the island in two. On the other side, in Spanish lands, we will hide.
*
The room has drifted away from the corridor. I’m floating in a space unbound by geometry. Near the bed where my belly rises immodestly, a woman in white. Your fever is rising, she says in a low voice, more to herself than to the old woman, slightly deaf and worn out by the journey. She traveled to Nantes to visit her daughter. The shape in the bed moves, the mother rouses, stammers, “It’s because it’s her first. Of course, she’s not used to it.”
Then she gets to her feet, the mother, admires the grand armoire, the play of light on the mirror, the exquisite inlay. Thinks city folks’ life is quite fine. That the countryside makes people poor, ugly, dumb. So stylish, this brush handle. Looks like mother-of-pearl or ivory. Ivory . . . The old woman sighs, dozes off again. I’ll have to ask the captain to bring me back one of those.
By the way, any news from him?
*
“Rough sea.”
*
“Push, Marie, push!”
Both hands gripping the bars on the bed, Marie, now naked, obeys.
Daylight has fled, the room lies in twilight. Damp, as before a tropical storm. In the grip of sharp contractions, her belly implodes, releases the first waters.
“There, now it’s coming.” says the nurse, “Deep breaths.”
Her mouth falls agape, ventures a sound. Pants. “Deep breaths, I said.” Marie nods, prays she’ll never hear this voice again.
“One more time, you’re almost there.” Marie no longer hears. “Focus, my child!” Her belly trembles. Swells. “Good lord!” The nurse stumbles back in horror.
From the gaping pregnant woman, water surges. A sea of blue night. Black. Full of Negroes.
*
High winds. Great swells on the seas. Weather so misty, it’s hard to make out objects a quarter-league off. On board, dread is gaining the upper hand. Shadows stand watch, peering at the horizon, not yet daring to interpret the signs. Alone, in the map room, the captain is holding his breath. Suddenly, bursts out of the cabin, strides along the bridge, slaps the first fat drops of rain that hit his neck. “Close the scuppers, tie the anchors fast. The barrels, too . . . Snap to it!” he orders, as, dizzy from the swells, the ship pitches, sweeps back before the first waves. The ocean is steaming. A gale. Waters in chaos and sails in bedlam.
“Masson!”
The topman rushes to execute the order. Grabs hold of the helm. Navigates a passage between the breakers.
“Brail up the sails!”
Then comes a monstrous wave crashing over the bow and kicking the rear of the ship. Cables that brace the mizzenmast snap. That mast dances. The brigantine swoops away. Thrust forward by its topsails, the ship swerves, bows as if greeting the master of the seas.
Rain starts pouring down. Pelts down from on high, and in its mad rush, in a mayhem impossible to contain, beats down on the men indifferently and rocks the vessel, which hiccups each time it is hit by a breaker. After each thrashing by waves, it belches, dips.
The back bridge is submerged. “Oh, god! We’re done for! We’re going down!” a sailor bellows, clinging to the guardrail, his body frozen. Floats ghostlike for a time, before sinking. Steps ring out. Shadows cross themselves. Call the chaplain!
Into the wretched foam: a rope. A pitiful gesture, a challenge hurled at the furious elements. While the winds slice the flames in the lanterns, the tempest howls. Howls the storm. Rings out a righteous reminder.
Revenge!
Hunched down behind the forecastle, most of the sailors have lost their calm. Moan, curse. Promise plaques of thanksgiving for the church. Listen, sapped of strength, to the Te Deum.
The tides of Death circled round me,
The torrents of Belial terrified;
The nets of the Hell wrapped around me,
The traps of Death awaited;
In my terror, I called on Yaweh.
The wooden ship shrieks. The sea is breaking the hull. Cracks scatter in all directions, haul from their torpor the last sailors still on deck.
“Portside!” A voice in the night. “Portside!” A shadow gesticulates, waves an arm mechanically toward . . . Where? Straight ahead! A dark, monstrous mass, suddenly appears in a flash of lightning.
“My God, never, in the name of God, have I seen such a thing!”
By Vodun, by the grace of the spirit from on high, I implore our gods.
Crouched down, all alone at the helm, the captain scratches his head. “Where the hell did that reef come from?” And all those tangled scraps of wood, standing like . . . “Crosses, by god, they look like crosses!”
In the bottomless dark of the hold, hope is reborn. Revenge, insists the mouths, sure that after the deluge, they will once again see the coasts. Africa.
Iron gods, thunder, and the seas have laid siege to the cargo hold, disemboweled the barrels and burst open the sacks. Water spurts, beans fly through the air, thousands of grains of rice float on the water, giving the vessel the sorry look of a wedding night in Nantes, after the feast.
Bacchanalia! The gods are exultant, grow drunk on wine and rum before disappearing.
They’re back! In front of the poop deck, just behind the main mast. There they are, yes, blowing on the infamous rail, shaking the wall topped with steel blades, where Negro flesh is impaled.
The crew is trembling. The chaplain brandishes his cross, prattles on about threats, shouts like the godless before plunging back into his Bible.
To my God, I uttered my cry.
But the captain has no time to give orders at the helm. Surging up from the sea, in the rushing winds, a wave high as twenty shreds the sails, sets the solid mast trembling under the weight of the heavy foam. In the besieged hold, sailors pump. Pump, pump! Let’s pump, sings a one-eyed sailor scarcely twelve years old, whose blue eye, wide-open in the night, flits from one body to the next at work.
Clew lines and foremast defeated, the ship reels. Pants.
Pants like a bull being skinned alive and who, drawing on its last ounce of strength, prepares to die.
It bucks, almost goes down, when suddenly,
He extends a hand from on high and takes mine,
He pulls me from the great waters,
He delivers me from a powerful enemy,
From enemies stronger than I.
What is happening?
The winds are stilled, the storm has come to an end.
Pray, though I pray, Vodun will not hear. The science has left me. Naked, abandoned by the gods, I return to my place in the hold. It is still warm, ready.
It was waiting for me.
*
She bustled along, Isabelle de Bougainville, in a long cotton dress that revealed a hint of her ankle boots and lace petticoat. Gripping her parasol, she pushed herself to catch up with her husband, losing sight of him at each bend in the road. Having learned a few days earlier of the slave ship’s arrival and the opening of a special sale that Monday at Saint-Marc, the couple had risen for early-morning prayers. All week, had gone over the accounts, pulled together the coin and supplies needed to purchase slaves. In the wagon that was now transporting them to the west side of the island, they delighted like children in their upcoming acquisitions. Their sugarcane plant needed new blood, the blood of Bossales, fresh from Africa, said to be less nervous and more docile than Negroes here.
A turn in the road, Robert’s shadow on a wall, then the port of Saint-Marc came into view, teeming with merchants in broad-brimmed hats, out where the crowd waited impatiently, eyes locked on the slave ship Le Soleil.
After two weeks at sea, Le Soleil, somewhere between a brig and a schooner, seemed more dead than alive, a phantom vessel emerging from hell, deep in a slumber that the waves, strangely silent, dared not disturb.
On the docks, from where rowboats were launched to carry the buyers (the sale would take place on board the ship), conversation was lively. What terrifying ordeal had this old tub been through? Had it been the prey of dreadful pirates? Or had the sea toyed with it, hurling squalls, cyclones, sharks, and, why not, whales, at its hull? God only knew what the ocean contained!
Or, since there were Negroes on board, it wasn’t unlikely that they’d fomented some kind of rebellion. There were those who remembered the case, some thirty years earlier, of L’Afriquain, the slave ship that had dropped anchor in the natural harbor of the Cape. Wretched boat whose captain and some of his men had died, victims of a bloody slave revolt.
When it came her turn to climb into the rowboat, Madame de Bougainville hastily hitched up her skirt and ensconced herself on one of the benches at the back. It seemed to her the beginning of a great adventure. Life, in sum.
She squeezed her husband’s hand tight when the rowboat had completed its trip, and with a leap she imagined to be graceful, bounded aboard Le Soleil.
The odor made her retch. In accordance with the rules of hygiene requiring that all slave ships docking at the island be disinfected immediately, the entire vessel had been scrubbed down with vinegar, which made everyone on the boat press a handkerchief to their nose. Fanning herself to no end, Isabelle clutched Robert’s arm and, probably thinking of his noble work, did her best to take in the spectacle.
One hundred, two hundred slaves had been herded onto the quarterdeck, paralyzed with fear, forced to show teeth, eyes, armpits, anus.
On a platform in plain view of the assemblage, a few dozen Negroes had been corralled. Specimens from India, surely the best, whom disease and madness seemed to have spared. At one thousand eight hundred pounds per head, that had better be the case. “Inspect them carefully three times,” Isabelle murmured. A small problem overlooked could leave a slave costing a hundred times its worth. Monsieur de Bougainville summoned the surgeon and ordered him to examine the merchandise with the greatest care. He had just picked out two strapping fellows and a Negress.
“And where does the female come from?” asked Isabelle, who considered Mandingos the most refined and the gentlest Negroes of all. She seemed annoyed to learn that I was from Ouidah but took no offense. Time was short. The sky was growing dark, better not to be out at sea.
THE SQUALL was full-blown by the time the dinghy tied up at the dock. Hugging her parasol close to her body, Madame scurried away from the port. Gasping for breath, as if escaping great peril, waving frantically to the carriage waiting in the distance. Caught in a deep slumber, the carriage sprang to life. The horses whinnied, made all kinds of racket until the whip lashed their flanks.
“We’ll make a stop at Widow Le Tort’s house,” shouted the master to the Negro driver when we were all on board. I raised my head. Makandal was smiling. Setting his horses in motion. Flying like the wind, rushing faster than the river.
*
They died that night. The master, the wife, the son, the daughter. Died like Negroes, the ones who hang at the end of a rope. Pounded like grains of millet. We beat them. One hundred, three hundred, five hundred blows. Dumped their bodies in the ravine, there where the snake gods bite.
The White man died this evening, but I was still there. I, the initiated, the mambo, the-one-who-flies, la volante, la soukougnante.
I, Cécile. I continued walking.