THE COACH ROLLED along on the rocky, potholed road. Sandwiched between a dull-looking elderly black man and a young, heavily made-up câpresse with her hair covered by a jeweled madras scarf, Minette dozed intermittently and watched the landscape pass by through the old cart’s poorly sealed flaps. It was pouring rain. Fat drops of water splashed the passengers from time to time and the black driver, warmly wrapped up in a waterproof cloak, swore in a booming voice:
“Hey, this way! Damn it – to the right, you crazy ’orses – to the right, damn it!”
He was barely avoiding the potholes and the mud-caked wheels rattled as if they would soon fly right off.
“What awful luck having to travel in such weather,” sighed a fat, ruddy woman as she made the sign of the cross.
“It’s rather surprising for March,” responded a young black man seated just across from Minette. “But there’s nothing to do but get used to it.”
Knocked about and shaken up, the travelers who had been sleeping were abruptly awakened by terrible claps of thunder that seemed to explode right next to the coach.
For three hours, the flooded cart rolled along the road lined with trees whose waterlogged leaves lay flattened into the mud. When it finally came to a stop and the driver shouted: “Arcahaie, Arcahaie – anyone for Arcahaie,” the rain had only just stopped.
Minette was first to disembark. She went to collect her things from the driver and stood for a moment on the street. A few minutes later, the young black man – the man who had been sitting across from her – got out as well. All he had by way of baggage was a bundle of clothes he tossed nimbly over his shoulder. He stopped next to her and raised his head to the sky. Above them, the trees were shaking off the rain in the refreshing breeze. Minette lifted her skirt slightly and held it clutched in her hand to keep from dirtying it; her slippers were already covered in mud. All along the street large puddles had formed and people could not help but splash each other as they walked through them. Two Negro soldiers from the constabulary passed by on mud-splattered horses; a covered carriage driven by an elderly black coachman rolled straight through the puddles. A few beggars, missing limbs and covered in rags, looked pleadingly at the passersby.
Houses with shingled and slate roofs rose up at the end of driveways lined with orange and flame trees.
Minette looked up and down the street. Which way was she meant to go? At that very moment, the young black man with the bundle of clothing turned to her.
“May I be of some service?” he asked her in an only slightly accented French.
“Thank you, yes. Which road do I take to reach Jean-Baptiste Lapointe’s estate?”
“Jean-Baptiste Lapointe, the griffe of Arcahaie! Why, he lives quite a ways from here, in Boucassin. You’ll have to go there by horse and head back a bit the way you came.”
“Ah!”
“It’s a half an hour from here; in the countryside.”
“Where can I find a horse?”
“Well, that you can get anywhere. Look, walk over to that gate over there. Ask for Nicolas and tell him Simon sent you. He’ll help you.”
He adjusted his bundle on his shoulder and raised his straw hat.
“Normally, I’d take you over there myself, but I’m a slave. I’m running errands and I’m already late.”
Minette looked at him attentively.
He wore short cotton pants from Vitré and a long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the neck. On his feet he wore sandals whose straps exposed his toes. Minette had seen domestic slaves with Vitré or Morlaix cotton shirts before, in the streets of Port-au-Prince. But what seemed absolutely new to her was the expression of contentment and serenity on the slave’s face. Of course she had already seen Negroes dressed in livery serving as valets and lackeys, drivers dressed in gold-buttoned shirts like M de Caradeux’s coachman, but they all wore a sort of closed, darkly unhappy expression on their face, which immediately revealed their social station. This young Negro was different; he seemed happy. Could there possibly exist, other than Scipion, a single slave who wasn’t beaten, spied on, distrusted, and ill-treated – who enjoyed his master’s confidence? She had always known that the slaves were so unhappy that they only awaited the right moment to flee into the hills; and that the masters, because they were masters – be they white, black, or mixed-race – treated them like beasts of burden.
She left the young slave with a smile and watched him walk off as she kept thinking about what she had seen. She finally began walking. After a few steps, her skirts were soaked and so dirty that she stopped paying attention. Once at Nicolas’ gate, she noticed a little wood house lined with galleries and a large courtyard where a few horses were tied up, eating cut grass. An elderly one-armed man came over to her and asked what she needed in a lisping Creole.
“Simon sent me,” she answered. “I’d like a horse to take me to Boucassin.”
“Right away, right away,” answered the one-armed man. “And you’ll have a guide as well; you’re not from around here – you’ll need a guide. Fifty escalins for the horse and twenty escalins for the guide. Will that be all right?”
“Yes,” she answered.
And she immediately took a little purse from her bodice and emptied its contents into her hand.
Once she had paid, she looked at her feet and at the hem of her skirt. They were caked in mud. Softened by the humidity, her madras headscarf was wrinkled and leaned too much to one side. She straightened it. Alas! Was this the state she would be in for this rendezvous? Her chambray bodice, her silk shawl, and the little clutch bag Nicolette had so carefully embroidered were all crumpled. She looked like one of those young freedwomen who sold meat, pork, and fish at the market.
A saddled horse was brought to her and a young black boy of about twelve, wearing only a waistcloth, helped her to mount.
A six-horse carriage passed by the gate. A smiling Mulatto was driving and made a friendly gesture to Nicolas with his whip.
“Who’s that?” Minette asked the young boy holding the reins of her horse.
“That’s Michel, Mistress – Madame Saint-Ar’s driver.”
Mme Saint-Ar, she thought immediately. Why, I have that letter for her from Saint-Martin. She quickly turned to look at the young guide.
“Does Madame Saint-Ar live near here?”
“Yes, Mistress. Look, over there – that big estate. It’s called ‘Les Vases.’ It belongs to Madame Saint-Ar! She’s a nice white lady.”
The horse turned off the road and followed the young boy along a deserted path, lined with cotton plants. After about a half an hour, the guide, who was carrying Minette’s bag on his head, pointed toward a little hill where there was a flat house with a red slate roof and a single gallery on its right wing.
“We’re here,” he said.
Uncomfortable on her horse, Minette shook out her long, flowered skirt to clean it as best she could. Holding on to the saddle with one hand, she tried to arrange her madras headscarf. But as the horse was making its way up the rough incline, she fell to the side and fell squarely in a puddle of red mud, which splattered her bodice and face. She swore violently and pushed away the guide as he tried to help her up. She rose to stand, furious.
“I’m supposed to look perfect,” she spat out in Creole, as she did whenever she was angry with herself.
The guide, doing his best not to laugh, helped her back up into the saddle.
“Hold on tight, Mistress,” he advised. “The slope is very steep.”
Five minutes later, the horse stopped in front of the gallery abutting the right wing of the house, where three slaves, dressed just like the guide in a rough cotton waistcloth, ran up beside her. They helped her down from the horse by holding out their hands for her to place her feet. Two enormous dogs came toward her, barking and with their teeth bared. Terrified, Minette began to scream.
“Hey, what’s going on?” someone immediately questioned. “Settle down, Lucifer and Satan, settle down.”
The door to one of the rooms of the house opened and Jean-Baptiste Lapointe appeared.
He wore a pair of white linen pants and a sheer chambray shirt unbuttoned halfway, exposing his strong neck and the glistening skin of his young, muscular chest. For a moment, he looked at her curiously, before coming down the stone stairs situated beneath the gallery. Recognizing Minette, he made a brief gesture of surprise and then burst into laughter as he looked her over. He laughed so long and hard that tears ran down his cheeks. Each time he tried to get a hold of himself, he ended up sputtering and doubling over even more violently.
Minette observed him, her eyebrows raised. She was standing before a madman. Jean-Baptiste Lapointe was completely mad. What kind of mess had she gotten herself into?
When he was finally able to calm down, she realized that he was only having a good laugh. He apologized for having greeted her in such a manner and held out his hand to help her up the stairs.
The dogs, now as gentle as lambs, rubbed against the young man with plaintive little yaps, subdued by the sound of his voice alone. He pushed open the outer door and Minette found herself in a great hall, decorated with meticulously clean wood furniture, hanging Indian-style curtains, and an abundance of plants growing in earthenware vases.
“Your home is beautiful,” she said with a coquettish smile.
She turned and looked into a large mirror, about to remove her madras headscarf, and was suddenly paralyzed with shock.
She was completely soiled from head to toe. Her face was flecked with little bits of coagulated mud; her dress was stained from the hem of her skirt up to the waist, and her damp madras headscarf was folded over like a clown’s hat. She burst out laughing, just as Lapointe had done.
“An explanation for my slightly mirthful welcome won’t be necessary, then,” affirmed Lapointe, still laughing. “But you’ll still need to have a bath and a chance to change clothes.”
“But, your parents – might I greet them first?
“Well it’s just that…there must be some misunderstanding. I’ve always lived here alone.”
“What?”
Once again she saw that cynical and unsettling look on his face, with his dark eyes stretching toward his temples.
“I live alone.”
“Then I must go immediately,” said Minette, mortified. “You were disabled, and now you’re not. You invited me to your family home, but you live alone. I detest complicated situations.”
“Well, then you must detest life itself. Nothing is uncomplicated in this world.”
Minette looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
Standing, fist on his hip, he awaited her decision with a false show of indifference. A great weariness came over her. She longed to lie down, right there at his feet and sleep – to sleep to the point of oblivion. There was no way she could agree to remain there alone with him. She would have to take that long ride again on horseback, holding on to the saddle; and the muscles of her arms hurt so much, she felt them hanging like dead weights at her side.
“Farewell,” she said nevertheless.
And at the same time, she passed her hand across her face to wipe away the flecks of dried mud.
“I won’t eat you up if you want to have a bath and change your clothes. I’m not a werewolf after all.”
He had smiled sweetly as he said that. She looked at him and saw that his hands were trembling slightly.
“All right for the bath,” she said, making an abrupt decision, the way she often did.
In moments like those, she trusted her instinct over any sense of reason – an instinct to which her natural temerity was all too happy to cede.
It was this same force, she thought to herself, that gave her those accents and attitudes onstage and that had compelled her to come to Arcahaie. She believed in that force like some mysterious thing that lived inside her and served her well. Her reaction was normal: ever since her childhood, the superstitions common to people of her race did battle with the doctrines of Christianity so often read and commented on by Joseph. Where was the truth? Some feared the gods of Guinée worshipped by the Negroes, others recognized the superiority of a single God, father of the Christ made man. She had often heard the old neighborhood healer tell Jasmine that the Whites’ god was a “resident” of the skies, just as white as the Whites themselves, and that he did not understand a word of the Creole spoken by the suffering Blacks. As she became more educated, Minette had managed to shed such naive beliefs. But, despite that, like a proper child of Guinée, she had faith in multiple little things – predictions, dreams, cursed days, and blessed days – she took them all into account.
She would have rather died than be caught telling stories in the middle of the day, or eating the top of a honeydew melon. One day, her mother had taken a stern and frightened tone to scold Lise for pointing at a rainbow. Jasmine had a talisman that an old Negro named Mapiou had given her when she was still on the plantation. All the while teaching the slaves in secret, he had spoken to them of the power of the lwa, the gods of Vodou. Minette had seen that talisman tucked away in her mother’s large trunk one day when she had gone looking for clean clothes. She had understood that this was a makandal like the one Nicolette wore pinned to her shirt to protect her from the evil eye. It was a sort of little bag filled with tiny objects as mysterious as the power of the thing itself. Lise and Minette touched it with a combination of revulsion and respect. “You never know,” they said to themselves. There were plenty of nice stories in catechism, but the ladies of the neighborhood had seen incredible things with their own eyes. That was enough to sow doubt and fear in the two young girls.
The night she sang at the Comédie for the first time, she had always thought deep inside that it was perhaps thanks to the makandal her mother had pinned to her skirt that she had recovered her voice.
In that moment, the force was speaking to her and said: stay. And she obeyed. She knew that she could have tried to resist, but the force would always be stronger. It was the same state of mind that Nicolette referred to whenever she declared, “My gut tells me to,” or “My gut tells me not to,” and that would suffice to convince her to do things one way or another.
Yes, she would stay. She had to. After all, she had not gone to all this trouble just to attend Mme Saint-Ar’s ball, as M Saint-Martin had recommended, nor had she come there to admire the landscape. She was being honest with herself: it was for Lapointe alone that she had decided to take this trip. The problems at the Comédie had pushed her to escape, to forget, to be happy. It was for a chance to be happy or to forget that she had come there now. For heaven’s sake, she was not going to leave because Lapointe had lied by telling her he lived with his family. How Nicolette would have laughed at her behaving like a scared little chicken. But how Joseph and Jasmine would have suffered to know about the situation she was in!
Lapointe had clapped his hand. Instantly, the door to the second room had opened and two young câpresses appeared, barefoot and wearing gingham dresses. They had long, wiry hair that fanned out over their shoulders in waves, and skin the color of sapodilla. Their faces bore no expression, as they kept their eyes lowered.
“Here are your bodyguards,” said Lapointe to Minette. “For your safety, they’ll lie at your feet. You, Fleurette, take care of Mistress’s bath,” he said to the slave with a little beauty mark over her upper lip, “and you, Roseline, take that bag and accompany Mistress to the blue room. You are not to leave her unless she requests it.”
“Yes, Master,” they responded.
Minette followed them. It was actually quite amusing to be served like an important lady. So this is how wealthy free women live, mused the young girl. Slaves who call them Mistress, little companions as attentive as lapdogs – who follow them around and anticipate their every desire, men and women they purchase and over whom they have the power of life and death. What luxury! “We’ll receive you like a queen.” Lapointe had certainly kept his promise about that: he was introducing her to the high life.
The two slaves brought Minette to a room decorated with blue curtains, a bed made of white wood, and a table topped by a beveled mirror. A few books were placed on the shelves. A plant with pink flowers bloomed in a crystal vase, set on a small table.
“Lie down, Mistress,” said Fleurette, taking off Minette’s madras headscarf.
“I’ll go heat the bath water,” said Roseline, removing Minette’s shoes.
She took away the mud-encrusted shoes for cleaning.
Minette felt uncomfortable. Being served like this without wanting to protest, without trying to do for oneself the things being done by a slave kneeling at your feet, without offering a word or a look of thanks must take a great deal of getting used to. Abandoning herself to Fleurette’s eager hands, she had let herself be undressed somewhat despite herself. She found it daunting to be nude. She tried to tell herself that Fleurette was merely a slave, bought by Lapointe and placed in her service for a couple of days, but she could not help but feel uncomfortable in front of this stranger who was going through her suitcase and removing her blouse. When Roseline came to get her for the bath, she was unpleasantly surprised to see her enter carrying a bathrobe, in which she wrapped Minette and then removed skillfully before guiding her into the bath. Minette let herself relax into the wide, tin-plate bath filled with warm water, into which fresh leaves, smelling of marjoram, had been crumbled. Then, the two slave girls rubbed her back, her arms, and her legs while softly humming a Creole song to themselves. Not the slightest indiscreet glance. Nothing but great assiduousness in their gestures and an expression that made plain their desire to please and to do a good job.
Minette stepped out of the bath, refreshed and perfumed.
When she went back into the bedroom, Fleurette had already laid out one of her outfits, with matching madras scarf and shawl on the bed. As Roseline hurried to dress her in a clean shirt, Minette stopped her and took her hands.
“That’s enough now, my dears,” she said to them in her abrupt manner. “You may leave me now.”
Fleurette chewed on her upper lip, with its beauty mark just above it, and Roseline lowered her head guiltily.
“Mistress was not satisfied?”
Seeing their chagrined faces, Minette felt a twinge of remorse, which she quickly stifled, for she found the presence of the two girls discomfiting. Would she be obliged during the length of her stay there (for she would certainly stay, she knew that now) – would she be obliged to have these two over-eager attendants hanging around her constantly, encroaching on her solitude? They were very young – they seemed to be between fourteen and sixteen years old. They were cheerful, healthy, and dull. Never would she agree to such company.
“Would you like us to scratch your head, Mistress?”
“To tickle the soles of your feet?
“To massage your hands?”
“Your back?”
Minette smiled. That was the way of the Creole slave: hypocritical, flattering, perverse. Poor little things! she then said to herself. It isn’t their fault. Jasmine must have had to do the same things. They were the product of their circumstances, and from their earliest childhood they had learned to honor their master’s slightest whim. How could they possibly resign themselves to that? I would die – or I’d maroon, thought Minette. They had begun to roll on the floor, weeping.
“The master will punish us,” whimpered Roseline, kissing her feet. “Please let us stay, Mistress, let us stay.”
This could not be true. Lapointe allowed his slaves to be beaten? She could not believe it. The girls must be exaggerating to get a reaction from me, she said to herself again.
“Why are you lying?” she shouted at them. “You’ve never been beaten.”
They looked at one another slyly for a moment and took on a closed and hypocritical expression.
Without looking at them again, Minette put on a green skirt and white blouse. She then tied a flowered shawl around her chest and added the brooch she had bought with Magdeleine Brousse at Miss Monnot’s shop. She did not put on her madras headscarf but gathered her hair into two thick braids, which she tied with a green ribbon. Then she took the slaves by the hand and went out onto the gallery with them.
Jean-Baptiste Lapointe was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs between two saddled and bridled horses. Seeing her so beautiful, he trembled as he walked to meet her.
“We meet again,” he said in a low voice.
“That’s a man for you – can’t stand even a minute of dissatisfaction.”
“I love you,” he said to her, again without hesitation.
“Oh, no! Not in front of witnesses.”
“What witnesses?”
“Those two, over there.”
She gestured toward the two girls.
“Them! But they’re slaves.”
He said this with a horribly disdainful tone.
Minette was petrified with surprise. And so it was true. He was a slave-driver like any other. He was one of those vicious planters who considered the poor souls he bought as little more than animals! Without suspecting what was going on inside Minette, Lapointe signaled for the slave girls to leave them. He then clasped Minette’s hand and brought it to his lips.
“Oh, leave me be!” she shouted at him.
“I love you,” he repeated.
“Yes, but I cannot love a man of my race who calls his slaves ‘slaves’ with the same voice as a white planter.”
His expression changed suddenly. Any trace of tenderness disappeared from his face. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“I was speaking to you of love,” he spat out harshly.
“What’s love, if one doesn’t admire the person one wants to love.”
He pretended not to understand her.
“But I adore you.”
“I don’t feel the same.”
“Do you have reason not to?”
“I hate planters.”
“And I hate them just as much as I hate slaves.”
“Yet, the latter have made you rich.”
He began to walk. An expression of dreadful rancor hardened his face; a wrinkle appeared between his brows, just in the middle of his forehead.
“They remind me of my own circumstances in this society. Oh! You’ll never understand me…”
Despite that observation, he went on, as if pushed by some terrible force:
“My whole life I’ve suffered being who I am. My whole life, I’ve been insulted, ridiculed, and humiliated. I studied – is there any book I haven’t read? Those that preach resignation as well as those calling for revolt. And when you read them, what do you find – hot air, nothing but hot air. You cross your arms and say to yourself, ‘Well now, I know a lot of things, but what does it all get me?’ ”
He broke a branch off a bush while walking, and sharply whipped the side of his pants.
“This – this is life…”
He opened his arms wide as if to embrace a great expanse.
“Yes, this – taking, earning as much as possible, accumulating, imposing yourself through money, countering all the insults as much as possible, killing, beating, taking revenge, and viciously biting into all the little joys life offers.”
She looked at him. Despite his violent attitude, there was something charming – both infantile and cruel – emanating from him. In pronouncing those last words, he had bitten his lip and his beautiful teeth were like a white stain on his dark mouth.
“I hate the Whites as much as the Blacks. The former despise me and the latter debase me. I hate the female slave that was my mother – her race is cursed.”
“Your mother isn’t responsible for anything. You know that perfectly well,” protested Minette.
“Oh! All that’s nothing but words. Female slaves sleep with any master and we suffer the consequences. I didn’t ask to be born. What do I have running through my veins? The bastard blood of a Mulatto – and that of an ignorant and superstitious African. I hate them both.”
He burst out into hollow and desperate laughter.
“How could you have imagined for even one second that I lived in some stupid sort of cozy little freedman’s family?”
“You wrote to me…”
“You misunderstood the tone of my letter. The ‘we,’ though perhaps ambivalent, meant the slaves and me. I have nothing to be sorry for. In any case, be clear on one thing: I have never violated a woman in my life – my pride would never allow it.”
She felt she needed to say something to him.
“I trust you,” she murmured.
Yes, she knew he would never be content with doing such things. He would do worse perhaps: his eyes, his gestures, his words – they all suggested as much. He would do worse, there was no question – for nothing in him sought to deceive. His gaze had the force of steel; his body was built for battle. He gave the impression of an immovable rock, and his strength seemed prodigious.
“Those are just words,” he spat. “Usually, people detest me, and that’s normal.”
That admission revealed such great suffering to Minette that she turned toward him. He had stopped walking, out of breath, his eyes aflame, and his shaking hands breaking the branch into the tiniest pieces.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said, overwhelmed.
“I always answer questions.”
“Why did you kill that white sailor?”
“Which one? I’ve killed many. I’d kill a thousand Whites every day for pure sport. I hate them.”
“Do you realize that you’ve just called yourself a murderer?”
“But there are nothing but assassins all around me. What do you call the Whites who maim their slaves and torture them to death?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Minette.
Finding nothing to respond, she threw herself onto the wet grass of the garden and began to weep. He knelt down beside her and said: “No, no, don’t cry,” and then stayed quiet for a long moment, until she finally raised her head.
And then, as if inspired by painful memories he could not wait to share with her, he went on.
“I didn’t want to hate, believe me. No, I don’t think I was born for that…There was once a time, oh! I was very young, and interested in science. I hoped someday to become a great doctor…I was made to understand that such a profession was forbidden to us…”
He was quiet for a moment then continued:
“A few months ago, I boarded a ship heading for Cap-Français. I met a young white lady on board who had come from France, and she found me charming. That evening, she joined me on the bridge reserved for people of color. When we disembarked, I found myself mixed up among the white passengers. The young lady had taken my arm. On seeing us, several people couldn’t hide their shock. Knowing what was going to happen, I was looking for a way to get away from the young lady and escape when two planters came up to me and threatened to strike me if I didn’t leave immediately.
“ ‘But why?’ asked the lady.
“ ‘He’s colored,’ answered one of the Whites.
“ ‘Colored?’ exclaimed the lady uncomprehending.
“ ‘Yes, the son of a slave. He has to respect the law, which forbids him to mingle with us.’ ”
He lowered his head and closed his eyes as if to hold back tears.
“And it’s always been like that, for all of us…”
“Hush,” protested Minette. “You’re getting upset.”
“Upset,” he responded. “I’m used to it by now.”
Then, cutting himself off, he ran his hand over his eyes, shivered as if just waking from a bad dream, and became distant again.
“Excuse me for bothering you with all of this.”
He turned his head toward the house.
“The horses are ready. Do you want me to accompany you back to town?”
“I came to stay.”
“You will, then?”
Immediately, his face became youthful again and so tender that Minette’s heart melted with sweetness. Oh! To love him – to love him despite it all. To close my eyes and just say, “Oh, well.” To accept him as he is, or to transform him through love.
“You will, then? Oh! I’ve been so thrilled to welcome you here. With each passing day I said to myself, ‘She’s going to come, she’s going to come,’ and now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here,” responded Minette.
He was suddenly a completely different man.
“I refused to dance with you,” he said, chewing on a blade of grass. “Ask me why.”
“I refuse.”
“Go ahead, you prideful one, you – ask me why. Fine, you refuse. Well then, I’m still going to tell you, so there’ll be no misunderstandings between us. You were dressed like a white woman. I detested you.”
“And when did you begin to love me?”
“I loved you from the first moment I saw you.”
His voice had become serious again. He turned toward her.
“Minette, people close to me call me Jean.”
“Jean,” she said.
He took her in his arms and crushed her into him.
She had tipped her head back and her lips were parted in a smile. He took her mouth so greedily that she moaned. He growled with desire and, without pulling away from her, stood up and carried her to the door of the salon, which two slaves had opened for him.
When Minette was standing again, he held her with such violence that she resisted.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!”
He stepped back for a moment and went to lean against the windowsill. Minette went to join him. From the distance, the sound of an old Creole song reached their ears. Hundreds of voices chanted a sweet, sad melody to the rhythm of drums.
“Listen,” said Lapointe to her. “The slaves are singing!”
“Yours?”
“Yes. The workhouse is just a few yards from here. I’ll take you there tomorrow if you’d like.”
The sound of the conch suddenly pierced the silence. The two dogs barked at full throttle and the slaves stopped singing as if cocking their ears.
“The conch!” cried Minette.
“The maroons’ conch,” added Lapointe. “My Negroes have stopped singing – they’re interpreting the message. They’ll be nervous tomorrow. It’s a pity, but I’ll send orders to the overseer to watch them closely. The work mustn’t suffer because of this. I’ve got more than fifty sacks of sugar to send out next month.”
The spell was broken. Minette, a faraway look in her eyes, saw in her mind the immense workhouse, the sordid huts, the backs hunched over under the arid sun, the overseer’s whip, the punishments, the tortures…
She turned toward him. He was looking out the window again at the neighboring hills, upright like gigantic dark masses under the suddenly bright sky. He pointed a finger in the direction of one corner of the sky.
“Hauts Pitons Mountain!” he said. “They’re all running toward that hill but they’ll leave it someday.”
“Please, don’t talk about all of that,” begged Minette. “It’s one thing I just can’t understand about you.”
He took her roughly by the shoulders and pulled her to him.
“Do you at least understand the rest of me?”
He searched her face and it was as if his black eyes were shooting flames into her.
“Oh!” sighed Minette, “What a misfortune it is to love you!”
He silenced her with a kiss.
“To love without bounds would be true happiness.”
She resisted briefly and extracted herself from his grasp.
“But why, why? Oh! There are so many questions I want to ask you…To know, to understand who you are. It’s no easy task. You’re impenetrable.”
Despite it all, she remembered his attitude, his expressions, the other side of his personality that had made his hands tremble and had contorted his young face while he told her about himself. What did he mean when he said, “I hate the Whites as much as I hate the Negroes.” He had suffered – she had the proof in those revelations he had made, and now he was taking his revenge as an anarchist who took neither one nor the other side and was content with selfish satisfactions. But he could be forgiven, thought Minette.
“But still, you work with Lambert,” she said suddenly, without realizing that she was betraying a secret.
He jumped as if he had just been struck by a whip on the nape of his neck.
“Lambert!” he exclaimed. “How do you know about that?”
He burst into laughter and continued:
“Oh, I see – you’re one of Zoé’s recruits!”
“And you?”
“Me, I’m an individualist who fanatics like de Beauvais and Lambert take for a destroyer of Whites. And besides, their cause interests me in one way: I swore that before my death I’d enjoy the privileges laid out in the Black Code. I will claim our civil and political rights, along with all the others.”
She threw herself against him, delirious with happiness.
“Jean, Jean,” she murmured. “I was so afraid. Finally, I’ve understood. I feared loving you, while hating you at the same time…”
He cut her off and, moving away, looked her straight in the eyes.
“Hold on there, I’m not one to help slaves run away.”
What does that matter? Minette said to herself, as long as he understands the situation – as long as he’s close to Joseph and the Lamberts. What does it matter – that touch of cynicism in his voice – as long as he’s brave, rebellious, and a fighter. No, he isn’t an assassin and he was right to kill! She herself had felt that temptation one day at the market when she had watched young slaves being sold as they wept.
“Oh, it’s all just so wrong, it’s just so wrong,” she sighed.
She walked away from him and looked up at the sky. An immense glow was visible through the branches of a mango tree, like a moving lantern. The young man came over to embrace her. They went back down the stone staircase and walked toward the alley lined with heavy-smelling orange trees in bloom.
He picked some flowers, which she put in her hair. Then he told her she resembled Myris, and how much he had liked one of the melodies from The Beautiful Arsène.
“I made the trip just to see you perform,” he admitted to her.
So she immediately began singing for him:
I seem young,
But I’m more than a hundred years old.
I remember that in my youth
A particular fairy, to whom I was too precious,
Gave me a gift – it was the gift of pleasing
Grace, talent, beauty, the art of seducing,
That was my fate…
You see me in my original form
I see myself again at fifteen years old.
“What a voice you have!” said Lapointe, looking at her admiringly.
Roseline and Fleurette came to offer them dinner. Two place settings had been laid in the front room. They sat down and four young male slaves immediately began to flutter around them, anticipating their slightest gestures.
It was a veritable pageant of delicious courses and Minette, remembering Jasmine’s meager meals, enthusiastically consumed the chicken and many desserts. Lapointe poured her a drink and raised his glass to her health. At the end of the meal, the two of them had managed to empty a good bottle of Bordeaux. When Minette wanted to rise from her seat, she stumbled a bit and, laughing, leaned against the table. He put his arm around her and led her outdoors beneath the trees, where the slaves had set up hammocks. She refused to lie down, claiming she had eaten too much.
“You’re not a true Creole, then,” he said to her.
“Yes,” she responded, “but no one’s ever gotten me accustomed to such luxury.”
The young man’s face darkened. He got into a hammock and was immediately joined by Roseline and Fleurette. Kneeling next to him, one began scratching his head, while the other, squatting, hummed and played a mandolin. She sang a lascivious and melancholy song while staring at her master with eyes filled with devotion.
“Minette,” said Jean-Baptiste Lapointe all of a sudden, “allow me not to make any changes to my lifestyle during your time here.”
He rose from the hammock and whistled for his enormous dogs, who immediately ran over.
He turned to his servants:
“Watch over your mistress.”
Before they could even respond, Minette protested.
“Oh, no – you aren’t going to impose these two girls on me. I, for one, do not need slaves.”
“Will you feel safe without your ‘bodyguards’?”
“What do I have to fear?” responded Minette. “Only your dogs scare me.”
“You don’t recognize your fiercest protectors, then.”
“Perhaps, but I prefer to be alone.”
“You should feel perfectly at home here.”
He clapped his hands twice and the two girls left them.
He had changed yet again. Why? said Minette to herself. Now what’s going on inside him? Might as well try to resolve an enigma. He looked at her in silence, in the half-light of the moon. A delightful feeling of trust spread over her, however, and relieved her of all worry. She had not thought for a moment about the Comédie or about Mesplès and her disappointment. A sweet lassitude spread through her limbs. Oh, to spend my life here, she thought. To lounge in a hammock myself – to hear myself called Mistress and deliver myself into the hands of adoring servants I would reign over with kindness! She raised her eyes to Lapointe. He was looking at her silently:
“You are very beautiful,” he simply said.
She lowered her head. She was not going to let herself get carried away. No. She desired him too much for that. Why wasn’t he speaking? Why wasn’t he trying to do anything about the awkwardness between them?
“Farewell,” he said quietly.
“Jean!”
She cried out to him – throwing herself into his arms.
In the little wood house, the candles burned out one by one. Slaves lying on mats slept in the gallery. Fleurette and Roseline had disappeared. Only the night stood between the lovers, a night rendered golden by the moon, whose rays penetrated into the bedroom, sprinkling Minette’s loosened hair with shimmering scales that Lapointe collected with his lips.