by Rita Woods
Marcel Quennelle’s plantation appeared like a wound in the forest.
Spread out on a narrow plain tucked against the mountain, the three riders could see the straight line of the cocoa trees and beyond that, the coffee groves, all eerily empty. Dreyfus halted his horse at the edge of the forest and peered over his shoulder at the two women.
“Ninette, you are sure of this?” he asked. “Thierry…”
“André, Thierry is meeting with planters near Saint-Raphaël. Quennelle is un porc. He respects no one. Respects nothing except the écus that line his pockets. But he fears my husband. Needs his connections—and his goodwill—if he wishes to continue shipping his coffee at a fair price. We will come to no harm here.” She laughed, but her round face was gray and there were dark red blotches beneath her eyes. “Besides, André, you seem to think that I am some delicate flower that wilts without the protective cover of her husband.”
The corner of Dreyfus’s mouth turned upward and he bowed in his saddle. “As you wish, Madame.”
They moved cautiously out into the open, riding side by side in silence. They had nearly cleared the cocoa trees before they saw anyone. An old man stood at the base of one of the trees swinging a machete. With one smooth movement, he freed a sun-colored cocoa pod from a branch and slipped it into the sack that was slung across his shoulder. He glanced up at their approach, his dark, wrinkled face blank, then returned to his task, as if they were of no more interest to him than the flock of birds overhead. The white man and woman exchanged a glance and rode on.
Quennelle’s house was as large as Abigail remembered, but as they rode closer, it was clear that its prime had long passed. The whitewashed stone was faded and peeled. Shingles were missing from the roof. A dark blue shutter hung crookedly from a top window. As they rode into the courtyard, a tall, dark-haired man, barely out of his teens, stepped from the porch and walked slowly to meet them. Abigail inhaled nervously and gripped the saddle, damp from sweat after the long ride. The man was armed, as were the other men she could see lurking at the edges of the yard.
“Bonjour,” called Dreyfus.
The dark-haired man stopped a few yards away, feet planted widely, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his hat. He didn’t return the greeting.
“We have come to call on Monsieur Quennelle,” said Dreyfus.
“Monsieur Quennelle is busy,” said the man, his tone insolent. Ninette Rousse made a sound in the back of her throat, and the man raised his head to look at her.
“I am Madame Rousse, mistress of Far Water,” Madame Rousse said. Her voice was tight. “We will speak to Monsieur Quennelle.”
“He is not receiving guests … Madame.” The man smirked. “But I shall let him know you called.”
Abigail felt her mistress stiffen beside her.
“I do not need a serving boy to relay my messages for me,” snapped Madame Rousse. “Especially one who does not know how to speak to those above his station.”
The man’s face went white. Abigail desperately tried to catch her mistress’s eye. She knew men like these blancs, men who swam up from the sewers of cities and towns everywhere. They came to this place because even their own people would not have them. They did the dirty work of the plantations: the beatings and tortures, the hunting of the runaways. She had heard that they were even rewarded on some plantations for siring babies with young slave girls. Thierry Rousse called them garbage and would not have them at Far Water.
These blancs might dress like men, might even speak the language of men, but they were not men. They were dangerous animals. Her mistress would have been safer poking a wild pig with a stick.
“My station?” snarled the man. His hand tightened on his gun.
Madame Rousse waved her hand dismissively. “Run along, boy. Get your master.”
Abigail stared. Perhaps it was the heat, the strain of the ride. Ninette Rousse was not a stupid woman. So she must have gone mad. Why was she deliberately provoking this boy, speaking to him in a tone she never even used with her slaves? She felt the heat of the blanc’s outrage even from where she sat.
Dreyfus was off his horse in an instant.
“Sir,” he said, speaking as calmly as if he were standing in the Rousse parlor. “Madame Rousse is very tired and is, as you can see, with child. I’m sure if you let Monsieur Quennelle know we are here…”
Abigail watched the muscles work in the younger man’s face. He looked from Madame Rousse to Dreyfus and back again, his hands locked on the grip of his gun.
“I told you he was busy,” the man said, finally.
“And we do so hate to impose,” said Dreyfus gently. “But it is imperative.”
The man caught her looking and Abigail flinched, quickly dropping her eyes to the donkey’s back.
“And what is this nègre then?” asked the man.
“She belongs to Madame.”
There was a long silence before the man spoke. “Bien,” he said at last. “Attendez ici.”
He turned sharply and disappeared around the side of the house, the other men following, leaving them alone in the courtyard. Dreyfus whirled on Madame Rousse, his face twisting.
“Have you completely lost your mind, Ninette? Baiting that boy like that? He was ready to knock you from your horse!”
The white woman’s eyes flashed fire.
“Those men are nothing. Less than nothing. It is creatures like them—basse classe—that are the root of all our problems,” she said, her voice hard. “They torture the nègres, steal their children, do unthinkable things to their women. No wonder the maroons hate us.”
“That may be,” snapped Dreyfus. “Or not. But your name … and your husband’s will give no protection against men like him.”
Ninette Rousse trembled in her saddle, her knuckles white where she gripped the reins. Abigail leaned and wrapped a hand around her mistress’s wrist. The white woman started but didn’t pull away.
“Mistress Ninette,” she said softly. “A snake may be beneath your feet but its bite can still take your life.”
The young white woman blinked, and then slowly a grin spread across her face. Abigail released her wrist. She didn’t love her mistress but she didn’t hate her, either. She had been kind to her and her boys. And it would be to no one’s advantage if this crazy woman got them all killed.
“I shall remember that, Abigail,” said Ninette Rousse. She threw her head back, laughing out loud.
Dreyfus frowned, then faced the gran kay, turning his back on them. “Femmes,” he muttered.
“Bonjour, bonjour.”
Marcel Quennelle came waddling from the shabby estate house, his graying hair limp in the heat, his face as red as a coffee cherry.
“Dominic told me we had guests. What a pleasure.” He strode up to Madame and kissed her hand. The mistress caught Abigail’s eye as she surreptitiously wiped her hand on her skirt. Abigail bit her lip and pretended not to see.
“And Master Dreyfus,” exclaimed Quennelle, pumping the smaller man’s hand. “It has been long since we last met.”
The fat man made a great show of looking around.
“But where is your husband, Madame?”
“I come in his service,” Dreyfus said quickly, before Madame Rousse could answer. “We heard there was … some trouble with your slaves.”
“No trouble,” said Quennelle. Abigail could feel his eyes on her. “No trouble at all. I had a slave that was lost but now he is found.”
He laughed and bile rose in Abigail’s throat. She twisted the straw saddle in her fist.
“It is this slave we have come to speak to you about,” said her mistress.
“Yes?”
Madame Rousse nodded. She reached out one hand and Dreyfus lifted her to the ground. She walked quickly to Quennelle.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It will not take long.”
The planter frowned and glanced over his shoulder toward the house. Pulling a kerchief from his waistcoat, he wiped at his
flushed face.
“Pardonnez-moi, Madame,” he said, bowing slightly. “I am a poor host. It comes from long years as a bachelor. Please come in from this heat. We can drink something cool while we visit.”
Madame Rousse glanced back at Abigail.
“Your slave can wait in the quarter, if you like,” he said. The three whites disappeared into the house.
For a long moment Abigail didn’t move. She kept her eyes fixed on the donkey’s back. The animals stiff hair appeared almost as red as her mistress’s in the afternoon sun.
What did the mistress want with that cur, Quennelle? Ninette Rousse hated him. Maybe she was going to plead for Hercule’s life. Maybe she would buy him and bring him to Far Water. It was unlikely that she would try and save a slave accused of raising arms against the blancs. Even if that slave was Hercule. But maybe …
Abigail moaned and slid from the donkey, leading it toward the quarter. The quarter was as quiet as the cocoa fields and coffee groves had been. Slaves stood in the narrow spaces between their huts, still as ghosts. She recognized a few faces, had met them on the rare trips here to visit Hercule, but when they saw her, they turned away, their eyes wide, terrified.
She made her way to Hercule’s workshop. It stood empty, the door ajar. She tied up the donkey and stepped inside. The tools of her husband’s trade were arrayed neatly around the sparse shop: there were the staves, the wooden pieces that made up the sides of a barrel, all different lengths, and the winch for shaping them. There were the planes for smoothing the wood, and hoop hammers for pounding the metal rings onto the barrels. She fingered a round chip of wood, the size and smoothness of a coin, then laid her hand against a half-finished butter churn. She could smell him here, his thick, woody scent.
Oh, Hercule, what have you done?
A commotion outside brought her back to herself. Slipping the wooden disk into her pocket she pushed open the door and stepped back outside. All the slaves were heading for an open area beyond the grind house: men, women, children, their heads down, faces grim, were being herded like cattle down a narrow lane toward it. Abigail clenched her teeth and followed, the evil spirits whispering, whispering in her ear.
At the end of the lane the space opened up and the slaves stopped moving, but there was a murmuring, an angry vibration making its way through the crowd, like bees preparing to swarm. Abigail squinted to see what was happening, but tall as she was, all she could see was a sea of angry, dark faces. She pushed closer and a movement caught her eye. It was Dreyfus, looking ill, standing near a storage shed with Quennelle, away from the gathered slaves. He was staring at something. Abigail followed his eyes and screamed.
Through the crowd she could see that the ground rose slightly. Straw had been piled on the top of the mound, and tied to a pole, in the center of all that straw, was her Hercule.
Abigail clawed her way through the slaves and threw herself on him.
“Hercule,” she cried.
He barely seemed to register her. His battered face was shiny with swelling, blood matted the side of his head. She put her hand there and gagged. His ear was missing. Someone pulled at her from behind. She turned her head and snarled, spit flying from her lips, before turning back to her husband, no thought in her mind except that he should see her. She gritted her teeth and placed her palm against his head once again. Gently, she turned his face toward hers.
“Hercule,” she whispered.
He moaned and opened his one good eye.
“You missed supper last week,” she said, her face close to his. He struggled to say something, seemed to try and smile. “Do not think I will forget that, husband.”
More hands were on her now, yanking at her, grasping at her arms, her waist. Someone called her name. She wrenched free and wrapped her arms tightly around her husband, who was clearly looking at her now.
“Mwen renmen ou, Hercule. I love you. Mwen telman fache avék ou!”
“Mwen regret sa,” he murmured through torn lips. “I am so sorry, Abigail.”
They tore her hand from his face and still she clung to him, her fingers clutching at his clothes. “You will look at me,” she cried. “Only me. Ou konprann? Do you understand? Only at me.”
The white man called Dominic tore her free and threw her to the ground. He kicked her once, twice, but she felt nothing. Her eyes were locked on Hercule’s.
“Look at me,” she screamed. “Keep looking at me.”
Someone lit the straw and she saw Hercule jerk.
“Hercule. At me. Look at me. See only me, my love.”
His eyes were locked on hers, even as unseen hands tried to pull her away, even as the smell of cooking flesh began to fill the clearing. As the fire worked its way up his body, Hercule began to scream, an agonized, inhuman sound, and still she fought to stay near.
“Look at me, Hercule. Ou konprann? See only me.”
Abigail screamed the words again and again, until there was nothing in front of her but the roaring fire that drowned out her voice.
And even then she stood there, shivering despite the hellish heat.
“Come.”
It was Madame Rousse. But she didn’t respond. Abigail stood as if dead, her mind a black empty place, silent except for the roar of the fire. André Dreyfus picked her up, and the slaves of the Quennelle plantation silently stood aside as he carried her to the donkey and back to Far Water.
Gaelle
She was dreaming again, but this was not her dream. The air was thick and fragrant, the trees draped in moss. Everything—the house, the trees, the smells—were foreign to her. She heard the clip-clop of horse hooves on cobblestone, smelled smoke, thick and oily on the air. There was a flash of beautiful cloth, the color of a spring sky.
And then …
She was standing on the slope of a mountain. She knew this place. She felt a hitch of pain deep in her gut and inhaled sharply. Her grandmother had grown up in the nearby village and she and Rose had come every summer to these mountains, high over Gonaïves, far away from the dust and soot of the city. They’d spent countless hours running through the ruins of the old coffee and sugar plantations. But now Rose was in college in California and Grann … Grann had vanished on that horrible day when the earth had shaken Haiti to dust.
The forest spread out like a green carpet beneath her feet, as far as she could see. On the horizon, outlining the blue of the sky, was a darker band of blue, the Atlantic. Gaelle frowned, confused. There was something wrong about this place, something different.
And then it struck her.
She had never seen the mountain so green, so lush. Grann had spoken of the old days, the time of her grandmother’s grandmother, when their land had been a paradise of wild hibiscus and banana groves, when jaguars and monkeys roamed wild. But that was before the mountains had been stripped of the trees to make charcoal, the plains cleared to farm, and the bare hillsides scoured clean by mudslides.
A hint of smoke and something else, something she couldn’t quite name, caught her attention. She swallowed hard, then swallowed again, tasting it on her tongue. This was a dream, but not her dream, and she wanted to wake up. There was evil hiding here beneath all this beauty, she could feel it. But she was trapped here, in the Haiti of her ancestors. And she was alone.
She caught the scent of smoke again. And it felt more like a memory, a bad memory, than a dream.
There, off in the distance, a fire was burning, the smell sharp, organic, nearly overwhelming. Her mouth watered as bile rose in the back of her throat. There was something inside the flame, something that looked …
“Gaelle!”
She bolted upright. Toya was kneeling beside her, her round face pinched with worry. Mrs. Orr, the DON, and another nurse hovered nearby.
“Guy, what happened? Did you fall? Are you okay?”
She noticed the blood pressure cuff around her arm and tried to stand.
“No,” cried Mrs. Orr. “You need to take it slow.”
Gaelle
glanced behind them. The old woman sat motionless in the chair, her eyes fixed on the television screen.
“I … I am fine.” Toya held her firmly by the wrist, checking her pulse. “I was dizzy.”
“You fainted?” asked Toya, alarmed.
“I…” She ripped the cuff from her arm and pushed herself to her feet. “No. I am quite fine.” She shot another glance at the old woman.
“Gaelle, I think you should go home for the rest of the day,” said Mrs. Orr. The DON was a squat, nervous woman with dyed red hair. She stood gripping her cell phone in one hand, the clipboard she carried everywhere pressed against her chest with the other.
Gaelle shook her head, and for a moment everything swam out of focus. For a brief second she thought she smelled smoke.
“Yes,” she agreed reluctantly. “I will go home.” She felt an odd sensation in her wrist, an echo of the pain where the old woman had grabbed her.
“Should you see the doctor?”
“No.” She said it too quickly and saw everyone’s eyes widen. Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile.
“No. I just got dizzy,” she said again, feeling a wave of relief when the DON finally nodded.
“I’ll walk her out,” said Toya.
Stepping into the hall, Gaelle chanced a final look at the old woman, who sat still as stone in her chair. Minutes later, as she dragged her coat from her locker in the lounge, she could feel her friend’s eyes boring into her back.
“What is it?” she snapped, turning around.
Toya crossed her arms across her chest. “Don’t be gettin’ all snippy with me, girl. I ain’t the one.”
“I am sorry. I just…” She sighed.
“You didn’t just get dizzy, Guy. You were out cold.”
“I got dizzy.”
“Okay, fine.” Toya held her hands up in surrender. “Let’s go with that then.”
Gaelle rolled her eyes. As she pulled on her coat, she suddenly remembered the remote in her pocket. “Here, you give this to Mrs. Orr, yes?”
“What the hell, man?” Toya stared at it. “Is this the TV remote? What’d you do to it?”
She flinched, remembering the surge of heat down her arm that had finally made the old woman release her. It had seemed to come from everywhere. And she had not been in control. “I did nothing! I found it in the old woman’s bedcovers.”