The estate of Louis and Françoise Derbanne was officially dissolved.
* * *
For a long time Eugene Daurat and Doralise Derbanne both pretended they were asleep in their bed that night, not touching, facing opposite walls. Neither wanted to talk about the day.
Gerant was spending his first night away from Rosedew, sleeping in the back of Eugene’s storeroom. He was their new houseboy and would help in the store. Doralise had taken supper out to him earlier and stayed away talking to him for quite a while. When she returned she was unsociable, with few words for Eugene, and she went to bed early.
Cane River society had considered Eugene an eligible suitor when he first arrived among them, and he had been thrown together with any number of acceptable and available Creole daughters of French planters. Instead he was living with Doralise, a free woman of color who filled his days and frequented his dreams at night. Doralise Derbanne, with her smooth hazelnut skin and dark, silky eyelashes.
He would have married Doralise if he could, would have made her Doralise Derbanne Dupre Daurat. But that was against the law, a white man and a free woman of color. Like was only allowed to marry like, white to white, or free color to free color. Mixed could only pair up, and they paid a heavy price for their defiance. But he wanted her so badly that he had bribed the courts to grant her a divorce from her crazy husband, a gens de couleur libre who had tried to kill her with a knife one morning as she was fixing his breakfast. And he went down to the courthouse again to gift her his land and his house, to convince her just how sincere he was.
His white neighbors were not as friendly as they had been to him before he moved Doralise into his house, and he could not take her into the homes of any of his white friends or relatives; but they had an active social life among the gens de couleur libre.
At last Eugene heard soft breathing that signaled Doralise had fallen into a disturbed sleep. The entire business with the sale had created a strain between them. The few times they talked about his children openly and frankly, she seemed disappointed in how he discharged his responsibility toward Gerant and Philomene. Doralise reproached him now, even in sleep.
Each time Eugene closed his eyes, he saw a vivid picture of the three of them in the dripping rain that afternoon. Suzette was mouthing words he could not hear as she clutched the two small figures gathered in her skirts. Gerant’s tears mingled with the drizzle, his mouth open. Only Philomene was dry-eyed, staring openly at Eugene with a look he could neither identify nor erase.
Unable to lie still any longer, he got up from the bed and found the papers he had left on the table. He had already started to prepare one of the duplicates he would file with the courthouse, copying out in his cramped handwriting his day’s work. The weight of the single page of the original record felt insubstantial as he held it. He would have to prepare yet another copy tomorrow before he was finished with this business, before he could place this one with all of the other plantation records, signifying the end of Rosedew.
The room was too dark for him to read the ink on the page. He didn’t want to light the lamp and disturb Doralise, and he could recall each entry from memory anyway, each transaction a permanent part of him now. Eugene ran his fingers across the page, guessing at the areas toward the bottom on the paper that contained the names of his children, the lines that described their individual fates.
* * *
5 February 1850, sale of community property of Louis Derbanne and Françoise Rachal: To Henry Hertzog for $15,275: a plantation whereon deceased resided on both sides of Cane River, containing 778.76 acres, with all buildings and improvements, bounded on the left bank above by Henry Hertzog, and below by Ambroise Lecomte; on the right bank above by Old River and Alexander L. DeBlieux and below by the Widow Françoise Mulon, free woman of color (fwc).
(sale adjourned until following day)
6 February, 1850
Slave, B ERTRAM , Negro age 70, health not guaranteed,
to Doctor Danglais
$345
Slave, A THENASE , Negro man age 60, not guaranteed,
to Mr. G. Guy
$105
Slave, B ERNARD , Negro age 55, not guaranteed,
to Emanuel Rachal
$350
Slave, D ICK , Negro man age 50, fully guaranteed,
to Madame T. Landry
$510
Slave, G ERASÍME , Negro age 45, not guaranteed,
to Hypolite Hertzog
$1,305
Slave, I GNACE , mulatto age 43, fully guaranteed,
to Azenor Farron
$1,005
Slave, F RANÇOIS , Negro age 40, not guaranteed,
to Antoine B. Rachal
$1,025
Slave, A MANDEE , Negro age 25, fully guaranteed
to Jacquitte Rachal (fmc)
$1,555
Slave, A ZENOR , Negro age 25, fully guaranteed
to DeBlieux brothers
$1,565
Slave, S OLATAIRE , Negro age 23, fully guaranteed
to Mrs. Eliza Greneaux
$1,560
Slave, M ARIE J EANNE , Negress age 75, not guaranteed
to Bertrand Plaissance
$25
Slave, L UCY , Negress age 55, not guaranteed
to Madame T. Landry
$605
Slave, L AFILLE , Negress age 40, not guaranteed
to J. B. Charleville
$885
Slave, E LIZA , Negress age 27 and son C LEMENT , age 10
to J. M. Tessier
$1,615
Slave, C AROLINE , Negress age 24 and S EVERIN , age 2
to François Gascion
$1,030
Slave, M ARGUERITTE , Negress age 25, fully guaranteed
to Joseph Ganier Sr.
$1,190
Slave, E LISABETH , Negress age 48, not guaranteed
to Narcisse Fredieu
$800
Slave, P HOEBE , Negress age 30
to Benoist Lavespere
$900
Slave, E UGER , Negro age 11
to Hypolite Hertzog
$750
Slave, S UZETTE , Negress age 26, & child P HILOMENE , mulatto age 9
to Joseph Ferrier
$1,400
Slave, G ERANT , mulatto age 11, fully guaranteed
to Eugene Daurat
$975
Slave, A PPHIA , Negress 28 & children P HEME , 3, & F LORENAL , 8 mo.
to Madame Elisida Metoyer (fwc)
$1,400
Slave, L AIDE , age 11, fully guaranteed
to Antoine Radish
$900
Slave, P ALMIRE , Negress, deaf and dumb, age 30, not guaranteed
to Joseph Ferrier
$950
Witnessed and signed by Eugene Daurat, executor of the last will and testament of Françoise Rachal, widow of Louis Derbanne
Derbanne plantation bill of sale, 1850.
* * *
10
T he longing for each member of her family had become as real to Suzette as the flesh-and-blood people themselves had been and thickened the black fog that surrounded her in her exhaustion day and night. The Ferrier farm was much smaller than Rosedew, but there was only Ferrier, Oreline, Palmire, Suzette, and Philomene to bring in the crops and keep the household running. Suzette performed mechanically, doing whatever was expected of her, struggling to get up and begin each new day.
Her family had been divided up among seven different plantations along the nineteen-mile length of Cane River, scattered like the fuzzy dandelion wish-weeds she’d dreamed on as a child. When she was young she would close her eyes and make a wish and then bring the flower up to her mouth to blow the seeds away, giving them up to the capricious winds to find their own direction. After two years on Ferrier’s farm she trampled the weeds under her feet without even seeing them.
One muggy Wednesday, wash day, Suzette and Philomene were alone at the bend of the creek that twisted behi
nd the farmhouse.
“What’s wrong now, Maman?” Philomene asked, worry flooding her smooth buttermilk-colored face. She had the washboard pressed firmly between her knees, scrubbing at a dark jam stain on the tiny beige dress that belonged to Oreline’s daughter.
How could Suzette tell Philomene that as a grown woman of twenty-eight, what unsettled her most about the shape her life had taken was the absence of the everyday scent of her own mother, the easy knowledge that her family was within her reach? Sometimes, when she was preparing dinner for everyone on the farm, she half expected to look up and see Elisabeth wrist deep in flour, giving form to a pie crust.
“I miss my family around me” was all Suzette could manage.
“I’m right here, and so is Aunt Palmire. Gerant isn’t so far away with Papa and Madame Doralise.”
Suzette winced, the word like a blow. When the girl first started calling Eugene Daurat “Papa,” Suzette had made her go out and pick a peach tree switch from outside the cookhouse on Rosedew. She’d whipped Philomene until her legs bled, but no matter how many times she had tried to teach her, it had no lasting effect.
“What have I told you about that word?” Suzette snapped.
“There’s nobody here but us, Maman,” Philomene said defiantly.
“You go looking for trouble in the wrong place with that talk and they’ll give it to you.”
“I am Philomene Daurat, and he is Papa.”
“Hush. I do not have the patience.”
Suzette began to hum. When the longing came down on her, like today, she would make up melancholy tunes. The off-pitch notes helped her to stay connected, at least for a while. It was almost like being able to talk to Elisabeth, reaching back along the chain, touching her mother’s spirit and the spirits of those she didn’t know who had come before.
“We see Mémère Elisabeth on Sunday,” Philomene offered, as if sensing her thoughts. “And Gerant. That will make you feel better.”
“Family is everything, Philomene. Do not ever forget that. A tree without roots cannot survive.”
“Can I carry the pass Sunday?”
“Just do your work,” Suzette instructed, but the girl wasn’t silent for long.
“What is it like in the field?”
“I pray you never know.”
“It looks harder than housework.”
“That’s trying to measure standing against stooping. Both aim to grind you down,” Suzette said tiredly.
Suzette had spent her life on Rosedew standing, indoors and outdoors, standing in the presence of white folks, waiting for them to decide what she needed to do for them next. The only time she was permitted off her feet was when she was down on her hands and knees scrubbing or on her back in secret. She was on call to any number of mistresses or masters, snatching a bite to eat whenever she could, waiting for the whim of the next white person of any age who crossed her path.
“See this burn?” Suzette stepped back from the clothes soaking in the tub and thrust out her left hand. “From pressing damp clothes with the hot irons.” She pulled up her sleeve. “This one here? From putting out the grease fire before it could spread. Your mémère Elisabeth has a quarter moon burned into her arm from a kitchen scald, just like she had been branded. Sometimes I can barely catch my breath at night after standing over the smoky stove all day. My bad shoulder was sprung from carrying firewood, or toting water, or lugging clothes back to the house. Who knows which? Now each harvest my fingers split from picking, and nothing can take away the headaches and back pains from stooping in the cotton field all day with no shade.”
“Clement goes to field and doesn’t get a headache,” Philomene said.
“Clement again,” Suzette said. “How would you know about Clement’s head?”
“Madame Doralise. We tell her our messages, and she passes them back and forth between us.”
“You need to put that boy out of your mind,” Suzette warned.
“When we get older, I’m going to marry Clement,” Philomene declared.
“Hush that talk, there is no future there. You’re too young, and the brown-skinned boy is all the way over to M’sieu Tessier’s plantation.”
Philomene tipped the dirty suds water out of the tub and began to refill it with river water from the wooden bucket. She changed the subject. “When I carry water out to M’sieu Ferrier and Palmire, they go down the rows, one after the other, Palmire plowing and M’sieu Ferrier dropping the seed.”
“M’sieu Ferrier never owned house or field before,” Suzette sniffed. “Owner of a farm not even big enough to have a name of its own.”
“Is Madame Oreline still quality?”
“She has come down since Rosedew, for a fact, but she is still a Derbanne. At least M’sieu knows better than to let her do her own laundry. And he stays up to the farmhouse at night and leaves us alone. Could be worse.”
“Maman?”
Suzette looked up, alert. Philomene had slipped into the coldness of her glimpsing voice. “I’m here,” Suzette said carefully.
“It will be all right, Maman. One day we will all be together again, I see it,” Philomene said, her voice flat.
From anyone else, the reassuring words could be dismissed as an idle comment, a hope, or a comforting daydream. Philomene did not deal in any of those realms. Sometimes the girl knew things, with certainty. She had seen the fox get into the henhouse two nights before they lost two of their best pullets. She had pinpointed the exact location where the mudslide would bury an oxcart six months before it happened. Those hard, dry eyes darkened, her mouth would tighten starting at the jaw, and she would announce something whose time was not yet here.
“What do you mean? Who will be together?” Suzette asked softly.
Philomene straightened up from over the washtub as she wiped her hands on her apron, eyes barely closed, concentration etched in her face.
“I can see us inside a house, in a room filled with people,” she said. “Like a dining room. Not here. Not Rosedew. Someplace I have never seen before. You are sitting down at the head of a long table, and there are bowls and platters piled high with food. You look old, Maman, and your hair is mostly gray. You seem different, happy.”
“Who else is there?” Suzette was careful not to disturb the stream of her daughter’s glimpsing.
“Every chair around the table is taken, with a smaller table off to the side. A children’s table. I see you, Gerant, and me. Mémère Elisabeth is at the big table, sitting at the other end. Madame Doralise is there, too, talking to a light-colored man with big teeth and a wide smile. And some other people I do not know. It is mixed up. You and Mémère are sitting down, but there is a white man sitting, too, friendly, holding a baby. Gerant is standing, laughing. He is much taller than now. And another baby. No, at least two more babies.”
“Is Palmire there?”
“No, Maman. I don’t see Palmire or Grandpère Gerasíme anywhere in the room.”
* * *
Narcisse Fredieu and his delicate young wife, Tranquillin, came to the farm that evening, as they did one or two times each week, to share supper and evening entertainment with Oreline and Joseph Ferrier.
Suzette cooked a turtle stew, and Philomene helped serve. Clearing away the dishes between the entrée and the dessert, Suzette noticed how prosperous Narcisse looked alongside Ferrier, how smooth and free of calluses his hands were. Narcisse dominated the supper table with his big laugh and self-assured voice.
After supper the two couples retired to the front room, along with the children. Ferrier brought out the tiles, and he and Narcisse began to play maroc while Oreline and Tranquillin embroidered by the fireplace, trading Cane River gossip. Tranquillin was a Creole woman of the backcountry with gold-flecked hair and a heart-shaped mouth, good-naturedly quiet. She came from a reasonably good family and was younger than Narcisse by at least ten years.
Suzette put the dishes in to soak and sent Philomene to serve the coffee. No sooner had the girl le
ft the kitchen than she noticed that Philomene had forgotten to put the liqueur on the tray. Suzette grabbed the bottle by its thin neck and hurriedly followed close on the heels of her daughter.
“Café?” Philomene said as she entered the front room, hands full. Suzette turned the hallway corner just in time to see Narcisse give Philomene a distinct look of possessiveness. Suzette began silently to count off her blessings. Philomene is with me. Palmire is near. Gerant is not in the field. Mère Elisabeth is healthy. She repeated them over and over in her head to keep the threatening black fog at a distance. But as she helped Philomene serve, she couldn’t rid herself of the lingering sour taste that lodged itself at the back of her mouth.
* * *
On Sunday Suzette, Philomene, and Palmire took the shortcut through the woods instead of the road to Narcisse Fredieu’s farm. They could make good time, less than an hour, if they walked briskly. The permission pass for the three of them was well worn, pressed against the flesh under Suzette’s blouse.
“Will Papa come with Madame Doralise, Maman?” Philomene asked, holding fast to Palmire, swinging their linked hands between them.
“You ask me—you, who looks to the future? All I know is that she said she will bring Gerant.” Suzette smiled in anticipation. “Today would be even better if Père Gerasíme could come. But we’ll see him next month when they bring him to play for the soirée of M’sieu Narcisse.”
Gerasíme was four hours north toward Cloutierville by foot. They walked to see him when they could, which wasn’t often. The distance was great, and his hip was too damaged for him to walk to them. He had been sold to Hypolite Hertzog, the brother of the man who had bought Rosedew.
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