Book of the Little Axe

by Lauren Francis-Sharma

  “Have you read these?” Monsieur said, examining the first three volumes of the encyclopédie.

  Rosa shook her head.

  “Your brother borrowed these for your mother,” he said. “She was a different woman, impressive even.” Monsieur nodded. “You have her ways.”

  Rosa didn’t like that Monsieur had watched her mother. That he had formed an opinion and offered it as if it could be the only one of Mamá.

  “If you would like, I can teach you to read,” he said.

  “Merci, Monsieur, but I can read.”

  “No, I do not mean that reading. I mean the reading your brother enjoys. That your mother enjoyed. Where you read for relevancy and knowledge.” Monsieur held the books at their bindings and crossed his arm over his chest. It seemed the pose of a younger man, a nervous younger man, and Rosa remembered then how Jeremias would speak about Monsieur as if he were a god, how he’d come home with intellectual musings about the “noble savage.” Jeremias told Papá that this was the idea that the more primitive a man, the more virtuous and childlike. Monsieur had told Jeremias that he, in fact, was the noble savage, and that Jeremias must work tirelessly to “propound his Caucasian blood.” Monsieur had quoted some man, Buffon, who believed that all other races could return to their “predegeneration Caucasoid form” with the correct environmental controls, that it would only require effort. Papá thought it was a joke since Buffon sounded so much like buffoon, but soon after Papá grew incensed, lecturing Jeremias on the virtues of a history not written in Europe’s texts, a history that would be unveiled to Europeans when they no longer wished to be the benefactors of its suppression.

  Rosa wondered if this was the kind of relevancy Monsieur wished to discuss.

  “You might find that you will like such an engagement,” Monsieur went on. “I know I would like to know you better. I can teach you a great deal.”

  Rosa felt something beneath his words, as if they were searching for something more than an answer, and it seemed to Rosa that Mamá had been right: Monsieur was a lonely man. But Rosa was certain that no marriage could change that shade of loneliness. And neither could books. For Monsieur seemed a man who could never be filled up, who would always seek more or less or other, but would always seek, seek, seek.

  “Merci, but Papá keeps me very busy.”

  “Oui, it’s been hard for him. I hope you know I’ve always done my best for your family.”

  “Oui, merci,” Rosa said, though she was not sure of all the reasons she should have been thanking Monsieur.

  “I do not see you riding anymore. I used to watch you in the mornings.”

  Rosa felt the lump in her throat tighten. She did not wish to, but Rosa liked knowing that Monsieur had watched her. That someone had watched her. And there seemed in the exchange between them the makings of a transaction, the terms of which Rosa did not know and yet felt it was unseemly, like finding droppings in your last bit of porridge but being told to finish it for it may be your last meal.

  “Good day, Monsieur.” Rosa thought leaving was best and turned toward the house to retrieve her horse, then turned back to him again. “And congratulations on your firstborn.”

  Monsieur stroked the back cover of one of the books, his pale hand striped with fine scratches that were like narrow trails of red clay. Then Monsieur tapped the book twice with his index finger, as if he wished to mark the end of something. “Oui, my firstborn. Merci, Rosa.”

  4

  June 1813

  It was Sunday and the sky was purpling when Jeremias and Francine arrived. They were collecting their youngest boy, François, who had been visiting Papá for the day. Francine remained in the wagon with her usual petulant “long face.” She had taken to wearing only white. White dresses, white hats, white stockings on skeletal legs like veiny streaks of white lightning. When Jeremias climbed down from the bench, Francine removed her white glove and pointed a thin almost-white finger toward him, warning him not to be long.

  Rosa roused François from his nap. Through the window, she spied Jeremias walking down the path toward the stable, then stopping to crane his neck, as if to search for Papá, but turning back as though he thought better of it.

  As Rosa set the still-sleeping child into his arms, Jeremias whispered, “How long is that man staying?”

  Rosa couldn’t recall if Jeremias had spoken directly to her since Mamá’s passing, but he spoke now as if there’d been no time at all between this time and the last. It was the sort of farce Rosa now understood was a necessity for any family to persist.

  “He’s been here too long already,” Rosa said.

  “Hard to no longer be the favorite, eh?”

  “I was never the favorite in this family. Besides, that man is not family.”

  “He will be.”

  Rosa followed Jeremias to the wagon. She watched as he lifted François so that Francine could take the child. Francine grabbed the boy, kissed his pouty lips, and did not acknowledge Rosa, even as Jeremias spoke to Rosa once more.

  “Eve tells me she’s spoken to Papá.”

  “Pourquoi?”

  “To discuss a marriage.”

  “Papá wouldn’t.”

  “Yes. He would.” Jeremias grinned. “Your padre would do anything not to lose this piece of land. Monsieur will eventually stop loaning him money, so he must do something.”

  Rosa felt as if she were betraying Papá by allowing Jeremias to speak of him so. She didn’t know if Papá had continued to borrow money, didn’t know if Jeremias spoke the truth, but Rosa was desperate to vent to someone who might see the injustice of all that had taken place since Creadon Rampley’s arrival. “Señor Rampley is no good for us,” she said.

  “Oh, he seems very good for everyone but you. Look at this place.” Jeremias moved his chin to guide Rosa’s eyes to the new fence, the new roof, the barn addition. “It’s never looked better. The pigs and chicks are fat, the fillies and the new colt you have there are all healthy and first rate. Eve will have twenty-eight years next month. She’s old.” Jeremias walked to the driver’s side, leaving Rosa to wonder if he had deliberately or only carelessly reminded her that her twenty-six years rendered her in nearly the same position as Eve. “Papá must be very pleased with himself.”

  There had been no time to speak on a wedding. Before that evening descended, the clouds arrived over the Northern Range, and for the following weeks, the rainy season puffed out its broad chest and its winds took off roofs, felled trees, scattered fruits as though they were tulip petals. Mud slid from hills like scorched cacao, burying arrogant men and their disagreeable horses. Water rose to the underbellies of sows, and industry slowed as all attention turned to saving what remained.

  By day, the four of them—Eve, Papá, Señor Rampley, Rosa—worked harder and smarter than ever. Bagging, reinforcing, patching. The ferocity of the rain had forced teatime from the verandah to the supper table. It felt quite perfunctory—a few sips to warm the blood, a bite or two of a biscuit, and off to bed. Each night before turning in, Papá offered Señor Rampley the same warm sleeping mat on the floor, but Señor Rampley always refused.

  Those nights during rainy season offered the only respite from the constant harassment of an overrunning sky. Sleep, when it came, felt deep and tender, as if the world were being peacefully restored. Papá always slept first, his snoring more a comfort now than a nuisance. Eve, beneath Mamá’s quilt, read by candlelight, fighting off the chills she was unable to shake at that time each year. The sound of raindrops, like blunted fists to a wall, assailed Rosa’s ears, and sometimes she would lie awake, sticky and hot, waiting for the rain to slow so she could throw open the window. It was a Saturday night when after doing so she noticed the flicker of a lantern outside. Rosa cupped her hands over her eyes to sharpen her view. Fat, slow raindrops distorted and blurred the figure holding forth the lantern, but Rosa did not need to see clearly to know who it was.

  Creadon Rampley, who should have been asleep, was in
stead walking about, and Rosa was certain he was up to no good.

  Rosa strained to focus on the bobbing light that moved toward the stable. She thought for a moment that maybe her suspicions were unfounded, but nonetheless, searched for her boots. She’d warned Papá, told him there was something quite wrong about Señor Rampley.

  “You don’t sit on de river bed and talk de river bad,” Papá had said. “It’s your envy clouding your judgment.”

  “What envy? What can he do that I cannot? Only your rules are in my way, not my abilities,” Rosa had argued.

  Papá had smirked as if he knew more than she of her envy. Now, Papá would learn to heed her warnings.

  A funneled stream of rain fell from the roof atop Rosa’s bonneted head. The cold shot through her skin, the wet gown sticking to her like lard. She tossed her bonnet into the mud, wiped her face across her sleeve and by memory, moved through darkness.

  Papá and Señor Rampley had laid planks at the beginning of the rainy season, but now, she could not find them. When she reached the barn, she peeked through the transom. The light from the lantern had vanished and she thought for a moment that perhaps Papá had been right—envy could have indeed clouded her judgment—until she heard the horses moving about, most disturbed.

  “Quién está ahí?” Señor Rampley’s near-perfect Spanish surprised her. And she hadn’t expected him to have so quickly climbed up the narrow ladder and into the hayloft. Yet there he knelt, holding a lantern before him, casting the light wide onto the ground below. “Who’s there?” The rain roared over his calls, but beneath it Rosa heard Martinique and Espina stirring.

  Rosa backed away. Her chest thumped with nerves; her saturated nightie seemed to be growing longer, for she stumbled over one of the elusive planks. Rosa didn’t know why she felt panicked but knew she didn’t wish to be seen by Señor Rampley. The darkness played tricks on her memory, yet she was certain she was almost to the coop when her forward movement was choked by the unexpected explosion of a musket rifle through the roof of the stable.

  The horses reared up, their hooves striking the boards of the stalls sounding like small detonations, and Rosa caught clipped phrases of raised voices while she darted to the house and collected, just inside the door, Papá’s old firearm.

  As Rosa walked again toward the stable, Papá met her on the path, a lantern swinging inside his left hand, and she perceived in his eyes that he did not know what to make of it all. “Get back to the house!” Papá threw open the stable doors as Eve shouted from the window for Rosa to “come back inside at once!”

  Señor Rampley had reloaded. His hair was clumpy, damp, his feet, pale and veiny against the muck of the stable floor. Papá held up the light and Rosa wished she hadn’t noticed the tremor in his hand.

  “You t’ink you gointa come in the night and take my horses?”

  “Demas, we not interested in talkin’.” It was Tío Byron. And Jeremias. They held Martinique and her new colt, Carlos, by their leads.

  “Oh, you’s a bad john now, eh? No talkin’, just takin’?” Papá said.

  “My sista had a right to this land and to these horses. You grew my family’s beans and never once thought to pay us.” Tío Byron’s face was shrouded beneath the soggy brim of his hat. The same white hat he’d worn to Jeremias and Francine’s wedding. Rosa had not seen him since that day. He was thinner now, his shoulders more rounded, and he seemed to have long forgotten the truce he had proposed before all the wedding guests.

  “It was Myra’s cacao. There was no need to give anyone anyt’ing.” Papá was steady now, angry even. “And this is not about Myra. This is about you losing everyt’ing because you ent earn your land. They giveth and they does taketh away.”

  “A woman t’irteen years younger than her husband dies as soon as you feel threatened by her reconciliation with her family?” Tío Byron said.

  “Everyone in this country is suffering, Byron. It gives you no right—”

  “I’m here to help this boy claim what’s rightfully his.” Tío Byron nodded to Jeremias.

  “When Jeremias left to marry your gyal, he give up his right to what’s mine.”

  “You gave me no choice,” Jeremias said.

  “The choice was not mine to give, son.”

  Tío Byron stepped forward, squeezing tight Martinique’s lead. He shushed the mare, calmed her, and she responded.

  “You plowin’ right tru me? Is that what you t’ink?” Papá put up his hands, and to Jeremias, he said, “Is this what you learnin’ from these heathens?”

  “You cast your own boy aside and I’m the heathen?” Tío Byron moved forward again, lifting the heavy brim from his face, curling it until it stiffened at the ledge of his forehead. Tío’s jaw was knotted; his eyes, the same hazel of Mamá’s, were widened as if in the midst of some delirium. Jeremias took Martinique’s lead from Tío and appeared as uncompromising as his uncle. As Rosa recalled the vindictive nature of her brother, she raised her musket, the barrel not quite centered on Jeremias but angled enough that she could clip him, only to then realize that it was not Jeremias but rather Tío Byron who posed the most substantial threat to Papá.

  There was a great vibration as if thunder had abandoned the sky for Papá’s stable. Water sprayed as those big bodies clashed—two men of tight flesh and fiery blood had become one wellspring of rage. Rosa watched with horror the collision of indignant masses, underpinned by fists and might and will. Papá caught Tío Byron on the chin with a four-fingered right, then on his brow with a tight-fisted left. Tío’s head jerked back and back again as though it might loosen from his shoulders, and Jeremias shuddered, dropping the leads as if preparing himself, and Rosa felt certain that Jeremias would put an end to all this, that he would gather Tío and they would depart in a cloud of shame. Martinique stepped back as though she wished to give Jeremias space to do so, and Jeremias, with a more expansive view, watched as Tío swiped at the shiny blood dripping from his brow. Between the two, a quick glance was had, and Jeremias lurched forward, his chest widening, his lips like Papá’s, curled into iron shavings, the sweat on his mustache shimmering in the light of the lantern. His hands found their places a foot apart from each other, arched like half-moons, poised for attack. Rosa knew then that Jeremias would fight his own father. On his father’s land. To protect his uncle. And so she raised the musket to the line parallel to Jeremias’s heart. “Broadside,” Papá had taught her. “Hit the target.” Rosa would do it, she said of herself, as if herself were another. And that other self knew Jeremias would die on his father’s land, bleed into his father’s soil, and that other self thought that maybe it would be as it should have always been.

  “Jeremias,” Rosa whispered.

  Jeremias turned to her, and it was as if he could see the same future—Papá grieving, laying himself atop his only son—for Jeremias suddenly threw his hands into the air as a gesture of surrender, or perhaps earnest query, and Rosa heard behind her the whoosh of fists on air and the soft hammering that working hands made against flesh, and she turned, expecting Tío would be in a similar pose of surrender, but instead it was Papá, convulsing as if he’d been set ablaze. He had fallen. And both the earth and his shadow shook.

  “Step back.” Señor Rampley raised his rifle at Tío Byron who seemed poised to pounce atop Papá. Tío reached for his hat but it was now gone, and the skin over his right eye appeared cracked like sappy bark. Rosa could not help but notice how much Tío and Jeremias resembled each other then, how they looked to be father and son, their faces puffy and red. “My next shot aint gonna be a warning.” Señor Rampley repeated his words in French. “La prochaine fois ça va pas être un tir d’avertissement.”

  “This isn’t your business.” Jeremias said this to Señor Rampley but glanced at Papá while he spoke. Papá was attempting to raise himself from the sludge, seemingly unable to bear his own weight. Jeremias did not move to help his father, and Rosa felt disgusted by this until she herself averted her eyes as Papá
’s foot slid away beneath him.

  The rain slowed and Rosa heard Tío Byron’s wagon recede into the night. Señor Rampley exhaled, as if he had been acting against his very nature, and Rosa was suddenly embarrassed to find herself before him, dressed in her nightclothes, her hair wet and afluff, her face and hand smeared with mud. Papá was upon one knee now, bracing himself to rise, holding his chest as if to steady himself, seeming to catch his breath … until Breath ran away from him.

  Señor Rampley lunged to catch Papá as he fell forward, but he was too late. Papá landed upon his chin. His teeth snapped shut.

  5

  1813–1814

  The doctor did not open his bag. “He needs rest. Stricken by apoplexy.”

  “How can you be certain he will be the same again?” Eve asked.

  “He will not,” the doctor said.

  That morning, Eve began gathering roots and leaves and herbs. She forced Papá to drink Mamá’s bitter teas. She rubbed Papá down with ointments and asked Rosa to baby a pot of liniment that Eve applied to his chest each night before putting Papá to bed. Over days, weeks, months, Eve helped Papá form words again—French in the mornings, for this was when he used to talk over the day’s plans with Mamá, and Spanish when he wished to discuss horses or crops or Pierre and François. Eve exercised Papá’s chipped-from-something-solid legs, his arms; forced him to sit upright when taking his meals; commanded that he move his ankles and toes, use his nine fingers to grip. And at nights, Eve sometimes moved to Rosa’s side of the bed, and when she found Rosa’s heartbeat, Eve cried. A big sister beaten back into childhood under the moonlight by grief and fatigue.

  “Tomorrow, we will be past now,” Rosa often whispered to Eve.

  And then one night Eve replied with, “Maybe we can look past tomorrow.”

  Rosa did not understand Eve’s meaning until the morning, when Eve asked Rosa to bring two fresh eggs from Fat-Gyal-Hen’s cage.