The General's Cook

by Ramin Ganeshram

  “Thank you, Hercules,” he said, setting the mug down and standing. “I believe it does.”

  Hercules poured tea for the guest and, before handing it to the president, said, “Sir, I am happy to take this on up.”

  “No, Hercules,” Washington said and rose, taking the saucer. “You go to your rest now. I’ll take it up. Thank you for the drink.” He picked up the lamp in his free hand and made for the door.

  “Sir?” said Hercules. Washington turned at the door, his face quizzical. “Happy birthday, Excellency.”

  The president smiled his small smile and gave an almost imperceptible bow and nod before heading back into the main part of the house.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE KITCHEN WAS ABUZZ WITH ACTIVITY, with scullions running around with full bowls and empty bowls, lugging baskets of vegetables, stoking fires. In one corner Mr. Julien was whipping something in a bowl. At the sinks two maids scrubbed pots and cooking wares as fast as they piled up.

  In the midst of it all, Hercules stood at the wide, worn worktable in the center of the kitchen, watching Nate slice a roast. Occasionally, he had to grab the young man’s wrist and move it forward or back slightly before he began slicing so each piece was exactly the same as the last.

  To Hercules it felt as if they floated along on a bubble of calm in the busy storm around them. The wide table was a raft that anchored them steady and absorbed them in their work. He was focused on Nate as if he were his own son; his own son sulked lazily on the edge of things, in the way most of the time. Whenever Hercules glanced his way, Richmond glared at them in between dodging others’ purposeful movements around the kitchen. The boy was proving more troublesome every day.

  His thoughts were broken when Reverend Allen rapped hard on the doorframe before coming into the kitchen proper.

  “Afternoon, Master Hercules,” he said loudly. Hercules was gratified to see there was no pause in the scullery activity beyond a few glances Reverend Allen’s way.

  Hercules had looked up slowly, reluctant to take his eyes away from the carving of the roast. He grasped Nate’s wrist to prevent him from cutting any further.

  “Reverend Allen,” he said in a businesslike voice. “Come in, sir.”

  The minister stepped farther into the kitchen, holding his hat in his hand.

  “I’ve come to see if you are in need of a sweeping,” he said. In addition to ministering the word of God to the black people of Philadelphia, Reverend Allen ran a successful chimney sweep business.

  Hercules looked at him quizzically. They had just swept the chimneys a month before.

  “Why—” he began.

  “Thing is, you’ll remember that part of the chimney where the points were worn down, those rough edges caught a lot of soot and whatnot,” said Allen. “Here, let me show you.”

  “Ah yes,” Hercules said, catching on. “I remember. It was on the oven side, was it not? You’re in luck—there are no embers in there yet, so we might look in.”

  Allen made his way to the oven.

  “Nate, go into the pantry and find me some dried sage,” said Hercules as he turned to follow Allen. “Patsy, you can go on and help Margaret peel those asparagus now,” he said to the hired girl turning various small birds on a spit at the fire. Now they were alone on this side of the kitchen.

  Allen was at the oven, pulling away the wooden door.

  “It’s just here, you see,” he was saying, putting his arm and shoulder into the oven. “If you reach in and follow my hand you’ll be able to make it out.”

  Hercules stood close to the taller man and reached his arm into the oven as well. Their bodies nearly pressed together.

  “Mrs. Harris says yes,” Allen murmured in a low voice when Hercules’s head was just below his chin.

  “That’s right, just follow where my finger is pointing, Master Hercules,” he said in a normal tone, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening.

  “I see, yes,” said Hercules also in a regular tone. “Can you send your man, the bricklayer, to see to it?”

  “Yes, I can send that message,” said Allen, pulling his arm out of the oven. Hercules did so too.

  “Good, when do you think he’d be willing to start?”

  “I hear he has some time starting Wednesday next,” said Allen, wiping his hands on his handkerchief. “He will be finishing a big project then. I’ll go around to look for him at his quarters after the evening meal.”

  “Good,” said Hercules, making his way back to the table and gesturing to Nate to come back over.

  “Come to think of it,” said Allen as if he were remembering something, “you may know of him, he has his digs in Cherry Street?”

  Hercules nodded at Nate to let him know he should begin his work.

  “No, I can’t say that I know anyone in Cherry Street, Reverend,” he said without looking up. “But if he comes with your good word I’m happy to recommend him to the steward.”

  “Very good,” said Allen. “I’ll be going then.” He crossed the room toward the door in only three or four of his long steps.

  “I thank you for looking in, Reverend,” said Hercules.

  “Day’s work, master cook! Day’s work!” said the minister cheerfully, waving his hat as he walked through the door.

  So, thought Hercules, excitement trilling a beat in his chest, Mrs. Harris had agreed to teach him to read, starting next Wednesday evening at her school on Cherry Street. He smiled, but then looked around the room quickly. All were at their tasks and took no notice. He began to hum a little as he watched Nate carve the rest of the roast.

  The evening meal had long since finished, and after a small delay answering Fraunces’s questions about preparations for the next night’s political dinner, Hercules finally made his way to Cherry Street. His shadow, the tall scribbler, was not far behind.

  As he moved purposefully forward, he passed two men who stood at the mouth of an alley and gave him the hard eye. He didn’t pay them much mind. Their kind was everywhere around the city—low-class bumpkins who no doubt had come into town looking for laboring work. They were similar stock and height, with bushy black beards, and wore their hair uncommonly short. Even their clothes were of a kind. It was nearly impossible to tell them apart. Hercules inclined his head politely as he passed but they only stared at him, their eyes hard and unblinking.

  He didn’t give them another thought as he moved on and within moments he reached the narrow alley in Cherry Street and ducked down the passage toward Mrs. Harris’s door. He knocked lightly upon it with the tip of his cane, then turned on the stoop and looked down the alley toward the road. To his surprise, the men he had passed stood just at the alley’s edge but stepped abruptly back when they realized he had seen them. Across the street, his shadow, the scribbler, watched from shadows of the Moravian Church’s doorway. Before Hercules could consider this any further, Mrs. Harris opened the door and stood aside to allow him to enter.

  “May I take your hat and cane?” she said politely.

  He smiled graciously and handed her both. She stood there studying him a minute too long, until a bemused smile started to twitch at the sides of his mouth.

  “Madam,” he said in his smoothest voice, flashing his best smile. He realized she found him amusing, a fact that would normally irk him, but he was determined not to let it trouble him now. He was here with a purpose from which he would not stray.

  “May we sit? I find that my neck begins to ache looking up at your statuesque form.”

  Mrs. Harris made a sound like a snicker, then smiled.

  “No need to flatter, Master Hercules,” she said. “You are not the first man to take exception to my height, which I assure you I had no more to do with than you with yours.”

  Hercules raised his eyebrows slightly, then smiled again. Mrs. Harris was proving, yet again, a woman to be reckoned with.

  “Well said, madam. Well said.”

  The teacher led him into the same room as when he had firs
t come to see her. She gestured to one of the benches and when he was settled sat beside him.

  “I received your message from Reverend Allen,” he said simply.

  “Yes,” she answered. Her hands were folded easily in her lap.

  “I am most eager for your instruction,” he said, leaning forward slightly and peering into her eyes, willing her to see how very serious he was.

  Mrs. Harris looked at him for a time, her eyebrows furrowing. After a moment she spoke. “Why?”

  “Why?” Hercules repeated.

  “Yes. Why are you eager for my instruction? Why do you want to learn to read?”

  Hercules narrowed his eyes. What was the woman playing at?

  “Reading—knowledge—it is power, is it not, Mrs. Harris?” he said, the light mocking tone dropping from his voice. “If a man can read he can manage his own affairs, he can learn the affairs of others, he can move through the world more easily. Is that not so?”

  “Yes, it is so,” she said simply. “But what need have you of those things? Do you not live well? Better than most working men, from what I hear. You move through the world easily enough, do you not?”

  Now it was Hercules’s turn to look at her thoughtfully.

  “Easily enough, yes,” he said warily.

  “So then, what more can being able to read grant you?” she said.

  “It can open a door, madam,” he said.

  “A door to what, sir?”

  Hercules leaned closer to the schoolteacher, closing the gap between them so tightly that their thighs nearly touched.

  “A door, madam,” he whispered, low and hoarse, “to being free.”

  Eleanor Harris looked steadily into Hercules’s eyes and he could feel her light breath on his face. He did not blink.

  “I see,” she said before leaning away and standing. She walked to the other side of the room, gathered up something, and then fairly flew back to his side. She sat down again, so close that their bodies again nearly touched. In her lap she held a slate. She made a quick mark on it.

  “That, Master Hercules, is an A …”

  CHAPTER 9

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU HAVE TO live there,” said Hercules, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down at Thelma lying beside him. He kept his voice calm, although he was agitated. The gold-tinged late afternoon light set off the reddish undertones in her hair. He reached out and twisted one of the long curls around his finger and drew it out slowly before releasing it to bounce back.

  “It is an opportunity,” she answered, looking up at the tattered canopy above the bed. Moths had eaten large holes in the sheer white cotton.

  “Working for the Chews is an opportunity,” Hercules said, teasing out another curl. “I grant you that readily—but why must you live there?”

  Thelma shrugged. “That is what Harriet wants. She wants the”—she faltered, looking for the English word—“a companion. She wants me to be there always for her company.” When he didn’t answer she lay back and began to tell him about that day she had met Harriet Chew in the park.

  She’d been sitting on a bench, trying to sketch Carpenter’s Hall between blowing on her hands to keep them warm in the chill March evening.

  As she worked, she wondered what her mother was doing now. Before the revolt, they’d have been walking back together from the big house where Maman sewed fine gowns for the mistress and Thelma sat by her side with her lace pillow making the intricately fashioned trim for the ladies’ mantuas and sleeves.

  She’d turned back to her picture and tried to block out the thoughts. The charcoal had slipped from her chilled hands again and she leaned forward awkwardly, her tight corset holding her back, when a tinkling female voice said behind her,

  “You’re very good.”

  Thelma looked over her shoulder at a young woman in an expensive cloak lined with fur, its wide hood settling easily on long black hair that fell to her shoulders in thickly coiled curls, only slightly looser than Thelma’s own.

  “You are quite good,” she said again, looking down at the sketchbook lying open on Thelma’s lap. “Who is your teacher?”

  “I have no teacher,” said Thelma.

  The young woman raised her eyebrows. “Then how did you learn to draw so well? I’m hopeless and I’ve had ever so many tutors try to teach me—”

  She stopped abruptly and blushed faintly at Thelma’s surprised stare before quickly coming around the side of the bench and sitting down.

  “Do forgive me. I prattle, I know.” She smiled and dimples appeared in each cheek. “I’m Harriet Chew,” she said, as if that would explain everything. She examined Thelma’s sketchbook again.

  “So tell me, did you actually teach yourself to draw like that?” She searched Thelma’s face.

  Miss Chew had barely given her time to answer before she launched into more questions. Was she French? Did her family escape from the terrible revolution there? Was she alone here?

  Thelma murmured answers that said neither this nor that, letting the other girl make her own assumptions.

  “But how do you live?” Harriet finally exclaimed, blushing deeply. “Oh! I’m sorry, how very rude …”

  Thelma had shrugged. “Do not trouble yourself, mademoiselle,” she said, smiling. “I teach French to—” She stopped short before grasping a suitable answer. “To my landlady’s daughters in return for board.”

  Harriet’s eyes had fairly glowed. Thelma could tell the other girl was both scandalized and delighted by the drama of the tale.

  “I must get back to my sister and mother,” she said, standing and gesturing to the pair strolling at the other end of the park. “It was nice to meet you.”

  Thelma had turned back to her sketch as Harriet walked away. The light had become too dim to work and, she told Hercules now, she felt a surge of annoyance as she began to gather her things, but in another moment, Harriet once again appeared before her. “I don’t know your name,” she said abruptly.

  “Thelma Blondelle.”

  “Will you call on me, Thelma Blondelle?” she said. “My father is Benjamin Chew and we live in Third Street. Just ask anyone in the city—they’ll direct you.”

  And when she had finally gone to see Ms. Chew, the impetuous young lady had surprised her with an offer of employment as her tutor and her companion.

  When she finished her tale, Hercules sighed, sat up, and folded his arms across his chest, flexing them so Thelma could see the throbbing veins in the bulging muscles. If Thelma took up chatty, foolish Harriet Chew’s offer of a job, then these trysts would stop. He took too much pleasure in her to be happy about that.

  “But what if she asks you about France?” he said crankily. “What do you know of France? Will you tell her what your father really was to your mother?” he finished nastily. Thelma had told him that she was the product of the master’s union with her mother, a slave.

  Thelma shook her head firmly and stroked his arm.

  “It is ever so much money, ma chère,” she said. She traced the lines in his forehead with one slender finger. “Do not make the scowl like so. Money, it is freedom—you know this.”

  “There will be no more meetings,” he said sullenly. “Not like this.”

  “Perhaps non, but with enough money we can, perhaps, leave all this one day …” She gestured in the air.

  “I’m not in need of money,” he said, his voice low and angry.

  “And the more the better,” she murmured, nuzzling into his neck. “Imagine where we could go …”

  Hercules stiffened. “It is not so easy as you imagine,” he said. “Money is not the only thing.” Sometimes he couldn’t tell if she were naïve or willfully stupid—no amount of money would make it easy to escape the General’s house.

  Thelma smiled and spread her hand across his bicep. “Un tel pouvoir, comme un taureau,” she murmured.

  “What does that mean?” he said peevishly.

  “It means …” She paused, thinking. “
Such power—like a bull.”

  At this he smiled wolfishly.

  She trailed her hand across his abdomen, where a jagged scar puckered the skin near his navel.

  “How did this come?” she asked, her accent becoming thicker and her English more confused as it did when she was aroused.

  His smile disappearing, he put his own hand over her fingers tracing the pink skin. “My old”—he hesitated for a moment trying to stanch the flood of memories that came quick and unwanted—“master,” he finally said. “He used to beat me with a hot fire poker.”

  Thelma’s eyes narrowed.

  “I was a lad,” he went on but then stopped talking, remembering the drunk bastard who took out his anger at his failing farm on Hercules with a well-placed kick in the guts or the head—but only after he had gotten through beating and raping his cook, Maggie. The girl had hung herself after he had used her, then wiped the shit from his chamber pot across her face and pissed on her huddled back as punishment for her cries.

  The day Posey lost his mortgage on Hercules to Washington was the greatest day of Hercules’s young life. When Washington didn’t beat him or take up women from the quarters to rape, he felt like he had won a pot of gold. And then the day the General sent for him to come up to the kitchens—that day. Well. It was like the heavens opened up.

  He sighed and ran his hand absently along Thelma’s back. No, there was no need to run just yet. Her hair smelled like lavender.

  “How will we meet?” he said again.

  Thelma shrugged. “Je ne sais pas. I do not know.” She lifted her head and looked at his face a long time, then put one long cream-colored leg across him and slid herself up on top of him. She leaned down, her hair falling forward and covering his face.

  “We will find the way,” she whispered hoarsely before she covered his mouth with her own.

  It was still warm when Hercules stepped out of Mrs. Harris’s house, though it was near ten o’clock. The unusual heat of the April day had sent people out and about much later than they would have done on a Wednesday, and as he made the turn up Cherry Street toward Sixth he could hear the loud laughter and quarreling coming from Helltown behind him.