The General's Cook

by Ramin Ganeshram

  “Here, sit—sit,” he said excitedly. “Ale?” he asked, holding up the tankard.

  “Ah, no,” said Hercules. “I thank you.”

  “So,” said Gilbert, drawing a chair opposite him. “When can we start? I’m eager to experiment with your tone. I haven’t painted a Negro before, it will be a new experience for me—”

  He stopped. Hercules was looking at him as if he were the curiosity.

  “There is something I want,” said Hercules when Stuart paused. “You said—you said that perhaps there was something I wanted, and I do.”

  Gilbert’s eyebrows rose. “Money? I don’t have much, but surely I can pay you something.”

  Hercules held up his hand. “Forgive me, Mr. Stuart, but I have plenty of ready money,” he said, working hard to keep the disdain from his voice. “No doubt this surprises you, but the General does allow me to earn some coin of my own in various ways.”

  Gilbert cocked his head, looking both amused and perplexed.

  “Interesting,” he said. “So, what is it you want?”

  “I want the use of your studio,” said Hercules.

  “My studio?”

  “Yes, of an evening here and there—when you have finished for the night.”

  “But what could you want with it?” said the artist. “Surely you must be in your quarters at night.”

  “That is true,” said Hercules. “The sun must rise upon me in my quarters at the President’s House.”

  Stuart looked carefully at Hercules.

  “So then, I ask you again, what could you possibly want with my studio?”

  “There is someone I must meet from time to time,” said Hercules. “The circumstances make it imprudent to do so where we might be seen.”

  Hercules could almost see Stuart’s brain working. Who could he be meeting? A woman? Someone who could help him to freedom? A smuggler? Was Hercules stealing from the Washingtons?

  “I assure you, Mr. Stuart, the meeting is nothing more than intimate in nature,” said Hercules, cutting into the man’s thoughts.

  Stuart considered this and finally smiled.

  “I think, Hercules,” he said, “that we can come to such an agreement.”

  Hercules smiled and stood. He bowed slightly.

  “I am glad to hear you say that, Mr. Stuart,” he said. “When do you want me to come to you next?”

  “Why not tomorrow?”

  “Why not tomorrow indeed?” said Hercules, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll bid you goodnight.”

  “… and then we’ll serve the ratafia cakes with elderberry jellies,” Hercules was saying as he and Nate made their way out of the market. Nate shifted the basket filled with pig feet to his other hand. “Some pocket soup is probably in order as well …”

  Hercules went on talking cheerfully about all the things they’d make with the trotters they had just bought, but he could tell the scullion’s mind was somewhere else.

  Normally, Nate would be eager enough for the conversation but Hercules had found it hard to get him to focus since Margaret had been sick. Something had changed again between them and Hercules wasn’t sure what—or even how.

  He had hoped the run-in with Oney would have knocked some sense into the boy’s head and that he would have seen the truth in what she’d said in spite—that Margaret would eventually be free and he would not. And that even if Nate were free too, they did not belong together.

  Hercules stopped walking and watched as Nate wandered on, staring at the ground, unaware that Hercules’s deep voice wasn’t washing over him. Finally, sensing that something was amiss, he paused his stride. He turned around quickly, basket swinging, to see Hercules, hands on hips, standing twenty feet behind. Nate rushed back.

  “Your mind is elsewhere, son,” said Hercules sternly when Nate had come up to him panting. He clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s walk a little,” he said, gesturing toward a road that ran along the side of the market, away from the house. “It’s a fine day and no need to rush back just yet.”

  They walked a few paces without speaking until Hercules came to a stop in front of a shed.

  “Never let your thoughts run away like that, Nate,” he said seriously. Nate looked down at the ground. “Look at me, son. People like us, we need to be aware at all times,” Hercules said to the boy who was now a few inches taller than him. Hercules glanced around, his eyes flickering to the grand house across the road from where they stood. “Do you understand?”

  Nate had followed Hercules’s gaze to the house and then back again. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Good,” said Hercules, looking at him a long moment. Again, he glanced over to the house, trying to see if Thelma might be at the window taking notice of him.

  “We can’t afford to be going along dreaming—there’s danger in it,” he said, looking back at Nate.

  When Nate nodded, Hercules turned back toward the square, leaving the boy to follow, but not before he had noticed a flutter of the curtains in the upstairs rear window of the house across the street.

  It had been three days since Hercules had first walked with Nate to the shed across from the Chews’ house and he had faithfully shown up every day just after the noon hour. He’d leaned on the shed for a few minutes so that she might see him, but she hadn’t come out.

  Today, he had slipped out again after the luncheon was served. He walked slowly around the square and down the Chews’ street, forcing himself to hunch a bit to be less noticeable. He didn’t want the drivers sitting on the carriages that lined the road in front of the house to mark his presence. The Chews must be receiving callers today.

  When he was about halfway up the block, Hercules saw Thelma step out onto the stair and he breathed a sigh of relief. He began to speed up but then slowed again as a man emerged and offered her his arm. Hercules cursed under his breath.

  She looked quickly down the street, spotting him, and met his eyes before turning toward her companion.

  “Have you seen this little building here, Captain Grayson?” she said, loudly, her voice carrying across the road toward Hercules as she dragged him across the path.

  The man looked at her uncertainly. What possible interest could there be in a falling-down shed?

  “I have …” he said.

  “It is so odd, is it not? What is it for?” she kept chattering.

  “I imagine it is …” he began.

  Thelma did not let him finish but continued to walk quickly now that she was on the same side of the street as Hercules, who started to move slowly toward them, staring at the trees and the buildings as if he were confused.

  “I might sketch it, perhaps,” she continued, talking more loudly now.

  “Are you quite all right, Miss Blondelle?” Grayson said, attempting to slow down. “Perhaps the heat—?”

  “Heat?” Now she laughed, loud and shrill. “Non, monsieur! On my island it is always far hotter than this.”

  Grayson’s pale—almost white—eyebrows knit together, perplexed. “What island, Miss Blondelle?”

  Hercules’s heart stopped. She had made a fatal error. He dared not look at her as he heard the panic in her shrill voice, but instead, she took the offensive. “Island? I did not say island.”

  She pressed on. They were close enough now that surely he would be able to say something quickly before the man intervened. He looked around as if he were lost.

  Now they were quite close and Hercules scratched his head as if puzzled.

  “’Scuse me, suh,” said Hercules in his best imitation of a country pickaninny. “I’se lookin’ fer Gilbert Stuart’s place? I got to deliver a message from my master but I can’t find it.” He turned around looking more confused and nervous. “Folks say it’s a barn-like thing but I ain’t see no barn … I got to deliver this message, see …”

  Grayson moved to the side, forcing Thelma along with him.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Grayson coldly, trying to
go around him.

  “Miss, do you know?” Hercules said, wringing his hands and looking at Thelma, willing her to understand.

  “No! She does not!” Grayson said angrily. “I’ve told you already, be along your way.”

  “Is this the main road, sir? Only as I know the place is on the main road.” He turned around again, still looking confused.

  Now Grayson exploded. “No, you fool! The main road is farther on! Don’t you see the public market there?”

  Hercules looked around wildly. “Oh! There it is. I see it now! Thank you, suh! Thank you! I supposin’ I didn’t recognize it being as I only markets on Wednesday,” he said nonsensically, then bowed deeply and caught Thelma’s eye as he straightened. She blinked her eyes slowly to show him she understood him: Gilbert Stuart’s barn in the main road on Wednesday night.

  “Be on your way!” said Grayson angrily.

  “Yes, suh!” said Hercules, smiling a wide fool’s smile, before he turned and nearly ran down the road, doing his best to keep down his loud laugh.

  Gilbert Stuart put down his charcoal stick and held his sketchpad away from his face. “Can you turn and face the other way?” he asked.

  Hercules stood, turning his neck this way and that until Stuart seemed satisfied.

  “I didn’t realize what hard business this was,” Hercules said as he sat down again. He couldn’t even enjoy the time simply sitting because of Stuart’s constant chatter.

  “It can be,” said Stuart, sitting down again himself. He sketched a few minutes more, mumbling to himself as he did.

  “Ah, yes, that’s better,” he said, looking over at Hercules and smiling. “Tell me, Hercules, what’s it like to work for the president?”

  Hercules swallowed a laugh and instead stared at Stuart with something between amusement and disgust. He raised an eyebrow. “It’s not as though I have much choice in it, is it, Mr. Stuart?” he asked mildly.

  Stuart opened his mouth then shut it again. “Ah—I suppose not,” said the artist sheepishly. “Well, do you like to cook?” He turned the sketchbook to a clean page and moved a bit to the right to capture another angle.

  Hercules’s eyes followed him. “I do,” he said simply.

  The man began to talk, filling the space between them with noise. “When I was in England—I was there for nearly twenty years, you know—when I was there I had the occasion to eat in many fine houses. I always remember thinking that we had much finer ingredients here in America, much finer.” He paused and smiled at Hercules. “Not, that is to say, that good ingredients can make a poor cook skillful, but I imagine it helps.”

  Hercules made a sound that was something like a snort. Finally, the man had said something sensible. “This is what I tell my assistant,” he said. “You must start with the best ingredients you can get, otherwise your skill is for naught.”

  “Seems very sound,” said Stuart, his charcoal moving quickly on the page. “Now in France, they take their cuisine very seriously indeed. Some of my patrons spoke of the parties and fetes they attended there and if they are to be believed, the nature of the dishes were more like art than food.”

  “Yes, I have heard the same,” said Hercules, thinking about his many conversations with James Hemings. “A friend told me as much.”

  Thelma rolled off Hercules’s lap, breathing hard. She lay flopped beside him on the settee until she caught her breath, then stood and walked over to the water pitcher on a small side table.

  “I wish you’d dress yourself,” said Hercules, watching Thelma pour herself some water.

  “Why? Do you not like to see me au naturel?” she asked, coming back and holding out the mug.

  He sat up to button the flap of his trousers.

  “Naturally,” he said, smiling and rising. He pulled her shawl from the settee and wrapped it around her. “But it always pays to be able to escape or hide oneself quickly, and that is harder to do when one is naked.” He took the water from her hand and drained it.

  “Besides,” he said, after the last swallow, “how would it look for Mr. Stuart if a Negro slave was found in his studio with a naked white woman? That would be the end of us, of course, and what of that poor bastard?”

  Thelma smiled and turned away toward her clothes on the floor. “Stop calling me a ‘white woman,’” she said, slipping on her bloomers, pulling her shift over her head, and pulling on her petticoat.

  “Isn’t that what you’re passing for?” said Hercules easily, without accusation. It was just a statement of fact.

  Thelma turned to look at him for a few seconds before picking up her stays and slipping her arms through. She walked over and turned her back to him.

  “Pull the strings, please,” she said, holding her long, heavy hair up off her neck.

  Hercules grabbed the strings and pulled hard enough for her to draw a sharp breath.

  “That man—who was he?” he said, pleasantly, as he tied a tight bow.

  “Captain Grayson? He is no one—a guest in the house,” said Thelma, turning to face him. Her chest heaved as she drew breath in the tight fittings.

  “I believe he rather fancies you,” he said, putting his large hands around her cinched waist.

  “Perhaps, but I don’t like him. He’s a pompous fool,” she said, shrugging, but her eyes were troubled.

  She laughed as she told him that no matter how many people crowded the Chew parlors, there was Captain Grayson through every meal and every tea staring at her like a hungry dog. Thelma marveled at how the Chews took no notice of this, except for Harriet, who babbled endlessly that the “handsome Southerner” was “smitten” with Thelma—a fact that annoyed Harriet’s sisters particularly.

  “Mind yourself,” Hercules said. “He might get the wrong idea.”

  She smirked at this. “The wrong idea—he already has this, non?”

  She turned away from him and picked up her dress to pull over her head. When she had buttoned the lace stomacher onto the bodice and checked that her matching sleeve ruffles were still secured, she went to Stuart’s drawing table and studied the sheets there. She looked at each one a long time before turning it aside.

  “They are a good likeness,” she said, taking one of the sheets over to the candle to better see it.

  “Watch the flame!” said Hercules, stepping toward her quickly and grasping her wrist.

  Thelma raised an eyebrow before stepping back out of his grasp and away from the light. “His technique, it is good, I think.”

  “I imagine it would be, if the better sort in Europe ask him to paint them,” he answered dryly.

  Thelma smirked again. “The better sort?” she said sarcastically. “Now who has—as you say—the wrong idea?”

  She tossed the sketch upon the table. When she turned back to face Hercules after tying on her cloak, her eyes were defiant.

  “Next week, then?” she asked before kissing him hard on the mouth and rushing out the door, her cloak hood pulled far forward over her face.

  CHAPTER 16

  GILBERT STUART PAUSED, HIS BRUSH IN midair, and listened. The sounds of horse’s hooves approached. Hercules rose up a bit from the seat across from the painter and looked uneasily at the door while Stuart went to the window.

  “Someone’s coming,” spat Stuart in a panic. He rushed to the easel and lifted the canvas, quickly replacing it with another that leaned against the table. “This way!” He gestured frantically to Hercules, who rose and followed him quickly to a door in the wall that adjoined the rest of the stable.

  Hercules stepped through and nearly into a pile of steaming manure just dropped by the horse. The painter started to speak when a loud knock rattled the door. He rubbed his hands over his face in a panic and, gesturing to Hercules to be silent, closed the door.

  Holding his kerchief to his face, Hercules pressed himself against the door, his ear against the rough wooden slats, and listened.

  “Mr. Stuart?” The raspy voice barely reached Hercules’s ears but it was fa
miliar. He moved his face closer to the narrow gap between the door planks and strained to look in at a sliver of the room.

  “Yes?” answered the painter.

  “May I enter?” the man said, moving forward purposefully without waiting for agreement. Stuart was forced to take a step back as the caller shut the door behind him.

  As the man moved farther into the room, Hercules could make him out. General Washington. The tricorn on his head added to his great height; it seemed that the president stooped slightly as if to avoid the rafters that were still a good foot above his hat. He turned from side to side, assessing the room, until the cold blue eyes settled on the door behind which Hercules stood.

  Hercules jerked his head away from the door. What was Washington doing here? He peered in again though the slats. In the small, cluttered room, Washington looked more like his large, imposing legend than the stooped old man Hercules had become accustomed to seeing.

  Washington cleared his throat lightly. “Mr. Stuart?” he finally said, breaking the painter out of his reverie.

  “Forgive me, Excellency,” said Stuart, dashing to fetch the one straight-backed chair. “Will you sit? Or perhaps you prefer the settee?” He gestured toward the small sitting couch and then, focusing on it, realized it was draped with shawls and all manner of paper. He began clearing away the mess, turning back to his table with the piles in his arms, and stopped short.

  Washington stood there, looking at the sketches, one hand still holding his riding crop behind his back. With the other he lifted a leaf here or there to examine the drawing underneath.

  As Washington stretched his arm farther to another pile, Stuart lunged forward, panicked. Hercules knew the many sketches Stuart had made of him—character studies, he called them—were somewhere in that avalanche.

  “Sir?” he said, dumping the pile he had removed from the settee on the table in front of Washington in a way that Hercules knew would surely irk the General. Washington stepped back and gave the painter an exasperated look.

  “Please, please do sit,” said Stuart, gesturing toward the settee, which Hercules could not see from his narrow vantage. Stuart tried to put the other hand jovially on the president’s shoulder and earned a deadly glare. The older man stepped widely out of the way of his hand. Now the room was quiet. Hercules felt dread rise up in his gut as the silence went on.