The General's Cook

by Ramin Ganeshram

  “Will you stay with us, Papa?” asked Delia eagerly.

  Hercules hesitated. He had no desire to be in their small part of the communal living space with its hard-packed dirt floor and meager cots. He far preferred the room above the kitchen, with its clean wood planks and windows, that he would share with Nate when they were there.

  “Perhaps,” he said pleasantly if a little too quickly. “It depends on our work. This place has become practically an inn what with the visitors coming and going. A lot of cooking to do!” He said the last too jovially, clapping Nate on the shoulder.

  The boy managed a weak smile at the girls, whose faces fell.

  “Oh, it’s always like that,” said Evey. “Even when the General isn’t here. Worse, of course, when he is.”

  “Yes, well—” Hercules hesitated, at a loss for what to say. “We will go see Richmond on our way back. But before I go, I’ll have some of those lemons—I’m amazed the tree is bearing at all now.”

  Evey smiled broadly and headed over to the tree with Delia, who held out her apron as her older sister climbed up a small ladder and plucked the few remaining fruit to be found.

  Part IV

  CHAPTER 24

  RICHMOND TOOK OFF HIS LEATHER APRON and hung it on the peg. Sweat bathed his bare chest. Hercules, standing in the doorway, was surprised to see how much he looked like a man already, developing the broad shoulders and muscled torso of a blacksmith.

  Richmond had scarcely come to see Hercules in the many weeks since they arrived, until finally the time to return to Philadelphia was upon them and, longing to see more of the boy, Hercules had been forced seek him out. Now, ignoring him, Richmond went out to the rain barrel at the back door of the blacksmith shop and scooped a tin of water and poured it over his head. He stood there a minute, cooling down, before he did it again.

  “We can’t go without permission,” said Richmond, stepping in and taking up a rag to dry off before pulling on his shirt. “And Mr. Allistone will be at his supper now—he won’t care to see one of us at his door for leave to gad about.”

  Hercules had come to the blacksmith shop with the intention of spending the evening with his eldest child. His boy. There was, he had heard, a social club in town where slaves and free blacks gathered. Old Sam, the only one of them who had hailed from Africa, had told him. “The whites know about it, they do,” said the old man, his tattooed and symmetrically scarred cheeks now hanging with age. “Only, they don’t know what it is we do there. Singing and dancing mostly—so they think.”

  Hercules had raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. “How’s that?” he said pleasantly.

  “There are other things,” said the old man mysteriously, pulling one of his copper-ringed ears. He had a heavy lisp since he had no front teeth—sold them, he said, to Washington to use in his dentures.

  “The old fool is an older fool than me,” he had chuckled to Hercules. “Them teeth were practically no good.”

  But Hercules could get no more out of him about the “social club.” Still, he was resolved to see for himself—and bring Richmond along for good measure. He wanted to spend time with his son and to learn how he had come along since he had left Philadelphia. Hercules had hoped his temper had eased. But the boy was not inclined to go.

  “I have the General’s leave to go about as I wish,” said Hercules, mildly. “You know this.”

  “But I do not,” said Richmond, nastily. “And I’m not about to trail along behind you like them others—Son of Head Nigra.”

  Hercules felt his blood get hot in that old familiar way. Richmond was still up to his old tricks, except now instead of just being worthless he was old enough—and brave enough—to bait his father.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, shrugging and turning quickly so Richmond would not see his anger and disappointment. He left the blacksmith shop without looking back, crossed back over the bowling green, and then ambled down the pathway to the dock where a small skiff was unloading barrels.

  “Heading back to Alexandria?” he asked one of the black boatswains when got close enough.

  “Yup.”

  “Hitch a ride?”

  “Yup,” said the boy.

  Hercules stood to the side and waited for them to finish their business. He could hear the sound of visitors walking the grounds and the shouts of servants running to and fro to get ready for the evening’s party. Hercules had more than exerted himself putting on a feast for this, the president’s last night in Virginia. He deserved a night out.

  “Hand up?” the boy on the deck called.

  Hercules turned to face him and accepted the offered hand. He settled down on a bench near the stern and watched as the peachy gold of the setting sun reached across the shore and crawled up through the woods to set the red roofs of the farm buildings aglow. As they rounded the bend to where the house faced the slope, the fading light bathed the back veranda, with its tall white columns, in a pinkish light.

  He tried to remember when this was the whole of his world and how he felt tracking these woods and cooking his fish on an open fire. He hadn’t known there was more than that. And when he had become the General’s man he had thanked God every day for a kind and good master. Now every day that passed here was a hellish eternity.

  Hercules drew a deep breath. The breeze smelled faintly of fish. The cool weather would be hard on their heels as they made their way back to the capital. He couldn’t wait.

  The chilly drizzle drove sideways right into his face as Hercules made his way up High Street from the harbor. Sodden leaves sped along with the wind and plastered themselves to his legs. No matter; he bent his head and pressed on. Better a miserable day in Philadelphia than a fine one in Virginia.

  “Master cook! Hercules!” He heard the call somewhere off to his left but ignored it. He was eager to get back to his warm, dry kitchen with the basket of oysters he lugged.

  “Hercules! Stop!” The voice came more urgently now. He stopped and squinted through the rain. The Reverend Allen came toward him from White Horse Alley, holding his hat upon his head with one hand and flagging Hercules down with the other.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” he said, breathlessly, when he reached him.

  Hercules looked at the tall, thin man in his minister’s collar and recalled their meeting at Mrs. Harris’s home some months before, forcing himself to answer without impatience, “Hello, Reverend. Bad day to be about.”

  “What? Oh yes, yes it is. An ill parishioner …” He stopped and peered at Hercules. “That is no matter. I saw you happen by and wanted to take the chance to speak with you.”

  “If it’s about your meetings, I—” began Hercules, holding up one hand.

  “No, it’s not about that,” he said, looking around. “Here, let’s stand under this awning.” He pulled Hercules toward the overhang of a small tavern situated in the alley.

  Hercules wiped the water from his face and looked at the minister expectantly.

  “It’s about Fraunces,” the man began.

  “What of him?”

  “Have you not heard?” said Reverend Allen, frowning.

  “We’ve only just arrived from Virginia—heard what? I know his tavern failed and that he’s at the Tun …”

  “He’s dead.”

  Hercules closed his mouth. He felt as if he’d been slapped and he wasn’t sure why. There was no love lost between him and the steward, yet he felt knocked back by this news.

  “Dead?” he said, bewildered. “Why?”

  “Why must any of us die?” said the Reverend gently. “It is the Lord’s way—”

  “No, I mean by what measure?” said Hercules, cutting him off. He wasn’t in the mood for any preaching.

  “Age, I suppose,” said Allen. “He was an old man, you know. Just didn’t wake up one morning.”

  “When?”

  “October the tenth,” said Allen. “Been buried over at St. Peter’s.”

  “I see,” said Hercules, thoughtfully.
He felt peculiar. It was odd to think of Fraunces gone. Then there was the business of that failed tavern. Even though he was free, Fraunces hadn’t mastered his own fate after all.

  “Does the General know, do you think?” said Allen.

  “Couldn’t say,” murmured Hercules, his mind elsewhere.

  “Should I pay him a call?” asked the minister thoughtfully.

  “I imagine it doesn’t matter now,” said Hercules, looking up at him. “The man is buried. He’ll come to know soon enough, I’m sure.”

  Would he even care? Hercules thought. Washington didn’t forget a slight—not even after death—and Fraunces’s leaving had put the steward on the other side of friendship. Was that why his business had failed? Was there no escaping the grip of General Washington’s good—or ill—word? Hercules wondered.

  “I better be back,” said Hercules, nodding toward his basket. He started to walk down the alley, then turned back, the rain pelting him again. “Thank you, Reverend, for letting me know.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Early 1796

  THE BREEZE THAT CAME IN THROUGH the open kitchen door had the smell of the soil, already thawing in the unusually warm February. Fog rose up from the frozen ground soaked by rain, shrouding the garden in slips of mist. The lights from the windows of the neighboring house visible over the far wall glowed orange through the haze. Even as cannon fire punctuated the air, Hercules unflinchingly creamed the butter and sugar together with his fingers.

  “You need to make your wrist looser,” he said, looking over to where Nate was whipping egg whites to froth with the birch whisk. “How are the peels coming, Margaret?” he called over to where she was chopping candied fruit peels. Putting down her knife, she gathered some into her palm and brought them over for the master cook’s inspection. “Finer, Margaret,” he said. “Every mouthful should have a little piece of peel to flavor it.”

  Hercules watched Nate’s gaze follow Margaret back to the table. A little smile twitched the boy’s lips and he gazed at her hungrily. Hercules wanted to reach over and slap him hard, but it wouldn’t do to let on that he knew about them.

  Feeling Hercules’s eyes on him, Nate tried to change his expression.

  “She doesn’t have the skill for it, Chef,” he said loudly, sneeringly. Margaret looked up at him, startled. “I’ll do it when I’m done here.”

  Hercules narrowed his eyes and said nothing. He did not look over at Margaret, who dropped her eyes, her cheeks burning red. At the sink, the hired scullery maids snickered.

  “She’ll do just fine, Nate,” said Hercules dryly, but irritation pricked around his thoughts. He never expected Nate to question his authority and then try to play him for a fool. Nate made a disgusted sound in his throat, as if scornful of Hercules’s assessment of Margaret’s abilities. The boy must truly be besotted to attempt a ploy that made him flout Hercules’s word. No more could be said because Mr. Kitt bustled in carrying a sheaf of papers.

  “How go the preparations, cook?” he said to Hercules.

  “Just fine, master steward,” said Hercules, accepting the egg whites Nate handed him and jiggling the bowl to test their firmness. “Now whisk together the flour, mace, and cinnamon in another bowl,” he told Nate before turning back to Kitt. “All the roasts are nearly done, and the standing pies are well in hand. The weather has turned against us for molding the iced creams, but they are in the ice house now,” he said, picking up a bowl of egg yolks and adding them one at a time to the butter and sugar and mixing them with a wooden spoon. “Oh, and the oysters will be here soon—Postilion Joe will help shaving the ice for those.”

  “Good, good,” said Kitt, looking around, looking none too happy. He liked nothing more than to give orders or to find something awry—a chance he rarely got in Hercules’s kitchen. Finally, his eyes settled upon the open door and he strode quickly across the room to shut it.

  “How can you work with all that racket?” he said loudly. “Those cannons have been going since early this morning.”

  “And I imagine will do until the last of the day,” said Hercules mildly. Kitt turned around to face him. “That is how it is on the president’s birthday. We are accustomed.”

  Kitt narrowed his eyes. Hercules hand made sure his words were mild enough but he knew the steward would take his true meaning. We belong here. You do not.

  “Yes, well …” He turned around and let his gaze fly around the kitchen. “Everything must be ready ahead of time. I imagine many will arrive early.”

  Kitt turned to smile at Hercules, who did not look up but paused just slightly as he mixed his batter. Now it was his turn to understand the hidden meaning in the other man’s words: This would be the last Birth Night ball, since the president had announced his plans to retire by the end of the year.

  “All will be ready, Mr. Kitt,” said Hercules smoothly and resumed slowly adding the flour mixture that Nate brought him. “As it always is.”

  Kitt let the breath out slowly through his nose.

  “Good to hear, cook,” said Kitt, bowing slightly with the same affectation Washington used toward his lessers. “Good to hear.” With that, he swept imperiously from the room.

  Hercules remained at the sideboard, examining each dish before footmen carried it off, wiping a rim here or moving a garnish there. Only when the cake, newly iced in white and garnished with sugared cherries from Mount Vernon, left the room did he remove his apron and survey the kitchen. All was in tight order. Nate and Margaret were drying and putting away the last dishes and the hired scullery maids had taken their suppers.

  “You may take your suppers now, before the first of the dishes come back to wash.” He looked over at Jane and Mathilda, just wiping their mouths at the table. “You begin, then Nate and Margaret will take over.”

  Mathilda grunted. No matter how many years had passed, Hercules knew she still resented taking orders from him. He went to the kitchen door and lifted his cockade hat from the hook and shrugged himself into his blue velvet coat. “I’m for the city,” he said, saluting with the gold-headed cane.

  Once outside, he breathed the warming air deeply. The garden had become a rut of muddy puddles and no doubt the streets would be slick with muck kicked up from the horses’ hooves. But that wouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying the night’s festivities. The president’s Birth Night and the Independence Day celebrations were the two times of the year when the whole of Philadelphia reveled together.

  He stepped through the garden wall that gave onto High Street and watched for a moment as the fine carriages deposited ever more guests at the front door of the mansion. There would be the fireworks later, and many an open and welcome tavern. He thought of Fraunces, buried in an unmarked grave at St. Peter’s church. Fraunces with his fastidious demands for decorum on what he called “this auspicious day.” Hercules watched as a small white carriage regally trimmed in gold pulled up to the door.

  A man got out and handed down a young woman with reddish-brown curls. Her hands were tucked into a red muff that matched the cloak from which the curls cascaded. Hercules saw a flash of white silk under the cloak as she stepped forward onto the carriage step.

  As she stepped down to the pavement she looked up at the man, her lips inches from his chin, and he paused, looking hungrily down at her face. Raymond, standing at the carriage door, looked away, embarrassed.

  The cloak fell back from her upturned head and a diamond hairpin caught the light of the torches burning nearby. Hercules took a step closer to better see, but she had turned her head fully to the man now.

  Raymond murmured something, and the man stepped aside to allow him to close the door. As he did, the woman took his arm and faced forward. The man leaned close and said something in her ear and she laughed, throwing her head back and drawing her gloved hand to cover her mouth. She giggled some more, this time looking side to side to see if anyone had heard, her face now fully visible to Hercules. His breath left his chest in a rush. He shrugged his shoulders
violently, the memory of the slave catchers’ hands on his body coming unbidden to his mind. His gold-headed cane clattered to the brick walk.

  The noise caused Thelma to turn her head, eyes panicked and searching until she caught sight of her lover. For the merest moment, she froze. Hercules could see it took all her effort to force herself not to dart her eyes over to Grayson. She made her face blank and unseeing before she rearranged her smile and brightly turned back to face the man beside her.

  CHAPTER 26

  THELMA STEPPED INTO THE STUDIO, A little out of breath. She wore the same red cloak as when Hercules had last seen her entering the Birth Night ball. Her eyes flitted from one part of the room to another, searching.

  Hercules watched from the shadows that collected in the corners of the vast space. He hadn’t even been sure she would come when he had affixed the sign that morning to the garden wall across from the Chew house. Finally, he stepped forward.

  She smiled, drawing back her hood. The flash on her left hand drew his attention and his eyebrows came together.

  “My love …” she said breathlessly, moving toward him.

  He did not move forward to meet her.

  “So you are to marry him then,” he said, his voice hard. “Or is that bauble for some other service rendered?”

  “Yes, we are to be married,” she said, looking at him warily.

  “I see.”

  Thelma moved toward him and began to talk quickly. No, he didn’t see, she said. She had been waiting anxiously for a sign from Hercules that they might meet, each day getting more and more nervous about what she had to say. Grayson had been corresponding with her these many weeks, each letter more revealing than the last with hints that he knew her secret. She pulled a stack of letters from her drawstring purse and held them out to Hercules, who only raised his eyebrows.