The General's Cook

by Ramin Ganeshram

  They’d burned the paper when they were done, lest anyone wonder why two illiterate slaves had a newspaper in the kitchen. Hercules had hoped that the whole affair would scare Nate off Margaret but that hadn’t happened, and so while he didn’t approve what was going on between them, all he could do now was make sure they didn’t take a misstep that could cost them far dearer than they could comprehend.

  He could feel now that Nate remained crouched where he was in the dark, probably still considering his chances.

  Hercules spoke again softly. “The house is big and you have no business to be inside it,” he said. “Who do you know there to trust to take a message to Margaret and hold tongue about it later?”

  Finally, Hercules heard Nate rise and he lay there, tensed, to see what move he’d make. He heard the boy slowly letting out the air he had held in his lungs and then settle back down on his cot.

  “How long have you known?” Nate’s voice came softly across the room. Hercules could hear the shame there.

  On his own cot, Hercules let his body relax and said nothing, purposefully making his breathing steady as if he were already asleep. Eventually, he heard Nate sigh and move around to get comfortable.

  How long had he known? There were too many things that Hercules knew, and the burden was getting heavy to bear. He let his mind wander back to that day he brought Oney to Mrs. Harris. When they had gotten inside, the schoolteacher had asked a few questions and listened carefully to Oney’s answers.

  “Have you been beaten?” she asked, peering into the girl’s eyes.

  When Oney shook her head no, she asked. “Have you been ill used?”

  Then, to Hercules’s surprise, Oney had started talking all in a rush about Miss Betsey and how she would beat a person easylike, and Virginia, and being a slave and, well, everything.

  Mrs. Harris only listened, glancing briefly at Hercules from time to time.

  Finally she spoke. “It’s not for us to judge why a person aims to be free. It’s all of our right to want that, I reckon. We just have to be sure that your request is”—she paused, searching for the right word—“a genuine one.” She looked now at Hercules, without blinking. “You can appreciate the delicacy of the matter given the household from which you come,” she finished.

  Oney looked at Hercules, who’d nodded curtly.

  “Good,” said Mrs. Harris, apparently satisfied. “You’ll find your way back to me two more times, Miss Judge, and we’ll make our plans accordingly.”

  Then came the day to go back to Virginia, and there was no Oney to be found. They had been delayed a whole day while the president demanded a search of the city. Nate had been sent among some of the hired men to scour the town, since he knew what she looked like.

  All that time, Hercules had remained in his kitchen, focused on his cooking. He’d made his face a perfect mask of surprise and then concern when Mrs. Washington had come down to question them all.

  Hercules smiled as he drifted to sleep. Soon he’d make his move too. It was time for him to plan for himself.

  Hercules placed the last of the peaches in syrup and closed the crock tightly.

  “That anise should impart an interesting flavor,” he said with satisfaction as he handed Nate the jar to put into the cellar. He wiped down his worktable.

  As he scrubbed away the thick syrup from the surface, he thought about the coming evening. Evey had visited as she did most every day of the last two months that they had been at the farm and asked him when he would come by. He’d usually spend an hour or two, bringing some food from the General’s kitchen with him. At least while he was there, his children could eat better than what they were provisioned or could grow in their little kitchen garden.

  But he found it hard to remain much longer than what was required to take a meal and play a little with Baby. It depressed him to answer their eager questions about Philadelphia, for he would rather be there than here and he was sure they knew it. It was worse when Richmond came down instead of remaining above the blacksmith shop as he usually did. He hardly spoke and answered Hercules’s questions with a barely civil tongue.

  It pained him too to know that these might be his last days with them, planning as he was. The General had announced in the papers he’d be leaving the presidency by early next year—this time for sure, no delays, he’d said, not even from God himself. That meant Hercules would soon have to take his chance. Sometimes he’d dream of bringing them all to Philadelphia, but it was a dream that faded fast when he considered how he might try to move with three children and an angry young man on his coattails.

  He must have sighed; Nate asked if he was all right.

  “Yes, fine,” he said, smiling at the boy. “You best start packing the crates with hams and the pickles we put up to go back with the General next week. Do you think you can remember what all else has to come when you follow us with Mrs. Washington next month?”

  “Maybe I could make a list—” Nate began.

  “Shhhh!” Hercules hissed, coming around the table and standing close. “Don’t ever say a thing like that again,” he said, gripping the boy’s arm roughly. “You don’t know who might hear. Never forget where you are. Ask up at the house for them to send one who can write to make a list to call out to you later—Margaret maybe.”

  Nate nodded. It was an act of kindness on Hercules’s part. Nate met his eyes and managed a weak, grateful smile before each turned to his own work as the sound of voices approached from outside the cookhouse.

  “Cook—a word?” John Allistone, the overseer, stuck his head through the kitchen door but did not enter. Behind him a servant hurried by, not wanting to linger in the man’s path.

  Hercules raised his eyebrows just as Nate’s own shot up in alarm. He stepped out of the hot kitchen. He’d rarely had to deal with Allistone, his truck being mostly with the steward and Lady Washington herself. The overseer was a common laboring sort with a stained shirt opened at the collar to show a few white-blond hairs curling forth on the sun-baked skin.

  “The General asked me to speak with you,” said Allistone, dirty hands on hips. “It’s about your boy Richmond.” He stared hard at Hercules’s face. He felt a sharp pang of alarm but struggled not to show it and continued to look at the man with polite interest.

  “He stole some money from Mr. Wilke’s saddlebag,” said Allistone. “He’s been sent to River Farm.”

  River Farm functioned independently with its own overseer who worked his slaves as he pleased. It would mean hard labor and beatings. The fool! Hercules felt the rage rise in his chest but he kept his face bland.

  “I see,” he said, his mind racing.

  Allistone was talking again and this time it took Hercules a moment to follow. He stared at the man’s fleshy mouth and tried to focus.

  “I said do you know whether your boy had plans to run away, Uncle Harkless?”

  Hercules did his best not to show fury. “No, sir,” he said truthfully. “None at all.”

  Allistone looked at him overly long, hoping to catch him out in a lie. He moved closer to Hercules so his stinking breath came hot in his face. “Are you sure about that, boy?”

  Hercules clenched his jaw down harder. He willed his hand to hang loosely at his side instead of forming into a fist. He stared straight through the overseer toward the mansion as if the man weren’t there. Behind him he heard Nate shuffle nervously. He’d have to find a way to see the General—Allistone broke into his thoughts. “The General feels it’s best if you don’t accompany him back to the capital this time,” said the overseer, gloating. His voice trailed off as his eyes followed one of the mulatto girls rounding the corner from the laundry. He licked his lips. Hercules itched to backhand him across his rotten-toothed mouth. “He thinks it’s better for you to stay here, being as they only will be gone a few months this time.”

  The man smiled broadly at Hercules, showing his full mouth of blackened teeth. Hercules tried to swallow but his mouth had gone too dry. Stay her
e. What had Richmond brought down upon his head? He’d kill the boy if he ever clapped eyes on him again.

  “But who will do the cooking?” asked Nate, his panicked voice reaching into the rafters of their room above the kitchen.

  “You will go back in my stead, along with Margaret,” said Hercules. “And I imagine they will hire someone—Mr. Julien perhaps—to manage the kitchen.”

  “This isn’t right!” said Nate, tears rising in his eyes. He turned and brushed them away roughly.

  “Many things aren’t right, son,” said Hercules. His voice was raspy and tired. “But you better get used to that in this life.”

  Nate didn’t say anything for a while. “What will you do here, then?” he asked finally.

  “Cook—what else? There’s still Lady Washington and the rest of the family—she doesn’t join him for another month at least. Then there are always the guests …” The weariness of these last days suddenly pressed on him and he let his voice trail off. He watched as Nate angrily packed his satchel.

  “Take care about how you are with the girl,” he said softly. “Folks notice things, even when you think they don’t.”

  Nate stopped packing.

  “Be most mindful of Kitt,” Hercules went on. “He’s got his own ideas about folk like us.”

  Nate put the last shirt in the satchel and buckled it closed. “I will, Chef,” he said.

  “There’s something else,” said Hercules, getting up to stand close to Nate.

  The younger man looked questioningly at Hercules.

  “If you should find yourself in … trouble,” Hercules whispered, his face inches from Nate’s own, “there is a woman I want you to see.”

  “A woman?” Nate said, surprised. His voice was loud in the empty room.

  “Quiet!” Hercules hissed, moving closer still. “Her name is Mrs. Harris. She has digs in Cherry Street. A gray clapboard house at the end of an alley. If you find yourself in any kind of trouble, go to her and tell her that I’ve sent you.”

  Nate’s eyes grew afraid but he nodded.

  “Good,” Hercules said in a normal voice. He clasped the boy on the shoulder. Nate was now a full head taller than he was.

  “You are a fine cook, son,” he said, giving his arm a firm squeeze.

  Now Nate could not stop the water from rushing up to his eyes.

  “Have the best teacher,” he whispered, the tears overtaking his voice.

  Hercules gave him a tight-lipped smile as Nate angrily rubbed his face.

  “It’s only for a few months,” Nate said, searching Hercules’s face for confirmation. Hercules pulled the boy forward in a fierce hug as the boy cried desperately into his shoulder. “Only a few months, right, Chef?”

  “It will be all right, I expect,” murmured Hercules, holding him tight, clamping his teeth down hard so tears wouldn’t come to his own eyes. How did this one become dearer to him than his own son?

  He released the boy and clapped him on the back before sticking out his hand. Nate looked down at it in surprise and then took it in his own. After silently shaking it, he hoisted the satchel on his shoulder and headed for the stairs. Hercules hoped it would be a good long time before the boy realized that he’d never answered his question.

  CHAPTER 29

  Fall 1796

  “PAPA?” HERCULES TURNED AWAY FROM THE fire toward Evey. He smiled gently. “Yes, child?”

  “Would you like for me to rub your shoulder?” she offered.

  “I’d be much obliged,” he said.

  As she kneaded her small hands into the shoulder that burned and ached from breaking rocks, he stared idly at Baby, who was playing with the rags she called her “dolly” by the fire. Why hadn’t he at least tried to get them away from this place? The answer needn’t be said. To be caught trying to escape was not a risk worth taking, for their lives thereafter would be far worse than the ones they led now. His jaw ached from clamping down as he considered his youngest child, playing happily without knowledge of the wretched life that would soon enough be hers.

  “Do you miss the kitchen, Papa?” asked Delia, who was sewing beside the fire, just a few steps away from the hearth. The cold seeped through the chinks and cracks of the poorly made cabin.

  “Shhh,” Evey hissed at her sister, with a quick glance at him.

  “It’s all right,” said Hercules, patting Evey’s hand upon his shoulder.

  “I miss it, yes,” he answered, carefully keeping the anger out of his voice. It wouldn’t do for them to see him railing against the impossible, lest they get their own dangerous ideas the way Richmond had. “But not much to do about that.”

  “But you’ll be cooking again when the General returns, won’t you?” Delia asked, her brows coming together. Hercules shrugged. “Couldn’t say,” he said mildly, although in truth, the answer to that question had plagued him plenty these past months. “Don’t know what the General plans.”

  If someone had asked him a few months ago whether he’d miss something so simple as peeling a potato or mixing a sauce, he’d have laughed. Who would long for such mundane things? But now that he was crushing rock to plaster the house and grubbing out weeds from the gardens, he realized he missed those simple tasks with a powerful longing.

  The other day Cyrus and Frank, who were working with him, laughed at the way he’d mixed the rock powder with the paint, folding it in like egg whites into a batter.

  “You not making a fine cake there, boss,” Cyrus had guffawed, grabbing away the trowel and mixing the thick mass as hard as he could. For a moment, Hercules had stood with his hands at his sides, bewildered, until Allistone had barked at him to get back to work. While he worked, the man was usually at his side, haranguing and cursing him, trying to get him to admit he had plotted with his wretched son. One day he would snap and brain the bastard with a rock. And then they’d fall on him like a pack of wild dogs.

  Now he looked down at his hands. The glow from the fire illuminated all the hard cracks that were there now.

  “Papa,” came Evey’s voice from over his shoulder. “What of Richmond—any news?”

  Hercules grunted and shook his head. He’d had no news of his son, nor had he sought it out. He still couldn’t trust himself not to thrash the boy for what he’d done, but if he beat Richmond senseless as he wanted, he’d be damaging Mrs. Washington’s property, wouldn’t he? Then what would become of them all? He snorted bitterly, then stood abruptly.

  “Just going out for a little air,” he said to his daughters.

  “Now?” said Delia, looking fearfully toward the door at a dark outside world that was not theirs to traverse.

  “Not far,” he said, forcing himself to give her a gentle smile. He stepped through the flimsy door.

  “I’ll help!” exclaimed Margaret quickly, setting aside the dish of dried peas she was picking over.

  “I hardly think—” began Mr. Julien from his place behind Hercules’s old table, but Margaret had already leapt up to follow Nate to the cellar where the cook had asked him to collect some beetroots. At the table the Frenchman shrugged. He had enough to think about, what with the First Lady determined to outdo every one of her Friday night receptions in order to show off her granddaughter Nelly to society.

  Not for the first time he wondered why they left Hercules at Mount Vernon if this was such an important time. Neither Nate nor Margaret would speak of it, but he had heard the rumors that Hercules had been planning to escape with his son.

  It made no good sense to Julien. Why escape from Virginia when it would have been so much each easier to do so here in Philadelphia? The Frenchman could only wonder. The steward had only smiled evilly when he had asked him. Julien wrinkled his nose at the thought of Kitt. Certainly Fraunces had been petty, but he was unparalleled at his job. This one was barely equipped for doing much more than listening at doors and squirreling away whatever he’d learned. He even looked like a rodent, thought Julien. With Hercules gone, Kitt had run unchecked. Even Julien
was surprised to realize how much power the General’s cook had really had.

  At least there were Nate and Margaret. Whatever their peculiarities, Hercules had taught them their business well and for that he was grateful. Julien hadn’t understood just how in hand Hercules had this kitchen until it was under his own command. What with Lady Washington’s constant changes of mind and the worthless hired staff, he’d have more than he could handle were it not for the two young ones.

  In the basement, Nate headed over to the bin with the beets, calling over his shoulder teasingly, “I think I can handle a few beets, Margaret. Or was there something else you had in mind?”

  Margaret stood stock-still in the middle of the cellar as Nate went into the gloom and came back out again, balancing several large beets in his splayed fingers. They fell from his hands with a dull thud when he saw the look on her face—the same dull-eyed stare she’d had when she had been so sick that time in Germantown, the same look that had haunted Oney before she ran away.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” he said, rushing to her. As he did, her face crumpled and the tears came so hard she couldn’t speak. Her hands pressed against her stomach with such force that Nate grasped at her arms, trying to make out the words she was choking out.

  “With child,” she croaked.

  “What child? With what child?” he said.

  Margaret shook her head violently. “No,” she gulped. “No. I am with child. Our child.” She broke down with more sobs while Nate stood in shock. His hands slipped from her arms and he took a step back before he raised both hands to his head and squatted down on the dirt floor.