He’d always wanted to tell them—the lies were hers. Panic strangled Marguerite, and suddenly her limbs were useless—she couldn’t stop him.
But the corner of Matthieu’s mouth flickered with a grin, and not one of their children appeared. She realized he’d chanted each name loud enough to frighten her, but not loud enough to attract their attention. Still he motioned to the garden bench across from their own. “Sit down, please. Your mother and I have something very important to tell you.” Matthieu paced before their imaginary audience with his hands clasped behind his back in mock gravity. “Remember the choleric baron we’ve told you about? My erstwhile employer? The reason we cannot return to France? He is not in fact your mother’s father, but her husband. I tutored her stepson. You are all—”
Now her own threatening laughter lent her strength: Marguerite sprang to her feet and clamped her hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t say that word.
Matthieu pulled it off and continued: “—indebted to the little demon for bringing me under your mother’s roof. Where she and I made the beast with two backs until we made you, Delphine. Your mother was elated but terrified. She thought she was barren: ten years with her husband and not one child—until you. Until me. What were we to do but flee? We couldn’t do that without money. Unfortunately the baron didn’t see this as reclaiming your mother’s dowry; he used it to convince the court that I deserved to hang.” For the first time Matthieu’s smile faded, and his steps faltered. “I was nineteen years old.”
Even that would shock the children; she and Matthieu lied about their ages as well, to obscure the fact that he was seven years her junior. Too many questions would be raised: why had Marguerite still been unmarried at the age of twenty-six? Their name itself was false—Lazare belonged to his mother.
It would be exhilarating, after all these years, to tell the truth. But it would serve only themselves, not their children, blissful in their ignorance. The truth was a door that, once opened, they could never close. The children would see themselves differently, see her and Matthieu differently, and each of them would have their own decision to make. For all these reasons, they must remain in exile, or some police spy or gossip would make the decision for them. Matthieu was right.
But so was she. This place was destroying them all, and only the children could escape it. Marguerite stared at the blue pleats of her lustring skirt. “It’s ruined us too, this island.”
“What do you mean?”
She’d been deceiving herself, to think it would last forever. It was a wonder they’d lasted so long. He’d made no vows to her. “When we came here, we were like…oxygen to one another.” Till the day she died, she would never forget Matthieu’s countenance that first time, his gratitude and astonishment that she wanted him. “Now…” Fiercely she wiped away the tears that rose against her will. “You haven’t touched me in months, Matthieu.” It was like the baron all over again—she’d become more furniture than woman—except she and her husband had never loved each other, so it hadn’t hurt like this. “I know I’m—shrivelling up…” She grimaced at her own breasts, concealed though they were beneath her fichu, elevated as they were by her stays. She knew the truth. “And you’re still…” She raised her eyes miserably to his face: skin tanned and lined now; but he was as virile and handsome as he had ever been, those luminous blue eyes undimmed after all these years.
Yet that beloved face was crinkling to laugh at her. “Oh, m’amour.”
It was cruel, for him to call her “my love” now. She tried to pull away, but he grasped her hand.
“I haven’t touched you because I am waiting till you are a little more shrivelled. Till we can be certain you won’t…”
She made herself look at him.
“Three in succession, Marguerite. Félicité was so hard on you, even before she was born.” With a sigh, Matthieu’s eyes settled on the flowers beside them. “I decided we have enough rose bushes.”
Marguerite stared at him. Every line of his body was taut. How could she have mistaken his own suffering? “It isn’t because of the bees, then?”
Matthieu chuckled. “The bees are a welcome distraction; that is all.” Yet he kept his gaze averted. “I would give them up tomorrow—if you would allow me to prevent another child.”
How she wanted to say yes… But she could not let him commit such a sin.
It was only for her brother’s sake that Marguerite felt any guilt about what she and Matthieu had done. Not for her tyrant of a husband; not for her terror of a stepson; not for her parents, who had chained her to a widower twice her age simply because he was a baron. Denis was the only member of her family who had not disowned her, he who might have the greatest reason to recoil; he was a Priest. If you persist in this sin, had come his first letter to Saint-Domingue, do not compound it. Live faithfully as husband and wife and accept joyfully all the children God gives you. If you do anything to prevent them, you usurp a prerogative that is His alone…
Surely it wouldn’t be much longer till this women’s hell passed, till there was no risk of conception. More than another child, she’d needed to know that Matthieu still wanted her. So she would not break her promise to Denis now. Slowly Marguerite shook her head, even as she met Matthieu’s blue eyes. “You will wait for me?”
“I have been waiting for you for twenty years,” he smiled, taking her face in his hands. “One day, m’amour, I will make you my wife. All we have to do is outlive your current husband.”
Chapter 2
Two Years Later
I felt a certain revulsion when I first saw what resembled the heads of four small children in the soup, but as soon as I tasted it, I easily moved beyond this consideration and continued to eat it with pleasure.
— Jean-Baptiste Labat, on consuming monkeys, Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amérique (1742)
Her son raised the skull like a Priest elevating the Host at Mass. “Maman!” Étienne cried. “Look!”
Even through the jalousies of the gallery, Marguerite could see that his fingers were as filthy as the bone. When he moved toward the steps, she scowled. “I don’t want that thing in the house, Étienne.”
“Yes, Maman.” Her son stopped and lowered his trophy, his shoulders sagging with it. The boy did not take his eyes from the dead sockets but turned toward the ajoupa he had fashioned for such artifacts. The collection in his hut was beginning to rival the museum in Le Cap. Étienne would make a name for himself someday, if he ever escaped this island.
Narcisse, meanwhile, seemed to belong here. Snoring open-mouthed beside her, he sprawled in one of their caned chairs with his legs propped up on the extended rests. Marguerite worried about him. He had inherited Matthieu’s face, but little of his intelligence and none of his good humor. Instead, Narcisse too often reminded her of the parable about the Creole boy who wanted an egg. When he was told there weren’t any eggs, the boy responded: “In that case, I want TWO!”
With a sigh, Marguerite tried to resume her brother’s letter, but Gabriel emerged from the doorway behind her. In spite of the heat, he retained his militia jacket, though he had undone its gold buttons. Gabriel must know how fine he looked in it, how the indigo dye matched his eyes. “Where have you been digging now, little brother?” Gabriel called to Étienne as he leaned against the outer doorway and sliced into a guava.
The boy returned breathlessly, still cradling the skull. “I wasn’t digging. The negroes found it in the latrine—what will be the new latrine, when it’s finished.”
The monkey Gabriel had brought back from the market in Le Cap shrieked in anticipation and skittered up the jalousies in pursuit of the guava. The noise finally awoke Narcisse, who grumbled as he stirred.
Gabriel flicked seeds between the slats, distracting the monkey, then motioned to the skull with his knife. “How long has he been dead?”
“At least three centuries! This was an Arawak.”
“An Indian?” Gabriel asked around the pulp in his mouth. “The ones who were here when
Columbus landed?”
Étienne nodded. “See how the forehead is sloped? The Arawaks did that on purpose.”
“Whatever for?”
Étienne shrugged. “If the Spanish hadn’t killed them all, maybe we’d know.”
“The Spanish didn’t kill all the Indians,” Narcisse interjected, letting his feet thump to the floor and startling the monkey. It retreated past the slave working the fan. “You think you know everything, but you don’t. We had a half-breed right—” Narcisse caught himself, glancing at Marguerite.
Yes, she remembered: on one of Dr. Arthaud’s visits, an entire dinner conversation had been dedicated to whether or not one of their servers had Indian blood—the little whore Marguerite managed to forget about most days, since Matthieu kept his promise and disposed of her.
“I’ve seen Indians in town,” Narcisse amended. “Live ones.”
“Slaves, you mean?” Étienne remained undaunted. “Those aren’t Arawaks. They’re from our colonies in Canada and Louisiana. We brought them here just the same as the Africans.”
Narcisse mumbled something and consoled himself by lighting a cigar.
“The Arawaks were different.” Étienne kept gazing in awe at the skull. “Maybe even better than us. The Spanish tried to enslave them; but the Arawaks were ‘kindly and peaceable men,’ so they didn’t fight back. They only threw themselves off cliffs.”
Marguerite scoffed. Suicide was a sign of merit? The negroes would kill themselves, too, if you didn’t watch them.
Étienne continued as if he and the skull were alone in the world: “There were millions of Arawaks on this island—they called it Hayti—and in a couple of decades, they were extinct. Maybe that’s why God gave us the best part of the island, because of what the Spanish did to the Arawaks. In his pamphlet, Dr. Arthaud says—”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You and Arthaud and Rousseau and your noble savages. Natural man is not noble, little brother; he is simply savage.”
Étienne launched into some impassioned defense, but Marguerite stopped listening. The boys’ conversations were usually abstract like this, with no bearing on their lives. For all their differences, Marguerite missed Delphine—only a palm avenue and a banana field away, and yet so far, over the rutted roads.
Marguerite returned to Denis’s latest missive. These past two years, every letter brought fresh horrors. The King and his family were being treated like prisoners—pious, harmless Louis XVI and his innocent children! They were not to blame if their mother was a traitor.
This upstart National Assembly knew no limits. It had abolished not only noble titles but also religious orders and confiscated Church property. It had even granted suffrage to mulattos if their parents had been born free! France was mad, Denis warned. It was not safe. Planters were being attacked in the streets, despised for their wealth. Human heads had been paraded on pikes! This was why their sons remained with them on Saint-Domingue under Matthieu’s tutelage, though Gabriel was nearly twenty.
Meanwhile, the former baron had celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday in perfect health, apart from his gout. Clearly her husband planned to live to one hundred simply out of spite. Marguerite had thought they’d be free of him years ago, that she and Matthieu could quietly, truly marry and legitimate their children before any of them came of age.
May God in his infinite mercy guard you from accidents, Denis had prayed from the beginning. If you take ill, dear sister, and you feel death approaching, you know what you must do: send for a Priest immediately and repent. You must renounce Matthieu, or you will die in a state of mortal sin and be damned.
Marguerite could not stop thinking about their last King. The year she was born, a grave sickness had struck Louis XV. Preparing for death, the King had repented of his mistress and sent her away. He had recovered and lived another thirty years, but that mistress could never share his bed again. No Priest would absolve even a King for the same mistress a second time: the first Confession would be proven insincere. Louis XV soon found himself new strumpets—but what if such a false alarm happened to Matthieu or herself? Even if death were certain, could Marguerite truly repent of her choice? And yet without that Confession…
On the back of her hand, Marguerite felt the familiar stab of a mosquito. She smacked at it but missed. Merde. Perhaps it had been Makandal, she thought wryly. A decade before she and Matthieu arrived on Saint-Domingue, the slave had conspired to poison all the whites on the island. He’d been caught and burned alive; but Makandal claimed he was immortal, that he would turn into a mosquito to escape the flames and return someday to finish what he’d started.
The bite itched fiercely. Marguerite glared at the little griffe who had abandoned the fan and was instead staring uselessly at Étienne’s skull. “Did I tell you to stop?”
The slave jumped and stepped back toward the fan’s cord. Narcisse, however, grabbed his arm. “Your mistress asked you a question, crétin: Did she tell you to stop?” He did not let go, though he knew full well the boy wouldn’t answer. “Why do you never say anything?” Narcisse demanded. “Do you think you’re better than us? Because your father went to university in Paris? If he was so smart, why didn’t he know the penalty for aiding runaways? It’s his fault you’re here now. You know that, don’t you? Your father put you here. He must really hate you.” Narcisse’s argument made no sense: the boy’s father had forfeited his own freedom, too.
The griffe did not argue; he only kept his silence, even when Narcisse pressed the lit end of the cigar to his wrist. The boy squirmed and fat tears dropped from his eyes, but still he did not speak.
“Stop it, Narcisse,” Marguerite ordered, scratching the back of her hand till she drew blood. “I want the fan.”
“I will stop when he tells me to.”
Fortunately Matthieu’s return from the fields distracted Narcisse and allowed the boy to resume his duty. Étienne ran over to introduce his skull, but it elicited only a murmur of acknowledgement from his father. Marguerite frowned. Last week, Matthieu had been ecstatic about a rock their son had brought him. Now, he kept his eyes downcast and climbed the steps of the gallery as if each were a mountain.
“Is something the matter, Matthieu?”
“Hm?” He looked up like a man awaking from a dream. “Oh. The…crabs are eating the cane roots again.” As if this drought were not enough. He paused at the inner doorway, then turned back. “What would you think, Marguerite, about going to Eaux de Boynes tomorrow?”
“Are you feeling ill?”
“No, not at all.” His smile did not convince her. “I just think it would be good for all of us to get away from here for a while.”
“But Gabriel just returned from Le Cap.”
“Don’t delay on my account, Papa—I can be ready at a moment’s notice to view ladies in bathing attire.”
Marguerite tried to ignore this remark and how Narcisse snorted when he laughed. “Should we invite Delphine and Guillaume? I don’t know if she will want to travel…”
“Her confinement isn’t for another month, is it? I think the waters will do her and the baby good.” Matthieu turned to their youngest son, who stood on the steps still holding his trophy. “What do you think, Étienne? Can you tear yourself away from your skeletons?”
The boy frowned, considered the skull, and glanced in the direction of the latrine pit. Finally he looked back at his father and nodded. “I still have today!” he cried as he ran toward his ajoupa.
Chapter 3
Everything is disastrous under slavery; it renders the master cruel, vindictive, proud; it renders the slave sluggish, deceitful, hypocritical; sometimes it brings man to atrocities which, without it, he would never have been capable.
— Pierre-Paul-Nicholas Henrion de Pansey, Mémoire pour un nègre qui réclame sa liberté (1770)
In the humid oppression of August, sleep was a welcome release. Naturally, as soon as Marguerite achieved it, she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder and heard Matthieu’s voic
e in her ear. Their year of continence had certainly fed the flames of his desire.
“It’s too hot, Matthieu…” she moaned.
“Please, Marguerite.” For heaven’s sake, he sounded as frantic as he’d been at nineteen.
Something assaulted her nostrils then, at once pleasant and acrid, and she squinted open her eyes. “Do I smell…smoke?”
“The cane is on fire.”
She still didn’t understand why Matthieu was waking her. He had planned the plantation to protect them from such danger. Even in this drought, the flames shouldn’t jump across the irrigation ditches. She rubbed her eyes. “A lightning strike?”
“I don’t think so.”
The silence began to worry her—not a single tree frog or insect drumming. Marguerite’s bleary vision focused slowly on a pattern of blue and ivory stripes: Matthieu’s banyan. He had said he wanted to finish reading the latest Affiches Américaines before retiring—yet beneath the robe, he still wore his breeches, as if he had never intended to come to bed.
When he turned his attention from her, Marguerite followed his gaze through the mosquito netting. Étienne stood in the doorway holding a rifle as tall as he was. She sat up at once.
“Pellé rode to warn us,” Matthieu explained. For the first time, she saw the pistol butt sticking out of his banyan pocket. “There’s a band of negroes coming up the road. They’ve got hoes and cane knives.”
“What?” She stared at the window as though she could see them. Through the slats seeped only a strange orange glow. It couldn’t be any of their slaves rebelling. Perhaps their family was not as lenient as the Gallifets, but neither were they like “Caradeux le cruel,” burying negroes alive in the—
“You have to hide yourself, Maman.” Étienne was offering her a pair of his own leather boots.
Matthieu caressed her cheek, but only for a moment. “You are still a beautiful woman, Marguerite.”
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