Some on their knees or on the ground jerked in their bodies. I resolved not to do that because my dress must remain very clean. The difference between a house slave and a field slave is our clothing. Our garments are not rags like theirs. We must not offend the eyes of the family.
Andre, who saw me after a time, smiled. He came to meet me and pulled me into his circle. Was I now Vodou? The Catholic Fathers would say that this was wrong.
I did not feel wrong, however, only pleased, as the mistress is pleased when she goes to a ball at Cap Francois. I had never had such a time before.
After dancing and listening to the soft worship and the talk of the priest, I understood. The cattle had not been infected with a disease. They had been poisoned. The Maroon chief François Mackandal had given the slaves a deadly plant to scatter where the cattle grazed. At many of the big homes across the whole island, this poison was put even in the family’s food. So, no wonder we blacks could not catch this illness which was for the whites only. And this, Andre had known. I was surprised.
Creeping back to the frond-thatched hut I shared with Michel, surnamed Benoit to mark him as their property, I wondered in regard to the rightness or wrongness of killing the whites. The Fathers might say that this went against the wishes of their Jesus, but the Vodou priest said the black people’s God would strongly approve.
I always tried to act to please this powerful Jesus, who would be kind when I finally arrived in his heaven—but now I was not sure. If Jesus belonged to the white people only and the loa, like the Twins and Yemaya, to the slaves, perhaps I was more meant to serve the gods of the blacks. I did not know and could ask no one here. I might ask the Fathers if their God could love me as black as I was, but I already realized that the answer must be no. The French did not love me, so how could their God? Still, I had been a Catholic since I was six, eating the holy sacrament each week, and was thus claimed.
I could not have entered my hut more quietly. If Michel had been sleeping properly as he ought to have been, I would not have awakened him. But no, he had been lying in wait for me, which, tonight, only meant that he pushed me out of the bed onto the floor. I was used to sleeping on the floor when he preferred me to. I should not have gotten into his bed, though, because then he sat up, reached to me, and grabbed his hand into my hair, tearing at it. He shook me that way until my brain felt rattled and my neck nearly broken. Then he let go with another strong push. Although tears came to my eyes, this was not so bad as sometimes. I was not punched.
Without a word, Michel fell to sleep, and I moved further away so that he could not reach me. I waited for my head to settle down before I, too, slept, my bruised body uncomforted by the packed dirt.
Over the next two weeks, I attended the Vodou several times more. Less frightened than I had been, I was, nonetheless, afraid. If we were caught... But at the Vodou, no one treated me badly. I was accepted as one of them. We danced, and no matter how tired I was from my work, I felt strengthened by what we did there.
I saw the future and pictured going on this way until I perhaps died of the fever or of a beating from Michel. I had no idea that anything would change. How could it? What would change? More cows had died, and several of the horses, but new ones would be bought. We would go on as always. I would become a little more tired each year, and my face and body more scarred and ugly. That was all.
“You must be the one to do it for us all,” whispered Little Marie to me one morning. She pressed a small, closed wooden box into my hand and gestured for me to hide it in my apron. I placed it there while she nodded approvingly. “Don’t touch what’s in there with your fingers,” she warned. “It will kill you dead.”
Naturally, my eyes went wide with great amazement. This was the poison fungus they talked about and I must hold it? I could not be calm.
Little Marie clenched her jaw grimly and went and looked into the other rooms to be sure no one was hiding there. Of course, we spoke the language of our own tribe, the Bagandas. But still. ‘‘You are the only one beside cook who handles the food directly, and cook is not on our side. We cannot trust her.”
We heard the rustling of a silk dress on the way down the hall, so we parted, and I was left only half comprehending what I must do. They trusted me—that was all I understood. I was trusted, and cook was not. I was Vodou like them, even though a Catholic. But, of course, as a Catholic,
I must not poison the family because Thou Shalt Not Kill. This was correct, was it not?
I felt fairly sure that I must not poison the Benoits, that Jesus, whom I was sworn to as a servant, and baptized in his name with the holy water, would not want me to. I must think of a way to say no to the Vodou slaves.
In the meantime, the wooden box seemed on fire against my body. Every step I took, it clacked and bounced. Would the poison come out of the box and attack me? It hit against the stove and made a noise. I jumped. I even broke a dish that day and cook tattled to the mistress, who slapped me hard across the face. “You stupid black girl. Why must I deal with these stupid blacks in this Godforsaken country?” Madame said.
Oh, if she would find the wooden box, I would be buried alive. I felt ill all day and went straight to bed that night, hiding the wooden box behind the cabin door, which Michel left open to get a little air. But I should not have stayed home that night, for Michel abused me and then hit me many times for his extra pleasure. But he is neither Christian nor Vodou, and only does the bidding of Pierre Benoit.
In the morning, Little Marie could only glare at me meaningfully. Again, the box was in my smock because I had no place else to hide anything that I might own. Luckily, the single possession to my name was an old wooden comb, and that I carried in my pocket always, though many teeth were missing from it and it did not comb my hair at all well.
That night I went to the Vodou ceremony. Where else was I to go that offered the company of friends, and solace? Francois Mackandal, the Maroon chief, was present and came to me personally during the dancing to whisper hot words into my ear. He called me a good girl, a smart girl, one who would help the blacks of this island claim our own—before the white men killed us off altogether, as they had the Indians who had lived here before. Where were those Indians? Dead slaves on the trash pile of the whites. I was a good girl, a smart girl. Only one answer remained for our kind.
Andre walked me quietly across the fields. “I’m afraid of the punishments,” I whispered to him. “The whites will punish me with a great deal of pain.”
They will be dead,” Andre assured me. “Too dead to punish. And we will all run off. We will be Maroons.”
“I can’t run off alone.” I hesitated.
“We will all run off,” Andre said, pulling me by the arm closer to him as we passed under the shadow of the stables. “You and I will run off together.”
The horses inside snickered, and we hurried on.
The next day, I got what little milk the milkers handed me and stopped before I reached the kitchen door. Carefully, I opened the wooden box with the hem of my apron. Inside was a gray powder. Would this make the milk look spoiled?
I shook some in and the powder settled on the top, like dirt.
I closed the box and placed it back in my apron. This was no good. The milk would not work. I could not get all of the poison in.
By the time I got the milk onto the pantry shelf, it looked the same as everyday cow’s milk, white and foamy. But I had not placed enough poison in it, so the drink would probably only make the family sick. That was possibly better, since, as a Catholic, I was not actually supposed to kill.
I would tell François Mackandal that the failure had not been my fault, and Andre and I could still go to the Maroons.
Master came down early and I served him his coffee with plenty of the milk. “The coffee is too white, girl,” he said. “It will not be hot.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Will you drink that? I will run fetch you another cup.” I went and stood in the pantry and stared into the milk, then
I went back out to the dining room. “The coffee is boiling, sir. I will bring it in an instant.”
The master’s hand was on his chest and an odd look marched across his face. “Are you unwell, sir? Shall I go get Madame?”
He shook his head, and I dared to stand in place and watch him, feigning concern. In a moment, he slumped to one side and collapsed on the floor. The poison must be very strong or the master must be very weak.
I did not feel at all bad, but I ran for Blanche, the mistress’s personal maid. “Hurry upstairs and tell Mistress that the master is ill. She must come at once.”
I passed the master on my way back into the kitchen. He did not twitch.
In the pantry once more, I stared at the milk, which looked quite ordinary still, though the froth was gone. I listened to cook in the kitchen banging her pans and waited for whatever was to happen next. I had not meant to kill him, possibly. That much powder had been very little. I would make my apology to Jesus later in a prayer and to the Twins and to the Dead, which I supposed now included Pierre Benoit.
Too nervous to stand still another minute, I went out the pantry door to the yard. I barely knew what I was doing. My only thought was to stay away from the master for a minute or two until the mistress was over her initial shock. But I might have been sorry for leaving the safety of the house because, unfortunately, Michel was out there.
“I have been banging on the door, you lazy black girl. Didn’t you hear me? Go and tell the master I am here, as he called.” Michel reached to give me a smack across my face, but I jumped out of the way in time.
“Oh, Michel, something terrible. The master is ill. He has the white plague.”
Michel shook his head. “No, it isn’t possible.”
I wrung my hands. “Yes, it is true.” I could barely keep a nervous smile off my face. But I thought with some sense of accomplishment that I had for once spoiled Michel’s assurance of mind. He must worry about his own position on the plantation now, must he not? “Poor Michel,” I added. “I hope this will mean nothing too bad for you.”
I could not tell what was going on in that odd brain of his, since he had a way of keeping his thoughts to himself while acting superior, but I supposed he would be very glum.
“Don’t talk so stupid, girl, or I’ll give you a beating.” He pretended he would advance on me, though I knew he would not. If the mistress saw him, she would chide him for wasting his time.
“Poor Michel,” I repeated. “I feel sorry for you. But in any case, I will bring you a small cup of milk.”
I ran into the pantry and poured my husband half a cup of the liquid, rushing out again, lest he go before he’d had his refreshment. If Jesus meant for him to die, Michel would be there and drink the milk and the poison would be sufficient to bring him low. And maybe he would only become very, very ill.
Michel wrapped his giant black knuckles around the delicate porcelain and I recalled that very fist cracking into my face and breaking the bone beneath my eye. I ran my fingers over the spot on my cheek, but quickly took my hand away and smiled encouragingly. He drank. I really hadn’t served him much.
I took the cup back and brought it into the kitchen. There, I set it into the trash, under a heap of eggshells and coffee grinds, so no one would drink from it accidentally. Cook was in the middle of preparing the meal.
I had not dressed Angelina yet this morning. She must be livid. I went back out to the yard.
“Oh, poor Michel,” I cried out at once. He was on the ground, gasping. He had not died straightaway like the master. I supposed he was stronger. He might even live. “Are you not well?”
The day had been a brilliant one, but now some clouds covered up the sun. That would be a relief from the intense heat, making our trip to the Maroons in the hills that much easier.
Michel no longer seemed to be breathing, and I reached over and pinched the flesh of his arm very hard. I wanted to see if he was dead or alive, and that was one way to tell. Since he didn’t move, I assumed the worst and dragged him into the outdoor larder, where the less perishable staples are kept. I saw no sense in leaving his dead body lying out for anyone to see.
“I’m sorry, Jesus,” I said out loud. “But, Michel, you were not a very good man. Did you think nothing would ever come of your badness? That you would never be punished?”
I went into the house and the dining room, where a crowd was gathered around the mistress and around the master’s body. “How terrible,” I said, nearly wailing. “The plague has struck.” Then the idea occurred to me, finally, that Jesus himself had used me as the instrument of his revenge. Was not their God a wrathful God? Oh yes. This was a very sensible and logical thought.
“Poor Mistress,” I consoled her quietly, as I was suddenly tired and yearned to lie down. The killing of men, though it might not take physical strength, is an effort to exhaust one.
Mistress’s eyes met my own and for once her face was fragile, as bone China is fragile.
I shooed the other slaves away from her presence and helped the mistress to a chair. “I will get you a coffee,” I suggested. “The day will be a long one for you.” Not actually, it wouldn’t, however, and wasn’t the right thing for her troubles to be over, too? Could a woman like her live without her husband? But in any case, I wasn’t truly concerned with her best interests, simply eager to fulfill what had been asked of me by the Maroon chief and by God.
The milk was not running at all low and the liquid still appeared very ordinary. I gave Mistress the sugar to her coffee, as she preferred. I could have sworn for one moment when I handed her the cup that she almost said “Thank you.” But she did not, and of course, I bobbed my head anyway.
She sent one of the men slaves for the surgeon, although the fact that the master was dead should have been quite obvious to her. “The plague, Mistress,” I explained. “He has expired of the plague.” I put on a sad face, since that was what one usually did.
I didn’t like to watch her die, so I went back into the pantry and poured three goblets of the milk, one for each of the children—the two girls and the boy. I set them all on a tray and brought the tray out with me. As I passed the dining table, I saw a vomit coming out of the mistress’s mouth. The poison in the milk had not lost its power, although it had already killed two men.
Upstairs, I first brought the Benoit son, Henri, his milk. “Here, young sir. We are late with the breakfast. Have this to tide you over, until we serve.”
I did the same for the two girls, but Angelina was in a rage. ‘‘I’ve not had my bath, you lazy, lazy girl.” She hit me on the shoulder with the back of her hairbrush, then hit me again. I barely felt the blows because my mind did not think of them, spinning as it was with so much else.
“I am wrong, Mademoiselle, and I pray to Jesus Christ to forgive me.”
With that, she was appeased and turned and drank down her milk.
So it was that I obeyed the summons given to me by God or the devil, I really don’t know.
Downstairs, the house slaves milled about in some confusion with the mistress, too, dead on the carpet. Little Marie came over and hugged me. I didn’t recall having been hugged ever before. “I will go and get the others,” she said.
When she left the room, I went upstairs again to be sure the children were all dead. Like the cows in the field, they had each breathed their last. How quickly the Vodou poison worked.
Angelina lay sprawled across the floor in her nightdress, her plump white limbs quite akimbo, her soft, blazing-red hair shining in the sun. I took the silver comb from Angelina’s dressing table top. In its place, I put my old wooden comb, a sign that I did not care to steal.
Andre was in the house when I went down and we nodded to one another as an acknowledgment that our work was complete. The field slaves would burn the Benoit house to cinders and the bodies of the family with it—along with the dead overseer, Michel. Andre and I headed toward the hills to claim and work our parcel of land.
And s
everal decades later, I did not forbid my then-grown sons to go to Cap François along with the priest Boukman to overcome the still-ruling whites. A few years after that, Haiti became the country of the loa, with the Indians dead, the Spanish departed, the French overthrown, and only we blacks and some few mulattos left to harvest the island’s rich and hard-won soil.
Guardian Angel
Elaine Togneri
I like to think my friend Jenny knows an angel watches over her now...now that it’s too late. The angel’s marble eyes stare at traffic on the busy county road, not the verdant spring brush or weathered Jersey scrub pines surrounding the cemetery. With wings partially unfurled, ever ready, the angel safeguards her—a guardian angel, the kind she always wished for—the kind she never had.
Pulling purple foil off the hyacinth I purchased at a Cranbury Road farm stand a few miles away, I caught a breath of sweetness, then knelt at the side of Jenny’s grave. I couldn’t bring myself to lean on her, though I’d had no qualms about the assorted other souls I’d walked on to reach her. I told myself I didn’t want to crush the sparse, newly sprung grass attempting to cover her portion of dirt. I hoped it fared better than the flowers I had planted over the last four weeks—two sets of imported tulips that wilted to the ground overnight, carnations that died within a week, the gladiolas...I stabbed the ground with my trowel and dug around their dried brown leaves. They crackled and crumbled in my hand as I grasped them, but the plant pulled up easily enough, and I set it to the side. A few more shovelfuls and the hole was big enough for my new offering.
I depotted the hyacinth. Its vibrant purple reminded me of the silk dress Jenny had worn to my daughter’s wedding. How alive she’d been then, full of joy for her goddaughter, Sandra, and the husband she’d chosen. The image of Jenny twirling on the dance floor, long dark hair swinging, full skirt shimmering with each movement, haunted me.
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