Or perhaps he was dead already and in Limbo, waiting for his designation in the afterlife. What did anyone know of Limbo, after all? That it was a borderland, as was this beach; that it was nowhere, as was this beach; that it was full of lost souls, as was this beach — at least, insofar as he was there, and as lost as any soul could be. For in truth, he had not the slightest idea where he ranked on the scale of human wickedness. In school, he had not recited the catechism with authentic fervour and had made fun of the adenoidal priest behind his back. As an adult he had refused to go to Mass with his mother; yet another way he’d disappointed her. In his last memory of her, she was standing fixed as a statue in the doorway, pleading with him not to go to sea. When he insisted that he had to go, she flung her apron over her head and started moaning that she would lose him as she had his father. Her behaviour had irritated him so much he’d left without kissing her goodbye. This was surely his worst sin.
For though he had filched oranges from his fat neighbour to the east and olives from his thin neighbour to the west, though he had told plenty of girls he loved them in order to steal kisses sweeter than oranges and more bitter than unripe olives, he had committed no major crimes. His conscience was clear of robbery, adultery, and murder, though there had been plenty of temptation — and opportunity (that freckled young wife behind the chicken coop, for example). And he’d been generous with what he had, sharing with others less fortunate even when he knew they couldn’t pay him back.
Rehearsing these small villainies and smaller heroisms reminded Joaquin that one’s whole life is supposed to flash before one’s eyes at the moment of death. So I am dead! he thought, relieved to have at least one mystery resolved. Then he heard footsteps, and the next thing he knew, a gentle hand caressed his face and a woman’s voice murmured something vaguely familiar close to his ear. His panic subsided, and he lay there waiting for his fate to unfold.
A wooden beaker was held to his lips and he drank the sweet water eagerly. The sodden remnants of his clothes were stripped from his body and his wounds were dressed with fragrant ointments. Then he was lifted onto some kind of hammock and carried, swaying between two poles, for a great distance.
How long he was carried he couldn’t say, as he passed in and out of consciousness, lulled by exhaustion and the incessant movement of his conveyance. He could tell that the ground was rocky, and for a long time they definitely walked uphill. Once someone stumbled and he was almost dropped; when he cried out in pain and alarm, there was a flurry of apologetic voices in that vaguely familiar tongue. He also heard many birds; some, like seagulls, he recognized immediately; others were unknown to him. The wind sang in the trees, and when they moved into the open, the sun beat down on his unprotected face. He was everywhere and nowhere, saved and lost, alone among strangers.
Days might have passed, or hours. Time no longer had any meaning. There was only movement and then stillness; drinking and then sleeping. He had become an infant again, strapped to his mother’s chest. He was oddly content in this unaccustomed passivity.
Eventually they entered a cool darkness. His hammock was suspended above ground to keep the weight off his injured leg, so that he continued to sway slightly as though his journey had not yet ended. Then someone spoke kindly to him and spooned thick soup into his mouth. It was full of some kind of grain, and beans, and chunks of tender fish, aromatically seasoned. Smelling of comfort, this was the best meal he had tasted since he left Spain, but he could eat only a little, his belly heaving from having swallowed so much salt water. His mind also was overwhelmed by his experience. Too exhausted to grapple further with the mystery of his rescuers’ identity, he gave himself up to sleep, confident that he was among those who would not hurt him. Around him were the sounds of laughter, the high voices of women and children, and delicious smells. Wherever he was it was infinitely better than the floating hell of the Imperio.
Many days passed before he was well enough to get up, leaning on a stick because of his broken ankle, but he had not regained his vision. His hearing was unimpaired however, and it confirmed his impression that the language around him resembled Spanish, so he assumed that he must have been propelled by the storm to one of the American colonies. Indeed, the people acknowledged that they had heard of Spain and that Spanish ships came to the area occasionally. Maybe one day they could take him home. He was in no great rush to quit the hospitality of his rescuers, however, as he had grown fond of their quiet voices and sad music. That they preferred not to talk about who they were or where, exactly, their island was located, struck him as odd, but he attributed this reticence to their isolation, their primitive living conditions, and his own problems with communication.
As the days grew into weeks, he understood more of what was said to him and the others began to understand some of what he said to them. He learned that the place was called “Fogo” and the language, “Kriolu.” He was convinced that he had been to this country before, perhaps in another life, or that he had sailed to one of those islands he’d read about in travellers’ tales — a secret place that appeared out of the ocean mist every fifty years.
There was one girl in particular he became friendly with: the same one who had found him on the beach and saved his life. Her name was Aissata and she was sixteen, just like him, and had two big brothers, just like him, and her father was dead, just like his. She was the sister of his soul. He spent his days trying to think of ways to make her laugh, for the pleasure of hearing that silvery ripple of joy. Aissata’s laughter redeemed him and made life seem worth living. Aissata’s laughter promised that nothing bad could ever happen again.
And then one day when the wind off the ocean was brisk and cold, and Joaquin was helping the others carry armloads of firewood back to their cave, there was a sudden cry of alarm. It was quickly followed by the menacing crack of pistols and the smell of gunpowder and the fierce barking of dogs. Terrified, Joaquin clung to the side of the cave for support. All around him bodies swirled and eddied; running, fighting, falling. Strangers smelling of sour sweat and dirty beards pushed him aside roughly while the others were rounded up and dragged down the beach. A few small children were crying, but otherwise the people had become eerily silent. He kept shouting for help but no one answered him.
He recognized at once that the invaders were speaking Portuguese. They must be buccaneers, he thought, and here he was, defenceless. He had no weapon; he didn’t even have eyes! Presumably they would execute him as soon as they had plundered whatever they could lay their hands on. They had only ignored him so far because, being blind, he had no obvious value to them. Joaquin crossed himself, said a quick prayer, and waited patiently for death, the death he had so recently outwitted, to find him at last.
To his surprise, one of the ruffians spoke to him in Spanish, asking if he was all right. Joaquin replied impatiently that he was more concerned about the others. The man laughed, and asked why he cared what happened to a bunch of black savages.
The others were black?
Yes, the man told him; they were runaway slaves who had been hiding in the hills but were now being returned to their masters where they belonged.
How could that be? They were kind, courteous people, nothing like the naked wretches he had glimpsed shackled below deck on the Imperio, screaming and moaning in an inhuman tongue. They ate proper food and made proper music. They were as civilized as any Spaniard he knew. More than most, perhaps. It was inconceivable.
His blood thundering in his ears so that he feared he would faint, Joaquin let himself be led to a boat anchored in the shallow bay. He felt the presence and heard the murmuring of many bodies on board, but did not reach out to them. He felt betrayed. Why didn’t Aissata tell him that she was black? How could she make a fool of him like this?
On the other hand, he hadn’t told her he was white. But he hadn’t needed to; she could see that easily enough for herself. He was blind and, knowing he was blind, she had lied to him. She had tricked him into gratitude to
her; no, more, let’s be honest, into friendship with her. Maybe love.
He cringed when he remembered that he’d had fantasies of marrying her and taking her back to Spain with him. He had imagined the joy of his mother, discovering he was still alive, and her pride in his coming back with his lovely bride, the daughter she had dreamed of. They would have a big church wedding and invite the whole village and afterwards they would live with his mother, who would help with their children. Though sightless, he could still work for his brothers mending nets and maintaining boats, gutting and cleaning fish. He and Aissata would live a long and happy life together. That he had planned this phantom future with a miserable black slave made him sick to his stomach. His mother would doubtless prefer that he died here than come home with a woman like that!
But maybe Aissata didn’t think of herself as “black” just as he didn’t think of himself as “white.” Colour was something other people saw. To herself, she was Aissata, his dear Aissata, as she had been to him until this moment. When he thought about her, who she was in herself, the words “black” and “slave” were meaningless. He had never been closer to anyone in his life than he had been to her.
He — who had prided himself on not thinking, but doing — thought something so new it made him shiver. Could it be that skin colour was meaningless? Perhaps it was no more significant than the colour of one’s hair or eyes. His heart told him Aissata was as good as he was, even better. He knew she didn’t deserve to be a slave and, if she didn’t, maybe nobody did.
Joaquin sat in silence, the wind whipping at him, the salt spray rasping his skin, oblivious to the rest of the world. His mind grappled with ideas it had failed to confront through many wasted years of religious and secular instruction. What was the soul? Did it have anything to do with the body it was trapped in? If a person was truly good, did it really matter what race or religion they were? Only when someone offered him a skin of water and he spilled some, absentmindedly, all over his lap, was he roused from his meditations. Full of remorse, he called out for wildly for Aissata, declaring that he would save her, that he loved her, but the soldiers told him to shut up. When he wouldn’t, they cuffed him on the ear and threatened to throw him overboard to the sharks. Only when they disembarked did Aissata’s voice, her silvery voice, drift back to him, exhorting him to be free and enjoy his freedom for her sake. To remember her forever.
And then she was gone.
The officers took Joaquin back to their barracks where they insisted he don proper “European” clothes. Then they got him drunk. Until that day he had avoided alcohol, repulsed by the witless behaviour of his shipmates once they uncorked a bottle. But he now understood that there were things in life that would force a man to seek oblivion. Sometimes consciousness itself was unendurable.
The Spanish-speaking soldier thought he was drinking to celebrate his freedom and that he had finally come to his senses. He prophesied that in future, Joaquin would celebrate this as the day of his miraculous preservation. He would write a song about it. He could add another verse to the famous madrigal about Fogo: a tune Joaquin suddenly remembered having heard back home but hadn’t connected with this Fogo, his Fogo, at the edge of the world. Where he’d been reborn.
The Andalusian merchant who returns
Laden with cochineal and china dishes,
Reports in Spain how strangely Fogo burns
Amidst an ocean full of flying fishes.
FIVE
“La hambre y el frio traen a la puerta del enemigo.”
(Cold and hunger bring one to the enemy’s door.)
ESTHER STOPPED SINGING AND stood up from the chair. Her hair shone, free of tangles; her nails were clean; her voice and imagination were both exhausted.
“And what happened then?” asked Marie-Thérèse, forgetting for once to cover her unfortunate teeth as her mouth hung open with amazement.
“Joaquin found a Spanish ship and he sailed home,” Esther said.
“But that cannot be the end of the story! Because he wasn’t blind anymore when you met him, was he?”
“No. Nothing slips by you, Marie-Thérèse. But I am tired of telling stories. All I want now is one of your beautiful gallettes.”
“They are for Monsieur Hocquart’s supper. You know how much he loves sweets.”
“But I do too!”
“Then make some yourself. Don’t keep pretending that you don’t know how.”
Although Monsieur Hocquart employed a cook as well as two kitchen maids, having to entertain large groups often as well as enjoying good food on his own, Marie-Thérèse was accustomed to making the dessert: her specialty and his favourite part of the meal. And from occasional comments she had let fall, Esther had inadvertently revealed that she knew quite a bit about cooking herself, especially about making pastry. Reluctantly at first, but with growing enthusiasm, the girl revealed her talents. Her desire to please the Intendant and make herself indispensable to him prevailed over her aversion towards revealing anything significant about herself.
There were two unexpected advantages to Esther’s new duties: Monsieur Hocquart had a good excuse for keeping her out of prison once she was usefully employed, and he finally allowed her to leave the grounds and go to the market with Marie-Thérèse. With its stables and bakery, prison and courthouse, the Intendant’s compound comprised a miniature village, but a month confined within its boundaries had exhausted its novelty. Esther couldn’t wait to see more of Quebec. And Quebec couldn’t wait to see more of her, the girl about whom so many fantastic rumours swirled.
According to some, the feral child was half-animal, half-human, and had a face entirely covered with thick brown fur. She tore at raw meat with sharp fangs and, being far too savage to permit in the house, was kept in the stable, where even the horses were afraid of her. According to others she was dainty as a princess, spoke all the languages of the civilized world, played every instrument without book, and sang like an angel. The more credulous members of the community were disappointed when they finally encountered this mythic personage and saw only a small dark girl haggling over the price of butter. (Unlike most of the local bakers she preferred to use butter instead of lard in everything she made, insisting that the smell of pig fat spoiled fine patisserie.)
Sometimes they dallied on the way home from shopping to admire the flamboyant foliage: a ritual in Quebec, where everyone recognized that they would pay for each moment of transient beauty now with sensory abstinence in the months ahead. In October it was possible to see the world as God had intended it, all clarity and colour, each twig and leaf tip so sharp it could cut you from a distance, the air itself effervescent as wine. Esther said it reminded her of looking into the Mediterranean and seeing schools of golden fish. It gave her vertigo, knowing that she was looking up while simultaneously feeling that she was looking down. Height and depth reversed: the sublime and the profound indistinguishable, as though one’s body had dissolved and its atoms were suspended lightly in space.
Marie-Thérèse never knew what to make of her charge when she spoke like this, but was pleased to see the girl happy. In fact one day, knowing how much Esther longed to visit new places and see new things, the housekeeper got permission from Monsieur Hocquart to give her a special treat. First they went down to the waterfront Esther had not revisited since the day of her arrival. After her arrest by Varin, the port — first glimpsed from the Saint Michel as the land of milk and honey — had turned turbulent and threatening, full of hostile men with loud voices leering at her. All she had seen was mud; all she had heard was meaningless clamour. Now a bright and busy scene met her eyes and she could enjoy the view across the harbour to Lévis. The sky was cloudless and blue, the river sparkling in the sun as they sailed east to the Île d’Orléans with a party of farmers and fishermen who passed the brief voyage singing familiar songs like “À la claire fontaine,” and “Auprès de ma blonde.” Esther was surprised when Marie-Thérèse joined in, her servile manner abandoned in the company
of ordinary folk. Tentatively, Esther began to sing along too. For the first time since she had landed in New France not one person was suspicious of her and no one demanded to know who she was or where she was going. Such anonymity was freedom indeed.
When they came ashore, Marie-Thérèse hired a cart and driver to take them to a nearby farm that grew her favourite variety of apple, Fameuse, celebrated for its snowy white flesh. (Having grown up in Normandy, she had strong opinions about apples.) At the farm, they watched a boy picking their fruit until Esther — her spirits still soaring from the boat ride — asked if she might gather some herself. She clambered up as easily as if she were back on the rigging of the Saint Michel and refused to climb down until she had filled her basket with apples whose spicy perfume rivalled that of any flower. She also offered to make the dessert that night, producing an elegant tart which Monsieur Hocquart decided must be on the menu at least once a week thereafter.
Apple tart was not the dish her host prized most, however. That was chocolate. Esther was so fond of chocolate that she had brought a bag of cocoa beans with her from France, the discovery of which among her belongings puzzled Monsieur Varin, who did not recognize what they were. When she explained that they were something she liked to eat, he laughed and allowed her to keep them. Now that she knew what a gourmet Monsieur Hocquart was, she was especially happy not to have lost her treasure.
Marie-Thérèse watched with curiosity as the girl roasted a handful of cocoa beans in the oven, shelled them, and pounded them in a mortar to which she added two almonds and a hazelnut. She heated the resulting gritty mixture with sugar, water, a vanilla pod, a mixture of cinnamon and nutmeg, and one egg, whipping the thick liquid until it foamed with a wooden moussoir which she had also produced from her luggage. At last she poured the concoction into a cup and brought it in to Monsieur Hocquart.
He was delighted, proclaiming that Esther’s chocolate was the finest he had ever tasted; better than the beverage served in the finest homes in France; better than that Beauharnois drank every morning for breakfast to give him stamina for his amorous and military conquests. Hocquart had often drunk chocolate at other people’s houses but no one in his staff knew how to prepare it properly. Esther having revealed this talent, he would be happy to drink chocolate morning, noon, and night. He told Marie-Thérèse to inquire of the Governor General’s housekeeper where to procure the marvellous beans and also to buy the largest chocolate pot she could find, so that he could start serving the drink to his guests.
The Tale-Teller Page 5