by Sean Wallace
“Rum distillation,” Jessaline said, stifling the urge to smile when Eugenie looked scandalized.
“No wonder,” Eugenie said darkly, “given what the end product does to men’s souls.” She handed the flask back to Jessaline. “What of it?”
So Jessaline was obliged to explain again. As she did, a curious thing happened; Eugenie’s eyes grew a bit glazed. She nodded, “mmm-hmming” now and again. “And as I mentioned to your brother,” Jessaline concluded, “we have already worked out the formula—”
“The formula is child’s play,” Eugenie said, flicking her fingers absently. “And the extraction would be simple enough, if methane weren’t dangerously flammable. Explosive even, under certain conditions … which most attempts at extraction would inevitably create. Obviously any mechanical method would need to concern itself primarily with stabilizing the end products, not merely separating them. Freezing, perhaps, or—” She brightened. “Brother, perhaps we could try a refinement of the vacuum-distillation process you developed for—”
“Yes, yes,” said Norbert, who had spent the past ten minutes looking from Jessaline to Eugenie and back in visibly increasing consternation. “I’ll consider it. In the meantime, Mademoiselle Dumonde was actually leaving; I’m afraid we delay her.” He glared at Jessaline as Eugenie made a moue of dismay.
“Quite right,” said Jessaline, smiling graciously at him. She put away the flask and tucked the bag over her arm, retrieving her hat from the back of the chair. She could afford to be gracious now, even though Norbert Rillieux had proven intractable. Better indeed to leave, and pursue the matter from an entirely different angle.
And, as Norbert escorted her to the parlor door with a hand rather too firm upon her elbow, Jessaline glanced back and smiled at Eugenie, who returned the smile with charming ruefulness and a shy little wave.
Not just handsome, pretty, Jessaline decided at last. And that meant this new angle would be most enjoyable to pursue.
There were, however, complications.
Jessaline, pleased that she had succeeded in making contact with a Rillieux, if not the one she’d come for, treated herself to an evening out about the Vieux Carré. It was not the done thing for a lady of gentle breeding – a persona she was emulating – to stop in at any of the rollicking music halls she could hear down side streets, though she was intrigued. She could, however, sit in on one of the new-fangled vaudevilles at the Playhouse, which she quite enjoyed though it was difficult to see the stage well from the rear balcony. Then, as nightfall finally brought a breath of cool relief from the day’s sweltering humidity, she returned to her room at the inn.
From time spent on the harder streets of Port-au-Prince, it was Jessaline’s longtime habit to stand to one side of a door while she unlocked it, so that her shadow under the door would not alert anyone inside. This proved wise, as pushing open the door she found herself facing a startled male figure, which froze in silhouette before the room’s picture window, near her traveling-chest. They stared at one another for a breath, and then Jessaline’s wits returned; at once she dropped to one knee and in a single smooth sweep of her hand, brushed up her booted leg to palm a throwing-knife.
In the same instant the figure bolted, darting toward the open balcony window. Jessaline hissed out a curse in her own Kreyòl tongue, running into the room as he lunged through the window with an acrobat’s nimbleness, rolling to his feet and fetching up against the elaborately ironworked railing. Fearing to lose him, Jessaline flung the knife from within the room as she ran, praying it would strike, and heard the thunk as it struck flesh. The figure on her balcony stumbled, crying out – but she could not have hit a vital area, for he grasped the railing and pulled himself over it, dropping the short distance to the ground and out of sight.
Jessaline scrambled through the window as best she could, hampered by her bustle and skirts. Just as she reached the railing, the figure finished picking himself up from the ground and turned to run. Jessaline got one good look at him in the moonlight, as he turned back to see if she pursued: a pinch-faced youth, clearly pale beneath the bootblack he’d smeared on his face and straw-colored hair to help himself hide in the dark. Then he was gone, running into the night, though he ran oddly and kept one of his hands clapped to his right buttock.
Furious, Jessaline pounded the railing, though she knew better than to make an outcry. No one in this town would care that some black woman had been robbed, and the constable would as likely arrest her for disturbing the peace.
Going back into her room, she lit the lanterns and surveyed the damage. At once a chill passed down her spine. The chest held a number of valuables that any sensible thief would’ve taken: fine dresses; a cameo pendant with a face of carved obsidian; the brass gyroscope that an old lover, a dirigible-navigator, had given her; a pearl-beaded purse containing twenty dollars. These, however, had all been shoved rudely aside, and to Jessaline’s horror, the chest’s false bottom had been lifted, revealing the compartment underneath. There was nothing here but a bundle of clothing and a larger pouch, containing a far more substantial sum – but that had not been taken, either.
But Jessaline knew what would have been in there, if she had not taken them with her to see Rillieux: the scrolls which held the chemical formula for the methane extraction process, and the rudimentary designs for the mechanism to do so – the best her government’s scientists had been able to cobble together. These were even now at the bottom of her brocade bag.
The bootblack-boy had been no thief. Someone in this foul city knew who and what she was, and sought to thwart her mission.
Carefully, Jessaline replaced everything in the trunk, including the false bottom and money. She went downstairs and paid her bill, then hired a porter to carry her trunk to an inn two blocks over, where she rented a room without windows. She slept lightly that night, waking with every creak and thump of the place, and took comfort only from the solid security of the stiletto in her hand.
The lovely thing about a town full of slaves, vagabonds, beggars and blackguards was that it was blessedly easy to send a message in secret.
Having waited a few days so as to let Norbert Rillieux’s anger cool – just in case – Jessaline then hired a child who was one of the innkeeper’s slaves. She purchased fresh fruit at the market and offered the child an apple to memorize her message. When he repeated it back to her word for word, she showed him a bunch of big blue-black grapes, and his eyes went wide. “Get word to Mademoiselle Eugenie without her brother knowing, and these are yours,” she said. “You’ll have to make sure to spit the seeds in the fire, though, or Master will know you’ve had a treat.”
The boy grinned, and Jessaline saw that the warning had not been necessary. “Just you hold onto those, Miss Jessaline,” he said back, pointing with his chin at the grapes. “I’ll have ’em in a minute or three.” And indeed, within an hour’s time he returned, carrying a small folded square of cloth. “Miss Eugenie agrees to meet,” he said, “and sends this as a surety of her good faith.” He pronounced this last carefully, perfectly emulating the Creole woman’s tone.
Pleased, Jessaline took the cloth and unfolded it to find a handkerchief of fine imported French linen, embroidered in one corner with a tiny perfect “R”. She held it to her nose and smelled a perfume like magnolia blossoms; the same scent had been about Eugenie the other day. She could not help smiling at the memory. The boy grinned too, and ate a handful of the grapes at once, pocketing the seeds with a wink.
“Gonna plant these near the city dump,” he said. “Maybe I’ll bring you wine one day!” And he ran off.
So Jessaline found herself on another bright, sweltering day at the convent of the Ursulines, where two gentlewomen might walk and exchange thoughts in peace without being seen or interrupted by curious others.
“I have to admit,” said Eugenie, smiling sidelong at Jessaline as they strolled amid the nuns’ garden, “I was of two minds about whether to meet you.”
“I su
ppose your brother must’ve given you an earful after I left.”
“You might say so,” Eugenie said, in a dry tone that made Jessaline laugh. (One of the old nuns glowered at them over a bed of herbs. Jessaline covered her mouth and waved apology.) “But that wasn’t what gave me pause. My brother has his ways, Mademoiselle Jessaline, and I do not always agree with him. He’s fond of forming opinions without full information, then proceeding as if they are proven fact.” She shrugged. “I, on the other hand, prefer to seek as much information as I can. I have made enquiries about you, you see.”
“Oh? And what did you find?”
“That you do not exist, as far as anyone in this town knows.” She spoke lightly, Jessaline noticed, but there was an edge to her words, too. Unease, perhaps. “You aren’t one of us, that much anyone can see; but you aren’t a freedwoman either, though the people at your old inn and the market seemed to think so.”
At this, Jessaline blinked in surprise and unease of her own. She had not thought the girl would dig that deeply. “What makes you say that?”
“For one, that pistol in your bag.”
Jessaline froze for a pace before remembering to keep walking. “A lady alone in a strange, rough city would be wise to look to her own protection, don’t you think?”
“True,” said Eugenie, “but I checked at the courthouse too, and there are no records of a woman meeting your description having bought her way free anytime in the past thirty years, and I doubt you’re far past that age. For another, you hide it well, but your French has an odd sort of lilt; not at all like that of folk hereabouts. And for thirdly – this is a small town at heart, Mademoiselle Dumonde, despite its size. Every time some fortunate soul buys free, as they say, it’s the talk of the town. To put it bluntly, there’s no gossip about you, and there should have been.”
They had reached a massive old willow tree which partially overhung the garden path. There was no way around it; the tree’s draping branches had made a proper curtain of things, nearly obscuring from sight the area about the trunk.
The sensible thing to do would have been to turn around and walk back the way they’d come. But as Jessaline turned to meet Eugenie’s eyes, she suffered another of those curious epiphanies. Eugenie was smiling, sweet, but despite this there was a hard look in her eyes, which reminded Jessaline fleetingly of Norbert. It was clear that she meant to have the truth from Jessaline, or Jessaline’s efforts to employ her would get short shrift.
So on impulse Jessaline grabbed Eugenie’s hand and pulled her into the willow-fall. Eugenie yelped in surprise, then giggled as they came through into the space beyond, green-shrouded and encircling, like a hurricane of leaves.
“What on earth—? Mademoiselle Dumonde—”
“It isn’t Dumonde,” Jessaline said, dropping her voice to a near-whisper. “My name is Jessaline Cleré. That is the name of the family that raised me, at least, but I should have had a different name, after the man who was my true father. His name was L’Overture. Do you know it?”
At that, Eugenie drew a sharp breath. “Toussaint the Rebel?” she asked. “The man who led the revolution in Haiti? That was your father?”
“So my mother says, though she was only his mistress; I am natural-born. But I do not begrudge her, because her status spared me. When the French betrayed Toussaint, they took him and his wife and legitimate children and carried them across the sea to be tortured to death.”
Eugenie put her hands to her mouth at this, which Jessaline had to admit was a bit much for a gently raised woman to bear. Yet it was the truth, for Jessaline felt uncomfortable dissembling with Eugenie, for reasons she could not quite name.
“I see,” Eugenie said at last, recovering. “Then – these interests you represent. You are with the Haitians.”
“I am. If you build a methane extraction mechanism for us, mademoiselle, you will have helped a nation of free folk stay free, for I swear that France is hell-bent upon re-enslaving us all. They would have done it already, if one of our number had not thought to use our torment to our advantage.”
Eugenie nodded slowly. “The sugar cane,” she said. “The papers say your people use the steam and gases from the distilleries to make hot-air balloons and blimps.”
“Which helped us bomb the French ships most effectively during the Revolution, and also secured our position as the foremost manufacturers of dirigibles in the Americas,” Jessaline said, with a bit of pride. “We were saved by a mad idea and a contraption that should have killed its first user. So we value cleverness now, mademoiselle, which is why I came here in search of your brother.”
“Then …” Eugenie frowned. “The methane. It is to power your dirigibles?”
“Partly. The French have begun using dirigibles too, you see. Our only hope is to enhance the maneuverability and speed of our craft, which can be done with gas-powered engines. We have also crafted powerful artillery which use this engine design, whose range and accuracy is unsurpassed. The prototypes work magnificently – but the price of the oil and coal we must currently use to power them is too dear. We would bankrupt ourselves buying it from the very nations that hope to destroy us. The rum effluent is our only abundant, inexpensive resource … our only hope.”
But Eugenie had begun to shake her head, looking taken aback. “Artillery? Guns, you mean?” she said. “I am a Christian woman, mademoiselle—”
“Jessaline.”
“Very well; Jessaline.” That look was in her face again, Jessaline noted, that air of determination and fierceness that made her beautiful at the oddest times. “I do not care for the idea of my skills being put to use in taking lives. That’s simply unacceptable.”
Jessaline stared at her, and for an instant fury blotted out thought. How dare this girl, with her privilege and wealth and coddled life … Jessaline set her jaw.
“In the Revolution,” she said, in a low, tight voice, “the last French commander, Rochambeau, decided to teach my people a lesson for daring to revolt against our betters. Do you know what he did? He took slaves – including those who had not even fought – and broke them on the wheel, raising them on a post afterwards so the birds could eat them alive. He buried prisoners of war, also alive, in pits of insects. He boiled some of them, in vats of molasses. Such acts, he deemed, were necessary to put fear and subservience back into our hearts, since we had been tainted by a year of freedom.”
Eugenie, who had gone quite pale, stared at Jessaline in purest horror, her mouth open. Jessaline smiled a hard, angry smile. “Such atrocities will happen again, Mademoiselle Rillieux, if you do not help us. Except this time we have been free for two generations. Imagine how much fear and subservience these Christian men will instill in us now?”
Eugenie shook her head slowly. “I … I had not heard … I did not consider …” She fell mute.
Jessaline stepped closer and laid one lace-gloved finger on the divot between Eugenie’s collarbones. “You had best consider such things, my dear. Do you forget? There are those in this land who would like to do the same to you and all your kin.”
Eugenie stared at her. Then, startling Jessaline, she dropped to the ground, sitting down so hard that her bustle made an aggrieved creaking sound.
“I did not know,” she said at last. “I did not know these things.”
Jessaline beheld the honest shock on her face and felt some guilt for having troubled her so. It was clear the girl’s brother had worked hard to protect her from the world’s harshness. Sitting beside Eugenie on the soft dry grass, she let out a weary sigh.
“In my land,” she said, “men and women of all shades are free. I will not pretend that this makes us perfect; I have gone hungry many times in my life. Yet there, a woman such as yourself may be more than the coddled sister of a prominent scientist, or the mistress of a white man.”
Eugenie threw her a guilty look, but Jessaline smiled to reassure her. The women of Eugenie’s class had few options in life; Jessaline saw no point in condemning the
m for this.
“So many men died in the Revolution that women fill the ranks now as dirigible-pilots and gunners. We run factories and farms too, and are highly placed in government. Even the houngans are mostly women now – you have vodoun here too, yes? So we are important.” She leaned close, her shoulder brushing Eugenie’s in a teasing way, and grinned. “Some of us might even become spies. Who knows?”
Eugenie’s cheeks flamed pink and she ducked her head to smile. Jessaline could see, however, that her words were having some effect; Eugenie had that oddly absent look again. Perhaps she was imagining all the things she could do in a land where the happenstances of sex and caste did not forbid her from using her mind to its fullest? A shame; Jessaline would have loved to take her there. But she had seen the luxury of the Rillieux household; why would any woman give that up?
This close, shoulder to shoulder and secluded within the willow tree’s green canopy, Jessaline found herself staring at Eugenie, more aware than ever of the scent of her perfume, and the nearby softness of her skin, and the way the curls of her hair framed her long slender neck. At least she did not cover her hair like so many women of this land, convinced that its natural state was inherently ugly. She could not help her circumstances, but it seemed to Jessaline that she had taken what pride she could in her heritage.
So taken was Jessaline by this notion, and by the silence and strangeness of the moment, that she found herself saying, “And in my land it is not uncommon for a woman to head a family with another woman, and even raise children if they so wish.”
Eugenie started – and to Jessaline’s delight, her blush deepened. She darted a half-entranced, half-scandalized glance at Jessaline, then looked away, which Jessaline found deliciously fetching. “Live with – another woman? Do you mean—?” But of course she knew what Jessaline meant. “How can that be?”