House of Rougeaux

by Jenny Jaeckel

  That evening when she was tending her cooking fire Berthe and her grown daughter Lydia approached and stood silently, watching her. Adunbi had not yet returned from the barns.

  “What is it?” Abeje asked.

  “Is it true,” asked Berthe, “that you charmed the foreman’s dogs today?”

  “He has said so,” Lydia said, pointing to another figure standing farther off, the young boy Nathaniel. When Abeje had passed the sugar works that day Nathaniel had been starting down a nearby hillside, carrying a load of kindling sticks. He recognized Abeje by her dress and saw the dogs charge, sure that they would kill her.

  Looking from Nathaniel back to Berthe and Lydia, Abeje now saw that a dozen or so others were drawing near the fire, all with a wondering look on their faces.

  “Tell what you saw, boy!” said one of the men to Nathaniel, who obliged him, stuttering over his words. When Abeje did not deny it the crowd set to murmuring.

  “Praise the Holy One,” said a woman.

  “Bless me too,” said another.

  One by one they pressed Abeje’s hand. They asked Nathaniel again just what it was he had witnessed. This was a story that would travel far.

  * * *

  A year or so passed before Adunbi got permission to go to Auxier. Monsieur wrote a paper, a pass for him to travel alone, allowing him to be gone on a Sunday. This meant he had to leave on the night before, walk all the night there and then walk all the next night back. He decided to go near the full moon so that he would have light enough to travel by. Groom told him to look for a woman called Phoebe, as the baby was given to her.

  A woman in the Quarters named Leola had made a rag doll for her daughter, and he traded her a gourd of molasses for the favor of making another that he could bring to his own child on Auxier. He was very much excited at the idea of seeing his daughter, his Ayo, though beside himself with anxiety that she might not be well or even still living. Adunbi left the next Saturday night when the moon was bright. He set out with a bundle of provisions that Abeje had helped him prepare, the rag doll tucked away inside, his pass and a walking cane. Abeje told him to kiss the child for her.

  Abeje slept fitfully, and spent a fretful day wondering what her brother would find at Auxier. She desperately hoped that he would find the baby well and plump, and that he would be able to hold her and look upon her face. But before dawn on Monday she heard him enter the hut, and she knew at once something was not right.

  “Adu,” she said, “what happened?”

  “Not there, Beje. Gone.” After a long moment he told her that they sold Phoebe and the child to a slave trader over in Saint-Pierre, last New Year’s. There was no way to know where they might be, they could easily have been sold off the Island. Abeje was silent a long time, her heart crushed under a heavy weight. But then, as if from under that weight, a thread of hope gleamed. Mother Baobab and her brother’s own spiky palm tree would not let her hope die.

  * * *

  Adunbi and Abeje were past their forty years when Monsieur brought in two new bondsmen, young men meant for the cane fields. They purchased one of these men, called Luc, from the Island of Guadeloupe. Luc was unlike anyone Abeje and Adunbi had ever known. He had many stories to tell, from his time on other islands, and all had but one meaning: freedom.

  Young Luc spoke of a great Obeah queen on the Island of Jamaica called Queen Nanny, a saltwater slave from the Old Land, who long ago escaped bondage. She established her own country in the mountains, where the British soldiers could not get her. Her villages grew by hundreds of Maroons. They became warriors and lived in the Old Ways. And not only that. It was true that on the Island of Saint-Domingue the people had risen up, thrown off their chains and banished the soldiers of the French King. Luc told them of two great warriors on the Island of Barbados, when he himself was a child: a saltwater slave called Bussa, and a woman called Nanny Grigg. Luc told them that these two together led a rebellion, with many followers who gave their lives for freedom.

  He said there were rebels on their island, Martinique.

  Luc said to Adunbi that his good work with the livestock only lined Monsieur’s pockets, and that when the Rebellion came they would slaughter the animals and set fire to the fields.

  “Is a Healing Woman the same, so?” said Abeje. “Am I the same as my brother, who cares for and heals Monsieur’s property?”

  “No,” said Luc. “You are Obeah, like Queen Nanny. And one day we will not be property anymore.”

  Luc’s words brought Abeje and Adunbi equal parts hope and fear. They had heard already of small rebellions on their Island, and maroons who escaped and were never captured. But Luc envisioned a future there and on all the islands, as on Saint-Domingue, when all of slavery would be brought down, and everyone would be free.

  Luc himself, despite much righteous and sometimes angry speech, very much liked Abeje and her brother. At the day’s end he asked their permission to sit down with them at their cooking fire, and there he always had many questions for them. He began to call Adunbi Tonton, uncle, and herself Mémé Abeje, grandmother. Abeje laughed at this, protesting that she was younger than her brother, and didn’t even have any children. Luc said she was like a grandmother to the people. The brother and sister were not yet old and bent, but they had much white in their hair and the years had drawn lines on their faces. What Luc said had truth. Like the years, the people had drawn lines on Abeje’s heart. It was not long before Luc’s name for her became the speech of the others, including those who came from other places for aid.

  For several months Abeje and her brother shared many evenings with Luc. Some nights Luc had no taste for stories. He was quiet and said nothing. On these nights Abeje took his hand in hers. She sat by, humming, and let Anaya come to them. Sometimes she saw Luc, the child, holding the hand of his own mother. Even in a young man, so brash and brave, lay a tender heart.

  One night early in the month of October, Luc sat very quietly by the fire, his thick brows knit together. He had been more quiet lately, but in a new way. His voice, when he did speak, was tight. In fact, all in the Quarters vibrated with this same tension. People spoke in hushed tones, for some time now, of rebels, leaders and secret movements.

  The hour grew late. After Adunbi said goodnight and went into the hut, Luc asked Abeje, “Mémé, is it right or wrong to kill?”

  “What do you say?” she said.

  “For Justice, for Liberty, yes.”

  “Then why do you ask me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Abeje took his hand. “I also don’t know what is right and what is wrong,” she said. “I must look only to my heart and listen for its call. Then I know where to follow.”

  “That is your guide,” he said.

  “That is indeed my guide.”

  Then she told him of the great storm of many years before, the Hurricane, and how she and Adunbi sheltered in the limestone cave. She spoke of the four trees that marked the mouth of the cave. If ever one needed a hiding place, it might serve. As she spoke she undid her shawl and took the hard meal cakes she had made that night and wrapped them in it, making a bundle that she left on the ground. Then she said, “It is late now, my son.”

  Luc took her elbow and helped her to stand. He raised her palm to his cheek a moment and then bade her good night.

  In the morning he was not to be found.

  Some dozen of the other young men also disappeared, and Monsieur sent out a party of hired men with guns to search for the runaways.

  Two days hence Abeje and Adunbi awoke in the night to the sound of the work bell ringing, clanging on without stopping, the sound of hoofbeats outside the huts, and one of overseers shouting for everyone to run up to the sugar works. An overseer fired a shot into the air with his rifle, spooking his horse and letting the people know that the next bullet would be for anyone who dared to disobey.

  Abeje hurried as best she could with the others toward the sugar works, where flames roared and lit the sky.
Already every hand was employed bringing buckets of water from the stream that flowed nearby. The overseer was joined by Monsieur and the foreman, also on horseback and carrying guns, shouting directions and threats. Already they could see that the building would be lost and they put the people to work digging trenches and wetting the ground to prevent the fire from spreading.

  A low cover of cloud lay overhead, lit red here and there in the distance from other fires. The Rebellion. Staggering with another full bucket Abeje said a prayer for Luc. She threw the water over bare ground where it would protect nothing, only her own life by not disobeying.

  Dawn came slowly over the charred remains of the sugar works. There was no more fire on the Estate, but the sky was thick with smoke from elsewhere, and the harsh, sweet smell of burning cane fields. A party of militiamen arrived and left with the two overseers and the foreman toward the south, leaving Groom with Monsieur’s two sons-in-law to patrol the estate, until the next day when a squadron of soldiers in blue coats arrived from Saint-Pierre.

  Lise spread the word in the Quarters that the captain had met with Monsieur and told him that some forty rebels had been captured, that most were to be executed, and that the soldiers had orders to interrogate anyone who might have known about or aided them. The soldiers stayed three weeks and succeeded only in breaking the arm of a woman who, like the others, had nothing to tell them.

  Abeje procured a measure of rum for her from Floria, to dull the woman’s pain while she set the bone. But she had little for her own pain, for the waste of young life in a man such as Luc, whom she was certain was now dead, except to think that he had followed the call of his heart. Perhaps that was enough.

  * * *

  Late in the year after the Rebellion there was an outbreak of fever in the parish. A rider came one day to the estate with a paper for Monsieur, asking him to give the bondswoman Marie permission to go with him to aid the sick at Mont Belcourt, a sugar estate to the east, and Lise came down to the Quarters with a pass for Abeje.

  Abeje studied the fragment of paper marked with looping black lines. She had seen writing but a few times before. Letters were known to possess power, which was why they were forbidden to the bondspeople.

  “A fortnight,” said Lise, “he says not a day longer.”

  Abeje went with the rider to the Quarters to prepare a bundle. He was a young man. Not so unlike Luc, thought she. Tears sprang to her eyes for a moment, but she hastened them away.

  “Thank you for coming along, Mémé,” said the young man, “the people will be happy to see you.”

  They brought the horse to be watered at the barn, and there Abeje was able to speak to her brother.

  It was night when they arrived. Mont Belcourt sugar estate was large, with some eighty or ninety bondsmen. Already a dozen had died and some thirty lay crowded in the Sick House. Two women showed Abeje to a hut where she could lay down her things and sleep for a few hours. In the morning she spent some moments alone, asking the plant spirits to guide her hands. Next she undid her bundle, as she had a great many smaller bundles of dried plants inside. She opened several of the bundles and made a strong tea to bring to the Sick House. The fourth bundle she opened was larger than the others, and full of an aromatic dried leaf. Having unwrapped the cloth she saw another crumpled among the leaves. Something placed there long before, and forgotten. She smoothed it out gently.

  The rag doll.

  The one Leola had made for her brother to take to his daughter. Years ago she put it with these leaves to keep moths away. Abeje picked it up gingerly, held it to her cheek. She prayed that this was not a sign, there in that place amid so much grief and death and danger, of something connected to Adunbi’s lost child. She set the doll down, removed a quantity of the dried herb, and then wrapped the doll back up in the cloth.

  A clear stream ran through Mont Belcourt, and there was a small pool near the Quarters where the people drew water and did their washing. After the first day in the Sick House, at twilight, Abeje went to the stream and immersed herself in the pool, clothing and all. She asked the water to carry away all sickness and fear and sorrow, and leave her clean and refreshed. When she returned to the Quarters the women found a dry dress for her and a shawl, and set her before a fire to rest with a dish of salt-fish and yams. The people came to greet her, pronounce their names and squeeze her hand. All the day there were new people, names and faces, yet she felt they were known to her. The first time she had travelled to another place for healing, all the new faces dazzled her eyes. But it was not so now.

  Abeje finished eating and a woman took the dish away. A young girl about ten years old came forth with a steaming cup that smelled of scorched maize meal and molasses. The firelight fell upon her face and Abeje’s eyes played tricks.

  Olivie.

  She blinked and shook her head, but the girl was still there.

  Olivie?

  But not only Olivie. She saw her brother as a boy.

  “Who are you, child?” she asked, scarcely able to breathe.

  A woman came forward. “She is called Hetty, Mémé.”

  Abeje looked at the girl, tilting her head toward the woman. “Your mother?”

  “Oui, Mémé.”

  She looked back to the woman, trembling. “And... you?”

  “I am Phoebe, Mémé,” said the woman.

  “An Irishman brought you this child,” whispered Abeje.

  “Oui.”

  Abeje fell forward to her knees.

  “Bless this day!” she cried, clutching at her heart. “Oh, bless this day!”

  The people gathered around, murmuring.

  When Abeje spoke again she took Phoebe’s and Hetty’s hands in hers. The girl looked at her with big, clear eyes.

  “Your father,” said Abeje, “is my own brother. I am your Tata.” The girl’s eyes flew wide open and she looked up at Phoebe, who drew her arm around her and pulled her close.

  “Holy One!” whispered Phoebe. Then she said, “The child knows I am her foster mother. My own baby did not live long.” She brought a knuckle to her lips, then lowered it again and looked to Abeje. “Hetty is my joy!”

  The two women gazed upon each other’s faces, and then Abeje turned her attention to the child, her niece. Abeje told her the names of her parents, and how she came to be with Phoebe. She told the child her own name, given by her parents, in Iya’s language, her grandmother’s language, and what it meant. They remained there talking together until very late indeed.

  The next night Abeje asked Phoebe and the child to sit with her by the fire. Phoebe nodded to the child, reminding her of some instruction.

  “May I bring you tea, Mémé?” said the child.

  “You must call me Tata, and I will call you your father’s name for you. Alright?”

  A big smile spread over Ayo’s sweet face, but first she looked to her mother, who smiled back. “Oui, Tata!” said the girl, and scampered off to fetch the tea.

  Phoebe told Abeje that Ayo spent her days at the Great House. Monsieur Belcourt had six children with his wife and Ayo was nursery maid to the two youngest, two girls a bit older than Ayo herself. Phoebe said these two girls doted on Ayo and treated her kindly, and, when Ayo was not occupied with chores, they included her in their games. So for now, Ayo was sheltered from harsh work.

  Phoebe said that soon after Groom brought Ayo to Auxier they were sold to a slave trader who planned to take them in a ship to Trinidad, with a group of eight or nine others. During the voyage one of the women fell ill with a fever and a rash. The rash inflamed her skin so badly that at port the inspector thought it smallpox and turned the ship away. Having no other choice, they sailed back to Martinique and landed at Sainte-Anne, at the south end of the Island. When the sick woman survived, and no others were infected, it was believed she was only attacked by vermin. The trader had to sell off some of the group quickly just to recover expenses from the extra voyage. And that was how Phoebe and the infant Ayo were brought to Mont Belcou
rt, not so very far from where they started.

  * * *

  Each evening of that fortnight Abeje sat with little Ayo. She asked the girl to do her a great many favors just for the pleasure of seeing her smile and hearing her say, “Oui, Tata!” But more than that they traded questions. Ayo was a thoughtful child, curious and inquisitive, exactly as Adunbi had been as a boy. She wanted to know about her father and mother, about her grandmother and Abeje herself. During each day she considered all she was told and each night came with a fresh crop of questions ready for her aunt. Phoebe laughed, saying Ayo was always like that. “Like rain on the roof,” she said of her daughter’s endless questions.

  Ayo told her what she liked and what she did not, what she did each day, and so on, but Abeje learned most about her from her questions. The way she asked, the way she frowned and nodded upon hearing answers. When Abeje sat with her the plant spirits also came, Mother Baobab, and her brother’s spiky palm. Anaya came, and another, a flowering tree with white and yellow blossoms of five fleshy petals, arranged just so; this was known as arbre de couleuvre, the snake tree. Abeje asked them silently for the child’s protection, for their strength and guidance.

  One night she said to Ayo, “Do you know something, child, I have a gift for you, from your own father.”

  “A gift?” Her eyes widened again. Abeje brought out the rag doll and placed it in the girl’s hands. Ayo looked upon it in wonder, whispering, “My own father.” Then she threw her arms about her aunt and said, “Thank you, Tata, thank you so! Can you tell my father his Ayo says Thank you?” Then she gazed at the doll again and frowned. Its eyes made of black thread seemed to look back. “But you did not know before,” she said, “that you would meet me.” And so Abeje told her perhaps the doll knew, and stowed herself away in the medicines. Abeje told Ayo who made the rag doll, and how Ayo’s father had gone to Auxier to see her, all those years ago.