Crossings

by Alex Landragin

  The Desire plantation was not one of the biggest in the parish, nor was it one of the smallest. The master’s house had cost Desire Michaux forty-eight thousand dollars, and so he was fond of boasting. It was a two-and-a-half-storey building with galleries twenty feet broad all around, supported by fluted columns. The stately apartments were fitted with old oak and rosewood and filled with priceless furniture and antique portraits. Hortense, Desire told me, was determined to turn it into a treasure house of art, statuary and books. It had a library with the latest tomes she ordered from Europe, a music room with a grand piano made in New York, a wine cellar that stocked only French wine, and a dungeon for the punishment of slaves. The lawns between the house and the river levee were planted with magnolias, orange trees and large, twisting oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Around the main buildings were an assortment of outbuildings: a kitchen, bachelor apartments, a dovecote, stables, a greenhouse where orchids grew, and a cellar to store the great blocks of ice shipped downriver from Canada in the winter. The Desire plantation, boasted its master, was entirely self-sufficient and wanted for nothing.

  A grove of cypress trees separated these buildings from the slave quarters, which were organised in four rows of six two-roomed, open-windowed cabins, each of which was shared by two families. At the centre of this slave village was a planting of great sycamores growing around a belltower that rang morning, noon and night, dividing the day into a routine that with the passage of time became as familiar as one’s own heartbeat. Beyond the slave quarters was the sugar mill; beyond the mill were the sugarcane fields; and beyond those the impenetrable Louisiana bayou.

  It was in the drawing room of the master’s house that Hortense and I would meet every morning after breakfast. As I painted, I would tell her stories. I told her stories of a childhood in a family impoverished by the revolution, whereas in fact my father had profited immensely from the turmoil of that generation. I told her stories of my time spent as Napoleon’s aide-de-camp during the Hundred Days, how I was there at Waterloo and had seen the Prussians entering Paris, whereas in fact I had, through well-placed connections and counterfeit illness, avoided the military altogether. She had a weakness for blue blood, so I told her stories of painting the portraits of some of Europe’s most illustrious grandees by day while carousing with some of the continent’s most notorious artists and conspirators by night. All lies. The artists and conspirators with whom I had caroused had laboured in near-complete obscurity, penury and illness. But with her romantic sensibility, Hortense swallowed whole the stories I told her, day after day while I painted, and night after night at the dinner table.

  Sometimes it is the plainest who are bravest. On the evening of the last sitting day, which was also the eve of my departure, Hortense gave me a scented envelope as a token of her esteem, suggesting I might read it on my journey back to New Orleans. Of course I opened it as soon as I got back to my quarters. It was a poem about flowers called ‘Love’s Bouquet’. It mentioned the pansy, the gardenia, the apple blossom, the bachelor’s button and the forget-me-not. It contrasted the heather and the holly, praised the ivy and the violet over the amaryllis and the passionflower, and finished with the star-of-Bethlehem. I had to consult a book on the subject in the New Orleans library to decipher it. The girl had written me a coded declaration of love. I was only too delighted to feign reciprocity. Somehow, the motherless Hortense had grown to be a tender and amorous soul despite her father’s brutish instincts. As delicate as she was plain, an old maid in years when I met her and yet still almost a child at heart, Hortense had developed a stubborn passion for me that her indulgent father could not refuse, despite the antipathy he bore towards all of humanity, other than his daughter, and towards artists in particular. Old Desire, a man who so clung to the manners of the French ancien régime that he still wore buckled shoes and silk stockings, was for all his foolishness not so easily fooled. When he looked at me, he saw a mystery so beneath contempt it did not even require solving. He tolerated me only for Hortense’s sake. On the night before our wedding, as we smoked cigars and drank claret together, he told me that his daughter, who had since childhood been of melancholic disposition, had never been happier. He clapped his broad hand on my still slender shoulder and said, ‘As long as my daughter remains happy, you’re welcome at Desire.’

  At the Desire plantation, the daughter’s every wish was indulged. The great majority of her whims sprang from her love of beauty. Hortense loved art more than I did. She herself painted – landscapes of the plantation and its surrounds, which were all extravagantly framed and hung on the walls of the master house. Her style was that of a precocious child: a little skill and complete artlessness. When she played the piano, she was so careful not to make a mistake that she slowed to a near stop for all the difficult passages. When she sang, with much practice she could almost manage to sing in tune. She subscribed to literary journals, which arrived, months out of date, in the post, and from them she memorised long passages of the latest verses by the most notorious French and English poets. After dinner she liked to recite at length verses by such fashionable poets as Lamartine or Byron, or if she was feeling especially bold she might recite one of her own verses, over which she laboured with infinite patience. She favoured poems about the wonders of the European landscape, landscapes she would never see with her own eyes. Her recitation style veered between the wooden and the floral: here and there, she would stumble or omit a crucial word and, flushing crimson, would reach for her book and flick to the right page so that she might correct herself. Her guests, as gracious towards their host as they were immune to the charms of lyric verse, listened with seemly attention. Daydreaming politely until it was clear the recitation was at an end, they would applaud and liberally praise a blushing Hortense, marvelling at her talent and those of Europe’s most renowned poets, so that the one seemed indistinguishable from the other. Though I did not love Hortense, it would be untrue to say I loathed her. My attitude was more one of benevolent self-interest. I was, above all, glad to put the life of the travelling portraitist behind me.

  The bloom of youth wilts, as is universally known, but beauty lingers longer on some faces than others. A short decade after my crossing, I was no longer the dashing, romantic hero I had affected in my youth. I had done little in the meantime other than indulge myself in every pleasure plantation life can afford an idle man, which are, in the main, eating, drinking and lording it over the servants. As a result I had become obese. My hair had fallen out in uneven clumps. My skin was blotched with gin blossoms. My teeth, rotting one after the other, were extracted and replaced with teeth of gold. I suffered from the gout, what’s more, and was barely able to raise myself from a chair. Hortense spent her days in her wicker chair on wheels, fretting endlessly over my welfare while I parried away her attentions. Between meals, I liked to sip great quantities of rum, mint and lemonade on the porch in the mottled sunshine, watching the comings and goings of plantation life, and giving myself over completely to poisonous thoughts, until it was time for the next meal.

  As the years passed, my thoughts began to circle increasingly around one particular subject: my next crossing. I had already twice desecrated the Law, and on the second occasion passed a point of no return. I was beyond redemption, and yet the world was not destroyed. On the contrary, it appeared as intact as ever. There was, other than the lack of a body, nothing to stop me crossing again. I debated this question endlessly, sitting on the porch, observing, studying, and scheming my escape from the prison-within-a-prison in which I was trapped. I was determined that my next crossing would not be as impulsive as the last. All I needed was to find a suitable body with which to cross, and a means by which to do it.

  When I first spied the girl, crossing the yard alongside her mother, a scullery maid called Berthe, she must have been no more than twelve or thirteen years old. I was sitting in my usual position, sipping iced rum, lemonade and mint. I noticed her reserve, her languid grace, how quiet and imperturba
ble she was. She was so contained she gave the impression she existed within a soapy bubble that might pop at any moment. Only it never did. The effect of her was thus always slightly miraculous. Having never seen her before, I made enquiries about her. Her name was Jeanne. She had been loaned out to a neighbouring plantation for some years. She was lighter of skin than the field slaves, and it was assumed her father was Desire, as there were rumours that Berthe was his favourite. Half-castes were spared the field and worked inside the house.

  Now that I had seen her once I began to see her often. Although she never paid me the slightest mind, I made her the object of my fascination. I studied her every movement. She seemed near and far at once, as if she knew everything there was to know and was indifferent to it.

  Hortense quickly divined my interest in Jeanne and despised her for it. In spite of my hideous appearance, Hortense’s love for me continued to burn, perhaps because it never found its satisfaction. She asked her father to banish the girl from the house but this was a rare whim that Desire did not indulge. He even defended me, calling it proof that I was a red-blooded Frenchman, proof he was glad to have, as he had often doubted my manliness. I denied everything, of course. In truth Hortense had every reason to be jealous, but she mistook the nature of the desire. The bronze glint of the girl’s skin, her reserve, her youth – when I looked upon her it was not lust I felt, for my bloated body was no longer capable of such outbursts of passion. It was recognition. She reminded me of myself, of the girl I had once been, lifetimes ago.

  For eight months of the year, dinnertime on the Desire plantation – always an elaborate affair – was conducted on the porch. Michaux père et fille flaunted their French heritage, and dinner was invariably served in the continental manner, in courses that followed one another rather than all at once, on Limoges crockery, with wines from Bordeaux served in crystal glasses. At such times, seated at the head of a long table opposite Hortense, with Jeanne and other servants hovering nearby, Desire Michaux was irrepressible. He enjoyed an audience, and we were ever faithful to the call, Hortense and I, along with the overseer, Champy, and more often than not several invited guests, either planter families from neighbouring estates visiting for a day or two or visitors from downriver staying several days or weeks.

  After a drink, Desire was fond of launching into a long disquisition on one of a handful of favourite themes, and no discussion would be entered into. He fancied himself an amateur philosopher, especially regarding the subject of the races – the Negro, the failings thereof, and the advantages servitude brought thereunto. Regarding the full-blood slave, Desire had little to say: the full-blood Negro was beyond human redemption because of the curse of Ham, but could nevertheless receive divine redemption, which depended not on man but on the mercy of God. But was the half-caste subject to the same curse? There were, he admitted, undoubtedly many instances of half-castes in Louisiana who had flourished in their freedom, which indicated that they possessed certain qualities that might, in certain circumstances, approach those of a white man. But was the half-caste capable of human redemption? He would continue on this theme night after night, often alluding directly to one of the half-castes present, including Jeanne, all of whom had been trained to remain perfectly oblivious to the nature of the conversation being conducted by the masters they served. The disquisition always ended with its customary conclusion: that the Negro was better off in his bestial state than burdened with the ennui of the white man’s life.

  Over the years, by force of repetition, one could follow the course of his argument paying only the slightest attention, and otherwise enjoy a moment of perfect solitude. It was best, when Desire was drunk, to keep one’s attention firmly fixed on one’s plate. As what was on my plate was my chief delight, I was only too happy to comply. I questioned his racial theories just once and regretted it instantly. He saw my words as a challenge to his unassailable authority. The viciousness of his retort was such that he stopped only when Hortense burst into tears. It was a most unpleasant episode, and I resolved never to provoke another like it. But the seed of defiance was planted in my mind and was watered nightly by Desire’s monologues.

  Meanwhile, I continued my own, sad metamorphosis into a sight ever ghastlier to behold. I could barely stand to see my reflection in a mirror – and the house was filled with them. I had a sweet tooth that could never be satisfied, and a sugarcane plantation is no place for a sweet tooth. Subjected to a fatal admixture of gluttony and idleness, my body continued to swell, and my teeth to rot. Every toothache set off a nauseous trip downriver to the dentists of New Orleans, with tearful farewells from Hortense and a procession of servants to navigate the passage of my monstrous body over and around the hazards of the outside world. Eventually, for expediency’s sake, my few remaining teeth were removed all at once. By the time I was hauled out of the dentist’s office, my jaws were worth several slaves.

  Year after year, I observed the girl’s metamorphosis into a young woman with a proud, dignified bearing. The resemblance to the young woman I had once been only grew. I watched Jeanne become my double, my likeness, my sister. Of course, she never paid me the slightest attention. Her only acknowledgement of my existence was the minimum necessary for the fulfilment of her duties. I began, in the solitude of my thoughts, to contemplate the prospect of making my next crossing with the slave girl who served me my every meal. But if I was to cross again, I wished to avoid making the same mistake I had made with this one. I was lost, cast adrift here on this Louisiana plantation, and what I yearned for was a new beginning, morally as well as physically. Jeanne became the symbol of the fresh start I craved. And as I did not wish to live a life of slavery, before crossing with her, I would need to procure her freedom.

  Obtaining the freedom of a slave was no simple undertaking. I could either buy her myself and free her or organise her escape and expose her to the risk of capture and punishment. In the dungeon under the same house where, nightly, we gathered to eat our fill, recalcitrant slaves were subjected to unspeakable cruelties. I was determined to avoid that fate. However, having no money of my own, I was unable to purchase the girl myself – and even if I had, the act would have caused more problems than it solved. For whenever Jeanne was near, Hortense’s gaze blazed in my direction, envious of the attentions I devoted to the girl; all Hortense ever received from me was politeness. Sometimes, when she caught me gazing longingly at Jeanne, she would slip into an uncontrolled rage and, in tears, beg her father to send the girl away. Desire would reply that he had nowhere to send the girl, other than the slave market. ‘Send her to the slave market, then, Papa!’ she would plead, knowing it was the banishment of his own daughter, her half-sister, that she was asking of him.

  At dinner on the porch one evening in the autumn of 1838, with fireflies flickering softly in the darkness of the garden below and all the world soft and gentle, Desire finally relented after another of Hortense’s fits of pique. Jeanne was attending to us impassively as always. She was standing within earshot not a few feet away from him when he announced, ‘If it makes you happy, I will sell the girl.’

  Hortense looked up, wide-eyed with happy astonishment. ‘What did you say, Papa?’

  ‘Jeanne. If it makes you happy, I will send her away.’

  The news sent me into a panic I was at labours to disguise. Instantly I looked in Jeanne’s direction. She did not blink or falter or startle. She betrayed no emotion at all. Desire might have been speaking about some distant stranger. We might just as well have been discussing repairs to the belltower or the price of sugar.

  Hortense, by contrast, was delighted. She did not say anything, not wishing to gloat, but all the same she beamed with satisfaction. Finally her triumph was in sight. It had taken her years to persuade her father to sell his half-caste daughter. She now had her wish, and in her mind her responsibility was to accept victory with as good a grace as she could muster. The signs of her happiness were subtle: the liveliness of her eyes, the inflections of her
voice, the vivacity of her movements. The pronouncement had been made, and there was to be no more talk of it.

  As usual, after the madeira was poured and cigars lit, Hortense picked up the book she had been reading to us nightly. It was a book, she’d assured us, that was much in vogue across Europe. She began reciting, taking it up at the point she had finished the previous night, the scene where Victor Frankenstein climbs the Glacier Montanvert:

  ‘“Alas!”’ she read, ‘“why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.”’

  She continued:

  We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.

  We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day.

  We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh, or weep,

  Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

  It is the same; for, be it joy or sorrow,

  The path of its departure still is free.

  Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;

  Nought may endure but mutability.

  Later that evening, as I lumbered past the door of Desire’s apartment, I noticed it was slightly ajar. Hearing the murmur of voices, I peered in discreetly and saw Jeanne’s mother Berthe kneeling at Desire’s lap, beseeching him tearfully not to send Jeanne away. He stroked her hair tenderly. ‘There, there,’ he said, ‘there, there.’

  At dinner the next evening, with Jeanne and Berthe both attending to us, Desire announced that he had decided to sell Berthe as well as Jeanne. Again, the young Jeanne betrayed no emotion, but her mother picked up the hem of her skirt and scurried away, sobbing. Her inconsolable wailing continued for hours thereafter until, in the middle of the night, Desire’s booming voice was heard commanding that she be taken to the dungeon and placed in shackles so that he might sleep in peace.