Cane River Part 10

"I can take over now, Madame," she said to Oreline.

"I did what I could for her." Looking miserable, Oreline left Suzette and Palmire alone.

Suzette wiped Palmire's forehead, and when her sister's arms and legs began to spasm uncontrollably, she ma.s.saged them. She tried to get Palmire to connect with her, to meet her eyes and challenge the sickness, but she was drifting from listless and unaware to coma.

Palmire never regained consciousness and died that night. Fast, from one sundown to the next. It wasn't until the next day they found out that on the Fredieu farm, Narcisse's wife, Tranquillin, had been stricken with the same symptoms as Palmire's, ending in the same abrupt death coma.

Cholera had come to Cane River.

After Palmire died, Suzette was no longer certain she could resist the pull of the black fog.

Philomene found her way to Suzette's side as often as she could, coaxing Suzette to tell her stories, anything to get her talking, but it was all Suzette could do to keep moving and do her work. She tried to hold on for Philomene's sake. She wanted to reach out and stroke the girl's hair, to tell her something important about how to protect herself, but it was too much effort, and she didn't have anything worthwhile to say.

Suzette was vaguely aware that Philomene took on many of her own ch.o.r.es. Philomene got up before dawn, filled the woodboxes with kindling, lit fires in the chilly bedrooms in the morning and evening, washed and ironed the clothes, parched the coffee, and stoked the fires at night while Oreline's family slept. She cooked, fetched water and milk from the springhouse and meat from the smokehouse. She bathed, diapered, dressed, groomed, and entertained Oreline's infant children. She spun thread and picked seeds from the cotton, gathered eggs, plucked chickens, and drove cows to and from the woods. When Suzette went to the field, Philomene toted water to her and Ferrier before heading back to the house, where she would comb Oreline's hair, lace her corset, and arrange her hoopskirts.

Philomene tried to get Suzette to imagine happier days, off in the future, but when Suzette thought about Philomene's glimpsing, of the long table piled high with food when they were all together again, she remembered who wasn't there. Not Palmire. Not Gerasime.

Suzette's old dreams of white dresses, St. Augustine, and freedom for her children had proven to be senseless and unreachable.

The future was too heavy for her to carry. It was up to Philomene now.

PART TWO.

Philomene

11.

P hilomene Daurat turned the corner of the house on Ferrier's farm with her long-limbed stride, her careless hair flying behind her. The beginning weight of the baby made her body seem different, foreign. Looking down at her forearms, exposed below the cuff of her thin gingham blouse, she could see that the Louisiana sun had already turned the ivory yellow color of her winter skin to the deep olive she became in summer. Her arms were muscular and firm from the constant demands of heavy farmwork, and her body was a woman's body, caught up at last to the mind that had always seemed mature. hilomene Daurat turned the corner of the house on Ferrier's farm with her long-limbed stride, her careless hair flying behind her. The beginning weight of the baby made her body seem different, foreign. Looking down at her forearms, exposed below the cuff of her thin gingham blouse, she could see that the Louisiana sun had already turned the ivory yellow color of her winter skin to the deep olive she became in summer. Her arms were muscular and firm from the constant demands of heavy farmwork, and her body was a woman's body, caught up at last to the mind that had always seemed mature.

She was fully aware of the danger that accompanied the emergence of her high b.r.e.a.s.t.s and rounded hips, and thanks to her man, Clement, she also understood the pleasures. They were to be married in front of the priest in just five days. She would have jumped the broom, if that was the best she could have made happen, but she wanted something like the real ceremony the white people had. The way her marraine, marraine, Doralise, had done it. Doralise, had done it.

It was well past first light. Philomene had stuffed her tignon tignon in her ap.r.o.n pocket as she'd hurried out of the cabin, intending to capture her hair when she wasn't so behind schedule. She was on her way to the henhouse to collect eggs for preparing breakfast, and her focus was on the task before her, as always. It was the way she had with everything, putting herself into it mind and body, without a spare thought or motion, until she turned herself to the next thing to be done. in her ap.r.o.n pocket as she'd hurried out of the cabin, intending to capture her hair when she wasn't so behind schedule. She was on her way to the henhouse to collect eggs for preparing breakfast, and her focus was on the task before her, as always. It was the way she had with everything, putting herself into it mind and body, without a spare thought or motion, until she turned herself to the next thing to be done.

She had to blink against the strong sun, still so low in the sky that the side of the house had blocked its glare until she had almost fully pa.s.sed the front gallery. Before she even saw him there, she could feel his eyes on her.

Narcisse Fredieu.

He had always watched her, for as long as she could remember. She had grown up with those eyes always on her. In the beginning the watching had been just another condition of her existence, like emptying the stinkpots, or obeying Oreline's orders, or the unchangeable fact that Monday was bake day.

At some point, she couldn't recall exactly when, she had begun to sense the singular nature of his watching, and only then had it made her uneasy. Over the years she had added strands of different impressions, until they formed a dense, complicated knot of fear and anger, challenge and loathing, that she carried from place to place deep in the core of her stomach, not unlike the way she carried the baby now.

Narcisse applied different faces to the watching. One day it showed itself as fascination, on another day open desire, on still another domination. No matter the look of the moment, at its base was always a call for submission, so easily recognizable between white and dark.

When submission was demanded, the outward signs of submission were always offered. It was a well-polished survival technique, and Philomene used it especially carefully with Narcisse. Even as she bowed her head or rounded her back or averted her eyes with the watcher, she seethed at his right to invade her in this way, as a dangerous game, as a prelude. Anger had no practical or logical expression against a white man, so she tried to ignore the looks he gave her, his tendency to be in the same places she was, all of a sudden, drinking her in.

She could remember his first wife, dimly, a pasty-faced woman with a soft voice and timid manner. The woman had always looked to Philomene as if the wind could come and blow her to some other place, without the world taking any notice. Mam'zelle Tranquillin, dead of cholera. They didn't talk about her anymore, and Narcisse had started bringing out a new woman when he visited the farm, another of the endless Derbannes sprinkled around the Cane River landscape. The new one's name was Mam'zelle Arsine Derbanne, and she always arrived with a chaperone or two in tow. Narcisse had not brought her along today. He looked to be alone, and early to the farm. He was here too often, as far as Philomene was concerned, but her opinion was neither requested nor expressed.

Philomene hurried her steps toward the henhouse, as if she didn't know Narcisse was watching. She was careful not to glance in his direction.

Narcisse was waiting as she came out of the henhouse with her ap.r.o.n bunched around the still-warm eggs she had gathered to prepare for that morning's breakfast.

"You've tied up your hair already, I see. What a shame," he said, his voice sugary.

Philomene stopped several feet away and a.s.sumed her pose, aware of Narcisse's deep-set eyes trying to find an opening.

"Morning, M'sieu Narcisse. I need to get these eggs into the kitchen."

"I understand you want to marry one of Tessier's field boys," he said, brus.h.i.+ng aside her remark. "You should have come to me for something so important. You deserve someone better than a field hand. You could do better. I've known your mother and your grandmother since long before you were born. I could help you do better."

"M'sieu, I could do no better than Clement. It is meant to be."

Philomene stared at an imaginary spot to the left of his elbow as she talked, her head not fully bowed. She kept her voice low but even. It would be easier if she could retreat into her mind and be as unaware as her mother sometimes was, or as patient as her grandmother, but her glimpsings made her promises, set her onto the path of intentions, made her too bold.

"I've heard about your 'gift.' What else can you see? Anything for me?" Narcisse put on a solicitous, playful air, as if he were pa.s.sing the time with an overindulged child, but his voice betrayed genuine interest and something else, between respect and fear. The Creoles were a superst.i.tious lot.

"No, M'sieu, I am sorry."

"Surely with all of the powers at your command, you can look to wherever you go for your visions and tell me something that could prove useful for me to know."

"Maybe you will have a long and happy life with a new wife," Philomene said.

"You've seen that?"

Philomene could hear the quickening in Narcisse without needing to look into his face. "No, M'sieu. I just hope it for you."

His interest waned, and he came back in a different direction. "What is it that you see in this boy?"

"His name is Clement. We have known each other since we were children on Rosedew."

"You don't need a boy. You need a man. A man who could protect you."

Protect her from what? Philomene thought. From being a slave? No one could protect her from that. "Clement is the only man I need. We will marry, and we will have children. They are already on the way. I saw it, and now it is coming to pa.s.s."

Narcisse went on as if she had not spoken at all. "I told Ferrier that he shouldn't let you marry that boy."

Philomene stood immobile, seeming to study the ground at her feet, but she was shaken. Narcisse had influence over Oreline. But she knew what a stubborn man Ferrier was, not one to give in easily to outside influence, and all of the plans were already set.

"M'sieu Ferrier has already given his permission," Philomene said, trying to keep her voice steady. "The wedding is Sat.u.r.day. M'sieu Daurat is coming, too, to stand up for me."

Philomene included both her owner's and her father's names, as if matching Narcisse's resistance with the mention of two other white men could make him back down, make everything come out all right. She collected herself. She had said too much to Narcisse already. There was no advantage in talking overmuch.

"Will there be anything else, M'sieu Narcisse? They wait on me to prepare breakfast."

"I've known your family for a long time. I want what's best for you."

"Oui, M'sieu." M'sieu."

"I will be at the wedding. I have an interest in you. Don't ever forget that."

"Oui, M'sieu." M'sieu."

"You have lovely hair, Philomene. I like to see it free of your scarf."

"Oui, M'sieu." M'sieu."

"You may go."

Wednesday, wash day, Philomene removed a water-weighted bedsheet from the washtub where they had just boiled it clean. Suzette took one end, Philomene the other, and they stretched the white sheet between them, wringing out the excess water. It took both of them to smooth it out so they could hang it to dry.

"What do you think about Doralise and M'sieu Eugene?" Philomene said in a furtive undertone. They whispered their wash day gossip, even though they were out of earshot of the house.

"It was just a matter of when she moved out of his house," Suzette whispered back.

"Not his house, her house, Maman, Maman," Philomene said. "Or at least it was. She got him to sign the house over before she ever moved in. She was shrewd."

"And not such a young woman anymore, either," said Suzette.

Philomene added another bundle of clothes to the steaming water. "Memere Elisabeth says Doralise knows how to turn a situation around to suit her." Elisabeth says Doralise knows how to turn a situation around to suit her."

"Like a cat, that one lands on her feet," Suzette said. "She got M'sieu Daurat to get her a divorce, and then she takes up with him in his house, in the open. Him so full of her pretty ways that he signs over his house and land to her, with her already having land of her own." She snorted, a flat, humorless sound full of wonder.

Philomene glanced up at the look of concentration on her mother's face as she handled the growing mound of white linen. Suzette always seemed to speak of Eugene Daurat as a distant stranger, without pa.s.sion or anger.

"Maman," Philomene began cautiously, "you carry no grudge about Doralise going with M'sieu Eugene?"

"That hurt scabbed over almost as long ago as you have been on this earth. Doralise has my regard, coming out on the other side of a tangle with a white man with something in her own pocket to show for it."

"You never talk about you and Papa." What Philomene knew about her father, she had learned from her grandmother. She was surprised when Suzette replied.

"He moved easy from me to Doralise, without ever looking back. I do not care one way or the other about Eugene Daurat except for what he can do for my children. The only thing he gave me was children closer to white. That makes you better than most. Blood counts, but instead you make babies with a brown-skinned boy, when it is on you to carry this family forward now."

"Why do we always go back to that? My light skin and straight hair and fancy speech does not make me free like Madame Doralise, does not get me out from under Madame Oreline. Every morning, I still wake up a mulatto slave." Philomene used the word mulatto mulatto deliberately, although she hated it. Mules were mixed breeds, too, set apart. deliberately, although she hated it. Mules were mixed breeds, too, set apart.

"You better learn how to hold your tongue, gal. Sometimes you seem to forget which of us is the mother and which is the daughter."

"I am sorry," Philomene said dutifully, eyes cast downward, hidden beneath her dark lashes. "No disrespect intended, Maman Maman." It was an old argument that couldn't be won. "So is Doralise family?" she prodded.

"Oui, she helped when we needed," Suzette said, and made the sign of the cross. "Doralise did more for you and Gerant than M'sieu Eugene ever did. He may be through with her now, but she is still my she helped when we needed," Suzette said, and made the sign of the cross. "Doralise did more for you and Gerant than M'sieu Eugene ever did. He may be through with her now, but she is still my marraine. marraine. And yours." And yours."

Suzette poked at the laundry with the wooden paddle and plunged it under the sudsy water. "They hounded them apart, because he put her up in his own house. Or her house. You know what I mean. They don't like to see that around here."

"Who is 'they,' Maman? Maman?"

"White, black, colored, free, slave. n.o.body likes it. M'sieu Eugene was crazy to think he could just move a colored woman, free or not, into his own house in the daylight, and not pay. And white folks expect land to flow to their own. They cut him out then, all but a few too fond or too old to care. The ones who sheltered him in the beginning are all dead now. Doralise knew from the start, getting him to give her the house before he got worn down. White men always choose the same way in the end.

"You ask about grudges," Suzette went on. "What good are grudges? Doralise went with the man for her own reasons. She is still like family, although there's nothing we can do for her. She is the one who is free."

Philomene listened politely, showing her mother the silent respect age ent.i.tled her to. She didn't agree at all about grudges. It was important to keep an accounting of rights and wrongs, even if there was nothing to be done about them right away. Even if there was nothing that could ever be done.

"Could you have stopped M'sieu Eugene from coming for you?"

"You go too far, girl."

They worked in silence until Suzette broke it.

"What got you asking about Eugene Daurat and me now?"

"I have a white man looking at me." Philomene pushed the words out. "He puts his eyes on me like the next step is his hands. He comes at me out of nowhere, throwing his big shadow and blocking the light."

"Narcisse Fredieu." Suzette pursed her lips and shook her head. "I see him sniffing around. He say anything direct?"

"He said Clement is not good enough for me. That he could help me do better. He said he talked to M'sieu Ferrier about calling off the marriage ceremony."

"I heard them last night while serving. M'sieu is not going to let Narcisse Fredieu or anyone else come on his place and tell him what to do. You and Clement are as good as married."

"It has to be more than 'as good as.' What if that man comes to me in the night? He has it in his mind."

"You stay out of his way as much as you can."

"But what if he forces himself on me? What can I do?"

Suzette averted her eyes from her daughter, and when she finally spoke she was brusque. "You ask the wrong person."

12.