House of Rougeaux Read online

  Despite the care of the old man, in the time after Iya, the children were lost. Abeje waited for Iya to return, to wake at last from her earthen bed, but she didn’t come and so the sun no longer rose. Abeje’s terror grew and she began to see her brother behave in strange ways. His eyes, before so clear and bright, became clouded. His fresh, alert expression, confused. He sometimes sat in the hut at night, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth, or he wandered in circles around the cooking fire. Old Joseph could make Adunbi eat, but could not otherwise reach him. When Adunbi fluttered around the fire like a moth, Old Joseph would pat the ground beside him and say to Abeje, “Come, ptit. Come sit by.” Abeje would creep toward him, to lean a little against his heavy side.

  * * *

  One day Lise brought Abeje with her to help carry a set of baskets to one of the barns, where some women were working. A bat came loose from the rafters and tried to attack them. The creature was mad, they knew because it came out in the daylight. It would sicken and kill anyone it chanced to bite. The bat flew frantically to and fro, circling in the rafters, hypnotizing Abeje until Lise dragged her outside by the hand. The bat was like Adunbi when he circled the fire, shaking his hands, not knowing where he went. At last the women beat it from the air with their brooms and buried it in a hole.

  When Abeje woke in the night to find her brother sitting up and rocking, she threw her arms around his neck and cried. Slowly he would become still, his arms would unwind from his knees and encircle her instead, and no women came to beat him with brooms.

  Now and then when Adunbi was away, and when she was not pulling weeds at the Great House, Abeje still looked for colored stones. She began to venture into a little grove of shrubs and trees near the Quarters, wondering what lay behind that green curtain. It was a different place. The plants were unlike those in the Great House garden, where the green things grew tame and limp, and unlike the cane fields where the cane stalks bent together in the wind. The shrubs and trees and vines of the Grove grew in a great mix-up, threading roots and branches together with leaves that rattled or caught pools of water or pierced other leaves with spines. Birds hopped and called and argued like women. Insects hummed and bore tiny trails.

  Abeje liked to sit among the shrubs with the small golden flowers. There was something about them that reminded her of Iya, her dry-grass smell. One day Abeje collected a handful of the tiny flowers. She brought them to her nose and sniffed them, longing for Iya. As the smell faded she began eating them, crushing the golden petals and the green hearts with her teeth, tasting a sourness on her tongue. When the flowers were gone she looked for more, even though they had begun to burn at her throat, pricking like pins in her belly, and making her sleepy. Soon she forgot them and wandered away, toward other flowers.

  Someone was singing, but Abeje wasn’t sure. A hum, a growl. She felt sick and bent to vomit the bits of chewed flower, which revived her some and she walked on. The singing became louder as she drew near a clump of shrubs, a kind she hadn’t noticed before. They had waxy heart-shaped leaves, cool to the touch. She sat down, closed her eyes and listened.

  The singing felt like a presence, the voice of the shrub, and it seemed to have a name.

  Ah

  Nai

  Yah

  Anaya.

  “Anaya,” Abeje spoke aloud, and a terrible pain entered her chest, like flesh tearing, and a great darkness opened up.

  Abeje couldn’t see, but she could feel the waxy heart-shaped leaves in her hands. She heard the song again and it led her beyond the Grove.

  From the darkness emerged an Anaya shrub made of lines of stars, like a drawing in the sand made of seashells. It was so large it spread over her like the sky. The song told Abeje that she must look up.

  There.

  The invisible presence of the Holy One, vast, yet intimate.

  Suddenly she was again among the green leaves of the Grove, her feet leading her along back toward the Quarters, one Anaya leaf in her hand. She ran to the hut. It was empty, as it was still daylight, and she laid the leaf under one corner of the sleeping mat she shared with Adunbi. She felt warmth in her heart, where before she felt flesh torn. For the first time in so very long she wasn’t afraid.

  * * *

  The next time Abeje went to the Grove she strained her ears to hear the growling song. Instead she heard the cry of two birds as they leapt from tree to tree above her head. She heard insects clicking, and wind rustling the leaves, as she searched for another Anaya, which she soon found. The Anaya had a gentle sway, a soft presence, like feathers. She felt the touch of gentleness steal again into her heart.

  For many months when she had the chance Abeje returned. She sat and let the Anaya care for her, and each time she brought home one leaf to place under the sleeping mat. Adunbi began to notice the collection of leaves and assumed it was a game of hers.

  One evening as Abeje sat beside the Anaya a strong wind kicked up. Some of the dry leaves floated up into the air, and she chased them. The brown leaves twirled, dancing up, down, and up again. When they fluttered to the ground she saw that she was standing before a short palm tree with great spines on its bark. Twigs covered with globs of red berries grew from its low crown. Abeje knelt before the tree and closed her eyes. Faintly, as if from the back of her head, a spider’s thread of song came over her ears. It reminded her of an instrument that a woman in the Quarters sometimes played, made of a gourd and a stick, and a single string played over with another stick. It was the voice of this new plant. The presence of her brother was there, and she knew at once that as Anaya cared for her, this tree cared for Adunbi. She gathered what berries she could hold and ran back to the Quarters where she placed them along the wall of the hut, beside their sleeping mat.

  In the next weeks, Abeje saw Adunbi become quiet. He sighed. His eyes cleared. Instead of wandering in circles, he sat beside the fire and helped Old Joseph. She brought more of the berries to the hut, and some of the palm’s dry leaves from the ground. Adunbi sometimes picked them up, absently, as he sat up in the night, rubbed them in his fingers, and then sighed and lay down again.

  Though they were slowly coming back to life, Abeje and Adunbi did not laugh or even smile for a very long time. But then her brother discovered something new. It began with one of the sow-pigs. One day, she pushed at his ankles with her snout. She had only ever ignored him before. Suddenly he understood the nosing meant the trough was dry and she wanted water. He filled the trough, heard her grunt, and was sure she meant to thank him.

  “She is your friend now, so,” said Abeje, when Adunbi told her about it that night.

  “Oui, maybe,” he said, “like all of your friends.” He gestured to the corners of the hut, where Abeje’s leaves were piling up.

  Another day Adunbi saw a few geese eating the long grasses. He plucked some green stalks and approached them slowly. The old gander flew at him hissing, and bit his hand with its sharp beak. Adunbi dropped the grass stalks and grasped his hands to his chest, crouching down. The gander strutted around showing the lady geese his mettle. But then the gander cocked his head and Adunbi saw a shadow pass over the yellow eye, and he knew at once the old bird was sorry, though he wouldn’t admit it. The gander hissed once more, but without conviction.

  Nearly all the estate animals were like this with Adunbi. Barn cats that ran when others came near, rubbed on his legs and purred. Cows too skittish to be milked stood patiently for him, the fowls considered him one of their own number. Even when he led animals to slaughter they showed no fear.

  Abeje begged him for stories of the animals.

  “What the animals do today, Adu?” she said, each night.

  “Eat and sleep, make noises and fight,” he always said.

  “What they do?”

  “Shh, Beje.”

  “Tell me, Adu!”

  Then he shook his head and told her a story, and these were their moments of laughing and smiling.

  One morning Adunbi woke before fir
st light and told Abeje he had a dream of Iya. He said she floated into the sky, with her arms raised and a long dress trailing. They went out of the hut to see the sky, now deep blue. Abeje looked east to see the brightest star, the Waking Star.

  “That is she,” said Adunbi. “Ma’a looking down at us.”

  A pale line grew from the edge of the earth and as the other stars faded the Waking Star seemed to burn even brighter. The black mountains reached up in the east, the palms waved their arms in the dark west near the Sea, and the air was gentle. The star was just as Abeje had seen it in the Grove. She knew their mother was there.

  * * *

  The groom was a young Irishman in charge of the stables and barns, the area where Old Joseph labored. One day Joseph brought Adunbi before Groom.

  “I need another hand with the buggy today, Boss,” said Joseph. “He is Guillaume. Strong, smart boy, if it please.”

  The Irishman cast his eye down on Adunbi and nodded. “Alright.”

  After that Adunbi helped Joseph in caring for the horses. Joseph knew so many things about them, and took care to explain it all to Adunbi. Most interesting to Adunbi were the differences among the horses. One was shy about saddling on the right side, another preferred to eat her oats away from the others and nipped at any who tried to nose in. But Joseph pressed other things, how to avoid colic and injury, the right way to accustom a horse to a new bridle. He was a careful teacher, but hard, quick to grow impatient. He cuffed Adunbi on the back of his head if he drove a pick into the wrong part of a horse’s hoof, or failed to secure a harness. He shouted at him that New Year’s Day was coming and that Adunbi had better learn fast.

  They dreaded New Year’s Day all the year. It was on this day that the bondspeople were brought to the auction house to be bought and sold. They never knew whom they might lose, where they might go. So Joseph gave all of his knowledge to Adunbi, understanding that this would increase his worth, and lessen his chances of getting the lash, or being carted away.

  Three or four New Years’ came and went in this way, until one day Adunbi overheard Groom speaking with Old Monsieur about selling off some of the stock. The next New Year’s Day was not far off, and from their voices Adunbi knew that by “stock” they were not speaking of the animals.

  “Adu, no,” said Abeje, when her brother told her what had happened. Adunbi shifted on the mat where he lay and continued. He had been at work pitching hay for the horses when Old Monsieur spied him.

  “What about that one?” said Old Monsieur, pointing at the boy.

  “He’s well with the livery,” said the Groom. “Would fetch a good price.”

  Old Joseph approached them. “Beg pardon,” he said, “if it please, I just take Guillaume now to help me with the new horses.” He held out his twisted hands. “Fingers getting mighty stiff.”

  Abeje held her breath. The old people always said one should never show a weakness.

  This New Year’s Eve was a moonless night. Before banking the cooking fire and leaving to go to sleep, Old Joseph took Adunbi’s face, and then Abeje’s, into his old hands. He rarely touched them, other than to punish Adunbi, or offer his shoulder to Abeje.

  “Holy One be with you,” he said to Adunbi. And “Holy One be with you, p’tit,” to Abeje.

  And indeed in the morning, New Year’s Day, he went away in the wagon, shackled to four others.

  Adunbi and Abeje, tall and thin as reeds now, trailed after the wagon as long as they dared. The work bell was already sounding and they knew Joseph would be angry if they risked a whipping. He faced away and couldn’t see them, but they obeyed him as they would a father. At last they understood his great impatience with Adunbi, and his sacrifice.

  * * *

  Abeje and her brother saw the passing of two more years. They were not babies anymore and tended their own cooking fire. Lise still gave Abeje her tasks in the garden, and sometimes errands for the kitchen. One day Lise and Abeje brought up baskets of greens from the garden. Karine, the head cook, told Abeje to wait outside the door while she gathered some metal pots for her to scrub. A half-keg of salt sat by the door where she waited. Karine came out first with the pots, and then a second time with a spoon and a glass of water. Karine scooped a spoonful of salt from the keg into the glass and stirred. The salt vanished!

  Karine told Lise to take the saltwater upstairs. Madame had another sore throat. Abeje wondered on this as she rubbed the white stones used for scrubbing against the blackened bottoms of the pots. The salt went in the water, though it seemed to disappear. Sea water and tears tasted of salt. It lay in the water invisible as a spirit in a body. People had called Iya a saltwater slave. So perhaps when she died the salt rose back out of her body. Perhaps the stars were nothing more than handfuls of salt, flung from the spirits of people.

  With Joseph gone the Groom called Adunbi often to his aid. Groom cast a suspicious eye on the boy and always added to his orders the threat of boxing his ears, or reminding him of the lash. By the time Adunbi was fifteen years old he had grown much, was taller than the Irishman, and quite strong.

  “Banan tried to charge Groom today,” Adunbi said one night, as he and Abeje tended their supper over the fire.

  “The white yearling bull?” asked Abeje. Adunbi had told her how lately the bull, who had been gentle enough as a calf, had been growing wilder.

  That morning Adunbi had taken the bull from the barn to a pen outside, to be fed away from the heifers. Banan went along without trouble and Adunbi left him in the pen to fetch the hay. When he returned Groom was in the pen, tying off the gate on the other side.

  “I saw,” Adunbi said, “he took it in his mind to charge.” Adunbi had shouted a warning to Groom, who just managed to scramble over the fence before the bull smashed into the post closest to him, cracking it nearly in two. Groom was sufficiently rattled, and when he got his breath he reckoned that Adunbi had saved his life, and that somehow he’d known ahead of time what the bull meant to do.

  “All day Groom watching me,” Adunbi said.

  “But not from fright,” Abeje said.

  “Not at all.”

  From that day forward Groom changed much toward Adunbi. He gave orders without threatening him. He asked Adunbi what he thought of this or that, regarding the animals, and when he heard the boy’s answers, he nodded and said, “That be so.”

  * * *

  Not long after her fourteen years, Abeje was set to work the cane fields. One day during the harvest, Abeje toiled with a gang bundling cut canes. The overseer rode around on his horse that morning, wielding his lash and amusing himself by cursing at the people. His voice rang out, in the distance, or close by where Abeje labored, and the sun climbed high in the sky.

  On one of his passes by Abeje she felt his eyes on her, and then a chill of fear as his gaze swept over her limbs. She kept her eyes down on her work, but every time he passed her hands shook.

  After midday, he made more rounds of the two work gangs, then suddenly dismounted near Abeje’s group. His boots struck the ground and he strode straight toward Abeje, at once catching her wrist. The shock of his grip, of seeing his face up close, made her knees buckle. The flat field seemed to wrench itself over and she pitched to one side.

  “Ye had better mind!” he barked, and dragged her, stumbling, behind a stand of cane and threw her down. She had no time even to cry out. He was upon her, heavy as a fallen tree, but savage, pinning her to the ground. One hard forearm cut the breath from her throat, while his other hand ripped at her clothing. Just as she thought her head would shatter he released her neck. Then he forced himself between her legs.

  At first Abeje thought she was stabbed with a knife, killed, like Iya.

  But in the next moment he pushed off of her, stood and staggered back, pushing his sweaty hair from his face. He fumbled to fix up his belt and felt for his pistol. “Get up.”

  Abeje curled around the pain; it seemed someone was striking her head with a hammer. The fetid smell of his swe
at permeated the air, even when he went to mount his horse and resume his rounds.

  Once his back was turned, one of the women, Vere, went to Abeje and helped her to stand. “Poor, poor babe,” she whispered, brushing at Abeje’s clothing and retying her headcloth. “Holy One deal with him.” Abeje leaned on her as the field rocked back and forth. “Let’s get to work now,” Vere said.

  Abeje was weak and clumsy. She dropped the canes and her fingers would not tie off the twine. Vere and the others hid her poor efforts from Overseer. At dusk Adunbi came looking for her. Earlier in the day he had suddenly been seized with dread for his sister, but could not get away, as that day he was sent to work in the sugar works. He feared for her life. When he saw her hunched form, and Vere helping her along, he hurried to support her. She hid her face and leaned against him, unable to prevent her sobs.

  “Overseer,” Vere said in a low voice.

  Abeje felt him tremble. She clung to Adunbi as tightly as she could; she was so weak.

  “Holy One deal with him,” she begged.

  That night a fire smoldered and sparked, spreading between her legs and up into her belly. The heat washed up and soon a fever overtook her. Adunbi stayed at her side by the cooking fire, and tried to make her eat, to drink, to lie down. When morning came he took her to the Sick House where she lay for two days, burning with fever. She did not see Adunbi there with her each night. She did not see how he sat with his head in his hands, digging his nails into his scalp so that they came away bloody. Nor did she see the others who also lay sick, or dying, but she did see other things.

  She saw Adunbi in a field, raising a machete.

  She saw the Sea.

  She rose up and saw her feverish body below her.