The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., Page 2

  Grandmother Sannois was slouched in a cane chair. Father Droppet was standing by the door with an empty glass in his hand. He nodded.

  “What can you be thinking of, standing out in such a downpour. Go put some dry clothes on and come back. There is something we must discuss,” Mother said.

  Gladly I escaped. Catherine met me at the top of the stairs, an embroidery hoop in her hand. “Manette says you will be Queen! She said the old witch told you. But she won’t stop crying! What happened?”

  I could hear Manette bawling even from the foyer. I went down the dark hallway to the door to her room. I knocked. “Manette? It’s me.”

  The weeping stopped but she did not answer.

  “I won’t hurt you, I promise.” I pushed the door open. She was huddled in the corner of the little four-poster bed. I stooped down under the canopy and sat down across from her. Her eyes were red and her nose was runny. I felt around in my bodice for a handkerchief and handed it to her. “I know you told,” I said.

  “You’re not mad?” she asked, her breathing jagged. She glanced up at Catherine, who had come to the door.

  I shook my head no. “I should never have taken you there. Did you say anything about Mimi?”

  “No!”

  “Do you understand what might happen if you did, Manette? She’d be sold—or put on a field gang.” Or worse.…

  “I didn’t say anything!” she sobbed, so hard my heart was full of fear. The rain had stopped when I emerged onto the verandah. I could hear Mother and Grandmother Sannois bidding farewell to Father Droppet on the laneway. I stood by the front door, my hands clasped in front of me, waiting. It sounded like Father Droppet’s grey was being fractious. I heard the stable boy cursing in the African tongue. The horse quieted. Then I heard the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hoofs on the stones.

  Mother appeared on the path, Grandmother Sannois on her arm, the two pugs sniffing in the weeds behind them. They were wet and looked like big rats. Grandmother Sannois was saying something to Mother as they walked along. Then Mother looked up, saw me.

  I held my breath.

  “I’ll tell her if you won’t,” Grandmother Sannois said, lowering herself into the chair with the sisal seat. One of her pugs jumped up onto her lap and she pushed him off.

  Mother turned to face me.

  I bowed my head. I considered throwing myself at her feet. Was that not how it was done?

  “And to think that you made little Manette go along with you!” she whispered, so low I almost couldn’t hear her.

  “Let me tell her,” Grandmother Sannois said.

  Mother took a deep breath. “Mimi, of course, will have to be—”

  “No!” A violent emotion filled me. “Mimi had nothing to do with it! I begged her to take me, but she refused. I was the one, it was only me!“ My breath was coming in spurts; I could not still it.

  Mother took the chain from around her neck, the chain with the big silver cross hanging from it. She took my two hands, put the cross between them. “Look at me, Rose,” she said.

  I looked into her eyes.

  “Swear that you speak the truth.”

  “Mimi is innocent. It is all my doing, all my fault,” I cried out, not untruly.

  “She did not take you to see the unholy woman in the woods?”

  I shook my head no, violently.

  “Say it.”

  “Mimi did not go,” I lied. The cross felt cold and heavy in my hands. I pushed it back into my mother’s hands.

  “Call the child down,” Grandmother Sannois said. Mother sat down on a wood stool. “Come here, Rose,” she said. She pulled me down on the stones in front of her. She wiped several strands of damp hair from my forehead. Her touch was tender. “Sometimes it’s not easy to be a mother,” she said. Her voice was cold when she said, “You will be put in the storm room, in the cellar. You will stay there for eight days.” She looked over at Grandmother Sannois and then back at me. She took a deep breath.

  “You will be fed nothing but dry bread and water.”

  I looked at her without comprehending. Eight days? Eight nights? In the cellar? “Alone?” My voice trembled. In the dark?

  Mother slipped the chain with the cross over my head. “You will be needing this,” she said.

  I’ve been sent to my room to await my fate. I’m to eat supper with my family, and make my farewells. It will be my last meal.

  Mimi and Manette are more upset than I am. Catherine, however, can only think of the fortune I was told. “That you will be a queen, Rose. Imagine!”

  My nanny Da Gertrude appeared, her face wet with tears. She crushed me to her bosom. Then she washed me with a fragrant liquid, beginning at my feet.

  “Why?” I asked, for her method was curious. A floating feeling came over me, as if my body were not my own. “This will protect you,” she said.

  “I will be strong,” I said. The thought came to me: As befits one who will be Queen.

  It was true, then, I knew, I had been cursed.

  At supper I could hardly eat. After, everyone embraced me as if I was going on an ocean voyage. Grandmother Sannois presented me with her Bible. Da Gertrude grasped me so hard I feared my bones would crack.

  Mother held the lamp high as we descended into the basement. It was cool, the air damp—old air. I watched where I stepped, fearing cockroaches. I followed Mother into the storm room—a large room with a narrow bed in it. There was a chair with a frayed wicker seat and a three-legged table propped up in one corner. On the table was a lantern, a candle, an earthenware jug and a cracked china cup. That was all but for one small opening high up on the wall, covered with a wooden shutter.

  I set my basket down on the bed. I recognized the patchwork counterpane as one that Catherine and I had worked on together. Mother put the lantern down on the table and felt with her finger to see if it had been dusted. She turned to me. “Rose—I hope you understand why this is necessary.”

  “I do,” I lied. I didn’t know what to say.

  She began to weep. It was more of a shuddering movement than a sound, for there were no tears. It seemed an unnatural thing. I put my arm around her shoulders. I was surprised how small she seemed. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “May God be with you,” she said.

  And then she was gone and I was alone.

  Later.

  Dear Diary, it is night, my first. I pried open the shutters; the night sounds filled my room. Then I closed the shutters tight, for fear of the wandering night spirits, the hungry mystères.

  I fear I am not alone. In the shadows I feel the presence of some spirit. I cannot sleep, will not sleep, for fear it will approach. My eyes open, ever alert, I watch the dark.

  The oil in my lantern is low. I must blow it out, I know, forsake this island of light. Courage, I say.

  Faith, I hear something whisper.

  August 5.

  I woke at the sound of the slave-master blowing his conch shell up in the slave village. I lay there for a time, staring at the ceiling, looking for faces in the cracks. I thought I heard a voice and a giggle. I pushed the chair to the wall and opened the shutters. There, peering at me through the long grass, were Catherine’s dark eyes.

  “We have to be quick!” she whispered through the grate.

  I heard Manette behind her: “Let me see! Let me see!”

  “Quiet!” Catherine hissed.

  Manette’s little face came into view. Her hand reached down. I took the handful of moist crumbs. “A mango tart. I stole it!”

  Then some more quarrelling and Catherine came back into view. “How is it down there?”

  “Boring.”

  “Run!” I heard Manette cry out.

  And then there was only grass.

  August 6.

  Toward evening I heard a scratching at the window again. I stood on the chair and looked out. It was Catherine again. She was crying.

  “What’s the matter!”

  “You have to promise not to
tell.”

  “What is it!”

  She started to speak but tears came. “Just a minute,” she said, taking out her handkerchief and blowing her nose. She pressed her face closer to the grate. “I went to the fortuneteller.”

  “To Euphémie David?”

  She nodded.

  “But Catherine! How could you!”

  “Just because she told you you would be Queen.”

  “Did Mimi take you?” I was angry now.

  “I went alone.”

  “Alone? “ I couldn’t imagine anyone being that brave.

  She was beginning to gasp now, sobs overcoming her. I stuck my finger through the grate to try to touch her. “What happened! Did she say something?”

  And then she told me. At first the sorcerer had told her to go away, she would not say her future, she said she could not see it. But then the old woman said an awful thing—that Catherine would be in the ground before her next birthday.

  “Mother’s right—she is the Devil!” I hissed, but already Catherine was gone, scrambling through the grass.

  [Undated]

  Is it the Devil or a kind spirit that takes the form of a bat? Last night there were several. I have begun to feel dizzy and not at all hungry. Why am I here? I can’t recall.

  [Undated]

  I went for a walk. I remember an old woman’s face. I remember her eyes and dust on the back of her hand. I remember watching as she picked through a basket of dried leaves and put them one by one on the dirt in front of me. I remember her chant, her strange wail. I remember an earthenware bowl with two little hearts in it, swarming with flies. I remember seeing a maggot in the bowl.

  Was this a dream?

  I remember a crippled old woman standing, raising her arms. I remember her lifting a flask of devil-fire to her lips, drinking it like water. I remember her jumping up and down on the ground in front of me, swiping the air with her outstretched hands.

  I remember the words: You will be Queen.

  This must have been a dream.

  Tuesday, August 12, late.

  It was Mother who came for me, at the last. I was lying on the bed. She stood at the door with a lantern in her hand. “Rose?”

  I did not answer. I tried, but could not—it seemed too hard a task.

  She came to the bed. She was wearing a white gown and a white head scarf and by the light of the lantern she looked like an angel. “You look like an angel,” I said, my voice strange, hoarse.

  I felt her fingers fluttering over my face. I heard a snuffling sound. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” she whispered.

  I looked at her with confusion. Why was she weeping? I saw a brilliant light all around her. She was the Virgin Mary come to bless me. “Maman!” I cried out, kissing her fingers, pressing her hand to my cheek, marvelling at her beauty.

  In which the mystères have their way

  Thursday, August 21, 1777.

  I woke to the sound of a soft rap-rap-rap on my bedchamber door. “Who is it?” I hissed, fearful.

  The door creaked open.

  “Father!” He was wearing a riding jacket, blue with gold buttons.

  “I’ve ordered your pony saddled,” he whispered, so as not to waken Da Gertrude. Steam was rising from the earthenware mug in his hand. It smelled of coffee and rum. “I want you to meet my new lady,” he said, tossing me a chocolate roll.

  Father’s new lady was a black mare with white socks—a bold well-built girl with big eyes, young still. “Lady Luck, I’ve named her,” he said proudly, “won at the tables.”

  I reached out to touch her muzzle. She jerked her head away. “Sucre is small for me now,” I said. My little pony was standing by the wall with flies on her eyes.

  “This one’s a little hot for you,” Father said. I held the bridle as he mounted.

  The horses snorted as we headed down the laneway, shaking their heads against the flies. The sun had just come up; the shadows were long yet, the grass damp. A blue heron flew up as we approached the canefields, still in chaos from the harvest. On the far horizon, at the edge of the sea, the field-slaves were working, preparing a field for burning.

  “King Sugar,” Father said with an ironic smile, slapping at a mosquito. He pulled a leather flask from his coat pocket, tipped back his head.

  Other planters lived like kings. Why did we have no fortune? But I knew the answer. Your father courts Lady Luck, Mother said. But the Lady mistreats him.

  “Tell me a story about when you were at Court, Father.”

  He groaned.

  “The hunt story?”

  “You know it by heart,” he said.

  It was true. I knew the story of the hunt so well I could tell it myself. How the King set out each morning with his lieutenants and under-lieutenants, the gentlemen of the chase, his squires and under-squires and pages. How the dogs howled, how the King knew each by name. How the fine-blooded horses pranced in the morning mist—so many of them sixty men were needed just to give them water!

  I leaned my head on Sucre’s neck, inhaled her warm, clean scent. Imagine such a world. “A story about the Queen, then,” I said. “About the birth of the Dauphin.” About fireworks lighting up the night.

  Father let loose his reins, allowed his mare to graze. “Speaking of queens, I was told the most extraordinary thing.” He turned to look at me. “I was told you went to see that old voodoo woman up river.”

  I sat up. “Who told you that?” I tried not to sound alarmed.

  “A woman in Fort-Royal.”

  “Oh?” I didn’t like my father talking about me with “a woman.”

  “It’s said you will be Queen,” he said.

  I felt my cheeks burn. I looked away.

  “So it’s true,” he said. He held out the flask. I shook my head. “You are looking a little pale, Rose, a little thin. Have you been ill?”

  “No.” I’d been warned not to tell.

  “You know, I wanted you to be a boy.” He took another swig from his flask. Then he laughed. “But a queen might not be so bad,” he said, urging his mare into a walk. “A queen might help pay off my gambling debts.”

  “I was punished, Father!” The words leapt from me unbidden.

  His saddle creaked as he turned to face me. “Punished?”

  Tears came to my eyes.

  “For being told you will be Queen?” he asked. I took a shaky breath. “For talking to the Devil,” I whispered.

  “The strap?” His voice cold.

  I nodded. I wanted to tell him the truth, but I did not dare. I wanted to tell him about the room in the basement, about the bats and the spirits and the faces in the night. I wanted to tell him about the voices. But it would only anger him, I knew, and there would be fights. There were fights enough.

  “The Old Women did this?” That is what Father called Mother and Grandmother Sannois.

  “Father Droppet made them!”

  “The Devil be damned,” he cursed, under his breath. His mare bucked as he spurred her, bucked again as she broke into a gallop.

  I kicked my pony hard and held on, tears blinding me. Father cried out as I passed him at the hanging tree.

  August 25.

  Catherine and I are getting ready to return to the convent school in Fort-Royal. Little Manette watches us enviously, offering to help, getting in the way.

  We leave day after tomorrow, in spite of the rains. The weather is hot and terribly humid. We have to push our embroidery needles through the heavy cotton cloth.

  A week later, 6:00 P.M.—Fort-Royal.

  Catherine and I are back at school again, back at dreary Dames de la Providence, back to Sister Gretch’s scowls. Mass at seven, classes from eight until eleven, and again from one until five. Drawing and embroidery. Reading and penmanship. Lectures on virtue and modesty. My backside is sore from sitting all day on hard benches.

  September 7.

  This rainy season will never end. The streets are rivers of mud. Catherine and I are stuck here at the convent—we
can’t even go to Uncle Tascher’s for Sunday supper. Instead we eat salt fish, the third evening in a row. A cockroach, the biggest I’d ever seen, was running under the tables. Catherine screamed, though I know for a fact she’s braver than most boys. She stood up on the table and stepped into at least two dinner plates and sent her own crashing to the floor. If it weren’t for Catherine, we’d die of boredom.

  Wednesday, September 10, 11:00 A.M.

  This morning at bath Catherine lifted her chemise when the sisters weren’t looking. I gestured to her to lower it, but she only giggled and did it again. Soon we were all being bad.

  Sunday, September 14, 1:00 P.M.

  After mass this morning we were led on a promenade across the Savane. The smell of the slave ships in the harbour was strong. And then, a disturbing thing. As we turned back, Catherine whispered, “I don’t want to die!”

  “Your face is flushed,” I said, alarmed by her curious statement. “Are you ill?” She looked inflamed.

  Tonight Catherine was the first to fall asleep. This is the most worrisome sign. Usually she gets the paddle for staying up late.

  Tuesday, September 16.

  Catherine is so sick now, she has to return home. I have insisted I go with her. Sister Gretch told me I am using my sister’s misfortune as an excuse not to go to school. It wouldn’t be honest, dear Diary, not to say that there is some truth in what Sister Gretch said. I hate being at the convent school, but it is also true that I am worried about Catherine. I’ve been nursing her for two days. We leave in the morning.

  September 22—Trois-Ilets.

  We’ve been home five days and Catherine’s sicker still, always in a drowsy stupor. Da Gertrude has been making smelly salves to spread on her chest, but they haven’t helped. All day Mother sits and watches her, fanning her with a big palm leaf. Every so often she sponges her all over with rum, her prayers filling the rooms with a monotonous drone.

  September 23.

  I found chicken feathers and bits of bone under Catherine’s bed. Voodoo magic, I hope.

  4:00 P.M.

  Grandmother Sannois says Catherine has yellow fever.