Part 15 (1/2)

N arcisse came to her instead of sending for her. It was a Sunday, her own day, and Philomene had not gotten out of bed, even though the rooster had announced the day's beginning hours before. Her room off the kitchen smelled of bacon grease and mourning. They all thought she had gone a little crazy, like Doralise's husband, she knew that, but it meant that they left her to herself on Sundays. arcisse came to her instead of sending for her. It was a Sunday, her own day, and Philomene had not gotten out of bed, even though the rooster had announced the day's beginning hours before. Her room off the kitchen smelled of bacon grease and mourning. They all thought she had gone a little crazy, like Doralise's husband, she knew that, but it meant that they left her to herself on Sundays.

His boots sang out on the floorboards, warning his approach. She kept her eyes shut and her face to the wall, but she heard the heavy arrogance of his gait and smelled the cigar smoke he brought with him to the doorway of her room. There was a moment between sounds as he adjusted to the darkness, and she heard him come farther into the room, towering over her, nearby.

”You have a lot of people worried about you,” he said almost gently.

Philomene said nothing. She didn't get out of bed. She didn't even roll over.

Narcisse stiffened against this affront. ”You hear me talking to you, gal. You better beware, Philomene.”

Philomene held the blanket up to her chin, rolled her body into a ball, and leaned back against the wall, still on the pallet. She could smell herself and wondered if he did, too. Her hair bunched in matted clumps against her cheek, unwashed, uncombed, and brittle.

Philomene was seventeen years old, and she felt used up. Wherever she went she could smell the stale breath of bitterness prodding her. Her days were drab and hard, and her nights were full to bursting with the silent grief that her isolation nourished. Loneliness had become an ugly, open sore that festered instead of healing over. She refused to give herself the relief of lingering on what should have been and so drifted on the edge of nothingness from day to day.

Clement was the only man she wanted, but waiting for him was foolish and impractical. He was gone because he had been as powerless as she was. Her glimpsings had tricked her into thinking there could be something more, into desiring, expecting. Losing her children had shown her how futile that was. She was barren and empty, pretending to be human, imitating the things she had done before, long ago. Pretending that it mattered to get up one more day. She was surprised each morning when she woke that she hadn't died of her aloneness the night before. The days were colorless, and there were only fleeting moments of comfort for her at week's end, when she could go to see Suzette, or Elisabeth, or Doralise and Gerant. Occasionally she saw her grandfather Gerasime, whose hip had gotten much worse.

The weeks had pa.s.sed with her feeling naked and exposed, tensing for the next blow, subject to the whims of some force intent on grinding her up until there was nothing left. And when it seemed that she had reached bottom, that the greedy hands could pull her no lower, Narcisse Fredieu appeared in her room. This was the face of slavery. To have nothing, and still have something more to lose.

”Are you listening to me?” Narcisse asked. ”Your father asked me to look after you and yours. I told him that I would. That makes three generations of your family under my care. Elisabeth, Suzette, and you and Gerant.”

Philomene was afraid of this man in her little corner off the kitchen, whether he had saved her from yellow fever or not. The familiarity in his tone threatened to swallow her up, and she was alone with him, with only the thin blanket and her night s.h.i.+ft between them. It was important to concentrate, to listen to him carefully. He was talking about the people left to her, the people she still cared about. She opened her eyes but kept her head down. She refused to let him see her face still raw with the absence of Clement and their babies.

”Your mother and I played together as children. We spent hours in the cookhouse with your memere memere Elisabeth and in the quarter with Gerasime. I'm fond of your family and am in a position to make your lives easier. I can protect you. I made that promise to your father. And I'm interested in you. I've told you that before.” Elisabeth and in the quarter with Gerasime. I'm fond of your family and am in a position to make your lives easier. I can protect you. I made that promise to your father. And I'm interested in you. I've told you that before.”

Philomene heard Narcisse take in a breath and pause. She waited.

”You have to shake this off, Philomene, you have to get beyond the last few months. You're still young. You've let yourself go down. It's time to think about the future. There can be more children.”

Narcisse moved closer, touching her lightly on the shoulder. ”We all know you can speak. There's nothing wrong with you.”

Philomene tried to identify the tone of voice that the watcher was using with her, the rise and fall of his words as important as the words themselves. His speech was not as gentle as the words buried in them insinuated, an undertow of threat to the calm flow. Narcisse had been circling her for a long time. As long as she had been married to Clement he'd kept his distance. Philomene had gotten to know this man and his crablike moves toward her. Always from the side, seldom forward. How many years had he been watching her, without action or declaration? The fact that he was here now, in her room, with Oreline somewhere in the house, signaled a change in the fragile distance he had kept before.

The puzzling thing was that he was moving toward her with caution, when they both knew he could take her if he wanted, without consequence, especially once her father had left Cane River. Last week Eugene Daurat had come to this very room to announce that he was going back to France. Only then had she realized how much her father's presence had protected her. Without him living on Cane River, she would need to find some other way to defend herself or be prey for any of the men who would come and expect her to service their physical or emotional needs. Narcisse Fredieu was one of those men, but not the only one. She had just known of him longer. She was sure that taking her was precisely what was on his mind, although it made no sense. She disgusted herself, unkempt, dirty, smelling of despair, so dried up that even her milk had been taken from her.

If Narcisse Fredieu was determined to have her, their long dance could end no other way, unless she was prepared to risk death-his death and then, by definition, her own. Even with all that she had lost, she was not willing to face death. There was more to come for her. She was sure of it. And now with Narcisse Fredieu's hesitation, with his caution, he handed her a s.h.i.+eld, however thin. She had to use his l.u.s.t to her advantage, but her mind was too numb to form a plan.

She could be as outwardly respectful to Narcisse as she needed to be. How long she could hold him at a distance was another matter. The glimpsings had not come to her for some time, and she had never seen Narcisse in any of them. Maybe he wasn't connected to her future. Maybe if she held him back for long enough, his mind would turn in some other direction that didn't include her. Maybe his wife, Arsine, would be able to keep him by her side and away from Philomene's room, although the gossip that traveled the river already had Arsine spending more and more time on extended visits alone outside the parish. Maybe the protection Narcisse talked about was more like the kind Ferrier had provided. The young farmer had never touched her mother or her or Palmire, and she had never heard of him coupling with any slaves. There were no stories, no rolled eyes, no side glances, no cafe au lait babies attached to his name.

She didn't believe for a moment that that was the kind of protection Narcisse Fredieu was offering.

As if to confirm her thoughts, Narcisse approached her pallet and lifted a handful of Philomene's long dirty hair, stroking it in a grotesque perversion of Clement's touch.

”You need to clean yourself up. I plan to have you, Philomene. It would be better if you came to me willingly. Better for everyone. I want what's best for you. What's best for all. Think about that. I'll only be so patient.”

He left as suddenly as he had come, his retreating footsteps muted by the sound of her own beating heart in her ears.

When Eugene Daurat had told Philomene he was quitting Cane River for good, preparing to vanish as if he had never existed, she'd kept her silence. He'd admitted that he had sold her brother, Gerant. ”To a good place,” her father had said, ”to a neighboring planter who will treat him well.” Still no word pa.s.sed Philomene's lips.

Now one thing had become certain. It was time for her to reclaim her voice, to begin the complicated negotiations for the rest of her life. She needed to turn her thoughts to what she could get in return. Her family needed protection. It was up to her to step up to what needed doing, to use whatever was at hand. She needed to talk to her grandmother, and if she didn't go today, she would have to wait for another week.

Philomene no longer had Clement to safeguard what had been soft in her. She got up from her bed and dressed.

17 January 1858Natchitoches, LouisianaEugene Daurrat, resident of the Parish of Natchitoches, to Henry Hertzog, for $1650: a negro man, age about 20, named resident of the Parish of Natchitoches, to Henry Hertzog, for $1650: a negro man, age about 20, named Gerand Gerand. Hertzog furnished by individual note, payable 1 May next, for value received. Witnesses: G. E. Spilman and Dr. Fleming. Signed E. Daurat and Henry Hertzog. Recorded 2 February 1858. [Natch. Conveyance Book 51: 3556.]

Sale of Gerant.

It took her thirty minutes to get the pa.s.s and then three hours of hard walking. Philomene found her grandmother outside her cabin in the Fredieu quarter, tending her vegetable patch, and Elisabeth held her fast, surprised and excited to see her. Philomene wished she could stay in the comfort of her grandmother's arms, but she gave herself only a moment before she pushed herself away. They sat on the porch of the cabin, out of the sun.

Elisabeth studied her. Philomene knew how she must look. Her grandmother went into the cabin, and Philomene sat on the floorboards at the base of her grandmother's chair on the porch, the way she had as a child. She faced out toward the garden and waited. Elisabeth came back with her comb in her hand, eased herself into her chair, gripping Philomene's shoulders between her knees, and began to use her fingers to unmat Philomene's hair.

”You must get lonesome up to Madame Oreline's by yourself. We all think about you, and pray for you.”

Philomene would have liked to cry, to be done with it, but no tears would come. It was time to speak.

”Memere,” she said, her voice raspy and awkward. She had practiced on the walk through the woods, pus.h.i.+ng sound out of her mouth again, reopening the gate between thought and word.

Elisabeth's hands froze in her hair, but for only a moment. ”You've come back to us,” she said, squeezing her hands around Philomene's shoulders. Elisabeth continued to untangle Philomene's hair and began to work the snarls with the comb.

”I've lost everything.” Philomene's stored-up voice had a hard edge.

”No. Not everything.”

”Memere, I came to tell you about what I saw.” I came to tell you about what I saw.”

Elisabeth turned Philomene's face toward her, looking at her granddaughter sharply.

”A glimpsing? It's been a long time.”

Philomene shook her head. ”In the fever.”

Elisabeth kept at the combing as Philomene talked.

Philomene told her grandmother all of the details she could remember about the fever dream, the bubbling water, Clement's appearance and rescue of Thany in the yellow boat, cradling Bet in the crook of her arm.

”There was something to the dream, like a message from a glimpsing, but ...”

Philomene let her voice trail away, taken with another thought. ”You have to believe in the last glimpsing, Memere. Memere. It is important.” It hurt her throat to talk, but she didn't want to stop. ”You will sit at one end of the table, and It is important.” It hurt her throat to talk, but she didn't want to stop. ”You will sit at one end of the table, and Maman Maman will sit at the other. You wait and see. It will be our own food and our own house, and we will be together again.” will sit at the other. You wait and see. It will be our own food and our own house, and we will be together again.”

”G.o.d will provide.”

”I believe G.o.d will provide, too, Memere. Memere. Just that sometimes He needs help to remember who to provide to.” Just that sometimes He needs help to remember who to provide to.”