The Salt Roads Read online

  He rose to his feet, turned away. She knew that look. In a minute he’d be wandering the street with his notebook, muttering half-written verses to himself and scaring the passers-by. “Just bring me my robe first, chéri,” she implored of his retreating back as he left the room. Then she sank down amongst the tatters of her garments. Oh you gods, just to sleep a little while. How could she have been dancing?

  Just a taste Jeanne had given me; a sip. But now I am beginning to divine the way to have more of it. Give thanks that this Jeanne is a dancing girl. Perhaps there will be more chances to lose her in music, to set me free into the spherical world where I can learn all that is and was and is to come. Then together and separately, Jeanne and I can dance once more.

  I am quiet some little while, ruminating on dark bodies clothed in rags. I think on the feel of silk on skin, how gloriously it slides across the flesh and makes one shiver. It is better to be richly attired. People regard you then. They pay attention to what you say. It is better to have a lace fan to wave gracefully in the air, so . . .

  Jeanne’s hand moves! She makes the motion of flourishing the fan I imagine. Her mind is elsewhere, dozing, and for a short time, I have command. I strain to do so again, but it is gone. I wish I could make her scream out my frustration. I cannot think, encased in this one small head. I cannot see!

  Slip

  XXVIII—Le Serpent qui danse

  (Charles Baudelaire 1821-1867)

  Que j’aime voir, chère indolente,

  De ton corps si beau,

  Comme une étoffe vacillante,

  Miroiter la peau!

  Sur ta chevelure profonde

  Aux âcres parfums,

  Mer odorante et vagabonde

  Aux flots bleus et bruns,

  Comme un navire qui s’éveille

  Au vent du matin,

  Mon âme rêveuse appareille

  Pour un ciel lointain.

  Tes yeux, où rien ne se révèle,

  De doux ni d’amer,

  Sont deux bijoux froids où se mêle

  L’or avec le fer.

  À te voir marcher en cadence,

  Belle d’abandon,

  On dirait un serpent qui danse

  Au bout d’un bâton.

  Sous le fardeau de ta paresse

  Ta tête d’enfant

  Se balance avec la mollesse

  D’un jeune éléphant.

  Et ton corps se penche et s’allonge

  Comme un fin vaisseau

  Qui roule bord sur bord et plonge

  Ses vergues dans l’eau.

  Comme un flot grossi par la fonte

  Des glaciers grondants,

  Quand l’eau de ta bouche remonte

  Au bord de tes dents,

  Je crois boire un vin de Bohême,

  Amer et vainqueur,

  Un ciel liquide qui parsème

  D’étoiles mon coeur!

  The Snake That Dances

  How I love to see, my dear lazy one,

  Along your beautiful body,

  Like a fabric that shimmers,

  The glistening of your skin!

  In the depths of your hair

  With its biting odours,

  Perfumed and errant sea

  With blue and brown swells,

  Like a ship that awakens

  In the morning wind,

  My dreamy soul sets sail

  For a sky far away.

  Your eyes, where nothing’s revealed,

  Neither bitter nor sweet,

  Are two cold jewels

  Where gold and iron meld.

  To see your rhythmic walk,

  Careless beauty,

  You�d think a snake was dancing

  At the end of a fakir�s stick.

  Under the weight of your idleness

  Your childlike head

  Balances with the indolence

  Of a baby elephant.

  And your body stretches and inclines

  Like a fine vessel

  Which rolls from side to side

  And thrusts its masts into the sea.

  Like a wave built by the roar

  Of melting glaciers,

  When the foam of your mouth

  Surges to the edge of your teeth,

  I feel I’m drinking Bohemian wine,

  Bitter and triumphant,

  A liquid heaven that showers

  Stars upon my heart!

  Rattle

  Chain

  Jeanne dreams, and I am pulled to other places. Dark faces surround me, swaying as the drums boom, as the asson rattle shakes. They demand my presence, they make the bells tinkle. If Jeanne lets me go free, I must answer the summons of the bells, the faces demanding my presence. Black faces that look like my own, only mine is white, bone-bleached. Why? I try to ask them, why? Why do I not look like you? Why am I at your beck? But they do not answer. I only find myself in other heads, as I am in the head of Ginger Jeanne. They summon me, and when I can, I go to them. And while I am speeding to them between the worlds, I know their lives. For a little space, I know.

  I arrive, and the black faces sing,

  Ezili, O!

  I do not understand. Riding in their heads, I ask, why am I here? The faces reply, Mother, will he love me? Mother, what is to become of me? Tell us, tell us.

  Break

  Tell us, the black faces beg, and a remembering of my time in free space bubbles up out of me like waters, and I speak, speak through the mouth of the head I am in. I say, He loves you because you turn yams to money in the market. If you like your love practical, then he is the one for you. And to the other I say, do not ask your future, or you will forget to live in your present. Go home to your baby; she is sick.

  Oh, I speak. I speak in many mouths, and even white men listen, for love of my grace and beauty. I speak.

  Water

  Matant Mer, it’s too hot!” wailed Ti-Bois. Standing in front of my cabin in the swelling dark, he was wincing and skinning up his face above the calabash of ginger tea I had just done boiling for him. “It’s burning my mouth. I have to drink all?”

  “Yes, petit.” Poor little one. Never enough to eat, not the kind of food that would make him grow strong. His teeth were falling out his mouth from it. “You must drink all. You want the toothache to stop, don’t it?”

  “Yes, matant.”

  I stood up from weeding my manioc patch and went to check the calabash. The drink was a little hot, in truth. I blew in it and swirled it around to cool it some. “Try now.”

  He screwed up his little nose and mouth and bent to suck from the calabash again. He took two more sips, then: “I don’t like the taste too much, matant!”

  Pauvre petit. Only seven years old, and trying to be brave. “You want me to make it sweet for you?”

  A big smile he gave me with his little black teeth. “Yes, matant!”

  So I went inside and got the lump of sugar that I had thiefed from the curing house. “Don’t tell anyone I gave you this. You promise?”

  He opened his eyes wide and nodded at me, all serious. Sweet child. I broke off some of the sugar, put it in his calabash, and mixed it with my finger. “I’m going to watch you now, and make sure you drink it all. So your teeth will stop hurting.”

  I put the rest of the sugar away, then went and knelt again to my weeding, but kept my eye on the child. The small cane trash fire crackled. The sweet smoke smell of it blew all around. Long, dry cane leaves rushed up from the fire, glowing red, then crumbled to black ash.

  My mind went running on other things while I weeded. I’m not the only one displeased to see Patrice. Makandal didn’t like him any more, it seemed. Makandal’s favour flows this way then that, like the tide. He and Patrice used to be compères, always whispering and joking together. Used to have Tipingee frantic that the overseer would notice, would punish them for conspiring. But something must have happened out there with the maroons. Makandal scowls now whenever Patrice walks by. He spits on
the ground behind Patrice. And Patrice pretends he doesn’t notice, for it’s not safe to cross Makandal. He might put bad ouanga on you.

  Mama, what I must do? Tipingee asked me yesterday to make Patrice a packet for his protection. Best protection might be if he ran away again. If he only crosses Makandal, I know Makandal will find a way to lay him below the earth. Mama, is only that I’m jealous why I want Patrice to go back away?

  “Matant?”

  Eh. I told Ti-Bois I was watching him, but here my mind was roaming. I came back to myself again. “Yes, child?”

  “I’m finished.” He held out the calabash for me.

  “Good boy. Mouth feeling better?”

  He gave me a big smile with his rotting baby teeth. “Yes, matant.”

  I sat back on my heels and regarded him. “You want to share some supper with me?”

  He sucked in his lower lip and considered. “What you have to eat, matant?”

  I had to laugh. “Little méchant; what do you have to say about it? Eh?”

  He just grinned back at me, for he knew I wasn’t really angry with him. Ti-Bois knew me well. “All right,” I said. “I will boil manioc with coconut oil and some salted pig tail in it, and plantain that Georgine gave me.”

  His face lighted up. “Plantain! The sweet plantain, or the hard green one?”

  “Ah, Ti-Bois. If I tell you what kind of plantain, that will decide you whether you’re going to stay for dinner or not?”

  “Yes, matant,” he said, with a child’s honesty. “I like the sweet one. It’s soft. It doesn’t hurt my mouth.”

  I rocked myself to my feet, tossed the last of the weeds into the fire. Gave Ti-Bois the two big manioc roots I had just done digging up. Oreste was passing by, a plaited coconut leaf hat on his head. He had three coconuts carrying.

  “Honour, Oreste.”

  “Respect, matant Mer.”

  “Nice evening.”

  “Cool breeze,” he agreed. “Honour, Ti-Bois.”

  “Respect,” the little one replied, wriggling for pleasure that Oreste was talking to him like an adult.

  “Do me a favour, Oreste?” I asked.

  “Ahh?” he said, waiting to hear what it was.

  “Tell Ti-Bois’s mother that he is taking supper with me. I will bring him home safe.”

  “Yes, matant.”

  “Thank you. Take some manioc for your trouble, eh?” I gave him one of the long, thick roots. He touched his coconut leaf hat at me with it and set off, juggling manioc and coconuts.

  Ti-Bois was only pulling at my skirt hem. “But matant, matant; you still never said; it’s the sweet plantain or the green one you’re cooking?”

  To my knees I got, and hugged him. “Oh, my darling; the sweet one, of course. Of course I will give my friend Ti-Bois a treat.”

  And up and down he jumped, making a little song of “Sweet plantain! Sweet plantain!” I laughed to see him.

  “Come now, Ti-Bois. Before you eat, you have to work.” I went inside and got two calabash bowls, a big one for me and a small one for him. “Come with me to the river for water.”

  He ran along on his little legs beside me, cheeping at me like the nighttime frogs. “Matant, you see the great house the other day?”

  “Yes, petit.”

  “I never been in there before.”

  “Me neither.”

  “You see how fine it is inside? When I get big, I’m going to live in a grand house like that.”

  “May it be so,” I said. “If the gods will it.”

  “And plenty big red flowers going to grow outside it.”

  “Roses, those were.”

  “I know. Marie-Claire told me about them long time since. And long time since? Long time, I never believed her, that anybody would grow plants that bear no food, just flowers, so matant?”

  “Yes, petit.”

  “Long time? I sneaked inside the great house gates.”

  “What?” I stopped and grabbed his little arm. So thin in my hands. “You went inside Master’s gates? Ti-Bois, you could have been in trouble!”

  A little shrug he gave me, unconcerned. “Nobody saw me, matant. When I want, I could sneak about quiet-quiet, and nobody knows.”

  “Oh, child.”

  He shook my hand off and went on skipping down the path. “And matant, guess what?”

  “What, Ti-Bois?”

  He stopped and turned back to face me. Such a puzzled look he had on his face. “Marie-Claire was right! Only those big, red, smelly flowers. I even tried pulling one up to see if it had roots in the ground you could eat, but the thorns bit me.”

  “Ti-Bois, you must never do that again.”

  “Matant, I still didn’t believe Marie-Claire. I broke off one of the flowers and I ate it.”

  I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my calabash. “Ti-Bois; you lie!”

  He smiled, uncertain what amused me so. “No, matant, it’s true. I ate the flower.”

  “You ate one of Master Simenon’s roses?”

  “It tasted . . . it tasted like the way the perfume smelt that that lady was wearing. That white lady with the fan.”

  The lady that the spirit had ridden into Simenon’s parlour. The woman our master was going to marry. “What you think about that lady, Ti-Bois?”

  “She’s pretty too bad. When I live in the great house, I’m going to marry her.”

  I leaned down close and shook my finger at him. “You will never say that where a blan can hear you.”

  He clutched the calabash to his chest and stuck out his little bottom lip at me. “But I want to marry her, matant. She’s so pretty.”

  “Ti-Bois, hear me. Some things you must keep in your own private mind. You know those kinds of things?”

  He nodded. Of course he did. “Yes, matant.”

  “Well then,” I said, leading him to the river again, “who you’re going to marry is a private thing. You keep it quiet till the time comes.” Mama, pray you let him learn to govern his tongue. For his life.

  When we got to the river, there was Georgine in the evening sun, on her knees with her skirt knotted around her thighs, dipping her bucket. She heard our footsteps and looked back.

  She just nodded at us, cool. She picked up her full calabash, balanced it on her head, and came closer. She stood, swaying her head a little with the movement of the water in the calabash. She never said nothing. Now that she’d got her boy child, there was no more dancing with us blacks, and she barely spoke to me.

  “Respect, child,” I greeted her; more respect than she was giving me. She threw me a look, but I was still “matant” Mer. She wouldn’t dare say anything rude. Wouldn’t dare to snub me like any other field black. “Honour,” she muttered finally.

  Ti-Bois just gaped at her. Shoved his toes into the dirt and let his arms hang by his sides. Clever child. The Ginen need to mind their words around the coloured.

  On the sand-coloured skin of Georgine’s arm I saw a mark. I said to her, “How is the baby?”

  That made her smile; talk about her son. “Michel is well, matant! So fat and strong. Pierre says that if Michel makes a good carpenter, he will free him; and me too, matant!”

  “I’m glad,” I said. There’s not just one mark on her arm. In the darkening evening, I could see three more, maybe four. Each one little bit smaller than the one before. “Ti-Bois, go and draw some water.”

  Eyes still full up big of Georgine, he took himself down to the water. With her burden on her head, Georgine had to swivel her whole body to watch him go.

  “Go careful in the mud, child!” I called to him. “Don’t fall.”

  “Yes, matant.” He thought he was being careful, but he was running, that light-footed, toes-first run of a small child. He made me so glad to watch, Ti-Bois did.

  Georgine turned back to me. She looked troubled. “Matant,” she said, quietly. “I’ve been wanting to ask you . . .”