The Salt Roads Read online

  “Oh . . .” gasped the lady. She sagged forward a little in her chair.

  Simenon leaped to her side. “Élisabeth, are you well?” He touched her shoulder.

  She straightened up again. “A little dizzy. It’s nothing.” She looked around her, dazed, at the backra milling around her. “But this is the men’s parlour,” she whispered. Her eyes were less bright now. She was no longer looking into another world. She fanned herself and slumped back in her chair, staring in confusion at Simenon.

  She was not so beautiful, Tipingee could see now. That elaborate coiffure was plumped out with hair rats to make it look thicker. The powder that she had used to whiten her face ended in a line at her chin, and from beneath its pallour, two angry red bumps glared on her jaw. And she had a nervous manner of looking from face to face of the men in the parlour, as though waiting for them to tell her what to do.

  “Girl,” Simenon said to Marie-Claire, “bring us more wine. The port. And hop quick, now.”

  “Yes, Monsieur.” Marie-Claire curtseyed with the tray still in her hands, and left quickly, still casting that look of fear at the backra woman. Did she fear the woman, or the spirit that had come riding in her? Tipingee would have to ask Marie-Claire about that later.

  Simenon waved a dismissing hand at Father León and the clustered Ginen. “Go on now. Out of my sight, and let me enjoy the rest of my Christmas day.”

  Relief washed over Tipingee: at last they could leave that evil place. Soon Patrice would be back in her bed. Soon she could find Mer alone and ask, who was it who had come as Patrice’s saviour, hiding in the white woman’s head? What ancestor, what spirit?

  They were almost out of the men’s parlour when Simenon called out, “Wait.”

  Now it was Patrice with his eyes closed. Tipingee could see how his body trembled. Father turned back to the plantation owner. “Yes, Seigneur?”

  “Thomas,” Simenon said to the book-keeper, ignoring the priest, “see that our runaway there gets five lashes tomorrow.”

  Patrice made a small sound. Tipingee put her forehead to his shoulder; held the length of his arm tight against her breast.

  The book-keeper grinned. “Yes, sir!”

  “Just a kiss of the whip, mind,” Simenon told him; “a reminder that he must not cross me. But don’t hurt him much. I want him fit for work.”

  Tipingee could not be another minute in this house. Furious, she dragged Patrice and Mer towards the door. As they walked through it, she heard one of the backra men say, “They mean to raise another balloon into the air tomorrow, on the beach. This ballooning science is all the rage in Paris now, they say.”

  So many rooms, and all those corridors. She didn’t know if she could find the way out. But they were leaving. The rest would follow her.

  As they pushed through the door, Tipingee heard Patrice say to Simenon, “Thank you, sir; thank you. God bless you.”

  She knew he meant the god of the blans. Yes, Master Léonard Simenon, she thought. Let your god bless you as He blesses us.

  Most times, I live in Jeanne, and learn her life. Sometimes, I dream. That is what it is called: dreaming. There are times when ginger-coloured Jeanne’s mind holds me loosely, and my consciousness travels; to where, I am not sure.

  Rare, to have rain in dry December. At first Patrice had welcomed the cool sprinkle of the passing shower on his whip-burned shoulders as he weeded the ratoon fields of young cane. Thomas had followed orders and the whipping had been over almost before Patrice could gasp from the pain; but his back was still sore, and the rain felt cool on the bruised skin.

  So long he hadn’t had to bend every day over sugar cane, feeling the ache like iron in his curved spine; the hot sun crisping his skin; the palm of his hand that grasped the machète stinging as its blisters burst. His back would be raw tomorrow from sunburn, so the rain was a blessing. He threw back his head and took sweet, clean water from the sky into his mouth. Rain trickled through his hair and down his naked body, washing the sweat away. Patrice tossed a clump of weeds into the sack tied around his shoulder and advanced, doing his best to keep up with the rest of the gang. So long his arms hadn’t burned from digging, digging, digging in the earth or cutting down the razor-leaved cane from sunup till sundown. He blinked rain out of his eyes and pulled up a wet clump of weeds. He shook the earthworms out of it back into the soil.

  A small snail with a cream-and-beige-coloured shell fell from the clump onto his hand. Come out to keep from drowning in the downpour. Ignoring that the rest of the Ginen were moving on ahead of him, Patrice held the snail by the tip of its shell and regarded it. In a little while the grey, glistening mass of it wormed its way out of the shell again, trembling. It pushed out eyestalks, tried to see where it was. Patrice put it into his palm and it sucked itself inside again, alarmed. He reached into a patch of young cane that had already been weeded and put it down there, out of the way of trampling feet.

  The drizzle had stopped. Patrice caught up to the rest and set about weeding again. The book-keeper hadn’t noticed him stop, for he was in the shed, sheltering from the downpour. The sun was back out now, but probably the book-keeper was enjoying a quiet smoke of his pipe.

  The cloudburst had been cooling, but now Patrice was shivering and wet, his feet slipping in mud, worms, and damp leaves. His back felt clawed. It burned.

  A flock of gaulin birds, garde-boeufs, descended on the field and started snapping up the frogs and worms flushed out by the rain and the weeding. The bright white birds fluttered and danced amongst the Ginen, mud people. Beside Patrice, Oreste misstepped and shouted as he fell heavily. Patrice, light-foot Patrice, barely danced out of the way of Oreste’s machète as it swung wide. The book-keeper came running from the shed to see what the commotion was. He was fastening his fly. Slouching behind him was Phibba, pulling down her flour bag dress. She was knuckling at her eyes, her face sad. Patrice helped Oreste up, and back they went to weeding again. Phibba found her machète and bag and took up her place in the gang once more.

  In the bush, in the accompong the maroon runaways had made, the hard labour Patrice did was to put food in his own mouth, a roof over his own head. Madness, it had been madness to come back. Sometimes he wondered why he had listened to Makandal. The Ginen could never win freedom here, on backra’s soil. Why was he here? His baby was going to be born soon now, up there in the bush. That was where he could be free. Here he would bend his back long days into nights, and in between times of dodging the backra’s whip, he would try to be a husband to Tipingee again. Try to avoid Mer’s anger. And always, always there was an image in his mind of other hands digging cassava beside their hut in the bush, of other twitching hips, of young breasts hard and round as oranges, and a bright, trilling laugh. His Curaçao, his unborn baby’s mother.

  A gaulin bird stepped boldly into his path. “Away!” he said, shooing it with his hands. The bird fluttered up into the air, awkwardly, and landed on his shoulder. He made to brush it off. Some of the Ginen laughed and pointed. The book-keeper grinned, indulgent for the moment.

  “It’s me,” whispered the bird, clacking out words its beak wasn’t shaped to make. Makandal. His flight was clumsy because one wingtip had been clipped.

  “What do you want?” Patrice hissed resentfully. The bird’s clammy toes dug painfully into his sore back. It smelt of raw meat; worms and lizards. Patrice felt his stomach roll.

  “Meeting tonight. In the old cabin by the river. Come in darkness. No torch.”

  It leapt off him, flew on its graceless way. It had shat on his shoulder. Patrice bent the burning iron of his back to weeding again and tried to remember the scent of Curaçao’s body; the feel of her skin warm beside him in the night.

  “Ow! Mama, don’t pull so hard!” Marie-Claire put her hand to her head.

  “Laisse, Marie-Claire,” Tipingee told her. “Move your fingers so I can finish cane-rowing your hair.”

  Marie-Claire pouted, but she let her mother resume. Pretty soon Tipingee
said to her, “Never mind the pain. You will look so pretty.”

  So my mother had said to me when the women came to cut out my sex in my eleventh year, back home in Dahomey. Ai, Lasirèn; that was pain. But my mama was right. So smooth and pretty the bouboun looked when it was healed, and I got presents, beautiful presents. I was a woman finally, and I would soon have a strong, wealthy husband. After a while I didn’t mind that it was hard to piss now. When I came to this new world and had to tend to women of other nations and women born here in hell who hadn’t been trimmed, so ugly I thought them down there! What man would want them?

  I found the calabash Tipingee kept of coconut oil and brought it to her. “Here. For Marie-Claire’s scalp.” The child smiled at me. Patrice’s face she has. A comely face in truth, Mama. I must admit that.

  Wasn’t long after I began tending to uncut women that I realised: it didn’t hurt them to piss. And their blood could flow smooth out of their bodies when their courses came, not get trapped inside and fester. I didn’t have to cut them open so their babies could come out. Me, I began to envy those frilly-lipped cunts. Some of those women talked about loving, about the sweet sensations they got sometimes. I don’t think it’s so strong for me. They cut that part out of me. Mind you, plenty of the time, most of we Ginen women don’t have the spirit for loving. Don’t get pregnant plenty neither; don’t have our courses regular. The food here doesn’t nourish us enough for our bodies to grow babies.

  “Marie-Claire,” I said to the girl, “your mama’s making a beautiful design with your hair. You will be lovely as Master’s roses.”

  Marie-Claire smiled again with her Patrice face. “Tipingee,” I asked, “where is Patrice tonight?”

  “Don’t know.” She flashed me a warning with her eyes not to say more about it. “The weeding is finished for the night and he say he will come back soon.”

  “But so long ago that was, Mama!” piped up Marie-Claire. She hadn’t seen her mama’s hurt, angry eyes. “I have to be back to the great house soon before they realise I’m not there.”

  “Stop twisting about like that, or your hair will plait crooked,” Tipingee scolded her.

  Two raw calabash gourds there were, sitting on the table, green and perfectly round. “Tipingee, you want me scrape these out for you?”

  Her smile that she gave me made the smoking, stinking castor oil lamp seem brighter. “Yes, my sister,” she said to me.

  Oh, my heart. Are we only sisters again, then?

  With my knife I sliced open the green balls of the calabashes and scraped out the pulp and seeds. A good bowl the big one would make. The smaller one a dipper, maybe. I tossed the seeds and pulp outside the door. Maybe another tree would grow from them. I carved patterns into the calabash rinds: leaping dolphins. Made my thoughts run again on Lasirèn’s command to me. I must do what she says; must understand how to do what she says. What, I asked myself, is a sea doing in the minds of the Ginen? I put the thought away. Lasirèn will show me.

  Why is Patrice back? After two years nearly? He tells Tipingee he’s missed her, but it’s not so he acts. His eyes don’t follow the sway and strength of her as she plants the cane. He doesn’t seek her out. She goes and looks for him when they have time together, but when she comes back to me, her face is long and sad. He barely touches her, seems to be pining. Who is Patrice pining for, that isn’t here on Sacré Coeur plantation?

  So many times I try to ask Tipingee, to make her see, but she only says I’m jealous. Mama, it’s true? I’m only jealous? Is Tipingee really so happy to have Patrice back with her in this cabin of theirs?

  I peered out the door. The moon was hanging over the top of the bay leaf tree. “Curfew time,” I told Tipingee and Marie-Claire. Scarcely did they notice me leave, so busy they were, chattering about how well the pumpkins were doing in Tipingee’s garden patch now that Patrice was here to help tote water to them too.

  The frogs were singing loud this night, clamouring for mates. The mosquitoes were thronging in thick clouds after the rain. They sang in my ears and bit and bit, no matter how I slapped at my skin. So smoky Tipingee’s shack had been, but smoke had kept the mosquitoes away.

  This little game I sometimes play for myself, quiet nights like these: I stand still, hold my breath so I can hear the crash of the sea against the cliffs at the foot of the plantation. The sea sound so far away is the voice of my water mother. I stood that way this night and tried to hear her whispered words clear.

  A twig cracked. The frogs went quiet. I stayed quiet; listened. Over there, by Belle’s shack. Someone was walking over there in the dark. Maybe old Cuba, that tattle-tale, spying to see if we’re all in our beds? But why had she no torch?

  A thump came to my ears; a heel hitting earth. It’s not her. Cuba’s bones are twisted. She doesn’t walk so sure as this person I was hearing.

  I could see the shadows now. Two people, trying to slide through the dark like breeze through the trees. They moved quickly, quietly in the direction of the river. A man and a woman, maybe. Looking for a private place to love.

  I shook my head, me, and hurried for my home. Hope they had rubbed plenty sitwonel leaf all over them, or tomorrow they would be begging me for aloe to soothe their bitten skin.

  My cabin smelled of the cocoa butter I mixed with certain of the herb medicines, and of the castor oil that fuelled the lamps.

  I came into it in darkness. No need to find the lamp and waste it by lighting it tonight, for I knew where everything was.

  My heart was weeping. Always it wept here, but tonight I could almost feel it leaking tears. Ah, Tipingee.

  I shook my palette out so any centipede or ouanga mischief would drop out. Then back on the ground I put it, and I lay to close my eyes little bit until the sun came up and it was back to slaving again.

  But no sleep came. My mind was only running on Tipingee, Tipingee. When Patrice had lived here before, it was better. We knew our places then, all three of us. Had a balance. One person shifts, the other two shift little bit too to preserve it. For me and Patrice, Tipingee was the torch moving between us. Sometimes it was he getting the light, sometimes me. And sometimes we both make space for each other and get comfort from her warmth. But now? Where do I fit now? Tipingee only has eyes for her Patrice.

  Sleep was running from me like grasshoppers flee the fields in front of the cane cutters. I tossed on my palette, flung my hand out. It touched the gourd beside my bed, the one I had made specially. I sat up and opened it in the dark. Felt for the glass inside it; the glass whale that Lasirèn had given me. Its smoothness against my fingers calmed my thoughts a little. I stood up, took it to the doorway and leaned outside, holding my gift from Lasirèn level with my eye until I found the moon. Ezili the moon shone on the little glass whale; light dancing in the bumps and curves of it and filling my eyes with beauty. I kissed my gift, touched it with my tongue the way I might lick Tipingee’s hard coffee bean nipples. Oh you gods, are you taking Tipingee from me?

  A fleck of salt sand that remained on the whale rubbed rough on my tongue. I swallowed the little piece of sand. I humbled myself and ate salt. The gods will do as they wish.

  I brought the glass whale back inside my cabin. As I went to put it back inside its gourd, my hand brushed some of my other things inside, the only things I owned. A lock from my dead baby’s hair, tied with a piece of thread I’d pulled from my dress. My iron needle for sewing wounds, rubbed in coconut oil to keep rust away and pushed through a piece of flour sack. And the afterbirth. The afterbirth from Georgine’s dead baby, dried and wrapped in oilcloth. It’s Tipingee’s hands that had caught that afterbirth, that piece of strong science. It’s she had dried it for me. She hated births, but she helped me with them for love, she said. Where was that love now?

  All my meek acceptance of the gods’ wishes had run from me. I unwrapped the thing from its oilcloth. Small and long and rough in my hands like a piece of jerky. I held it to my nose, took in the musty smell of the thing that Tipingee�
��s hands had touched out of love for me. I wondered could I get some of that love back out from it. Some of Tipingee’s love back for myself. I licked it. Didn’t taste like much. Like a piece of dried meat. We didn’t get plenty meat, we Ginen. I bit off a piece. Chewed. Was tough. Tasty. Thought on Tipingee and wished for her to love me again. Swallowed.

  I put my glass whale between my breasts and fell to sleep, rocking my Lasirèn so, like I’d begged for her to rock me.

  The old, rotting cabin by the river creaked in the dark as the Ginen snuck into it one by one to hear what Makandal had to tell them. Patrice sat in a corner, nursing the toes he’d stubbed as his feet were fumbling across the threshold. It smelled of crumbling wood in here, full of roaches and ants and millipedes. And more and more, it smelled of people as the place filled up. People muttered softly out of the blackness.

  “Who is that?” came a deep woman’s voice.

  “Fleur, it’s you?” responded another, light and high.

  “Yes, Marie-Jeanne. Jacques finally dropped to sleep and I sneaked away.”

  Patrice closed his eyes. Didn’t make any difference, were they open or closed: he still couldn’t see. With the whispering voices and the way that people brushed up against him from time to time, he could imagine he had died, was sitting with the spirits in the land beneath the waters. He was afraid. If anyone caught them out of their cabins like this after evening curfew . . . he tried not to think on the stories the Ginen had told him about Milo’s death.

  Where was Makandal?

  The mosquitoes, drawn by the warmth of so many bodies, were gathering, whining in hunger. Patrice was thankful he’d thought to smear his body with citronella.

  A warm body thumped into him, cursed, fell over him.