Madame Victoria Read online

  Once breakfast is done and Madame has dressed, while the laundry is soaking and the soup is on the simmer, I clean house. Broom, feather duster, brush, rag; bedrooms (thoroughly), boudoir (carefully), library (quickly), dining room (vigorously). In winter, the slush marks in the front hall must be removed. Whatever the season, I must clean the manure off the doorsill because Madame can’t stand the house smelling of the mare. When I was little we used dung to caulk our cabin. That was when we were runaways, before Mama died and Monsieur bought me for a barrel of gunpowder. It was wartime. Horse turds saved my life.

  In the afternoon, Madame lies down and the silence smothers the house like a big hunk of bread in a small mouth. Greta—she worked here before me—called it “headache time.” Greta got sold to a mitten manufacturer because she knitted better than anyone and was constantly talking back to Madame. To me headache time means going to market. I slip on a pair of fingerless gloves so I can feel the coins in my pocket, the firmness of the apples, the satin of the air. I hurry over to Place Royale, where I meet Augustine, who always has a piece of sugar for me, wrapped and concealed in her half-toothless mouth. They count every grain of sugar at Madame’s house.

  Augustine seizes my hand and says, “Come on! This is the place to go to today.” Her masters are merchants and they tell her where to find the best lard prices, the crispest vegetables, the smoothest butter. I follow her and laugh, I don’t know why, but that’s how I feel whenever Augustine takes me by the hand. She’s tall and scraggy and talks in a loud voice, and she hugs me as if I were a blanket, for she’s always cold. While she helps me to fill my food bag with provisions she whispers the town’s latest gossip in my ear. Maurice Dupré’s slave is getting married to the woman who belongs to old lady Contrefort even though they don’t love each other, but their masters believe their offspring will make good workers. Big Lucius Roy was found dead drunk in the arms of Rosalie, Ivain Morelle’s servant, the same Rosalie suspected of trying to set her mistress’s hair on fire on the night of the feast of Saint-Jean. She was lashed but wasn’t tortured like Angélique, the one they hanged in ’34 for burning Montreal down.

  When I think of Angélique, my stomach goes hollow, as with a sudden hunger. Even though she died before I was born, her story is still on everyone’s lips even now. Augustine speaks of her as of a sister; she relates yet again how funny and wicked Angélique was, how she bawled out her mistress, how many times she’d run away before taking her revenge on the white folks of America by torching their city. When I go by the house on Saint-Paul where she once lived, I kneel, pretending to tie my bootlaces. I fear Angélique, I fear her spirit, her big thieving hands; sometimes I’m afraid she might spit on my back because I don’t have her courage, her wrath.

  Augustine complains her master made a nuisance of himself again last night. She says he’s got a wee little prick, yet it never sags and he won’t let her sleep. Her master is short and corpulent and everything about him seems to sag, so I can hardly credit what Augustine says about his prick, but one thing’s for sure—I’m lucky to have just my mistress. Monsieur died the year I came to their house. His face was as blue as a bad vein and his hands were forever worrying at his watch. Had he been trying to learn the hour of his death, I wonder.

  I get back with the provisions, Madame sniffs as she counts the change, and then slips it into her purse. I cook pork and beans, some meat, root vegetables. In the garden, Bertaud sets aside carrots that have grown entwined together like lovers. He brings them to me like treasures. Once, I varnished the roots to try to preserve them, as a bauble, but they turned all black. I threw them away before Bertaud could see. When the weather is fine he brings me the hares he’s trapped and, on Friday, the trout he’d caught the night before. But Madame spurns Bertaud’s fish because he rips their mouths when he unhooks them. She says the Good Lord is displeased to see his creatures needlessly tormented. I never met anyone more peculiar than Madame.

  After supper I clean up the kitchen. I scour the pots and dishes. Each night there’s a different chore for me: silver polishing, a counterpane to be woven, socks that need darning, candle-making. When I’m done I knead the bread, fetch a batch of firewood, and stuff the woodstove with logs till it’s like a big beating heart. The wall of my bedroom adjoins the stove and I’ve pushed my bed up close to it. When I lie down for the night I press my hand against the wall. The warmth flows through my skin and I droop like a piece of wool. It’s the time of day I like best. When I know that rest is coming. Asleep, I’m no longer Victoria. I’m the girl my mother baptized, I have that name, which is mine alone, and I tumble it around in my mouth and go to sleep.

  Madame is holding a grand celebration for her son’s return. I’ve never met him. He’s been away five years studying in Paris, beyond the sea and the monsters that dwell in it. He’s a lawyer now, and Madame is so very proud. There will be maple syrup cakes, plum wine, cider that tingles inside your head, goose pot pies, and spit-roasted veal in the garden. Bertaud wept when they told him to impale the animal. He hunts hare and trout, but he’s too fond of cows to kill their young. That’s why Madame asked Cornelius, the neighbour’s slave, to take care of it. As for me, I’ve got more work than I can handle. Luckily the Limoges have agreed to lend us Augustine; the chores turn into merriment. I knead the dough and laugh, Augustine stirs the sauce and laughs, we buff the china and laugh.

  The night before the banquet, Augustine is late and in a sullen mood. When I ask her what the matter is she shuts her eyes and moves her head into the steam of the cauldron where the preserves are being made. Her face seems to grow rounder amid the aroma of the fruits. She mutters, “I’m with child.” It’s the master’s. I shudder. I’ve heard Madame explain to her sister that mulatto women spawn deformed creatures, half-human half-animal, that go up in smoke the instant the curé touches them. As though reading my thoughts, Augustine chides me: “Now don’t go alarming yourself with the tales people tell about the bastards of mulattos. That’s rubbish, just like all the rest.”

  Then I feel the joy rising in my gut like a bird escaping from a chimney. I grab Augustine by the hands and start dancing for my friend who’s going to give birth to a white man’s child. An emancipated baby who one day will set his mother free. Augustine is annoyed and clips me on the head.

  “You little fool. When a baby’s born to a slave and a master, it inherits the mother’s rank. Didn’t you know that? My child will never belong to me, he’ll be the Limoges’ slave. Like you—you were never your mother’s daughter.”

  My nails dig into the skin of my hands.

  “That’s not so. My mother named me. I’m her daughter.”

  Augustine clucks her tongue as a sign the conversation is over. We say no more until the noontime meal, when Bertaud chokes on a bean and I manage to expel it by thumping him on the back, which makes Augustine laugh until the tears brim in her eyes.

  The next day, Madame goes does down to the harbour while I finish the decorations. We’ve hung garlands of ivy and placed floral bouquets in every room. It looks for all the world as though the wildest corners of the island have entered the house. At two o’clock I’m at my post. Three girls have come to serve at the table; they speak Portuguese among themselves and I’m sure they’re poking fun at me. The guests arrive, you can hear the rustle of taffeta, there are billows of pipe tobacco drifting around, someone makes a speech of which I grasp not a word, then the meal begins, and I fall into a kind of trance. It doesn’t stop until there’s silence and the three girls bring back the carts full of dirty dishes. My feet throb, my hands tremble, and there’s at least five hours of work ahead to get the house shipshape again. Bertaud fell asleep holding a pumpkin in his arms, and I don’t have the heart to rouse him.

  I’m half-sunk in a basin full of water when I hear someone clearing his throat behind me. A young man with impossible eyes is standing in the doorway. I straighten up.

  “I beg your p
ardon, Miss,” he says with a continental accent. “My mother has gone to bed. I’ve come to suggest you do the same.”

  I’m struck dumb, so I point to the mess in the dining room.

  “It’s past two in the morning. You can finish the other rooms tomorrow.”

  I make a ridiculous curtsy; he stays stock-still before me. I notice his fingers, long and slender and stained with blue ink.

  “May I also be so bold as to thank you? The evening was a great success. Your goose pie is simply divine.”

  He bows and withdraws. His heels make no noise on the floor, as if he weren’t really there. When he’s disappeared in the stairway, my cheeks flush. Never has anyone called me Miss.

  Over the following days, I keep an eye on Hector. I don’t dare address him yet, and should I do so it would be as “Monsieur,” but in my heart it’s Hector, the name I use to conjure him up at night on the warm wall of my little room, the word I caress with my fingertips, the one I gulp down when I’m caught daydreaming. He devotes his days to reading, writing letters, and looking out the window. His mother entreats him to go out, to reacquaint himself with Montreal, but he declines. He says he wishes to make up for the many years far from Madame, though he spends precious little time in her company. In truth, he is afraid. He neither knows nor understands this city and wonders whether he could one day again feel at home here. How I know all this I cannot tell, but I need only look at him to guess his thoughts.

  At the market, Augustine has got her nerve back again. She scolds the merchants who sell their flour too dear and points out to me an old, blond-haired Negro woman able, it’s said, to cast the evil eye.

  “It appears she’s the one who visited the whooping cough upon the Gauthier twins, merely because their wet nurse had looked at her askance.”

  Then she fixes her gaze on me, eyebrows aquiver.

  “What ails you today? Did you eat a sick chicken?”

  We come across a line of wagons loaded down with grey stones, and it’s as if the ground is about to open up and the huge rocks will crush our bones into dust. They’re headed to the city’s west end, to build the mansions of the English.

  “Nothing. Just tired.”

  The atmosphere in the house has taken on a new texture. Everything is light and objects levitate the moment I go by; there are will-o’-the-wisps hiding behind the furniture. My every gesture becomes a small prayer. I lose the keys three times a day, I eat a chunk of bread and bite the inside of my cheek. Just before the haymaking season it starts pouring rain and the pots in the larder get spattered because of a leak. But instead of wiping away the reddish water, I peel off long petals of wallpaper that have come loose.

  Really, truly, madly.

  The raspberry bushes are cloaked in red now. Monsieur had an entire hedge of them planted at the far end of the garden. But unlike him, Madame hates raspberries—bad for one’s teeth, she says—so we make preserves which I sell in the market in August. I’m entitled to a tenth of the profits. The money buys me new clothes and a few small presents for Augustine. Bertaud has a light touch and he picks the raspberries without making them bleed, but he nicks his fingers. At day’s end, I rub them with ointment before he goes home to his elderly mother. His hands are thick and soft as milk.

  One morning, Hector comes to join us with a basket under his arm. He makes no noise, but as soon as he steps toward us I sense his presence simply from the way the skin on my back goes taut.

  “It looks as though they’ve all come out at the same time this year! Can I lend a hand?”

  I accept his offer, striving not to get lost in his gaze. Standing before a man who has one eye blue and the other green, it’s easy to plunge into a hesitation that will hold you in its grip till the end of the world. Hector begins to collect the berries. By the time I’ve filled my fourth basket, his is barely three-quarters full.

  “My, my, aren’t you the swift one!”

  I look for something courteous and humble by way of a reply, but all that comes out is:

  “That’s because I don’t eat them along the way!”

  I want to swallow my tongue and ram my ten fingers down my throat to make sure it won’t rise back up. Hector lets out a slight whistle. Lifting my eyes, I realize this is his way of laughing. A fluty, choppy breath. The loveliest laughter I’d ever heard. He slowly extends his bluish hand, holding out a raspberry that lights up the world. I’m at a loss as to what to do. He lowers his hand to mine, which is stupidly fidgeting in my skirt. His skin grazes mine, then he slips the little fruit between my icy fingers. Right then, something gives way inside me, drops down in my belly, and starts to seethe. I toss the berry in my mouth, the bells toll the Angelus. The taste of raspberry floods my body.

  Soon after, Hector begins to go out. He takes long walks along the riverside, visits old friends. During his absence, every swing of the clock’s pendulum is torture; I’d like to scream for him to come back straightaway. Yet as soon as he arrives I flee to kitchen, almost throwing up, and then it subsides. At night, sleep eludes me, it’s too hot and I push my bed far away from the wall, but there’s nothing for it, I feel as if I’m inside the stove, swallowed up by its red stomach. My skin seethes beneath the cotton, it tickles, and it hurts so very much. Sometimes, to find some relief, I touch myself and imagine Hector’s blue hand swooping down on my body. The pleasure hits home, and I weep and pray the Blessed Virgin for pardon.

  Every evening he comes to thank me for my work and to wish me goodnight. Mornings, he comes to say what a glorious day is in the offing. He lingers in the doorway as though waiting for me to speak, but I say nothing and his eyes breathe in mine. One day, he sits down at the little sewing table.

  “Tell me, Victoria, if you were not a slave, where would you be?”

  “In the Negro graveyard, I suppose.”

  He gives me a baffled look.

  “No, I mean if you were free. What would you like to do?”

  Immediately, I think of my mother, of the place where she was laid to rest and where I’ve never put any flowers. Then I think of that freed panis who became a farmer, and those other slaves who put out to sea.

  “I don’t know.”

  Hector nods his head solemnly and goes out. I consider the scissors lying in front of me and have a notion to fling them into the middle of his back.

  “What? He asked you that?” Augustine exclaims.

  Her belly has begun to show, and she’s as pretty as an apple.

  “Do you think he wishes to enfranchise me?”

  “I shouldn’t entertain any illusions if I were you. He’s a reader, your master. People who read have strange ideas, but they don’t actually do very much.”

  I shrug and Augustine clucks her tongue. The old blond sorceress waves her over. Augustine excuses herself. “I’ve got business with Madam Kaliou.”

  “Madam Kaliou?”

  She leans closer.

  “She’s going to help me take care of my little problem,” she mutters, pointing to her belly.

  Then she skips away, and I too get the urge to jump until the ground gives way under me feet, until the earth swallows me up.

  One morning, I find a slip of paper on the laundry kettle. On it, there are lines of script as delicate as lace, blue as the night. I grasp the paper, trembling, and hold it tight against my body. The sun hasn’t yet risen and the world outside is purple. Something on this page whispers my name. Then I hear Bertaud coming and I fold the sheet of paper and hide it in my underpants, against my sex.

  In the evening, Hector comes into the kitchen at the usual hour. But rather than wishing me goodnight, he stands there and casts his odd-eyed gaze on me.

  “You don’t know how to read, do you?” he says at last.

  He steps toward me, slowly, and brings his mouth close to my ear. When he begins to speak, an opaque veil shrouds my head and the
things around me disappear. He is so close, I hear the air going in and out of him, freighted with his humours.

  “I breathe where you quiver / You know; what good is it, alas! / To stay if you leave me / To live if you go away / What good is it to live as the shadow / Of the angel who takes flight? / What good ’neath the darkened sky / To be naught anymore but the night?”

  I put my hand over my mouth. I am beautiful, suddenly I’m convinced of this, though I’d never given it any thought until a moment ago. Hector disappears and a deep, exquisite desire to sleep overtakes me. I sink into my bed. I am naught anymore but the night.

  The wind blows into the city and the service door rattles all day long as though a succubus were thrashing it to come in. So it takes me a little while to react when someone actually comes knocking. Madame has gone to Quebec City for a few days, Bertaud is in the attic catching mice. I open to find Fifine, the Limoges’ young servant, in tears.

  “It’s Augustine,” she sobs.

  Augustine, without batting an eye, has swallowed the sorceress Kaliou’s potion to get rid of her baby.

  “At noon, out came the little dead thing, all grey. Then she began to shiver, she turned pale and now the vicar has come to give her the Last Rites. Maïté says the old woman poisoned her.”

  My heart stops beating. Behind me I hear Hector’s voice. “Go, Victoria.” I thank him without turning around and hurry after Fifine.

  She is covered in sweat, my beautiful Augustine, and so feverish that the holy oils swim on her forehead. But she recognizes me.

  “Victoria. You’ll save me.”

  As if Augustine were deaf, the vicar declares there’s nothing to be done. I ask him to sit down and then I turn toward the sufferer. At my former masters’ house, the cook was also a midwife and would take me along for the births. I was nine when I delivered my first child and I’ve not forgotten a thing. I bend down between Augustine’s legs and touch her abdomen. She gives me a desperate stare, and this humility, which I’d never seen in her, frightens me far more than her pallor and her shivering. I place my hand on her forehead.