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"And what is this going to cost me?"
"What we agreed on, once Tete is ready."
Three days later Tete spoke for the first time. She asked if that man was going to be her master; she thought that Violette had bought her for herself. "Do not ask questions and do not think of the future," Loula warned her, "for slaves count only the present day."
The admiration Tete felt for Violette erased her resistance, and soon she willingly fell into the rhythm of the house. She ate with the voracity of someone who has lived with hunger and after a few weeks showed a little meat on her bones. She was avid to learn. She followed Violette like a dog, devouring her with her eyes as she nourished in the secret depths of her heart the impossible desire to be like her, as beautiful and elegant as she, but more than anything, free. Violette taught her to comb the elaborate coiffeurs of the day, to give massages, to starch and iron fine clothing, and all the other things her future mistress could ask of her. According to Loula, it would not be necessary to work too hard because the Spaniards lacked French refinement, they were very coarse. Loula herself cropped Tete's filthy hair and forced her to bathe often, something unknown to the girl because according to Madame Delphine water weakened the system: all she did was pass a wet cloth across her hidden parts and then splash herself with perfume. Loula felt invaded by the little girl; the two of them barely fit in the tiny room they shared at night. She exhausted the child with orders and insults, more from habit than mea
Zarite
For a while, two or three weeks, I didn't think about escaping. Mademoiselle was entertaining and pretty, she had dresses of many colors, she smelled of flowers and went out at night with her friends, who then came to the house and had their way with her while I covered my ears in Loula's room, although I heard them anyway. When Mademoiselle woke up about midday, I took her light meal to the balcony, as I'd been ordered, and then she told me about her parties and showed me gifts from her admirers. I polished her fingernails with a piece of chamois and made them shine like shells; I brushed her wavy hair and rubbed it with coconut oil. She had skin like creme caramel, that milk and egg yolk dessert Honore made me a few times behind Madame Delphine's back. I learned quickly. Mademoiselle told me I am clever, and she never beat me. Maybe I wouldn't have run away if she'd been my mistress, but I was being trained to serve a Spanish woman on a plantation far away from Le Cap. Her being Spanish wasn't anything good, according to Loula, who knew everything and was a seer; she saw in my eyes that I was going to flee even before I had decided to do it, and she told Mademoiselle, but she paid no attention. "We lost all that money! What do we do now?" Loula had shouted when I disappeared. "We wait," Mademoiselle replied, and continued calmly to drink her coffee. Instead of hiring a Negro tracker, which is what was always done, she asked for help from her sweetheart, Capitaine Relais, who ordered his guards to find me without any fuss and not to hurt me. That's what they told me. It was very easy to leave that house. I wrapped up a mango and end of a bread loaf in a kerchief, walked out the main door, and left, not ru
No one stopped me in the streets when I left Mademoiselle's apartment; I walked several hours and thought I had crossed the whole city. I got lost in the barrio near the port, but I could see the mountains in the distance, and everything was a question of walking in that direction. We slaves knew that there were Maroons in the mountains, but we did not know that beyond the first peaks were many more, so many they can't be counted. Night fell. I ate my bread but saved the mango. I hid in a stable under a pile of straw, although I was afraid of horses, with their hooves like hammers and steaming nostrils. The animals were very near, I could hear them breathing across the straw, a sweet, green breath like the herbs in Mademoiselle's bath. Clinging to my doll Erzulie, mother of Guinea, I slept the whole night without bad dreams, wrapped in the warmth of the horses. At dawn a slave came into the stable and found me snoring with my feet sticking through the straw; he grabbed my ankles and pulled me out with one tug. I don't know what he expected to find, but it must not have been a scrawny little girl, because instead of hitting me, he lifted me up, carried me to the light, and looked me over with mouth agape. "Are you crazy? What made you hide here?" he asked me finally, not raising his voice. "I have to get to the mountains," I explained, also whispering. The punishment for helping a fugitive slave was very well known, and the man hesitated. "Let me go, please, no one will know I was here," I begged him. He thought it over a while, and finally ordered me to stay where I was and be quiet; he made sure there was no one around, and left the stable. He soon returned with a hard biscuit and a gourd of heavily sugared coffee; he waited for me to eat and then pointed to the way out of the city. If he had turned me in, he would have been given a reward, but he didn't. I hope that Papa Bondye has rewarded him. I burst into a run and left behind the last houses in Le Cap. That day I walked without stopping, even though my feet were bleeding and I was sweating, thinking of the Negro hunters of the marechaussee. The sun was high overhead when I entered the jungle. Green, everything green; I couldn't see the sky, and light barely penetrated past the leaves. I heard the sounds of animals and murmur of spirits. The path was vanishing. I ate the mango but vomited it up almost immediately. Capitaine Relais's guards did not waste time looking for me because I came back alone after spending the night curled among the roots of a living tree; I could hear its heart beating like Honore's. This is how I remember it.