The Tale-Teller (10 page)

SEVEN

“El Dios es tadrozo mas no es olvidadozo.”
(God may act slowly but He never forgets.)

AUTUMN'S GOLD WAS SOON spent. The days grew shorter and colder and the mood of the people grew more sombre. But to Marie-Thérèse's surprise, Esther relished the prospect of a hard winter. She said she had suffered greatly from the heat in Africa, being once so sunburned that she shed her skin like a snake, and therefore required the contrary experience of freezing in order to recalibrate her body temperature properly. She claimed that this was a well-known scientific fact; surely Marie-Thérèse knew that doctors habitually immersed fever patients in tubs of ice? Well then, it was for the same reason she needed to experience the terrors of frost in New France.

The housekeeper did not know what to make of the temperamental girl entrusted to her care. Often she seemed much older than her years, full of arcane information and impressive wisdom. But sometimes, in the midst of analyzing events around her with extraordinary acuity and even compassion, she would suddenly say something caustic, her lip curling with such glib condescension Marie-Thérèse felt like slapping her, or let fall a remark so funny that the housekeeper burst out laughing. Esther might act the part of a spoiled miss of the upper classes with no object in life but perpetual diversion, begging to go the market to buy trifles. Then again she might become profoundly sad, revealing the part of her that remained a lost child. Once only, seeing silent tears running down Esther's face and receiving nothing but a shake of the head when she inquired what was wrong, Marie-Thérèse had tried to comfort her, breaching the invisible barrier Esther erected around herself. The girl softened into her embrace, meeting Marie-Thérèse's inquiring gaze with eyes so anguished it was clear nothing would ever console her. Then she sobbed herself to sleep, rocking back and forth in the woman's arms in a trance of helpless misery.

Luckily these dark moods were infrequent, or Esther hid them well when they occurred. And she could usually be drawn out of introspection by a request for a story, of which she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. This was good, because Marie-Thérèse had discovered in herself an equally inexhaustible love of listening. As the days grew shorter and colder, she drew Esther's tales around her for comfort. Through Esther's tales, her imagination was escorted to fantastic places she'd never been. She got to know characters who seemed more real to her than any of those around her: rich people who looked right through her and poor people working too hard to pass the time of day with her. She preferred the company of Esther and her phantoms.

Often the Intendant would contrive to be passing by during one of these storytelling sessions. He would peer into the kitchen or one of the storerooms — wherever Esther and Marie-Thérèse might be — on the pretext of looking for something, and then linger by the door, the object of his search forgotten, until one or the other of the women invited him to take a seat. He would appear momentarily nonplussed and then insist that he needed to take more notes. In his October 26 report to the Minister of the Marine he had begged the authorities “to prescribe me the direction of this girl,” but of course it would be impossible to get any instructions from them until May or more likely June; no French navigator would brave the westward journey before then. Even if the Saint Lawrence were running freely, ice floes around the Newfoundland banks made sailing in the early spring far too treacherous. But what he expected, when that long-awaited letter finally came, was that he would be told to send Esther Brandeau packing at once — as he should have done the day she arrived. He had hesitated at the time because she was penniless and he was wary of setting a precedent. He was still concerned with that possibility, as he had no intention of paying for the passage of illegal immigrants in the future. She had caused him nothing but trouble since the day she arrived.

Esther would apologize profusely and thank him for his continued kindness to her; she might even offer to make him a cup of chocolate to drink while listening to her tale. Marie-Thérèse would scurry off to find him pen and paper for his “report” while he found somewhere comfortable to install himself. The whole production would become more formal and complicated with Hocquart in attendance. Esther knew that he frequently quizzed Marie-Thérèse in her absence as to whether the housekeeper had learned anything new about her.

When he was ready, Esther would close her eyes and fold her olive-skinned hands in her lap, seeming almost to fall into a dream. Her voice was melodious and faintly foreign; though her French was impeccable, there was something odd about it that no one yet had identified. Her “r's” rolled more richly, perhaps, her vowels were softer, her cadences more varied. Whatever it was, this exotic inflection was aptly suited to the stories she told, so often strange and hard to believe. Yet though small details might vary in the telling, the central facts remained the same, giving each episode of the unfolding saga not only credibility but, with Marie-Thérèse at least, canonical status.

Most often the housekeeper requested to hear stories about Joaquin, the ugly brute with the sensitive soul, and his unquenchable love for the poor slave girl, Aissata. Esther would retort that Monsieur Hocquart would not enjoy a silly romance intended for lovelorn ladies and besides, it was in no way relevant to his investigation. In its place, she would tell a nautical tale, detailing a trading expedition south from Spain to the Guinea coast or westbound to the sugar islands. But one day the Intendant grew curious, and insisted that he was the best judge of what was relevant, not her. So she relented.

***

AFTER JOAQUIN LEFT AISSATA he was sad for a very long time. He was sad during the revelry with the Portuguese militia; he was sad on the vessel that brought him back to Cadiz; he was sad in the oxcart that took him home to his village. In this sadness, all his thoughts were drawn inward. For many days he sat, unmoving, in his mother's house, while she wept and prayed for her poor injured child, relieved to have him home again but angry to find him broken both in body and in spirit. Later he went down to the docks to mend his brothers' nets and listen to the sea croon and cry, whisper and rant. He had become convinced that it was trying to talk to him, and that if he listened properly he would come to understand the meaning of his life. “Wish, wish,” the waves chanted, flooding the shore. “See, see,” they hissed, receding among the pebbles on the beach. “There is nothing I wish to see anymore but Aissata,” Joaquin thought to himself. “But I do not deserve her, and my punishment is that I will never see anything again.”

And then one day, while he was untangling an especially wicked snarl of rope, Joaquin heard a shriek and a splash as a child fell off the end of a pier. He'd been unaware of her presence until that moment, so focussed was he on his work. He called out loudly for help, sure that someone else must be near, but nobody responded. Meanwhile the splashing and screaming continued, punctuated with episodes of coughing as the victim inhaled salt water.

Joaquin panicked, listening to those frantic cries for help, before realizing that the fact that he couldn't see didn't mean he couldn't swim towards the child's voice and bring her to safety. He told her to keep calm; to move her legs and arms back and forth like scissors and to keep her head above the water. And then he jumped in. In a trice he had a pair of thin slippery arms around his neck and, swimming vigorously, enjoying the forgotten feeling of power in his thrashing legs, of capability in his strong arms, he brought the sobbing child to shore.

As she clung to him with her face tucked into his neck, her breath warm against his cold skin, something that had been frozen inside him for months thawed. He murmured words of encouragement to the girl, rocking her in his arms. Her name was Estella, and she explained that she hadn't learned to swim because she was lame in one leg. She asked him if he would teach her and he promised her that he would. They sat quietly for a moment on the rocky beach, glad to be alive.

Now other voices reached them: the girl's frantic mother and younger siblings; the butcher, wanting to be helpful; a couple of idle boys looking for excitement. When they realized what had happened, Joaquin became a hero. There was a big fiesta that night in his honour; the butcher roasted a suckling pig on a spit and the whole village celebrated. They rejoiced to see the blind boy drawn out of his misery, his face transformed from a marble mask crossed by a wicked red scar to the friendly open visage they remembered from his childhood.

Perhaps it was coincidence, but the very next morning Joaquin opened his eyes to an impression of light, and within the week he could see again. His sight continued to improve over the following months. His mother attributed the miracle to her daily prayers to the Virgin Mary, the local doctor to time and the kindness of nature, but Joaquin himself was convinced that it was a sign of divine forgiveness. Though he had failed to rescue Aissata, he'd been able to save another girl in her place. Convinced it was his destiny, he married Estella and had three healthy children, though nothing could take the place of his first love, the sea, and he was away from his family more often than he was with them.

Monsieur Hocquart, do you remember the story I told at the Governor General's banquet about Joaquin, Doctor Esteban, and me when we were marooned on the island we named Tortugas? During our exile, we spoke frequently of the likelihood of our deaths, and of our remorse for our earthly transgressions, and we prayed for forgiveness from the merciful Lord above. Even in my childhood, when I had much less to regret than I do now, I often felt guilty and sad; however, my conscience weighed less heavily than those of my companions. Because they were older, and perhaps because they were men, life had offered them more opportunities for adventure and, correspondingly, for misadventure. Though I envied them their freedom, I recognized the heavy burden of responsibility that goes with it.

Oddly enough, the educated doctor and the illiterate sailor, so different in their looks, manners, and upbringing, had similar regrets. Both of them were tormented by the knowledge that they'd abandoned the women who had saved their lives. So they made a solemn oath, pricking their thumbs with a knife and mingling their blood — a procedure which astonished me greatly, since they had scorned this ritual when they had witnessed it among the pirates — that if they survived, each would seek out his long-lost benefactor and rescue her if she were still alive.

Joaquin became obsessed with this promise. He called on Aissata in his sleep and sighed her name when he awoke. He swore to God that if he were allowed to escape this cursed rock, he would not rest until he brought her to freedom. At first I believed this obsession to be nothing more than the fermentation of guilt in a mind with nothing else to occupy it. All of us become vulnerable to such chimeras when we are ill, or anxious, or have gone astray in our lives, do we not? However, Joaquin remained determined to rescue Aissata even after we were safe aboard
Le Lys
. By contrast, Esteban abandoned his own vow immediately and proclaimed that once we were back on dry land he would stay there.

It turned out that the doctor was going home to be wed. His parents had picked out a girl for him a few short months before; it was in response to this engagement that he had run away to sea. At that time the prospect of marriage had seemed dull. He had hoped for one last adventure as a bachelor. Now, having had more adventure than he had anticipated, he craved nothing more than a hot meal and a soft bed. Esteban drew such amusing pictures for us of his future as a doddering greybeard, playing chess in the village square, that neither Joaquin nor I had the heart to reproach him for breaking his promise to rescue Edza from the sultan's harem; we were much too grateful at having been rescued ourselves to blame our friend for looking forward to a peaceful life.

But Joaquin did not falter in his own resolve. He asked the captain to let him disembark at the Cape Verde Islands and Pontevez agreed, though he thought it absurd that an old man so recently rescued from death should wish to be abandoned on an island teeming with savages. Obviously, since we were not French citizens, he had no obligation to bring us back with him; nonetheless Esteban and I were disappointed in this lack of official resistance. We pleaded with Joaquin to recover his strength before undertaking such a difficult quest. We also suggested, as gently as we could, that he might wish to say a proper goodbye to his wife and children, in case it didn't end well or took longer than anticipated. But nothing we said had any influence upon him. He was a man who had made an oath before God; a man whose magnetized heart pulled him in one direction and one direction only.

How he was going to find a single black slave in a country built on the backs of such people was a mystery, but he declared that his soul would not be at peace unless he made the attempt. Belonging nowhere and to no one, I offered to accompany him. To my chagrin, Joaquin insisted that I could only stay with him until
Le Lys
sailed, and then must leave with the other members of the crew. This quest belonged to him and him alone, he declared; moreover, as a white girl, I would certainly have a better future in Europe than in Africa.

Not yet accustomed to thinking of myself as either white or a girl, I was puzzled by this argument. I was also annoyed that he felt it was his duty to find a new chaperone for me, as though I weren't old enough to take care of myself. Esteban immediately offered to adopt me and bring me to Spain, but since he was giving up the seafaring life, his proposal wasn't appealing. Joaquin understood my reluctance to abandon the sea; he made Monsieur Fourget, who was a career sailor, promise to take me along with him on his future voyages. Then we all went ashore for a much-needed leave. To tell the truth, I was as excited as Joaquin himself at the prospect of finding the woman who had once saved his life.

Of course, for me it was no more than a game. I doubted that we could find someone Joaquin hadn't seen for forty years, but I was happy enough to accompany him. His quest gave shape to what might otherwise have been mere desultory wandering around in the heat of the day; I was given the opportunity to see a lot of faces and places while he asked if anyone knew where he could find Aissata, groping for words in the language he had not used for so long.

Miraculously, Joaquin remembered the names and relative ages of Aissata's family members; but, having been blind when he lived with them, he was unable to provide descriptions of anyone, even his beloved. Whenever he was asked what she looked like, he could only respond “an angel,” which was not particularly useful for identifying a woman in her fifties who had undoubtedly lived a hard life, if she was still alive at all.

After four days, these interviews were growing tedious and even Joaquin was becoming discouraged. But suddenly someone called out to us that she knew the woman we were seeking. The voice came from a stall heaped with bananas, mangoes, papayas, tamarinds, and that curious tropical fruit called the custard apple, which tastes like aromatic soap. Behind the mountain of produce stood a tiny old lady, a lady so old that her eyes were lost in the folds of her papery skin and her chin bristled with stray white hairs. She was smoking a pipe, which made her speech even harder than usual to understand, but Joaquin understood that a woman named Aissata ran an inn called The Lost Boy on other end of the island, and that if we asked around the market we should be able to find a driver willing to take us there.

Luck was on our side. We found a ride that very afternoon. Before leaving, I conferred with Captain Pontevez who said that I could go wherever I pleased, but that he intended to set sail for France in four days with or without me. I promised to return in time, and then Joaquin and I set off across the island in a cart heavily laden with bolts of cloth. The driver told us these were used both as clothing and as currency on the islands, and were highly prized by African traders on the mainland, who were not able to purchase them. We didn't understand much of what he told us, but there was evidently some kind of illegal smuggling going on — and the proprietor of The Lost Boy was involved in it, for he was headed right to her place.

We slept overnight under the stars on a pile of the cloths and then resumed our journey early the next day. Both my companions were uncommunicative, so I spent my time listening to the birds and watching them swoop through the pale morning sky. The day was hot and still, the countryside as empty as if it had been the first morning of Creation. We stopped a couple of times to pick fruit from the trees and once to drink from a clear stream but I doubt if a dozen words passed between us during the whole trip.

At nightfall we pulled up to The Lost Boy. It was a small pink building glowing palely at the edge of a steep cliff overlooking the ocean. A wide porch ran around all four sides, surrounded by brilliant flowers and tall date palms heavy with fruit. I barely had time to take in the beauty of the setting before the driver grunted that he needed us to help him unload his cargo. As I was helping him, I heard a sudden intake of breath and felt Joaquin leave my side. I looked up and saw the silhouette of a graceful woman framed by the door of the house, her face in darkness. He sang her name as though it were a hymn and she ran down the stairs into his arms.

I stayed with them overnight and was privileged to hear her story — or at least as much of it as Joaquin was able or willing to translate. This much I gleaned.

After Aissata was captured, she was sold to a rich merchant to assist his cook in the kitchen and to help serve meals when he had guests, which was a frequent occurrence. One day, when she was serving dinner to a group of his business associates, she caught the eye of an elderly Jewish trader. He offered to buy her for a good price, being in need of a housekeeper. Her employer, who had plenty of other slaves, agreed. Aissata was distraught. She felt safe where she was, and as long as she stayed there she could see her family from time to time. But slaves had no rights, so despite her pleas for mercy she was sent off with her new owner. He was kind enough to let her say goodbye to her mother before they set sail, which reassured her, but of all the many hardships she had undergone, leaving Cape Verde was the hardest yet.

Life with the trader, whose name was Jacobo Farrega, was good. He was kind, gentle, and appreciative of all she did. He even called her “Miss Aissata,” and said “please” and “thank you” to her, which no white person had ever done before. His own family had been forced to flee Portugal to escape the Inquisition so that, like her, he had been forced to start over in a new place. What he told her about the history of the Jews — perpetually fleeing slavery and torture, living in exile among strangers, the subject of their contempt and mistrust — made her feel a kind of kinship with him. In time, this deepened to affection. When ultimately he proposed marriage to her, she accepted, even though he was much older. They were rewarded with the birth of one son, Benjamin, who was now grown up with a family of his own.

Jacobo's business had been selling Cape Verdean cloth to other European merchants. Although the Portuguese Crown had prohibited this trade, the Jews operated outside the law, which caused antagonism between them and other Portuguese merchants. In the past this rivalry had occasionally led to violence, including the Inquisition itself coming to Cape Verde, but things had been peaceful for some time. One night, however, their warehouse was mysteriously set ablaze and her husband died, foolishly running into the flames to rescue his stock. Aissata, not sure who their enemies were or whether they would strike again, returned to Cape Verde with a small capital and Benjamin, at that time a boy of seven. There she had discovered that her family had died of starvation during a terrible drought and that she and her son were alone in the world. But they were free and had money, so she decided to start over, buying a small inn at the far end of the island. She continued her husband's trade. Fishermen would come ashore, ostensibly to sell their catch, and leave with cloth that they could resell to traders along the coast.