The Tale-Teller (6 page)

But maybe Aissata didn't think of herself as “black” just as he didn't think of himself as “white.” Colour was something other people saw. To herself, she was Aissata, his dear Aissata, as she had been to him until this moment. When he thought about her, who she was in herself, the words “black” and “slave” were meaningless. He had never been closer to anyone in his life than he had been to her.

He — who had prided himself on not thinking, but doing — thought something so new it made him shiver. Could it be that skin colour was meaningless? Perhaps it was no more significant than the colour of one's hair or eyes. His heart told him Aissata was as good as he was, even better. He knew she didn't deserve to be a slave and, if she didn't, maybe nobody did.

Joaquin sat in silence, the wind whipping at him, the salt spray rasping his skin, oblivious to the rest of the world. His mind grappled with ideas it had failed to confront through many wasted years of religious and secular instruction. What was the soul? Did it have anything to do with the body it was trapped in? If a person was truly good, did it really matter what race or religion they were? Only when someone offered him a skin of water and he spilled some, absentmindedly, all over his lap, was he roused from his meditations. Full of remorse, he called out for wildly for Aissata, declaring that he would save her, that he loved her, but the soldiers told him to shut up. When he wouldn't, they cuffed him on the ear and threatened to throw him overboard to the sharks. Only when they disembarked did Aissata's voice, her silvery voice, drift back to him, exhorting him to be free and enjoy his freedom for her sake. To remember her forever.

And then she was gone.

The officers took Joaquin back to their barracks where they insisted he don proper “European” clothes. Then they got him drunk. Until that day he had avoided alcohol, repulsed by the witless behaviour of his shipmates once they uncorked a bottle. But he now understood that there were things in life that would force a man to seek oblivion. Sometimes consciousness itself was unendurable.

The Spanish-speaking soldier thought he was drinking to celebrate his freedom and that he had finally come to his senses. He prophesied that in future, Joaquin would celebrate this as the day of his miraculous preservation. He would write a song about it. He could add another verse to the famous madrigal about Fogo: a tune Joaquin suddenly remembered having heard back home but hadn't connected with this Fogo, his Fogo, at the edge of the world. Where he'd been reborn.

The Andalusian merchant who returns
Laden with cochineal and china dishes,
Reports in Spain how strangely Fogo burns
Amidst an ocean full of flying fishes.

FIVE

“La hambre y el frio traen a la puerta del enemigo.”
(Cold and hunger bring one to the enemy's door.)

ESTHER STOPPED SINGING AND stood up from the chair. Her hair shone, free of tangles; her nails were clean; her voice and imagination were both exhausted.

“And what happened then?” asked Marie-Thérèse, forgetting for once to cover her unfortunate teeth as her mouth hung open with amazement.

“Joaquin found a Spanish ship and he sailed home,” Esther said.

“But that cannot be the end of the story! Because he wasn't blind anymore when you met him, was he?”

“No. Nothing slips by you, Marie-Thérèse. But I am tired of telling stories. All I want now is one of your beautiful
gallettes
.”

“They are for Monsieur Hocquart's supper. You know how much he loves sweets.”

“But I do too!”

“Then make some yourself. Don't keep pretending that you don't know how.”

Although Monsieur Hocquart employed a cook as well as two kitchen maids, having to entertain large groups often as well as enjoying good food on his own, Marie-Thérèse was accustomed to making the dessert: her specialty and his favourite part of the meal. And from occasional comments she had let fall, Esther had inadvertently revealed that she knew quite a bit about cooking herself, especially about making pastry. Reluctantly at first, but with growing enthusiasm, the girl revealed her talents. Her desire to please the Intendant and make herself indispensable to him prevailed over her aversion towards revealing anything significant about herself.

There were two unexpected advantages to Esther's new duties: Monsieur Hocquart had a good excuse for keeping her out of prison once she was usefully employed, and he finally allowed her to leave the grounds and go to the market with Marie-Thérèse. With its stables and bakery, prison and courthouse, the Intendant's compound comprised a miniature village, but a month confined within its boundaries had exhausted its novelty. Esther couldn't wait to see more of Quebec. And Quebec couldn't wait to see more of her, the girl about whom so many fantastic rumours swirled.

According to some, the feral child was half-animal, half-human, and had a face entirely covered with thick brown fur. She tore at raw meat with sharp fangs and, being far too savage to permit in the house, was kept in the stable, where even the horses were afraid of her. According to others she was dainty as a princess, spoke all the languages of the civilized world, played every instrument without book, and sang like an angel. The more credulous members of the community were disappointed when they finally encountered this mythic personage and saw only a small dark girl haggling over the price of butter. (Unlike most of the local bakers she preferred to use butter instead of lard in everything she made, insisting that the smell of pig fat spoiled fine patisserie.)

Sometimes they dallied on the way home from shopping to admire the flamboyant foliage: a ritual in Quebec, where everyone recognized that they would pay for each moment of transient beauty now with sensory abstinence in the months ahead. In October it was possible to see the world as God had intended it, all clarity and colour, each twig and leaf tip so sharp it could cut you from a distance, the air itself effervescent as wine. Esther said it reminded her of looking into the Mediterranean and seeing schools of golden fish. It gave her vertigo, knowing that she was looking up while simultaneously feeling that she was looking down. Height and depth reversed: the sublime and the profound indistinguishable, as though one's body had dissolved and its atoms were suspended lightly in space.

Marie-Thérèse never knew what to make of her charge when she spoke like this, but was pleased to see the girl happy. In fact one day, knowing how much Esther longed to visit new places and see new things, the housekeeper got permission from Monsieur Hocquart to give her a special treat. First they went down to the waterfront Esther had not revisited since the day of her arrival. After her arrest by Varin, the port — first glimpsed from the
Saint Michel
as the land of milk and honey — had turned turbulent and threatening, full of hostile men with loud voices leering at her. All she had seen was mud; all she had heard was meaningless clamour. Now a bright and busy scene met her eyes and she could enjoy the view across the harbour to Lévis. The sky was cloudless and blue, the river sparkling in the sun as they sailed east to the Île d'Orléans with a party of farmers and fishermen who passed the brief voyage singing familiar songs like “À la claire fontaine,” and “Auprès de ma blonde.” Esther was surprised when Marie-Thérèse joined in, her servile manner abandoned in the company of ordinary folk. Tentatively, Esther began to sing along too. For the first time since she had landed in New France not one person was suspicious of her and no one demanded to know who she was or where she was going. Such anonymity was freedom indeed.

When they came ashore, Marie-Thérèse hired a cart and driver to take them to a nearby farm that grew her favourite variety of apple,
Fameuse
, celebrated for its snowy white flesh. (Having grown up in Normandy, she had strong opinions about apples.) At the farm, they watched a boy picking their fruit until Esther — her spirits still soaring from the boat ride — asked if she might gather some herself. She clambered up as easily as if she were back on the rigging of the
Saint Michel
and refused to climb down until she had filled her basket with apples whose spicy perfume rivalled that of any flower. She also offered to make the dessert that night, producing an elegant tart which Monsieur Hocquart decided must be on the menu at least once a week thereafter.

Apple tart was not the dish her host prized most, however. That was chocolate. Esther was so fond of chocolate that she had brought a bag of cocoa beans with her from France, the discovery of which among her belongings puzzled Monsieur Varin, who did not recognize what they were. When she explained that they were something she liked to eat, he laughed and allowed her to keep them. Now that she knew what a gourmet Monsieur Hocquart was, she was especially happy not to have lost her treasure.

Marie-Thérèse watched with curiosity as the girl roasted a handful of cocoa beans in the oven, shelled them, and pounded them in a mortar to which she added two almonds and a hazelnut. She heated the resulting gritty mixture with sugar, water, a vanilla pod, a mixture of cinnamon and nutmeg, and one egg, whipping the thick liquid until it foamed with a wooden
moussoir
which she had also produced from her luggage. At last she poured the concoction into a cup and brought it in to Monsieur Hocquart.

He was delighted, proclaiming that Esther's chocolate was the finest he had ever tasted; better than the beverage served in the finest homes in France; better than that Beauharnois drank every morning for breakfast to give him stamina for his amorous and military conquests. Hocquart had often drunk chocolate at other people's houses but no one in his staff knew how to prepare it properly. Esther having revealed this talent, he would be happy to drink chocolate morning, noon, and night. He told Marie-Thérèse to inquire of the Governor General's housekeeper where to procure the marvellous beans and also to buy the largest chocolate pot she could find, so that he could start serving the drink to his guests.

Meanwhile, Varin de La Marre had returned, more than once, as promised. Marie-Thérèse looked forward to his visits. Unlike Hocquart, who was flustered in the presence of women — even her — or Beauharnois, to whom she was no more than animate furniture, Varin contrived to be both amiable and insinuating, flattering the housekeeper, who in turn plied him with food and drink and delighted in his good appetite. He even asked for her advice about the fit of his clothes, as though a farm girl could be a suitable arbiter of gentlemen's fashions. She knew that Varin's initial report to the Minister of the Marine would not receive a response until the spring; no ship from France could make it back to Quebec before the port froze. So for now Esther was safe. She had shelter and food, and Marie-Thérèse had the pleasure of her company. What more could either of them ask for, or expect, given the girl's rebellious behaviour?

Esther herself kept her guard up. She had learned that she was less likely to get herself into trouble if she held her tongue so, in response to most of Varin's questions, she pled ignorance or simply shrugged. While acknowledging that she had travelled in disguise, she continued to maintain that her subterfuge was not malicious. Not having a sponsor or any local family, she couldn't have come to New France unless she pretended to be a boy, could she? And now that she was here, she didn't expect charity. She was strong; she would earn her keep. She assured him that she did not intend to become a burden on the colony or to be given any special privileges by the authorities. But Varin remained undeterred, if polite, in his interrogation.

“Brandeau, eh. Now where have I heard this name before? Some vineyard in Gascony, I think. You are from the south, then?” he asked.

“I sailed from La Rochelle on the
Saint Michel
.”

“I asked where you were from, not where you boarded ship.” “I have told you, but you won't believe me.”

“No one of sound mind would believe you,” he said.

Esther took this as her cue to offer to make him a cup of chocolate, a welcome diversion for them both. She disappeared to the kitchen for the necessary time, returning with a small china cup of the precious stuff, then stood behind his chair while he drank it, positioning herself modestly as a servant, the capacity in which she hoped, for now, to be allowed to stay. Whenever he put down the cup, she immediately whipped up the foam again with her
moussoir
.

Varin complimented her on the confection, smacking his lips appreciatively after each sip, using a spoon to scrape up the sweet slurry at the bottom of the cup, but then reminded her that he would not give up the chase. Even as they sat comfortably chatting, his spies in France were ferreting out all her secrets. She might be able to seduce Hocquart by appealing to his appetite, which was as big as his belly, but she should not expect to succeed with him. Sooner or later he would find out everything. He always did.

“In fact, if I were in your position, Mademoiselle, I would exert myself more to impress someone like me. Someone who could be your advocate to the authorities, if he were persuaded of your sincere gratitude for his patronage.”

“You speak in riddles, Monsieur Varin.”

“And you tell lies. A match made in heaven.”

“What do you want from me?”

“To be your guide in this New World.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I appreciate the offer.”

“I thought you would.” He stood up, reached over and stroked the side of her face with one finger. An involuntary shiver passed over Esther's skin, which he quickly perceived. “A girl like you could learn many things from a man like me.”

Esther walked away abruptly. “Apparently I misunderstood you, Monsieur Varin. I thought the subject of our study was to be this beautiful country.”

“There is no limit to what we could discover together, my little Esther. It all depends on your aptitude as a pupil.”

“It appears that the cost of lessons is more than I can afford.” Varin snorted impatiently, studying his reflection in a big gilt-framed mirror hanging over an equally rococo sideboard. He pulled down his tight-fitting green velvet jacket and adjusted his beaver hat to a jauntier angle. When he spoke again, all the gentleness had gone from his voice.

“I doubt it. We all know why girls run away from home. If you weren't so skinny, I would suspect you of being pregnant.”