House of Rougeaux(14)

He said there were rebels on their island, Martinique.

Luc said to Adunbi that his good work with the livestock only lined Monsieur’s pockets, and that when the Rebellion came they would slaughter the animals and set fire to the fields.

“Is a Healing Woman the same, so?” said Abeje. “Am I the same as my brother, who cares for and heals Monsieur’s property?”

“No,” said Luc. “You are Obeah, like Queen Nanny. And one day we will not be property anymore.”

Luc’s words brought Abeje and Adunbi equal parts hope and fear. They had heard already of small rebellions on their Island, and maroons who escaped and were never captured. But Luc envisioned a future there and on all the islands, as on Saint-Domingue, when all of slavery would be brought down, and everyone would be free.

Luc himself, despite much righteous and sometimes angry speech, very much liked Abeje and her brother. At the day’s end he asked their permission to sit down with them at their cooking fire, and there he always had many questions for them. He began to call Adunbi Tonton, uncle, and herself Mémé Abeje, grandmother. Abeje laughed at this, protesting that she was younger than her brother, and didn’t even have any children. Luc said she was like a grandmother to the people. The brother and sister were not yet old and bent, but they had much white in their hair and the years had drawn lines on their faces. What Luc said had truth. Like the years, the people had drawn lines on Abeje’s heart. It was not long before Luc’s name for her became the speech of the others, including those who came from other places for aid.

For several months Abeje and her brother shared many evenings with Luc. Some nights Luc had no taste for stories. He was quiet and said nothing. On these nights Abeje took his hand in hers. She sat by, humming, and let Anaya come to them. Sometimes she saw Luc, the child, holding the hand of his own mother. Even in a young man, so brash and brave, lay a tender heart.

One night early in the month of October, Luc sat very quietly by the fire, his thick brows knit together. He had been more quiet lately, but in a new way. His voice, when he did speak, was tight. In fact, all in the Quarters vibrated with this same tension. People spoke in hushed tones, for some time now, of rebels, leaders and secret movements.

The hour grew late. After Adunbi said goodnight and went into the hut, Luc asked Abeje, “Mémé, is it right or wrong to kill?”

“What do you say?” she said.

“For Justice, for Liberty, yes.”

“Then why do you ask me?”

“I don’t know.”

Abeje took his hand. “I also don’t know what is right and what is wrong,” she said. “I must look only to my heart and listen for its call. Then I know where to follow.”

“That is your guide,” he said.

“That is indeed my guide.”

Then she told him of the great storm of many years before, the Hurricane, and how she and Adunbi sheltered in the limestone cave. She spoke of the four trees that marked the mouth of the cave. If ever one needed a hiding place, it might serve. As she spoke she undid her shawl and took the hard meal cakes she had made that night and wrapped them in it, making a bundle that she left on the ground. Then she said, “It is late now, my son.”

Luc took her elbow and helped her to stand. He raised her palm to his cheek a moment and then bade her good night.

In the morning he was not to be found.

Some dozen of the other young men also disappeared, and Monsieur sent out a party of hired men with guns to search for the runaways.

Two days hence Abeje and Adunbi awoke in the night to the sound of the work bell ringing, clanging on without stopping, the sound of hoofbeats outside the huts, and one of overseers shouting for everyone to run up to the sugar works. An overseer fired a shot into the air with his rifle, spooking his horse and letting the people know that the next bullet would be for anyone who dared to disobey.

Abeje hurried as best she could with the others toward the sugar works, where flames roared and lit the sky. Already every hand was employed bringing buckets of water from the stream that flowed nearby. The overseer was joined by Monsieur and the foreman, also on horseback and carrying guns, shouting directions and threats. Already they could see that the building would be lost and they put the people to work digging trenches and wetting the ground to prevent the fire from spreading.

A low cover of cloud lay overhead, lit red here and there in the distance from other fires. The Rebellion. Staggering with another full bucket Abeje said a prayer for Luc. She threw the water over bare ground where it would protect nothing, only her own life by not disobeying.

Dawn came slowly over the charred remains of the sugar works. There was no more fire on the Estate, but the sky was thick with smoke from elsewhere, and the harsh, sweet smell of burning cane fields. A party of militiamen arrived and left with the two overseers and the foreman toward the south, leaving Groom with Monsieur’s two sons-in-law to patrol the estate, until the next day when a squadron of soldiers in blue coats arrived from Saint-Pierre.

Lise spread the word in the Quarters that the captain had met with Monsieur and told him that some forty rebels had been captured, that most were to be executed, and that the soldiers had orders to interrogate anyone who might have known about or aided them. The soldiers stayed three weeks and succeeded only in breaking the arm of a woman who, like the others, had nothing to tell them.