House of Rougeaux(2)
Adunbi asked Iya one night, “Where is our Baba?”
Abeje stared at him. It had never occurred to her that they had a Baba. The vague form of a tall, broad man took shape in the back of her mind. She looked up at Iya, and then felt terribly afraid, because she saw tears start from her eyes, and spill down her cheeks to meet under her chin. Iya made not a sound, then at last she whispered,“Stolen away.” The children did not ask her more.
Abeje’s favorite story was about herself and her brother, and she asked Iya to tell it over and over again. In this story, Abeje was a baby and her brother was just weaned. She was playing at the edge of a cane field, when a snake dropped upon her from a clump of shrubs above. Adunbi took up a stick in his small hand and drove it away. Iya heard him shouting and ran to them. She found him shouting at the snake to keep away. He didn’t want comfort, but raised the stick and threatened the snake, who was surely far away by then. Adunbi shone with pride when Iya told this story, and Abeje sucked in her breath so with admiration that it flew out again with a great “Pah!” Then they would all laugh.
Iya told Adunbi that Abeje was his to protect. They had no Baba to protect them, feed them, clothe them, teach them. All this Iya had to do by herself, with the crumbs from the Monsieurs’ table. Adunbi nodded, his sister was his charge, his face so serious that Iya laughed.
* * *
One day an older, light-sknned girl, Lise, took Abeje up to pull weeds in the kitchen garden of the Great House, saying that Marie was now old enough to work. But Lise was in a hurry and Abeje had to run to keep up. She kept her eyes on the dusty hem of Lise’s skirt, and the feet that flashed out beneath, as they sped up the path.
Adunbi had gone to help two of the big boys with the pigs and the hens. In the garden of the House all who spoke to Abeje called her Girl or else they called her Marie. Her brother they called Guillaume. And so Guillaume and Marie followed orders and worked the long day, and then Adunbi and Abeje went to sleep at night with their Iya.
That first day Abeje felt so alone without her brother. She sat on her little heels in the dust between the rows of green plants, taking out the smaller plants Lise said were weeds. Abeje drove a sharp stick into the earth at the base of the little plants, as Lise had shown her, and pulled with the other hand at the stems. The roots tumbled out with a shower of soil, sending little insects scurrying, and the plants began to wither. She felt them shiver, as if each uttered the tiniest of cries when separated from the earth. She looked at the green strands laid over her palms, and said with a voice from deep inside, “Adu, the weeds are crying.” And then, as if he were really there, she heard him answer, Never mind, Beje.
The second day Abeje discovered that she could still be with her brother, even when she was somewhere else. She knew it when a horse nipped her brother’s finger, and when the groom, who was in charge of the barns and stables, boxed the ears of a boy next to Adunbi, for letting one of the pigs loose. And Adunbi knew things too, about Abeje, such as the fear that filled her when Lise came down the garden path in a blaze to gather broad beans for supper. Lise whispered to Abeje that Young Monsieur was angry again. Young Madame was ill from childbirth, that was the reason. Abeje and Adunbi didn’t yet know why they feared Monsieur. Neither of them was ever close enough to him to even see the color of his hair.
Until their last night with Iya.
Abeje woke from sleep when the tread of heavy boots shook the ground. She had been dreaming. Lise was running down the garden path shouting, Young Monsieur is coming! Young Monsieur is coming! Now the silhouette of a man crowded the doorway of the hut. A lantern illuminated the strands of his hair. They stuck out from his head like straw.
The others in the hut stirred.
“I want the wenches up,” said Young Monsieur.
The girls and women got to their feet, including Iya.
He held the lantern closer to them and then with his free hand pointed at Iya.
“Come out,” he said.
Adunbi made to follow Iya but she hissed at the children in their language, “Stay here!” Abeje froze. Adunbi wrapped his arms tight around her, and though they could not see or hear her, they felt their mother. Abeje struggled to breathe, a hand had closed over her face, the sound of a heart beating thundered in her ears, and a monstrous flash of anger tore at her throat. It was Iya, her back arched, the muscles hardening like stone, and with all her strength she pushed away the heavy shoulders that bore down on her.
A brilliant pain.
A crash.
The sound of boots running off.
Abeje began screaming. The others in the hut flew out the doorway and many others ran by. There was fire from where Young Monsieur dropped his lantern, and soon many people rushed there to stamp it out.
“He has killed her!” someone shouted.
“Holy One!” wailed another.
“There is his knife!”
“Bring it to Monsieur, he will know who has done it.”
“He will know it by its handle, the ivory.”
Adunbi jumped up, pulling Abeje by the hand out of the hut. A cluster of men leaned over something and together picked it up, then hurried away in the direction of the Great House. Adunbi followed, and Abeje ran after him, her feet striking many wet places on the ground.
The crescent moon hung like a white blade in the black sky, cutting the path to the Great House, to the dooryard where clumps of flowers gave out a heavy, sweet smell that turned Abeje’s stomach. She put her hands down on the earth and crouched low. She was conscious of more shouting, and then of large arms gathering her up, carrying her, a heart beating low, and long legs beneath, bearing her back in the direction of the Quarters.