“More than ten years, sir.”
Frederic made the mulatto open his mouth and then touch his toes. “Any problems I should know about? Are you sound?”
“Of course he is!” answered Hart in a bluster.
Frederic shot the trader a look. “I askedPeter.”
Hart cleared his throat and remained silent.
“Let’s have you prove it.” With his cane, Joseph’s cousin motioned to the hall. “Could we have him run up your stairs?”
“Naturally.”
Hart, Frederic, and Joseph walked out to stand beneath the staircase, where they watched the mulatto run up to the third floor and down again.
Finally Joseph’s cousin allowed the mulatto to stop, satisfied that the man’s breathing was normal. Then Frederic inspected his hands. “Remember, Joseph: whether he’s to work in the fields or in the house,alwaysexamine a slave’s hands. They are the most important parts of him—dexterity is essential.”
Frederic released the mulatto’s hands and addressed Hart again: “You have somewhere I can see, uh, all of him?”
“Of course, sir.” The trader offered them a small room across the hall.
Wordlessly the mulatto removed his fine clothing, neatly folding each article onto a little table. Joseph kept his eyes on the carpet. He felt his cheeks growing hot with shame, as ifhewere being forced to expose himself.
“Youarean innocent, aren’t you?” Frederic chuckled. “A man has to see what he’s buying.”
Joseph glanced toward the mulatto, who had nothing left to reveal. Checking the slave’s back for scars made sense, but what did the man’s genitals have to do with his being a good valet? His skin there was darker than the rest of him, just like Joseph’s. “Why do you have to see his…?”
“I amnota Molly, if that’s what you’re implying!”
Joseph had no idea what that was, but he’d never heard Frederic so angry.
“These bucks and wenches have to be kept in two separate yards because outside this pen, they’re at each other night and day! Do you know how many diseases that causes? I don’t want one who’s spotted and runny! He’d be ill constantly, and then who would dress me?” His cousin took a few breaths and calmed. He gestured to the naked, motionless mulatto. “It doesn’t embarrassthem.”
He might as well be made of stone, Joseph thought, till he realized the man was trembling.
“Africans run around naked in Africa,” Frederic assured him. “They’d prefer to stay that way all the time. They’re like animals, Joseph. You don’t turn red when you see a horse penis, do you?”
Actually, those did make Joseph uncomfortable. And how did they know being naked didn’t embarrass the negroes? The problem was, you couldn’t tell when they wereblushing.
CHAPTER 12
This little girl struck her fancy, and [Madame Talvande] offered to educate her, making one stipulation… Monkey (whose real name was Charlotte) could only visit her Mother occasionally…
— Mary Chesnut,Two Years(1877)
Uncle François invited Joseph’s family to stay in his new cottage on Sullivan’s Island. Joseph had received his boots, and Frederic said the beach would be the perfect place to learn to ride. But his cousin’s friends were also visiting, and Frederic was occupied with them.
So the first day, Joseph walked along the shore with his parents and sisters. They had taken the ferry to Sullivan’s Island many times before. Joseph and his father would swim in their under-clothes. Hélène would wade out with them in her own bulky bathing attire and dunk herself, screaming with delight. Mama permitted it because Hélène was still young. Mama and Cathy entered the ocean only with the aid of bathing machines. They did not seem to enjoy themselves but endured the process like a purgative. Usually Mama and Cathy simply strolled or sat. They rarely even took off their boots.
They were still looking for a place to settle when they came upon a woman with a group of girls, accompanied by their maids.
Cathy gasped. “That’s Madame Talvande!”
Joseph recognized the name of the founder and headmistress of the French School for Young Ladies, because his sister talked about it incessantly. Madame Talvande’s establishment was the most exclusive girls’ school in Charleston.
First, Cathy fretted about not having a mirror or her false curls, though her hair was mostly hidden under her bonnet. Finally, she ran up to the woman and curtseyed. “Bonjour, Madame Talvande,” she began in a stream of easy French. “I am so pleased to meet you. My name is Catherine Lazare, and I hope to attend your school very soon.”
“But your French is already perfect!” the headmistress replied in her native language. “Are your parents French?”
