and Charleston, South Carolina
You will see all my blood flow before I consent to your freedom, because your slavery, my fortune, and my happiness are inseparable.
— Saint-Domingue planter Prudent Boisgerard, 1793 letter
CHAPTER 1
Thirty-Three Years Earlier
April 1789
Saint-Domingue,French West Indies
There are physical needs that make themselves felt more urgently in hot countries. The need to love there degenerates into a furor, and it is fortunate that in a colony like Saint-Domingue black women are found to satisfy a passion that without them could cause great devastation.
— Michel René Hilliard d’Auberteuil,Considérations sur l’état présent de la colonie française de Saint-Domingue(1776)
Marguerite watched in her mirror as her maid vomited into her chamber pot. She clenched the muslin on her dressing table till her fingernails scored her palms, as though anything could dull the pang in her empty womb. Marguerite wanted one more child, just one—there must be a way to convince Matthieu before it was too late. She’d do better this time, nurse it herself…
Instead, God gave a child to this littlemulâtresse,who surely did not even want it. As soon as her baby was born, she would probably stick a needle into its brain, so its soul could fly back to Africa.
There could be no doubt now: the girl was pregnant. This was not the first morning she’d run for the chamber pot. Marguerite had felt a difference when the girl brushed against her to retrieve her wig or a hatpin. For too long, Marguerite had told herself the girl was simply developing—she was what, fourteen?
“Well?” Marguerite inquired. “Who is the father?”
Themulâtressewiped her face with her apron, still looking green in spite of her dark skin. Not as dark as the pure Africans—a sort of chestnut. “I do not know,Madâme.”
“What do you mean, you do not—” When the truth hit her, Marguerite almost laughed. “You mean there is more than one possibility?”
“Yes,Madâme.”
The expression was true:“The mulatto’s only master is pleasure.”
The girl wobbled to her feet, bringing the chamber pot with her. She carried the noxious basin to the other end of the belvedere.
Marguerite turned her attention to her powder box and plucked off its silver lid. “I want their names,” she called, twirling the swan’s-down puff in the powder. “Youdoknow their names?”
“Of course,Madâme.” Her words grew louder as she returned. “Their names are Gabriel and Narcisse.”
Marguerite dropped the puff. Powder bloomed like a burst mushroom. She whirled around on the stool, as fast as she could fully dressed, and gaped at the girl; but such impertinence stole her voice as surely as a voodoo curse. The idea that Marguerite’s sons would fancy this little brown bitch…
The girl smirked.
Marguerite struck her hard enough to leave her palm on fire, as if she’d been stung by one of Matthieu’s bees. Marguerite flung open the window and shouted his name. If the girl did not respect her mistress, shewouldrespect her master. But everyone else had risen hours ago; the hot flashes had robbed Marguerite of sleep.
Over the shingled roof of the gallery, past the plumeria trees,Marguerite saw blue parasols, and below them, male legs. “Matthieu!”
No one answered.
Marguerite didn’t have the strength to drag the girl with her bodily, so she hurried alone through the children’s bedchambers to the other end of the belvedere—and nearly tripped over the chamber pot. The clinging billows of her peignoir slowed her pace down the stairs, so she tore it off. The motion pooled perspiration at the small of her back, reminding her to snatch a straw hat from the rack. She reached the back gallery—empty, though she heard voices through the jalousies.
Without pausing to peer between the slats, she hurried down the steps into the cloying fragrance of the plumeria. Gabriel and Narcisse stood with their backs to her in the scant shade of the parasols held aloft by their valets. From this distance, her sons looked like half-grown cherubs, their golden curls tapering into queues.
Under her breath, Marguerite cursed the little whore, for making her come out here like this, for interrupting her toilette. Her face was utterly naked, and in her slippers she felt as if she were wading through the thick grass. She tied the hat’s ribbon awkwardly. The girl’s accusation was so ridiculous, Marguerite refused to sully her sons by addressing it; but she damn well intended to tell Matthieu and ensure a just punishment.
Another slave approached her sons and their valets, a woman past her prime with skin as black as pitch. The negress carried a basketful of lemons in her only hand. Her right sleeve was pinned and empty. The boys seemed to be waiting for her: as she neared, Gabriel called an order in Creole and pointed west.
Narcisse’s valet noticed Marguerite and shifted his parasol. Narcisse glared at the man, saw her, and laughed. “You’re redder than cochineal,Maman.”
