Cathy nodded, then frowned: “Well, my grandparents are French. My parents are Creole. Papa was born on Saint-Domingue.”
“Ah. My husband and I are also from that unfortunate island. I prefer this one.”
“Here’s Papa,” Cathy announced. “He’s a doctor. His name is René Lazare. Have you heard of him?”
Their father chuckled and kissed Madame Talvande’s offered hand.
“I believe Bishop England has mentioned you, Dr. Lazare,” the headmistress smiled.
He turned to introduce Mama, who was hanging back as usual. But they were interrupted. “Monkey!” shrieked one of Madame Talvande’s pupils in exasperation, as a plump little girl darted toward Joseph’s sisters. “Monkey” was younger than the other girls. Her hat hung from two ribbons down her back, revealing a mass of coiled black hair. Her dark eyes wide, Monkey stared at Cathy and Hélène as if she wanted to say something, but then she dropped her gaze to the sand. Cathy glared at her.
Madame Talvandetsk-ed. “What have I told you about your hat, Monkey?”
Without looking up, the girl tied it back on her head.
Hélène curtseyed. “Pleased to meet you…Monkey. My name is Hélène Lazare.”
“Monkey isn’t her Christian name, of course,” the headmistress explained as she straightened the girl’s hat. “If it weren’t for this hair, you’d hardly know, but she’scolored.” Madame Talvande stepped back to assess her work. “Monkey is my little experiment—a true test of my powers. I said to myself: ‘If I separated her from her parents, could I make a proper lady of her?’ She sleeps at the foot of my own bed. She’s become quite the pet of the other pupils.” The headmistress looked up to see Joseph’s father frowning. “She doesn’teatwith the other girls, of course.”
“Is it true Bishop England dines with you every week?” Cathy put in.
“We do have that honor.”
Cathy kept worshipping Madame Talvande. Monkey peered hopefully at Hélène again, who produced a shell from her pinafore to show the girl.
Joseph realized that one of the maids was staring at his father. The negress stood a little apart from the schoolgirls. Perhaps sixty years old, she wore a yellow head kerchief and large gold hoops in her ears. Her skin was ebony, yet Joseph could see a pattern of raised scars across her cheeks. They must have been done long ago in Africa.
Perhaps she felt his gaze: the negress turned her attention to Joseph. He scowled, but she approached him anyway. “Pardon, sir, but you are the son of René Lazare?” It took Joseph a few moments to understand her, to translate in his head. Joseph had studied Creole out of curiosity. He was not fluent, but knowing French helped.
“Oui,” he answered cautiously. Who did this negress think she was, addressing him so boldly?
“Your father was born in the parish of Acul on Saint-Domingue? About two years before the Revolution there?”
“I was,” Joseph’s father answered for him. He’d stepped closer.
The negress grinned. “I thought you must be him. Lazare, it isnot a common name. I am called Ninon. You would not remember me, but I helped bring you into this world.” Then she glanced at Madame Talvande, who was still occupied with Cathy. The negress looked anxious. She moved farther away from the others and closer to the water, still carrying her basket.
Joseph’s father trailed after her, as if it were something they’d agreed to do. He looked worried too, but eager at the same time. Joseph had to follow. His father glanced over his shoulder and frowned at him, but he didn’t tell Joseph to leave. Perhaps he thought Joseph wouldn’t understand the woman’s patois, or that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the roar and hiss of the waves.
When his father and the negress stopped, they stood with their backs to him, staring out at the ocean instead of each other. Joseph pretended to be fascinated by the holes in the sand and the bubbles they emitted each time a wave retreated.
His father asked the negress: “You knew my mother?”
“Only a little.”
“What was she…like?”
The woman turned to him. “She did not leave Saint-Domingue with you?”
Joseph’s father shook his head. “I came to Charleston when I was two years old with only my grandmother, Marguerite Lazare. She told me my father, her son, died during the first uprising. My grandmother said my mother died when I was born—and that she was Spanish.”
“Spanish!” The negress laughed as if this were a joke. “That was clever. But your mother didn’t die when you were born. I came back to that plantation maybe a year later, to catch another baby, and your mother was still with you then. It was good to see her happy. You were just learning to walk. She was so proud of you.”
“You mean she didn’t…” His father’s voice faltered. He was staring down at his feet. “She had every reason to hate me.”
“Oh, no. She was stronger than that. Your birth, itwasvery difficult—that was why they called me. Your mother was only a child herself. I don’t think,thatnight, she knew how she felt about you yet.She was in so much pain, and she was angry at your— But when I came back, and I saw her with you, I could not doubt it: your mother adored you. You were her whole world. Shemusthave died before you left Saint-Domingue, or she would never have let you go.” Her head was turned so that Joseph could see half her smile. “Even if you do look more like your father.”
“Ninon!” Madame Talvande shouted behind them, startling Joseph. “Mademoiselle Foster wants her luncheon.” The headmistress stood beside a pouting blonde girl and pointed at the maid’s basket.
