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Copyright 2009 by Amanda Fox
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Cover art also by Amanda Fox, copyright 2009
For my husband, who never gives up.
For my children, who make me both laugh and cry.
For the rest of my family, for their enduring love and support.
He told me that he loved me. He'd said it a total of eleven times over eight years; I'd counted. Counted each finger on both hands, plus one. Five instances occurred in the throws of passion, when his mottled penis--an appendage the color of plums and overripe strawberries--plunged in and out of my developing body. Twice, he'd mouthed the words across the dinner table as I cleared the dishes between courses--between the stew and custard, and the meat pie and spice cake. Three times, he'd said it in various locations around the great house: when he caught my arm on the way up the grand staircase, when he pushed me up against the stone wall in the cellar, and in the nursery as I lulled baby Stephane to sleep. The last episode happened in the kitchen when, with his wife’s back turned, he whispered those very words into my ear. “I love you Seraphine," he said. "I love you."
The day I knew for certain that Henri Bouchard’s love for me was false, was the day my life took a turn for the better. It was May 2nd, 1786 at about 3:30 in the afternoon, five years prior to Toussaint L’Ouverture’s joyous insurrection. A revolution had been brewing for some time and reports of many uprisings throughout the Caribbean had reached the house over the years.
Undoubtedly, we were all waiting for the big one to finally deliver our salvation, and as such, the mood between the supervisors and the workers was tense, orders coming down even harsher than usual whenever details of another outbreak made news. Cook always seemed to know about the gossip on and around the Lazare plantation, and that was how I found out about things.
Now, I wouldn’t say that I was a very smart person in those days, but that doesn’t mean I lacked the potential. It’s in us all; it’s just a matter of circumstance, and as you will see, mine were less than ideal. What little schooling I got was acquired mainly by accident as I dusted and tidied up around the master’s children. Marie Rose--Henri’s eldest daughter--took me as a friend and taught me the basics of how to read and write. Cook did what she could as well, but like most of us, she too lacked an education. At best, she tried to impart upon me the essential facts of life, or whatever those could’ve been living in such a terrible place.
And while I don't really blame myself for my predicament, I do wish sometimes that things had been different. Perhaps I should've made better choices, or maybe I should've appealed to the spirits for more guidance and help. No matter. Now that I'm dead I have the clarity to see things for how they truly were anyway.
I know most people fear the end, but in my world, being dead isn't so bad. If that were the case, most of us would never have made it through the fires of hell. Decidedly however, we came across the sea with the firm notion that after death, one is once again reunited with family and friends-- that when a person dies their spirit returns to the homeland for a great feast with all those who have passed on before.
That belief, my friend, is what gave us hope, enough to persevere through the long days and lonely nights of captivity. Considering this, it may seem odd that more people didn't put a rush on the process--you know, getting to the “better” before it was officially time. Admittedly, some did do that, but we weren't put here to cut our own lives short, and this left most of us making the best out of a really bad situation.
Certainly, my people found reasons to live, reasons to believe that life could change, if not for themselves then at least for the generations that came after. We learned from our hardships and took those lessons with us, and that is why, as one of the dearly departed, I remain an invaluable member of my community.
And now that I'm in a good place, I don't like to dwell on the past. There is one situation however that I must clarify because of the important lesson that it taught me. What love truly is or isn't--or was or wasn't in that time before--is my topic for debate.
As the rounds of precipitation began in those early days of the vernal equinox, it became glaringly obvious that Henri Bouchard never truly loved me, and it is with this tidbit of information that we return to our story...
*...*...*The month of May fell right in the middle of harvest season, which ran a lengthy six months of the year, from January to July. An unusual amount of rain had flooded the earth that spring, causing the plants to grow faster than the cutlasses could be swung. Thus, the field workers were forced to labor into the twilight hours almost every evening, and I can't tell you the number of accidents--of cut faces, and slashed arms and legs--that those nighttime operations caused.
While the first and second gangs toiled among the tall stalks of cane in the blistering heat by day and in the shadows by night, I continued on with my job inside the house. While it seemed like I had been working for two or three lifetimes already, in reality, only a quarter of a century had passed. I was barely a woman.
Born on the plantation to a woman named Beatrice, I ended up an orphan at the age of three when my mother was beaten to death for drinking water when she should have been chopping cane. With no one to watch over me, I got shuffled around among the others until one day Lillian--a woman who had lost her own child during the passage overseas--took pity on me. As the cook, she managed to get me inside the great house, making sure I had enough food to eat and a warm place to sleep.
Thanks to her, I persevered, growing up alongside the eldest children of the Bouchard family. In the kitchen, I helped to gather vegetables, prepare meat, wash dishes, and scrub floors--any and all of the numerous tasks involved in running a household of that size. At the age of fifteen, things changed and I was put in charge of the Bouchard’s three youngest offspring--Stephane, Natalie, and Anaise.
Becoming the nursemaid on the Lazare plantation was not a decision of the missus, that's for sure. There were arguments over who should get the job, but as the man of the house, Henri had the last say. “You have a pleasing and kind nature, Seraphine. The little ones have taken a liking to you, and I think that you are perfectly suited for this job.” That was his explanation and I had no reason to doubt him.
The position was passed to me from an older woman named Mitzi who had succumbed to a devastating illness of the brain--when she couldn't remember the children’s names anymore and when she started behaving like she’d been possessed by the devil. It was a common affliction among us, and sadly, Mitzi was sent out one day, never to return.
After I accepted my post, I wondered about her often. When I asked him, Henri simply said that she'd been discharged of her duties and had gone to live with her cousins in town. In my heart however, I knew she'd been killed--probably burned to death or eliminated in some other equally abhorrent manner.
Ignorance is bliss as they say, and so, as a teenager I tended my charges happily, unconcerned for my own safety if things ever went awry. Again, it wasn't until later that I came to see Henri for the despicable man that he truly was, and not until after the grand contretemps that I am leading up to, that I contemplated the rationale behind his arrangement.
I think now that Henri entrusted me with the position of nursemaid for one reason, and one reason only. It brought me closer to his children, closer to his family, and indirectly, closer and more available to him as well. That must've been his intention, because that's exactly what happened.
Mind you, the particular moment that I knew I was meant to be more than an aide to the Bouchard’s children didn’t involve erotic words or sexual innuendo. With an easy stroke of his hand up the length of my spine--a casual touch where there hadn’t been one before--he so much as told me that I'd become an object in his quest for personal gratification. In fact, he spoke of something completely off topic when he made the move.
We were in the study and he was giving me instructions on what to do with Stephane and the girls while he and the missus were away for the morning. “Seraphine, make sure the children bathe once they’ve completed their lessons. The girls need to have their hair washed as we are expecting visitors later on this evening. Furthermore, the linens in the sleeping quarters need to be cleaned and the pillows fluffed. Please see that this is all done by the time we get back.”
On the last sentence of his diatribe, he moved up quite close to my front and reached around to trace over the vertebrae of my spine. As he did, his eyes met mine with a glazed-over look, like I was something delicious to eat and he was a very hungry animal indeed. Now, as I'm sure you can gather, whether or not I got involved with this man was never an option left open for debate. I was the slave and he was my master. That made it a done deal.
Oh, I may have put up more of a fight, but Henri seemed like a kind and gentle man, and I was such a lonely, young girl. I confused his sexual advances as signs of love and affection--two things that I craved more than anything--and thus sex with Henri became part of my job. I'm ashamed to admit this, but it was something I actually enjoyed most of the time, right up until the end that is.
The end. I remember that day as if it weren't a lifetime ago, mainly because it took place just before my twenty-fourth birthday, eight long years since Henri had procured me as his lover. Before I go any further, let me describe to you the man who stole my virginity, the man who was to become the bane of my existence.
To begin with, Henri was the color of boiled snapper, his skin ghoulishly pale next to my cocoa brown. His hair was the texture of a horse's mane and his eyes were so squinty that it was like the sun was always shining in his face. Oddly enough, he was devoid of eyelashes, but his eyebrows compensated for his lacking there by crossing over the middle bridge of his nose where they almost touched--two caterpillars saying hello.
Speaking of his nose, his nostrils were so narrow that I often wondered how he ever got enough oxygen. Moreover, his legs were like sticks and they pointed inward at the knee, giving him a rather feeble gait. When he stood naked however, he had a roll of fat that hung like a tire around his waist. Without a doubt, he was a rather pathetic human specimen, but then I was never drawn to him for his physical qualities in the first place.
Albeit homely, Henri's demeanor was amicable and his temperament seemed even-keeled. From what I'd seen, Henri was a good father to his children and a kind husband to his wife, who, if you ask me, was a very ill tempered and quarrelsome woman.
She never liked me--that's for sure. She must've known about my affair with her husband and was simply staking a claim to her territory, making it very clear who was, and who was not, the wife. Certainly, I would've found it hard to believe that she didn't know about the two of us, or the others.
Yes, of course there were others. Even I knew that. No man of status in the colonies--planter, trader, businessman or otherwise--was restricted in the number of lovers that he took. How did I cope with this knowledge? Well, I just imagined myself at the top of Henri’s list, focusing on his feelings for me (or what I interpreted were feelings for me), and closing the door on the rest.
And Camille, well, I often wondered what he ever saw in her to begin with. I didn’t like to think that he picked her and I both, for I saw no similarities between us.
Now Henri’s personality, while affable enough, was certainly not the aggressive type, and it may have accounted for his less than stellar achievement in enterprise. Compared to other planters in the Caribbean, Henri Bouchard held title to only a single plantation--Lazare--which he'd named after his father.
Henri and Camille, and their six children lived with us most of the time. They’d come from somewhere far across the ocean, but stayed on the plantation a good three quarters of the year, sometimes more. Supposedly, they stayed so that Henri could ensure things ran smoothly, so he could guarantee that none of his underlings ever tried to displace him as overlord. His power I guess, was not so far reaching.
If you recall, the day in question--the “end” as it were--was a hazy May afternoon, and I was in one of the guest rooms in a remote section of the east wing. Henri and I had just finished having sexual relations as he was want to do at least four or five times a week. As I said before, I enjoyed my encounters with Henri and I will never forget my first time.
“Open your legs for me, Mon Cherie,” I remember him saying. “I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.” Tentatively, I unfolded, Henri helping some by pressing my knees to the side. When he then caressed my private area, the feelings that I felt were so intense that I actually cried. It'd been so long since I'd experienced intimate contact that these initial touches were overwhelming.
“Seraphine, it will be OK. You are such a dear girl, but don’t worry. I know how to make you feel so good, you’ll cry for me every time we’re together.” His arrogant words somehow made me brave and I mustered enough courage to watch what he was doing. Skillfully, Henri slid his fingers through the thatch of course black hair that covered my secret lips and everything moved along quite easily until he attempted to push his finger inside.
Met with resistance, he worked slowly, alternating gentleness with pressure until he was in up to his knuckle. “My goodness, Seraphine. I knew you would be unyielding, but this is better than I’d hoped.” Licking his lips, he poked and prodded until he was able to add another finger and yet another, stretching me until he'd ultimately replaced his digits with his erect penis.
With the enthusiasm of an unseasoned soldier, Henri's penis always stood up for me, and the more times he entered my body, the more I actually enjoyed the experience. I was proud to know just how much I aroused him, and sometimes when I saw him coming, he would almost gallop, a horse running to the trough after a long, hard ride. In the very least, our unbridled affair brought a variety of welcome pleasures to us both and I was grateful for the physical satisfaction that was prevailed upon my person.
As the years crept by however and as I thought more and more about the privileges that freedom would bring--a notion that was almost conceivable by that point in time--I began questioning both Henri’s motives and my desire for him. So when I raised my head off the pillow that day in May overcome by feelings of exhaustion and desistance, I was less than surprised.
“Come here Seraphine. Let me look at your face in the sunlight.” Sluggishly, I moved off the rumpled bed, pulled down the skirt of my cotton shift, and went to stand beside him near the open window. With each step, I felt the residual ache between my legs from where his penis had been only moments before, and my feet moved like stone tablets. I'd had enough, and I hoped that he wasn't expecting more.
There was a faint breeze that day and on a current of heated air, the poignant aroma of a hemp pipe wafted up from the shed down below. Somebody was smoking that afternoon, secreting away a few moments of bliss. Inhaling deeply, I tried to share in their diversion. When Henri reached over to clasp my hand--his palm was cold to my warm--I knew that something was wrong with him too.
Relinquishing his grip to finish buttoning his shirt, he murmured, “You are so beautiful Seraphine. Do you know that?” His eyes now vacant, he kept the compliments coming. “Your skin makes me think of a chocolate sun, radiant and sweet. And if I could press my nose into these lovely ringlets of yours for all eternity, I would be ecstatic.” He began nibbling erroneously at my neck, pulling a coil of hair to its full length.
What happened next, I consider to be a major turning point in my life to follow. Without warning, Henri pushed up behind me and shoved me hard against the window frame. Pressing his formless body into mine, he wrapped his arms around my slender physique and cupped one palm over my breast like it needed his support. Stroking and fondling me there briefly, he then firmly encircled my waist with his other limb.
“I have something to tell you Seraphine,” he said, anger in his tone. “I can’t see you like this anymore.”
With that, he pinched my breast, much harder than usual. Confused, I froze, wondering what I had done, wondering what had brought on this display of fortitude. It was so unlike Henri to use aggression in his sexual games. Was he angry because, as he'd stated, we couldn't be together anymore? Had he detected my feelings of distance and distraction? As I tried to understand what was happening, Henri was gaining momentum, tightening his arm around my middle like some giant snake intent on crushing its prey.
“The true nature of a person is exposed when things don’t go their way,” Cook used to say. With Henri’s sudden change in personality, I thus began to panic. Slapping at his wrists, I tried desperately to get him to stop, but as I sputtered and gasped, he started thrusting his pelvis up into my buttocks, threatening to take me again, more vigorously than he ever had before.
Screaming, I smacked at him fiercely, prying his hands away from the folds of my dress, thrashing about like my body was on fire. Much to my utter amazement, as quickly as it all began, everything then stopped. In that instant, Henri transformed into a mouse before my very eyes, shrinking away until he wallowed alone in the middle of the room. There, shaking his head, he lingered in his private space far away from where I stood. For a split second, I felt sorry for the man who had been commandeering my body for eight long years. When I looked down at the floor, unable to make eye contact, Henri walked out. It was over.
Following that day, there were to be no more sequestered kisses, no more coy looks, and no more declarations of love. Henri was done with me. What'd happened for him to end it, I was never quite sure, but I have made my guesses. Did he ever truly love me? The irrational part of me says “yes”, but the sane part is convinced that he did not. Isn’t it odd how a person can be so enamored with another that they don't see the pit of danger that lies two feet in front of them? In my case though, I don't believe it was a person that was the attraction. I think it was more of a situation or an idea. Henri had always been kind, but I was never enthralled with the man. I believe now that I simply got lost in his conviviality toward me.
In that bedroom--reeling from what'd just ensued--another one of Cook’s famous sayings came to me. “It is sometimes easier to forget your own plight, if you focus on the plight of others.” So with Henri gone, I looked back out the window and surveyed the vast fields of sugarcane where my blessed brothers and sisters dotted the landscape like flies on the carcass of a dead goat. Amid the tall stocks of cane, the workers tried to hide, or at least they should have. I'm sure they wanted to--anything to avoid the overseer as he milled about with his instruments of torture.
In the face of horror, the occasional glint of a razor-sharp blade caught the light from the sun, and I watched as the brilliant flash rebounded throughout the rows of crops. It made me think about how the field slaves spent week after tireless week, month after month, and year after year, digging and hacking away until their backs held a permanent arch. More specifically though it made me think about their situation compared to mine.
I knew that I was luckier than most. The floor that I walked across to get to my bed wasn't dirt- covered and littered with garbage. No, I lived inside where I was spared the annoyance of beetles, moths, snakes and insects. Make no mistake however. Even though my circumstances may have sounded better than those of the field workers, they still carried the inflictions of a double-edged sword.
Not one of us had it easy, and I, like everyone else in the house, moiled over the tasks that were meant to make the lives of the whites winsome and worry free. We were at the beck and call of our master and his family every second of every hour of every day. Being so close to those in charge had its own set of obligations, one in which, as I'm sure you understand by now, I became more than just a little embedded.
And while I will admit to having had sex with Henri on numerous occasions, I have to count my blessings that I was never forcibly plundered, though you could argue otherwise. What I mean to say is that I was never brutally raped like so many other slave women, including others on the Lazare plantation. Henri had never been harsh toward me and he certainly was not one of those twisted sorts who enjoyed stuffing explosives into women’s anuses or who got off on thrusting hot branding irons into their vaginas.
Owing to the fact that Henri was such a pansy in every other aspect of his life, it would've astonished me to find out that he'd ever engaged in anything too nefarious. He was the type of man to pass the buck of wrongdoing on to someone else, but you never know. I'd witnessed an unexpected side to him, and after that, I was never too sure.
With Henri’s news and his curious exit from the room, I was left alone--angry, relieved, disappointed and afraid. Ultimately, I'd been rejected, but more than that, I'd been betrayed. The man I thought I'd loved, (and whom I was positive had loved me in return), had just walked away without a single word of clarification.
The weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders at last, and yet, as I took this independence, it felt like I was being squashed by melancholy. I did my best to hold them back, but sadness triumphed, and my tears fell. As the emptiness moved through me, it all became glaringly obvious--who or what I'd been to Henri Bouchard had nothing to do with love. Invariably, I'd been an asset, an article, a piece of property like a hammer, or a cracked serving bowl--a thing for him to use, abuse, and discard at leisure. I felt foolish to think I'd ever been more.
Whether it was the darkest brown, or the lightest tan, it didn’t matter. We were all the same. We shared a likeness of complexion that was simply not white, and that is what sealed our fates. We were slaves--human chattel--working for the benefit of the white man with no payment or recompense of our own. Cheated, deceived, forcibly expropriated, we'd been stripped of family and social foundation, and left to rot for somebody else’s boon.
Through the heartache and suffering, we tried to stay strong, but for some of us, our bodies just stopped, giving over to death--a welcome end to an unspeakable journey. We tried our best to stay alive though, doing what was commanded of us until our hearts bled with sorrow and our bodies ached with pain. Some of us cut cane in the fields, working from the drone of the conch shell or the toll of the bell at sun-up, to a procession of maimed and enfeebled silhouettes at sundown. My people were forced to work into the dimness of every evening, until the overseer prodded them back to their bunks for the night.
Others worked under the roof of the great house, and that is where I found my place. By the time I withdrew from that fateful room, the sun had begun to set, and I knew that dinner preparations would be underway. I hurried back to the kitchen, not completely at ease, but carrying a lighter burden in my heart then I'd had hours earlier. My troubles however, were far from over.
After everyone had finished eating, Henri called across the table to his wife. “I have something for you, mon cherie.” This sudden announcement brought a flurry of excited claps from Camille. The children, who were half way out of the room already, rushed back in.
“Papa, what is it?” giggled Natalie.“What have you gotten for Maman?” asked Stephane quietly, always the consummate boy.
“Let me see! Let me see!” squealed little Anaise. The older children as well, though they never spoke, stood at attention near their mother. Everyone was waiting anxiously, including the other house slaves, to see what Henri had brought for Camille. I too, stopped what I was doing and paused to get a look at the gift.
“Oh, Henri. What is it? Do tell me. Please! Please!” Camille begged, though to me, the tone of her voice didn’t indicate genuine surprise.
“Be patient, my love. I’m getting to it,” Henri laughed. And like royalty, Camille sat on her throne and waited. A second later (and so typical of her) his queen sarcastically cajoled, “Don’t tell me you remembered. You never remember.”
“Ah, but my darling. This is an extra special day, is it not? As a commemoration of our twenty- fifth wedding anniversary, I honor you--my wife, my love--with a token of my affection.” With that, he got up from his seat and reached down deep into his pants’ pocket, pulling out a long, fancy-looking box. But while Henri may have been talking to his wife, he was staring directly at me, smiling like the devil. Walking over to where Camille sat, his eyes were glued to mine. “You are so beautiful. Do you know that?” he said. The statement was like a knife in my chest.
When he placed a necklace around her lily-white neck, Camille shrilled in delight. Standing tall, Henri declared, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man,” he paused, “or woman,” he paused again, “put asunder.” His valiant words made my heart sink, and I watched as Camille fingered the shiny treasure that lay between her breasts. When I looked up again however, I saw two people glowering at me--Henri and Camille both.
“It’s lovely isn’t it, Seraphine?” Camille gloated. “Would you like to get a closer look?” The question was hurtful and she knew it.
“No Madame, though it does look very beautiful from here,” I replied, practically choking on my words. “Monsieur Bouchard must love you very much.”
“He does indeed, don’t you darling?” She turned to Henri as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek.
“I will always love you Camille. You are my one and only.”
You know, in my heart, I wasn't a vindictive woman, but sometimes somebody's got to do a thing or two to make up for what's been going on. After Henri had walked out on me that day in the bedroom, he should've left well enough alone. But after his display the same evening at supper when he gave that self-righteous bitch the locket, and after Camille had taken a swing at me herself with those hateful words, I'd had enough. Can you say revenge?
Of course, as a slave, there wasn't much I could do, but I thought of two things. The first and most important element in my plot was to remain calm. I couldn't let them see how much they'd hurt me; I couldn't let them see my pain. This, I knew, would be my easiest task since I'd been doing it my whole life. As a woman of color, I'd bested the art of masking my misery.
The second component to my stratagem was to take the locket. Camille surely didn't deserve to have it. It should've been mine because of all that I'd given to Henri, don’t you think? After all, I'd given him my love--selflessly, willingly, passionately, without question or defiance--and what had he done? Nothing. Not one thing. I gave and he took. He took until he was tired of taking, until it was inconvenient for him to take, until the taking posed a problem.
Real love isn't based on convenience or profit. It has its roots in beneficence, and with Henri, it was never about that. The worst part of the whole deal though was not what he took or how much, but the fact that he wasn't even marginally grateful for any of it. He'd betrayed my innocence, disregarding any sense of obligation to say thank you or act civilly toward me in the end.
So I stole the necklace, though the details of the deed I kept to myself. One night, almost two years past the day it'd been proffered--when the family was downstairs entertaining guests and I was tucking the youngest into bed--I snuck into the master suite and took it.
There is another saying. My relatives are full of them. It goes, “The giver of the blow forgets; the bearer of the scar remembers.” I will never forget what happened during those years because I bore many scars, most of them invisible. And no one suspected me. It'd been too long and I'd played it cool enough that I was never pinned as the probable culprit. I'd managed to keep my disappointment about my relationship with