THE LIFE: CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT: ONE AND THE SAME


          Once the ship set sail, I realized I had no idea where it was sailing to. The mystery woman persuaded a man who worked on deck to see to it that we could sleep somewhere with no windows. He happily obliged her. When we made it to what was called our stateroom, I was thankful for the darkness and the cold. I was still uneasy about the mystery woman. It was strange of her to be willing to sleep in a place that the rats didn't seem to want to be in. She was very persuasive, and was able to talk sweetness out of sugar. I had a feeling by the time we got to where we were going, she was going to owe a lot of people a lot of favors. I watched her, as she closed the door behind us, sat her bags down and locked the door.

          "Ma'am, I am much obliged to you for taking me on like this, but you gotta know, I can't pay you nothing."  I was ashamed and felt guilty for having to be a burden to her.

          She looked at me with a slight grin.  "Miss Emma, I ain't asking you fo' no money. I's just here to help you. That's all."  She began sifting through her things, searching for something.

          "But, why you wanna help me? I ain't no body special. 'Sides, I never seen no white woman help no colored person no way."

          She gave a hearty laugh, as she sat next to me on one of the tiny cot in the small room and rested her bag in her lap.  "Child, you look at me and think I be a white woman? My daddy was white, my momma is Haitian Creole. I guess that be what give me my color, but it don't make me white. You ain't white, is ya?"  She was smiling at my ignorance.  "I helps you because we family." She looked at me and gave a wink.

          "We be kin? But, my family is dead. No blood to speak of."

          "Beg pardon?" She looked surprised that I would say such a thing.

          I was afraid to look up at her, so I spoke again with my head hanging as low as possible.  "Just that, when I first laid eyes on you, I thought I knew you from somewhere. You got them familiar eyes, as my mamma use to say."

          She started to laugh softly.  "Miss Emma, look at me."  She placed her hand under my chin and gave a slight lift. I looked into her eyes and she met my gaze.  "We not kin cause we blood. We kin cause we of the same spirit."

          "I don't understand."  I confessed.

          "Child, you got so much to learn about this life."  She said shaking her head.

          "I's only sixteen, Ma'am. Neva knowed much to begin with. I was living on a plantation and had to make haste outta the city. That's all I know."

          "Make haste? Who you left yo sucka wit'?"

          The look of surprise was not hidden on my face.  "How did you know I had a youngen? I don't remember saying anything about my baby girl."

          "I know cause yo titis still be with milk." She said, pointing a finger at my bosom.  I noticed all of her nails were long. "Milk that be spoiled now cause it be dead milk. I know cause I can smell it on you."

          "Ma'am, I don't know what you be speaking of."  I was nervous and very uneasy with the things she was saying to me.

          "Emma, child, I know you be dead. I know cause I be dead too. That be how you knowed me. How you said, 'I have familiar eyes'. So, how long you been dead? Smells like only a day or two." She reached for her bag and continued to search through it.

          With barely a whisper, I said,  "Bout two days now."  I paused for a moment.  "How long you be dead?"

        "I be dead for eight years now. Be time for me to get out of this city. I have too many old memories here now."  She said it as though it was no more than answering a question about her name.  What is her name? She never told me, and I never asked.

          "Ma'am, I never asked what yo name be. Can I know that?"  I was a little embarrassed for not asking before now.

          "Of course you can know that, Miss Emma"  She said with a smile.  "My name is Eldora Marie Francoise." I be from a place called Mississippi. That be where I was born and died."  She had a sad look on her face, as her eyes seem to hold memories in the front of her mind.  "I was a slave just like you. I was the daughter of our slave master, Cornelius Fourie. Of course, no body was 'spose to know that, except everybody did know.  He died just a couple of months after I was born. My mamma told me he went out on his buggy one day and neva came back. She said some local peoples found him laying in a stream of shallow water just under the old bridge that lead to his uncle plantation. They say nobody knowed who he was 'til one of the peoples found his head a few clicks down the stream."  She spoke of him as if she was remembering a tale from a book she had read.

          "Who killed him?" I was curious, but also afraid of the answer.

          "His uncle killed him, child. They say his uncle, Antoine Rousseau, Cornelius mamma's brother,  knowed that he was having relations with a colored woman and he didn't need no body knowing that his nephew was a nigga lova. Antoine knowed Cornelius was coming to meet him at the plantation. So, Antoine met him on the bridge fo' he got there and killed him. Peoples say Antoine thought he make it look like a stranger killed Cornelius, but nobody thought that a stranger just come in and cut another stranger head clean off.  Cornelius daddy, Louis Fourie,  knowed who killed his son, so he take a few men with him to Antoine plantation. They say Antoine was sleeping next to his wife, when old Louis came in and cut off his manhood.  They say one man take his wife and cut her head clean off.  Antoine died slow and was made to watch them men kill his wife the same way he killed Cornelius."

          I was horrified by this story, but I needed to know more. I had to know more.  "What happened to old Louis Fourie? Did some body come to kill him? It seem like they live by eye for a eye."

          "No, child. No body killed old Louis. He was a old man. This be why he don't be able to do the killing hisself.  He just died of old age."

          "But, if you had no master, who be the owner of you?"

          "After Louis died, his youngen was the owner of the plantation. His name was Arthur Choiseul Fourie. He was a young man, just catching up to his manhood. He had no notion of how to run a plantation. He neva wanted to be a slave owner. He wanted to live his life the way he wanted to live his life. They say he was not happy, but not because his daddy died. Even though he neva wanted to run the plantation, it be his birth right. His wife was, Elodie Oleander-Fourie. She was a woman of great morals, and she was kind to the slaves. My mamma tell me this is how she get my name cause she loved Miss Elodie.
          "Arthur wife was with child and give birth soon after I was born. Miss Elodie had a son, and she called him Alexandre Arnauld Fourie.  Ten seasons later, Miss Elodie died of consumption. Seven seasons after that, Arthur Fourie died of smallpox.

"What is smallpox? Is that like chickenpox?"

"No, little one. Smallpox is mo' deadly. It spreads quicker and once you get the sickness, ain't no coming back from it.  'Sides, he got it, when he traveled to other lands by boats kinda like this one."

          "We ain't going to no place like that is we, Miss Francoise?"  I was a little scared to live in a place that would be full of death.

          "That won't make us no neva mind. Now would it? Us being already dead and all."  She poked my arm playfully.  She was right. I keep forgetting that.  "Sides, we be going to Rome on this here boat. We gone be on here a good while, so get settled in, make this home for a spell."  Eldora went to another bag and lifted an urn from it. She opened the top and took a drink. My jar didn't look nothing like the one she had. I knew what she was drinking, but I didn't say anything.  "Do you care to drink or do you have some fo yo'self in one of them bags?"

          "I have some, but your urn is prettier than my jar. Victoria gave me enough for a few days."

          "Well, you welcome to some, if you please. We can always get mo'."  She placed the urn on top of a wooden crate that sat between the two cots in the room.

          "How we gone get mo' blood? You say we gone be on this here boat for a spell. I gotta hunt for my food. Ain't no way to hunt on this boat."  I started to fear that I would not be able to survive the boat ride. I never thought about where or how I was going to feed on a boat traveling to what might as well be nowhere.
     
          "Don't get scared now, Miss Emma. Imma learn you to feed the way I feed."

          "But ain't no animals on this boat. What is we gone do for food?"

          "Oh, there be plenty of animals on this boat", she said as, she sat on the cot across from me, "but we leave them for the peoples who gotta eat them. We don't gotta eat animals, Emma."

          "Well, how we gone eat if not animals?'  My young mind never fails to keep me outta the know-how.

          "We feeds on the animals with two legs, not fo'."  She saw the frown on my face. She knew I did not have an inkling of what she meant.  "Humans, Emma. There be plenty of them to go around. Don't you think?"

          "Oh no, Miss.....

          "Eldora." She interrupted.

          "Oh no, Miss Eldora.......

          "Just, Eldora. No 'Miss'. Ok, Emma?"

          "Yes, Ma'am. Eldora, I was told to neva feed on humans."

          "And, who told you that?"  She lay down, her right side resting on the cot, as she looked at me with a frown on her face.

          "Victoria told me to neva do that. She said to only feed on animals. Thems be the rules." I stated reassuring myself of this fact.

          "Victoria? That be the one who made you like you is? That be the one who made you leave yo youngen behind? This Victoria, the same who told you to neva come back?"

          "Yes, Ma'......I mean, Eldora."

          Eldora looked around the room, she stood up and looked under the cots and out of the door of our room. She turned back to me with a look of surprise on her face.  "Well, suga, I don't see Victoria no where round here. Do you?"

          "No, I don't."  I said, as I turned away from her.

          "So, this woman give you all these rules, but ain't nowhere around to teach you how to be what you be? Emma, you gotta survive out here. You won't survive on no pig blood and cow juices. You gotta be strong. You gotta be able to defend yo'self, when it come down to it. Goat milk ain't gone help you.  My mamma taught me all I needs to know about surviving in this world the way I be now."

          "You told yo' mamma about this life? I thought we not 'spose to tell no body."  My young mind hard at work for me yet again.

          "My mamma made me who I be, Emma. My mamma give me life twice. Not many peoples can say that."  Eldora lay down on the cot, this time on her back with her eyes closed. She folded her arms across her flat stomach, and let out a sigh.  She knew from my silence that I did not understand what she was telling me. So she started again..."Emma, when I was seventeen years old, my mamma knowed that I be with child befo' I knowed it. She said she can tell by the look of me. I neva had a husband or gentleman caller, buy my mamma knowed the secrets that I keep."

          "Secrets? How she knowed yo secrets? No body 'spose to know; that be why they call 'em secrets."

          "Oh, Emma, you be so young and innocent. But, you have to know that somethings can't be kept from some people. My mamma knowed me well enough to know all that be going on round bout me."

          "So, yo mamma knowed who the daddy of yo youngen was?"

          "Yes, she did. She knowed it all."  Eldora still had her eyes closed as she thought about something.

          "Who was it? Did somebody force yo childhood away from you?"

          "No, Emma. Nobody forced nothing away from me. The daddy was Alexandre Arnauld Fourie."  She allowed her words to sink in. Moments later I remembered.

          "Alexandre? The youngen of the slave owner when you was a youngen?"  I was in disbelief.

          "Yes, dear. He is the father of my child. My mamma knowed it and so did his wife, Caroline Belmont. She was a loose woman. A whore among whores and Alexandre knew it. The marriage was already in place, when he was a child. He neva wanted to marry, but he was forced into it. You know, to keep up appearances. Caroline was beautiful. She had long hair like the sun and beautiful fair skin. She was a bit shorter than I be, but her female form was perfect.  She didn't suffer from a lack of suitors. She was the woman every aristocrat wanted, and most of them had her before and after she was married to Alexandre."

          "So, Alexandre didn't care? He just let her be bout her own self in that way?"

          "He cared for her, but he neva wanted to marry her. He say he hardly ever lay with her in that way. They was married for two seasons before he ever knowed me."

          "Knowed you? I thought.....

          "Relations." She interrupted and explained.

          "Oh."  Was all I could say.

          She continued on.  "When my momma saw that I be with child, she give me special medicine to take. Medicine that she say been in our family since befo' her mamma's mamma was born. She told me it be fo' the health of my youngen. She said it will make him grow up big and strong like a mighty oak tree. But, my mamma knowed that when the baby come, I would not be long for this earth. So, Mamma thought this be a way for me to not be dead. She thought keeping me here after my soul was gone, was better than losing me forever."

          "So, how long after the baby come did you die? Did you die in childbirth?"

          "No. Nothing like that I guess. My mamma knowed the temper of Alexandre's wife. She knowed Caroline had inklings about me and her husband. But, right befo' my baby was to be born, Caroline was happy and telling everyone that she was with child and would soon deliver. My mamma knowed it was a lie, but I was young and had no inkling about the matter.
          "On the morning I died, I was out back, just beyond the great porch, and I was gathering some baskets of peas after the shelling been done. I hear my name called, and I looked round bout to see who be calling fo' me. I see Miss Caroline standing in the way of the porch door. She asked if I could come in and help her get ready for the birth of her youngen. I was pleased to have this bestowed on me. This was a nice way of her letting me know that she trust me and think me a friend of sorts.  Miss Caroline was barren. She could neva produce no youngens, but this I neva knowed at the time. She was planning to have my youngen. as her own. My precious baby boy."

          "I don't understand. How she thought nobody would ever know she took yo youngen from you?"

          Without hesitation or any assurance Eldora heard anything I said, she continued on.  "I followed her into the house, through the kitchen down the long hallway past the grand room, and to the left of the dining room. When I walked into the parlor of the house, right off the main front door, Caroline turned around to face me. The silence round bout the house should have told me that something was not right, but I didn't realize what was going on until I saw the butchers' knife in her hand. By then it was too late." She paused to stay in control of her emotions, which I saw slowly slipping away from her. She closed her eyes again and gave another sigh.  "I saw her cold, black, demon eyes the moment the knife struck me in the bottom on my belly and ripped it open. I was bleeding, but I didn't feel no pain cause I was in shock of what was happening to me. She watched me, as I turned away from her and fell to the floor flat on my belly. She kicked me in my head, and my back, and my side many times until she finally used her foot to roll me over on my back. The evil in her eyes was piercing my soul with every movement she made. She leaned down next to me, and without saying a word, she stuck the knife in my belly again. Only this time, she cut me from bottom to top. She reached in my belly and pulled my youngen from me.You see, Emma, my boy was never born. He was ripped away from my body. I could hear my boy cry, and I could feel her tugging at something that was still holding on to me. After that everything went silent. No more pain, no more crying, no more light. She left me there to bleed out on the floor of the parlor."

          "That is so very awful! Awful thing to do to somebody!"  I was crying and angry.  "How can somebody do that to another human? It's just awful!"  I was unable to stop crying.  Eldora sat up and came over to my cot. She sat next to me and hugged me as close as she could to her bosom.

          "I am sorry. I neva mean to make you cry, Miss Emma."  I pulled away slowly and wiped my eyes. When I looked at my hands, I noticed something strange on them. Eldora saw my expression and explained to me, "Those just be yo new tears. Now, when you cry, it shine like diamonds."

          I managed to put aside the explanation of the tears. It was just something I would have to question later.  "I don't understand the evil in this world at all. I don't think I ever will. I'm too young to be out here on my own. I'm not gone make it, Eldora. I'm not."  I confessed and sobbed at the same time.

          "Emma, there be some evil people in this world. Living and dead. People who be out to hang you, burn you, or chop off yo head. In my case, rip a baby clean from his mamma's belly. The world is full of 'em, and you gone learn that soon enough."

          I managed to stop crying.  "What happened to yo boy? Did he die too?"

          "No, sweet Emma. When I come back from the dead, my mamma was already in the crypt waiting for me to wake up. She told me about where I was and why I was there. It took awhile for everything to click in my head. I was confused and frightened, and any other terrifying emotions you can think of. When I gained my thoughts,  I asked her about my baby. She told me, when Alexandre found out what Caroline had done to me, he made a fire and made her eat hot coals til she be dead. My mamma said he took my youngen to hisself."

          "Like Caesar's wife."  I said with a whisper."

          "What was that, dear?"  I knew she heard me. I didn't mean for her to hear me. I forgot that our hearing was better that humans.  "I just asked why yo mamma didn't want to take the baby?"

          "She did. But, she knowed he would have a better life with Alexandre. He would grow up smart from learning how to read and from all of the things only a man can teach a boy. 'Sides, my baby was his first born. All the peoples knowed it was my baby, but nobody ever said anything else about it. Alexandre was generous enough to beckon for my mamma to tend to my boy. She became his favorite person in the world. He loved his daddy, but he would mountains for his Gran Gran, though he didn't know that she was his Gran Gran"

          "Did you love him? Alexandre?"  I was curious cause I know I loved my husband. I didn't at first sight, but God knows I loved him before I died.

          She went back to her cot and began to undress.  "I don't know. I think so. I ain't too sho' how that love 'spose to feel. My mamma seem to think I did, so I guess it was love. I knowed I neva felt that way about nobody befo' Alexandre or after."  She unzipped her dress and allowed it to fall to the floor. Her undergarments was long and shiny and fancy.

          "So, you never had the chance to name your baby?" I watched her as she moved around our little room with so much elegance and grace. I wish I could move like she move.

          "Oh, I did. Soon as my momma told me I was having a boy, I chose a name for him. I called him Ambroisio Laurent.  I wanted him to have a part of my creole heritage. What about you, Emma. What did you name yo youngen?"

          I became sad at the thought of my baby being without me.  "I died only minutes after she was born. I didn't get to name her until I woke up with this life.  I called her Gemi. She be of light and darkness. A little of what I was and a little of what I am now."

          After she finished getting ready for bed, she sat back down on her cot.  "That be a pretty name for a pretty girl. First light will be up soon. Li lè pou kabann. Koulye a, jwenn kèk dòmi, ti kras yon sèl."

          "What the hell does that mean?"  I was shocked by my own words. But, really?

          Eldora laughed.  "It's Creole."  She laughed some more.  " It means, 'It's time for bed. Now get some sleep little one.'  There be a lot I have to learn you Miss Emma. She laughed again.

          "Eldora, if you be willing to show me how to be what I be and teach me, what you gone want from me?"

          "Beg pardon?" She gave me a curious look.

          "Victoria told me ain't nothing free in this world. So, what you gone want from me?"  I tried to sound all grown up, but she knew I was faking my way through it.

          "Well, I see this Victoria did teach you something useful in this life."

          "I reckoned she did."  I was proud of myself for sounding like a real grown up.

          "Well, I tell you what. Since we gone be on this here boat for a spell, I will learn you things you need to know to survive. I may even learn you some Creole talk."

          I laughed.  "I don't think I can learn that kinda talk."

          "Well, you can stop pretending you ain't got some kinda notion on how to speak, how they say, proper."

          "Huh?"

          "Huh? Now that don't be the proper way to speak. Whiles we on this boat, I reckon you gone learn me how to read."