Hortense and Toulouse were invited not because of their names, as they had hoped, but thanks to Sancho, who had become Marigny's companion and between drinks had hinted that his in-laws would like to meet the noble guest. Sancho had a lot in common with the young marquis-the same heroic bent for risking his skin in duels over imaginary offenses, an inexhaustible energy for entertainment, an extreme gusto for gaming, horses, women, good food, and liquor, and the same divine scorn for money. Sancho Garcia del Solar deserved to be treated like a Creole of purest stock, proclaimed Marigny, who prided himself on being able to recognize a true gentleman with his eyes closed.
The day of the ball, the Valmorain house entered a state of emergency. From the break of dawn the servants trotted back and forth, fulfilling Hortense's peremptory orders, up and down stairs with pails of hot water for the bath, massage creams, diuretic teas to evaporate several years of fat in three hours, applications to clear the skin, shoes, gowns, shawls, ribbons, jewels, face paints. The seamstress was exhausted, and the French hairdresser swooned and had to be resuscitated with a vinegar rub. Valmorain, run into a corner by the frenetic agitation, went with Sancho to kill a few hours in the Cafe des Emigres, where there was never a shortage of friends to bet on cards. Finally, after the hairdresser and Denise had shored up Hortense's tower of curls, which were adorned with pheasant feathers and a gold and diamond brooch that matched her necklace and earrings, came the solemn moment of putting on the dress from Paris. Denise and the seamstress had her step into it in order not to disturb the hairdo. It was a prodigy of white veils and deep pleats that gave Hortense the disturbing aspect of an enormous Greco-Roman statue. When they attempted to fasten the back, with its thirty-eight minuscule mother-of-pearl buttons, they found that even with all their tugging and pulling it would not close; despite the diuretics she had, suffering nerves, just that week put on another five pounds. Hortense let out a shriek that nearly shattered the lamps and attracted everyone in the house.
Denise and the seamstress retreated to a corner and curled up on the floor, awaiting death, but Tete, who knew less than they about her mistress, had the bad idea of suggesting she fasten the dress with pins hidden beneath the bow of the sash. Hortense answered with another strident screech, picked up the whip, which she always had near, and threw herself upon Tete, spitting out sailors' curses and lashing her with all the resentment she had accumulated against her, the concubine, as well as irritation she had for herself for having gained the five pounds.
Tete fell to her knees, bent over, covering her head with her arms. Ssssh, crack! sang the whip, and every moan from the slave inflamed her mistress further. Eight, nine, ten lashes fell, resounding like powder kegs, and Hortense, red and sweating, her tower of hair collapsed into pathetic hanks, showed no signs of being satisfied.
At that instant Maurice charged into the room like a bull, scattering the paralyzed onlookers, and with one great shove, totally unexpected in a boy who had spent the eleven years of his life trying to avoid violence, he pushed his stepmother to the floor. He grabbed the whip and delivered a blow meant to mark her face, but it landed on her neck, cutting off both her breath and the scream in her throat. He lifted his arm to strike again, as beyond himself as a second before she had been, but somehow Tete got to him, caught hold of his breeches, and pulled him back. The second lash fell on the pleats of Hortense's dress.
The Slave Village
Maurice was sent to a boarding school in Boston, something his father had so often threatened, where strict American teachers would make him a man using didactic and disciplinary methods of military inspiration. Maurice went off with his few belongings in a trunk, accompanied by a chaperon hired for the purpose, who left him at the doors of the establishment with a pat of consolation. The boy had not been able to say good-bye to Tete, because the morning after the incident of the whip she was sent without discussion to the plantation, with instructions to Owen Murphy to put her immediately to cutting cane. The manager saw her arrive covered with welts, each the width of a rope for driving oxen, but fortunately none on her face, and sent her to his wife's hospital. Leanne, occupied with a complicated birth, pointed to an aloe pomade Tete should apply, as she was concentrating on a screaming girl terrified by the torment that had been shaking her body for many hours.
Leanne, who had quickly and without much ado given birth to seven sons that were spit out from her chicken frame between two Our Fathers, realized she had a calamity on her hands. She took Tete aside and explained in a low voice, so the girl wouldn't hear, that the baby was lying crossways in the womb, and there was no way for it to get out. "I have never lost a woman in birth, this will be the first," she whispered. "Let me see her, madame," Tete replied. She convinced the girl to let her examine her, oiled her hand, and with her fine and expert fingers found that the mother was dilated and that Leanne's diagnosis was accurate. Through the tight skin of the belly she followed the baby's form as well as if she could see it. She had the girl get on her knees with her head on the floor and rear in the air to relieve pressure on the pelvis as she massaged her belly, pressing with both hands to turn the baby from outside. She had never performed that maneuver but she had watched Tante Rose do it and had not forgotten. At that instant Leanne cried out: a tiny fist had appeared from the birth canal. Tete delicately pushed it back inside to keep from dislocating the arm, until it disappeared inside the mother, and then continued her task with patience, talking with the woman to calm her. At the end of a time that seemed very long, she felt the little creature move, slowly turning to finally slip its head into the birth canal. She could not contain a sob of gratitude, and seemed to see Tante Rose smiling at her side.
Leanne and she each took one arm of the mother, who had realized what was happening and was helping instead of madly resisting, and they walked her in circles, talking to her and stroking her. Outdoors the sun had set, and they realized that they were in the dark. Leanne lighted an oil lamp and they continued until the moment came to receive the baby. "Erzulie, mother loa, help it be born," Tete prayed aloud. "Saint Raymond Nonatus, pay attention, do not let an African saint get ahead of you," Leanne answered in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing. They had the mother crouch over a clean cloth, holding her under her armpits, and ten minutes later Tete held a purplish baby in her hands that, as Leanne cut the cord, she forced to breathe with a slap on the backside.
Once the mother was clean and had the baby on her chest, they cleaned up the bloody rags and remnants from the birth and went to sit on a bench at the door, resting beneath a black, star-filled sky. That was how Owen Murphy found them when he arrived swinging a lantern in one hand and a jug of hot coffee in the other.
"How are things going?" the burly man asked, passing them coffee without coming too close-he was intimidated by female mysteries.
"Your employer has another slave and I have a helper," his wife answered, pointing to Tete.
"Don't complicate my life, Leanne. I have an order to put her in a crew in the cane fields," Murphy mumbled.
"Since when do you obey someone else's orders over mine?" She smiled, standing on tiptoes to kiss him on the neck where the black beard ended.
So that is how it was, and no one asked because Valmorain did not want to know and Hortense had dealt with the irritating matter of the concubine and cleared it from her mind.