Isabel Allende - Island Beneath the Sea

"Toussaint's death did not mean the end of the revolution. Now General Dessaline is in command. They say he is unflinching," the physician continued.

"What must have happened to Gambo? He didn't trust anyone, even Toussaint," Tete commented.

"He later changed his opinion of Toussaint. More than once he risked his life to save him; he was the general's homme de confiance."

"Then he was with the general when he was arrested," said Tete.

"Toussaint went to a rendezvous with the French to negotiate a political settlement for the war, but he was betrayed. While he was waiting inside the house, they assassinated his guards and the soldiers who accompanied him. I'm afraid that Capitaine La Liberte fell that day defending his general," Parmentier explained sadly.

"Before, Doctor, Gambo used to be with me."

"How was that?"

"In dreams," said Tete vaguely.

She didn't clarify that she used to call to him every night in her thoughts, like a prayer, and sometimes was able to summon him so successfully that she waked beside his heavy, warm, languid body, with the happiness of having slept in her lover's arms. She felt the warmth and smell of Gambo on her skin, and when that happened she didn't wash, to prolong the illusion of having been with him. Those encounters in her dreams were the only solace in the loneliness of her bed, but that had been a long time ago, and now she had accepted Gambo's death; if he were alive he would somehow have communicated with her. Now she had Zacharie. On the nights they shared, when he was available, she rested satisfied and grateful after making love, with Zacharie's large hand on her. Ever since he had been in her life she had not returned to her secret habit of caressing herself as she called to Gambo, because to want another man's kisses, even a ghost's, would have been a betrayal Zacharie did not deserve. The secure and calm affection they shared filled her life; she did not need more.

"No one came out alive from the ambush they set up for Toussaint. There were no prisoners other than the general, and later his family, whom they also arrested," Parmentier added.

"I know they didn't take Gambo alive, Doctor, he would never have surrendered. So much sacrifice and so much war to have the whites win in the end!"

"They haven't won yet. The revolution is still going on. General Dessalines has just vanquished Napoleon's troops and the French have begun to evacuate. Soon we will have another wave of refugees here, and this time they'll be Bonapartists. Dessalines has called on the white colonists to take back their plantations; he says they are needed to produce the wealth the colony once enjoyed."

"We've heard that story several times, Doctor, Toussaint did the same thing. Would you go back to Saint-Domingue?" Tete asked him.

"My family is better here. We will stay. And you?"

"Yes, me too. Here I am free, and Rosette will be very soon."

"Isn't she very young to be emancipated?"

"Pere Antoine is helping me. He knows half the world up and down the Mississippi, and no judge would dare deny him a favor."

That night Parmentier asked Tete about her relationship with Tante Rose. He knew that besides helping her in births and healings, she also helped prepare her medications, and he was interested in the recipes for them. She remembered most of them and assured him they weren't complicated, they could obtain the ingredients from the docteurs feuilles in the Marche Francais. They talked about ways to lower fevers and prevent infections, about infusions to cleanse the liver and relieve bladder and kidney stones, about the salts for migraines, herbs to abort and to stop hemorrhages, about diuretics, laxatives, and formulas to build up the blood, all of which Tete knew from memory. Both laughed about the sarsaparilla tonic the Creoles used for all their illnesses, and agreed that Tante Rose's knowledge was greatly missed. The next day Parmentier called on Violette Boisier to propose that she broaden her beauty lotion business with a list of curative products from the pharmacopeia of Tante Rose, which Tete could prepare in the kitchen and he would agree to buy in their totality. Violette accepted with no hesitation. The arrangement seemed good all the way around: the doctor would get remedies, Tete would collect for her part, and she would be left with the rest without turning a hand.

Then New Orleans was shaken by the most unlikely of rumors. In cafes and taverns, on street corners and squares, people stood around commenting, with irritation and exasperation, on the news, still unconfirmed, that Napoleon Bonaparte had sold Louisiana to the Americans. As the days raced by the idea prevailed that it wasn't true, but they kept talking about the accursed Corsican, because remember, monsieurs, that Napoleon is from Corsica; it can't be said that he's French, he has sold us to the Kaintucks. It was the most formidable and cheap land transaction in history, more than 828,000 square miles-by American reckoning-for the sum of fifteen million dollars, that is, a few cents an acre. The greater part of that territory, occupied by scattered indigenous tribes, had never been explored as it should by whites, and no one could imagine it, but when Sancho Garcia del Solar circulated a map of the continent showing the furthermost reaches, it could be calculated that the Americans had doubled the size of their country. And now what will become of us? How did Napoleon get his hand in this business? Are we not a Spanish colony? Three years before, in the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain had handed Louisiana to France, but very few people knew that yet and life had gone on as usual. The change of government hadn't been noticed; the Spanish authorities stayed on in their posts while Napoleon fought against Turks, Austrians, Italians, and anyone else who got in his way, in addition to rebels in Saint-Domingue. He had to fight on too many fronts, even against England, his ancestral enemy, and he needed time, troops, and money; he could not occupy or defend Louisiana and was afraid it would fall into the hands of the British, so he preferred to sell it to the only interested party: President Thomas Jefferson.

In New Orleans everyone, except for the idlers in the Cafe des Emigres, who already had one foot on a boat to return to Saint-Domingue, heard the news with fear. They believed that Americans were barbarians in buffalo skins who ate with their boots on the table and had no trace of decency, moderation, or honor. Don't even mention class! All that interested them was betting, drinking, and shooting or knife fights; they were diabolically disorderly and to top it all off, Protestants. And they didn't speak French! Well, they would have to learn-if not, how did they plan to live in New Orleans? The entire city was in agreement that to belong to the United States was the equivalent of the end of family, culture, and the one true religion. Valmorain and Sancho, who dealt with Americans in their businesses, brought a conciliatory note to all that ruction, explaining that the Kaintucks were frontiersmen, more or less like buccaneers, and not all Americans could be judged by them. In fact, said Valmorain, in his travels he had known many Americans, well educated, sedate people; perhaps they could be reproached for being overly moralistic and Spartan in their habits, just the opposite of the Kaintucks. Their most notable defect was that they considered work a virtue, even manual labor. They were materialists, conquerors, and they were infused with a messianic enthusiasm for reforming those who did not think as they did; they did not, however, represent an immediate threat to civilization. No one wanted to hear that view save a pair of madmen: Bernard de Marigny, who could smell the enormous commercial possibilities to be gained by ingratiating himself among the Americans, and Pere Antoine, who lived in the clouds.