Isabel Allende - Island Beneath the Sea

In the meantime, Jean, dressed in black, with white lace cuffs and collar and pistols at his waist, was strolling through the crowd, seducing the incautious with his easy smile and the dark, beguiling gaze of a snake charmer. He greeted Violette Boisier with a theatrical bow, and she responded with kisses on both cheeks, like the old friends they'd come to be after several years of deals and mutual favors.

"May I ask what might interest the only woman capable of stealing my heart?" Jean asked.

"Don't waste your gallantries on me, mon cher ami, because today I am not here to buy." Violette laughed. She gestured to Morisset, four steps behind her.

Distracted by the explorer garb, the shaved face, and the thick spectacles, it took Lafitte a moment to recognize the man he had known with mustache and side-whiskers.

"Morisset? C'est vraiment vous!" he finally exclaimed, slapping him on the back.

The spy, uneasy, looked around and pulled his hat down to his eyebrows; it wouldn't help for news of this effusive show of friendship to reach the ears of Governor Claiborne, but no one was paying attention because at that instant Pierre was auctioning an Arab stallion that all the men coveted. Jean Lafitte led him to one of the tents where they could talk in private and refresh themselves with white wine. The spy told him of Napoleon's offer: a corsair's permit, une lettre de marque, which was the same as an official authorization to attack other ships, in exchange for which he would vent his spleen on the English. Lafitte replied amiably that in fact he didn't need permission to keep doing what he had always done, and the lettre de marque would be a limitation, since it meant abstaining from attacking French boats, with consequent losses.

"Your activities would be legal. You would not be pirates but corsairs, more acceptable to the Americans," Morisset argued.

"The only thing that would change our situation with the Americans would be to pay taxes, and to be frank, we haven't as yet considered that possibility."

"A corsair's license is valuable-"

"Only if we sail under a French flag."

The somber Morisset explained that the emperor's offer did not include that-they would have to continue flying the Cartagena flag, but they could count on impunity and refuge in French territories. That was more words at a time than he'd spoken in a long while. Lafitte agreed to send Morisset their decision since such matters were decided by a vote among his men.

"But in the end the only votes that count are yours and your brother's," Morisset persisted.

"You're mistaken. We are more democratic than the Americans, and certainly much more so than the French. You will have your answer in two days."

Outside the tent, Pierre Lafitte had begun the slave auction, the most awaited part of the fair, and the noise of bids was rising in volume. The one woman in the lot pressed the boy against her and implored a couple of buyers not to separate them; her son was clever and obedient, she said, as Pierre Lafitte described her as a good breeder who'd had a number of children and was still very fertile. Tete watched with her guts in a knot, and a scream caught in her throat, thinking of the children that pitiful woman had lost and the indignity of being auctioned. At least she had not gone through that, and her Rosette was safe. Someone commented that these slaves came from Haiti, delivered directly to the Lafittes by the agents of Dessalines, who was financing arms that way and in passing getting rich selling the same people with whom he'd fought for freedom. If Gambo could see this, he would explode with rage, Tete thought.

When the sale was nearly over, the unmistakable booming voice of Owen Murphy was heard, offering fifty dollars more for the mother and a hundred for the boy. Pierre waited the required minute, and as no one raised the price, shouted that both now belonged to the customer with the black beard. On the platform the woman half collapsed with relief, never loosing her hold on the child, who was crying with terror. One of Pierre Laffite's helpers took her by the arm and turned her over to Owen Murphy.

The Irishman had started off toward the boats, followed by the slave and her child, when Tete came out of her stupor and ran after them, calling to him. He greeted her without any excessive show of affection, but his expression betrayed the pleasure he felt at seeing her. He told her that Brandan, his oldest son, had married overnight and soon would make them grandparents. He also mentioned the land they'd bought in Canada, where they planned to go very soon, and all the family would begin a new life, including Brandan and his wife.

"I imagine that Monsieur Valmorain will not approve of your leaving," Tete commented.

"For some time now Madame Hortense has wanted to replace me. We don't have the same ideas," Murphy replied. "It's going to annoy her that I bought this black boy, but I've held to the Code. He's not old enough to be separated from his mother."

"There is no law here worth anything, Monsieur Murphy. The pirates do whatever they please."

"That's why I'd rather not deal with them, but I'm not the one who decides, Tete," the Irishman informed her, pointing to Toulouse Valmorain in the distance.

The master was standing away from the crowd, talking with Violette Boisier under an oak, she protected from the sun by a Japanese parasol and he leaning on his walking stick and wiping away sweat with a handkerchief. Tete stepped back, but it was too late; they had seen her, and she felt obliged to go over to them. She was followed by Jean-Martin, who was waiting for Morisset near the Lafittes' tent, and a moment later they were all together under the faint shade of the oak. Tete greeted her former master without looking him in the eye, but was able to note that he was even fatter and redder. She lamented that Dr. Parmentier was treating Valmorain with remedies she herself prepared to cool the blood. That man could with a single wave of his walking stick demolish Rosette's and her precarious existence. It would be better if he were in the grave.

Valmorain was very attentive as Violette Boisier introduced her son. He looked Jean-Martin over from head to toe, appreciating his slim build, the elegance with which he wore the inexpensive waistcoat, the perfect symmetry of his face. The youth greeted him with a bow, respectful of the difference in class and age, but Valmorain held out a fat, yellow-splotched hand he had to shake. Valmorain kept the youth's hand in his much longer than was acceptable, smiling with an indescribable expression. Jean-Martin felt his cheeks blaze red and brusquely pulled back. It wasn't the first time a man had made an insinuation, and he knew how to manage that kind of mortification without a fuss, but the brazenness of this inverti was particularly offensive, and he was shamed that his mother witnessed the scene. The rebuff was so obvious that Valmorain realized he had been misinterpreted. Far from being bothered, he snorted a laugh.

"I see that this slave's son has come out a little touchy!" he exclaimed, amused.

A paralyzing silence fell over them as those words dug in their claws. The air became hotter, the light more blinding, the smells of fear more nauseating, the noise of the crowd more deafening, but Valmorain did not notice the effect he had provoked.

"What did you say?" Jean-Martin managed to spit out, livid, when he recovered his voice.

Violette seized his arm and tried to drag him away, but he broke loose from her to confront Valmorain. From habit, his hand went to his hip, where the haft of his sword would have been were he in uniform.

"You have insulted my mother!" he exclaimed hoarsely.

"Don't tell me, Violette, that this boy doesn't know where he comes from," Valmorain commented, still in a mocking tone.