The life of a Creole monsieur was spent at leisure; work was a vice of Protestants in general and Americans in particular. Valmorain and Sancho had a problem hiding the effort required to start up their plantation, which had been abandoned for more than ten years after the death of the owner and the methodical ruin of the heirs.
The first matter was to acquire slaves, some hundred and fifty to begin with, a lot fewer than Valmorain had had at Saint-Lazare. Valmorain installed himself in one corner of the ruined house as another was built following the plans of a French architect. The slave quarters, eaten by termites and humidity, were torn down and replaced by wood cabins with overhanging roofs to give shade and protect from rain; each had three rooms to house two families, lined up in parallel rows perpendicular to a small central square. The brothers-in-law visited other plantations, like so many who arrived at them uninvited on weekends, taking advantage of the tradition of hospitality. Valmorain concluded that compared with the slaves on Saint-Domingue, those in Louisiana could not complain, but Sancho found out that some masters kept their workers nearly naked, fed with a mush poured into a trough like the ones for animals, from which each slave took his portion with an oyster shell, a chipped tile, or hand, because there was no spoon.
It took two long years to construct the basics: to plant, build a mill, and organize work. Valmorain had grandiose plans, but he had to concentrate on the immediate. There would be time later to turn his fantasies into reality: a garden, terraces, gazebos, a decorative bridge over the river, along with other amenities. He lived obsessed with the details, which he discussed with Sancho and lectured Maurice about.
"Look, son, all this will be yours," he said, pointing to the cane fields from his horse. "Sugar doesn't fall from the sky, it requires a lot of work."
"The Negroes do the work," Maurice observed.
"Don't be deceived. They do the manual labor, because they don't know how to do anything else, but the master is the one responsible. The success of the plantation depends on me and, in a certain measure, your uncle Sancho. Not a single stalk of cane is cut without my knowledge. Pay attention, because one day it will be up to you to make decisions and command your people."
"Why don't they command themselves, Papa?"
"They can't, Maurice. You have to give them orders. They're slaves, son."
"I wouldn't like to be like them."
"You never will be, Maurice." His father smiled. "You are a Valmorain."
He could not have shown Saint-Lazare to his son with the same pride. He was determined to correct the errors, weaknesses, and omissions of the past and secretly atone for the atrocious sins of Lacroix, whose money had been used to buy this land. For each man tortured and each girl stained by Lacroix there would be a healthy, well-treated slave on the Valmorain plantation. That justified his having appropriated his neighbor's money, it could not be better invested.
Sancho was not overly interested in his brother-in-law's plans; they did not carry the same weight in his conscience, and he thought only of entertaining himself. The contents of the slaves' soup or the color of their cabins were nothing to him. Valmorain was set on changing his life, but for the Spaniard this adventure was but one among many undertaken with enthusiasm and abandoned without regret. As he had nothing to lose-his partner was assuming all the risks-he had audacious ideas that tended to give surprising results, such as a refinery that would allow them to sell white sugar, which was much more profitable than other planters' molasses.
Sancho found a manager, an Irishman who advised him on purchases of field labor. His name was Owen Murphy, and he set the rule from the beginning that the slaves must attend mass. They would have to build a chapel and find itinerant priests, he said, to fortify Catholicism before the Americans got to the slaves to preach their heresies and innocent people be condemned to hell. "Morality is more important than anything," he announced. Murphy agreed completely with Valmorain's suggestion not to abuse the whip. That huge man with the look of an elite Turkish guard, heavy black hair on his chest, and hair and beard equally black, had a sweet soul. He moved his large family into a campaign tent while their living quarters were being built. His wife, Leanne, who came to his waist, looked like an undernourished adolescent with the face of a fly, but her fragility was deceptive: she had given birth to six male children and was expecting the seventh. She knew it would be male because God was determined to test her patience. She never raised her voice, but one glance and her children and her husband obeyed. Valmorain thought that finally Maurice would have someone to play with and not cling to Rosette every minute; that herd of Irish boys was from a social class very inferior to his, but they were white and free. He could not have imagined that the six Murphys would also trail around enraptured behind Rosette, who had turned five and possessed the arresting personality her father would have wished for Maurice.
Owen Murphy had worked directing slaves since he was seventeen, and he knew by memory the errors and successes of that unpleasant labor. "You have to treat them like children. Authority and justice, clear rules, punishment, reward, and some free time or they get sick," he told his employer; he added that slaves had the right to come to the master regarding a sentence of more than fifteen lashes. "I trust you, Monsieur Murphy, that will not be necessary," replied Valmorain, little disposed to assume the role of judge. "But for my own peace I would prefer it be done that way, monsieur. Too much power destroys the soul of any Christian, and mine is weak," the Irishman explained to him.
In Louisiana the labor force of a plantation cost a third of the value of the land; they had to be looked after. Production was at the mercy of unforeseen mishaps, hurricanes, drought, floods, plagues, rats, fluctuations in the price of sugar, problems with machinery and animals, loans from the banks, and other uncertainties, say nothing of the bad health or spirits of the slaves, said Murphy. He was so different from Cambray that Valmorain wondered whether he'd made a mistake in hiring him, but he soon observed that he worked untiringly and imposed his will with his presence, not brutality. His overseers watched closely, followed his example, and the result was that the slaves produced more than those under Prosper Cambray's regime of terror. Murphy organized them using a system of turns that gave them rest during the perishing day in the fields. His former employer had dismissed Murphy because when he was ordered to discipline a slave woman, Murphy's whip cracked against the ground without touching her, though she screamed at the top of her lungs. The slave was pregnant, and as was done in such cases, she had been laid on the ground with her belly in a depression. "I promised my wife I would never beat children or pregnant women," was the Irishman's explanation when Valmorain asked.
The slaves were given two days a week rest to cultivate their gardens, care for their animals, and tend to their domestic chores, but on Sunday they had to attend the mass decreed by Murphy. They could play music and dance in their free hours, and even-under the manager's supervision-attend the bambousses, modest slave gatherings on the occasion of a wedding, a funeral, or other celebration. In principle, slaves could not visit other properties, but in Louisiana few masters paid attention to that rule. Breakfast on the Valmorain plantation consisted of a soup with meat or bacon-none of the stinking dried fish of Saint-Lazare; lunch was a maize tart, fresh or salted meat, and pudding, and dinner a hearty soup. They fitted out a cabin to be used as a hospital and contracted a doctor who came once a month for prevention and when called for an emergency. They gave more food and rest to pregnant women. Valmorain didn't know-he had never asked-that at Saint-Lazare the slaves gave birth while crouching in the cane fields, that there were more abortions than births, and that most of the children died before they were three months old. On the new plantation, Leanne Murphy acted as midwife and looked after the children.