Pere Antoine had come prepared; he knew all too well the conditions the prisoners were kept in. In his basket he brought bread and small lumps of sugar to share among the women, and another blanket for Rosette. "Tomorrow morning we will get you out of here, Rosette, isn't that right, mon pere?" said Tete, sobbing. The priest said nothing.
The only explanation Tete could imagine for what had happened was that Hortense Guizot wanted to avenge herself for the offense Tete had done the family when she refused to take care of Valmorain. She did not know that her and Rosette's mere existence was an injury to the woman. Bereft, Tete went to the very house she had sworn never to enter again and threw herself on the floor before her former mistress to beg her to free Rosette; in exchange she would look after her husband, do as she asked, everything, have pity, madame. The other woman, poisoned with bitterness, gave herself the pleasure of telling Tete everything that came to her mind and then had her thrown out of her house.
Tete did everything possible with her limited resources to make Rosette comfortable. She left baby Violette with Adele or with Loula and every day took food to the jail for all the women; she was sure that Rosette would share anything she received, and she could not bear the idea that her daughter would be hungry. She had to leave the provisions with the guards; they only rarely let her go in, and she didn't know how much they gave to the prisoners and how much they appropriated. Violette and Zacharie provided the money, and Tete spent half the night cooking. Since she was also working and taking care of her baby, she was always exhausted. She remembered that Tante Rose prevented contagious illnesses with boiled water and begged the women not to drink from the water in the jug, even if they were dying of thirst, only the tea she brought them. In previous months several women had died of cholera. As it was already cold at night, she got wraps and more blankets for all of them-her daughter could not be the only one with warm clothing-but the damp straw on the ground and the water that seeped through the walls gave Rosette a pain in her chest and a persistent cough. She was not the only one sick; another was much worse from a gangrened wound caused by the shackles. At Tete's insistence, Pere Antoine got permission to take the woman to the nuns' hospital. The others did not see her again, but a week later learned her leg had been amputated.
Rosette did not want them to notify Maurice of what had happened; she was sure that she was going to be free before the letter could reach him, but justice lagged along. Six weeks went by before the judge reviewed her case, and he acted with relative speed only because she was a free woman and because of Pere Antoine's insistence. The other women could wait years before they even knew why they had been arrested. Hortense Guizot's lawyer brothers had presented the charges against her as "having physically attacked a white woman." The sentence consisted of lashes and two additional years of jail time, but the judge ceded to the saint's insistence and suppressed the lashes in view of the fact that Rosette was pregnant and that Olivie Guizot herself described events as they had happened, and refused to back her sister. The judge was also moved by the dignity of the accused, who appeared in a clean dress and answered the charges without haughtiness but without weakening, despite her difficulty in speaking because of her cough and legs so weak she could barely stand.
When she heard the sentence, a hurricane was unleashed in Tete. Rosette would not survive two years in a filthy cell, even less her baby. Erzulie, mother loa, give me strength. She was going to free her daughter whatever it took, even if it meant tearing down the walls of the jail with her bare hands. Crazed, she announced to everyone she came across that she was going to kill Hortense and the whole accursed family. At that point Pere Antoine decided to intervene before she too landed in jail. Without telling anyone, he went to the plantation to speak with Valmorain. The decision was costly to him, first because he could not abandon the people he helped for several days, and next because he was not accustomed to riding a horse, and crossing the river against the current was expensive and difficult, but he managed to get there.
The saint found Valmorain better than he had expected, though still an invalid and speaking in a tangled tongue. Before he threatened him with hell, he realized that the man had no idea of what his wife had done in New Orleans. When he heard what had happened, Valmorain was more indignant that Hortense had succeeded in hiding the episode from him, just as she hid so many other things, than concerned about Rosette, whom he called "the tramp." However, his attitude changed when the priest informed him that the girl was pregnant. He realized he had no hope of reconciling with Maurice if anything bad happened to Rosette or the baby. With his good hand he rang the cow bell to call the nun, and ordered her to ready the boat for a trip to the city, immediately. Two days later the Guizot lawyers withdrew all charges against Rosette Sedella.
Zarite
F our years have gone by, and we are in 1810. I have lost my fear of being free, although I will never lose my fear of whites. I no longer cry over Rosette, I am almost always happy.
Rosette came out of jail infested with lice, wasted away, sick, and with ulcers on her legs from immobility and chains. I kept her in bed, looking after her day and night, I built up her strength with beef bone marrow soups and the nourishing stews neighbor women brought us, but none of that prevented her from giving birth before the time. The baby was not ready to be born; he was tiny and had skin as translucent as wet paper. The birth was quick but Rosette was weak, and she lost a lot of blood. On the second day the fever started, and on the third she was delirious, calling for Maurice. I understood then, desperate, that she was leaving me. I went through all the treatments Tante Rose had handed down to me, the wisdom of Dr. Parmentier, the prayers of Pere Antoine, and invocations to my loas. I put the new baby on Rosette's chest so that her obligation as a mother would force her to fight for her own life, but I don't think she felt it. I clung to my daughter, trying to keep her with me, begging her to take a sip of water, to open her eyes, to answer me, Rosette, Rosette. At three in the morning, as I held her, rocking her with African ballads, I noticed she was murmuring, and I bent down to her dry lips. I love you, Maman, she told me, and immediately after she sighed and her light went out. I felt her frail body in my arms and saw her spirit gently detach itself like a thread of mist and slip outside through the open window.
The ripping pain I felt cannot be told, but I don't have to do that: mothers know it, for only a few, the most fortunate, have all their children alive. Adele came in the early morning to bring us soup, and it was she who took Rosette from my stiff arms and laid her on her bed. For a while I let myself moan, doubled up in grief on the floor, and then Adele put a large cup of soup in my hands and reminded me of the children. My poor grandson was curled up beside my daughter Violette in the same cradle, so small and abandoned that at any moment he could follow right behind Rosette. So I took off his clothes, placed him on the long cloth of my tignon, tying it like a bandolier across my naked breast, binding him next to my heart, skin against skin, so he would believe he was still inside his mother. That was how I carried him for several weeks. My milk, like my affection, was enough for my daughter and my grandson. When I took Justin from his wrapping he was ready to live in this world.