At night the saint covered himself with a moth-eaten mantle and went out with Tete to rub elbows with the most dangerous rabble, equipped with a lantern since none of the eighty lamp posts in the city was placed where it would help him. The lawless troublemakers tolerated him because he responded to their curses with sarcastic blessings, and no one could intimidate him. He did not come with an attitude of condemnation, or a determination to save souls, but to bandage knife wounds, separate the violent, prevent suicides, succor women, collect corpses, and lead children to the nuns' orphanage. If out of ignorance one of the Kaintucks dared touch him, a hundred fists were raised to teach the foreigner who Pere Antoine was. He went into Le Marais, the most depraved place along the Mississippi, protected by his inalterable innocence and his indistinct aureole. There oarsmen, pirates, pimps, whores, army deserters, bingeing sailors, thieves, and murderers gathered in gaming dens and whorehouses. Tete, terrified, inched forward through clay, vomit, shit, and rats, clinging to the Capuchin's habit and invoking Erzulie in a loud voice while the priest savored the thrill of danger. "Jesus watches over us, Tete," he assured her happily. "And if his attention wanders, mon pere?"
By the end of the second week, Tete had battered feet, an aching back, a heart depressed by human misery, and the suspicion that it would be easier to cut cane than distribute charity among the ungrateful. One Tuesday in the place d'Armes she ran into Sancho Garcia del Solar, dressed in black and so perfumed that not even flies approached him, very happy because he had just won a game of ecarte from an overly confident American. He greeted her with a flowery bow and kiss on the hand before several astonished gazes, then invited her to have a cup of coffee.
"It will have to be quick, Don Sancho, because I am waiting for mon pere, who is off healing the sores of a sinner, and I don't believe he will be long."
"Aren't you helping him, Tete?"
"Yes, but this sinner suffers from the Spanish illness, and mon pere does not let me see the man's private parts. As if that were a novelty for me."
"The saint is completely right, Tete. If I were attacked by that-may God forbid!-I would not want a beautiful woman to offend my modesty."
"Don't make fun, Don Sancho; that misfortune can happen to anyone. Except Pere Antoine, of course."
They sat down at a table facing the square. The owner of the cafe, a free mulatto acquaintance of Sancho's, did not hide his surprise at the contrast presented by the Spaniard and his companion, one with the air of royalty and the other that of a beggar. Sancho also noticed Tete's pathetic appearance, and when she told him what her life had been during those two weeks he burst out laughing.
"Sainthood certainly is a burden, Tete. You have to escape from Pere Antoine or you will end up as decrepit as Sister Lucie," he said.
"I cannot abuse Pere Antoine's kindness too much longer, Don Sancho. I will leave when the forty days of the notice in the court ends and I have my freedom. Then I will see what I am going to do; I have to find work."
"And Rosette?"
"She is still with the Ursulines. I know you visit her and take gifts in my name. How can I repay you for your goodness to us, Don Sancho?"
"You owe me nothing, Tete."
"I need to save something to support Rosette when she gets out of the school."
"What does Pere Antoine say of all this?" Sancho asked, stirring five spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of cognac into his cup of coffee.
"That God will provide."
"I hope that is the case, but perhaps it would be a good idea if you had an alternate plan. I need a housekeeper-my house is a disaster-but if I hire you the Valmorains will never forgive me."
"I understand, monsieur. Someone will hire me, I'm sure."
"The slaves do all the hard work, from tending the fields to raising the children. Did you know there are three thousand slaves in New Orleans?"
"And how many free persons, monsieur?"
"Some five thousand whites and two thousand of color is what they say."
"That is, there are twice as many free persons as slaves," she calculated. "How can I help but find someone who needs me? An abolitionist, for example."
"An abolitionist in Louisiana? If there are any, they are well hidden," Sancho laughed.
"I don't know how to read, write, or cook, monsieur, but I know how to do things in the house, bring babies into the world, sew up wounds, and heal the sick," she insisted.
"It will not be easy, woman, but I am going to try and help you," Sancho told her. "A friend of mine claims that slaves are more expensive than employees. It takes several slaves to grudgingly do the work one free person does with good will. You understand?"
"More or less," she admitted, memorizing every word to repeat to Pere Antoine.
"A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead, that is their incentive."
"At Saint-Lazare, Monsieur Cambray's whip was the incentive," she commented.
"And you've seen how that colony ended, Tete. You cannot impose terror indefinitely."
"You must be a disguised abolitionist, Don Sancho; you talk like Monsieur Zacharie and that tutor in Le Cap, Gaspard Severin."
"Don't repeat that in public, you will cause me problems. Tomorrow I want to see you right here, clean and well dressed. We are going to call on my friend."
The next day Pere Antoine left alone to do his tasks, while Tete, wearing her one dress, recently washed, and her starched tignon, went with Sancho to apply for her first job. They did not go far, only a few blocks along picturesque Chartres with its shops of hats, laces, buttons, cloth, and everything that exists to nourish female coquetry, and stopped before a small two story house painted yellow, with green iron railing on the balconies.
Sancho rapped at the door with a small knocker in the shape of a toad, and a fat black woman opened. When she saw Sancho, her expression of bad humor was replaced with an enormous smile. Tete thought she had traveled twenty years in circles, to end at the same place she was when she left Madame Delphine's house. It was Loula. The woman did not recognize her-that would have been impossible-but since she was with Sancho she greeted her and led them to the drawing room. "Madame will be right here, Don Sancho. She is expecting you," she said, and disappeared, making the boards of the floor resound with her elephantine tread.
Minutes later Tete, with her heart leaping, saw the same Violette Boisier of Le Cap at the door, as beautiful as then and with the assurance years and memories bestow. Sancho was transformed in the instant. His Spanish male pomposity disappeared, and it was a timid boy who bent to kiss the beauty's hand, as the tip of his sword caught and turned over a little table. Tete managed to catch on the fly and clutch to her chest a porcelain medieval troubadour as she stared at Violette with awe. "I suppose this is the woman you were telling me about, Sancho," Violette said. Tete noticed the familiarity of her tone and Sancho's shyness; she remembered the gossip and understood that Violette was the Cuban who, according to Celestine, had replaced Adi Soupir in the Spanish lover's heart.
"Madame…we met a long time ago. You bought me from Madame Delphine when I was a girl," Tete managed to get out.
"I did? I d-don't remember," Violette stammered.
"In Le Cap. You bought me for Monsieur Valmorain. I am Zarite."