"True, but that is going to change, I promise. There are many people working to abolish slavery: philosophers, politicians, church people, every person with any decency…"
"I will not live to see it, Maurice. But I know that even if the slaves are emancipated, there will be no equality."
"Over time there will have to be, Maman. It's like a snowball that when it begins to roll grows larger, faster, and then no one can stop it. That is how the great changes in history take place."
"Who told you that, son?" Tete asked, who was not sure what snow was.
"My teacher, Harrison Cobb."
Tete realized that it was useless to reason; the cards had been thrown fifteen years before, when he leaned over for the first time to kiss the face of the newborn baby Rosette.
"Don't worry, we will work it out," Maurice added. "But we need your blessing, Maman. We don't want to run away like bandits."
"You have my blessings, children, but that isn't enough. We will go and ask Pere Antoine's advice; he knows things about this world and the other," Tete concluded.
They went hurrying through the February breeze to the priest's little house. He had just finished his first round of charity and was resting a bit. He welcomed them with no hint of surprise; he had been waiting for them ever since the gossip had reached his ears that the heir to the Valmorain fortune was going to marry a quadroon. As he was always au courant with everything that happened in the city, his faithful believed the Holy Spirit whispered information to him. He offered them his mass wine, harsh as varnish.
"We want to marry, mon pere," Maurice announced.
"But the small detail of race is there, is that not it?" The priest smiled.
"We know that the law…" Maurice continued.
"Have you committed the sin of the flesh?" Pere Antoine again interrupted.
"How could you believe that, mon pere? I give you my word as a gentleman that Rosette's virtue and my honor are intact," Maurice proclaimed, startled.
"What a shame, my children! If Rosette had lost her virginity, and you wanted to repair the harm you perpetrated, I would be obliged to marry you to save your souls," the saint explained.
Then Rosette spoke for the first time since the Cordon Bleu ball.
"That can be arranged this very night, mon pere. Pretend that it has already happened. And now, please, save our souls," she said, flushed and sounding determined.
The saint possessed an admirable flexibility in getting around rules he considered inconvenient. With the same childish imprudence with which he defied the church, he often chopped a little off the body of the law, and until that moment no religious or civil authority had dared call attention to him. He took a barber's razor out of a box, wet the blade in his glass of wine, and ordered the lovers to roll up their sleeves and hold out an arm. Without hesitation he cut a slit on Maurice's wrist with the dexterity of someone who has performed the operation several times. Maurice grunted and sucked the cut while Rosette pressed her lips together and closed her eyes with her hand still outstretched. The priest joined their arms, rubbing Rosette's blood into Maurice's small wound.
"Blood is always red, as you see, but if anyone asks, now you can say that you have black blood, Maurice. So the wedding will be legal," the priest explained, wiping the knife on his sleeve as Tete tore her kerchief to bandage their wrists.
"Let us go into the church. I will ask Sister Lucie to be witness to this impromptu marriage," said Pere Antoine.
"Just a minute, mon pere." Tete held him back. "We have not resolved the fact that these children are half siblings."
"But what are you saying, daughter?" the saint exclaimed.
"You know Rosette's story, mon pere; I told you that Monsieur Toulouse Valmorain was the father, and you know he is also the father of Maurice."
"I didn't remember, my memory is bad." Pere Antoine dropped into a chair, defeated. "I cannot marry these young ones, Tete. It is one thing to mock human law, which can be absurd, but something different to mock the law of God…"
With lowered heads they left Pere Antoine's little house. Rosette was trying to contain her tears, and Maurice, upset, was supporting her, his arm around her waist. "How I wanted to help you, my children! But it is not in my power to do so. No one can marry you in this land," was the saint's sorrowful farewell. As the lovers dragged along, disconsolate, Tete walked two steps behind, thinking of the emphasis Pere Antoine had placed on that last word. Perhaps it wasn't emphasis but something she confused with the strong accent of the Spanish priest's French, but to her the sentence didn't seem natural, and she heard it again and again like an echo of her bare feet slapping on the tiles of the square, until from being repeated so often in silence she thought she understood a coded meaning. She changed direction to head toward the Chez Fleur.
They walked almost an hour, and when they came to the modest door of the gaming house they saw a line of porters with boxes of liquors and provisions, overseen by Fleur Hirondelle, who noted down each bundle in her account book. The woman greeted them with affection, as always, but could not pay attention to them and gestured toward the salon. Maurice was aware that this was a place of questionable reputation, and it seemed amusing to him that his maman, always so concerned about decency, would behave here as if in her own house. At that hour, in the cruel light of day, with the tables empty, bare of customers, cocottes, and musicians, without the smoke, noise, and smell of perfume and liquor, the salon resembled a tawdry theater.
"What are we doing here?" Maurice asked in a funereal tone.
"Waiting for our luck to change, son," said Tete.
Moments later Zacharie appeared in his work clothes, his hands filthy, surprised by the visit. He was no longer the handsome man he had been; his face was like a Carnival mask. That was how he'd looked since being attacked. It had been night, and he was beaten unmercifully; he had not seen the men who came at him with clubs, but as they did not steal his money or the walking stick with the ivory handle, he knew they were not bandits from Le Marais. Tete had warned him more than once that his overly elegant figure and generosity were offensive to some whites. He was found in time, tossed into a drain, hammered to a pulp, his face destroyed. Doctor Parmentier had treated him with such care that he had been able to set his bones in place and save one eye, and Tete had fed him through a tube until he could chew. The assault had not changed his triumphant attitude, but it had made him more prudent, and now he was always armed.
"What can I do for you? Rum? Fruit juice for the little girl?" Zacharie smiled his new twisted smile.
"A captain is like a king-he can do what he wants on his boat, even hang someone. Isn't that true?" Tete asked.
"Only when on the high seas," Zacharie clarified, cleaning himself with a rag.
"Do you know someone like that?"
"Several. Without going too far, Fleur Hirondelle and I are associated with a man named Romeiro Toledano, a Portugese who owns a small schooner."
"Associated to do what, Zacharie?"
"Let's say importing and transporting…"
"You never mentioned any Toledano to me. Can he be trusted?"
"That depends: for some things yes, for others, no."
"Where can I speak with him?"
"At this moment the schooner is in the port. Surely he will come tonight to have some drinks and play a few hands. What is it you want, woman?"
"I need a captain to marry Maurice and Rosette," Tete announced, to the amazement of the two listening.
"How can you ask that of me, Zarite!"
"Because no one else will do it, Zacharie. And it has to be right now, because Maurice is going to Boston on a ship that leaves the day after tomorrow."
"The schooner is in port. The land authorities are in command here."