“Give me a broom and I will take care of those problems myself,” she replied with an irresistible smile that Diego had never seen.
“In respect to your other requests, senorita, perhaps we will find what you need in my bazaar. After siesta, when it is a little cooler, we will all go to the Temple.”
“We have no money, but I suppose that you will pay, since you have brought us here against our will,” she replied coquettishly.
“It will be an honor, senorita.”
“You may call me Juliana.”
From a corner of the room, Madame Odilia had followed this flirtatious exchange as attentively as Diego and Isabel. Her presence suddenly reminded Jean Lafitte that he could not continue down that dangerous road, he had inescapable obligations. Drawing strength from he knew not where, he determined to be frank with Juliana. He waved over the beautiful woman in the turban and whispered something in her ear. She disappeared for a few minutes and returned carrying a small bundle.
“Juliana, Madame Odilia is my mother-in-law, and this is my son Pierre,” Lafitte explained, pale as death.
Diego uttered a cry of joy and Juliana one of horror. Isabel stood, and Madame Odilia showed her what she held. Unlike most women, who tend to melt at the sight of a baby, Isabel did not like children; she preferred dogs, but she had to admit that this little one was attractive. He had his father’s eyes and turned-up nose.
“I did not know that you were married, Senor Pirate,” Isabel commented.
“Privateer,” Lafitte corrected.
“Senor Privateer, then. May we meet your wife?”
“I am afraid not. I myself have not been able to visit her for several weeks. She is weak and can see no one.”
“What is her name?”
“Catherine Villars.”
“Forgive me, I feel very tired,” whispered Juliana, near fainting.
Diego pulled back her chair and led her out with an air of sympathy, though he was jubilant at the turn of events. What fabulous luck! Now Juliana had no choice but to reevaluate her feelings. Not only was Lafitte an old man of thirty-five, a womanizer, a criminal, a smuggler, and slave trafficker, all of which a girl like Juliana might easily excuse, but he had a wife and a child. “Thank you, God!” He could not ask for more.
Nuria spent all the afternoon applying cool cloths to Juliana’s fevered brow, while Diego and Isabel accompanied Lafitte to the Temple. Four men rowed them through a labyrinth of foul-smelling swamps, where they saw dozens of alligators and drowsy water snakes sunning themselves on the banks. With the heat, Isabel’s hair went in every direction, kinky and thick as mattress stuffing. The channels all looked the same; the land was flat, with not even a hillock to serve as reference in the high grass. The trees sank roots into the water and had wigs of moss hanging from their branches. The pirates knew every turn, every tree, every rock in that nightmarish landscape, and rowed without a moment’s hesitation. When they reached the Temple, they saw the barges the pirates used to transport merchandise, along with the pirogues and rowboats of clients, although most had come by land on horseback or in shiny carriages. The cream of society had arranged to meet there, from aristocrats to dusky-skinned courtesans. The slaves had set up tents so their masters could rest and eat and drink while the ladies wandered through the bazaar examining the merchandise. The pirates called out their wares: China silk, Peruvian silver pitchers, Viennese furniture, jewels from every part of the world, sweets, articles for the toilette that fair had everything, and bargaining was part of the entertainment.
Pierre Lafitte was already there, holding a teardrop lamp in his hand and proclaiming at the top of his lungs that all prices were reduced:
“Take it away, messieurs, mesdames, you won’t have another opportunity like this.” With the arrival of Jean and his companions, murmurs of curiosity spread through the crowd. Several women came up to the attractive privateer, mysterious beneath their gay parasols, among them the wife of the governor. The caballeros focused their attention on Isabel, amused by her wild mane, reminiscent of the Spanish moss on the trees. Among the whites there were two men for every woman, and any new face was welcome, even one as unusual as Isabel’s. Jean made the introductions, without a word about how he had obtained these new “friends,” and immediately set off to look for the things Juliana had listed, even though he knew that no gift could console her for the blow she had received when he broke the news about Catherine so brutally.
He’d had no other choice; he had to nip that mutual attraction in the bud before it destroyed both of them.
On Barataria, Juliana lay on her bed, sunk in a morass of humiliation and wild love. Lafitte had wakened a diabolical flame in her, and now she had to fight with all her will against the temptation to woo him away from Catherine Villars. The only solution that occurred to her was to enter the Convent of the Ursulines and end her days tending smallpox patients in New Orleans; at least that way she could breathe the same air her man breathed. She could never face anyone again. She was confused, embarrassed, restless, as if a million ants were crawling under her skin; she sat down, she paced, she lay on the bed, she twisted and turned beneath the sheets. She thought of the baby, little Pierre, and wept some more. “There’s nothing so bad it lasts a hundred years, my child; this madness will have to pass. No one in her right mind falls in love with a pirate,” Nuria consoled her. Madame Odilia arrived to ask about the senorita, with a tray of sherry and cookies.
Juliana welcomed this as her one opportunity to get details, and so, swallowing her pride and her tears, she asked her first question.
“Can you tell me, madame, is Catherine a slave?”
“My daughter is free, as I am. My mother was a queen in Sene gal, and there I would have been a queen also. My father, and the father of my children, were white, owners of sugar plantations in Santo Domingo. We had to escape during the revolt of the slaves,” Madame Odilia replied proudly.
“I understand that whites cannot marry people of color,” Juliana insisted.
“White men marry white women, but we are their real wives. We do not need the blessing of a priest; love is enough. Jean and Catherine love one another.”
Juliana burst into tears again. Nuria pinched her to signal that she should control herself, but that only added to the girl’s misery. She asked Madame Odilia if she could see Catherine, thinking that if she did, she would have reason to resist the assault of love.