Zorro (39 page)
The rest of the evening went by as if they were all sitting on beds of nails. Conversation was painful. Diego was watching Juliana, she was watching Lafitte, and the rest of the guests were staring at their plates with great attention. The heat inside the house was suffocating, and at the end of the meal the corsair invited them to have a cool drink on the terrace. There a palm fan hung from the ceiling, moved fitfully by a young black slave. Lafitte picked up his guitar and began to sing in a musical, agreeable voice, until Diego announced that they were all exhausted and needed to retire. Juliana sent him a lethal glance but did not dare argue.
No one in the house slept. The night, with its concert of frogs and distant sound of drums, dragged on at a sluggish pace. Unable to contain herself any longer, Juliana confessed her secret to Nuria and Isabel in Catalan, so the slave girl attending them would not understand.
“Now I know what love is. I want to marry Jean Lafitte,” she said.
“Blessed Virgin, save us from such misfortune,” Nuria whispered, crossing herself.
“You are his prisoner, not his sweetheart. How do you plan to resolve that small dilemma?” Isabel asked, rather jealous; she too was quite impressed by the corsair.
“I will do anything. I cannot live without him,” her sister replied, her eyes as wild as a madwoman’s.
“Diego is not going to like that.”
“What does Diego have to do with it? My father must be whirling in his grave, but I don’t care!” Juliana exclaimed.
Helpless, Diego witnessed the transformation of his beloved. Juliana appeared on the second day of captivity on Barataria smelling of soap, with her hair down her back; she was wearing a filmy dress, obtained from the slaves, that revealed her every charm. That was how she presented herself the next day at noon, where Madame Odilia had set out a bountiful lunch. Jean Lafitte was waiting for her, and judging by the gleam in his eyes, there was no doubt that he preferred that informal style to the European mode so ill suited to the climate. Again he kissed her hand, but much more intensely than the night before. The servants brought fruit juices cooled with ice that had been brought downriver in boxes filled with sawdust from distant mountains on the mainland, a luxury only the rich could afford. An excited and talkative Juliana, who ‘was usually a light eater, drank two glasses of the iced beverage and tried everything she saw on the table. Diego’s and Isabel’s hearts were heavy as Juliana and Lafitte chatted almost in whispers. They could capture something of the conversation, and realized that Juliana was exploring the terrain, testing weapons of seduction she had never had occasion to use. She was telling the pirate, with smiles and fluttering eyelashes, that she and her sister would not find certain amenities unwelcome. To begin with, a piano and music scores, some books, preferably novels and poetry, and also summer clothing. Her belongings were all lost, and whose fault was that? she asked with a little pout. She also wanted to be free to take a stroll and to enjoy a little privacy: the constant vigilance of the slave girls bothered her. “And, by the way, Senor Lafitte, I must tell you that I abominate slavery; it is an inhuman practice.” He answered that if they walked around the island alone, they would run into vulgar people who did not know how to treat damsels as delicate as she and her sister. He added that the role of the slaves was not to watch them, but to wait on them and frighten away the mosquitoes, rats, and snakes that made their way into the rooms.
“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.
“That is not possible. Drink your sherry, senorita, it will do you good.” And with that she turned and left.
Juliana, burning with thirst, drank down the sherry in four gulps.
Moments later she fell onto the bed and slept thirty-six hours without moving. The drugged wine did not cure her passion, but as Madame Odilia had expected, it gave her courage to face the future. She awoke with aching bones, but her mind was clear, and she was resolved to renounce Lafitte.
The privateer had similarly decided to tear Juliana from his heart, and to look for somewhere other than his home for the sisters to stay, somewhere her nearness could not torment him. Juliana avoided him; she did not come to meals but he could sense her through the walls. He thought he saw her silhouette in a corridor, heard her voice on the terrace, smelled her scent, but it was only a shadow, a bird, an aroma on the sea breeze. Like a caged animal, his senses were always raw, seeking her. The Convent of the Ursulines, which Diego had suggested, was a bad idea. It would be the same as condemning her to prison. He knew several Creole women in New Orleans who could put her up, but there was always the danger that her situation as a hostage would come out. If that reached the ears of the American authorities, he would be in serious trouble. He could bribe a judge, but not the governor; a slip on his part and there would be a price on his head again. He contemplated the possibility of forgetting the ransom and shipping his captives to California immediately; that would get him out of the mess he was in, but to do that he needed his brother Pierre’s consent, as well as that of other captains and all the pirates; that was the drawback of a democracy. He thought of Juliana, comparing her to the sweet and submissive Catherine, the girl who had been his wife since she was fourteen, and now was the mother of his son. Catherine deserved his unconditional love. He missed her. Only their prolonged separation could explain his enchantment with Juliana; if he were sleeping in his wife’s arms this would never have happened. After the birth of the boy, Catherine had wasted away. Madame Odilia had left her in the care of some African healers in New Orleans. Lafitte had not opposed it because her physicians had given her up for lost. A week after the birth, when Catherine was burning with fever, Madame Odilia insisted that her daughter was under the spell of the evil eye cast by a jealous rival, and that the only remedy was magic. Madame and Jean had taken Catherine, who was not strong enough to stand, to consult Marie Laveau, a high priestess of voodoo. They traveled deep into the woods, far from the sugar plantations of the whites, threading between small islands and through swamps, to the place where drums conjured up the spirits. By the light of bonfires and torches, officiants danced wearing animal and demon masks, their bodies painted with the blood of roosters. The powerful drums throbbed, stirring the forest and heating the blood of the slaves. A prodigious energy connected humans with the gods and with nature; the participants fused into a single being; no one escaped the bewitchment. In the center of a circle, upon a box containing a sacred serpent, danced Marie Laveau, proud, beautiful, covered with sweat, nearly naked and nine months pregnant, about to give birth. When she fell into a trance her limbs jerked uncontrollably, she twisted, her belly swinging from side to side, and she uttered a stream of words in languages no one remembered.
The chant rose and fell like gigantic waves, while vessels containing the blood of sacrificed animals passed from hand to hand, so everyone could drink. The drums picked up tempo; men and women, convulsing, fell to the ground transformed into animals; they ate grass, they bit and clawed, and some fell unconscious, while others ran off in pairs toward the forest. Madame Odilia explained that in the voodoo religion, which came to the New World in the heart of slaves from Dahomey and Yoruba, there were three connected zones: the living, the dead, and the unborn. The ceremonies honored the ancestors, summoned the gods, cried out for freedom. Priestesses like Marie Laveau cast spells, stuck pins in dolls to bring on sickness, and used gris-gris, magic powders, to cure many ills. But nothing worked with Catherine.