Free Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende Page B

was a short journey. I wanted to dry her face with a kerchief, but she pushed me away. The master told her not even to think of it, it was very dangerous and it would not be appropriate for her to arrive alone in Cuba. “Speak no more of this!” he exclaimed angrily, jumping to his feet before the slave could pull back the chair, and went outside to give the last instructions to Prosper Cambray. She gestured to me, and I picked up her plate, covered it with a rag,and took it to a corner to eat later what was left, and then I got her ready for the night. She no longer wore the corset, hose, and petticoats she had in her bridal trunks ; on the plantation she went around in light shifts, but she always dressed for dinner. I took off her clothes and brought her the chamber pot ; I washed her with a wet cloth, I powdered her with camphor to ward off mosquitoes, I bathed her face and hands with milk, I took the pins from her hair and brushed the chestnut hair one hundred times, while she sat there wearing a lost expression. She was transparent. The master said she was very beautiful, but to me her green eyes and pointed teeth did not look human. When I finished tidying her up, she knelt on her prie-dieu and in a loud voice prayed an entire rosary, chorused by me, as was my obligation. I had learned the prayers, though I did not understand what they said. By then I knew several Spanish words and could obey, she did not give orders in French or Creole. It was not her responsibility to make the effort to communicate, it was ours. This is what she said. The mother-of-pearl beads slipped through her white fingers as I calculated how long before I could eat and lie down to sleep. Finally she kissed the cross on the rosary and put it into the leather bag, flat and long as an envelope, she usually wore around her neck. It was her protection, as mine was my doll Erzulie. I served her a goblet of port to help her sleep, which she drank with a grimace of nausea. I helped her into the hammock, covered it over with a mosquito net, and began to rock her, praying she would soon sleep without being distracted by the winging bats, the quiet padding of animals, and the voices that harassed her at that hour. They were not human voices—that she had explained to me—they came from the shadows, the jungle, below the ground, hell, Africa ; they did not speak with words but with howls and strident laughter. “They are the specters the Negroes summon ,” she wept, terrified. “Shhh, Doña Eugenia, close your eyes, pray…” I was as frightened as she, though I had never heard the voices or seen a specter. “You were born here, Zarité, that is why your ears are deaf and your eyes blind. If you came from Guinea, you would know that there are ghosts everywhere ,” I’d been assured by Tante Rose, the healer of Saint-Lazare. They had assigned her to be my marraine, my godmother, when I arrived at the plantation ; she hadto teach me everything and watch that I didn’t escape. “Don’t even think of it, Zarité, you would be lost in the cane fields, and the mountains are farther than the moon.”
    Doña Eugenia fell asleep, and I crawled to my corner ; the trembling light of the oil lamps didn’t reach there, and I felt blindly for my plate. I picked up a bite of lamb stew and found that ants had beat me to it ; I like their spicy flavor. I was reaching for the second mouthful when the master and a slave came in, two long shadows on the canvas of the tent and the men’s strong odor of leather, tobacco, and horses. I covered the plate and waited, not breathing, trying with all the strength of my heart not to be noticed by them. “Virgen María, Madre de Dios, pray for us sinners ,” my mistress murmured in her dreams, and with a cry added, “Devil’s whore!” I flew to rock the hammock before she waked.
    The master sat in his chair and the slave took off his boots