The baby in the magazine rack fussed in his sleep and then fell back into dreamland. Finding his place on Marie’s naked left shoulder, the old man resumed his translation.
“She treated me like her doll, and I was blissfully unaware, as most children are, that things could or should be otherwise. This is the way of the world. All of that changed suddenly when Monsieur Delhomme fell ill to the fever and died in the sugarcane fields and was gone from this world without notice. He was a good man and treated us most kindly, and the slaves of the plantation mourned him not only out of duty but with some genuine affection. My mama cried all afternoon, and even my papa shed a tear, though perhaps, in hindsight, not only out of grief but with the knowledge of the change to come. Sure enough, the ranger—who is that?”
“Like the overseer,” she said, “but a slave. A slave above the slaves.”
“The ranger came to our house not one month later with the news that Madame Delhomme, now the widow, was to sell the property and return to France, for she was dearly homesick and felt also that her little Anna had missed all proper society by living in the new world. I ran straight to the big house. Anna had heard that we, too, were to be sold. Can you not take me with you to France? I cried to her, and she cried that she could not, and it was like to break our hearts, and when we parted I sobbed myself to sleep and thought life would be best to end right there. I cannot forget my mother’s face that night at supper when she told us that we would be taken to auction in Port-au-Prince, to go to the man willing to pay the highest price, and that God willing we should not be parted, but parted we were. The auction took place in the town square. My papa went first, sold to another sugar farmer, and though I was shocked to see him go, I did not really know the man all that well for he was rarely at home. And then my mama and her three girls went on market. Louisa and Claire were still young enough that the man who purchased my mother took all three as a lot, but I was made to bare myself and be pinched and prodded by several Buckra men who kept shouting numbers, until at last a price of many sols was reached, and suddenly I was handed over to a fat man in a white suit with a waistcoat colored apricot. He asked, How old is this negress? Fifteen, the auctioneer said, perhaps seventeen years.
“Fourteen, I said to the man, who seemed to be glowing in the bright sunshine. I am fourteen years old. Just as I spoke those words, I saw my mother and two sisters being led away by their new master, and I broke free, running to them, anxious not to be parted. My mother wailed when I embraced her and she hugged me to her breast. Please don’t beat her, she said to the auctioneer. Ma chérie, she cried, be a good girl. Do as you are told, and then the man pried me out of her arms, screaming in tears, and I did not ever see her again, though I can still picture the three of them walking away until all that remained were their bare footprints in the dust, and then I felt the hand of the master fall upon my shoulder.
“M. LaChance was his name, which made me smile against my will, and he said he was sorry to have only enough money for one and asked if I had lived all my fourteen years in Saint-Domingue, and I answered, Oui. He asked if I had ever ridden on a boat, and I answered, Non. We climbed into a cabriolet and were whisked off to the docks, and when I began to weep once more, this strange round man patted me on the knee. He said, We shall have an adventure in that case, for we are bound for Orleans, and I asked if that meant we would be going to France, thinking that at least I should see Anna again, but he just laughed till his face turned red. No, M. LaChance said, New Orleans in Louisiana, and I burst into bitter tears at the cruel irony embedded in the very name of our destination.