“I pondered this assertion as the sailors and soldiers spilled down the gangway, and last the entourage of the governor made its way to the stage that had been erected in the center of the square. From my vantage, I did not get a close look, but I could see the Irishman at last, no powdered wig but black hair like a raven set against his pale skin, and the fine coats and breeches of a gentleman, festooned with ribbons and medals on his chest. Warm applause greeted him, a few rowdies hooting in the anonymity of the crowd. M. LaChance and the others sat to listen to the speech, and the rest of us held our space and strained to hear. The new governor spoke to us first in Spanish, and a few words that echoed our own language made sense to me, but then he repeated his oration in French, bestowing upon the people of New Orleans blessings from God and felicitations from King Carlos, a surprise to hear that name, and to announce not only a new prosperity ahead but a return to law and order as well. And then he started again his greetings, but the third language made no sense, though his voice bore the words as if in a song both natural and sweet. What is that tongue? I asked. Is Governor O’Reilly speaking Irish? The Big Fella laughed at me and said, No, that is the language of the English passed through an Irish mouth. Sort of like a fart passed through a flute. Hachard slapped him on the shoulder at that remark, but she was secretly smiling. We all were happy that day, though it was the only time I ever laid eyes upon O’Reilly, yet I was to hear more of him in the months ahead, and he was to change my life entirely. He gave me hope.”
A low chuckle from Marie interrupted the old man’s recitation, and he straightened his back and raised his eyes to inquire as to the source of her levity. He had been poised at a spot just below the curve of her breast. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but your hair was tickling me.”
He flattened the silver cock’s comb sprouting atop his head. “A thousand apologies, Mademoiselle.” When he removed his hand, his hair sprang straight up, and all of the women giggled. Something about that wild hair and those wire-rimmed glasses reminded me of a public personage whose face had often appeared in photographs once upon a time, but still I could not attach a name to the man. With a curt, proper bow, he bent to his work.
“Not four days after the arrival of O’Reilly and his black freedmen, soldiers from Cuba posted the broadsides around town announcing the arrest of the Acadian ringleaders of those who had chased the former governor Ulloa from New Orleans. I had to beg the Master to be let go into town for the execution, and at first he refused my request, saying it was not fit for a colored girl to see. More clever by far, Hachard simply informed the Mistress that she must needs go into the markets that morning and I was to accompany her to fetch home the parcels. What is that you are buying? Madame asked. Is it so heavy that you need the girl? Tabac, said Hachard, from Habana, and my friends tell me coquille d’hu?tre big as a small hen are to be found, and you know how the Master loves des hu?tres.”
Puzzled by the word, the old man stopped.
“Oysters,” Marie volunteered.
“Yes, Madame answered, every time he eats the oysters, he fills me with another baby. She reached into her purse and produced another coin. If you must buy oysters, she said, buy a surfeit of fat ones so the old goat will be too stuffed to move and will leave me alone tonight. Merci, Hachard curtsied, and we were on our way.
“The French thugs had been quickly tried for crimes against the Spanish king when they kicked out his governor, and O’Reilly had ordered some rebels exiled for life at Morro prison in Habana, and their lands were confiscated by the government. The five ringleaders were executed, perhaps—I don’t know—as an example to others with treason in their hearts. We were desperate to see the firing square. A great crowd shielded the scene as we arrived, but word ran from person to person that the prisoners were bound and blindfolded and made to stand like stalwarts against the wall. No sooner had this news reached our ears than the loud volley of muskets, several shots all at one command, and then another solitary ball as if some man who suffered the first round had been dispatched with a second. The crowd parted in a moment, and the troops marched past, their elegant uniforms clean and menacing, and I was shocked to see that three of the eight musketeers were black like me and two others mulatto of some mixed blood. A black killing a white was unthinkable, but such are the changes brought by the Spanish Irishman.
“From that moment on, he became known as Bloody O’Reilly, though I do not know how he is called in Spanish. Eight slaves dragged away the bodies from the wall until all that could be seen were pocks in the soft plaster where the balls had either missed their targets or passed through the victims. A few handfuls of sawdust blotted the blood on the ground, and I confess that my heart was sore for those men, whatever sin on their souls, and in my imagination, the Irishman darkened any sense of liberty I may have felt at being at the market.
“But do not judge the chess match by an opening gambit. Stories about the governor’s actions sifted through the whites and eventually settled upon our people, where the news was most welcome. He would stand no disrespect from the French and expelled the foreign merchants from the city with the sole exception of Oliver Pollock, another Irish. How they stick together. But most of all, the governor seemed to be on the side of the downtrodden. The Big Fella explained to Hachard, who passed the notion to me, that O’Reilly, being a member of a long-suffering people, could not bear to join the service of his nation’s oppressors, the English, and so he became a Wild Goose and flew off to Europe, first to Austria and then to Spain. Hachard said, He is like us in one respect, to have known the heel of the boot.
“The Master and Mistress quarreled often about the man and whether the Spanish or French were better for Orleans. In all my years with the family LaChance, little else caused such rows. The Master was a genial sort; keep him fed and laid in bed, and nothing would ruffle him. We cannot change kings at will, he would say. Better to prosper in New Spain than pine for Old France. But Madame behaved like the nombril du monde …
The old man asked, “What would we say?”