Chapter 8
What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears. The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.
Joseph had been sitting on the piazza with his book for only a few minutes when he heard Henry’s voice from the garden:
“What you reading today, Master Joseph?”
Henry was always interested in his books.
Joseph knew negroes weren’t allowed to read for a reason.
Denmark Vesey had been able to read, and he’d twisted verses from Scripture to suit him.
But the thought of opening a book and seeing meaningless black marks…
“It’s part of a set Mama bought about the lives of the saints. It’s by feast day.”
Henry was using a garden syringe to spray tobacco-water on Mama’s roses and kill the insects. “Whose day is today?”
“Saint Calixtus. He was a Pope.” Joseph scanned for more details, and his eyes widened. “But he was born a slave!”
Joseph tried to imagine Henry being elected the next Holy Father.
He would have to become a proper Christian first—like most of the negroes Joseph knew, Henry was a Methodist. He was also married to May, at least as married as slaves and Methodists could be.
But as far as Joseph could tell, Henry was a kind man, even a wise one.
“I don’t suppose Calixtus was an African, though,” Henry commented.
Joseph shook his head. “He was a Roman. But there are African saints.” Maybe he could save Henry yet. Why hadn’t he thought of this before?
Beneath the brim of his straw hat, Henry wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “That right?”
Joseph nodded. “I know there’s Saint Moses the Black, and Saint Benedict the Moor.
Saint Augustine and his mother, Saint Monica, were both from Africa, too.
” Joseph didn’t know what color they had been.
Negro blood would explain how wicked and lazy Saint Augustine had been in his youth. But Saint Monica was so virtuous.
There must be other African saints. Joseph would find them. He would ask Bishop England. Maybe Joseph could talk to His Lordship tonight—surely he would be at the party.
Joseph had intended to skim the rest of October for African saints, but he stopped at Saint Teresa of ávila, who had been Spanish like his grandmother.
When she was seven years old, Teresa and her little brother ran away, because they had “resolved to go into the country of the Moors, in hopes of dying for their faith.” Their martyrdom was thwarted by their uncle, who brought them home almost immediately.
Papa’s voice interrupted Joseph’s reading: “Henry, your mother says she needs about ten more okra pods.” Papa must have been in the kitchen talking to Agathe again.
Because Henry’s mother was from Saint-Domingue, she spoke a Creole dialect, and Papa seemed determined to learn it.
He spent an odd amount of time talking to their slaves, and not about anything important like their souls.
Papa stepped onto the piazza. “Are you ready, son?”
“Yes, sir.” Reluctantly Joseph set aside his book.
“Have your mother and sisters come down yet?”
“No.”
“Shall we see how close they are to perfection?”
Upstairs, he and Papa found all the females clustered around Mama’s dressing table. Mama was attending to Cathy’s hair, while May dressed Hélène’s. This might take a while yet. Joseph perched on the trunk at the end of his parents’ bed to watch.
There was more hair to arrange than ever before. That morning, his sisters had squealed with delight at the arrival of their strange package: the severed, glossy tresses of peasant women that had come all the way from Italy.
For as long as Joseph could remember, Cathy had been whining about her hair.
She couldn’t grow it long or shape it properly because it was too frizzly: it only stood out from her head.
Looking like a hedgehog might have been the fashion in Great-Grandmother Marguerite’s day, but not now!
Lots of women added false curls, so why couldn’t she?
“Maybe when you’re older,” Papa answered again and again, till at last he surrendered.
And Hélène wanted whatever Cathy wanted.
Hélène spotted Papa in the mirror and darted away from May to tug on his sleeve. “Am I pretty now, Papa?”
His smile seemed sad. “You have always been pretty, ma poulette.”
Cathy actually stuck her nose in the air while she admired her reflection. From long habit, she signed and spoke at once. “Hers don’t match as well as mine.” It was true: the added hair was slightly darker than Hélène’s own.
Mama scowled at Cathy, in the way only Mama could. ‘Vanity is a mortal sin, Catherine. Remember your patron saint. When she wasn’t much older than you, her brothers wanted her to marry. But Saint Catherine knew she was a bride of Christ, so what did she do?’
Cathy rolled her eyes but signed: ‘Cut off all her hair to make herself ugly. But I don’t want to marry Christ, Mama! I want to marry a man!’
Hélène had run back to the mirror and was tilting her head sideways so she could see the curls better. Her lower lip trembled, and her ragged breaths threatened to become sobs.
“No one will notice, sugar,” May soothed. “All we do is add a little decoration.” The black woman plucked two ideas from the dressing table. “Feathers, or flowers?”
Hélène weighed a choice in each hand as if her entire future lay in the balance. “Oh, May, I can’t decide! Which do you like?”
Cathy laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, El. Everybody knows negroes don’t have opinions; they just do what they’re told.” Cathy motioned to the blue kerchief wrapped around the black woman’s head. “Does May look like she knows anything about hair? Negroes only have wool! Don’t they, May?”
“Yes, miss,” she replied quietly, her eyes lowered.
Meanwhile, Papa was noticing that Mama still wore her frilly white wrapper. ‘You haven’t chosen a gown yet?’ he asked with his hands and a smile.
Mama avoided Papa’s gaze. ‘You go with the children.’
He frowned. ‘You said you wanted to meet the new Priest.’
‘I’ll meet him later.’ What she meant was: When there aren’t so many other people about.
This was an old argument. Mama had never liked parties, and Papa was always trying to get her to go places besides church.
There, she would hide behind her mantilla.
Mama had even asked their family not to sign to her in public. They didn’t always obey.
Joseph hopped off the trunk and caught Mama’s attention. ‘The Grands will be at the party. You can talk to them.’
‘Only with my hands.’
Papa lifted one to his lips and kissed Mama’s knuckles. ‘Then use your hands.’
‘I’ll embarrass you.’
‘No you won’t, Mama,’ Hélène assured her.
“May?” Papa asked aloud, turning to her. “Would you find Anne something to wear that doesn’t have too many hooks?”
May looked puzzled. “Sir?”
Papa grinned. “Something you can get her into quickly.”
The black woman chuckled. “I’ll try, sir.”
Apparently there were still a great many hooks. By the time they arrived at the house party, it was already dark, and all that remained on the table were nuts and prunes. Hélène pouted.
Father Laroche’s health was poor, so he was leaving them. The new Priest was named Father McEncroe. He said he had been ordained three years ago and had known Bishop England in Ireland.
At first, Father McEncroe made the mistake of talking too loudly at Mama, as if this would make a difference. But then the Priest saw their expressions, stopped at once, and apologized. He seemed sincere, and he waited patiently while Papa translated.
The Grands soon found them, and Mama looked relieved.
She positioned them carefully in a corner so they could talk without anyone else seeing their hands.
Her signs were so contained, so different from Papa’s bold ones.
When he had something to say, he didn’t care if the whole room took notice.
The Grands’ gestures were somewhere in-between, though their eyes were nearly as cautious as Mama’s, always alert about who might be watching and what they would think.
Eventually, Joseph began wandering. He found Mr. Künstler, and they discussed Plato.
Mr. Künstler was one of the lay teachers at the Philosophical and Classical Seminary.
At first, Joseph had been wary of him, because he walked with a cane like Great-Grandmother Marguerite.
Mr. Künstler leaned on his even more heavily, and he could not stand for very long at one time, because he had a club-foot.
But Mr. Künstler could not have been more different from Joseph’s great-grandmother. He actually listened when Joseph spoke.
Mr. Künstler said he’d seen Bishop England in the garden. On his way there, Joseph passed the drawing room. A haze of cigar smoke drifted through the barely-open doorway. Inside, men’s voices rolled and boomed. When he heard the word “deaf-mute,” Joseph paused.
“Can you imagine a more perfect wife?” a man practically shouted, his words slurring. “You’d never have to listen to her! I mean: You’d never have to listen to her!”
“That Lazare is one lucky man,” someone else agreed, as if there could be any doubt about who this “perfect wife” was. Joseph felt as if claws had gripped his heart. He wanted to run away, but his legs wouldn’t move.
“Think about it, gentlemen: a perpetual child bride.” That was the first voice again. “She’d be totally dependent on you. She wouldn’t think a thing unless you put the thought into her head.”
“She’d never defy you.”
“She wouldn’t know how.”
Someone made a slurping noise.
“You could do anything you liked to her.” The first voice had changed now, become darker. “She literally couldn’t complain.”
There were a few beats of silence, then a new man interjected: “It must be better than keeping a colored girl!”
Everyone laughed.