Chapter 6
Six
Irechristened myself Noelle Carbonnier. I thought it fitting, since I was beginning a new life in La Nouvelle-Orléans, and it had been eleven years since my first meeting with Death.
The journey from Savannah had been long and slow, mirroring my search for Silas.
My first task was to find a job—no small task—and learn the lay of the land.
Miss Hortense was instrumental in teaching me the customs of the place.
I had found a room at her boardinghouse at the outskirts of the city—clean, neat, and far more comfortable than the shack where Death had found me.
As gruff as Miss Hortense was, she taught me how to get by in a place so foreign it might as well have been a different world.
The law then commanded that all free women of color in the city wear their hair in tignons to show their status.
They made their wrapped scarves things of beauty, with elegant twists and curves that looked as if tropical birds had landed upon them and graced them with their plumage.
Miss Hortense instructed me on how to tie mine, how to wear my dress, and how to live in a city that was a mixture of the French, the Spanish, and the newly made American.
I had sold whatever valuables I could take from the main house to pay my way, but the money I had in my pocket wouldn’t last long, and if I didn’t want to be on the street, or worse, I would have to find a way to earn.
And of course, I’d need money if I was to find my brother. A young slave couple fleeing through the same forest pathways I’d discovered had told me they knew Silas, and that he’d been traded to a branch of Master Carter’s family in Louisiana. My aim was set.
After a week, I donned my best white cotton dress, the least mangled from the trip, and paired it with a white tignon, tied simply. Peering at the bit of reflection in my room’s small looking glass, I decided my appearance was at least ordinary enough. I would blend in.
I approached Miss Hortense, asking what kind of opportunities the city offered to a woman like me.
She barked a laugh. “You know what you can do. Laundry or manual labor. Anything that’ll leave your body bent and broken.
” She gazed at her own hands sadly. The skin was rough and darker than the rest of her, and her right hand twisted in a painful-looking gnarl.
I knew the truth of her words, but I had no choice. I thanked her for the advice and asked her to be alert if she heard of anything. Then I set out, determined to find a position.
Though I had been in the city for a while, the noise and busyness still startled me.
The entire town bustled with movement. A lorry driver was urging his team of horses down the avenue.
Marchandes’ calls rang out above the chaos, their arms full of food baskets, tempting each passerby.
The more well-to-do strolled, fanning themselves in the growing heat as they picked their way across the streets.
The smell of hot dung and human excrement mingled with the fresh wood of constant construction.
A fire had ravaged part of town the year before, and the recovery was still underway.
In other areas of the city, new grand projects were planned.
New Orleans was a town on the rise, and if I planned on staying, I would have to rise with it.
By the third shop I visited—and the third resounding no I’d received—my spirits and the rest of me were dampened.
The midday sun shone, spiking the humidity.
Sweat leaked from my tignon, and my dress clung to me as I soldiered on, ignoring the thoughts of failure that were becoming increasingly present.
What if I couldn’t find a position? I had only enough money for three more weeks with Miss Hortense.
As I pondered the magnitude of my situation, a woman pressed to my side, dressed in the white cotton skirts common at the time, head framed with a yellowed tignon, a broad wicker basket in her hands, full of browned sugar cakes.
“One shilling or piece of eight,” she urged in Creole French, crowding me in the street.
The cakes smelled heavenly to my empty stomach, the rough ground coffee from breakfast long gone.
I eyed the cakes but thought of the shillings in my pocket.
I stepped back. “Not today,” I said, matching her accent. My eyes landed on her basket, still pressing into me. “I’m looking for work, actually,” I said quickly. “Would you know of anything?”
The woman’s welcoming smile vanished as her black eyes narrowed, looking me up and down.
“Work’s tough enough. You won’t find anything here.
” She brushed past me, bumping me hard in my shoulder, knocking me off-balance and nearly to the ground.
I was stunned, hot pricks burning behind my eyeballs as I almost fell into the dirt.
Later, I would come to understand her reaction. With a limited market, another woman of color on the street wasn’t good for her business at all.
Luckily, she wasn’t the only marchande working that day.
A hand extended from nowhere, gripping mine to steady me.
My rescuer rested her woven basket on her hip and grinned.
Her skin had a honeyed tone, and her brown eyes sparkled warmly.
Her skirts were wide, white, and full, covered by a dark-blue many-pocketed apron.
The square neckline suited her stout structure.
Her hair was in a red tignon, tied expertly, as Miss Hortense had shown me.
“Don’t mind Adelice,” she said, jerking her head at the offending woman’s retreating back. “I’m Sylvie. I heard what you said.” She gave me an appraising look. “You need to find Miss Eulalie de Mandéville. She has a big warehouse on Esplanade Avenue and always needs people. Go on down there.”
She winked and resumed her calls, beckoning customers from across the street with gentle ease in her movements.
It wasn’t much, but it was hope. I hurried from that spot, excited at just the chance of an opportunity.
Her words spurred me on through the humidity, thick as soup.
I followed her directions, closing the gap between me and the warehouse.
I hadn’t been to that area of town before, and made my way carefully, aware of my surroundings.
The warehouse was near the water, the funk of the river growing stronger the closer I went.
It mixed with the pungent smell of fish left to dry in the sun.
Construction clamored around me as teams of brown and black bodies labored under the careful eyes of their supervisors.
One of them caught my eye: a tall man near my age, a long scar running down the right side of his face.
He reminded me of Silas, with his hooded eyes and prominent brow.
He could have simply been looking, interested in a woman walking down the rutted street, but guilt rose inside me, spurring me forward; the expression in his eyes haunted me.
Luckily, the warehouse wasn’t far, only three turns away, set in the middle of two larger buildings, crates piled just outside.
My mouth got drier with every step as blood pulsed in my ears.
I tucked my chemise in and straightened my tignon, ensuring my hair was pinned away, pulling this and that until I was respectable. I straightened and made my way inside.
Piles of crates and boxes filled the large main room, about the size of Miss Hortense’s house.
Beams of light slanted down from the upper windows, illuminating the space.
Men and women, all shades of brown, bustled around like ants carting boxes or wares and stacking them for distribution.
The space was orderly, filled with positive energy and the hum of activity.
I tried to pinpoint exactly where the energy was coming from and realized it was the workers.
They held themselves proudly, as if they had a mission, a purpose.
I scanned the space, searching for Miss Eulalie. Sylvie had said she’d be impossible to miss. I only hoped I would know her when I saw her.
I asked a passing man, a box hoisted on his shoulder, and he jerked his head toward the back of the cavernous room.
Sylvie had been right.
Eulalie stood in the middle of that great warehouse—tall, with dark-blond wisps escaping her tignon.
She directed the workers around the warehouse, not unlike the supervisors from that construction site, but with a calm demeanor that spoke of assurance that her orders would be followed.
She didn’t have to yell or threaten. She simply consulted the papers she had in her hand and told them what to do.
I had seen the mistress of the house giving direction, but never a woman of business—and a woman of color, at that.
I didn’t know it, but at that time, she was younger than me, just twenty-one, the seeds of her empire newly forming.
Still, a tingle ran through me, a sign I was in the right place at the right time.
Eulalie’s tignon might as well have been a crown, made of a canary-yellow cotton broadcloth, meticulously knotted and twisted to the right. It marked her as the queen of her kingdom, which I quickly learned was absolutely the case. Loose curls framed her face, her light-brown skin clear and even.
What struck me most, though, was how at ease she was.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my skirt and waited for her to notice me, biting the inside of my cheek the entire time.
She turned toward me. “What do you want?” she asked in a clipped fashion, her eyes coolly taking stock of me. I resisted the urge to recheck my appearance and stood at my full height. I didn’t know what she thought of me, but I knew instinctively to meet her eye and hold my place.
“A woman named Sylvie told me you needed workers. I’m here for work.”