Page 79 of The Unforgiven
“But I don’t understand,” Madeline cried. “Why will no one tell me the truth about anything? A few months ago, I was still a child, living with a father who loved me, and believing myself safe from harm. Since then, I’ve been orphaned, disgraced, lied to, and banished. And none of it was my doing. There isn’t a person in this world who genuinely loves me,” Madeline cried.
“I love you, child,” Mammy said and sat down next to Madeline. She put her arm around Madeline’s heaving shoulders and kissed her temple. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
“Then tell me the truth. I’m a grown woman now, and I have a right to know.”
Mammy sighed. “I tried to protect you, Madeline. I thinks it best that you don’t know. But you’s right. It’s time you knew the truth. Come, let’s sit outside. It’s too hot in here, and too crowded with memories.”
Madeline followed Mammy outside and took her customary seat, while Mammy took the chair on the other side of the open doorway. Her gaze seemed to glaze over as she stared out over the silent bayou. The water shimmered in the hazy winter sunshine, and the gnarled branches of the trees pointed to the sky like wasted limbs. The sinister beauty of the bayou was timeless and eerie, and made Madeline feel as if she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to leave this place and never come back, but not before she was armed with the truth that had been withheld from her for so long.
Mammy didn’t look at Madeline as she began to speak, her voice low and husky. “My mama was born in Trinidad. She was a healer, a wise woman. White men called her a witch doctor or shaman, but she be no witch, just a woman who knew things. She learned from her own mother, who learned from hers. The knowledge was passed down generation to generation, but only tothe women. A marriage had been arranged for her with the son of an important man who was also a Dougla.”
“What’s a Dougla?” Madeline asked.
“A person of African and East Indian blood. My mama was to marry him when she turned sixteen.”
“Did she?”
Mammy shook her head. “She was taken by a Dutch slaver when she was out collecting plants and roots for her medicines. He took her away.”
There was no anger in Mammy’s voice. She spoke as though in a trance, detached from what she was feeling, but Madeline didn’t believe her demeanor for a moment. Mammy was like the deceptively calm surface of the Mississippi, hiding powerful currents beneath the surface. She wasn’t one to feel nothing. In fact, she probably felt too much, and had no wish to relive this part of her family’s history, which she’d buried deep inside and never shared with anyone.
“What happened to her?” Madeline asked, ashamed of how little she knew about the person she’d claimed to love. Mammy had been there for her, a loving, caring presence for as long as she could remember, but Madeline had taken what she had to give without giving anything back, without ever truly seeing Mammy as a person in her own right.
“He brought her here, to Louisiana, to sell. It was a long sea voyage. They made many stops and loaded more slaves. The Dutchman wanted a woman to warm his bed on lonely nights at sea, so he took my mama. By the time she came off that ship, she was pregnant. She begged him to keep her, to protect their baby, but he was deaf to her pleas. He sold her at auction and demanded a higher price ’cause the new owner was getting two for the price of one.”
“That’s barbaric,” Madeline exclaimed, outraged by the man’s indifference.
“That’s life, child.”
Madeline grew silent, thinking on what Mammy had said. How could a man sell his woman and child? How could a man take someone who was free and sell them for his own profit without a twinge of conscience? How could such a man live with himself? Without any remorse, Madeline assumed. There were many others like him, men who didn’t see the people they enslaved as human beings, and didn’t recognize the children they’d created as their offspring.
“What happened to her?” Madeline finally asked.
“She was bought by a cruel man. He didn’t beat her, or work her too hard, but he took her baby away. He sold me on when I was six, old enough to remember my mama, but not old enough to fend for myself. He sold me to George’s great-grandfather Maurice. Maurice Besson was a frugal man. He didn’t want to waste money on strong men, so he bought children and worked them like adults.”
“Did you ever see your mother again?”
Mammy shook her head. “No. But I remembered the things she tried to teach me. She tell me to take every chance, and never trust anyone with my heart.”
“Who was that man I saw you with in my vision, Mammy?”
“That be Jean, Maurice’s son and George’s grandfather. He took a shine to me, so I came to him willingly, hoping I might benefit if I please him.”
“Was he kind to you?” Madeline asked, wondering if the man’s playfulness was just a prelude to cruelty.
“He was kind enough, but his wife would have skinned me alive, given half a chance.”
“Sybil?” Madeline said, finally understanding the animosity between the two women.
“Jean brought me here many times. He liked his pleasure uninterrupted.”
“Did Sybil know?”
“Not at first,” Mammy replied. “She was mad in love with him, that girl. He was handsome and charming and liked to give pleasure as much as he liked to receive it. Sybil was too innocent to think he might be laying with other women, especially slaves, who, in her mind, were lower than cockroaches. But there came a time when things couldn’t be kept hidden any longer.”
“How did she find out?” Madeline asked, although she thought she already knew.
Mammy smiled ruefully at Madeline, her gaze glazed with memories of that time. “Jean got me with child, and when my baby came out nearly as white as Sybil’s own children, she knew. My baby had three white grandparents,” Mammy said by way of explanation. “She was beautiful. She had green eyes like my father. My mama always spoke of his eyes. Clear green, with dark blond lashes. The Dutchman was a handsome man, if a heartless one.”
