The Immortelles Read Online Free PDF Page B

merely responded, her voice like steel, “Yes, you did.”
    Damita turned and fled the room. She ran down the two flights of stairs and found her mother in the hall near the kitchen. Elena said, “Your father’s told me what happened.”
    â€œIt wasn’t my fault. I didn’t tell him to beat her that savagely.”
    Elena knew her daughter very well, and she put her hands on her shoulders. “You must learn to be kind, Damita,” she said. She turned and walked away, leaving Damita alone in the hallway.

Chapter three
    Although it was only slightly past nine o’clock in the morning, the streets of the French Market were already crowded. Damita and Charissa had to thread their way through the throngs of customers who, like them, had come to buy food and supplies. A babble of languages broke the morning air: English, French, German, and Spanish. The streets were lined with shops of all sorts, but selling was not confined to them; many individuals stood next to their wares and advertised loudly. A black woman with a large bowl on her head called out, “Fine fritters!” Damita stopped and bought two of the rice fritters. “Very hot,” the black woman said, grinning as she took the coin from Damita.
    Damita turned and handed one of the calahs to Charissa. “Eat it while it’s hot,” she said, smiling.
    â€œThank you,” replied Charissa, without expression. She took the calah and bit into it, but she felt little friendliness. It had been four months since the beating had taken place, and during that time the two young women had been wary of each other. Damita had
made some effort to reconcile with the slave girl but was ready to give it up as hopeless. Charissa never spoke of it, but her eyes showed a cold bitterness whenever she looked at her mistress.
    The two women passed by a woman who cried out, “Blackberries—berries very fine!” Another, called a praline mammy, vended pecan and pink or white coconut pralines from a basket.
    Damita paused in front of an Indian woman who sold herb roots. She bought some of the filé, or pounded, dried sassafras leaves, for making gumbo. As she was doing this, Charissa bent over and touched the fat cheek of the woman’s baby, who grinned at her and made her smile.
    Damita saw this and said, “That’s a beautiful baby, isn’t it, Rissa?”
    She insisted on using the nickname, which rankled the young slave. “Yes, ma’am, very nice.”
    As the two made their way through the market, Lewis Depard hailed from across the street. He took off his hat and greeted Damita with a warm smile. “How fortunate to meet you, Damita. You are shopping, I see.”
    â€œYes. Our cook asked me to pick up some things. How are you, Lewis?”
    â€œCould not be better.” Lewis did indeed look handsome, and he sounded eager as he said, “I was going to call on you later in the day, but we are well met.”
    Charissa stood by, listening to the two. It was as if she did not exist. She had noticed that slave owners were able to blot out their human possessions, treating them like furniture. At times she wanted to scream, Look at me! I’m a human being. Don’t ignore me. But this, of course, would not have been wise.
    She shrugged her shoulders in the morning heat, and the memory of the brutal beating rose in her mind. The pain was gone, but she still had fine scars left from the wounds of the rod. Alfredo had replaced Garr Odom with an older man named Batist Laurent, and she was grateful to her master for getting rid of him. Alfredo had been kinder than she expected, calling a doctor in to treat her and keeping her from work for two weeks after the beating.
    But Charissa could never bring herself to forgive her mistress. She knew Damita only as a thoughtless young girl, who perhaps cared for her own people but had no compassion at all for the poor or especially for slaves. She