Le Hibiscus

 

Synopsis

This story will take you on a journey across three centuries through the lives of four generations of women from three different regions.

Chapter One

It was a dark, cool Caribbean morning on August 14, 1804, and an eerie silence hung in the air, too quiet. The windows were covered with black tar, making it impossible to tell whether it was night or day. Thirteen years had passed since the revolution began, and I could barely remember its start. I was just a child.

Dessalines was determined to slaughter every remaining white planter, mulâtre, and slave who had sided with the plantation owners. I heard neighbours being executed by gunfire, former slaves and Dessalines’ soldiers carrying out their grim task. Fear gripped me, not just for myself but for my family.

Despite the darkness shrouding the windows, I knew it was early morning. My father (the plantation owner), my mother (a house slave), and my four older sisters slept soundly, but I couldn’t. Something was about to happen—I felt it in my bones, though I didn’t know what.

I racked my brain for ways to escape the main house, but nothing came to mind. I missed the outdoors—the sweet scent of wild hibiscus flowers blooming everywhere, the way my sisters and I used to gather them into bouquets. If only I could step outside just once more.

But there was no secret door, no hidden window. The ones we had were sealed shut. Fear coiled tighter in my chest, for my life, for my father’s, for my mother’s, for my sisters’. The slaves’ pent-up rage against the plantation owners had reached a boiling point. Every door in the house was guarded, and my mother, sisters, and I were kept prisoner, branded as traitors.

My father, Aimé Aldain, was no cruel slave master. He treated his slaves better than most on the island—no whippings, no starvation, allowing them freedoms others didn’t. My mother, Adèle, was a brown-skinned house slave with Arawak features, her mother one of the last of the native people. My parents had fallen in love, married in a grand Catholic ceremony, and he had promised to take us to France so my sisters and I could be educated.

We were supposed to leave until the slaves rose. That was thirteen years ago. I was only five. Now, we were trapped in this suffocating heat, the air thick with fear. And I knew they were going to kill us.

Not just my father. My mother and I, too, are traitors in their eyes.

I stood quietly, gathered my shoes, and crept toward the door where the night guard stood.

He wasn’t a guard, not truly just a boy. A boy with a gun, but one who had always been kind to us, despite the revolution, despite the hatred festering around us. There was anger in his eyes, yes, but also loyalty. He’d done his best to get me what I needed.

As I approached, he glanced around—two guards chatted down the hall, another napped. When the coast was clear, he relaxed and gave me a small smile.

“Wat yuh want, Mistress? Yuh up early.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” I said, though what I wanted was to stretch my legs, to breathe air that wasn’t thick with dread.

“Ah, let me see if I can get another guard to take you.” He called out to Jacques, a hard-faced man who scowled as he approached.

“Jacques, the mistress needs to go.”

“No,” Jacques snapped. “She can do it right here.”

“Please,” I begged.

He struck me once, the blows splitting my lip, the pain sharp and humiliating. For the first time, I understood a fraction of the slaves’ suffering. My father had never whipped them, but he’d never freed them either.

“Please,” I whispered again.

“No, you filthy, selfish brat,” Jacques spat. “Do it here or not at all.”

The boy Alban stepped in. “I’ll take her. Jacques, watch the others.”

Jacques sneered. “Hurry. The army’s coming soon to finish the job. Rumours say French, Spanish, American, and British ships are near—but by the time they arrive, not a single white devil will be left.”

Alban’s grip on my arm was firm but not cruel as he led me down the hall. Outside, the air reeked of death. Bodies of white overseers littered the ground. My stomach lurched.

He took me to his hut, then spoke in a hushed rush. “Mistress Alix, there are American and British ships nearby. I can help you escape. Your father planned for the family to flee, but now, only one can go. I’ve gathered his money and jewels. You must go to his brother in Boston.”

“No,” I choked out. “My family, my mother, my sisters”

Gunshots rang out from the main house. Screams. Then silence.

We ran.

Alban shoved me into a hidden carriage, and we raced toward the Spanish border of Santo Domingo, bullets whizzing past us. Spanish troops patrolled there, keeping Dessalines’ forces at bay.

At the port, American ships waited. Alban, who had a sister in New Orleans, boarded with me. He was free. I was alive.

But my family was gone.

As the ship pulled away, I clutched a pink hibiscus I’d plucked in Santo Domingo, its scent the last thread tying me to home.

Goodbye, sweet Saint-Domingue. Adieu. Adieu. Adieu