My Brother Jacque

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(Currently being rewritten)

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It was a new day on the prairie. Out where the shackled men worked, the birds began to sing. I sat among the haybales watching the sun rise through the open window. The barn was ready to burn…

… I awoke on a Wednesday to the sound of my brother, Jacque, crashing about the upper floors of our father’s old manor. Well, I suppose it was ours now. It never truly felt like it. The floorboards above me bent with Jacque’s furious stomping. Something had angered him.

Likely a slave, I thought to myself.

There was a crash! Jacque was roaring and cursing. The floorboards sent dust down upon my bed.

This house has seen worse than Jacque. I thought, reassuring myself.

The offending slave girl was screaming in pain.

Likely she has too.

There was no one else now. It was just my brother and I managing the family plantation, thirty miles inland on Saint Domingue. Jacque managed the fields. I managed the affairs. This being mainly because Jacque could barely read, let alone keep accounts. He also believed in strict discipline for the labour.

The girl above screamed again.

I arose slowly and looked out my bedroom window. The sun had fully risen, and the southern fields were finally being harvested. The singing of the slaves wafted gently into the room.

This harvest… This harvest we’re free of the debtors.

My father was a gambler and Jacque had acquired the taste. It took much from me to reign him in after Father died.

I opened my door in time to see the slave girl. She lowered her blooded eyes as she passed.

“Go wash.”

She stank.

I arrived in dining room, breakfast was served, and Jacque was eating.

“They captured the King” he said, indifferently.

“What?”

He shrugged, pointing to a newspaper. He’d only read the headline. Holding it up, I read the article over and over. The entire royal family had been trying to flee Paris. A guard had recognised the King.

“More coffee.” Jacque grunted. A slave complied.

I put the newspaper down. The past few years were like a storm that gathered and then dissipated before any lightning struck. I was desperately glad I wasn’t there.

“Gonna head to port tomorrow” said Jacque, trying to sound as if he were just saying it in passing.

I took a breath. He tried this about once a month.

“I know you’re bored-”

“-I’m more than fucking bored-”

“-But if you go spending money-”

“-I’ll only take a little-”

“-Or borrowing it from the lenders-”

“-I won’t this time-”

“-When we are so close to reclaiming our fortune.”

“FUCKING HELL PIERRE!” roared Jacque. He stormed out, knocking his coffee over as he went.

I understood why he was so desperate to go to town. It wasn’t the whores or the gambling – though I’m sure Jacque thought it was – it was the crowds. The crowds dampened the fear, even if everyone hated everyone else.

I snapped my fingers at the spilled coffee and the slave obeyed. Today, I would review yesterday’s stock and check the accounts.

Walking across the prairie to the granary, I saw a group of slaves gathered in its shade. One was on his back, panting and sweating.

Another one.

“Back to work” I said.

There was nothing they could do for him. Better they get back to the fields before Jacque saw them.

Alone, the breathless slave was a pitiable thing. His red eyes stared up at me, almost asking for help. Perhaps he would live if he were left alone. I took a swig of my water flask and unlocked the granary…

An hour later, I emerged. Everything was in good order. We would clear the debt and have 4000 livres to spare. I drank in the hot day, looking around… The slave had disappeared.

Lazy shit.

In the distance, Jacque was patrolling the harvest. I walked up to him. I was feeling generous.

“Tell you what, once the traders come tomorrow, you can take four hundred livre and head to the port.”

Jacque grinned, “You comin’?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re loss.”

“Remember Jacque-”

“-No debt.”

I nodded.

“You got any left-over?” he said, gesturing to my water flask.

I tossed it to him. He almost missed it, the lid came off and water drenched his crotch. This would have not been cause for any grief had a nearby slave been able to suppress his laugh. Jacque’s eyes snapped on him like a dog on the hunt. The whip started flying.

“YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?”

If I were a slave, I wouldn’t take this.

“YOU. THINK. THIS. IS. FUNNY. YOU. N-”

-But the slave didn’t take it. He struck Jacque across the face.

Even the sugar cane stood still. No one breathed. This could not go unpunished, and everyone knew how.

Another slave held up his hands slightly to his fellows “Linda. Linda, kungekudala.”

Jacque dragged the man to the old barn. There, like so many times before when he wished to make an example, he bound the man’s hands behind his back, swung the rope over the rafters and strung him up. Tonight, his fellows would sleep while his life slowly slipped away above them.

It was a long afternoon after that. When the evening came, Jacque remembered his upcoming trip and was once again in good spirits.

We drank and sang, eating second helpings of everything. I turned in to read, examining once again the beautiful words of La Fayette and Jefferson when they declared the Rights of Man. Perhaps the King would be charged? Of what, I don’t know. But he had demonstrated such contempt for the people he ruled. There would justly be little mercy for him…

The candlelight dimmed, and I awoke with a jolt. A terrible noise was coming from the trees in the hills… It took some time for me to recognise it.

Vodou

The slaves were practicing their dark arts again.

I walked out to the porch, and unsurprised, I found Jacque sitting in his rocking chair with his musket across his knees. He wasn’t staring at the trees. No, he was staring at the old barn. His breathing was shallow, swallowing every minute or so. I sat with him for a while. Neither of us speaking. I couldn’t put it into words how narrow the air felt. I still cannot. Yet, as the noise of the vodou grew louder. Jacque never looked away from the barn.

The next day, the traders came, and with them the end of our woes. As I counted the last livre, I felt I would sleep a year.

“Well, then. I suppose you’ll be off.”

“Aye.”

“I think I shall sleep for a while.”

And so I did to the sound of the hooves of Jacque’s horse as they galloped off towards a weekend of lechery.

I arose in the early evening, ready, finally, to prepare for the debt collector’s arrival the next week. As I descended to the basement, I knew something was wrong. The chest was open. The money was gone.

I flew into a rage worthy of Jacque.

The fool.

I smashed the chest then the walls and then my fists.

The fool has ruined us.

Storming up to the kitchen, I grabbed the first body I saw – it was the girl that Jacque had awoken me over the previous day.

“WHERE IS THE MONEY?”

She stammered.

“DID JACQUE TAKE IT? DID MY BROTHER TAKE IT?”

She wept and nodded. I tossed her aside.

That night I did not sleep. Nor the next night. Finally, when the cock cried for the dawn of Sunday, Jacque’s hooves crescendo-ed into my bedroom window. I grabbed my musket.

He called to me as I come out onto the porch.

“Ran out of livres. Couldn’t afford a room so I rode all night.”

He laughed like a madman.

He stumbled towards me. I raised the gun.

“Where’s the money.”

“I told you. I lost it”

“You lost everything!”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t go to the lenders”

“THAT WAS EVERYTHING WE HAD!”

“What?”

“YOU TOOK EVERYTHING”

“I DID NOT!

“DO NOT LIE TO ME”

“I swear! I swear I didn’t! I took four hundred like you said.”

“Then where on God’s Earth did it go!”

This went on for some time. Jacque was a fool, but he never lied to me. I couldn’t believe he was doing so now. I demanded that he search the grounds though I knew it was pointless. If he didn’t get out of my sight, I would certainly end up shooting him. I began to drink.

As the day drained away into evening another set of hooves crescendo-ed towards the manor. A cart. A cart with boxes.

“This is a mistake,” I slurred, as I looked over the crates of muskets with blurred vision, “I never made such an order.”

“Many months ago, you did. I received the order with your signature,” said the Trader, “I also received the final payment on Thursday eve.”

“I did not. I don’t have the need for these”

“Well, sir, I am not taking a refund for a shipment this size. If you wish to part with them then by all means, on-sell them.”

He rode off.

I didn’t. I couldn’t understand. I fell upon the bed. Soon I would wake up. I had done nothing to deserve this.

That night a storm came. But it wasn’t the thunder, it was Jacque. He was screaming again. But no- this was different. He wasn’t in a rage. There was something wrong-

GUNFIRE! Out in the fields there was cheering. GLASSBREAKING! There were shouts as men stormed the house. I climbed out the window and fell. There was fire. And the slaves were dancing in the field to sound of my brother’s screaming.

I ran to the only place I could: the old barn. I hid among the haybales. They came in. All of them. They strung him up and cheered again, whipping him and beating him like a dog. It went on for hours. I was trapped behind a wall.

The flames of the manor flickered in the window.

Soon, they'd all left… and I slept to sound of Jacque gurgling.

I awoke and looked out onto the fields. The slaves had left- Now was my chance.

I climbed up and pushed the door open ready to run out to the cover of the sugar cane but it was never to be so. A group of slaves were waiting. They knew I was there.

The man with the red eyes came forward with a water flask. He offered it to me. I reached my hand out and the burning pain of a bayonet seared my side. Soon I was up next to my brother. But they did not cheer. They watched silently.

If I were a slave, I'd have done the same.