different man from his brother, rougher, more robust, more brutal; unlike his brother, he had light hair, and one side of his face had been paralyzed by a stroke. He liked to eat and drink to excess, and when he saw a young woman, he had to have her. He refrained from molesting Juliana and Isabel, however, because his brother reminded him that business is more important than pleasure. Those girls would bring a good sum of money. Jean veiled his early years in mystery no one knew where he had come from but he confessed to being thirty-five. He was smooth in his dealings and had exquisite manners; he spoke several languages, among them French, Spanish, and English, and he loved music and gave great sums of money to the New Orleans opera. Despite his success with women, he did not just take what he wanted, like Pierre; he preferred to court them with patience. He was gallant, jovial, a fine dancer and teller of tales, most of them invented as he went along. His sympathy for the American cause was legendary; his captains knew that “anyone who attacks an American ship dies.” Under his command he had three thousand men who called him boss, and he moved millions in merchandise on barges and pirogues along the intricate channels of the Mississippi Delta. No one knew that region as well as he and his men; authorities could not control them or capture them.
They sold the gains of their piracy only a few leagues from New Orleans, at an ancient sacred site of the Indians called the Temple.
Plantation owners, rich and not so rich Creoles, even relatives of the governor, bought anything they saw at a reasonable price and in a festive atmosphere, and without paying taxes. That was also the place where they auctioned slaves bought on the cheap in Cuba and sold for high prices in the United States, where traffic in Blacks was illegal though slavery was not. Lafitte advertised his sales in posters on every street corner: “Come One, Come All, to Jean Lafitte’s Slave Auction at the Temple! Clothing, Jewels, Furniture, and Other Articles from the Seven Seas!”
On the ship, Jean had invited his three female hostages to share a small meal on the deck, but they refused to leave their cabin. He sent them a tray of cheeses, cold meats, and a good bottle of Spanish wine from the Madre de Dios, with his respectful greetings. Juliana could not get the man out of her head and was dying with curiosity to know him, but thought it more prudent to stay inside.
Diego spent those forty hours in the open, tied up like a sausage, without food. The pirates took his La Justicia medallion and what few coins he had in his pocket; they gave him a little water from time to time and a kick or two if he seemed too active. Jean Lafitte approached him a couple of times to assure him that once they were on his island he would be more comfortable, and to beg him to forgive his men’s rough manners. They were not used to dealing with refined people, he said. Diego had to swallow the sarcasm, muttering to himself that sooner or later he would cut that reprobate down to size.
The important thing now was to stay alive. Without him the two de Romeu girls would be lost. He had heard of the orgies of alcohol, sex, and blood the pirates threw in their lairs when they returned triumphant from their villainy, of how unfortunate women prisoners suffered terrible abuse, of the raped and mutilated bodies buried in the sand during those bacchanals. He tried not to think of those things, only of how to escape, but he was tormented by those images.
Besides, he could not lose that uncomfortable presentiment he had felt earlier. It had something to do with his father, of that he was certain. It had been weeks since he had communicated with Bernardo, and he decided to use those tedious hours to attempt it. He concentrated on calling his brother, but telepathy was not something they could summon at will; messages came and went following no fixed pattern and without the control of either of them. That long silence between Bernardo and him, so rare, seemed a very bad omen. He wondered what was going on in Alta California and what could have happened to Bernardo and his parents.
Grand Island in Barataria, where the Lafittes had their empire, was large, humid, flat, and, like the rest of the region, distinguished by an aura of mystery and decadence. That capricious and hot climate, which swung between bucolic calm and devastating hurricanes, invited grand passions. Everything decayed rapidly, from vegetation to human souls. In moments of good weather, like that that welcomed Diego and his friends, a warm breeze carried the heavy, sweet scent of orange blossoms, but as soon as the breeze ceased, a sweltering heat descended. The pirates put their prisoners ashore and escorted them to Jean Lafitte’s residence on a promontory surrounded with a forest of palm trees and twisted live oaks, with leaves burned by salt spray. The pirates’ town, protected from the wind by a thicket of shrubs, could barely be seen through the leaves. Oleanders provided notes of color.
Lafitte’s home was two stories high, Spanish style, with latticework at the windows and a broad terrace facing the sea. The house was constructed of brick covered with a mixture of plaster and ground oyster shells. The farthest thing from a cave, as the prisoners had expected, it was clean, organized, even luxurious. The rooms were large and cool, and the views from its balconies were spectacular; the light wooden floors shone, the walls had been freshly painted, and on every table were vases of flowers, trays of fruit, and carafes of wine.
A pair of black slave girls took the women to their rooms. For Diego they produced a pitcher of water for washing up; they gave him coffee, then led him to a veranda where Jean Lafitte, accompanied by two brightly colored parrots, was resting in a red hammock, strumming a stringed instrument with his gaze lost on the horizon. Diego judged that the contrast between the man’s evil reputation and his refined behavior could not be more startling.
“You may choose between being my prisoner and being my guest, Senor de la Vega. As my prisoner you have the right to try to escape, and I have the right to prevent you in any way I can. As my guest you will be treated well until we receive your father’s ransom, but you will be obliged by the laws of hospitality to respect my house and my instructions. Do we understand one another?”
“Before I answer, senor, I must know your plans regarding the de Romeu sisters, who are in my charge,” Diego replied.
“They were, senor; they no longer are. Now they are in my charge. Their fate depends on your father’s response.”
“If I agree to be your guest, how will you know that I will not try to escape anyway?”
“Because you would not do that without the de Romeu girls, and because you will give me your word of honor,” the pirate replied.
“You have it, Captain Lafitte,” said Diego, resigned.
“Very well. Please, join me within the hour to dine with your friends. I believe that you will not be disappointed with my cook.”
In the meantime, Juliana, Isabel, and Nuria were going through some upsetting experiences. Several men had brought tubs to their room and filled them with water; then three young slave girls appeared, equipped with soap and brushes; they were under the direction of a tall, beautiful woman with sculpted features and long neck, a large turban gave her another hand span of height. She introduced herself in French as Madame Odilia and clarified that she was the person who ran the house of Lafitte. She told the prisoners to take off their clothes, that they were going to be bathed. None of the three had ever bathed naked in their lives; they had always washed with great modesty beneath a light cotton tunic. The fuss Nuria kicked up provoked an attack of the giggles in the slave girls, and the madame of the turban dryly commented that no one dies from taking a bath. That sounded reasonable to Isabel, so she took off everything she was wearing. Juliana imitated her, covering her private parts with both hands. This brought on new giggles from the Africans, who compared their own mahogany color with that of this girl who was white as the dining room china. Nuria was another matter. To get her clothes off, she had to be held down, and her screams shook the walls. The young slaves put the women in the tubs and lathered them from head to toe. After the first shock, what they had thought would be an ordeal proved to be not really so bad, and soon Juliana and Isabel began to enjoy it. The slaves took away their clothes without explanation and brought back rich brocade gowns, badly suited for the warm climate. They were in good condition, but it was evident that they had been worn; one had bloodstains on the hem. What had happened to the former wearer? Was she, too, a prisoner? Better not to think of her fate, or the fate that awaited them. Isabel deduced that the haste to get them out of their clothes was in response to specific instructions from Lafitte, who wanted to be sure that they had nothing hidden beneath their skirts. They had prepared for that eventuality.
Diego decided to take advantage of the conditional freedom he had been granted by the corsair, and went out to reconnoiter the grounds in the hour before dinner. The pirate town was made up of vagabonds from every corner of the globe. Some were living with their women and children in palm-thatched huts, though bachelors moved about without a place of their own. Good French and Creole food was available, along with bars, brothels, and artisan’s shops. Those men of many races, languages, creeds, and customs had in common a fierce love of liberty, but they accepted the laws of Grand Island because they seemed reasonable and the system was
