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I want to shout at them, “Do you think this is why I was born? Do you think I was made to carry a bucket of water on my head for some jerk’s morning bath?” I was destined to be a great woman. An educated woman. A respected woman. Not the woman you see before you with a tattered shirt, that barely covers what is most personal to me. My skin is supposed to be soft—smooth. Not dry, rough and burned by the sun. My body taught and muscled from my twelve trips to the well and back each day.
The first trip of the day is the hardest. I am alone along the path. The first one up in the house so that the cook will have water to boil eggs and make coffee for Mr. Charmant’s breakfast. I should be one of those women waiting for the water bearer so that I could boil eggs for my children and make coffee for my husband. But I have no husband. I have no children. All I have is the bright red polka dotted handkerchief left to me by my dear friend. Her bad knees finally freed her from this drudgery.
My mother had no idea this would be my fate when she left me in Mr. Charmant’s charge the night before she killed herself. I was twelve. It had been two years since my father died. Maman just crumbled. She didn’t’ know how to be alone. Her whole life someone had taken care of her. First my grandmother, then my father. I did my best to make sure the house was clean and that we had fresh milk and eggs, but I was a child. Creditors came to get the furniture in our four-piece house. Soon after they came for the house itself. It was then that Maman decided that in order for me to continue my schooling and continue to have nice dresses to wear I would go live with Mr. Charmant.
It happened as she wanted until I turned seventeen and Mr. Charmant decided it was time I repay him for his generosity. When I refused, he became angry, cold, mean. He began to order me around and call me names. “Vaurien,” he mumbled into his coffee. Mr. Charmant also stopped paying for my school, and sent me instead to learn from the domestics who worked for his family. When I proved to have no talent for cooking, sewing or cleaning, I was sent to fetch the water. It was there that I met Carmen. They called her Ti Camie. The girlish nickname didn’t fit this hardened woman. We would meet each day at the well. Ti Camie told me of her childhood and how she accompanied her mother and sisters along this same path, bringing water to the field workers and selling it for a nickel a cup. She taught me how to carry my load. “Hoist it on your head.” She said carrying the bucket on my head would strengthen my spine and force me to walk with my head up, and chin out.
“Walk with pride. So that when they look at you, they will not see you are suffering.”
I did as she instructed. Not since my father did someone take such interest in me. I looked forward to our walks—our talks. Ti Camie’s stories made the memory of Mr. Charmant’s advances disappear. I could endure the night, because its passing meant I would soon see Ti Camie. She made me laugh—made me forget.
It broke my heart when she died. She was getting old and the burden of the bucket became harder and harder for her to bear. She lost her footing as she was fetching water and hit her head on the stone well. The blood from Ti Camie’s head was washed away by the water she just drew from the well. She looked so peaceful, so young. Ti Camie looked to be the age my mother would have been. Far from the old lady I thought she was. The crowd dispersed when the field workers arrived to carry Ti Camie’s body away. I sat on the ground, numb. Why does everyone I love have to die? Why do they leave me to fend for myself? For a moment, I thought of drowning myself in that well. The well that took Ti Camie’s life. My body would decompose and poison the water. Maybe they would take some to Mr. Charmant’s house before I was discovered and he would drink the poison water and die. No. People like Mr. Charmant don’t die.
And then I saw it. Ti Camie’s scarf. It was like her. Cheerful in spite of the gloom of life. She didn’t have a chance to put it on before she fell against the well. If she had it might have protected her head from the blow. I held it close and cried for what seemed an eternity. I cried for my friend, for my mother, but mostly for myself. I was truly alone now. People were staring again. The same people I had learned, with Ti Camie’s help, to ignore. I wanted to get away from there to get away from them. I wanted to run and never return. But where would I go? That’s when I put Ti Camie’s scarf on my head, hoisted her bucket atop my head and walked in the opposite direction of Mr. Charmant’s house, to sell my water to anyone with twenty-five cents for a cup.
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