A Haitian woman, Jessaline, walks along the sewage-scented streets of New Orleans, ready to “give up” when she runs into an extremely polite white New Yorker named Raymond (75). He compliments her beauty, though he is a bit taken aback by her lack of hair. Jessaline finds the exchange flattering but absurd, as most white men don’t flirt with black women in public.

The two part ways and Jessaline hurries to her much-anticipated meeting with Creole engineer Monsieur Norbert Rillieux. Jessaline only recently arrived in America from Haiti on a trip that had taken both courage and cunning. Since arriving, the strenuousness of her journey had not stopped as she spent all of it searching for Rillieux—the man her “superiors” were hoping might help their business (81). Unfortunately, within minutes of meeting him, she discovers that he’s “an idiot” (79). They exchange pleasantries, and she pulls a vial of effluvium from her purse and makes him smell it. She tries to coax him into inventing a process in which the effluvium might be converted into a “fuel source” (81). Rillieux takes offense at this suggestion, however, and tells her it seems like his superiors are trying to dupe him by sending a “comely face” to do their bidding (81).