Master of the Crossroads

by Madison Smartt Bell

  “It’s nearly morning,” she hissed at him. “You must go.”

  “Hanh?” Choufleur muttered. “Let them discover us . . . What does it matter if they know?” He turned onto his back and flung his arm across his eyes.

  “Not now.” Nanon shook him again. “Not yet. Go now.”

  Choufleur sat up abruptly, swinging his feet to the floor, giving his head a sharp shake, left and right. He swiveled toward her fluidly, wrapped his hands around the back of her neck and the base of her skull, and drew her half-falling across the bed, into a long, deep kiss. With the release, he spoke, rather curtly. “You’ll come with me. Tomorrow, to the north.”

  Nanon said what she had planned to say. “I will not leave my child.”

  His hesitation was informative. A moment of silence passed, then he stood up, paced to the door, turned back toward her.

  “Then we will take him. Very well.”

  Nanon said nothing. A little blue light filtered into the room, so that she made out his silhouette but not his face. She heard Paul breathing in his cot.

  “And if you remain here with him, what?” Choufleur’s laugh was dry as ash. “He will live as the bastard son of a blanc.”

  Nanon, sitting upright with her hips swathed in a tangle of sheet, put her palms over her breasts and lowered her head. She did not know how much of this posture he could discern in the dim light.

  “Believe me,” Choufleur said, now with a pleading note, almost. “Come with me now, and we will wipe away everything that has been before.”

  Still she would not look at him. “How am I to know what to believe?”

  “Make ready,” Choufleur said, decidedly. “We leave tomorrow, before dawn.” He moved to the door. She felt a change of air as it opened and shut, but he made no sound at all in going out.

  Elise arose at her usual hour, dressed, ordered coffee, and awaited developments. When she heard Paul’s voice, she put her head into the corridor and saw Nanon, groggy, her face puffed up with sleep, handing the boy over to Zabeth before falling back into her bedchamber. Une nuit de délices, Elise imagined, feeling herself well satisfied. She breakfasted with Sophie and Paul. Tocquet and Choufleur had already gone out, Choufleur pausing to make her an ornate little speech whose general drift had been that, owing to his carriage’s need of some minor but time-consuming repair, he hoped to lay claim to her magnificent hospitality for one more night.

  She passed the morning in the supervision of one household task or another, unable fully to fix her mind on any of these. Nanon did not appear till afternoon, floating dreamily onto the gallery as Tocquet and Elise were finishing a modest lunch of cold chicken and fruit. The day was still and suffocatingly hot, the sun swollen at the height of its arc. Pushing his plate away, Tocquet wiped his forehead and grimaced, then went to lie down till the heat should abate. Elise remained at the table, watching Nanon sip grapefruit juice. The colored woman did not seem to look at her, though perhaps she was spying, through her long black lashes.

  “And how did you enjoy our Colonel Maltrot?” Elise said suddenly.

  Carefully chosen, her words seemed effective. Nanon looked up involuntarily, her eyes widening for an instant before she regained her composure. Then her eyelids lowered, slowly. She did not speak.

  “I find him interesting,” Elise went on. “It’s plain he is an educated man. Of talent, possibly, and certainly of strong will. Does he not look splendid in his uniform? One supposes also that he must be a man of means, judging from his manners, and the buttons on his coat.”

  “I did not suspect that you could admire such a man as he,” Nanon said languidly.

  Her emphasis was very slight, barely perceptible. That brown-syrup voice, her soft, brown, cow-like eyes . . . In a mad flash Elise wanted to rip the eyeballs from the other woman’s skull . . . and yet she did not dislike Nanon. On the contrary, they had got on very well, more than amiably sometimes, during the months they had lived in this house together. There were moments, even hours at a stretch, when Elise had forgotten herself enough to fall into an easy intimacy with the colored woman. Nanon was intelligent, and well, if erratically, schooled in the arts of love and ways of men; she was naturally suited for the role of cocotte. Had the situation not been so clearly untenable, Elise would have preferred to keep her in the household.

  “Ma chère,” she began. Repressing a glance over her shoulder, toward the blinded window of the room where Tocquet had retired, she leaned across the table and trapped Nanon’s hands in her own. “My dear, know that I think only of your welfare—of your future. Even if what I say seems cruel: with my brother you have none.”

  Nanon flinched and pulled away, but Elise clung to her hands and followed her, leaning in so near she scented the tang of sweat on the other woman’s skin, and beneath it the faint perfume of sex.

  “Of course, I don’t know what he may have told you. He might promise anything, in his heat.” Her voice was rising higher than she intended, and the lies came fully formed from her lips, without having ever entered her mind. “Bon, sé youn cabrit li yé, konprann? The man is a goat, my dear—imagine, such a one as he, a doctor and a brilliant scientist—why should he come out to this fire-blackened colony? Only that he had no choice, having left ruined girls and bastard offspring littered across half of France.”

  Nanon’s hands went soft in Elise’s grip. Not the least tension could be felt in her fingers, palms or wrists. All her body looked passively, vacantly relaxed, limp as fresh-killed meat. On other occasions, Elise had noticed this capacity of Nanon’s to disappear within herself, and in an odd way she had envied it.

  “As for the outcome of such relations in this country . . .” Elise gave the dead palms a little pressure. “Ma chère. I am sure you can bear witness much better than I.”

  Then she let go of Nanon’s hands, and after studying her for a moment longer, adjusted herself against the chair back. Nanon’s knuckles still lay against the surface of the table, her palms cupped together, as if she were trying to hold water. Her body was partly twisted away, so that Elise saw only the fall of her unbound hair, the smooth curve of her cheek, the shield-like corner where her wide lips pressed together. A carpenter bee hummed over the bougainvillea vines, working in and out of the hole it had drilled in the gallery rail. Elise waited a moment more, but as Nanon did not speak or shift or blink, she got up and went on about the business of her day.

  That evening the four of them dined together as before, though conversation flowed less easily, since the military and political topics had been exhausted the previous night. Nanon remained subdued and withdrawn (Elise thought she avoided Choufleur’s glances), and Tocquet had gone into one of his darkly silent moods, so he contributed little to the table talk. Choufleur, for his part, was more animated than when he’d first arrived, seeming exceptionally well pleased with himself and his visit to Habitation Thibodet. Elise rose to his repartee with all the vivacity she could muster. The effort left her weary, and on the verge of a headache.

  Tocquet did not return from his postprandial cheroot, so Elise lay in their bed alone, skimming the surfaces of uneasy sleep. The man would pull away at times, go roving like a half-wild cat, and Elise had learned to tolerate that without complaint. Instinct told her, as much as experience, that Tocquet would not abide a clinging woman. But tonight his aloofness troubled her, and she was agitated by all the events of her day, and by her expectation.

  When sleep did come, she slept leadenly, perspiring in the motionless air, and did not wake until late morning. Sophie’s voice sounded on the gallery, breaking toward tears as she asked for Paul, and Elise heard Tocquet’s voice murmuring some reply. His presence relieved her, at least temporarily, for sometimes the man might disappear for entire days or weeks, returning with gifts, most likely, but without explanation.

  She collected herself and went out to the gallery. Tocquet held Sophie on his hip, supporting her back with one hand and brushing back dark curls from her face with the other
.

  “But when will he come back?” the child insisted.

  Tocquet looked at her seriously, straight into her eyes, which resembled his own.

  “He will not be coming back,” Tocquet said. “He has gone away with his mother.”

  Sophie wailed, and pressed her damp face into the open throat of Tocquet’s shirt. He patted her back, in rough rhythm with her sobs, and when she began to trail off into hiccups, he handed her over to Zabeth, who had been standing by. Frowning, he walked through the doorway into the house, passing Elise as if she were transparent and invisible.

  Her heart contracted like a fist, went rigid and refused to relax. She knew instantly that he had heard all she’d said to Nanon, and that he judged her for it. A sick feeling swelled in the back of her throat. She followed him into the bedroom.

  “But all I did I meant for the best . . .”

  She could not keep that detestable whining tone from her own voice. Tocquet turned toward her, his belt knife naked in his hands. Elise knew well enough he had killed people with it. The knife never strayed more than a foot from his fingers, and sometimes its proximity had given her an illicit thrill. Now she felt only a miserable dullness when she looked at the grayed flat of the blade and the bright edge where it was honed.

  Tocquet opened and tilted his hand and the knife poured from it, falling to lodge its point in a floorboard, its haft lightly trembling.

  “Don’t curse me,” Elise said weakly.

  “You’ll curse yourself.” He turned away from her, toward the mirror.

  Elise’s legs failed her. She sat down on the edge of the bed. She could not speak, or form a sentence in her mind. Tocquet squinted into the mirror, concentrating as he tied up his hair at the back with a leather thong. Then he swung round, scooped up the knife from the floor, and sheathed it under his shirt tail as he straightened.

  “I will be going to Dajabón,” he said, without looking at her, “to buy tobacco there.”

  He went out. Elise sank sideways onto the unmade bed, drawing her knees up toward her chin. Outside she heard his voice calling for Gros-jean and Bazau. A chill pervaded her body and bones, though the day was swelteringly hot. She fingered the hem of the mussed top sheet, without the will to draw it over herself. From outside the house came the cries of birds, and presently the sound of hoofbeats as the three men rode away.

  13

  A rutted, muddy track ran toward Fort Dauphin and the Spanish border, across the coastal plain. Tocquet and his two retainers rode eastward. For the first several miles the road was screened by trees and shrubbery, wild bush or citrus hedges gone half wild, but then the undergrowth fell away, leaving a long unobscured view on either side. To the north, a flat, swampy, near-featureless plain stretched to the blue haze of ocean at the horizon line. Southward, the same flat land unrolled to the sudden steep eruption of the mountains of La Chaîne de Vallière.

  With such wide, clear fields of view in all directions, they could have seen any sign of a threat long before it could reach them. At the same time, they could as easily be seen themselves, and there was nowhere for them to hide or flee. This point impressed itself on Tocquet without causing him any immediate discomfort, though he ordinarily preferred mountain country—terrain he well understood how to use to his advantage. But for the moment the plain was clear, deserted. All cultivation looked to have been abandoned, and although rumor had it, at Le Cap, that this whole area was roamed by large, fierce bands of insurgent blacks, there was no sign of any human presence, only a few horses and cattle grazing the plain between the road and the sea, the initials of their onetime owners carved in large, straggling characters across their flanks.

  They rode without speaking, single file, the horses picking their way over trampled mud, among pools of brackish water on the roadbed. No sound but the creaking of saddle leather, or now and then the far-off calling of a crow. By midday it was very hot and bright and man-sweat mingled fragrantly with the sweat of the horses. From a cleft in the distant mountains came the sound of drumming, mallets rattling dry and sharp along the taut join of skin to wood; then the sound grew deeper, throatier, as the drummer worked toward the softer center of the head. Tocquet felt that Bazau and Gros-jean were lifting their attention to the drums, though he did not turn to look back at them. At such moments he became a creature of instinct, and as his hackles had not risen, he still felt safe enough.

  They rode on without altering their pace; the drumming fell back out of earshot. Presently it grew cooler, as the afternoon rain cloud swept in from the sea to blot the sun. Tocquet squeezed his heels to his horse and urged their short column into a trot. Before the rain had begun in earnest, they were riding into the village of Trou de Nord.

  The little town claimed but a single street: a few dozen houses built on either side of a curve in the road that continued across the river to Fort Dauphin. No sign of any white presence here, but the village was populous with blacks, and the arrival of Tocquet’s party caused some small commotion. A market seemed to be just breaking up; in any case the moment had come for everyone to seek shelter from the rains; for the first fat drops were already pocking into the dust, and the wind had risen powerfully. Tocquet hailed an old man who had just scrambled up from under the hooves of his horse, and asked if he could purchase shelter for the night. The old man smiled with the two brown teeth left him, and spoke a muddy sentence too unclear to be understood. He took the bridle of Tocquet’s horse and began leading it behind a house on the south side of the road. Bazau and Gros-jean came along on their own horses.

  Behind the house was an open shed that served as stable. Toquet and his men tied their horses here and hurried toward the back door of the house. The rain unloosed everywhere in a rush, turning the packed earth of the yard to soup; Tocquet felt it lashing his shoulders, but his broad-brimmed hat kept his head dry.

  The interior of the house was dim, musty. Some boards were broken in the raised plank floor. Against one of the walls stood a huge mahogany armoire, too heavy to be easily removed; one drawer was missing and the others were empty. There was a massive dining table of the same wood but no chairs, nor any other furniture. Pallets of straw and heaps of blankets were laid against the walls and in one corner a young woman sat nursing a newborn infant. The old man clucked and shooed at her and Tocquet saw he meant to drive her out into the rain.

  “Kite’l resté,” he said. Let her stay. He took out a silver coin and displayed it between thumb and forefinger; the old man looked at it dubiously, as if he did not comprehend what it might mean. It occurred to Tocquet that money might have fallen out of regular use in this region, now that all the blancs had fled. The girl looked at him round-eyed from her corner, covering the baby with the corner of a blanket.

  “Can she cook?” Toquet asked.

  The old man snatched the coin with a quick, flicking motion. “M’pralé chaché vyé famn pou sa.” He darted out the front door, into the rain, paused and unfolded his hand to look at the coin, then went splashing on down the muddy road with his clenched fist tight against his thigh.

  Bazau said something to the girl, who smiled shyly and lowered her eyes without speaking. Tocquet pulled off his muddy boots and walked sock-foot into the next room. There were only two rooms in the house, and this second smaller one held nothing but a bedstead with no slats or mattress. Off the rear was a lean-to kitchen. The roof was sound, at any rate. Tocquet went onto the gallery that fronted the road, where he sat down on a three-legged stool and took a cheroot from his pocket. He passed the cheroot under his nose, then put it in his mouth without lighting it. His supply was low. For the moment, he nibbled gently at the end of the cheroot; a fragrant tingle spread across his tongue. Gros-jean put his head out the door for a moment, and then withdrew into the interior again. Tocquet sat listening to the water streaming under the house, watching the wall of rainfall that dropped sheer from the edge of the gallery roof.

  Presently the promised old woman arrived, carrying a loos
e cloth bag and a speckled hen under one arm. Tocquet showed her to the kitchen lean-to, where she set a fire beneath a huge iron kettle. With a practiced whirl of her wrist she snapped the head off the chicken and aimed the blood jet out into the rain. When the severed neck stopped spurting, she hung the chicken by its feet and went back to her cauldron.

  Tocquet cleared his throat. “Ki moun ki resté kouliyé-a nan Fort Dauphin, ou konnen sa?”

  “Sé Pagnol ki resté la.” The woman grinned at him over her damp calico shoulder. It’s the Spanish who are there.

  Tocquet nodded. “Do they have black soldiers?”

  “Yo gegne soldat noir anpil.” The woman turned and faced him straight on, holding a blackened wooden spoon in her left hand. “Also lots of French, they say. Lots of French have just come there in ships. Anpil, anpil Fransé—grand blanc.”

  “Vrai?”

  “Yo di kon sa.” The woman smiled. That’s what they say. She turned, unfastened the bag and began pouring dry beans into the kettle.

  Tocquet mused, unconsciously stroking the long ends of his mustache. He had heard in Le Cap that the Spanish occupied Fort Dauphin, and it was to be expected that most of their force should be black auxiliaries. Reportly most of Jean-François’s men had fallen back into this area, after the clash with Toussaint. But the arrival of large numbers of Frenchmen in ships was a mystery . . . especially if these Frenchman belonged to the planter class—grand blancs, as the woman had said. Slave masters. He stooped toward the fire coals to light his cheroot, but then decided to restrain himself.