Master of the Crossroads

by Madison Smartt Bell

  “One loses the principle, I admit,” he said, waving one hand slackly, “in all this, this . . .” The word would not come. “But consider the practice. At Le Cap, Agent Hédouville will certainly have learned that the treasury is quite empty. The army fights without pay for the most part.” He looked at Riau. “The soldiers forage all their food.” He hiccuped into the palm of his hand, then went on. “These enemies we are asked to receive—it’s they who can make the plantations profitable again, and put some money back into the coffers of the government. Surely the agent will see that soon enough.”

  “As you like,” Maillart said, “but I think there will be trouble.”

  “Oh,” said the doctor. “When was there not?”

  As General Maitland completed the withdrawal from Port-au-Prince, the Legion of the West, commanded by Laplume, moved up from Léogane to secure the town for the French Republicans. For some time, Laplume had been making forays over the Cul de Sac plain and attacking the heights above Port-au-Prince. Though Laplume reported to the mulatto General Pétion, and hence to Rigaud, his men were still mostly drawn from the wild bands Dieudonné had formerly led. They were the first to enter Port-au-Prince as the British departed. Toussaint had sent Christophe Mornet as his own representative. There were no outrages.

  The last British sails slipped over the horizon, bound for the deep, capacious harbor of Môle Saint Nicolas. At Port-au-Prince, the French collaborators waited uneasily, for their situation could not be certainly known before Toussaint’s arrival.

  Though he might have covered the distance in a third of the time, Toussaint made a very slow progression to Port-au-Prince. With the officers of his staff, he made frequent stops on the Cul de Sac plain. Most of the plantations had fallen into ruin after so many years of war and marauding, but here and there a house or a mill was still intact. Toussaint halted, dismounted, crouched down to pick up earth and crumble it between his fingers, or broke off bits of the untended cane to try its quality.

  Impatient, Captain Maillart squinted up at the sun, already well past its height in the sky. A cavalry troop and most of the staff sat their horses before a mule-powered cane mill. Bel Argent stood riderless, held by the captain of the honor guard. Toussaint had gone into the mill to check the mechanism for rust and breakage.

  “Now why does he stop here?” Maillart muttered irritably to the doctor beside him. He looked over his shoulder at the dust cloud that marked the position of the infantry, marching half a mile behind them on the plain. “We shall pass another night in this wasteland before we reach the town.”

  “Because the land must not be wasted,” the doctor said softly, and mostly to himself. “Because the land is more important than the town.”

  Maillart snorted, and his horse yawed sideways, as if it had caught his impatient mood. Toussaint came out of the mill, settling his hat down carefully over his yellow headcloth. He swung into the saddle and led them on.

  The road across the plain was much deteriorated, but still gave room enough for three horses to go abreast. The doctor rode between Maillart and Riau, who wore for the occasion a tall hussar’s hat he’d captured from the British cavalry, ornamented with a huge revolutionary cockade. Many of the officers and some of the men had tricked themselves out specially for this triumphal procession. But Toussaint wore only his plain uniform, with no decoration beyond the epaulettes. He had even forgone the plumes he usually wore in his hat, which was, today, a somewhat battered tricorne.

  The sky was just beginning to redden before them when they finally came in sight of the bay. Sky joined the water on a curving, gilded line, broken by the low roofs of Port-au-Prince. Something lay on the road ahead, between them and the town. Toussaint pulled his horse up abruptly, one hand hovering between his sword hilt and pistol grip, before it froze, midair. For a suspended moment, he was as still as a startled snake.

  Maillart stood up in his stirrups, craning his neck to see. “By God,” he hissed to the doctor. “They have raised us a triumphal arch.”

  Toussaint relaxed, tucked in his jaw and lowered his head. He urged his horse forward on the road.

  A cheer went up from the reception party, and a swirl of dust as they all began to stir about. It was indeed a makeshift arch, the doctor saw as they came nearer, rigged with boards and painted canvas. Half a length ahead of the others, Toussaint walked his horse toward it. Then, without troubling to stop his mount, he dropped to the ground and tossed the reins back over his shoulder; Riau caught them in his left hand. On foot, Toussaint continued to approach the arch, which was flanked by young white women with flowers in their hands, a prelate wearing white vestments and a gold-embroidered stole, a clutch of altar boys who held fuming censers by their chains, and four of the wealthiest planters of the region, each holding a pole which supported one corner of a fringed, royal purple dais.

  Toussaint stopped and held up the flat of his right hand. The dais-bearers hesitated, their fat smiles withering.

  “I am not God,” Toussaint said in a low, clear voice. He removed his hat, revealing his dome of yellow madras, and held it in both hands as he bowed his head slightly. “It is only for God to be incensed so, and walk beneath a dais.”

  He flapped his hat at the dais-bearers, as if hazing cattle, at which they furled the fabric around the poles and stepped reluctantly out of his way. His long jaw set, Toussaint walked forward through a grisly silence and passed beneath the arch. As he emerged on the other side, the band struck up, the girls with their garlands burst into strained song, and everyone seemed to be throwing flowers.

  Riau and Maillart and the doctor dismounted too, along with the rest of the staff officers, leaving the honor guard to lead their horses. They marched along behind Toussaint, who walked as if in the deepest trance, oblivious to everything before his eyes. To the doctor’s right, Riau stood very tall, imitating Toussaint’s fixed regard, the hussar’s hat adding nearly a foot to his height. To his left, Maillart stumped along, shaking his head in mock disbelief, till an especially lovely girl managed to graze his cheek with a flung rose. At that the captain stooped to retrieve the flower, kissed the air and blew the kiss across the petals toward the blushing beauty who had thrown it, fixed the rose in his buttonhole and walked on in a much better humor.

  The crowd closed around them, pressing nearer as the spectators grew more bold, some merely eager, curious, but also there were many petitioners, already vying for the notice of Toussaint. One young woman was so hugely pregnant that the doctor thought she might give birth there in the road, and yet she kept pace with Toussaint all the way, calling out desperately that her husband must either win or retain a post as inspector of customs, pointing at her great belly for emphasis—the father of my child! she cried over and over, her voice breaking from the effort and the urgency. Nearby Bruno Pinchon was scampering, jumping to raise his head above the others as he called—Habitation Anlouis! Habitation Anlouis!—and some other petitioner had snatched one of the rejected censers and was whirling smoke at Toussaint, despite his remonstrance, and begging for some favor the doctor could not quite hear. Toussaint took no notice of any of them.

  In the days that followed, the doctor took the opportunity to finish his study of the irrigation system, broken off during his previous visit to Port-au-Prince. It was an ingenious arrangement in its way. One main canal was dug in an irregular course across the slopes above the town, and several tributary channels used the natural incline to feed water to the old Intendance, the casernes, the royal hospital, and the fountain on Government Square.

  The doctor followed this latter channel to its terminus at the fountain in front of Government House. Toussaint’s troops stood in quiet, orderly groups at the corners of the square, barefoot and shirtless for the most part, lean as greyhounds but just as fit. Some of them saluted the doctor as he walked toward the building. These were men who could march all day on one banana or a cupful of corn, sleep on their feet, fight on the morrow—they had been doing so for years. Sma
ll children circled them, wide-eyed and curious; a woman approached one of the squads with a covered basketful of bread. After a week of perfect discipline on the part of the black soldiers, and none of the pillaging or disorder that had been anticipated, the townspeople had begun to lose their fear.

  Petitioners lined the hallways of Government House, waiting, hoping, to see Toussaint. The doctor felt envious eyes on his back as the sentries acknowledged him and let him pass through. In the anteroom, Bruno Pinchon sat next to a young woman cradling a newborn infant. The wife he had mentioned? the doctor wondered—but no, he’d said she was in France.

  Seeing the doctor, Pinchon sprang up, his mouth already open to begin some plea, but just then the door of the inner office opened and the mayor of Port-au-Prince bowed his way out. Toussaint came after him through the doorway, telling him that Christophe Mornet would follow through on whatever business they had just settled. The young woman was instantly on her feet, thrusting the baby forward.

  “Habitation Anlouis,” Pinchon interjected, but the woman stepped quickly in front of him, cutting off his approach. She made an accordion movement with her arms, gathering the infant to herself, then proffering it again.

  “General,” she said. Her voice was sweet, but a little shrill, and had a nagging familiarity to the doctor’s ear. “General, I beg you—I beseech you! Be godfather to my child. We will name him, perhaps . . . Toussaint.”

  And now the doctor recognized her, from their first entrance to the town—she must have delivered this infant only the day, or two days, before. A pretty thing, he judged, with glossy black hair and large dark eyes and an appealing flush that spread across her face and also her bosom, which was very generously revealed by the cut of her gown. Held at arm’s length, the baby did not cry or complain, but worked its little fingers at random, peering myopically from its button eyes.

  Toussaint covered his mouth with his hand, and studied the woman and child without speaking. Then he reached to the back of his head, unfastened the knot of his yellow headcloth, and shook it out.

  “Cover yourself, Madame, if you please.”

  As she absorbed his meaning, the young woman’s color darkened to the shade of new-fired brick. Shifting the child to the crook of one arm, she accepted the square of cloth with her other hand. Pinchon, maybe a little too eager for the service, helped her to arrange it over her décolletage.

  Toussaint indicated a chair, and she sat down and lowered her head. A fine high color, the doctor thought; it spread round the back of her neck like wine. Pinchon moved as if to renew his approach, then suddenly fell back into a seat, as if the force of Toussaint’s look had flung him there.

  It was a rare thing to see Toussaint completely bareheaded. The head was larger than it looked beneath his hat or headcloth, high and egg-shaped, with gray hair thinning at the dome. He covered his mouth with his hand. His eyes drifted half-shut, so that only the whites of them showed. The doctor knew he was very tired. The enthusiasm of his reception by the residents of Port-au-Prince had not been altogether feigned, but he had not fully anticipated its cause. The great majority of the whites who had remained believed that he would make the colony independent of France, and almost as many confidently expected him to solve the mulatto problem, permanently, by massacring them all.

  “Madame,” said Toussaint, “why should you wish me to name your son? Have you considered well what you are asking? I know you are seeking a post for your husband—I also know that all the white colons despise me in their hearts.”

  At this the young woman started up from her seat as if to protest, but Toussaint, who had seemed to be talking in his sleep, widened his eyes and stayed her with his hand.

  “No, if I wore a skin like yours—but I am black, and I know the deep distaste the colons have for me and all my kind. It is true that Revolution has enlightened the French, so that we are well enough liked for the moment, but no work of man is truly durable. Only the work of God Himself can last forever. It may be that after my death, my brothers will pass into slavery again, and go under the whip of the white colons, who have always been our enemies. Then your son, when he has reached the age of reason, will reproach you for having given him a black to be his godfather.”

  Abruptly, Toussaint sat down himself, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “No, Madame, I cannot accept this honor which you suggest to me. You wish a place for your husband in the Customs—it is his. Tell Commander Christophe Mornet what I have said, and it will be so arranged. You may also tell your husband that, while I cannot see all that he does, nothing is invisible to God. Let him serve honestly.”

  The young woman’s blush had subsided considerably by the time Toussaint had done speaking. She stood up and curtsied gracefully. It was circumspect, the doctor thought, for her to say nothing, not even to risk a word of thanks. No fool she. Carrying the child, she went out, with Toussaint’s yellow madras still half tucked into her bodice. They could hear the baby beginning to mew in the hall as she retreated.

  “Monsieur Général,” Pinchon began, once more rising to his feet. “You do not remember me, but—”

  Toussaint looked up at him, his eyes red-rimmed. “Oh, I remember you very well,” he said. “Better than you would perhaps prefer. Your name is Bruno Pinchon, and through your marriage to Marie-Céleste Latrobe you claim possession of Habitation Anlouis, a sugar plantation of eighty-six carrés, in the plain of Cul de Sac. This land was gambled away at cards by the son of the original Anlouis, now dead of his debaucheries, and so came into the hands of your father-in-law, who is a broker at Nantes. But neither he nor your wife nor you yourself have ever laid eyes on the property. You are no planter, and you know nothing of the work. I remember all these things, and I also recall our first meeting at Ennery, with everything that you said and did on that occasion.”

  Pinchon took a long step backward, his Adam’s apple working.

  “At Gonaives too, when I claimed it for France, you barely escaped being shot for your involvement with the enemy,” Toussaint said. “Now we meet for the third time.” He exhaled, glancing toward the window, as if the sight of Pinchon pained him. “Well, you may enjoy your dowry. Make of it what you can. See Commander Paul Louverture at Croix des Bouquets and it will be arranged. Your life and property will be respected.”

  Pinchon also elected the virtue of silence—wisely, the doctor thought again. He bowed, stumbled, made his way to the door. In the hall outside there was a commotion among the others waiting for their audiences. The doctor stepped across and shoved the door closed on them all.

  Toussaint was bowed in his seat, his shoulders shaking. The patchy baldness of his head looked oddly fragile. The doctor had never heard him speak with such a bitter pessimism as he’d used with that young woman—not, at least, of his own cause. But when he straightened and took his hand from his mouth, he revealed that his convulsions had been laughter, all along.

  “Very well,” he said, shaking his head and giving the doctor his cayman’s smile as he pointed to the door. “Open! let the next one come in.”

  29

  Captain Maillart did his best to swallow his irritation as he bowed his way into the Cigny parlor and found it full of the junior attachés of Agent Hédouville’s suite, who were swift enough to discover the charms of his friend Isabelle. The Cigny house was enjoying a burst of popularity these days, for although the official policy with which Hédouville was invested must regard the family with a certain suspicion, a good many of the juniors seemed quite thoroughly ancien régime in their personal sentiments, and wore the black collars to show it.

  He adjusted his frayed cuffs and sat down in the place Isabelle had indicated for him, a long, sturdy sofa, next to Joseph Flaville. The black-collared youths were looking at him, he felt, with slyly concealed amusement. That impudent puppy Paltre (not twenty-five years of age) was whispering with his companion Ciprien Cypré, similarly unlicked. They’d be sneering, Maillart was sure enough, at his worn coat with it
s stains of tropical campaigning (which they ought to regard as marks of honor) and still more at his subordination to the black officers, former slaves from whom he took his orders, whose rank was exaggerated so far past his own. Ten years in the colony and still a captain—that was due to his many changes of service, and Maillart had not wasted much thought on it either, until Hédouville’s puppy pack had obliged him to. Paltre and Cypré were captains themselves, at the same age Maillart had been when he first came out to Saint Domingue, and perhaps no more feckless either, but he was not in a forgiving mood.

  “Sé fransé m’yé,” he said to Flaville, but loudly enough to be heard everywhere in the room. “Men, m’pa rinmin fransé tankou moun sa yo.”

  Flaville, who relaxed on the sofa with a serpentine ease, grinned and let a fluid movement flow through his whole long body, while Isabelle clicked her tongue and frowned to reprove them both. The two young captains drew themselves up a little, sensing they had been insulted but without knowing exactly how. I am French, but I don’t like Frenchmen like these people. Maillart had learned that it distressed the new arrivals to hear patois, which sounded exactly like their own language but was incomprehensible to them.

  Nanon raised her head from her embroidery hoop and gave him a quick, secret smile, then lowered her face again, indifferent to the blandishments of the two civilian clerks who were trying to engage her interest. Maillart felt distinctly better now. By God, she was a beauty—none of it had tarnished her, whatever she had been through. Say what you would about the wisdom of throwing one’s whole heart at a colored courtesan, the captain could not dispute the doctor’s taste. For himself, he was glad to have found her safe in the Cigny house, and that he would have this news for Antoine Hébert when they next met.

  He accepted the coffee that was served him, and devoted about a quarter of his attention to flirting with Isabelle. The pattern of their banter was familiar as a waltz—he could sustain his steps without thinking about them. It meant little; he would not taste her honeyed chalice. So far as he knew, she’d given her full sweetness to no man at all, if not to her husband, since their odd quarrel at Môle Saint Nicolas. Friendship with a woman—ha. But his ease with her would annoy the little captains. It was childish to score off the puppies, Maillart knew, but he enjoyed it all the same.