“Zombi,” she said now, pointing her chin at Claudine where she turned, but I shook my head.
“No, she is waiting for Baron,” I said.
Cléo turned to me with her mouth round in surprise, and I told her what I had seen at Le Cap, in the hûnfor, how Baron, or sometimes Erzulie-gé-Rouge, would mount the head of this whitewoman.
When Cléo had understood this, she stepped out of the cover of the trees and went to Claudine and took one of her hands in her own and put the other hand at the base of Claudine’s head. A breath went out of Claudine like wind, and she let her head roll back against Cléo’s hand. Cléo led her slowly to the house. All the time Arnaud was watching from the gallery, as if he had expected all these things to happen, though it had been years since Cléo set her foot on that plantation.
Two days later we were riding back to Le Cap, the doctor and Bouquart and I, and the other men in my command, to report to Toussaint that soon Arnaud would be sending brown sugar to the port, along with many other planters on the plain. That sugar would be loaded onto ships for England and America and would be traded for more guns and powder and shot. But the people were cutting the cane and milling it to sugar under force from the army, and if they did not want to do it, perhaps there would be chains for them again, perhaps the whip. When they saw us riding toward them, they lowered their heads and turned away, because I, Riau, was a soldier of the gun, while they were only workers of the hoe. It was like I had myself turned into a blanc. When I thought this, I was cold all over, as though my spirit had gone away and left me to become a zombi, dead flesh forked across the saddle, my arms and legs answering to someone else’s will.
The Commissioner Roume had come to Le Cap by the time that we arrived there. Toussaint had sent for him across the mountains. I heard the blanc secretary Pascal and some others who muttered that Toussaint had done this only to hide the truth that it was really himself who did and commanded everything now. Roume was an old man then, and frail, but his heart was strong, and he spoke and acted by what he believed. He was a believer in Toussaint. But also, Roume wanted to make peace between Rigaud and Toussaint, or bring back the peace that Hédouville had broken between those two.
For that, he called Rigaud and Toussaint to meet at Port au Prince, and so Toussaint marched south, with a part of his army. We stopped for a day and a night at Ennery, where Toussaint saw his family, and Riau saw his. That child who had two fathers was born another girl child, and we had agreed among the three of us to name her Marielle. When we left Ennery for Port-au-Prince, Guiaou marched in my command, and I had put him in charge of a squad of men, because he was respected for his fighting and I knew the men would trust and follow him.
But there was not supposed to be any fighting on this march. Peace covered the whole way to Port-au-Prince, and the plantations of the Artibonite Valley were back at work, and so were those of the Cul de Sac plain. When we came to Port-au-Prince, Rigaud was there as expected, and there was a great celebration of the end of slavery. Beside Rigaud was Beauvais, and with Toussaint was Christophe Mornet and also Laplume, who had been leading Dieudonné’s men since Dieudonné was taken and killed. All of these chiefs made a contest who could shout the loudest—Gloire à la République! That night there was a big bamboche with drums and dancing, on the open ground above the town.
It seemed then that Rigaud and Toussaint might come back to the good understanding which had been between them before, as the agent Roume had wished it. Rigaud had a letter from Hédouville, which said he did not have to obey Toussaint any more. I, Riau, knew of this letter from Pascal and the doctor, but Rigaud had not showed it to the whole world yet. When he showed this letter to Roume, the old man told him that his own words were now stronger than the words of Hédouville, and that Rigaud must give obedience to Toussaint, even though in the south it was really Rigaud who commanded.
Rigaud did not like to hear this very much. Maybe he would have accepted it, though, if it had been a matter only of making words and a show of respect to the General-in-Chief. But Rigaud wanted Petit Goâve and Grand Goâve and Léogane to be a part of his command. These were the nearest towns to the south of Port-au-Prince, and they had all been places where Dieudonné was, before he was taken, and now Laplume commanded them in Toussaint’s name, so there was the same old trouble which began when Laplume gave himself to Toussaint instead of to Rigaud. Roume did not agree that Rigaud should have those towns, and Rigaud grew angry when he was refused, because his temper was too quick and hot. In anger he rushed out of Port-au-Prince with the men he had brought with him, and perhaps before he had well thought of what would follow.
Then there was a lot of confusion in Port-au-Prince, because it seemed that the people there might take the part of Rigaud. Even Christophe Mornet, who commanded for Toussaint at Port-au-Prince and who had served under him for a long time and won battles for Toussaint against the Spanish and the English too—the whisper was that Christophe Mornet was with Rigaud in his heart and making ready to betray Toussaint at any moment. Maybe it was true, or at least Toussaint believed it, because later on Christophe Mornet was arrested and killed with bayonets at Gonaives.
During this time there had been a rising against Rigaud near Jérémie, which was very far out on the southern peninsula where Rigaud was supreme. Rigaud had been all around Jérémie with his soldiers and believed he had driven the English away from that town, although it was also because of Toussaint’s talk with Maitland that the English sailed away. This rising was supposed to be in favor of Toussaint and some said it was begun by Toussaint’s secret hand, but the colored men put it down soon enough, and afterward there were forty black men who were crushed into a prison cell so tightly that, for want of air to breathe, they died.
Toussaint was very angry at this, and he declared that it was always the blacks who ended up dying in such affairs. Most times until then, Toussaint had not been so strictly bound to his own color, but had been as friendly to whites and blacks, and to colored men also if he trusted them. But this thing that happened in the prison was very bad. It made me think of Dieudonné, with the air smashed out of him by his chains, and when Guiaou heard of it, though he said nothing, I saw that he was thinking of the Swiss.
It was all so uneasy at Port-au-Prince that Roume thought we must move the government to Le Cap, where it was safer. Toussaint agreed to do this, but before he took the army away from Port-au-Prince, he called all the colored people to the church so that he could speak to them. Toussaint climbed to the high place where the priest stands in the church. His eyes were red and he shook with anger from his bootheels up and when he took off his general’s hat, he was wearing the red mouchwa têt beneath it, instead of the yellow one. I thought maybe war would begin that same day. I stood in the back of the church, with some of my men mixed with some of Laplume’s. Guiaou was near me, and Bouquart, and also Bienvenu who was then one of Laplume’s men, but Toussaint was speaking to the colored men and not to us.
“You colored people who have always betrayed the blacks from the beginning of the revolution—what is it that you want today? There is no one who does not know: you want to be masters of the colony, to exterminate the whites and enslave the blacks! But, perverse men that you are, you ought to consider that you are forever dishonored already by the deportation and the murder of the those black troops who were known as the Swiss. Did you for one instant hesitate to sacrifice, to the hatred of the whites, those unfortunate men who had spilled their blood for your cause? Why did you sacrifice them?—because they were black.”
When Toussaint said that, I could feel Guiaou’s thought—that at last the Swiss would be avenged, and with his help, because it was Guiaou who had brought the story of the Swiss to Toussaint. I felt the thought flow over him, and his body moved like a tree in the wind.
“Why,” Toussaint shouted, “does General Rigaud refuse to obey me? Because I am black! Why else should he refuse to obey a French general like himself, and one who has contributed mo
re than anyone else to the expulsion of the English? You colored men, through your treachery and your insane pride, you have already lost the share of political power you once had. As for General Rigaud, he is utterly lost; I see him before my eyes in the depths of the abyss; rebel and traitor to his country, he will surely be devoured by the troops of liberty. You mulattos—” Toussaint raised his right arm high and closed his hand into a fist. “—I see to the bottom of your souls; you are ready to rise against me, but although my troops are leaving the west, I leave here my eye to watch you, and my arm, which will always know how to reach you.”
Then Toussaint brought his arm down like a sword cut and walked out of the church to his horse, which was held waiting for him while he spoke. We all of us rode north then, without stopping. Of course Toussaint’s words came quickly enough to the ears of Rigaud, and not long after, Rigaud showed Hédouville’s letter to everyone and laid claim to the powers that Hédouville had promised him. Then we all knew that the next war would not come from the whitemen over the sea, but that it would begin among ourselves.
32
In that close, blind, secret room of the Cigny house, Captain Maillart tumbled with Isabelle—his Isabelle again, or soon to be. It was midday, but no way to know in that windowless room with its shrouded lamps, except for the heat. Bathed in slicks of heavy sweat, they slithered against each other like eels. The thrill, so long deferred, bulged in the back of the captain’s throat. It took him some time to realize that the excitement was not reaching the rest of his body and that the most salient part of him had declined to respond to this great occasion.
He sat up, more puzzled than distressed; he’d never, ever had such a difficulty—well, not since his first inexperienced fumbling which now seemed several lifetimes in the past. Isabelle plunged her face in her hands and began to cry, her fingers knotting in her black curls, her pale shoulders heaving.
“It’s my fault, my fault,” she choked. “I wanted to use you . . .”
“But what?” Maillart laid his hand on her back. “I don’t understand you.”
“Oh, it’s all hopeless, I don’t know—only I am in such trouble.”
Maillart’s hand kept dropping on her back in a slow, steady rhythm; some hollow within her answered, like a drum.
“But tell, my dear,” he said. “What is your trouble?”
Isabelle straightened and turned to him her tear-streaked, distraught face. Her hips were caught in a pool of her skirt, her small bare breasts still alert from their unconsummated encounter.
“I’m with child.” She collapsed on his neck.
“Well now,” Maillart murmured. Their position was awkward. He sat on the edge of the divan where they’d struggled, with both his feet on the floor, his upper body twisted to support her. He glanced down at his numb and shriveled member. Could this portend some sudden vocation for the priesthood? He laughed, silently, at the absurdity. “Well, now,” he repeated. “How terrible can that be?”
“Oh, you don’t know.” She snuffled against his collarbone. Maillart’s fingers counted up the knobs of her spine. He rubbed her bowed neck. The chain was gone. He recalled the pendant that had shocked him before—that stone phallus more dependable than his own.
“Where did you get it?” he said absently. “That . . . thing, which you’re not wearing now.”
Isabelle pulled a little away from him. “I took it off for you,” she said. “It was a gift, from Joseph.”
Vomit squirted into the back of the captain’s gullet. He clapped both hands over his mouth and forced himself to swallow it back. His mind went through a series of sickening swoops. Flaville’s constant proximity, the quiet concentration of his power, like her shadow. Only because it was unthinkable had he failed to think of it before. An eruption of images fumed up at him like bats emerging from a cave: black limbs intertwined with white; her mouth on his, the red yawn of her nether lips. He gagged again, and with an effort calmed the convulsion of his belly.
“You see?” Isabelle was huddled in her own arms. “Even you reject me. The whole world will.”
“No,” said Maillart. “No.” The sweat on his face and forehead had turned chilly. “I don’t mean that . . . It’s something of a shock.”
He straightened his spine and looked at her carefully. She was still herself, still Isabelle. “You do have a difficulty,” he admitted.
Isabelle rocked forward, with fresh sobs.
“And your husband?”
“He’ll murder me,” Isabelle said simply, cutting off her tears. “Oh, there is much he overlooks, but he has his limits, and I know them.” She sat up, wiping her eyes on her forearm. “Incidentally, our children are his own.”
“Well, then,” Maillart looked away from her. “How far is it along? There are ways, I’m told . . .”
“No,” Isabelle said. “I cannot. If I did so, even God would turn His face from me.”
“I had not known you were so devout.”
“No,” she said. “But I too have my limits.”
“Ah,” said Maillart, rubbing his temples. “In that case, I don’t quite see . . .” He was still looking at the opposite wall. “Does Flaville know?”
“I don’t mean to tell him,” she said. “It would make trouble.”
“You’ve made your share of that, in any case.” Maillart smoothed his mustache with his thumb. “Well, perhaps you’re right.”
“Oh,” Isabelle wailed softly. “This time I am truly lost.”
“Wait,” said Maillart. “Don’t despair. I’ll get you out of it.”
“Will you?”
“Yes,” he said, though his mind had locked. But there was a way, some way. He could feel it, if he could not yet see it. “Yes, I will.”
“Oh, my true friend, I knew only you would save me.” Isabelle drove her small body against his again, and with the greatest abandon ever—as he felt how wholly she abandoned herself to him, his male vigor returned full force. But he shifted from her, even as she began to croon over his return.
“No,” he said.
“But I want it!”
“No, we mustn’t—”
“Oh, do I disgust you so?”
“Not in the slightest, my dear—the evidence to the contrary is in your hand.” So saying Maillart disengaged himself cautiously from her hot grasp. “Only, as things are now, we mustn’t chance spoiling our friendship.”
The heat had begun to slacken a little by the time he left her. The captain walked down to the harbor front, to freshen himself in the sea breeze. Porters were laboring up the gangway of a cargo ship, bowed double under great sacks of sugar or coffee. A harbor pilot Maillart knew slightly hailed him from the bow of the ship. The captain responded with a nod and a flick of his hand and walked on, fidgeting unconsciously with the points of his mustache. When he had reached the Customs House he turned away from the water and began walking back into the town.
Bold as he’d been to say he’d solve her problem, no solution had come to him so far. Maillart was unaccustomed to worry, but he did worry now. He knew there must be some path out of the difficulty, but the route was far from evident to him. In a state of abstraction, unaware of anything around him, he walked all the way up the sloping streets to the casernes, where he found Doctor Hébert waiting for him. At that, it occurred to him that the doctor was probably the only white person in the colony to whom it would be safe to confide his quandary.
Maillart had a jug of rum in his quarters, and the doctor sat on the edge of a cot, sipping thoughtfully from a chipped glass, while the captain told as much of the story as he knew.
“Well, that is serious,” he muttered, at the end. “Well, what to do . . . There are certain herbs, I have been told, though I have not tested their use myself . . .”
“She wouldn’t,” the captain said. “That is, she won’t.”
“Ah well, I don’t much like the thought of it either.” The doctor hugged his knees and squinted through the open door. The light in th
e yard of the casernes was turning an ominous purple-streaked color, and the thunder rose from behind Morne du Cap.
“But where does that leave her?” the doctor said. “She must put herself out of the way somehow, so no one is there at the time of the birth . . . Who else knows about it, did you say?”
“I’d wager no one but myself,” the captain told him, and, thinking of the afternoon’s aborted dalliance, “I can testify, it doesn’t yet show.”
“So much the better,” the doctor said. “Hmmmm . . . You know, Nanon is in the same state.”
“Félicitations,” said Maillart. But at the doctor’s expression he bethought himself that this child too might have a somewhat irregular paternity.
“Yes,” said the doctor. “I had meant to bring her down to Ennery, as soon as it was possible to go with her myself. But that wouldn’t do for our Isabelle—she and my sister are great friends, but this would try their friendship sorely. Besides, there are too many visitors at Habitations Thibodet.”
He stood up and padded to the doorway and peered for a moment up at the sky. The thunder pounded once again. The doctor turned back to face the room. “If we could get her up into the interior somehow . . .”
“On what pretext?”
“Health, perhaps. The fever season is coming on—it’s healthier in the mountains, away from the swamps. Also there’s trouble brewing around Le Cap, I think—Rigaud’s partisans, you know. One of the reasons I’d like to get Nanon and Paul away.” He stooped to pour himself another short measure of rum. “Isabelle could always visit her own plantation with no need for a pretext at all.”
“Yes, but Cigny is there himself as often as not, now that the cane mills are working again,” said the captain. He twisted up the end of his mustache. “Arnaud certainly owes her hospitality.”
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