Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  He clenched his hands on the desk and laid his head on them. If only he had been allowed to come here as Leander Mitchell had come, with a fair chance to make good on his own merits. There were so many things he had wanted to do. The clinic. The gardens. The school. A campaign of education against the hookworm so many of them suffered from. The introduction of cash crops. The sermons he had planned to drain away the useless parts of their vodun and substitute an understanding of Love . . ."

  Even such little things as a tooth to fill that ugly gap in Catus' mouth. Only a couple of weeks ago he had written to a dentist in the capital, enclosing a sketch and asking that a tooth of the right size and shape be sent by mail. It would have been so easy to fashion a simple bridge . . .

  Why? he asked himself. Why? Why? Mitchell had his chance. Other men are given a fair opportunity. Why, when I came here, was there a Lemke at my heels determined to destroy me?

  Lifting his head, he saw by the clock that it was time for lunch, a lunch he would have to eat alone. He pushed himself to his feet and went along to the kitchen.

  In the doorway he halted. The little black and white dog lay gasping on the floor beside a dish of food. Lucy, on her knees, was staring fixedly into its face. He stepped forward, frowning.

  "What's the matter, Lucy?"

  She looked up with a start, her own face shapeless with terror. He had never seen such terror before. She tried to speak to him but no sound came. Her lips moved, her whole face moved, but there were no words.

  He knelt to look at the dog. Its eyes were strange and there was foam on its teeth. He said angrily, "What have you done to it?" Then suddenly he knew. "This dog's been poisoned! You've been testing the food on it!"

  Lucy sank onto a chair, shaking.

  He snatched the animal up and carried it to the office. It was warm and twitching in his arms, but when he placed it on the table and bent to examine it, it gave a last convulsive jerk and was still. He stood for a moment gazing down at it. Then he carried it slowly back to the kitchen.

  "I'm sorry, Lucy. We'd better bury it." He placed the dog on the floor and took up the dish. "Is this what it ate?"

  She nodded.

  "What is it?"

  "Some meat from a chicken I bought this morning."

  "A chicken? But you always buy live ones."

  "This one was alive too, mon Père."

  He frowned. "I don't understand this. Where is the rest of the bird?"

  She brought to the table a platter of Creole-fried chunks of chicken, obviously intended for his lunch. He lifted each piece and smelled it, shook his head, then with a knife and fork began carefully to break the meat apart. Lucy watched him. Suddenly she cried out and pointed to a piece of breast in which his probing had exposed a slender black thorn. She removed the thorn and held it between her fingernails, as though afraid it might turn and stab her.

  Barry bent forward to examine it. "This was put into the chicken when it was alive?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  "And made the flesh poisonous without killing the bird?"

  "Oui, mon Père."

  "How can they do that?"

  "I am not sure. I only know some people are able to. Perhaps the cooking makes the poison active."

  "What sort of thorn is it?"

  "Mon Père, I don't know. Perhaps it is not the thorn, but something they put on it."

  "Well, take it out and bury it," he ordered. "Bury the chicken too. Then scrub the platter and your cooking things with plenty of soap and hot water. Never mind about lunch."

  When she had gone, he looked down at the black and white dog again. So this was the meaning of St. Juste's prediction that something would happen when the drums fell silent.

  How long could he last if they were determined to poison him? Not even a devoted Lucy with all her vigilance could protect him for more than a few days.

  26

  SOMETIME DURING THE AFTERNOON Lucy disappeared. Barry did not see her go, did not know she had gone until he went to the kitchen at four o'clock to tell her he would have something out of a can for supper. Then he was unable to find her.

  He wondered whether she too had left him, frightened away by the poison. If she had, there was nothing he could do about it. He returned to the office and sat at his desk. He was trying to put down on paper, for the benefit of his successor, a brief but exact account of all that had happened since his coming to the island.

  At five he heard a sound outside and glanced out the open door to see Lucy coming across the clearing. Something in the way she walked made him go to the door to watch her. He saw that she was exhausted. Her dress was torn and stained with red clay. Her hair looked as though she had been dragged by it. He hurried toward her.

  "What is it, Lucy? What's wrong?"

  She shrugged. "Nothing is wrong, mon Père. I had to walk a long way, that's all."

  She carried a small basket. A folded banana leaf hid its contents. "What have you been doing?" Barry asked.

  She hesitated. "Finding some greens that will be safe for you to eat."

  He looked at her in astonishment. He would never understand her. He could think of nothing to say but a simple "Thank you, Lucy", but stood watching her, shaking his head, as she continued on to the kitchen.

  Later he went to the kitchen and found a pot bubbling on the charcoal fire, and when Lucy invited him to lift the lid he recognized the greens as terminal shoots of the mirliton vine and realized how far she must have walked. Mirliton was scarce on Ile du Vent. It was one of the few things that had not grown well in his own garden on the ridge.

  On the worktable beside the charcoal stove stood two soft-drink bottles, one empty, the other full, and a small pan that contained an inch of liquid in which a handful of leaves floated. He looked at Lucy quizzically. "What's this?"

  "A medicine I made, mon Père, in case we are taken sick."

  "Oh?" He was both amused and curious. "What's in it?"

  "Just some leaves I gathered. Good ones for the stomach."

  "But why the kola?"

  "So it will not taste so bad."

  She knew what she was doing, apparently. He watched her pour two inches of the leaf-decoction into the empty kola bottle, holding back the leaves with her thumb. Then she filled the bottle with the sickly soda-pop the islanders were so fond of, and carefully pressed the cap on. When he would have dipped a finger into the pan to taste her "medicine", she thrust his hand aside and shook her head.

  "Don't, mon Père. It is too strong that way. It will burn your mouth." And before he could protest, she snatched the pan and hurried outside with it.

  For supper he had the mirliton greens and salmon from a tin, being careful to save some of each for her. When he volunteered to help with the dishes, for something to do, she pushed him gently toward the door.

  He returned to the office. Half an hour later he was startled to see Alma Lemke ride into the clearing.

  She had come with a suitcase. When he took it from her and helped her out of the saddle she said calmly, "I've left the plantation for good, Barry. I'll stay here tonight if I may and take a sailboat over to Anse Ange in the morning."

  He was not really surprised. "You and Warner are finished?"

  "Yes."

  He looked after her horse, tethering the animal beside his own at the clearing's edge, then led her into the office. It was not quite dark. He gave her a drink. "Have you had anything to eat?" he asked.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "If you want to tell me what happened—"

  "I think he's out of his mind," she said. "It's more than rum this time, I'm certain." She let her breath out in a long pulsing sigh, as though in his presence a block of ice inside her were just beginning to melt. "The other night he was on the veranda, drinking. I accused him of being the father of the child Micheline is expecting. He laughed at me and I left him. Then I heard him shouting. Not at me, not at anyone . . . Just shouting. He's been acting strangely ever since."


  She was at the end of her rope, he saw. There was little left of the good looks she had been so proud of only a few weeks before. Her eyes were dull from want of sleep. Her face was gray. She wore one of the plain white dresses she had used as a uniform when helping him with patients. What a difference, he thought, from the woman at the farewell party who had employed every feminine trick to make herself worth noticing.

  He said with a wry smile, "We seem to have reached the end of the road together."

  "Yes. Don't we?"

  "Did Edith and St. Juste get off as planned?"

  She nodded. "That was when I packed up and left—while Warner was taking them over in the launch. I didn't want trouble."

  "He'll know where you've gone, of course."

  "I suppose so. He thinks I'm in love with you."

  "In love with me?"

  She emptied her glass and looked at him. "Does that surprise you?"

  "Well, I—"

  "It doesn't matter. He isn't likely to come here after me. He might run into Micheline."

  "She's left the island."

  "Oh? Where has she gone?"

  Barry told her what had happened. It was a relief to be able to tell someone. He talked of the drums, of St. Juste's prediction that something would happen when they stopped, of their stopping, of the poisoned chicken. He paced the floor while telling her. His voice grew louder in the room and he felt himself sweating. When he suddenly stopped pacing, the room was nearly dark. He pressed his hands to his temples.

  "I can't think any more," he said. "I'm stupid. I feel as though I had been poisoned." He sank onto a chair and put his head in his hands. "I know now how old Mitchell must have felt, exactly how he felt. There just isn't anything to do except wait, and the waiting is murder."

  Alma rose and stepped behind his chair. He felt her hands on his shoulders, strong, comforting. The peasants loved her hands. There was magic in them, they said. She could drive away pain with them.

  "It's a mess, isn't it?" she said quietly.

  He looked up at her. There was just enough light in the room to let him know she was smiling.

  "I'm worse off than you are, if that's any consolation," she said.

  "I suppose you are."

  "For you there'll be a chance to start over somewhere else, if you can make the Bishop see the truth of what's happened here. You may be able to do that. But I'm really finished. I've made a complete mess of things."

  "You can divorce Warner."

  "Then what?"

  "Go back to the States . . . I don't know."

  "I don't want to go back to the States."

  "What do you want?"

  She pressed his shoulders again and then took her hands away. "Forget it," she said. "You have troubles enough without trying to solve mine for me as well. I think I will have something to eat, if Lucy won't mind."

  He walked with her to the kitchen. Except for the chirping of the cicadas the clearing was quiet. A few fireflies drifted about. The kitchen was in darkness.

  "She must have gone out," Barry said, lighting a lamp. "Here, I want to show you something." He was consciously searching for things to talk about. It seemed important to keep on talking. But when he looked for the bottle of medicine Lucy had made, thinking to amuse her with the story of its preparation, it was not on the worktable. He looked in some of the cupboards. It was not there either.

  He told the story anyway, while she ate some crackers and cheese. It amused her less than he had hoped.

  "You ought to leave here," she said. "If they want to poison you, they will."

  Ever since discovering the thorn in the chicken he had been toying with a half-formed idea. He leaned across the table toward her and said now, soberly, "Suppose I let them think I have been poisoned."

  Alma looked at him curiously, without comment.

  "I could, you know," he went on. "Beliard isn't the only one who can spread false tales. Lucy would help me. Suppose I let it be known that I ate that poisoned chicken. That I'm ill. That I've died."

  "I don't see what good—"

  "There'll be some sort of ceremony to celebrate the event, won't there? I'm sure there will. Catus and the whole gang of them will be there. What if I were to walk in on such an affair, big as life when they think me dead? What do you suppose might happen?"

  She thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "I don't know. But I don't like it."

  "It might be an interesting experiment."

  "It might be dangerous."

  "I'm in danger just sitting here. I'll be in danger when I eat breakfast tomorrow, and every meal thereafter. In the end, as you've just predicted, they're certain to poison me." He stood up, looking about him. "Where the devil can Lucy have got to? She never goes out at night."

  "Can she be asleep somewhere?"

  "I'll have a look around."

  He took a flashlight and looked in the old storeroom which had been made into a bedroom for St. Juste—the room he would have to occupy tonight, he supposed, with Alma using his. He looked in Lucy's room, then went outside and walked completely around the rectory, calling her name. On an impulse he entered the old church, remembering how often she had gone there lately to pray. But the search was unsuccessful.

  Alma had looked too. They met at the office doorway, shaking their heads. "Wherever she is, she won't be away long," Barry predicted. "Suppose we get you placed for the night. Then we can sit and wait for her."

  "So you can ask her to spread the rumor you were talking about?"

  "So I can ask her what she thinks of the idea, at any rate." He tried to smile, but Lucy's absence had made him anxious. "Where will you sleep? My room would be best, I should think."

  "I don't want to put you out," she protested. "I can sleep on the office cot."

  "You take my room. I'll use St. Juste's."

  "If you don't mind, I'd rather we weren't so far away from each other. This business is giving me the creeps."

  "I'll use the office cot then." This time he did manage a smile. "Since the Bishop isn't here to be shocked."

  When he had carried her suitcase into his room and found clean sheets for the bed, they sat outside the rectory in the darkness, waiting for Lucy. There was much to talk about and no sound of drums to make the conversation difficult. Barry drew from her a complete account of her husband's recent behavior. At times they did not talk at all, but listened to the small night-sounds in the clearing and watched the fireflies.

  Suddenly he was aware that the drums were throbbing again.

  He rose abruptly and took a few steps forward, stopped and stood listening with his hands clenched at his sides. The sound came from a different direction this time. From the ridge. He listened a long while to be sure, and knew he could not be mistaken. He began to shake. By God, if they were holding a vodun service in the new church . . .

  Alma came to his side. "What is it?" she asked. Her voice was low, vibrant with apprehension.

  "More of the same. I've had thirty hours of it. I don't believe I can stand much more."

  Were they holding a service in the church? He couldn't believe it. They wouldn't dare—not, at least, until they'd got the church away from him. Yet the sound was from that direction, definitely. He felt Alma's fingers on his arm and turned to face her. He was violently trembling.

  "Come and sit down," she said.

  He let her lead him back to his chair and dropped onto it. The sound of the drums filled the clearing. He had been right in saying he could not stand much more of it. There wasn't so much difference between black men and white after all. He remembered the signs of impending explosion on the face of St. Juste and knew the same signs were on his own. He must stop shaking. He must get hold of himself.

  Alma had stepped behind him. He felt her hands on his shoulders again. The tide of tension slowly ebbed.

  When he was able to breathe normally again, he looked up at her. She was leaning over him and the movement brought her face close to his. "Thanks,"
he said. "I don't know what I'll do when you're not here."

  Her hands went on putting strength into him, the hands the peasants said were magic. "I don't know what I'll do either," she said.

  "I've leaned on you ever since the day you brought in that fellow with the bad leg."

  "We have worked well together, haven't we?"

  "I've been able to talk to you, tell you things. You always seemed to know what I was getting at."

  "I learned to know. I didn't at first."

  "How do you mean?"

  She drew his head back against her body and her hands moved to his temples, defying the drums to touch him. "Before we began to work together I was a—bitch. There, you see? The word comes hard now. It makes me cringe. Before, I'd have used it without thinking. I was a bitch. It isn't all Warner's fault, what's happened to him. I'm partly responsible."

  "I don't believe it."

  "I was bitter and cynical. I couldn't see good in anyone, not even in you. Worse, I was full of prejudices. Have you any idea how full of prejudices I was? It frightens me."

  "I don't think I understand."

  "Why was I so angry when I learned that Warner had been having an affair with the girl at Fond Marie? I knew the kind of man he was. I knew there'd been other women before. Yet I was furious for the first time. Can't you see why? This time the girl was black."

  "Well?" he said, frowning.

  "It shouldn't have mattered, if I'd been making any sense. The color of her skin shouldn't have been the important thing. But it was."

  "And now?"

  "Something has happened to me, from coming here to the mission and being with you, helping you. I'm beginning to see things straight. I want to be decent."

  "You've always been decent."

  "I wish that were true," she said. "My God, how I wish that were true."

  "It is true, so far as I'm concerned. I've never known you when you weren't wonderful."