Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  "You've known me. You just haven't known my thoughts."

  "And do I know your thoughts now?"

  "Perhaps. I'm not sure. I'm in love with you; you probably know that; you must be blind if you don't. I'd marry you if I could, and if you wanted me. But I'll never have an affair with you. Does that surprise you?"

  "No," he said. "It doesn't."

  "There was a time when I would have."

  He reached up and held her hands. "There was a time when you might have. But I feel the way you do now. It would spoil what's between us. There is something between us, of course. I've known it for a long time."

  She said quietly, "What is it? Is it love?"

  "I think so, if I know what love is. Does that sound strange? Who does know what love is? I thought I was in love with Edith. There may even have been a crazy moment or two when I thought I could love Micheline. I was wrong there in both cases, so wrong in Edith's case that it shocked me. But if love is wanting to understand and be understood, wanting to share, wanting to be with someone, then I'm in love with you deeply. Much too deeply to risk losing you through an affair that would make us both feel guilty."

  She nodded. "That's how I feel. I've never felt that way before."

  "This way we can go on, in spite of Warner. Anything else would destroy the very thing we want. You'll get a divorce, of course. You can't possibly go back to him."

  "Yes, I'll get a divorce."

  "It won't mean we can marry. You understand that, don't you? Unless, of course, this tale about my being the father of Micheline's child is believed and I'm asked to leave the ministry. So long as I am in the church—"

  "I know."

  "It's pretty hopeless, isn't it?"

  "Hopeless?" she said. "No. A thing doesn't have to be complete to be wonderful. Sometimes it's better when we don't want too much, isn't it? I can be happy for a long time with what we have." She bent over him and put her cheek against his. "I'm glad we got this out of our systems, Barry. I feel much better." Then she straightened. "Do you mind if I go in now? I'd like to lie down and think about it."

  He stood up and watched her go. Stood gazing at the rectory door-way long after she had disappeared inside. He felt strangely calm in spite of the drums. Perhaps not all the tension in him had been caused by his troubles with Catus. Perhaps this other turmoil had been churning away at the same time, unrecognized but nonetheless violent. He felt almost relaxed, almost happy. He sat and let the feeling flow over him. The distant pounding of the drums no longer had any effect on him.

  She was right: a thing did not have to be complete to be wonderful. At least not all at once. Perhaps one day this would be more than it was now. Who could say what might happen?

  Something at the edge of the clearing caught his eye and he pushed himself erect. A shadowy figure glided through the dark toward him. He took in a breath, and then saw that it was Lucy. She halted before him.

  27

  “MON PÈRE, I have just come from my sister's house," Lucy said gravely. "My nephew, Pradon Beliard, is sick. I said I would ask you to go to him."

  "Pradon? Sick?" Barry could not believe it.

  She shrugged. "I don't think you should go, mon Père. I don't think you should help that man after what he has done."

  "What's the matter with him?"

  "Who knows? He says he is dying."

  "Is he sick, Lucy?"

  Again she shrugged. "I suppose so. He lies on a couch, groaning. But that man has done you a great wrong, mon Père. Besides, he wants to steal God's church. If you help him without making him confess what he has done, you will be making a great mistake."

  Barry scowled at her. "What are you trying to tell me, Lucy?"

  "Me? Trying to tell you, mon Père?"

  "I see." But he did not. "If Pradon is ill, why hasn't he sent for Catus?"

  "He knows very well Catus can't save him. Only you with your medicines."

  "Very well, I'll go to him." Barry strode into the rectory and rapped on the wall beside the drawn curtain. "I've got to go out on a call," he said when Alma answered. He told her what had happened. By the time he had finished packing his bag, Alma was in the office.

  "I'm going with you," she announced.

  "Good. I'd be uneasy leaving you here alone."

  "I just hope that little monster is sick enough so I can gloat. Or is that being very unchristian?"

  "It's being very honest. I share the feeling. Ready?"

  She touched his hand. "When you are, darling."

  He had his flashlight, but Lucy asked him not to use it. "It will be better if we are not seen," she said. "Just follow me, mon Père." She herself needed no light to find her way over the island paths. Her bare feet knew every stone and root.

  They met no people. The route she chose by-passed the village and avoided most of the main paths. Except for the sound of the drums, now loud, now soft but never ceasing, Barry might have thought the island fast asleep. It was a long route, though. They were forty minutes reaching the outskirts of Petit Trou and another ten working their way around that community of dark and silent houses to the abode of Beliard and his mother.

  Barry struggled in a whirlpool of emotion. There was something queer about all this, something strange in Lucy's attitude and behavior. Why had she gone to visit her sister tonight without telling him she was going? Why had she gone at all? In all the weeks she had worked for him she had never done so before. And that business of the kola bottle this afternoon—what about that?

  Be alert, he told himself. There's something going on here. As Lucy pushed open a gate and hurried toward a doorway outlined in lamplight, he hung back and caught Alma's hand. "I don't like this," he whispered. "Be careful."

  "I know." Alma nodded. "She's up to something."

  The young man from Couronne lay in pajamas on a couch by the wall, staring wide-eyed at the door. His mother, a timid-seeming woman several years younger than Lucy, stood wringing her hands by a table in the center of the room. It was a more expensively furnished room than most of those Barry had entered as a doctor. Tables, chairs, and lamps had certainly come from mainland shops. There was even a curtain at the single window. But the man on the couch was no longer concerned with putting on a front for his peasant neighbors. He was pure peasant himself, moaning in terror and drenched with sweat. His eyes swelled like inflated balloons as he watched Barry step toward him.

  Barry sat on the couch and laid a hand on the sick man's forehead. Alma moved the lamp table closer and stood beside him. "Stop groaning, please, and open your mouth."

  "Mon Père, I am dying! I know it!"

  "Open your mouth. And don't expect sympathy. If you die, I'll be the last person to mourn you." So much, Barry thought, for the bedside manner. Let the worm squirm. Apparently there was nothing much wrong with him anyway. He had only a slight fever, and the solid pressure of a hand over his appendix produced no evidence of pain.

  Pradon's gaze clung to his face as he made his examination. It sought to read his every expression, to discover what he was thinking. It was the gaze of a badly frightened man. Go ahead, Barry thought, be frightened. Be terrified. You've had this coming to you, my friend. You've earned every second of it. He dragged the examination out. Alma, Lucy, and the boy's timid mother watched in silence.

  "Are you in pain?"

  "Oui, mon Père! Oui!"

  "Where are you in pain?"

  "My stomach! My chest! They are on fire!"

  "When did you eat last?"

  "At s-supper. About seven o'clock."

  "What did you eat?"

  "A fish, mon Père. A Poisson negre."

  "Fresh?"

  "I—I think so. My mother cooked it—"

  Barry turned his head to frown at the woman. "Was the fish fresh?"

  "Oui! I bought it myself on the beach only an hour before he ate it, mon Père!"

  "Is that all you had for supper, Beliard?"

  The sick man stared at Barry's face again.
"That and some—some bread."

  "You had nothing afterward?"

  "Only some rum. Only a little."

  "Nothing else?"

  "My aunt brought some kola. I drank that."

  Barry felt himself start and hoped his face had not given him away. Rising, he glanced at Lucy. She had seated herself. She sat stiffly erect with her hands gripping her knees and her gaze fixed on him. He made a business of lifting his bag to the lamp table and opening it, but looked quickly about the room. The kola bottle, empty, stood on a table by the wall. So far as he could tell from the gaudy label, it was the same bottle. He remembered the herb decoction she had refused to let him taste.

  He had to think fast. She had poisoned the kola, of course, but how strong was the poison? Had she meant to kill her nephew or only make him sick enough to require a doctor? He tried to recall what she had said to him in the clearing about making Pradon confess his crimes before helping him. Her exact words eluded him. He was too excited.

  He glanced at her again, hoping for a clue. She sat like an ebony image. He took a bottle of pills from his bag and, watching her, said casually, "I think a few of these will make you well again."

  Lucy leaned toward him with a convulsive jerk, as though the words had been a hot wire touching a nerve. He saw her long black fingers dig fiercely into the flesh of her legs. With her eyes, her open mouth, with every fiber of her being she was pleading with him. He reached into the bag again and brought out a notebook and pencil.

  "But," he said, turning now to look down at the man on the couch, "before I save your worthless life you're going to make it worth saving."

  Beliard cringed from him. The room was still as a grave. "Well?" Barry said.

  "I—I don't know what you mean."

  "I mean this." He paused to think of what he would say, knowing he must not let the opportunity slip away from him. He had more than himself to think of now. There was Lucy. Good, wonderful, faithful Lucy who had turned on her own flesh and blood for love of him—or for the church; it didn't matter which. And Alma, whose future was now one with his own. He must not let them down.

  "Because of you, Beliard, the people of this island hate me. You persuaded Felix Dufour to sell me that mule. You said Toto Anestor was dead when he was not. You burned the church and killed the mule at the altar to make the people think their vodun gods were angry." He spoke slowly, letting the words fall on the upturned face like drops of water. He watched the face intently for any slightest indication that he was going too far. He must not go too far. Every accusation must be a true one, a hammer blow the sick man could not dodge. "You told the people I accused Catus of killing the Desinor girl. You put Antoine Constant up to his crooked claim on the church property. Be quiet, Beliard!" This when he saw Pradon's mouth come open and begin to twitch. "I know you did all these things. It won't do you any good to deny them. I know. So why should I save your miserable life?"

  "But—but you are mistaken, mon Père!"

  Barry shrugged, tossed the bottle of pills back into his bag and turned away. "All right, if that's the way you want it. I won't waste my time with you."

  "Mon Père, wait! Please!"

  Bag in hand, Barry strode to the door.

  "Wait! Wait, mon Père! I admit it!"

  Barry halted, turned. For a moment he almost felt pity for the man. Never before had he seen such supplication on a human face. Pradon, up on one elbow, stretched a trembling hand toward him. He walked back to the couch.

  "Very well, you admit it. That's a start, at least. Now we'll have it in writing. And don't tell me you can't write. I know you can."

  "But I didn't do these things for myself, mon Pare! I had to do them! M'sieu Lemke ordered me to!"

  "You can put that in writing too." Barry thrust the notebook and pencil at him. "Here you are. Go ahead. Write."

  "I—I can only write in Creole, mon Père," Pradon moaned.

  "Creole will do nicely. Catus Laroche can read it. Just be brief and very clear. You might begin by saying 'I persuaded Felix Dufour to sell Père Clinton the mule. I spread the lie that Toto was dead when Louis and Père Clinton took him to the mainland.' Go on from there. Leave anything out and you'll do the whole thing over again."

  There were but two sounds in the room while Pradon laboriously wrote: the heavy breathing of the room's occupants and the scratch of his pencil on the notebook pages. Barry heard one more sound, or felt it: the thudding of his own heart. Would it work? Would Catus believe what was on the paper when it was thrust into his hand? He glanced at Alma and saw that she was pale. He knew he was pale himself. He prayed, and tried with all his might to believe the prayer would be heard and answered.

  The scratch of the pencil stopped. Pradon was holding the notebook up to him. He took it, read what was written and thrust it back.

  "Put down the names of those who saw you write this. Your witnesses. Leave space for their marks or signatures."

  The pencil moved again. Barry took Lucy by the arm and led her outside into the yard.

  "Tell me," he said when they were well away from the door, "what was in the kola bottle, Lucy. Was it a true poison? Will it kill him?"

  She shrugged. "He will think there is a fire inside him for a long time, mon Pare. But he will not die unless he dies of fright."

  "You're a wonderful woman, Lucy."

  "Mon Père, he would have stolen God's church. I could not let that happen."

  He went back inside. When he and Alma had signed the book and Lucy and Pradon's mother had made their marks on it, he shook some pills from a bottle and placed them on the table.

  "You are to stay here on the couch and take one of these every hour until daylight. The sickness will go away slowly, not all at once.

  You'll be in pain, but you will not die and after a while the pain will disappear. I hope it will make a better man of you before it does." He turned to the timid woman by the table. "Give him a glass of water with each tablet and keep him on the couch. He must not get up. If you let him get up, I won't be responsible for what happens. Do you understand?"

  She nodded, gazing wide-eyed at her son.

  Barry closed his bag, motioning Alma and Lucy to the door.

  28

  THE DRUMS WERE STILL THROBBING when they reached the mission. If anything, the sound was louder.

  "You know where I'm going, of course," Barry told the two women. "I think I'd better go alone."

  Alma shook her head. "I want to be with you."

  Lucy, too, insisted on accompanying him. "There is something you don't know, mon Père," she said. "I must be there to tell you."

  "But it may be dangerous. There's no telling what will happen when I show myself."

  They would not be left behind.

  The ceremony would be in front of the church, Lucy thought, and at her suggestion they went to the ridge by a path that would bring them out at the rear of the new rectory. Again she asked Barry not to use his flashlight. "You will see why, mon Père, when we get there."

  It was a difficult climb, part of the way through steep gardens. There was no moon. The night was black but alive, quivering to the rhythm of the drums. The sound became thunder as they climbed toward it.

  Lucy was right: Catus Laroche had chosen the open space in front of the church for his service. Light for the festivities was supplied by half a dozen lanterns strung among the pomme-rose trees. At least a hundred islanders stood about, watching the white-robed hounsis dance and chant.

  Barry saw a number of persons he knew. The lawyer from the capital was an interested spectator. Little Felix Dufour stood out in a white shirt and black bow tie, with his untidy hair curling about his ears. Big Louis Cesar played the maman drum. Daure danced. Sergeant Edma was present in his much-washed khaki uniform, wearing a revolver on his hip. It was an important occasion, obviously. . .

  He gave a start when he saw Warner Lemke, and heard Alma take in a breath behind him when she recognized her husband. Lemke stood at the rear o
f the crowd, a bottle in his hand. Why had he come? Barry wondered. Simply to gloat? Or at the right moment, when passions were high, would he step forward and urge the crowd to carry their vodun into the church itself? That would be like him. The ultimate indignity, which to him would be the ultimate triumph.

  He saw Catus then. The houngan, wearing dark trousers and the familiar red shirt, stood behind the three drummers, his arms folded on his chest, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Hating me, Barry thought. Hating me for sleeping with his sister, which I didn't do. Why wasn't Catus dancing? Why wasn't he calling on his vodun gods to bless the service with their presence? Was there still a dim glow of doubt in his mind?

  Lucy tugged at Barry's arm. "I think, mon Père, you should appear to them from inside the church."

  He was puzzled. "From inside? What do you mean?"

  "It is God's house. And they think you are dead."

  "Dead!"

  She nodded. "The chicken, mon Père. On my way to Pradon's house this evening I said you had eaten it and were sick. Now they think you are dead, and if you walk out of the church and confront them—" She drew him toward the rear of the building. "You can get in through a window without being seen."

  Barry looked at Alma and saw that she was as startled as he. Was this strange woman always going to be a step ahead of their thoughts? Could she read their minds? He put a hand to his shirt pocket to be sure the precious notebook was still there. Should he try to startle them by appearing from the church?

  "I don't like it, Barry." Alma was shaking her head at him. "They may panic and run away."

  "No. Catus won't run." He saw suddenly what would happen, what had to happen. "I'm going to do it."

  "Darling, be careful!"

  He left them with a nod and crept along the side of the church, not afraid of being recognized but aware that any one of the hundred or more at the ceremony might notice a movement there in the darkness and be tempted to investigate. Getting through the aperture was simple enough once he reached it. Inside, he glanced toward the altar and, on an impulse, dropped to one knee for a moment and bowed his head. When he faced the entrance he saw that he would be in full view of the crowd the moment he pushed the doors open and stepped out. A vertical line of light was visible in the crack between them now, from the ceremonial lanterns outside. The steps must be fully illuminated.