by Jane Harris
Chapter Thirty-Four
Some kind of fever took hold of me such that I have only patchy recollection of most of that night and the morning that followed. Evidently, Emile carried me back to the hospital quarters and laid me down in the ramshackle cabin. I was dimly aware of him pressing a cool cloth to my forehead. At some later point, Céleste came in. She gave me a kind of medicine that made me drowsy. All night long I fell from one dwam into another. Hard to tell whether I was asleep or awake. Sometimes Céleste appeared, sometimes Emile. Then, later, I woke again and heard them there together, low voices talking at my bedside. I turn my head and thought I saw Emile reach out to Céleste and touch her swollen belly – but it was only a brief impression and then I sank down into darkness again.
When next I open my eyes, the pirate Bart Roberts and La Diablesse had taken over the cabin. Old Bart he set a rusk upon a chair, proposing to play me at Crackers. I had never played the game before and, much intimidated, looked around for Emile or Céleste, only to find that they had both disappear. Roberts had already knelt down and now he pulled his virile member from his britches and began to pound the rusk with it, so hard that the diamond cross at his throat did jump, whiles La Diablesse looked on lickerously. That cracker must have been as hard as black walnut because the pirate fail to even cause one crumb.
‘Your turn, Squeakum,’ he said to me and when La Diablesse laughed he bowed to her, saying: ‘Unless you, Madame, would try first,’ which I thought amusing because, of course, she lack the necessary accoutrement. They both turn to me, then, with such fierce looks, I felt oblige to participate. Yet, when I delved into my britches for my own tackle, my hand grasp nothing but air. Perhaps my lolo had shrunk inside me or dropped off somewheres; n’importe quoi, my manhood was gone.
Of course, I knew this was simply a dream or some kind of hallucination of the senses; nevertheless, I began to panic. La Diablesse laugh so hard I could see the furred root of her tongue behind her mossy teeth. Then she flipped up her skirts, revealing her hoof but – worse than that, and to my horror – instead of lady parts she had a koko on her bigger than the throwing arm of a harpooneer and with this massive extremity she proceeded to thwack the biscuit, smashing it to fritters. When naught but crumbs and dust remain, she turn to me again and I saw that her prependant had grown a pair of fangs at the end. This grisly apparition rose up in her hands like a giant centipede and then – Mary-and-Joseph! – drew back as if to pounce on me.
Tambou! In my nightmares, I must have been thrashing around on the mat, for next thing I knew Céleste appeared beside me, pressing a damp cloth to my forehead. Not yet fully awake, I blurted out:
‘Don’t play Crackers with them.’
‘What?’ she said.
‘Don’t play Crackers with them!’
‘What are you talking about?’
But before I could reply, a leathery hand reached up and drag me back down into the hot dark of sleep.
PART SEVEN
Grenada (THIRD DAY)
Chapter Thirty-Five
Some time the following morning, I washed up on the shores of slumber, weak as a worm. Bright light bled in between the slats of the hut. My throat was dry. My whole leg throbbed. Even my brain hurt. I groaned. A voice came to me, close at hand. Emile. He sat against the wall, just behind me.
‘Here, drink this.’
He supported my head and held to my lips a calabash fill with coconut water. I took a sip. Something had been added to make the liquid sweet and milky. Then I caught a glimpse of my foot and near cried out in anguish. Hard to believe that this grisly appendage was my own. All five toes had puffed up, misformed, like a row of dark and deadly mushroom, my ankle so swollen it could belong to a fat Béké with the gout. Whatever had attack me left behind the imprint of fangs, two puncture marks. I did not care to imagine the size of the creature that made them but they were similar to what I had suffered as a tot when a giant centipede bit my arm.
Emile began to bathe my foot.
‘We have to get you better by tonight,’ he said. ‘Céleste thinks the bite is infected. Did you see what did it?’
‘No … I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘For last night.’
‘Want to tell me what happened?’
Well, I would rather have pulled out my own tongue with a pliers than admit my mistakes but I force myself to confess that when it seem like Bell might find me I had growl to scare him off, never once expecting him to take leg-bail for the quarters.
‘I guessed it was you,’ Emile said. ‘Soon as I heard them shouting about a wild beast growling in the cane. What was Bell doing? Spying on the cabins?’
‘Mm-hmm – and cursing the field hands. He’s sick for home. Misses his mammy.’
My brother gave a dry laugh.
‘That’s a good one,’ he muttered. ‘Sick for home.’
‘Well, I’m sorry. If I hadn’t moved when I got bit, he might not have heard me.’
‘No need to be sorry. You can’t help being bit.’
‘But the Power of Attorney … they need to hear it.’
He shook his head.
‘We were finish. Thérèse skipped reading the names to make it quick. She was done by the time we heard Raymond. The field hand were just debating what to do.’
‘But what about Léontine? We should have gone to get her.’
‘You think she needs your help? Soon as she heard Bell make a commotion, she hop the twig, came flying through those cabins before he got halfway across the produce ground. That girl can take care of herself. Went off to work this morning with ribbons in her hair. Here, have some more.’
He supported me again whiles I drank from the calabash.
‘What did the field hand decide?’ I asked. ‘Are they coming with us?’
‘No decision yet. They’re still talking. We’ll find out soon enough. Now – do you think you can walk?’
He help me up off the mat but when I tried to step onto the bad foot a lightning bolt shot up my leg and a wave of nauseation ran through me like a poison. My head began to spin and I would have hit the floor had Emile not caught me.
‘Easy now,’ he said, laying me down again. ‘You just woke up. We’ll try later.’
He draped a cool cloth across my forehead. An anxious look had crept into his eye but he shook his head and laughed and then – whap! It was gone.
‘Puten mèd!’ said he. ‘You got away with it last night, for true. Piece of luck old Bell did not nab you down there. You bear a charm life, britches.’
In my bones, I knew he was wrong. Even little children could stand lookout without getting caught. Though I never saw him, I could picture that boy LaFortune, the one hid in the cane by the produce ground, the one who had spoke to Saturnin. I could just imagine that boy with his compeers, laughing at my ineptitude, my bêtise.
A vision from the night before flash through my mind: La Diablesse, her massive prependage growing fangs, rearing up, ready to strike. I peered out at my brother from beneath the damp cloth.
‘Is Bart Roberts dead?’ I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
Emile paused in the act of washing his hands.
‘Bart Roberts, the pirate? He died years ago. What do you want to know that for?’
‘Just asking.’
Nonetheless, he looked at me askance.
‘Is this something to do with your dream?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘What dream?’
He made a horrified face and waggled his hands in the air:
‘Don’t play Crackers with them! Don’t play Crackers with them!’ He began to laugh but stopped when he saw that I had taken offence. ‘It was just a nightmare.’
A sudden heat rose up behind my eyes. I glared at Emile, my forehead prickling, my jaw tight.
‘You know Céleste wants to talk to you,’ I said.
‘Yes, we spoke last night.’
‘Did she tell you about her child? Who the father is?’
‘She did,’ he said, abruptly. ‘It was some carpenter slave. He and his master did some repairs in the hospital early this year. But they’ve gone now to Guadeloupe.’
I must confess, I found myself bemused. Could this be true? Or was Céleste only lying to my brother because of what he might do to Bryant?
‘That’s not what I heard,’ I told him. ‘Léontine knows who the father is – and it’s not any carpenter gone to Guadeloupe.’
My brother narrowed his eyes at me. He took the cloth off my forehead and set to wringing it out.
‘Best thing to do, Lucien, is we should mind our own business.’
‘But I can tell you who he is, if you want.’
‘No need,’ he replied.
All the same, I found myself compel to speak the name. I know not why exactly I wanted to provoke him, except that he had mock me for having a nightmare.
‘Dr Bryant,’ I said. ‘Léontine is sure it’s him.’
Quick-sharp, Emile leaned forward and spoke, soft and low, close to my face.
‘First, you should ignore rumours. Second, mind your own business. Third—’
But instead of continuing, he sighed.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘But – what if it is Bryant?’
Emile gave an angry sniff.
‘Are you trying to cause trouble? What do you want me to do? Go down there to the hospital, knock him cold as a wedge? Get myself arrested?’
‘No,’ I said, though I was so angry with him, the idea held some appeal.
‘I bon,’ he replied. ‘The important thing is to get Céleste – and all of us – off this island, away from him and safe. I know it’s him. Of course I do. She told me about it – what he did. She had no choice.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes – “Oh”.’
‘Then why’d you tell me it was some carpenter gone to Guadeloupe?’
‘Because – you silly – I did not want you to know it was Bryant – in case YOU did something stupid.’
‘But—’
He put his hand up to silence me.
‘Not another word,’ he said. ‘Not about Céleste, not anything.’
Shame welled up in my eyes in the form of scalding tears. Loath to let Emile know I was upset, I dash them away with my fingers. Above all, I would hate him to think me a weeping baby. He turned away to finish rinsing the cloth, his shoulders hard and set, his neck stiff and unyielding. Even the back of his head seem to disapprove of me. I turn my face to the wall and lay there, eyes shut, until I heard him leave the cabin.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I must have fallen asleep again because I woke to find the morning well advance. Someone was approaching the hut, soft-footed. Imagining Bell or Bryant sneaking up on me, I felt my heart flip over as the door swung open, but it was only Céleste, saying:
‘I can’t stay long.’
She put her hand to my forehead and knit her brows together. ‘Still a fever,’ she told me. ‘But we must get you walking.’
Since I could put no weight on the injured foot, she help me to the threshold. The heat outside hit my skull like a mallet. I sat down and descended the stairs on my hind quarters. Céleste showed me a pair of crutches propped against the cabin wall.
‘No need for those,’ I said.
‘How will you walk otherwise?’ She haul me to my feet and pushed a crutch under each of my armhole. ‘Rest on them. Swing forward instead of using that bad foot.’
Giving me orders, as usual. She made me ply back and forth across the flat part of the yard whiles she watched.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Keep going.’
‘Where’s Emile? What’s he doing?’
‘Never mind him. Just watch your step.’
Hobbling to and fro on flat ground turned out to be simple enough – if tiring – and soon I was hirpling about like a life-long cripple. The problem came to light when Céleste led me away from the cabins, down the shortcut path to town. Ground creepers snagged up the stilts and they stuck in the mud, bringing me to a standstill. Worst of all, when I turned around, we discovered that it was impossible to go uphill. Picturing the many heights that Emile and I had scaled on our journey from Petit Havre to Fort Royal, it dawned on me that any hill on our return would be impassable to me and, with crutches in hand, I would never be able to haul myself up a steep incline by grasping branches and vine as necessary. No mistake, I would require prodigious help to get anywhere on the island.
‘Try going sideways,’ Céleste suggested, but it was no use.
Just then, I caught sight of my brother picking his way through the trees, silent as a stick insect, watching me all the while. Céleste noticed him a moment later.
‘Keep practising,’ she said then hurried off through the undergrowth to intercept Emile. They stood together, close-close, and began to talk in low, earnest voices. After a while, they both stared in my direction. My brother seemed low in spirit, his countenance grim as Céleste murmured in his ear. What was she saying? In normal circumstance, I might have wandered near enough to eavesdrop but the crutches made such a ploy impossible. I was stuck on the path, plain and simple, able only to look and wonder, as they murmur to each other. Clearly, they had indeed become reconcile to some extent during the night at my bedside. Emile did look glum but his ill-humour no longer seem to be aimed at Céleste. A lonely ache twisted in my gut, just like beforetimes, when the pair of them would lock together like two half of a shell and me a little fish on the outside, darting hither-thither, trying to nose a way in.
Presently, their tête-à-tête ended and – with a last glance in my direction – Céleste hurried off toward the hospital whiles Emile resumed his course through the underbrush toward me. As he stepped onto the path, he cast a glance at my crutches, saying:
‘Bonjou, hop-leg. I would toss you a coin if I had one to spare.’
‘Always mocking, giving joke,’ I told him. ‘You would crack a jest upon the gallows. Where have you been?’
‘The boat-house. Chevallier is set on rowing to Petit Havre because of Angélique, her knees. I just wanted to check the boat is sea-worthy.’
‘And is it?’
‘So far as I can tell.’
‘I see you and Manzell are now on speaking terms.’
Ignoring that, he crouch down to study my foot, frowning in a way that made my scalp itch.
‘Who else is going in this boat?’ I asked.
‘Chevallier. Angélique. Léo will go with them to help the old man row …’
He stood up. I just looked at him. He gaze back, unflinching. At last, he said:
‘You can’t go overland on these crutches.’
‘Is that what Céleste told you?’
‘I can see for myself. Can you walk uphill?’ When I fail to reply, he answered his own question: ‘No. In which case …’
‘What about you?’ I demanded. ‘Are you going in the boat?’
‘No, I have to take the field hand. Hardly anybody knows the way to Petit Havre.’
‘But I could go with you, in your group …’
‘Someone would have to carry you half the time. Makes more sense you go by boat. Be safer, quicker.’
I gave a hard laugh.
‘So, you two get to go together – all nice and sweet – and I have to sit with those old Arada in a stupid boat.’
‘Think about it,’ Emile said. ‘You saw the terrain. You think you can manage on those poles, up and down ridges, slippery mud, crossing rivers?’
‘I’ll leave them here, dammit.’
So saying, I threw the crutches to the ground and took a step forward onto my injured foot. At once, a fiery jolt shot up my leg; I hopped back onto the other heel but lost my balance and ended up collapsing on my back at the side of the path. Fortunately, a prodigious patch of fern soften my fall.
Emile just stood there, morose, his arms folded as much to say ‘I told you so’.
; But then an actual voice called out from up at the quarters – a voice I instantly recognised as belonging to Dr Bryant.
‘You there, boy.’
With a start, my brother glanced up. From within my bed of ferns, everything beyond the summit of the path was out of my view. However, I saw Emile swallow hard and then, faster than a firelock, he began to run uphill toward Bryant, calling out:
‘Master sir! Sheeps!’
‘Ships?’ I heard Bryant say, crossly. ‘What ships? What are you on about?’
‘Non, non, sir,’ gasped Emile and then I heard him make the sound of a lamb. ‘Baa! Muttons. Sheeps. Mouton de mon mèt. Pédu.’
‘Ah,’ said Bryant. ‘Sheep!’
‘Pédu! Pédu!’
‘I see … You lost your sheep. The sheep that belong to your master, yes?’ Bryant continued in hesitant French: ‘Non, j’ai – no see – pas vu moutons – aujourd’hui. Non.’
And then Emile tried to explain to him in a mix-mash of kréyòl, French and his five words of English that as he drove his sheep along the River Road they escape from him and ran uphill toward the quarters. He made a jumble of it here and there, but his story came clear enough when done. Meanwhile, I lay on my back, quaking, in case Bryant should notice me. However, it would seem that I was invisible, perhaps due to the abundant ferns and the steep slope of the path where it dip beneath a ridge. The Englishman must have spotted my brother – or at least his upper body – simply because he was on his feet.
‘Pas moutons,’ Bryant was saying. ‘No sheep. But do you not speak English, boy?’
‘Kwa?’
‘Pourquoi – tu – ne – parle – Anglais?’
‘Ah,’ Emile replied. ‘Mon met Fwancé. Ne pal anglé.’
‘I see. Your master – is French, he – speaks no English. Pas d’Anglais.’
‘Wi. Mé – master, sir – mes moutons.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Bryant. ‘Dear God. Well, go and find them then. Wait – wait.’ I held my breath until he continued: ‘Have you seen a boy? T’as vu – un garçon? Un negre? His name Vincent. Vincent? T’as vu?’
