“Well, my friend,” Tocquet said. “I do not want to leave you in this fish trap, no more than Elise or our daughters. I will stay a few days more, and hope I have not stayed too long. Maybe you can reason with your sister, or have a word with Isabelle.”
“I’ll try it.”
“In spite of her stubbornness, I think she is afraid,” Tocquet said. “Elise, I mean. And I have never known her so. I’ve seen her wild with passion or with grief, and seen her cold and calculating, even cruel. When she abandoned Thibodet to go with me the first time, she threw away everything a white woman has to lose in this country, and yet she showed no fear. But now . . . Now I feel that she is very much afraid of something, but of what? For what there really is to fear ought to send her away from this place without delay, instead of keeping her stuck here like a barnacle . . .”
Tocquet drew two cheroots from his shirt pocket and offered one to the doctor, who shook his head. He shifted his feet and looked to the east, where yellow sunlight was just straining through broad leaves of a banana planting on the lower slopes. It surprised him how well Elise had apparently succeeded in keeping her most recent indiscretions from her husband. And yet she was afraid of something, though the doctor had no better idea than Tocquet exactly what it was.
Toussaint paced the length of the headquarters porch and stopped at the corner of the rail. From here he could see to every quadrant of the compass. South, the white dust of the Savane Désolée. Westward, the sea. North, the mountains of the Cordon de l’Ouest, running back to the other ranges that closed the Spanish border to the east. The sun had not yet crossed those mountains, but its light washed over all the clouds that domed the sky, in colors of gray and blue and rose. Among them the moon’s disk hung, pale and ghostly, still persistent.
The review of his guard on the Place d’Armes was fifteen minutes in the past. Placide had been absorbed into that body, loyal son that he’d proved to be. Isaac, the weaker reed, would be well on his way to his mother at Ennery by now, with the two French captains whom Toussaint would hold for the duration of the armistice Leclerc had offered. Now, and for the next few minutes, Toussaint was entirely alone.
All his orders had been sent. Let them be delivered safely! Let them be obeyed! He stepped back from the balcony rail, closed his eyes, and closed his arms across his chest. By reflex he sank slightly in the knees, as though he were still astride a horse. His nostrils flared.
In the northwest, at Port-de-Paix, Maurepas and the Ninth Demibrigade would be resisting mightily. If Maurepas could not hold out, he would burn the town and retreat into the mountains. Just to the south, Dessalines would surely be trying still to surprise and destroy Port-au-Prince. As certainly, Dessalines would leave Saint Marc a smudge of ash before he’d let the French enjoy it.
Just to the north, Christophe was fighting a French column, in the mountains around Marmelade, while Sans-Souci held off another, in the mountains of Grande Rivière. Across the Spanish border, the distance was greater and there was no news, but if all had gone according to intention, Clervaux and Paul Louverture would have destroyed the towns they commanded, Santiago and Santo Domingo City, and would be moving toward a junction on the Central Plateau near Saint Raphael without risking any engagement in the open field. Still further to the south, Toussaint had instructed Laplume to burn Les Cayes and the surrounding towns, and retreat into the interior. Laplume could not be fully trusted, but at Jérémie, on the Grande Anse beyond Les Cayes, Dommage commanded, whose loyalty and tenacity were strong.
His eyes still lidded, Toussaint allowed himself a half-smile, remembering the long-ago battle when, having heard that the other was wounded, he cried out, “Ah, c’est dommage!” His hearers had taken this French idiom as a proper name, which had stuck to Dommage from then until now. Dommage ought by now to have enacted the order Toussaint had sent him days before: The whites of France and of the colony have joined to take away our freedom. Mistrust the whites—they will betray you if they can. Their manifest desire is the return of slavery . . . and so by now all the towns and the plains of the Grande Anse must be ablaze.
So the spirit of war flew everywhere, with hot, dank wings and a breath of fire. Let everything on the coast and plains be razed to the bare stones. Leclerc and the invaders would be defeated by the barren land itself, if Toussaint’s men did not destroy them in the mountains.
16
Some years before, Doctor Hébert had given Maillart a bundle of herbs and advised him to carry it with him on every campaign, and on every journey which might present a risk of injury to himself, which included almost any journey at all in this country. Maillart had done as he was told, leaving the packet deep in his saddlebag, forgotten for the most part. By great good luck he had not suffered a serious wound for some years, though not for want of danger. Sometimes, with his loud bluff laugh, the major would joke that the efficacy of the packet must be magical, like the magic bags and amulets many of the black soldiers wore around their necks or wrists—a ouanga, a garde-corps. But the doctor replaced the herbs from time to time, whenever he remembered and thought that they’d gone stale enough to lose their virtue. They were fresh enough now to have a bright, slightly sweet scent, leaking out from the folds of the yellow paper packet tied up, like a small roast, with string.
Now Maillart presented the herbs to General Pamphile de Lacroix, who had been wounded during the engagement on the road from Léogane, at Fort Piémont, when the black garrison first claimed to have orders to receive the French, then opened fire on them as they advanced unguardedly. This treachery, if treachery it had been, had cost a hundred grenadiers slain in the opening volley, and twice as many wounded, though it was not sufficient to defend Port-au-Prince, nor to allow the black troops time to burn the city as they had threatened to do.
Pamphile de Lacroix had been hurt in that first volley, while Maillart was standing near. At the time he’d seen the general do no more than stumble, grimace, then move vigorously forward, encouraging his troops over the redoubt wall. Afterward, when his trouser leg was cut away, Lacroix scoffed at the wound, which indeed was not deep, though it looked rather complicated; grapeshot had torn the lower muscles of his thigh. At any rate Maillart had heard the doctor make such deductions when he examined similar wounds from other battles. Over the protests of Lacroix, Maillart got out his packet of herbs, and found a knowledgeable black woman to prepare a proper poultice. When Lacroix objected, Maillart gave him a few choice examples of how quickly even so light a wound could corrupt and putrefy in this climate, and reminded him that an amputation—the best treatment a French surgeon could offer—would be above the knee.
At that, Lacroix accepted the poultice and soon found an improvement. He had never been really completely off his feet, but once he was more mobile, Maillart encouraged him to a program of sea bathing. Here Lacroix’s resistance was stouter at first, for he’d heard tales (true enough probably) of sharks carrying off a few sailors in this harbor. Also he did not know how to swim. But Maillart convinced him that he could see any menace approaching him through the clear blue water much sooner than it would be able to reach him, and that he need stand just a little more than knee deep to get the benefit of the healing salt. Soon Lacroix grew comfortable enough splashing in the shallows, while Maillart took more ambitious swims, finning along on his back and blowing great water spouts like a whale, and letting his arms and legs and chest turn the same brick color as his face.
In this way Major Maillart developed an easy fellowship with his superior out from France. Lacroix was an amiable man, friendly and frank in his manner, though certainly keen witted, and apt with a turn of phrase. He had a brotherly regard for the men in his command. Maillart was impressed by his courage, which carried with it no braggadocio. Lacroix seemed almost indifferent to pain, though not to the point of stupidity.
“Where did you learn this leaf craft?” Lacroix asked him, when it became clear that Maillart’s regime was having a real effect.
&nb
sp; “I know little enough of it myself,” Maillart said. “It is all the advice of my friend, Doctor Antoine Hébert.”
“He is a Frenchman, your doctor, then?”
“Yes,” said Maillart. “But he has been ten years in the colony, and learned the arts of a doktè-fey at the hands of Toussaint during that time.”
“Toussaint Louverture!” Lacroix clicked his cup down on the table. They were drinking in the garden of a small tavern at the edge of the Place du Gouvernement.
“Yes,” said Maillart. This story was so long familiar it no longer struck him as extraordinary. “Toussaint has a great skill with leaf medicine, it is said, and I have seen the evidence. He was doctor to the black troops before he rose to command. And in slavery time he was a veterinarian too, when he kept horses for the Comte de Noé.”
“And so, your doctor knows him well.”
“My friend was made prisoner, during the risings on the Northern Plain in ninety-one,” Maillart said, mindful that collaboration might become an issue in the future, despite the reassuring proclamations now being bruited about. “He was held for some weeks, with many other captives, in different camps around Grande Rivière. At that time, Toussaint used his influence, which was not then so great as now, to keep the blacks from slaughtering them all.”
“Ah,” said Lacroix. “But where is he now, your friend the doctor?”
“Would that I knew,” Maillart said. “I left him last at Le Cap, and you know . . .”
“Don’t trouble yourself so much,” Lacroix said. “By all accounts the inhabitants came through with their lives intact, though they have lost much property to the fire.”
“So let us hope.”
Lacroix smiled. “But I think the worst you have to fear is that I have depleted your store of these excellent herbs.” He nudged the packet, which was now quite flat, it was so nearly empty.
Riau, who shared the table, unfolded one corner of the paper and shook out a few leaves to examine them. He crushed one into his palm and raised it to his face and inhaled the fading dusty scent.
“Guérir-trop-vite,” he said. “ Gros piment—I can find these for you, not far off.”
Lacroix’s eyes cut to Riau. “You also learned this art at Toussaint’s knee?”
“Perhaps as much from my friend Hébert,” Maillart said quickly. “Riau has assisted him on many of our battlefields. I’ll wager he’s nursed more than he’s slain.”
Lacroix raised a forefinger and looked as if he’d ask some other question, but just then Captain Paltre appeared, hurrying across the Place du Gouvernement and seeming to lean toward them as he walked.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “You are wanted by General Boudet.”
“What is it?” Lacroix said, already rising.
“I am not certain,” said Paltre. “He has found something. A box, a coffer.”
Maillart, who had hung back to leave a coin on the table, shot a quick glance at Lacroix. One of the successes of the French debarcation here had been to secure the treasury. Whether because they were intent on defending the town, or through sheer disorganization, the black troops had not removed the funds. Though it was at the treasury that they’d made their first real stand since being routed on the road from Léogane, soon enough they had been driven off, and Boudet’s men had taken charge of a sum in the neighborhood of two and a half million francs.
Perhaps the mysterious box was some other treasure chest that had been found elsewhere? Lacroix ventured no more than an arched eyebrow. Riau walked at Maillart’s other side, his face calm and expressionless.
General Boudet awaited them in an inner office of the Government, drumming his fingers on the lid of a sizable mahogany letter box. The junior officers filed in, Riau last of the four. Boudet looked for a moment as if he would object to his remaining, but after a glance at Maillart and Lacroix he seemed to swallow whatever he had meant to say.
“Are you familiar with this coffer?” he inquired.
“Somewhat,” Maillart answered. Boudet was often putting him such questions, since he’d served in the colony for so long. “Toussaint uses it for his correspondence, I believe, when he is in Port-au-Prince.”
“So much we know,” said Boudet, gesturing toward a fan of letters on the table beside the box. “This is certainly his hand?”
Maillart glanced at the signature, with the underswept loop of the final e enclosing the customary three dots. “It is,” he said, and squinted more closely. “These letters are copies, I suppose.”
“And of no great moment now,” said Boudet. “They are well out of date, along with those that he has received—well, there is this one, from an American merchant, which seems to treat of a purchase of guns?” Boudet raised inquiring eyes to Maillart.
“I have not been privy to such transactions, mon général, ” Maillart said.
“Well, that is not why I sent for you.” Boudet stood over the empty box. “Look here.” He flattened one palm on the velvet lining of the interior and the other on the table top beside it. “There is a false bottom, do you see?”
“Yes, it is so,” Lacroix said. There was a three- or four-inch space quite evident between the levels of Boudet’s two hands.
“Try as I may, I cannot divine the method of its opening.” Boudet straightened and flexed his fingertips together. “And it is a well-made article; one does not like to spoil it. I thought perhaps you might know its secret.”
“Oh,” said Maillart, turning his shoulder to include Riau, who stood in the open doorway. “You might do better to ask Captain Riau, who has often assisted Toussaint in writing his letters.”
Riau saluted, smartly enough, and remained silent where he stood. After a moment, Maillart stepped up to the table and ran his fingers around the edges of the lining. He could feel no catch or any other clue to its opening.
“We will have to force it then,” Boudet sighed.
Maillart brushed back the flap of his jacket and drew from his belt a short, broad-blade knife he found expedient to carry. He drove the point into a corner of the false bottom, twisted and pried. The panel of wood split along its grain and slipped out of the grooves that held it fixed. Maillart lifted it out, the two pieces hinged together by the velvet.
“Look,” he said. “It is not so much damaged after all.”
But Boudet and Lacroix had put their heads together to peer inside. A musty scent of stale perfume diffused from the hidden compartment. Maillart leaned in. The bottom of the box was stuffed with rings, chains, brooches, little golden hearts pierced with gilded arrows, scented notes in various feminine hands, ribboned locks of plaited hair—blond seeming to be the preference. A whole array of sentimental keepsakes. Boudet picked up one of the notes, then dropped it as quickly as if it had burned his fingers.
“Captain Riau,” he said and paused as he pushed himself away from the table. “And Captain Paltre, you will leave us, please. Close the door on your way out.”
Riau saluted, expressionless still, and moved out of the doorframe. Paltre seemed to hesitate a moment, his lips pinched tight. Maillart saw how deeply he disliked to be grouped with the black man, officer or no. Of a sudden he realized why Paltre had seemed familiar; he’d been one of those upstart, insolent young officers who came out with the Hédouville mission, and had paid court to Isabelle Cigny while stationed in Le Cap. Maillart could enjoy his humiliation, then—if Paltre chose to find the order humiliating. In the end he obeyed it, docilely too, taking care not to let the door slam when he shut it.
Boudet blinked into the bottom of the box. A tittering laugh escaped him. “My Christ, I would not have believed it,” he said. “And they say the man is ugly as a monkey! into the bargain with being black.”
“But look at his conquests,” Lacroix said. “If I don’t mistake myself, they are skimmed from the cream of this society.”
“A cream polluted with his tar,” Boudet said.
“No doubt you’ve heard the axiom,” said Lacroix with a twisted smi
le. “We would deify the plague, if the plague gave out preferments.”
Maillart was not entirely listening. He had taken up a thumb-sized pendant, strung to a fine gold chain. The little disk of china was painted in astonishingly fine detail: the face of a blushing nymph, whose ringlets of dark hair fell loose on her bare white shoulders. A forefinger was coyly placed to her red lips. Isabelle had once owned this ornament—surely there could not be two alike—but more lately Maillart had seen it adorning the bosom of the doctor’s sister, Elise.
Lacroix had unfolded one of the notes and was scanning the lines of fine script, his mouth set in a silent whistle.
“Don’t read the names,” Boudet said sharply.
Lacroix let the paper flutter down into the box. Maillart caught up the loose chain in his palm and closed his hand over the pendant.
“There is an order which you have not seen,” Boudet said. “Though likely you will hear of it, before we have done. All white women who have prostituted themselves to the Negroes, regardless of their rank and station, are to be deported to France.”
Lacroix snorted. “As if such prostitutions could have witnesses.”
“What we have here would denounce more than a few,” Boudet said.
Subtly Maillart turned his hip, to conceal the movement of his hand as it dropped the pendant and chain into his pocket. Boudet drew himself up and looked the others in the eye.
“Gentlemen, we’ll look no further,” he said. “Take these things away and burn them. The box too.”
“Even the box?” Maillart said.
“The trinkets won’t burn,” Lacroix muttered.
“Then you may throw them into the sea,” said Boudet. “Somewhere, anywhere they will not be found.”
“As you command, mon général,” Maillart said. He stretched out both hands toward the box, but Boudet stayed him with a gesture.
The Stone that the Builder Refused Page 34
