The Stone that the Builder Refused

by Madison Smartt Bell

  For a moment there was silence under the moon, then it was broken by the sound of horses pulling up below, a sentry’s challenge, a bustle as the newcomers were admitted. Toussaint, with his eyes heavy-lidded, showed no sign he noticed the commotion, till there came a noise of boots on the stairs and Morisset walked out onto the porch.

  “Governor-General, there is news from the north.”

  “Di mwen,” Toussaint looked up expectantly. Tell me.

  “Rochambeau has broken out of Grande Rivière,” Morisset said. “They say he has taken Saint Raphael—it is not certain.”

  “Well, Sans-Souci held him there for many days,” Toussaint said. “What more?”

  “The blanc general Hardy has attacked Christophe and driven him away from Dondon.”

  Toussaint sat up. “Where is he now, Christophe?”

  “At Marmelade,” Morisset said. “He means to regroup at Morne à Boispins, but it is not certain—it was not an orderly retreat.”

  Toussaint glanced at the map. “Well,” he said. “If he can stand at Morne à Boispins I am content—that is a strong position.”

  “Ça,” said Morisset, relaxing just slightly from the posture of stiff attention he had held since he’d halted before them. It is so.

  There was more noise from below, scuffling, and a voice raised in protest. Morisset moved quickly into the stairwell, but in a moment he came backing out again, and the two men propelling him burst past, both of them looking the worse for long hard traveling. One looked almost comical in the tatters of his horizontally striped trousers, the other more imposing, if only for the ghastly scars down one side of his face. This second man wore a battered uniform of Toussaint’s honor guard.

  “Pardon, mon général!” Morisset said from behind the newcomers. “It is Guiaou, as you can see for yourself, and he insists to bring his message in person.”

  “Guiaou,” Toussaint said slowly, studying the scarred face. “Welcome to Guiaou, and . . . Guerrier.”

  The man in the striped trousers smiled at the recognition, then made his face grave as he stiffened in his stance. Toussaint leaned forward on his elbows.

  “What news of Santo Domingo?”

  Guiaou swallowed. “The news is bad, mon général. We could not bring your letters to the général Paul. Also, Clervaux has welcomed the French soldiers at Santiago—he was charmed by the bishop Malveille, so we have heard.” Guiaou swallowed again. The rough channel of his scar glowed white. “Today we met many people running from Rochambeau over the plateau from Saint Raphael, and they say there is no one to fight his men if they come to Saint Michel de l’Attalaye.”

  “Aï!” said Toussaint. “It is bad news you bring. What happened to my letters? Where is Couachy?”

  “Dead, mon général,” Guiaou said. “We were betrayed to the Spanish militia—there was a French officer with them too.”

  “They took both letters? The false and the true?”

  “It is so, mon général.”

  “Aï,” said Toussaint. “They will have given the false letter to my brother Paul, so he will accept the French, as Clervaux has done already.”

  “It is so, mon général.”

  “You have been a long time bringing this news.”

  Guiaou shuddered through the length of his body, then pulled himself upright and hard. “We were hunted all through the Spanish country, mon général. That is why we could not come faster, because we had to hide by day and move by night. Also we did not know the way to the border after Couachy was dead.”

  “Eh bien,” said Toussaint. “I see that you have done as well as you could, Guiaou. How did you come here from the border?”

  “By Ravine à Couleuvre,” Guiaou said. “Then we came up the road from Lacroix.”

  “Ravine à Couleuvre!” Toussaint was on his feet. “Has Rochambeau come so far?”

  “No, mon général, he has not,” Guiaou said. “They say there is nothing to prevent him, but he has not yet come there. All was quiet today at Ravine à Couleuvre, the depot safe and the men at their posts.”

  “Very well.” Toussaint laid both hands on Guiaou’s shoulders, then patted his unscarred cheek and let him go. “You have done your best, and not too badly.”

  He turned to Morisset. “Take Guiaou and Guerrier and find them some food, and a place to rest.”

  Morisset saluted and beckoned the other two toward the stairwell. He stood aside to let them pass, then followed them down. Toussaint had resumed his seat, turning his face away from the lamplight. Presently he reached under the flap of his coat and drew out a loop of the wooden skull rosary which hung from his belt. Placide watched his profile. Toussaint’s lips moved just slightly with his prayers, though no word was audible. The skull beads clicked three times along the cord. Then Toussaint let the rosary fall to concealment beneath his coat and pressed his fingertips together. His eyes closed.

  Placide looked at the map, which was beginning to curl back into its roll—but he could still find the dots of Saint Raphael and Saint Michel. When he looked at his father’s silent profile again, he thought he knew what Toussaint might be thinking. At the time of the first risings ten years before, Toussaint had sent Placide, with his mother and brothers, to Saint Michel, where they would be safely out of the way of the troubles. There would be no such safety in those parts now, and none anywhere on the Spanish side of the island. Placide himself was ready to meet the enemy under arms, or at least he had told himself that he was, but the question of his family remained vivid.

  He was surprised to see Toussaint smiling openly when his father turned to face him again.

  “Fé konfyans, fils-moin,” Toussaint said. Have faith, my son. He touched the back of Placide’s hand. “We will win in the end. Even if everyone else should abandon us, there is Konpè Général Lafièvre.”

  “Pardon?” said Placide.

  “Our ally, General Yellow Fever!” Toussaint’s smile flashed so wide his eyes were slitted, then as quickly disappeared. He passed a hand across his mouth and leaned back in his chair. “One does not like to depend on him for everything. But he will come, when it is his time—and whether he is called or not.”

  Elise lay soggy in her bed, alone, but she could hear Tocquet on the gallery beyond the front windows, talking softly to someone; she could hear the clink of a coffee cup, though it was not yet light. The wind combed through the palms around the house, and hushed the murmuring voices. She sat up, reached to the bedpost for her peignoir, and went out, fumbling with its fastenings.

  Bazau and Gros-Jean were seated at the table with Tocquet. They both got up when she appeared, looking a little uncomfortable. She held her robe together at her throat.

  “A l’aise,” she said, Relax, but the two black men only lowered their heads before her, turned and went in cat-foot silence down the steps.

  “Well,” said Elise. “They seem a little shy of me, this morning.”

  Tocquet glanced over his shoulder, where a little gray light in the sky began to outline the long fronds of the palms. “They are going to bring the horses,” he said.

  “Perhaps they only take the model of their master,” Elise said. She caught her lower lip in her teeth. This was not the tone she’d hoped to strike. She loosened her hand, letting go the robe, and spread her fingers over her bare collarbones. When she glanced down, she saw Tocquet’s worn leather saddlebags, plump where they lay by his feet.

  “So you mean to travel,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Tocquet. “I will go up to the plateau, if I can, and investigate the trails and passes there. I have some goods from Gonaives, and tobacco could be sold here, if the way is clear to get some.”

  “It seems a strange time to leave your family,” Elise said.

  “My family declines to accompany me,” Tocquet said shortly. “Unless you will reconsider. As I wish very much that you would.”

  “Madame Louverture was here only yesterday. As she means to remain here, with her family, I do not se
e the danger to ours.”

  “Then you have blinded yourself to it,” Tocquet said. “Toussaint has been outlawed. It will certainly come to fighting now. There are at least three columns bearing down on Ennery at this moment. In two days’ time, the ground beneath your chair may be a battlefield. I would not underestimate Toussaint, but I don’t dare predict the outcome. Nor can I predict what outcome would be favorable to our position here—perhaps neither.”

  Elise wilted into a chair opposite him. In fact she’d had a similar thought to the last one he had spoken. In the face of her silence, Tocquet took out one of his cheroots, ran it under his nose, then put it back into his pocket. Bazau and Gros-Jean appeared in the growing light in the yard, leading two pack mules and three saddle horses.

  “I never cared for being a master,” Tocquet said. “Not of men, nor of women either. I have never forced a woman to do anything. If you had the good sense to come with me of your own accord, I would bring you gladly, even today. It would not take you long to make ready a few things for yourself and the children. There is money enough that we can supply most of our needs in Santo Domingo City.”

  In the yard two of the geldings were pulling at their leads; one bit the other’s shoulder and the other maneuvered to kick. Bazau hitched the mules to the trunk of a tree and moved quickly to help Gros-Jean separate the saddle horses.

  “Come, Madame,” said Tocquet. “What will you say?”

  “If you would not abandon me, I would not—” Elise cut herself off and set her lips.

  “What then?” Tocquet said softly. “What is that you would not do?” He moved to the balls of his feet, and paused. “What is that you would undo?”

  Silence followed, decorated by cock crow up the slopes of coffee terraces, and the smaller birds beginning to chitter in the trees around the house. Elise sat rigid, her jaw set tight. At last Tocquet stood up and swung his saddlebags to his shoulder. She would not turn her head to follow him down the steps, though she was very much aware of the creak of leather as he mounted, the light ringing of harness when they all rode out of the yard.

  Her stiffness declined into lethargy as light came more strongly through the trees. Even without moving a hair, she felt a little nauseated. She sat gazing at the snares Caco had set behind the pool. The ducks had not been tempted to them, though other yard fowl ate up the grain. Now the pool was empty, except for its floating flowers, while the snares remained there, useless.

  She was remembering another time when Tocquet had left her in this house. Thibodet had just fallen ill of the fever. She had declined to go with Xavier when he asked her then, for motives that had nothing to do with her reasons today—and despite the fact that she knew very well that Sophie, then three months old, was Xavier’s child, and knew that Thibodet suspected it. Xavier had accepted her refusal, or seemed to, at that time. Yet twenty minutes later when she ran down the lane with nothing but the clothes she had on and the baby cradled against her shoulder, she’d found him waiting for her in the road behind the gate.

  Would he wait now? She would not go. Could not. Fixed in her seat, she watched a stupid guinea fowl pick its way through the dusty grass at the pool’s edge toward the snare. There was not even any bait, and yet the bird still managed to run its head into the noose and spring it—the green stick snapped upright and the guinea jerked and flapped as it strangled. Two naked black children appeared and stood wide-eyed, watching the struggle. Elise came out of her torpor and dashed down the steps to catch up the guinea and break its neck with an awkward twist, thinking there was nothing else to do, and that she’d rather kill it cleanly than watch it yank itself to death before her eyes. A kick had clawed the inside of her forearm; she felt a little ill at the sight of the bright trail of blood. Here was another day to be got through, and here was the first item on the menu, by whatever chance. Elise let the warm body of the bird swing by her thigh, and walked around the house toward the kitchen, to get Pauline to pluck it.

  18

  Sergeant Aloyse had a face that reminded Guizot of an ax. His whole head seemed to drive to the edge of his heavy, hatchet-bladed nose. His face was weathered and deeply creased, with eyes recessed under bushy brows, and when Rochambeau’s columns were on the march, the lines set grimly around the mouth; but at ease, the eyes had sometimes a fond sparkle and the lines relaxed into an amiable expression. All in all it was a friendly ax. Sergeant Aloyse had a salt-and-pepper mustache, and gray streaks ran through the pigtail that hung rope-like down the center of his back. Some dozen years older than Guizot, he had many tales to tell of the two Italian campaigns of which he was a veteran (he’d been with Bonaparte at Lodi) and he’d fought on the German front as well; yet he declared that he’d never seen as forbidding terrain as the mountains they had to struggle through here—not in the Italian Alps or the German either.

  The first days after they’d fought their way on shore at Fort Liberté had not been so very difficult. Though much of the Northern Plain had been put to the torch, there was no other resistance to their progress, and the way was flat, though scorching underfoot sometimes, when they had to cross fields of cinder. But the destruction, though extensive, was not so complete that the men could not find ways to supplement their rations. Sergeant Aloyse proved to be an expert and resourceful forager. It was this, he told Guizot confidentially, that the Little Corporal had understood so well—a soldier on the march prefers to conquer meals than territory. Not to mention the high importance of wine and brandy, durable shoes and dry clothing . . . Guizot listened, rapt and mute, fascinated to be in the presence of someone who still had the temerity to speak of the First Consul, even behind his hand, as the “Little Corporal.”

  In a few days’ time the Northern Plain was brought under a reasonable degree of control, and Rochambeau received new orders: to move his force through the mountains of Grande Rivière and up onto the Central Plateau. Thence they would maneuver to encircle Gonaives from the east; it was there that Toussaint Louverture was believed to have retreated, after the burning of Le Cap and the battle on the roads of Acul and Limbé. Their maps were accurate enough, but the trouble of getting through Grande Rivière belied the negligible distance noted on the paper.

  On the first day they met no enemy, though they felt the enemy must be near. This region was supposed to be occupied by a detachment of the Fifth Colonial Demibrigade under command of one of those African officers, Sans-Souci. But Rochambeau’s columns encountered no regular troops as they set out through this country. Nor had the plantations been burned here, as in the lowlands. There were few large plantations in these mountains, mainly small caféières and provision grounds—but these latter were denuded of provisions.

  They could come near to no one. Rounding a bend of the broad river, they might see in the distance a party of laundresses washing and drying clothes on the gravel shoals, but no sooner had they come within view than the women gathered up their bundles, balanced them improbably on their heads, and faded calmly away from the open banks to vanish in the jungle. Sometimes they might arrive in sight of a country market at the crossing of two trails, with bananas and mangoes and corn laid out for sale, but as the French soldiers picked up their pace, the marchandes would quietly pack their wares and recede, mirage-like, among the trees.

  The country was all cliffs and gorges—with next to no land that would have been found usable in France, but these Africans had managed to plant almost sheer faces with crazy, spiraling, whorl-shaped gardens, had somehow secured their little huts to outcroppings laddered up the cliffs. But every village was abandoned by the time the soldiers reached it, and every garden was picked bare: the only mangoes left on the trees all green and hard; the corn stalks broken, stripped of ripe ears; and only rows of holes remaining where potatoes had been dug. They met no able-bodied men, not at close range, though sometimes men came out to spy on them from ledges on the opposite side of some deep, verdant chasm.

  With all the inhabitants invisible, they could find no re
liable guides, and the trails, like the plantings, twisted maze-like up and down the peaks and cliff walls, curving, ascending, never seeming to advance. In the first part of the day a bend in a pathway might sometimes bring them in view of the smoldering plain and the pall of smoke that hung over Le Cap. By afternoon there was nothing behind or before or beside but more mountains, and when they marched through the deep defiles, there was so little horizon one could not calculate direction even by the blazing sun.

  By midafternoon the heat was merciless, even at these heights. The men were all wearing standard woolen uniforms, officers too. They sweated under their heavy packs as they struggled up the breathless trails. By evening they smelled like a flock of wet sheep. As soon as the sun set, the air turned sharply chill, and the damp wool uniforms sank clammily against the skin. The men made camp, grumbling—they’d not been able to forage any supplement to the rations they carried. Guizot gnawed his lump of hardtack moodily, washed down the jagged, concrete-textured crumbs with water, remembering the stock of good brandy Daspir had brought onboard the ship.

  At least it did not rain that night. The sky was cloudless; Guizot lay wakeful, under the piercing stars. There was drumming in the distance, and a skirling sound, like horns. He was tense in his soggy uniform, shoulders stiff against the damp ground. But though that racket must have come from the enemy, there was no attack. He woke to cock crow, the gray mountain mists, and the sound of men snorting and coughing with colds they’d come down with during the night. That morning his company marched in the vanguard, while the caissons and the mounted officers struggled along behind.

  There was beauty in the wild luxuriance of the landscape that surrounded them, now gilded by the rising sun, and Guizot felt his spirits lift as his uniform dried and the effort of climbing dispelled the night’s chill. He had not caught cold himself so far, and began to feel a pleasant vigor as he marched. Sergeant Aloyse, at his side, had just begun to whistle some martial air when the first shot cracked. There was a shout, a curse, in the file behind them. Guizot half turned. A grenadier sagged backward, supported by his fellows. A dozen more shots tore off, and more men jerked and fell.