Riau appeared in the bedroom doorway. How had he known to come?—or had he?
“Salt,” said the doctor, with sudden fervor.
The dream spilled out of him. Riau listened as if he were making perfect sense, then moved past him to the bed. He took Nanon’s hand for a moment, peeled back her eyelid and stooped to look in. She moaned and flinched away from his touch.
“A supernatural malady,” Riau murmured. “I must go for Maman Maig’.”
“Yes, go,” Isabelle said.
In the foyer Riau turned. “And Paul?”
“Let him stay with Fontelle,” the doctor said, “if she will keep him.” He hesitated a moment to see if the plan was sound, but yes, there was no safer place on earth for the boy that he knew. Riau was already out the door.
Within the hour he returned, floating in the wake of Maman Maig’, who piloted her stately bulk along like a warship under full sail. She lit a candle, uncorked a rum bottle full of weeds, and shooed Isabelle and the doctor from the room. He sat with his back propped against the door jamb, listening. Maman Maig’s voice sang or chanted words to songs he did not know. Her voice blended oddly with the sound of drums and moaning conch shells from the insurgent camps on the slopes around the town . . . as if Nanon had reshaped all the outside world to fit her fever.
He woke with a start, not knowing the time; the house was dark but the door was open to the bedroom where a lamp was burning low. Mamam Maig’ sat cross-legged on the floor, snoring gently. She opened her eyes when he went in, but did not prevent his going to the bedside. Nanon lay still and gently sleeping, her flesh much cooled under the brush of his hand.
“Grâce à Dieu,” he said, and kissed his fingers to Maman Maig’, who simply closed her eyes and resumed snoring. Isabelle appeared in her night dress.
“Rest,” she said. It was an order.
The doctor rolled himself on a sofa, with his feet hanging over the carved wooden arm. He woke a little after daybreak, to the smell of coffee and the sound of a spoon. Maman Maig’ was eating pumpkin soup from a large bowl. He went in to Nanon and took her hand. She roused and looked at him with a weak smile, and her fingers fluttered against his for a moment before they slackened and she slept.
“The fever’s broken,” said Isabelle, handing him a cup of coffee. “Only let her sleep. Go out and get the news of the town.”
“But—” the doctor begain.
Isabelle began straightening his clothes, which he’d slept in. “Leave us an hour—all is well here, but I do want the news. Something is happening.”
“Has the attack begun from the plain?” But there were no drums just now, no lambi blowing.
“No,” said Isabelle. “It’s at the port.”
He walked down to the harbor front. The wind was stiff and the day still cool, with whitecaps running in hard over the water. At the harbor’s mouth, the masts of a sizable fleet broke the horizon, as the pilots led them out to open sea.
“Hédouville,” said Pascal, appearing at the doctor’s elbow near the Customs House. “He’s gone. Also Commissioner Raimond . . . and a couple of thousand others who no longer like their chances here.”
The doctor blinked at him slowly. “If Raimond has left, there is no French authority in all the island.”
“There’s always Roume, in Santo Domingo,” Pascal reminded him. “And then, Rigaud.”
“What do you mean, Rigaud?”
“Oh,” said Pascal, cradling his suppurating thumb. “A parting stroke of diplomacy—Hédouville has placed Rigaud at the head of the colony and directed him to ignore Toussaint’s authority.”
The doctor gaped at him.
“I tell you I copied the letter myself, and saw it signed,” Pascal said. “It is on the way to Riguad even now, to be delivered by the shreds of the mulatto faction here—they’ve all bolted for the south, save those who are on those ships out there.” He sniffed, uneasily. “Your duel may be cancelled, my friend—why yes, I know about it, everyone does. But I doubt even that bastard Maltrot will have lingered. Everyone is waiting for Toussaint to sack the town.”
“But he won’t,” the doctor said. “It’s over.”
“You think so?” Pascal waved his arm toward the south gate, where the hubbub of the angry mob had recommenced.
“Believe me,” the doctor said. “For now, it’s finished.”
He was right. By midmorning reports began trickling in that all along Toussaint’s leisurely progress from Ennery to Plaisance through Limbé, the rebels had laid down their weapons and gone back to work in the cane fields. The crowd at the south gate quieted and dispersed. By the time Toussaint himself rode into town, flanked by his honor guard in their high plumed helmets, both Le Cap and the surrounding countryside were as eerily calm as a hurricane’s eye.
In the course of that same day Nanon woke for long enough to see Paul briefly. The doctor would not let him stay long for fear of fatiguing her (and in fact he went out happily enough with Paulette after half an hour). Nanon slept through the day with brief intervals of waking; she was weak, but the fever did not return, and Maman Maig’ left the house, saying there was nothing more to fear.
The doctor stayed by Nanon all day, sometimes dozing in his chair, because he’d slept poorly the previous night. On occasion Isabelle or Michel Arnaud came in with news of Toussaint’s movements toward the town, to which the doctor barely attended. He watched Nanon, the light swell of her breathing under the sheet, the movement of her closed eyes in dream. In her waking moments she held his hand and looked at him affectionately, but she said very little and he did not try ask her any questions.
Isabelle bullied him to go to bed properly that night, and once he resigned himself to obey he fell into a dense, gluey sleep from which a servant unexpectedly roused him. It was still dark, and he could not understand what was the matter. Frightened for Nanon, he stumbled down the stairs, but the servant led him past her closed chamber to the doorway, where Maillart and Riau were waiting.
“Your engagement,” said the captain, swinging out his watch on its silver chain. The doctor looked at him without comprehension.
“You forgot it?” Maillart looked at Riau. “He forgot about it!” But if Riau was equally astonished, he gave no sign.
The doctor’s mare was saddled, waiting at the rail. He mounted and they rode along the dark street. On the slopes of Morne du Cap, the cocks had just begun to crow. A few kitchen fires had already been lit, and sometimes a woman’s figure came looming out of the dark, leading a burro loaded with charcoal or bearing a basket on her head—bound from some distant mountain to the market at the Place Clugny.
As he came more completely awake, the doctor’s mind began to flutter. The weight which had lain upon him like a boulder had been lifted away—he had felt nothing of it for the past thirty hours, and with it had gone the bitterness which had led him to provoke Choufleur. Ah, why would anyone choose despair over love? It seemed to him a sad thing that he must now be killed, just when he was beginning to comprehend the message which had come to him through Moustique. In a flash he understood that he had lost his capacity to kill Choufleur, but still he must face him and fire his pistol. There was no way out.
As they rode down into the low, swampy ground of La Fossette, the sky began to lighten behind a veil of fog. Mosquitoes whirled to the attack, out of the mist. Maillart cursed, slapping at his wrists and neck. The doctor kept still, bearing the bites so sudden movement would not spook his mare.
“Là,” Riau said, turning his horse toward a patch of flame in the fog.
“They’re here,” Maillart said, as if in resignation. Then there was no sound but the horses’ hooves sucking in the mud.
Choufleur’s seconds, two colored officers whose names the doctor did not know, had built a small fire and were feeding it green citrus leaves to discourage the mosquitoes. The seconds greeted each other cordially enough. Two pack mules were tethered with their horses; it appeared that Choufleur meant to join Rig
aud’s force in the Southern Department, supposing he survived the morning’s encounter. When the doctor slid down from his horse, Choufleur pointedly turned his back, and stood facing the area of fog where the seaward horizon would eventually appear.
There was some some discussion about the pistols, in which Maillart participated. The doctor had gone numb. In the town, a church bell tolled the hour. The whole area had a foul, damp smell; he understood why Maillart did not like it. Unhealthy, at any rate. Riau was looking through tendrils of mist at the two low buildings which had once housed slaves off the ships from Guinée. Beyond, the border of the cemetery with its wet and shallow graves.
Maillart walked a distance from the fire with one of the colored officers. They stood back to back, then took five paces away from each other, then turned. Ceremoniously, each man drew his saber and planted it in the earth. Then they turned apart and paced off another ten steps. The doctor felt Riau’s fingers brushed over the back of his hand. Riau leaned as if to whisper something, but instead only blew into his ear. This was strange, but not disagreeable, and it left the doctor with a curious feeling of warmth.
Maillart beckoned him over, handed him a pistol and walked back to the fire.
“The space between the swords constitutes the barrier.” The captain’s voice came out ringing through the fog. “After the first shots, the pistols are to be exchanged. Each man may approach the barrier and fire at will. Doctor Hébert has the first shot, Colonel Maltrot the second, and so following. Neither man may cross the barrier. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Choufleur.
“I yield the first shot to my adversary.” The doctor recognized his own voice.
“Antoine, you can’t do that!” Maillart snatched his hat off and hurled it into the mud. Riau made a smoothing gesture with his palm and moved toward Choufleur’s seconds. After a moment’s whispering it was concluded that as Choufleur had given the formal challenge, the doctor must fire first.
“But I struck him—I struck him in the mouth,” the doctor said. “So the challenge was mine. I intended it so.”
“I don’t accept this reasoning,” Choufleur said. “Let him fire first.”
The doctor looked at the four seconds. Maltrot, who stood disconsolately brushing vegetable matter from his hat, would not return his glance. No appeal. His arm had already begun raising the pistol. The light was still gray, but sufficiently clear. He had never known how it was accomplished, but there was never any difficulty: if his weapon was true, the bullet would go precisely wherever he had focused his eyes. Now he was looking intently at the third button down from Choufleur’s collar, but as his finger compressed the trigger, he jerked the pistol up and let the charge fly off into the sky.
There was a hiss from the cluster by the fire, and the doctor’s mare began rearing against her tether. Riau left the other seconds to calm her.
“I insist that he fire again, with a true aim,” Choufleur said.
“He can’t do that,” said the doctor.
Another consultation: it was agreed that Choufleur must fire. He did not seem particularly disappointed, but only shrugged and walked deliberately all the way to the sword his second had planted. It seemed to the doctor that he took a long time arranging his shot. It was painful for him to keep still and resist flapping at the mosquitoes who fed greedily on his cheeks and ears. Finally the muzzle of Choufleur’s pistol flashed, and a moment later the doctor realized the shot had missed him altogether.
Maillart brought him a freshly charged pistol. “For God’s sake, will you kill the bastard?” he snarled. “He won’t hesitate to kill you.”
The doctor took five steps forward, aimed at the empty space between Choufleur’s epaulette and his right ear, and fired into it. The sigh from the group of seconds was like a moan.
Time passed. The mosquitoes went on feeding. The doctor was very, very tired. When he saw the muzzle of Choufleur’s pistol bloom out flame, he thought it was another clean miss at first, but then he felt the patch of moisture spreading over his left sleeve below his shoulder.
“A hit!” cried one of Choufleur’s seconds.
“It’s of no consequence,” said the doctor. “I will continue.”
He raised the left arm outward, flexing the elbow. The movement was normal. The bullet had certainly gone through without touching the bone, and perhaps it had only grazed him. The complete absence of pain would have worried him, under different circumstances. Maillart was giving him his first pistol, recharged. They did not meet each other’s eyes.
The doctor took another step toward the barrier, and stopped to aim at the space in Choufleur’s open collar, where his throat pulsed. Holding his pistol level, he began to walk forward again. It was much brighter now; the sun had risen and was spreading streaks of yellow over the gray-green vegetation of the marsh. Two steps from the barrier the doctor threw the pistol over his shoulder and heard it discharge as it struck the ground behind him. The mare lunged at her tether. The doctor continued moving very slowly toward the barrier with his open empty hands before him. With a bell-like clarity, he heard the seconds bickering.
“He fired.”
“He did not.”
“If the gun went off, in principle he fired. Colonel Maltrot has the right to his shot.”
The doctor stopped beside Maillart’s sword and let his hands drop to his sides. The bore of Choufleur’s pistol seemed enormously large and dark. He was aware of many things at once: Riau, stroking the mare to calm her, a pair of white egrets bright and distant in the marsh beyond Choufleur, the movements of the clouds above, a triad of mosquitoes extracting blood from a soft spot behind his jawbone. With the sun behind him, Choufleur was bordered by a radiance in which the doctor seemed to feel his intelligence, talent, force of will, and frustrated capability for love. He raised his empty hands again and stepped into the space between the swords.
“He can’t do that!” a second called.
Choufleur’s aura darkened as he dropped his pistol and lunged, bowling the doctor over backward in the muck. He meant to strangle him, or simply drown him in the mud—the doctor was slow to recognize this intention, but finally it came clear. He began thrashing his limbs at random and accidentally kneed Choufleur in the groin. The pressure released, and he shouldered the other man off him and sat up with a pounding head, one hand on his bruised trachea. Choufleur was in a three-point crouch, his face green with pain; he seemed to be trying to say something but could not ejaculate the words.
Then the seconds laid hands on them and dragged them farther apart.
“This circus is at an end,” Maillart spluttered. “Honor has been satisfied—after some fashion. They have faced each other’s fire.”
“Give thanks to God that you have survived,” said the colored officer who had done most of the talking.
Then the doctor was somehow back on his own mare and riding toward the town. He had brushed off Maillart’s effort to bandage his wound—let it wait till they got away from the swamp. Choufleur and his group had gone off in the opposite direction, according to their plan. As they came up out the marshland onto the more solid roadbed, the doctor felt a euphoria begin to spread over him. Till then he had not realized how little he’d expected to be alive at this moment.
Maillart looked at him over his shoulder, once, twice. His face was red, and his neck was red when he turned his back, and the cloth of his uniform coat trembled where it stretched between his shoulder blades. Then his laughter broke out of his control and spread to the other two. It seemed that no one of them could look at another without bursting out into fresh laughter.
Riau was the first to regain self-control, looking away toward the bank of the river as they approached the city gate. Following suit, the doctor began to regain his breath. There was some discomfort in his windpipe from Choufleur’s try at throttling him; this troubled him rather more than the bullet wound, which also had begun to sting. The sun was now rising over the plain, and a flash of it
s warm light fell on his shoulders, on all three of them, spreading to include the single fisherman in his dugout flowing eastward on the calm surface of the river.
Fort de Joux, France September 1802
Toussaint had breakfasted: stone-hard biscuit softened in his heavily sugared coffee, then sucked to mush among his unreliable teeth. The meagerness of the ration did not bother him. He had never had much interest in food, and needed little solid nourishment to get by—though he did wish the coffee were of better quality.
No great matter. His fever had passed, and today he felt rather well. Though surely he would never get accustomed to the cold of this place, so very different from the humid jungle peaks of Saint Domingue—these icy spines on the crown of the white man’s world. But he had dressed warmly and built up his fire. Now he was waiting for his guest, with an almost cheerful anticipation. His interrogator, rather. But Toussaint had come very quickly to enjoy their interviews. He did not think about when they would end, though of course he knew they must end eventually, leaving Caffarelli unsatisfied.
He listened to the key turning in the frozen lock. In the doorway, the jowly, anxious face of Baille floated behind the figure of Napoleon’s agent, muttering something not entirely audible across the cell. Caffarelli hovered on the threshold, his forward tilt not quite a bow. The door closed behind him.
“You are well?” Caffarelli looked at him narrowly.
“Oh,” said Toussaint. “I am well enough. And yourself?”
“Exceedingly.”
Unfolding his hand, Toussaint indicated the chair opposite his own. Caffarelli smiled and took his seat. With no apparent purpose, he looked into the corners where the barrel vault met the walls of the cell. Toussaint waited, motionless; not even his breath was perceptible.
“Your dealings with the English,” Caffarelli began.
“I have already told you.”
“But you had secret arrangements with them which you have not admitted.”
Master of the Crossroads Page 69
