Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

He turned to ask Alma to stay for lunch—he would probably not be long in the village—and found her at his side, with his bag in her hand.

  "We're through here," she said. "I'll go with you."

  "Good."

  The house was an average caille only a little distance from the Laroche place: one of those where people had stood in the yard, staring at him but not returning his greeting, his first day on the island. On his entering the yard now, Yolande's parents came from the hut and glared at him. The man was the fellow who had been possessed by Zaca at the planting ceremony. The woman croaked hoarsely at Yolande, "You will be sorry for this! You'll see!"

  The child lay on a rude bed inside, half covered with a ragged blanket. He knew at once that he had been summoned too late. He glanced at Alma and shook his head. Then he became aware that someone was standing at the entrance to an inner room, watching him. Startled, he rose to his feet.

  "Catus!"

  Catus Laroche quietly came forward. "I told them you could do nothing," he said with a shrug. "She was dead before her mother left to go for you."

  Yolande Desinor threw herself on the bed and began a hideous wailing. Her parents came into the caille and stood against the wall, silent as rag-draped black statues.

  "I have been treating the child for days," Catus said. "You see for yourself it was hopeless." The words were a question, though not put as such.

  Barry looked at the child again and nodded. "I agree. It was hopeless."

  He saw Alma frown and sent her a warning glance. It was a delicate situation. There had been a family conflict here, obviously. Yolande, who went to church occasionally, had wanted to ask his help. Her parents were faithful followers of vodun who believed that any sickness was a matter for the houngan. Not until this morning had Yolande in desperation dared to defy them and seek assistance at the mission.

  Suddenly the child's mother came off the bed and clung to him. "Mon Père, you can save her!" she cried. "She is not dead yet! I know she is not! For the love of God, mon Père, I am a Christian! I go to your church. Even before you came here I went to church and believed in God as Père Mitchell said to!"

  He could find no words to comfort her. Alma had to come to his rescue. "Let me," she said quietly, and led the hysterical girl to a chair.

  After a while the wailing stopped.

  There were things to be done then. Names to be written down. Arrangements to be made for a funeral. The information Barry sought was grudgingly given by the old couple while the child's mother sobbed in Alma's arms. Catus Laroche stood by in silence.

  Finished, Barry returned pencil and paper to his pocket and turned to the houngan. "If I may, I'd like to go along to your place."

  "Certainly, Father."

  He spoke to Alma. "Will you go back to the clinic and wait for me?"

  "When I've finished here."

  "This needs talking about. We have a serious problem." He spoke in English. When she nodded, showing him she understood, he turned away, murmured his farewells and went out. Catus followed. In silence, side by side, Barry and the vodun priest walked up through the village.

  FROM THE DOOR of the houn for, which was part of Catus' house and opened into the tonnelle, Micheline saw them coming. She was cleaning the inner sanctum for a ceremony that evening. Already she had taken up and dusted the assorted objects on the concrete altar: the painted govis and pierres-loas in which the spirits of the gods were known to dwell, the assons with their windings of snake vertebrae and colored beads, the flags, trempé bottles, Catholic statuettes, and all the curious paraphernalia accumulated by her brother in the course of his career. Now she was vigorously sweeping the floor.

  At sight of the Father she stopped sweeping and looked at herself. The dress she wore was a soiled black rag saved for just such occasions. Sweat trickled through the film of dust on her arms and legs. The Father must never see her like this!

  She stepped back and quickly shut the door. They had not seen her, she was certain. Careful to make no sound, for the wall behind the altar, separating the hounfor from Catus' sitting room, was only the usual whitewashed mud pack over a frame of wything, she seated herself on a chair and resigned herself to waiting.

  In a moment she heard voices.

  BARRY HAD WONDERED how to say what must be said. Now, seated in Catus' house with the door closed, he accepted the tiny glass of rum the houngan handed him and realized there was but one way to say it. He waited for Catus to sit down.

  "That child should not have died, Catus."

  Catus frowned. "I did everything possible."

  "Not everything, I'm afraid. Not the most important thing. May I ask what you did do, exactly?"

  "When I was sent for, I saw she was suffering from la fievre. I don't believe, as many houngans do, that all sicknesses are punishments sent by the loa. Some are, perhaps, but not all. For fevers there are certain known remedies. An infusion of corossol leaves will sometimes cure a mild one. Or basilique. I spent an entire day gathering leaves, barks, roots, then carried them into the hounfor and asked the loa to bless them, to be doubly sure. Unfortunately the child did not respond."

  "Then?"

  "Apparently in this case she was being punished. Or rather, her mother was being punished through her. I consulted Yolande and her parents. The parents were convinced that the mother had brought sickness upon the child by going to your church."

  "You believed that?"

  "No, for two reasons. First because you have never said or done anything to make the mystères angry. Second because no one else attending your services has been punished. Nevertheless it was possible that Yolande was being punished for something. So I held a service to find out what was needed to put things straight."

  "What did you find out?"

  "Nothing. The loa did not come. I suspect Yolande no longer believes in them, even though she consented to the service. Even before you came here she had turned away from the faith of her ancestors. Père Mitchell won her over. She was one of the few he was able to convince."

  "Do you think the child died because of Père Mitchell's success, Catus?"

  "With the proper guidance I might have saved her."

  "I could have guided you."

  Catus sat straighter on his chair. "You, Father?"

  "Listen to me, Catus. Back there at the caille I said I agreed with you that it was hopeless. I said that because I knew you had done your best, and because we are two men struggling to find a way to work together to help your people. I might even say 'our people.' In matters of religion we seem to have achieved an unusual degree of understanding. I won't go into that now. But we need a working arrangement in other matters as well."

  Catus said nothing.

  "I respect your knowledge of native medicines," Barry went on, turning the empty rum glass slowly in his fingers. "I hope some day you'll share it with me. It's a knowledge handed down to you, I know, by wise and devoted men, a very old knowledge, very precious. In a way it's also quite modern. Whether you know it or not, today's scientific cures are more closely related to your so-called primitive knowledge of medicinal roots, leaves, and barks than to—well, to the fantastic things doctors thought scientific in the Middle Ages. But it has limitations, Catus. That little girl died of malaria, and she shouldn't have."

  "You could have saved her?"

  "With a handful of pills."

  Catus sat very still. "You accuse me, then, of having killed her?"

  "No. Only of failing to keep her alive. And I'm informing, not accusing. There are times when I need your help and times when you need mine. If we're to accomplish anything good here, we must recognize that." Barry stood up. "Only you and I and Mrs. Lemke know about this, Catus. No one else will ever be told, believe me."

  "I believe you."

  Before Barry departed, they shook hands.

  IT WAS NEARLY TWO O'CLOCK when Barry reached the mission. Alma Lemke had finished straightening up the clinic and was waiting for him. St. Juste, she told
him, had come for lunch and returned to the ridge.

  "It was malaria, wasn't it?" she said.

  "Yes."

  "What did you say to Catus?"

  He told her. When he had finished, she gave her head a little shake and quizzically frowned at him.

  "Do you realize how odd it is, the way you two have managed to understand each other? The way you've become friends in spite of everything, when by all the rules you should be sworn enemies?"

  "I'm afraid it was only by the rules laid down for me that we were supposed to be enemies. Catus was ready enough to take me as he found me."

  "Meaning you've broken the rules to win him over?"

  "Let's say I'm ignoring some of them. Can I do anything else?"

  "Aren't you supposed to have unwavering convictions?"

  Barry leaned on the desk. "They waver on occasions. You know they do, I'm sure. I suspect Catus is sharp enough to have guessed it too, just as I've discovered that his convictions aren't unshakable." He was amused by her line of questioning. "We may wind up admitting to each other that we know practically nothing."

  "A clean slate?"

  "Waiting for the unknown hand to write. If it will. I've had the peculiar notion, ever since coming here, that on Ile du Vent it might."

  Alma had seated herself and was gazing at him. She let a few seconds of silence go by, then said quietly, "I had a caller while I was waiting for you."

  "Oh?"

  "Tina Nerette came for her medicine. She was scared half to death when she found me here. It didn't take me long to find out why. She thought you'd already told me."

  Barry felt himself twitch. "I forgot about her." He made a face. "I didn't want you to know that I knew."

  "I'm glad she came. There's something I should have told you long ago. Shall we have lunch while I tell you? No, that wouldn't be safe, would it? Lucille understands just enough English to hear too much."

  "Mitchell taught her." He got off the desk and walked about the room. This was awkward. He felt she must be embarrassed. Abruptly he faced her. "You don't have to talk about it if you'd rather not," he blurted. "I mean—well, I don't mean I'm not interested. Of course I am. For weeks I wondered what was wrong between you and Warner. You were so decent, coming here day after day, helping out. I couldn't understand. I wanted to help. No, confound it, I didn't—at least not him. I did want to help you if I could, if there were some way to do it without—" He caught himself.

  "Without what?" she asked quietly.

  He shook his head. The words were still there, unspoken. Without sending you back to him, he had been going to say. What had he been thinking of? What had come over him?

  He sat on the desk again, staring at her, afraid now to say anything at all. He was shaking. He waited for her to speak.

  She did, presently.

  "It may surprise you," she said, "but I didn't know about my husband and Tina. I did know about the other girl, the one at Fond Marie."

  "Fond Marie?" Barry said, confused.

  She smiled. "We seem to be going around in circles, don't we? There were other girls before Tina. One, at least. She was at Fond Marie when Warner and I went there. Her name was Anita. She worked for you and Peter Ambrose."

  "Anita!"

  "What you ought to know," she said, "is that my husband blames you for telling me. You see, I didn't know there were native girls until we went to Fond Marie. I knew there'd been other women in the States, but—well, at Fond Marie I found out about Anita and threw it up to him. It was the night of the party. He thinks you're the one who told me."

  Barry shook his head in bewilderment. "How could it have been I?"

  "It couldn't have been anyone else, according to his way of thinking. The girl worked for you and Peter. Peter never would have told me. Therefore, you're the villain."

  "I didn't even know. Nor did Peter, I'm positive. The girl only worked in the kitchen."

  "What happened was my fault, really." Alma was speaking slowly now, gazing at the floor. "I didn't care about you or anyone else then. I simply despised him and hated myself for having married him. It wasn't until long after we came back here to the island—until I began to suspect he was trying to break you—that I told him the truth. Then it was too late. He wouldn't believe me."

  "How did you get the information?"

  "From the girl herself. Jeff borrowed her that night, you remember. He needed some extra servants for the party. She was wearing a piece of costume jewelry Warner had given her, a rhinestone clip of mine that I thought had been stolen. I accused her of stealing it and she laughed at me. It was quite a scene. We were in the kitchen at the time. I remember thinking the whole place must have heard us. Apparently Warner didn't. Now I wish he had."

  "He wouldn't believe you when you told him?"

  "He didn't want to believe me. He wants an enemy he can fight. You. When I tried to tell him how I knew, he insisted I describe the clip. I couldn't, of course—not to his satisfaction, at any rate. I hardly ever wore it."

  Barry soberly nodded. "You say you didn't tell him the truth until you learned he was trying to break me. What do you mean by that?"

  "First, the mule Dufour sold you. Pradon Beliard came to the house one day. The day we returned to the island, in fact. He told Warner something about a bête diable. I didn't understand, and Warner wouldn't discuss it. It wasn't until later that I heard the natives referring to your mule as a bête diable, and guessed what had happened."

  "You think Pradon put Dufour up to selling me the mule?"

  "I think my husband arranged with Pradon to make trouble for you even before you left Fond Marie. The night before we left there he asked me again who had told me about his affair with Anita. When I refused to tell him he said I needn't bother, he already knew."

  Barry remembered some of the little things: Pradon's attempt to overcharge him, the boy's pretense at being helpful while shirking on every possible occasion. "Any other proof?" he asked. "Any proof that Pradon started the rumor that Toto was dead when we took him to the mainland?"

  "Only that he was at the house again that night."

  "It couldn't have been he who slaughtered the mule in the church and set fire to the altar."

  "No, but it could have been Warner."

  "I can't picture your husband slashing a mule's throat with a machete," Barry argued. "You're only guessing."

  She smiled wanly. "I have no real proof of anything, do I? But I should have told you how he hates you."

  "I think you did. At least you tried to."

  "Yes, I think I tried. You said you knew he despised you. But despising and hating aren't the same thing, are they? Well, now you know." She stood up. "Shall we have some lunch before I ride back?"

  He took her hand as they went across the rectory yard to the dining room. It seemed a natural thing to do. She was the girl who worked with him at the clinic and shared a great many secrets with him, including the possibly dangerous secret that Catus Laroche was responsible for the Desinor child's death.

  It was hard to think of her as being another man's wife.

  "O GOD, whose most dear Son did take little children into his arms and bless them; Give us grace, we beseech thee, to entrust the soul of this child to thy never-failing care and love, and bring us all to thy heavenly kingdom; through the same thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

  Rising from his knees and closing his prayer book as a sign to the congregation that the service was finished, Barry gazed down at the small plain box before the altar rail. His eyes closed for an instant. A child, he thought. A child that need not have died. He looked across the coffin at the mourners. Only a handful had come into the church. Only the child's mother, a few neighbors, and near the door, kneeling, Catus Laroche. What was Catus thinking?

  Barry was suddenly bitter—not at Catus, who after all had done his best, but at the two persons who were even more to blame. The mother and father of Yolande Desinor were not present. Not even to comfort their weepin
g daughter would they set foot in the accursed church of the white missionary. They waited in the crowd outside.

  A man came forward, lifted the small box and carried it down the aisle. At the door he raised it to his head. So far as Barry was concerned the service was finished. Not even Yolande wished him to accompany the body to the cemetery.

  It was Catus who led the procession. Barry stood in the church doorway and watched. Like the Pied Piper followed by the children of Hamelin, Catus marched across the mission clearing in the golden brightness of the afternoon, the others strung out in single file behind. Catus alone seemed aware of the solemnity of the occasion. The others jerked and swayed from side to side to ward off the evil spirits known to be ever eager to snatch the souls of the departed. Even the man with the box on his head—that pathetic little box hurriedly knocked together within the past hour by the village coffin maker—leaped and pranced with his burden.

  The women wailed. The men yelled and shrieked. There were some who, losing their balance, laughed at their own clumsiness as they picked themselves up.

  When the procession had disappeared at last, Barry bowed his head and moved his lips.

  "In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commit the body of this child to the ground. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord make his face to shine upon her and be gracious unto her, the Lord lift up his countenance upon her, and give her peace, both now and evermore."

  It seemed a pity, he thought, that this last service in old Mr. Mitchell's church had to be for the dead. Yet it was sadly appropriate. On Sunday the Bishop was coming to consecrate the new church on the ridge.

  18

  THE RIGHT REVEREND ERNEST LAXSON, Bishop of St. Joseph, was not completely a stranger to Ile du Vent. He had made two previous visits to the island, one to consecrate the church erected by Leander Mitchell, the other to pay Mr. Mitchell an official visit many months later. He did not recall either visit with much pleasure, nor did he look forward with pleasure to the one now confronting him.