Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  He managed a smile. The drink was back in his hand and he sipped it, nodding his thanks at St. Juste.

  "You have to admire my enemies, don't you?" he went on. "See how carefully they've turned me into a monster. First the death of young Toto—that wasn't my fault exactly, except that I was stupid enough to buy a bête diable. But I was dishonest about it, you see; I tried to conceal the fact that the boy was dead. Then when the little Desinor child died of malaria, I used her death as a weapon to destroy Catus after promising him I wouldn't. There were other things, I seem to remember. I can't think of them now. And finally this. The monster is now full-blown and frightful. He has seduced the young sister of the great man of the island. She is to have his child."

  "Barry," Edith said, "are you drunk?"

  "No, my dear, I'm not."

  "But I don't understand what you're telling me!"

  "You can't have been listening. I'll repeat it. Micheline Laroche is going to have a baby. I am accused of being its father. I am accused by her."

  "But how can she accuse you? The night of the storm—"

  "I follow your line of reasoning. True, we spent the night together only a short time ago. But the accusation is not based on what took place that night, or what she says took place. I have been her lover for weeks." He laughed, abruptly stopped laughing and frowned at the glass in his hand. "Perhaps I am a little drunk." He knew he wasn't. It was simply nerves. Gazing at Edith again, he said grimly, "Catus drove his sister out of the house last night with the whole village watching. He is now shut up in his own house deciding, I suppose, what he will do next. Surely you felt the tension in the village when you rode through. The place is like a time bomb."

  "I didn't notice anything," she said.

  "Like a volcano about to erupt."

  "But surely you've denied the girl's wild story!"

  "My dear, I can deny it until I'm hoarse, but if I'm not able to convince Catus what good will my shouting do? Catus knows that the girl and I spent a night together in the grotto. He knows we could have come up through the inner tunnel if we had wanted to."

  "You didn't know there was an inner tunnel."

  "His sister knew. Put yourself in Catus' place for a moment, though heaven knows there's no comfort in doing so; I've tried it and I can only see how devastating the evidence is. His sister and I sought shelter in the grotto. With no reason to remain in the cave all night, she would have led me up through the inner tunnel at once. But she did not. Therefore she wished to stay in the cave. Why did she wish to stay? To a man like Catus, whose mind goes straight to the heart of things, there is not even any question."

  Edith was pale and tense. "Why did she wish to stay?"

  "She hoped I would make love to her."

  "Barry! Really!"

  He shrugged. "Does it shock you? I'm sorry. The truth is that Micheline has been wanting me to make love to her ever since I came here. Since before I even set foot on the island, in fact. We met on the boat, the first day."

  "You can't be serious. Why, she's black!"

  Barry gazed sadly at St. Juste, who lowered his head and studied the floor. "I'm sorry, Clement. Miss Barnett is upset."

  St. Juste said nothing.

  Edith looked annoyed. "Well," she said, "if Catus won't believe you, what are you going to do about it? You can't let such a fantastic story go unstopped. Why, the whole island—even the mainland—" Suddenly she was frightened. "Good heavens! A story like that will even reach the capital! They'll be tossing it around at the club!"

  "I'm sure they will. With relish. And there will certainly be `reports that' and `rumors of' in the capital's gossipy little newspapers."

  She looked horrified. "Then you must do something!"

  "I must do something. Agreed. But I don't know what to do."

  They were silent, the three of them. Barry studied Edith's face. He was not surprised by her reaction. He was learning to understand people, he supposed, and to foresee just how they would react in certain situations. She was thinking of herself, and of course to some extent of him because whatever happened to him would effect her unless her plans for the future were revised. She was not thinking at all of his work on the island and what this latest blow would mean to that. She was annoyed with him for getting into such a mess. It needn't have happened, she was telling herself. He had brought it on himself by being too friendly with these people, by getting involved with them. He should have remained aloof. She thought him stupid and a little vulgar for thinking Micheline desired him. No girl with a black skin would dare to want a white man. Most of all she was thinking of what people she knew would say about him, and about her, when the story reached the mainland as it certainly would.

  She stood up. "I think I'd better go back," she said. "Unless, of course, there's something I can do here? Is there?"

  "Lucille is trying to find out for me where Micheline is. Until she does, I expect to sit and wait."

  "Then I'll go. I don't want to be here when you talk to Micheline."

  He walked out with her and helped her into the saddle. As he watched her ride across the red-earth clearing he shook his head. She might come once more, he supposed, but it would be only to say good-bye. This was the end, really.

  He re-entered the office and picked up the twig with its attached red fruit. "Do you know the name of this, Clement?"

  "Not the botanical name, Mr. Clinton. The natives call it Tete Ti-fi, the Young Girl's Breast."

  She is young, Barry thought sadly. She isn't to blame. He was thinking of Edith, but the thought applied to Micheline as well, he realized.

  IN THE PLANTATION BUNGALOW at the end of the island Alma Lemke stood outside the door of Edith's room, listening. Actually it was her husband's room that the girl had. With plastic screening and a curtain of woven palm-fronds, Warner had transformed one end of the veranda into a sleeping chamber for himself.

  The door was shut now. It had been shut since the evening meal, an hour ago. Edith had not eaten much dinner. In the middle of the meal she had pushed back her chair and fled weeping to her room. She was still sobbing.

  Alma walked out onto the veranda. Her husband sat there with a drink. She leaned against the rail, facing him.

  "I suppose this is your doing too," she said.

  Lemke looked at her with an amused smile. "Do you mean the girl's having a baby or dear Mr. Clinton's being accused of fathering it?"

  "You know what I mean. As a matter of fact the baby is yours, isn't it?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea."

  "What are you going to do if she changes her mind and tells the truth?"

  Lemke grinned. "She's told her story now. Even if she were to scream a denial from the top of Mr. Clinton's magnificent new church, not a soul would believe her."

  He was probably right, Alma told herself, despising him from the depths of her being and wishing she knew some way to turn the tables on him. How, she wondered, had he contrived to make Barry the victim of this latest lie? Or had he? Perhaps this time he was innocent. Perhaps the girl herself had turned on Barry. The woman scorned. But Warner was the father of the expected child; of that she was certain.

  "I suppose you feel just wonderful about this," she said.

  "There are no tears in my eyes, if that's what you're waiting for."

  "I don't expect any. A little insane laughter wouldn't surprise me though. You won't believe me, will you, that Barry has never done a thing to hurt you? That this whole hellish campaign of yours has been unjustified?"

  "I have a very good reason for not believing you."

  "What reason?"

  "You didn't try to defend him until you'd fallen in love with him. Your feeble attempt at throwing me off the track came too late."

  She felt herself tremble at his words. In love? She, in love with Barry? The word had never entered her thoughts. Was she in love? What was love, anyway?

  She considered the man sprawled on the veranda chair in front of her. Was it possible sh
e had ever loved him, or thought she did? He had changed, of course. He had not always been like this. But even in the beginning he had been selfish, demanding, conceited. Even then he had judged all men, including himself, by their capacity for drink and ability to make women notice them.

  No, she had never loved Warner Lemke. 'Whatever love was, it must be something better than the feeling she had had for him even then. She might never have married him but for that trip to Ohio when she had met his folks.

  Perhaps that was what she had really wanted: parents like his. A gentle, well-mannered mother who spoke in soft tones and had the gift of understanding, unlike her own mother whose everlasting faultfinding had finally driven her from home. And his father, kind and respectable. Her own father had drunk himself into disgrace to escape her mother's nagging.

  Was that what she had wanted? Was that why she had married Warner? She looked at him now, half drunk, leering at her in his triumph, waiting for the rum to jog him out of his inertia and send him stumbling through the dark to some native caille. Her mouth trembled. She turned suddenly and went inside.

  Lemke's drunken laughter followed her.

  LEMKE FINISHED HIS DRINK. It was very dark on the veranda now. Very quiet except for the singing of the cicadas and the distant mutter of waves on the shore. He put his feet up on the rail and watched the fireflies, wondering languidly if they were as numerous as they seemed to be or if the rum had affected his vision. One of them landed on his leg. He watched it crawl over his trousers, the green fire rhythmically pulsing. He put his thumb on it.

  So Micheline was pregnant. He wondered idly what the baby would look like. Would it look like him? It was his, of course. Would it be light or dark? By God, he'd like to see it when it arrived. Not that he would try to. God no. The farther he kept away from that situation the better. But if the child was his, why the devil had she accused Clinton?

  He wanted a drink. His glass was empty. He pushed himself out of his chair and considered the distance to the bar inside, decided the reward was not worth the required effort, and let himself drop heavily back again. The chair started to tip sideways. He righted it by grabbing at the railing. The glass fell from his hand and rolled along the veranda.

  Why had she accused Clinton? Had she been sleeping with him too? By God, maybe she had. Maybe she had been Clinton's mistress before he talked her into that first meeting on the beach.

  Lemke's hands tightened fiercely on the arms of his chair. Was that why she had talked about Clinton all the time? Because she'd had him and lost him and wanted him back again? No, by God, he wouldn't believe it. If that were true, Clinton had got the best of him even with her. It wasn't true. It was a damned lie.

  But why had she accused Clinton of fathering her baby? Why? Why?

  Lemke took his right hand from the chair and made a fist of it. He beat the fist slowly and savagely against his knee.

  "No!" he shouted. "It's a damned dirty lie! No! No! No!" His voice in the quiet night was like the scream of a tortured animal. Tears streamed down his face.

  Alma, inside, looked up from the book she was reading, closed the book quickly, and went to her room. She shut the door behind her and locked it. When, she wondered, did drunkenness cease to be drunkenness and become insanity?

  LUCILLE RETURNED TO THE MISSION just before dark with a basket on her head and a small black and white dog under her arm. She went straight to the kitchen and tied the dog to a chair leg and set a bowl of meat scraps in front of it. Then she looked for Barry and found him in the office, finishing his letter to Peter Ambrose. The letter had become a detailed report of recent events on the island.

  "Have I been gone too long, mon Père? Did you and M'sieu St. Juste have your lunch?"

  "We had something, Lucy. Please sit down." She was tired, Barry saw. She was not young any more. "Were you able to find out where she is?"

  She shook her head. "I think she has left the island."

  "Left the island!"

  "Some people in The Cabrit say they saw her on the beach very early this morning, talking to Ti-Jean Bazin. Ti-Jean has one of the small sailboats. A little later on he took his boat across to the main-land. They are not sure Micheline was on board, but they think she must have been because he had no other passengers and had not planned to go to the mainland today." She shook her head in sadness. "I'm sorry it took me so long to find this out, mon Père. I'll get supper now. I bought some fish."

  "Wait." Barry frowned at her. "I can't believe this, Lucy. I can't let myself believe it. If Micheline is gone, I'm beaten."

  "Mon Père, I'm sure she is. I'm sorry. Even before I went to look for her I had a feeling she would be gone. You knew her, mon Père. She was a girl of spirit, very proud, really a fine girl until this thing happened. She would never have stayed here on the island after what her brother did."

  Barry knew she was right. He got up with a sigh and went around the desk to her. "I'm very grateful," he said. "Why don't you go and rest a little now? St. Juste and I can manage supper by ourselves."

  "No, no, mon Père!"

  "Good heavens, we're not children. You go and rest."

  "No!" She was at the door before he could stop her. "I am not at all tired. Not in the least. I will have something on the table in half an hour."

  He shook his head after her in bewilderment. Of all the people on the island, she was the one he understood the least, he thought. Yet he liked her and would be desolate now if she left him. Of course, she would not leave him. Not now. In the beginning she had been obsessed with that odd notion that old Mitchell needed her and would send for her. She never mentioned Mitchell any more. Somehow her intense loyalty had fastened itself on him, and she was now equally certain that he needed her.

  Well, he did.

  But this news of Micheline was staggering. Had she left the island? She probably had. Lucy had sized up the situation with surprising insight. A proud young girl, humiliated that way, would never stay to be stared and laughed at.

  What would he do now? Wait? There was nothing else he could do, was there?

  But wait for what?

  ST. JUSTE HAD BEEN TO THE VILLAGE. He returned just as Lucy announced supper ready, and he and Barry sat down together to a meal of fried red snapper and vegetables. Lucy hovered over them.

  There was nothing to report from the village, St. Juste said. "It's quiet. Too quiet. Nobody's working. People are just sitting around in their yards, waiting. They know this thing isn't over. They know something more has to happen."

  "Did you go up to the Laroches'?"

  "I walked by. The gate was shut. Louis was in the yard with the little girl but he didn't speak. He saw me, looked right at me, but didn't blink an eye. Catus' door was closed. I suppose he was inside."

  "Or in the hounfor."

  "Yes, or in the hounfor." St. Juste put a spoon into his coffee and moved it round and round, apparently unaware that he did so. "It's strange we don't hear any drums," he said. "When there's vodun business afoot the drums usually give it away. Maybe they'll start later."

  A movement in the corner of the kitchen caught Barry's eye. He turned on his chair and was surprised to see a small black and white dog crawl out from under a chair, yawning.

  "Hello," he said. "What's this?"

  Lucy said quickly, "Some people I know in Tete Cabrit gave it to me, mon Père."

  "Cute little rascal." Barry scratched a leg of the table and the animal came timidly to the end of its rope to investigate. He put out a hand. The dog backed away, looked at him, then advanced one step at a time and allowed him to rub it behind an ear.

  "What's its name?"

  "Name, mon Père?"

  St. Juste laughed. "Dogs in St. Joseph don't have names, Mr. Clinton."

  "Don't they? Well, no, I suppose they don't. This one ought to, though." Barry wrinkled his brow in thought. "Of course. Ti Cadeau, Little Gift. Maybe he'll bring us the gift of a change in fortune."

  Lucy solemnly nodded. "It is
my hope that he will protect you, mon Père."

  "A dog that size?" St. Juste said, making a face.

  "Sometimes, m'sieu, size does not matter."

  24

  THE DRUMS BEGAN LATE THAT NIGHT. The sound awakened Barry and he was puzzled. Then he remembered. He sat on the edge of his bed and fumbled for a box of matches on the table. He lit the lamp. It was quarter to one. He remembered being awake at half past eleven, using his flashlight then to see the face of the clock. He had thought he would never get to sleep. He must have dozed.

  He dressed and went out, remembering to pick up the flashlight as he left the room. It was a dark night. He stood in the office doorway and listened to the throbbing. There was no rhythm to the sound. None that could be distinguished at this distance, at any rate. It was only a rumble, as though the dark earth were struggling to talk. As though the buried roots of the trees around the clearing were in motion, pushing their way through the ground. He walked part way across the clearing and glanced back at the rectory. It looked forlorn and deserted. The old church might have been there a thousand years.

  He knew he would not sleep if he went back to bed. He would only lie there on his back staring up at the iron roof, feeling himself shut up in a prison. He took the path to the ridge. The moon broke through as he climbed. The path was like something in a child's painting, done with a finger, a streak of yellow and red against background smudges of dark green and black. He felt unreal on it. The night and the island were unreal. The sound of the drums was an angry mutter from another world.

  At the top of the ridge the feeling of unreality was even more vivid. He had not been up here at night in a long time; he had forgotten the eerie brightness of everything when the moon was out. The trees glistened. The grass seemed splashed with aluminum paint. The church and unfinished rectory were props for one of those films about men who became vampires or werewolves when the moon rose, and you never knew quite what was happening because the photography was blurred and the people were only gliding shadows.