All Souls' Rising (2 page)

Prologue

J
UNE
15, 1802 A
BOARD
Le
H
ÉROS

The weighing of our anchor with this morning’s tide brought me a lightening of my heart. These last few days we’ve been in port were most uneasy, owing to rumors of renewed disturbances, perhaps a more serious revolt, to be inspired by the deportation of the brigand chief Toussaint, our passenger and prisoner. All factions in the city of Le Cap or what remains of it are once again aroused against one another. As for the harbor itself, it is alive with sharks, which feed most avidly upon the flesh of those who take the losing part in struggles on the shore.

Thus I was greatly comforted to see us well away, to stand on the stern with the breeze freshening in my face, watching the broken soot-stained ruins sink rapidly enough to the horizon. The town of Le Cap has twice been burned to the ground these last ten years, but even at the height of its ostentation it could not, when seen at such a distance, have seemed any more than a most precarious foothold on this savage shore. Rounding the cape, I see that city give way to rocky escarpments plunging vertically into the waves, and above these the incomprehensible blankness of the forests or, where the trees are cut, the peaks standing out as bare and sharp as needles’ points. My sojourn here was brief but more than long enough to satisfy me. Here no enterprise has managed to achieve a good result—the hand of civilized man has done no more than make of a wilderness a desert. Perhaps before Columbus landed, it was some sort of savage Eden here. I believe it would have been better for all if he had never come.

As we set sail, there stood near me, among my fellow officers of the ship, some members of the company of the renegade slave Toussaint, though that gentleman himself remained carefully sequestered, under guard in his cabin below. The others of his party had so far the freedom of the ship, and I observed them closely as I might, with some thought of indicting their descriptions, though for what audience I do not know.

The eldest (and by far the blackest) of the women is Suzanne, the wife of Toussaint. She is said to be older than he and showed her years, appearing confused at moments, appearing not to know just where she found herself or how she came there. But for the richness of her dress (which was, however, modest) she might easily have been taken for any ordinary household servant in the colony. The three young mulattresses in her train (a niece, a daughter-in-law, and a companion as I gathered) struck me as rather more
soignées
, wrapped in that thin layer of hastily acquired sophistication with which one often meets in women of their type.

The lightest of the men is Toussaint’s eldest son, Placide, though as our Captain Savary has suggested there are some doubts as to his parentage, suspicion that he may be an illegitimate child of Suzanne’s prior to the marriage (yet Toussaint acknowledges and indeed is said to favor him). His light color may have occasioned this speculation, though often the Aradas, from which tribe Toussaint is extracted, are similarly light or of a reddish hue.

As for the two younger sons, Isaac and Jean, it is plain at a glance that they are full-blooded Negroes. The former wears a most extravagant uniform, every inch of it bedizened with gold braid and rosettes, complete with an enormous sword, the tip of it dragging the boards of the deck, whose bearer appears to have no notion of its use. The hilted weapon seems only to encumber the natural movement of his hands along his sides. With all its meaningless pomp this uniform shows marked signs of wear, hard wear at that, and Isaac seems to sulk inside it—a bedraggled peacock, caught in a rainstorm.

I have heard, from Captain Savary and others, that this uniform was the personal gift of Bonaparte to Toussaint’s second son. Placide was presented with another like it, on the same occasion, but no longer wears it.

The eighth and last of the party looks a miscellany of ill-assembled and badly chosen parts, being overly tall, gangly, poorly proportioned and clumsy in all respects, all thumbs and elbows. His neck is elongated, with a busy Adam’s apple the size of a garden spade, and, above, his head appears ridiculously small. He rolls his eyes and stutters when he speaks, and his outsized, long-fingered hands creep about all over his person like great agitated spiders the while. This singular creature is Toussaint’s valet, known by the fanciful appellation of Mars Plaisir. For the moment, he cannot practice his intended vocation, since Toussaint is held strictly apart from all this retinue, not permitted to see any of his retainers or even any member of his family. A pointless severity, I should think, yet I would willingly be deprived of the attentions of a Mars Plaisir. In almost any European village I would expect a creature such as he to be set upon and stoned to death.

Now the very thought of Europe makes me puzzle at my enterprise, for these notes are addressed to no one, nor could I find opportunity to send them anywhere at all these next six weeks at sea. Yet I continue, for there have been other curiosities this day. At even (his family and retainers being at table below), Toussaint was fetched on deck to take the air, under guard of two dragoons detached from Captain-General Leclerc’s expedition. Those soldiers seemed to tower over him, for he is only a small Negro man and unremarkable at first glance, more noteworthy for the incongruity of his dress than for any distinguishing feature of his person. He wore a loose white shirt or smock, coarsely woven and open at the neck, over tight trousers from a military uniform, and a pair of high cavalry boots. There was a kerchief bound over his head, and I remembered hearing that Toussaint affected such a covering, not only in his
déshabillé
but often even on occasions of state.

I had the watch, but the sea was calm and the sky clear, with the first stars just beginning to emerge, and I approached a little nearer. He did not seem at all aware of my proximity, but stood near the stern rail to stare most intently down at the water (there being no longer any land in view). Not knowing what to say to him, or if I ought to speak at all, I was silent for some minutes before inquiring, what it might be that he was so carefully regarding.

And here the sentinel’s attention abruptly returned to his charge, and he undertook to prevent our conversation, but I overrode him, repeating my question and adding to it, whether Toussaint was looking back toward the island of which he had lately been master, and whether he regretted it.

At this, Toussaint turned half toward me and looked at me with half a smile, but without immediately speaking. I suppose he must have gone a lengthy while without much benefit of human discourse. Still, there was a sort of slyness in that smile. His lips were full and heavy, his teeth long and yellow; he lacked an eyetooth on the left side. The jaw long and slung far forward, stretching and lowering the deep oval of his face. His nose was long also and typically flat, but his forehead was high and his eyes, with their yellowing whites, were large and expressive—his best feature. All in all, a most arresting ugliness.

He was smaller than I somehow had expected, standing no higher than my breastbone. His disproportionately long trunk was set on little bandy legs—undoubtedly he would appear to best advantage on horseback. Some grizzled hair appeared at his shirt’s neck, and the gray pigtail hanging from under the kerchief was fastened with a bit of frayed red ribbon. I would have put him in the middle fifties. He was narrow-hipped and distinctly thin, though not to the point of frailty—his arms were disproportionately thick and muscular.

He returned my looks, taking my measure also it may be, and then resumed his staring at the water.

“
Guinée
,” he said, but so softly I scarce caught the word at all.

“Africa?” I said, with some surprise.

Of course he was not looking in the right direction, but one would hardly expect him to be a master of geography, outside of the colony. He is himself a Creole and I believe this must have been the first time he had ever been to sea. I found that my gaze was drawn after his; he continued to inspect the surfaces of the ocean for some time before he spoke. The water had taken on a red metallic glimmer from the light of the setting sun.

“
Guinée, on dit, se trouve en bas de l’eau
.” Still Toussaint kept his eyes fixed on the water.
They say that Africa is at the bottom of the ocean
.

“But you are a Christian,” I said, for I was again surprised, though it was not the first time I had heard of this belief. One often finds the slavers complaining of it—how their new-bought slaves will fling themselves off the ships in droves, believing that they may pass beneath the ocean to regain their original homes in Africa.

Toussaint glanced up at me with that same sly smile. “Of course I am a Christian,” he said, “but I should like to see Africa all the same.”

Our colloquy could not continue past that point, for the dragoons quite brusquely led him away. Improbable as it is that anyone aboard should enter into conspiracy with such a one as he, his reputation for cunning is sufficient that his guard evidently has been ordered to permit that he converse with no one.

Unfortunate fellow, I should not suppose him likely ever to see Africa—not, at least, in this lifetime.

It was well past dark when I was relieved of my watch, and in groping along through the darkness below toward my own repose I must pass the cabin where Toussaint was held secure. Going along the passage, I heard a voice coming from behind the door, and (the sentinel having absented himself, perhaps to the jakes) I paused to listen. The occupant was reading in a loud sonorous voice, this passage from the end of Deuteronomy:

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab under the mountains of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan
.

And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea
.

And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar
.

And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go thither
.

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord
.

And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day
.

And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated
.

And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended
.

Here Toussaint stopped, and after a little period of silence began again but in a lower and less certain tone, a murmur unintelligible to me—perhaps it was a prayer. This was for all the world like a regular church service, though with the one man playing the roles of both priest and communicant.

I took my way toward my own berth, but sleep continues to elude me, though the hour is late. Therefore I write—to no one. The wind has risen and the seas run higher than they did at sunset, so that the lamp swings like a pendulum on its chain; it blots my page with shadow, and then once more returns its light. Though the ship is densely packed with men and I can hear my fellows snoring, I feel myself much alone this night.

Out of the groaning of the ship’s timbers come again the words that Captain Savary repeated to a few of us at table: a sentence he claimed Toussaint had spoken when first taken onto the ship.
En me reversant, on n’a abattu à Saint-Domingue que le tronc de l’arbre de la liberté des noirs; il poussera par les racines, parce qu’elles sont profondes et nombreuses
.
^*1
Captain Savary quoted this with a sneer and the following remark that these were fine phrases indeed to fall from the thick lips of a gilded nigger. Then there was laughter, in which I joined. Yet now I hear the words again and not in Savary’s voice but in some other. What if they are true? If this man did inspire these last ten years of fire and murder—could he call up two hundred more?

Away with such a foolish thought. I shall not sail this way again. As for Toussaint, the gilt is well worn from him now, his time is past for such pretensions. Toussaint must pass into ignominy, and I into anonymity, remaining at the last without a name.

Part I

BOIS CAYMAN

August 1791

Jou a rive pou n kite Babilon

Moman rive pou n viv an twa pawòl

Se pa mistè pou

Yon moun vin Ginen o

Se sa wap di, sa w panse, sa wap fè

Ki pou an amoni

—B
OUKMAN
E
KSPERYANS

Chapter One

Y
OU COULD NOT CALL IT
an actual crucifixion, Doctor Hébert thought, because it was not actually a cross. Only a pole, or a log rather, with the bark still on it and scars on the bark toward the top, from the chain that had dragged it to this place, undoubtedly. A foot or eighteen inches below the mark of the chain, the woman’s hands had been affixed to the wood by means of a large square-cut nail. The left hand was nailed over the right, palms forward. There had been some bleeding from the punctures and the runnels of blood along her inner forearms had hardened and cracked in the dry heat, from which the doctor concluded that she must have been there for several hours at the least. Surprising, then, that she was still alive.

Pulling against the vertex of the nail, her pectoral musculature had lifted her breasts, which were taut, with large aureoles, nipples distended. Although her weight must have pulled her diaphragm tight, the skin around her abdomen hung comparatively slack. At her pudenda appeared a membranous extrusion from which Doctor Hébert averted his eye. Her feet were transfixed one over the other by the same sort of homemade nail as held her hands.

Sitting his horse, Doctor Hébert was at a level with her navel. He raised his head. Her skin was a deep, luminous black; he had become somewhat familiar with the shade since he had been in the country, but was not knowledgeable enough to place her origin from it. Her hair was cut close to the skull, which had the catlike angularity which the doctor, from the sculptural point of view, found rather beautiful. Her large lips were turned out and cracking in the heat, falling a little away from her teeth, and the look of them made the doctor’s own considerable thirst seem temporarily irrelevant. When he had first ridden up, her eyes had shown only crescents of white, but now the lids pulled farther back and he knew that she was seeing him.

The cat-shaped head hung over on her shoulder, twisting the cords of her neck up and out. He could see the big artery bumping slowly there. Her eyes moved, narrowing a little, at their sideways angle. She saw him, but was indifferent to what she saw. The doctor’s tongue passed across his upper lip, once, twice, stiff as a file. He turned in the saddle and looked back into the long
allée
down which he had come. This avenue ran east to west for almost a mile, bordered by citrus trees whose branches had laced to the density of a thick hedge. From the far end of the
allée
, the pole had first appeared to him centered like the bead in a gun sight. Now the red round of the sun was dropping quickly into the notch where he had first entered, and the glare of it forced him to squint his eyes. He had gone astray some time that morning and had ridden through the afternoon over ill-made roads, if they were roads at all, without meeting anyone. When at last he came to the edge of the cane fields, he had called out to the cultivators there, but had not been able to understand what they said in reply.

Night came quickly in these parts. It might be dark before he could retrace his way to the other end of the
allée
. Doctor Hébert pressed a heel into his horse’s flank and rode around the pole. The citrus trees, more sparsely set, fanned out around the edges of the compound as though they had meant to encircle it but failed. What vegetation there was looked completely untrained and much of the yard was full of dust. From one of the scattered outbuildings, a deep-voiced dog was barking. The doctor rode within a few yards of the long low building which was the
grand’case
, dismounted and walked the remaining distance to the pair of wooden steps to the gallery, where a white woman in
déshabille
was sitting in a wooden chair with her head sunk down on her chest.

“Your pardon,” Doctor Hébert said, mounting the first step.

The woman raised her head and rearranged her hands in her lap. In one hand she held a glass half full of a cool-appearing liquid with a greenish tint. “Oh,” she said. “You have come.”

The doctor stepped onto the planks of the gallery, removed his hat and inclined his head. “I have a terrible thirst,” he said. “I beg you.”

“
Bien sûr
,” she said, and clapped her hands sharply together. The doctor waited. His horse, waiting in the yard with the reins on its neck, lowered its head and snorted at the dust and raised it. There were steps from within and the doctor turned. A mulatto woman in a madras turban came scurrying out of the central door, carrying another glass which she presented to the doctor with a sort of crouch. He took a long rash gulp which made him gasp, and held the glass a little away from him to look at it. The concoction was raw cane rum with lime juice and a cloying amount of sugar. He finished the drink in several more cautious sips, while the white woman spoke to the mulattress in Creole.

“It is arranged,” she finally said, turning back to the doctor, who now noticed that her eyes seemed a little bloodshot. “My husband…” Her head swung away as her voice trailed off. She looked out across the compound toward the pole.

“
Je vous remercie
,” Doctor Hébert said. There seemed no place to leave the glass; he stooped and set it on the floor. The horse shook its head as he approached. He took the reins and led it around the back of the
grand’case
and wandered among the outbuildings until he discovered the stable. At the rear of the roofed hall was a water trough made from an enormous dugout log. The horse drank and snuffled and blew onto the water and drank deeply again. The doctor watched its big throat working, then knelt and put two fingers into the trough. The water was cool and clear and he thought that it must often be replenished or changed. He cupped his hands and drank and ran his wet palms back over his hair. With a forefinger he detached a long soggy splinter from the side of the trough and watched it drift logily to the bottom.

A groom of some sort had appeared at his back, but Doctor Hébert waved him away and led the horse to a stall himself, where he unsaddled it and gave it a bit of cane sugar from a cake he carried in the pocket of his duster. Slinging his saddlebags over his shoulder, he left the stable and walked back toward the
grand’case
.

The barking had taken up again and the doctor approached the shed it seemed to come from. When he put his eye to the crack in the door a big brindled mastiff smashed against it, backed off and lunged again, striking head-on into the wood with all its weight and force. The doctor withdrew abruptly and continued his path to the house.

A dark-haired man of middle height stood on the gallery. He wore a white shirt and breeches bloused into riding boots, and he held a gold-pommeled cane in both hands across his thighs.

“
Bienvenu
,” he said, “to Habitation Arnaud. I myself am Michel Arnaud. You will dine here. You will pass the night.”

“
Heureux
,” the doctor said, and bowed. “I am Antoine Hébert.”

“Please to enter,” Arnaud said, indicating the open door with his cane. As the doctor passed through, another domestic relieved him of his saddlebags and carried them away through another doorway at the rear of the large central room. It was dim within, the oilpaper over the windows admitting little of the fading light.

“In perhaps one hour we will go to table,” Arnaud said. Standing at the outer doorway, he swatted his thigh with the cane. “You will wish to rest, perhaps.”

“Yes,” said Doctor Hébert. “Your people, they will feed my horse?”

“Immediately,” Arnaud said, slapping himself once more with the cane as he turned farther out onto the gallery.

In the small room at the rear the slave had hung the doctor’s saddlebags on a peg on the wall and stood waiting beside it, bobbing his head. He was barefoot and wore short pants and a loose shirt of the same coarse cloth and, incongruously, a black coat that looked as if it might have been cast off by the master.

“
De l’eau?
” Doctor Hébert said, without absolute expectation of being understood. The slave bowed out. Doctor Hébert hung his duster on the wall beside the saddlebags and sat down in a chair to remove his boots. His temples pounded when he straightened up, the rum undoubtedly contributing to this effect. In the room were one other wooden chair and a
paillasse
and one small oilpapered window. With a little clink, the slave set down a crockery pitcher and cup on the floor, then backed out quietly, closing the door. Doctor Hébert poured a cup of water and drank it and lay down on his back. The papered window was no more than a pale patch dissolving slowly on the wall. After a time he became aware of the shifting of bare feet in the outer room. At the jingle of a little bell he got up and replaced his boots.

Four candles in heavy candlesticks were burning on the long table in the main room, and the table was laid with covers of silver and heavy imported
faience
. Arnaud, standing at the head of the table, indicated to the doctor a place at his right. A slave drew back the chair and then adjusted it once the doctor had seated himself. The slave in the black coat, who seemed to fill some sort of butler’s role, settled Arnaud in the same way, stepped back and waited. Above the table, a circular fan of boards began to move when a boy in a corner pulled a rope. At the end of the table opposite Arnaud, a fourth slave stood in attendance, although no place had been laid there.

“My wife is unable to join us at this moment,” Arnaud said.

“She is unwell, perhaps,” the doctor said, wondering if his glance had betrayed some false expectancy.

Arnaud stared at him. “
Pour un coup de tafia elle ferait n’importe quoi
,” he said.
For a shot of rum, she will do anything. “Alors, mangeons
.” At that, the slaves moved forward to lift the covers and present the several platters one by one. This burst of activity allowed the doctor to cover his moment of confusion. He had been on the point of offering his professional services, which evidently would not have done at all.

There was a platter of highly seasoned pork slices, a sort of ragout of sweet potatoes, nothing green. A bowl of pickles, one of jam, and a loaf of rather leaden bread. The wine was more than tolerable and Arnaud poured it liberally, or rather caused it to be poured, by making minute gestures with a finger. As on other such occasions the doctor was slightly unnerved by the silent presence of the slave behind his chair; whenever he thought of reaching for anything on the table the slave would move to anticipate him.

Arnaud ate with dispatch, if not relish, and did not seem disposed to offer further conversation. In the candlelight his face had an olive tone. He had a weak chin, plump cheeks and a small plummy mouth like a woman’s. In spite of the fan’s agitation a sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead. The doctor himself felt a little flushed, perhaps by the high seasoning of the food. He hoped most sincerely that he was not taking fever.

When the edge of his appetite was blunted, he allowed his eyes to slide around the larger area of the room, though there was little for them to dwell on. Only the other doorways interrupted the walls; there were no pictures and no other ornament except for a large gilt-framed mirror. Toward the door to the gallery some more empty chairs were grouped around a low table made of local wood.

“We are very plain here,” Arnaud said.

“Perhaps your stay is temporary,” said Doctor Hébert. “You will make a great fortune and return to France.”

“It seems unlikely that France will be any longer in existence when and if I ever amass a great fortune,” Arnaud said. “News reaches us so slowly, it is more than possible that they have already burned and murdered their way from one end of the country to the other at this moment, only we have yet to hear of it.”

“I do not believe that matters are quite so desperate,” the doctor said. “Although certainly they may set one’s head awhirl.”

“You may expect heads to be whirling down the public roads before this time is done,” Arnaud said.

“Of course,” the doctor said, “one hopes for a degree of moderation.”

“I do not see that any middle course is viable,” Arnaud said. “Not if the madmen in the National Assembly fall any further under the sway of
Les Amis des Noirs
. They understand nothing of the real conditions here. All this jabbering of liberty may be very well in France but among us it is nothing but incendiary. We will be brought to anarchy. Civil war. And worse.”

He snapped his fingers and the three slaves moved to clear the table of the platters. When they had gone out toward the kitchen shed, the room fell quiet, except for the creaking of the fan. Doctor Hébert watched the black boy who crouched in the corner, pulling at the rope. His face was turned away toward the wall and a large ear stuck out at right angles to his head.

“Restraint on the part of all factions is undoubtedly to be desired,” Doctor Hébert said. He had accustomed himself to uttering such platitudes since he had first arrived in the colony. All political subjects were dangerously volatile, and he found it difficult to make a quick and accurate estimate of where anyone stood on them. He would have hesitated to express a sincere conviction even if he had had the opportunity of forming one.

“I should like to see the
Pompons Rouges
restrained with a weight of chains,” Arnaud said. “That rabble at Port-au-Prince will ruin themselves as well as us if nothing is done to contain them. Though they do not know it. It is an appalling blindness. We got off easily from that affair of last October but I would not expect such a matter to go so fortunately a second time.”

The slaves were now returning from the yard, carrying a silver coffee service and a platter of mango and lemon slices and another of small dry cakes. Doctor Hébert accepted some pieces of fruit, tasted the mango, and sipped at his coffee.

“One might say that it went quite unfortunately for Ogé,” he said.

“I am little concerned with Ogé’s fortunes,” Arnaud said. “He had done better to remain in France.”