All Souls' Rising (7 page)

“Never mind
les gens de couleur
,” he said. “The mulattoes are not the problem. It’s the
Pompons Rouges
…the
petit blancs
in general.”

“But the
petit blancs
hate the mulattoes more than anyone,” Arnaud said.

“Of course they do,” Maltrot said. “Well that they should. Those parties will have their chance to undo each other,
cela s’arrange
. But at the moment they seem to hate us just as much, the
petit blancs
. And that must stop. Our towns have become a breeding ground for Jacobinism and freethinking. Ideas are like diseases, Arnaud, you understand that perfectly.”

“You confuse me,” said Bayon de Libertat.

“My apologies,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “It’s entirely simple. At the finish of it, everyone must cleave to his own skin. Must and will. It’s natural law. The
petit blancs
have forgotten this, however. They need a demonstration.”

“Of what character?” said Arnaud.

“Imagine,” said the Sieur Maltrot, “an insurrection on the northern plain.”

“The worst catastrophe anyone ever dreamed of.”

“Exactly,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “Exactly. Everyone would have to pull together then. No more squabbling with the
Pompons Rouges
when they understand their skins are only safe with us. No more troop mutinies, the soldiers fall back into line, and even the mulattoes would line up behind us where they belong, because after all they own slaves too.”

Arnaud passed a hand over his eyes; the cane rolled off his knees and clattered on the floor. He bent to pick it up, and straightened with a shaky laugh. “It’s bold,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

“You mean—” said Bayon de Libertat. “You can’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “It wouldn’t be a dangerous insurrection but, between ourselves, a nice imposture. The secret is good
commandeurs
, the strong and loyal ones—I think that you know such a one.” He nodded at Bayon de Libertat. “Let them lead the
ateliers
into the mountains for a few weeks, no more. Possibly burn a couple of cane fields.” Maltrot smiled in the direction of the rows of ratoons that lay beyond Arnaud’s compound. “The ones that aren’t producing well, those only. And there you have it in your hand. Let the
Pompons Rouges
have a glimpse of the
black
face of freedom and you’ll see the end of politics.”

“That’s throwing a coal in the powder keg,” said Bayon de Libertat.

“We’ll damp it out,” said Maltrot. “Remember Ogé. And nothing venture, nothing gain. The situation is precarious and our party is small. If we do not use our power while we have it, we may indeed lose everything.”

“And Blanchelande?” said Arnaud.

“Well, he could hardly show his hand in this,” Maltrot said. “But tacitly?” He waved his hand. “It will go forward, you must know. Someone’s already visited most of the
habitations
here about. The only question is whether or not you’re for us.”

Arnaud swung his head and gazed over the gallery railing, clicking his tongue softly. Above them, the fan creaked on its wooden axle, flogging slow, sodden air. The little Negress pumped the rope mechanically, her face turned toward the house wall.

“
Bien
,” said Arnaud. “
Pourquoi pas
.”

Maltrot turned his eyes toward Bayon de Libertat.

“I’m for king and country,” said the older man.

“For the king, to be sure,” Maltrot said in a near whisper. “But at the end, what country will it be?”

Again it was silent but for the fan, which had found an excruciating friction point, squealing painfully with every revolution now. Arnaud had dropped his head and cocked it to one side, as though listening. A gigantic leopard-spotted mosquito hovered over Maltrot’s knee; he waited till it had just lit, then pinched it dead and cleaned his fingers with a snap. Arnaud got up rather suddenly, letting his cane fall, and stood with his fingertips on the railing, staring out and biting his lips.

Indeed there seemed to be a distant tumult from the fields and coming nearer. Then someone came running into the compound, staggering and shouting in a hoarse voice; evidently it was Arnaud’s
commandeur
. He wore shoes as a mark of his rank, but the buckles were broken and they hindered him as he tried to run. Arnaud snatched up his cane and went to meet him. Bayon de Libertat watched him jerk back angrily from what the slave had said, then lash him across the face with the cane’s point. The
commandeur
spun away and dropped on all fours, tucking his head in. Arnaud made to strike him across the shoulders, but stopped himself and came back onto the gallery, beating the cane’s pommel against his palm.

“Damn that little Jacobin rogue of a doctor to the last circle of hell,” Arnaud hissed, “for shooting my best dog this morning…”

“What?” said Bayon de Libertat.

“Oh, I apologize,” said Arnaud, coming to. He turned about, flicking his cane against his boot tops. “A maroon raid on the provision grounds. And there’s a runaway.
Un petit marron
.”

“Of course they usually come back,” Maltrot said.

“Oh, he won’t go far,” Arnaud said. “He’s already wearing a headstall. But all the same I’d better go after him. It’s the look of the thing, you know.”

He dashed down the steps, then paused to look back. “Excuse me please, I trust you will—my house is yours.” He strode around the corner of the house.

The Sieur Maltrot cocked an eyebrow, then rose and went into the
grand’case
with no remark. In the yard, the
commandeur
scrambled to his feet. His cheek was bleeding where the cane had struck it, but he trudged off toward the fields without even raising a hand to examine the wound. Bayon de Libertat pushed out of his seat and also went indoors.

The interior seemed dim and muzzy—despite checks of searing light which came through the woven shades and broke and scattered on the floor. Bayon de Libertat saw Madame Arnaud lift herself in a cloud of white muslin from a chair at the end of the room.

“
Messieurs
,” she said, and trying a curtsy, she almost lost her balance and fell. She caught herself on the wall, gave a birdlike nod of her head, and turned to withdraw. Bayon de Libertat’s eyes had adjusted enough to see that her hair had come undone behind.

“His house is ours,” said the Sieur Maltrot when she had gone. “
Quel bonheur!
My stars, I believe that woman was drunk.”

“Ill, possibly,” said Bayon de Libertat.

The Sieur Maltrot sniffed. “Where did he find her? I’d almost take her for one of the Paris prostitutes they sent out here when the first colonists asked for women.”

“Really,” said Bayon de Libertat. “After all, we are her guests.”

Like Arnaud, the Sieur Maltrot carried a foppish little cane. Now he began to stroll about the room, indicating articles of the sparse furniture to himself with the cane’s point.

“Besides,” said Bayon de Libertat. “She’d be a hundred years old at the least if she were one of those.”

The Sieur Maltrot, who’d stopped before the mirror, chuckled softly along with his reflection.

“She was a girl of good family in France,” said Bayon de Libertat.

“Ah,” said the Sieur Maltrot to his image. “So many of them fare poorly here. A pity, I think it.” He turned from the mirror and paced along the wall, dandling the cane lightly from two fingers. In a corner a fat toad hulked, large as a brick, his sides inflating and deflating softly, otherwise completely still.

“What a fellow, our Arnaud,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “Vain, self-indulgent, not a little stupid probably, concupiscent, impulsive, cruel, reckless, selfish and irresponsible—a typical Creole, in short.”

“He’s quite a good horseman,” Bayon de Libertat said temperingly.

“No doubt,” said Maltrot. “He could ride a good horse to death in no more than two hours, I’ll wager.”

“The brutality does trouble me,” said Bayon de Libertat. “There’s things go on here that could stop your heart, you couldn’t bear to name them.”

“Yes, and it’s impractical too,” Maltrot said. “It’s not as if there were profit in it—too many die, or run away, they kill themselves and kill their children.” Clasping the cane under one arm, he dipped more snuff, then blew his nose. “All the same, terror can be a useful instrument,” he said. “So long as it’s used judiciously.”

“And this charade of an insurrection?” said Bayon de Libertat. “It’s judicious, you’re convinced.”

“All in choosing the right leaders,” Maltrot said. “Give us a few good
commandeurs
and we’ll only be sending our crews to a different task. Toussaint serves as your coachman, does he not?”

“You know him, then?”

“Why he’s famous, you must know. Well traveled as he is, with his
liberté de savane
—I’ll warrant he’s happier than a freeman. You trust him absolutely, don’t you?”

“With my life,” said Bayon de Libertat. “And with my family.”

“Have someone call him, won’t you? I’d like to see this prodigy with my own eyes.”

Bayon de Libertat stepped to the doorway and called an order—the little Negress jumped from her seat by the fan’s pulley and ran around to the rear of the house. For a moment he remained in the doorway. A small brown hen and a rooster with a red plumed tail were scratching in the dirt, near the scuffed area where the
commandeur
had been knocked down.

“What business do you have for Arnaud in the west?” he said, drawing his head back inside.

“De Jumecourt will be needing guns.” The Sieur Maltrot observed the toad and prodded it with the tip of his cane. “He can hardly get them through Port-au-Prince as things stand now—they’ll have to come from the Spanish side.”

“That’s a dangerous undertaking.”

“One which requires an expendable person.” The Sieur Maltrot poked the toad again; it made a lumbering, bearlike step forward. “Do you not agree? Look at this monster, big as a cat. Too fat even to hop…”

He glanced at Bayon de Libertat, who said nothing. From the rear of the house came the sound of a door closing. In a flash the Sieur Maltrot whipped the wood from his sword stick and skewered the toad on the rapier blade. Held high and framed in the light of the doorway, the toad wriggled its legs and moved its mouth in a gasping silence, the thin blade flexing slightly under its weight. The Sieur Maltrot flipped it out the door and over the gallery rail into the dirt.

“What a country,” he said, and slapped the sword back into the cane. “Oh. There you are.”

Toussaint had come silently into the back of the room and stopped. He had removed his coachman’s hat—a kerchief bound at the nape of his neck covered most of his grizzled hair. His head was lowered and he smiled politely, watching the Sieur Maltrot with his eyes only, keeping his face turned toward the floor.

“There you are,” the Sieur Maltrot repeated as he walked near. “A credit to our system, to your master and the Comte de Noé…Well, then, what do you say?”

“
Doucement allée loin
,” Toussaint said.
The docile way goes furthest
. His smile finished with his words.

“Both eloquent and suitable,” said the Sieur Maltrot. “Yes, and the meek shall inherit the earth one day. We’ve all been waiting for that, haven’t we?” He clapped Toussaint on the shoulder and made a half turn to include Bayon de Libertat in his remarks to the slave. “You’re a good nigger, I know you are. If they were all like you, we’d never have a difficulty.”

Chapter Four

V
IA THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY
, Doctor Hébert observed, the farrier Crozac was able to make use of ten men to do the work of two. The moment he rode into the yard, two blacks raced each other to his horse’s head; a third stooped and laced his fingers to make a second stirrup to aid him in his dismount. The doctor bypassed this assistance, however, and slid directly to the ground. His legs were watery after the long ride. Just within sight of Le Cap the bay gelding Espoir had thrown a shoe, and coming into the city the horse had gone slightly lame, so that the doctor thought to bring him here directly, before finding an inn or pursuing his business. He’d been advised by the late Thibodet that Crozac kept a clean stable and a blacksmith’s shop as well.

Rocking forward on his shaky legs to loosen Espoir’s girth, the doctor was anticipated by another black, to whom Crozac shouted orders and abuse from a stool beside the forge. This slave himself moved with a quieter authority, directing the other blacks with nods or signals of his hand, under the stream of Crozac’s ranting. He was thin and stringy as an old chicken, but the doctor admired how the horse quieted under his certain touch.

As another slave carried the saddle away toward the stable, Crozac pushed himself up from the stool and began his approach. He was big-bellied, bowlegged, and virtually neckless. His dress was absurdly elegant for his trade, though none too clean. The doctor took passing note of the red cockade pinned to the crown of his broad-brimmed round hat. His eyes were small and sunken behind wedges of flesh that looked like white fatty slabs of bacon. The doctor grew somewhat uneasy under their chill inspection.

“If I may serve you…,” Crozac said, but still with a certain
hauteur
. Two slaves stood in waiting just behind him, one carrying the stool and the other his box of tools.

“Only one shoe lost,” the doctor said, and touched the horse on the withers. “He seemed a little tender on that foot too.”

Crozac grunted, and indicated a spot for the stool to be set down, then called for the slave to make a slight adjustment. When he was satisfied, he lowered his broad buttocks to the seat and spread his vast stomach over his thighs like an apron. It was another slave who lifted the horse’s foot and held it pinched between his knees, presented to the farrier’s inspection. Another moved nearer with the toolbox and presented instruments as they were needed. Crozac cursed him occasionally, more from habit it seemed than for any apparent error. The farrier was ham-handed with the hoof-pick, the doctor saw, working around the tender frog. Espoir trembled and stepped with restless hooves, but the slave who held his head calmed him with slow strokes.

Crozac spat on the ground and accepted a new shoe from another of his minions, then fit it on the smooth line of the fresh-cut hoof. His hammer made a shallow tacking sound, driving the narrow nails through. With pliers he snapped off the nail points and beat them back into the horn. Briskly he rasped the hoof-edge even with the shoe, then handed the file back to the slave and stood up.

The slave who all this while had held himself in a half crouch to support the foot at the right position now let it down and straightened. Espoir readjusted his weight to four legs, snorted and lifted his head against the halter rope.

“You’ll take him now?” Crozac said to the doctor. In spite of all the assistance proffered him, the farrier was in a mighty sweat. A runnel flowed from his ear and dampened the grimy frill of his neckcloth. Looking at him, the doctor felt himself more oppressed by the heat as well. He loosened the drawstring of his purse and gave Crozac one coin, then another.

“I want to stable him,” he said. “Let him be fed and let him rest. I’ll go on foot at least until evening.”

“As you say,” Crozac said, pushing the coins across his plump palm so that they clicked together. “You’ll stay how long?”

“I can’t be certain,” the doctor said. “I’ll stop here again before evening.”

Crozac answered him with only a nod, pocketing the coins as he waddled back toward the forge, his slaves carrying his equipment after him. The black at the horse’s head clucked softly, turned and led him toward a stall. Watching Espoir’s hooves, the doctor thought that the limp had lessened. The metal of the new shoe blinked in the sunlight. Under the tattered cuffs of his breeches, the slave’s high-arched feet set down silently one after the other, crossing the packed earth of the yard.

Doctor Hébert crossed the Place d’Armes and walked on the unpaved street toward the quay. At the height of the afternoon heat there were few people abroad, and those he did pass seemed bent on their business, whatever it was. The gaggles of brightly dressed mulatto women he had admired when he first passed through the city must be seeking shade indoors until evening. The buildings which lined his way were mostly of stone and none high enough to cast a shadow. The street was dotted here and there with animal ordure and cracked in rigid geometric patterns from the drought and heat. The doctor’s boots kicked up little whispers of dust as he went along. The heat pressed down on him like a damp thumb; he took off his stained duster and carried it over his arm.

When at length he emerged on the Quai Saint Louis, the breeze off the harbor did something to relieve the sodden heat. The quay was busy, ships unloading or taking on cargo at most of the available moorings. The doctor turned north and walked along the paved seawall, passing through a short promenade of stunted trees, whose branches twisted in the salty air. Another ship was taking on water at the Fontaine d’Estaing, and he paused there to watch the procedure, stroking his sweat-matted beard. After a time he put aside his dignity and cupped his hands into the fountain and bathed his face and head. He went on his way with his damp beard stringing and the tonsure band of hair that remained to him plastered wetly to his sunburned skull.

The house of Monsieur Bourgois, who had been Thibodet’s broker, was only a couple of blocks away on the Rue Neuve, but by the time the doctor had reached it, he was sweating again, through the glaze of cool fountain water which had scarcely dried on his skin. This building had a second story, so that Monsieur Bourgois’s private office caught the harbor breeze. The
négociant
himself was an older man than Doctor Hébert would have expected (though why he should have expected anything was a mystery too) with watery eyes and a red nose that spread and softened along his cheekbones like waterlogged cork. He replied to the news of Thibodet’s death with strictly formal condolences, and after the slightest pause began to quiz the doctor about crops and deliveries. Doctor Hébert found himself promising to provide particular quantities of brown sugar, particular quantities of white, by certain dates which Thibodet apparently had arranged much earlier.

In this respect, at least, the broker seemed to have his wits about him. The doctor, meanwhile, had only the faintest idea of what he was discussing and agreeing to. These matters would have to be taken up with Thibodet’s
gérant
, or his replacement, if he must be replaced…

“
Et Madame Thibodet?
” the broker said, resuming his tone of formal politesse. “
Et la petite?
”

“
La petite?
” the doctor repeated stupidly.

“The daughter,” Monsieur Bourgois said. “There is a daughter, is there not?” A strange avuncular smile. “Would she be six months old, or is it four?”

“You astonish me.” The doctor got up and walked to the open casements. Over the low roofs of the intervening buildings he watched a ship under half sail angle in to the quay. Given the length of the crossing to France it was quite possible this news might have failed to arrive before his own departure. Why Thibodet might have kept silent about the birth was harder to comprehend.

“Madame Thibodet—” Doctor Hébert turned from the window, took a step in the direction of Monsieur Bourgois’s desk. “Elise, my sister—” He stopped again, passing his palm across his forehead and pausing to inspect the dampness gathered there. As he had anticipated, it was difficult to begin. He cleared his throat. “I have not seen her, not since I came to the colony. I do not know where she is at all. Nor did her husband before he died.”

“I see…” Monsieur Bourgois’s expression seemed to blur as he turned his head to the left, directing his dim gaze over the doctor’s shoulder to the open windows behind him. Hair lifted coolly on the back of the doctor’s neck, maybe from the humid breeze.

“I had intended to ask you,” he said, “if she had come here. To draw money perhaps. She might have done that.”

“Ah.” Monsieur Bourgois braced his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet. Gingerly he walked to a mahogany cupboard—lamed by gout, the doctor surmised. He opened the cabinet with a small key from his watch chain and took out a bottle of brandy.

“Will you join me?”

“No, thank you,” the doctor said.

Monsieur Bourgois inclined his head and poured from the bottle into a straight tumbler, two fingers’ worth. From a carafe on the desk corner he added a lesser measure of water and drank off the mixture in a single draught.

“
S’il vous plaît
,” he said to the doctor, stroking the bottle he’d set down beside the carafe and glass. “If you should reconsider—allow me a moment.” Monsieur Bourgois limped goutily to the door and crossed the landing into the clerk’s chamber, leaving both doors ajar.

Shifting through the casements, the harbor breeze disturbed some papers on the desk. The doctor walked over and shifted a polished stone to secure them. He picked up the brandy bottle and sniffed the cork: good, well-aged spirit and assuredly from the metropole. Beside the brown-stained drinking glass sat a hard-shelled iridescent beetle, big as a baby’s fist. Just as the doctor noticed it, the beetle clicked out transparent wings from under the halves of its carapace and flew with a whirring sound toward the door. The doctor replaced the bottle on the desk as Monsieur Bourgois came back into the room.

“It’s as I thought,” the
négociant
said. “As I remembered. She drew on us two months ago, and for a considerable sum.” He handed a folded slip of paper across the desk. When the doctor opened it, his lips formed a round and he exhaled with a sound like wind across a bottleneck.

“Indeed,” he said. “More than considerable.”

“We love luxury here, some of us do…” Monsieur Bourgois fanned his fleshy hands. “One cannot say. For such a price one might obtain…a lady’s maid, perhaps, already trained. They’re dear. Perhaps she had some other notion.”

“She may have planned a journey…”

“It’s possible,” Monsieur Bourgois said. “Of course it would not become me to ask intrusive questions of Madame Thibodet. A Madame Cigny, however, I know to have been her intimate friend; she stayed at the Cigny house whenever she was in the city.” He wrote the address on the slip of paper below the figure and the doctor thanked him for it.

“Our house has agents in Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes,” Monsieur Bourgois said. “Also at Guadeloupe, and Martinique. I could make inquiry, on your behalf.”

“Discreetly,” said the doctor.

“
Entendu
.”

The same flying beetle or another like it flew in the window, whirring and bumbling toward the desk. Monsieur Bourgois swatted at it with the back of his hand and almost as if by accident knocked it stunned into a corner. The doctor picked it up and carried it to the casements to look at it in better light, but before he could make a close examination the insect recovered itself and flew. He turned again to the desk.

“You’re absolutely sure there was a child,” he said.

“Without a doubt,” said Monsieur Bourgois. “Why, I’ve met her myself,
chez Madame Cigny
. A little dumpling. Her name is Sophie, I believe.”

The doctor stared at his empty palm, the creases crossing it. He could still feel the pricking of insect legs on the skin. “I’ve reconsidered,” he said. “May I take some brandy?”

“Of course.” Monsieur Bourgois nodded to the bottle. The doctor poured himself a short measure and sipped it undiluted.

“She’s got black hair, your niece,” Monsieur Bourgois said. “Brown eyes, but they had a light. I saw her on her mother’s knee and she looked me through and through…I’m fond of children. And yourself?”

“It’s human nature,” the doctor said, and set down his glass. “I’m grateful for your patience and discretion.” He made his farewell and went down to the street.

C
ALLING UPON
M
ADAME
C
IGNY
he found no one at home, and saw no use to leave a note since so far he had not found lodging. A little footsore now, to complement his saddlesoreness, the doctor walked back toward the Place d’Armes and engaged a room at an inn near Crozac’s establishment. This business done, he crossed the way and entered the stable to see to his horse.

Espoir had been brushed to a sleek shine, tangles combed out of his mane and tail. There was hay in the manger and a trace of grain in the feedbox. The doctor was pleased. He lingered, savoring the quiet and the warm horse smell. Outside the light was failing quickly and it was quite dark within the stall. He stroked his horse and fed it sugar; odd how easily he thought of it as his, when properly it belonged to—not Thibodet, who could own nothing any longer. To Thibodet’s widow, or failing that, his child. It bore in on the doctor that for the time being he was responsible and alone. There would be much to do and to learn, and in his fatigue of the moment he was unsure he would be equal to it all.

A
T THE INN
he ate a dish of chicken served in the common dining room, and drank half a bottle of sour red wine, all that was available there. He was alone at his table and the only one dining, though several parties of men had come to drink and gamble, both white and colored, though they did not mix. Yet at a table among white men playing cards was one the doctor could not place. His skin was pale, but covered with a skein of freckles spiraling like a weird brown galaxy. But for color his nose and cheekbones were those of a Negro, and still his eyes were green. A
sacatra?
Or a
griffe?
The doctor had not learned all the dozens of classifications for mixed blood and in fact he doubted if anyone fully understood the system well enough to apply it on no more evidence than sight.