Master of the Crossroads (60 page)

By then, Toussaint had already put Dessources to flight any number of times, and probably could have killed or captured him more than once, but it was becoming apparent to some observers (Maillart and the doctor, for example) that Toussaint preferred to leave incompetent enemy commanders in the field, that they might fight and lose again another day. By the time Simcoe managed to reverse his advance and rush back to the defense of Saint Marc, Dessources and the Chasseurs had been cut to pieces one more time, their remnants holed up in the town. Once Simcoe had brought his army back, Toussaint faded his own troops toward Gonaives and the Cordon de l’Ouest; he did not mean to fight a full engagement with such a large force on the Artibonite plain. A chess player’s victory of position: Simcoe would not risk another sally toward the interior, and all his fresh men would remain pinned down on the coast. Let fever take them.

In the wake of his uncertain campaign in the valley of Grande Rivière, General Desfourneaux (who got on with Sonthonax no better than with Moyse) was arrested and relieved of his command. Soon after, Toussaint Louverture was notified of his promotion to General-in-Chief of the French army in Saint Domingue. At Le Cap, Sonthonax arranged an elaborate ceremony for the promotion, at which Toussaint was presented with a pair of beautifully chased pistols and, also a gift from the French Directoire, an ornate saber whose blade was engraved with a statement of thanks for the part he’d played in saving Laveaux from the schemes of Villatte.

Throughout this affair, Toussaint was courteous, humble, and curiously withdrawn. There was none of the exaltation he had displayed when Laveaux proclaimed him Lieutenant-Governor. With his new rank conferred upon him, he addressed the crowd in a low tone, saying only that his elevation did him too much honor, that his sole desire was to drive the remaining enemies from the colony and work for the happiness of its true citizens. At the state dinner which followed, he was taciturn, ate nothing but bread and cheese and part of a piece of fruit, refused the wine in favor of cold water.

That night, on the veranda of the officers’ quarters in the
casernes,
Toussaint sat late in the company of a few of the black subordinates to whom he was closest: Dessalines, Christophe, Moyse, Maurepas and a few others. The doctor, who’d heard from Maillart that Toussaint seemed indisposed to entertain his white officers that evening, would not have approached, but he was walking with Riau and found that they’d drifted in that direction before he knew it. The chairs were all occupied, so Riau remained standing, while Doctor Hébert sat down on the stone coping at the edge of the veranda with his heels stretched out in the dirt of the yard and his face gazing out into the darkness. If he turned his head, he could see the high, shiny boots of the black officers under the table, shining faintly in refracted candlelight. Though Toussaint still abstained, the rest of them were drinking rum, and when Moyse passed him down a glassful, the doctor accepted it gratefully.

A sputter of conversation in Creole flared up and faded; the doctor paid little mind. He nursed his rum and looked into the dark. Presently a touch on his shoulder roused him; Moyse was showing him Toussaint’s saber and pistols for his admiration. The doctor pulled the saber a few inches from its scabbard and glanced at the inscription, then resheathed it. He had no facility with any blade larger than a scalpel. The pistols were another matter. They were beautifully decorated but far from merely ornamental—Manufacture of Versailles, they would shoot true. The doctor aimed each one of them into the dark, held them both together in each hand and grunted in satisfaction at their balance and their weight.

Some further response was clearly called for. “These are handsome weapons,” the doctor said, standing up to set the pistols on the table.

“They ought to be,” Toussaint said, gathering the sheathed saber against his thigh, “if I have given my sons for them.”

The doctor, who thought it best to construe this comment as addressed to the company at large, resumed his seat on the stone curb, recovering his glass which was now almost empty and withdrawing his face from the light.

“Have I not struggled unceasingly against the Spanish? and the English? against all enemies of the French Republic? I have brought victories, and brought order to the countryside, and I have even given my boys into the care of France. Is it possible, after I have offered so much, that my loyalty should be in doubt?”

This plaint ought to have seemed odd, on such a day, but somehow it did not. For no explicable reason, the doctor found himself thinking of how Toussaint had defeated Simcoe by refusing to engage him, so that the British general was constantly unbalanced because he found no resistance anywhere he threw his weight. He tilted his glass and waited for the last few drops of rum to trickle toward his tongue. Dessalines leaned forward to try his palm against the candle flame for a moment, then sat back. Toussaint’s words still hung in the air without reply.

“Nou pa konnen.”
Riau’s voice, speaking from the shadow of the pillar where he stood. We don’t know. Several of the black officers were murmuring softly, as if they found his words to be apt.

26

August, and the sweltering heat was so overpowering that even the dogs of Le Cap were faint with lassitude, lying under stationary wagons or stretched over baking curbs. Doctor Hébert glanced wearily down at the dogs as he passed them. He and Captain Maillart were climbing the grade from the port; they had tried a promenade along the waterfront, but at this moment no breath of air was stirring even from the sea. Crossing the Place d’Armes at a diagonal, they struggled for a few more sweaty blocks, then paused on the corner of the Rue Saint Louis to let their lather dry before they went on to the Cigny house, where both were invited to dine.

They had come before the appointed hour, but the doctor was still occupying a bedroom in that house, and Maillart seemed sure enough of his reception. As they approached, they saw Isabelle Cigny standing on the second-floor balcony, fluttering a handkerchief in their direction. When they’d reached the portal, she furled the handkerchief around a large brass key and let it drop to the captain’s deft catch. Servants were in short supply, and those she had were busy in the kitchen; they must let themselves in, she explained, and she swung her skirts from the filigreed iron railing, through the double doors and into the house.

Maillart unlocked the door and held it for the doctor. Once they had entered, he laid the key in a slightly tarnished tray on the hall stand, retaining the handkerchief bunched in his left hand like a posy. The parlor was empty; they found Isabelle in the kitchen, bullying the cook. Claudine Arnaud sat at the center table, polishing silver knives and forks, with the help of a couple of
négrillons.
She smiled at the doctor’s greeting, and went on with her task. One of the little boys went out for water, and on his way he paused to lay his cheek against Claudine’s skirt, wrapping one arm around her waist for a moment before he skipped out.

“Remarkable,” Isabelle said, turning from the stove to whisper to the doctor. “Her way with them?”

“Quite,” the doctor said. He watched Claudine. The boy who had remained was offering a fork for her inspection. She turned it this way and that, peering between the tines, then smiled her approval and set it with the already polished pieces.

“This mania for teaching them to read—who knows where
that
will end, I wonder . . . but those little ones will do anything for her, do it patiently and well, when no one else can get them to do anything at all. And she is specially invited to their dances, you know, those Negro
calenda
—” Isabelle looked up at him, her lips parted and her face flushed from heat, which was still more intense in the kitchen.
Dances
indeed,
the doctor thought; Isabelle probably knew or suspected something more than that. He felt probed, but said nothing, knowing she’d not let a silence linger.

“Eccentricity, one might call it,” she said brightly, “but—” All at once she affected to notice, for the first time, the captain standing in the doorway. “My handkerchief, if you please,” she said to him.

Maillart moved toward the middle of the room, flourishing his cloth posy. “Would I relinquish my lady’s favor?” he said teasingly.

“Oh, give it me,” Isabelle said, and reached, but Maillart held the pale drape of cloth just an inch or two above her grasping fingers. She stretched out prettily on tiptoe, but the doctor thought her smile was worn a little thin. He ducked his head, slipped out the door and went up the stairs to his garret.

Half a jug of tepid water was on the washstand. The doctor washed his face and hands and torso, then stood by the round porthole, letting the humid air do what it could to dry him as he peered down at the street. He put on a fresh shirt and went down to the second-floor balcony where Isabelle had been standing. Presently Captain Maillart came out through the double doors to join him.

“Well, who captured the handkerchief in the end?” the doctor said.

Maillart contrived a cough. “That game’s not worth the candle,” he said shortly. The doctor gave him a curious glance, but Maillart was looking the other way down the street.

“Why, here comes our host, I do believe,” said the captain. “This affair must have a certain weight, if he’s attending.”

The doctor leaned out, the iron rail hot against his palms. The burly, bearded figure of Monsieur Cigny was just coming to his door, head lowered and features concealed by his hat brim. Cigny was known for avoiding his wife’s entertainments as, in more halcyon days before the insurrection, he’d turned a blind eye to her
amours.

“It is the commissioner, after all,” the doctor said.

“And General Toussaint?”

“I saw him at Bréda, this morning.”

Maillart was looking at him sharply.

“Well,” said the doctor, “I cannot say if he will come.”

Pale dust swirled up at either corner, from the horse and cart and foot traffic of the day’s end. Farther off to the south, the noise of the market at the Place Clugny was a distant, monotonous hum. Now, gratefully, they felt a breeze, swiftly rising till it was truly a gust of wind. The clouds were boiling over from Morne du Cap, and people called urgently to one another as they scurried from the street. Maillart’s hair whipped around his head. The doctor squinted, one eye tearing around a dust particle that had blown up from the street. The sky was bulging over the mountain, slate blue and gray and purple and black, scored here and there with a rake of lightning. Then it opened, and the rain came down.

Indoors, Monsieur Cigny sat by his lamp, intently reading a two-month-old newspaper from France. He grunted a greeting when the other two men came in. The ladies had withdrawn to dress for the evening; an agreeable brown, spicy smell drifted in from the kitchen. The doctor and the captain sat down opposite one another and, with small concentration, began a game of chess. The narrow arched doors had been closed against the rain, which rushed loudly against them. It was close in the room, but the air, though heavy, was growing somewhat cooler.

“Me voilà en bonne républicaine.”
Madame Cigny crossed the threshold and dropped into a curtsey, holding the pose for a moment, with a smile fixed on her face as though it were painted on china. Then she stood and turned in a supple circle with her arms stretched out.

“Marvelous,” the doctor said dutifully, while Maillart fluttered his fingers against his palm. The dress was eye-filling: taffeta in French tricolor stripes of red, white and blue, with a full skirt and puffs of white muslin at the sleeves and bosom. Even the buttons had been carefully covered in tricolor fabric, in the manner of wee Republican cockades, to complete the effect of ardent patriotism.

“Ma chère,”
said Cigny, glancing up above his reading glasses, “I hope you do not go too far.” He sniffed and lowered his head into the newspaper. Isabelle smirked in his direction and went out.

The rain had stopped. Maillart got up to open the doors; a current of cool moist air entered the room, guttering the lamp flames. The captain frowned over his position for a moment or more, then turned over his king with his thumb and stood up, giving Doctor Hébert a significant look. He left the room, and after a moment the doctor followed him onto the second-floor balcony.

It was full dark, but the moon had risen from the harbor, and poured clear light all over the street. Maillart slipped a hand into his inner coat pocket and produced a flask. The doctor accepted and turned it up.

“Why, it is real cognac!” he said.

Maillart nodded, and drank in his turn. “A stroke of luck,” he said, “at the
casernes.
”

Below, lamps at the doorway cast a warm yellow apron against the paler shade of moonlight on the street. A coach had pulled up, and from it descended the Commissioner Julien Raimond. He handed his wife down, and the two of them went into the house; the doctor could hear Isabelle’s voice tinkling for a moment before the door closed.

Maillart offered the flask again, and the doctor accepted. Two men were dismounting from their horses before the door: black officers, Moyse and Clervaux. They entered. The doctor returned the flask to Maillart, who drank and dried the neck and corked it, then put it away in his coat. They watched the passersby on the street below: for some few minutes no one stopped. Then a larger carriage, with two soldiers riding at the rear like footmen, pulled up sharply. A soldier moved smoothly to open the door, and out stepped Pascal, secretary to the Commission, then Sonthonax himself, bareheaded. A moment, then the gentlemen helped down from the coach Marie Bleigeat, the colored beauty Sonthonax had married the year before. She carried a bundle in her arms and was followed by a small black woman with a basket.

“We had better go down,” the captain said. Again the doctor followed him, grateful for the cognac. The evening would not be naturally relaxing.

In the parlor was all the company they’d seen arrive, along with Major Joseph Flaville, who seemed to have been there for some time, much at his ease on a small spindly chair which his imposing figure covered so perfectly he seemed almost to be levitating there. Did the captain twitch when he noticed Flaville? But the doctor was distracted at once by the commotion surrounding Madame Sonthonax; all the women were exclaiming over the parcel she cradled: Jules-Pierre-Isidore Sonthonax.

“But sir,” said Monsieur Cigny, bowing to the commissioner. “I am delighted to see, as we all must be, how firmly you have rooted yourself in this country.”

Sonthonax was not a tall man, and the extravagant commissioner’s sash round his midsection emphasized a certain portliness. His brown hair hung straight to his shoulders, unpowdered and unadorned. His head came directly out of his shoulders like a bullet, which gave him a formidable aspect despite his insignificant height. For a moment he said nothing and all the company had to wonder how Cigny’s pleasantry would be taken. Sonthonax had fair skin which colored easily, but soon it appeared that his flush was only a new father’s inarticulate pride.

Isabelle shook her fan at her husband in mock reproach. Marie Sonthonax dimpled, dropping her head, while the white men laughingly congratulated the commissioner; the black officers, meanwhile, retained a greater reserve. The baby was carried to the next room for further admiration among the women, and soon Doctor Hébert was called into service, to verify that Jules-Pierre-Isidore had all his features and fingers and toes and was an enviably perfect specimen of humanity. Bending his ear to the infant’s heart, the doctor was pricked by a strange emotion; his own son Paul had been born in this house, and he had been in attendance. The ripple of feeling lent sincerity to his voice as he praised the qualities of the Sonthonax first-born.

There was a bustle round the door, and Isabelle turned expectantly as Monsieur Cigny opened it. The new guests were the black Colonel Maurepas and his wife. Madame Maurepas appeared quite frightened to find herself there; she stood stiff and mute while introductions were accomplished, but Maurepas himself seemed comfortable enough with the formalities. He bowed to Cigny, still lower to Isabelle, and balanced his hat in his hands.

“General Toussaint Louverture presents his compliments,” he said, “with his regrets; he cannot join your company this evening.”

At once the baby began to wail, as if on cue, though the doctor knew it was only that the women had teased him into a state of irritation. Marie Sonthonax squirmed in an unhappy confusion.

“Oh,” she said. “I ought not to have brought him—”

“But my dear, it was I who insisted.” Isabelle Cigny pressed Marie’s ivory forearm. “Jules-Pierre-Isidore is our most important guest, and our evening certainly could not succeed without him.”

With that, the moment was salvaged. The smallest Sonthonax was given into the hands of the little black woman with the basket—his wet-nurse, it appeared. A door was shut upon them, and soon all was quiet, while in the parlor the evening went on.

At dinner Sonthonax fully recovered his powers of speech (which very rarely deserted him) to shower the kitchen with compliments. He was known to appreciate the pleasures of the table, and Isabelle had put herself out to impress him. There was a proper fish soup, a lovely rich shade of brown and redolent with spices; it had taken the cook (Isabelle explained) four attempts to achieve the right shade of
roux
without scorching it. The next course was beef, with a garnish of mushrooms gathered from some moist cove near Haut du Cap. The conversation mostly revolved around the food, for each course and dish came trailing its anecdote, and Sonthonax was deft with his compliments and showed an almost professional interest in the procedures of the Cigny kitchen.

And no one was seeking to turn the talk in another direction. The table rather lacked for ladies. Madame Arnaud had dressed (or had been dressed by Isabelle) in a white revolutionary chemise, decorated with frills of tricolor ribbon; almost alarmingly form-fitting, the garment let the doctor see that Claudine had indeed regained some weight since her bouts of madness had abated. She seemed calm, even almost contented, but at table she spoke only when spoken too, and that briefly, leaving her costume to make the point that she was as thoroughly Republican as anyone could wish. Michel Arnaud was absent, supervising their plantation on the plain, which was probably for the better, as he could not have carried off such a masquerade.

Sonthonax’s bride was a woman of some worldliness, at twenty-seven the widow of one Villevaleix, who’d been a very wealthy colored gentleman of the northern region. A beautiful woman, and gorgeously dressed, she observed the mock flirtation between Isabelle and Sonthonax with the mildest interest, now and then contributing a phrase or two in a languid, honeyed tone. Across the table, Madame Maurepas kept her eyes lowered, her head bowed; she was dressed as if for church, and looked as if she wished she were invisible.

Presiding, technically at least, at the table’s head, Monsieur Cigny had lapsed from his scintillating moment at the doorway into the abstraction he usually displayed on such occasions. As for the black officers, they ate slowly and seriously and said next to nothing—their officers’ mess was always a silent proceeding, though there might be garrulity before and after the meal. Raimond and Pascal put in a word as necessary to keep the conversation from faltering, for at any complete silence one could not help but notice the absence of Toussaint.