Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [168]
Briefly, Toussaint closed his eyes. When he reopened them, Suzanne had appeared with a calabash full of cool water. He took it from her hands and drank. For some time longer he sat quite still, only his toes flexing a little, his mind deliciously empty and clear. When the shade of the mango tree began to move away from him, he put on his boots with the ghost of a sigh and crossed the yard to knock on the frame of the door.
“Will Saint-Jean go now to the priest?”
“He will go later,” Suzanne called from within. “After the heat.”
Toussaint went down across the square before the church. Indeed, it was very hot already, the sun vertical above the plumes of his hat, and the dust stirring white around his boots. When he came near the house behind the church, he could hear the drone of the boys’ recitation from the priest’s study. Occasionally, there would be the slap of a hand on the table to punctuate a correction l’Abbé Delahaye had made. Then the drone began again. Toussaint stood outside, half smiling as he listened.
When the lesson had ended the boys tumbled out, knocking into each other in the doorway: Placide the taller, scrawnier, serious-looking, with his high forehead. His skin had that coppery Arada tone, while Isaac was darker and more compact—somehow denser, it seemed. From his first years he had weighed as much or more than his brother, as if his bones were made of stone.
Both boys brightened when they saw him waiting. Toussaint hugged them, touching the backs of their heads, and sent them home to their mother.
“If you like, we can sit outdoors,” Delahaye said. “In the house it it is rather close, at this hour.”
He led the way to a little arbor, upwind of the cook fire ring, where three chairs had been arranged around a wicker table. Delahaye motioned for him to sit.
“They are applying themselves to their work?” Toussaint said. “They study with concentration?”
“Oh, they are assiduous enough,” Delahaye said. “They progress, in small steps.” He sat down with a whoosh of his cassock. “And certainly they are more faithful acolytes than some.”
“M’regrette sa,” Toussaint said hastily, for he was already sensitive on the point of Moustique. I’m sorry for that. He looked away. “I have heard the rumor,” he muttered, “that he has been running the hills here-about, but my own men find no sign of him.”
“I’ve seen nothing of him either,” Delahaye said, “nor yet of my stole and chalice, or my donkey.” With a quick, irritable movement he brushed an insect from the back of his neck. “However, he did leave us some remembrance of himself,” he said, “As you may now very plainly see.”
The priest looked significantly toward Marie-Noelle, who was waddling out of the house with a tray of refreshments. On the table between them she laid out cold bread and whole bananas, large glasses of water and small ones of rum. Toussaint kept silent till she had withdrawn.
“Suzanne will come to her, when it is time,” he said.
“Yes,” said Delahaye, “I knew that had been so arranged. And it must be soon, no? She looks ready to burst. But no matter.”
Toussaint picked up a banana and inspected the peel. Satisfied, he slit it open with thumbnail and took a small bite.
“There is news,” Delahaye said, a slightly rising note in his voice. Toussaint lifted his head.
“Brisbane has died, from the effects of his wound,” Delahaye said.
“Ah.” Toussaint set the banana back down on the table and spread his hand out flat beside it. Delahaye looked at him narrowly.
“No Latin phrases?” the priest said.
“Tout grâce à Dieu,” Toussaint murmured. “You are certain?”
“Oh, quite,” said Delahaye. “Infection. He had been shot through the throat apparently, and in this climate . . .”
“Yes,” Toussaint said, rocking almost imperceptibly in the chair. “Yes.”
Delahaye was still looking at him, with an edged curiosity. “You prosper very well in Caesar’s world, my son,” the priest said.
Toussaint, eyes lidded, swayed slightly in his seat but said nothing. He folded both