Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [171]
He caught his breath, then went to greet the master of the land.
“Welcome,” Arnaud pronounced, letting his cane swing free as he took the captain’s hand. “Come in and see the work, for what it’s worth.”
Maillart followed him through the doorway, which at present lacked a lintel. The roof was gone too, so the area of the mill was open to the sky. The masonry walls were jaggedly shattered, battered down to ankle height in places, and fire-blackened to the top.
Arnaud was following the captain’s glance. “Yes,” he said. “They were very thorough in their destruction, but had not the patience to smash down all the walls.” He snorted. “I may call that my good fortune. The press itself they were careful to knock down, but the iron—that was less damaged than I feared and, as you see, we have raised it up again.”
Maillart followed the cane tip to the fresh masonry, more sloppily done than the older stonework, which supported the two vertical iron cylinders of the cane press. A system of gears ran through the wall to a spoked wheel outside. Through the gaps in the broken wall, Maillart could see two bullocks and a single mule, turning the central hub which ran the press. A boy urged the animals along with soft speech and light flicks of a green switch.
“Ouais, ça roule encore.” Arnaud fanned himself with his hat, a near-shapeless, hastily crafted object of the sort a slave might have worn. “It works—after a fashion.”
The captain stared at the crushed cane stalks emerging from the interlocked grooves of the press. Below, the syrup flowed into the slant of a dug-out log.
“Come.” Arnaud gestured with his cane.
Maillart followed him to the lower level, where the sap was boiled and reduced to sugar. The roof had disappeared here too, and the posts which had supported it burnt back to foot-high stumps. Two men worked the syrup with long-handled ladles. Flies covered the viscous surface of the tanks.
“We have not the means to refine white sugar now,” Arnaud said. “And I regret to say there are impurities even in the brown. Still, it is something. He raised his voice. “Finished for the morning! Go rest!”
The men at once laid down their tools, and Maillart heard the gears of the mill clank to a halt. He followed Arnaud around the outer edges of the broken walls, and they walked up through the compound. A chill clutched at the captain as they passed the shed, and then the heat returned, like fever.
“It was not so in better days,” Arnaud reported, “this business of the noon hiatus. But now they will not work without it. He slashed at the air before him with his cane. “Free labor.” The cane whistled and sang alarmingly. “I give you that for free labor!” He let the cane drop against his side. “Well, it’s what we’ve got.”
Maillart had seen no sign of a residence, but now they were mounting a twisted trail that passed through the citrus hedge and climbed through a stand of bamboo that covered the lower slopes of the morne behind the plantation. The path gave onto an apron of cleared ground, which opened out before a low rectangular dwelling, backed against the raw face of mountain. Flaville was waiting for them there, seated at a roughly carpentered table on the porch.
“Anou bwé rhum,” Arnaud said, directing the captain toward a stool, as he went into the house. Maillart sat down and looked about. Though the climb had not seemed so very arduous, he now could now see over the compound from a considerable height. To the left was the sound of running water, and he saw that a ditch dug in the clay channeled the runoff around the border of the little yard—away from the house floor, which consisted of splintery puncheon embedded in the earth.
Arnaud returned, carrying two bottles pinched together in one hand, and three cups fashioned from calabash in the other.
“We are not very elegant,” he said, setting down these accouterments. He sat and poured a measure of raw, clear rum into each gourd, and pushed the cups across the table to his guests.
“A l’aise, messieurs,” he said. “The other bottle is water.