Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [172]
The captain drained his cup of clairin, and refilled the gourd from the water bottle. Flaville, meanwhile, sipped his measure more slowly. Arnaud drank about half his cup, then pushed back his stool to stand again.
“Well, I will look for something for us to eat.”
“Allow me to help you,” Maillart said, having come to the conclusion that there must be no servant on hand.
“If you will.” Arnaud shrugged.
The captain followed him indoors. The house was an alley of four rooms, two on each side of a corridor and open at either end. The roof was palm thatch and the walls were lattice, plaited from sticks. Arnaud turned to the right and Maillart followed, parting a hanging curtain made of strings of red seeds from the bean trees. He found himself in a bedchamber, furnished with a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a heavy bedstead. Without pausing, Arnaud passed through to the room behind, which was empty except for several padlocked chests and a pallet on the floor.
Taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, Arnaud unlocked one of the chests and took out a platter covered with a cloth, and a small clay jug. Atop another chest was a dish with a bunch of bananas, two mangos and some limes. Arnaud nodded at Maillart, who picked it up.
In the bedchamber he hesitated, catching the captain’s eye in the mirror propped on the chest of drawers. It must have been a fine mirror, once, though now the surface was smoke-stained and the gilt wood frame much damaged by fire.
“I have prepared this room for the return of my wife.”
Maillart inclined his head toward Arnaud’s reflection. He noticed that in this room alone the puncheon floor was sanded fine. Arnaud turned his face from the mirror and led the way back onto the porch.
“A woman comes to cook at night,” he said, unveiling a plate of cold corn cakes. “But I don’t trouble myself for the midday meal, we are so . . . short-handed.” He took off his ragged-brimmed hat and ran his hands back through his graying hair. “The work will recommence at three.”
“Ah,” said Flaville, with the air of making a pleasantry. “One might say that the Code Noir is respected here, nowadays. Concerning the treatment of the . . . cultivators.”
Arnaud gazed into space without replying.
Far below, behind the mill, men were loading sacks from a lean-to onto the pack saddles of a train of donkeys. “I see that something is already begun,” Maillart said.
“Yes,” said Arnaud, pouring molasses from the clay jug over his cornbread, “that convoy must leave in good time, to reach Le Cap before darkness.”
Maillart contained a restive movement and said nothing, though he was perturbed. Toussaint had sent him on this exploration to discover not only to what extent the production of sugar had been restored but also where the product was being sent—for Toussaint wished for all such exports to pass through his own hands at Gonaives. As Laveaux, Toussaint’s commanding officer, was in charge at Le Cap, the black general could have no reasonable objection to sugar being shipped in that direction. But Maillart felt uneasy, and the silence round the table weighed upon him. Flaville chewed methodically at the hard corn cake.
“This house,” the captain said, groping for a subject. “You did not choose to rebuild on the old site.”
“No,” Arnaud said. Thumbing the underside of his jaw, he looked down with the captain at the train of donkeys filing out, past the burnt black square of earth where the old grand’case had stood, and past that solitary standing shed.
“Here one takes the air more easily,” Arnaud said. “It is better for the health. Also there are considerations of security. Besides, the old site is accursed.”
Again the silence bore down on the three of them. The last donkey had left the compound, which was empty, motionless, except for that shed, which seemed to waver in the shimmering heat. The captain swallowed and swallowed at his bite of cornbread; only with the greatest difficulty could he get it down. When he had finally succeeded, he reached for the rum bottle served himself and drank.
“Why,” he said. “Why was that