Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [174]
The room was empty, but someone had brought a basin of a water and a jagged scrap of soap. Maillart washed his face and torso, combed his wet hair back with his fingers and went out onto the porch. There was a pleasant smell of stewing chicken. Arnaud had come in from the fields and changed his clothes; Flaville sat near him, at the table.
Maillart walked down the path to see that Quamba and Guiaou were settled for the night. He claimed two more bunches of the bananas for the master’s table, and leaving the rest to be shared among the men, he climbed back up. During the meal Arnaud replied to Flaville’s occasional questions, or volunteered descriptions of the difficulties, the failures and small successes, of his effort to bring the cane fields back from ruin. It seemed he was not alone in all this; the northern region was spotted all over with French colonists lately returned from exile, although at least as many properties were under the management of black or mulatto tenants now.
Maillart listened, keeping his silence for the most part. He could not help thinking of that donkey caravan, now unloading sugar at Le Cap if all had gone well with the journey, and of Toussaint’s likely displeasure. But he would play the simple soldier; his only part was to observe and report.
The woman who had cooked cleared away the plates and brought the rum. It was dark by then, but the moon was high above the plain, so that every detail of the compound was plainly etched in silver. As Maillart reached for his gourd of rum, he heard a drum beat slowly, four deep, throbbing beats. Then the hush resumed. From the trees came a procession of men and women, who moved toward the shed with rhythmic, swaying steps. It seemed that Guiaou was among them, or at least the captain recognized his shirt, but Guiaou had a different gait, a different manner, as if he’d been transfigured. When the singing began, that deep-throated voice made of many joined together, the fine hairs stood to attention on Maillart’s forearms and the back of his neck. Drawing near the shed, the procession broke up into those bewildering spiral patterns that had so often terrified the captain in ambush situations, yet now the movement was graceful, delicate and gentle, like ink diffusing into water.
An old man held up a candle flame to each of the cardinal points of the compass, then set it aside and saluted the same four directions with a bottle which must have held strong spirits, for it burned gaily when he poured it on the ground and set it alight. Someone (was that Guiaou?) rushed forward and danced jerkily, barefoot on the bluish flames. Someone stove in the shed door with a maul. Three women entered, then came back out, bearing the bones gently on a litter woven of green branches. Led by a gaunt figure in a tall black hat, the procession snaked away into the trees.
The door of the empty shed hung lopsided from the frame like a broken tongue. Maillart glanced sidelong at Arnaud. Though he made no sound, a flow of tears ran from his eye sockets and branched along the angles of his jaw, and his throat worked steadily, as if he were swallowing blood. Presently he stood up, collected the rum from the table and disappeared onto the descending trail.
The captain glanced at Flaville, who seemed alert, poised as if ready to leap from his chair in any direction, though there was no hostility, no menace about him. Maillart felt something similar himself, as though his body and bones were made of air.
When Arnaud emerged on the ground below, he was carrying a lighted torch. He splashed the rum from the bottle on the walls of the shed on either side of the door, then thrust the torch