Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [25]
The women of the little town had risen and begun the business of the day, and a few men also went to and fro in the dirt street—all of them black or colored, for the French colons had fled the place, those who had not been killed in the insurrection. Some of the men were dressed in oddly assorted rags and tags of European military uniforms. Toussaint halted one of these he seemed to know.
“Koté Jean-François?”
“L’allé...” The foot soldier’s reply bespoke an eternity of absence, who-knew-where.
Toussaint rode directly to the church, a modest wooden building on a stone foundation. He hitched his horse and entered, sweeping off his hat at the threshold. Moustique tied the burro and followed him, blinking at the change of light. In place of candles they were burning torches of bois chandel; the pitchy smoke playing the part of incense. A few black women were scattered on the benches, and a pair of mulattresses dressed in penitential white. Two blancs in the uniforms of Spanish officers loitered just inside the door. At the altar stood l’Abbé Delahaye, his arms upraised to consecrate the host.
Toussaint dropped his hat on a backless bench and knelt before the altar, pulling off the yellow mouchwa têt he always wore and crumpling it in his left hand. Moustique looked curiously down on his grizzled hair, the bald spot toward the back. Never before had he seen Toussaint bareheaded. Then he remembered to kneel himself, but he still watched Toussaint sidelong, under his lashes, wondering at the docile, lamb-like manner with which he took communion. Next the priest moved toward him with the chalice and the bread, and Moustique closed his eyes completely and received.
After the service, l’Abbé Delahaye entertained his parishioner in the front room of the small house he occupied behind the church. A young black woman came into the room to serve them coffee—she had remained in Delahaye’s service of her own volition, though she was no longer a slave. There were no longer any slaves in Saint Domingue. Delahaye smiled privately at the thought, groped in the sack of herbs Toussaint had presented to him, and began to spread the contents on the table: sonnette, giraumon, tabac à Jacquot, then something that he didn’t recognize. He raised the leaves in his hand and turned to Toussaint.
“C’est quoi, ça?”
“C’est thym à manger.”
“Et ça sert à quoi?”
Toussaint was spooning sugar into his coffee, a great deal of sugar. “It is used,” he said, “by women who wish that their children would not be born alive.”
Delahaye straightened, stiffened, adjusted his stole.
“Monpè,” said Toussaint, “it must be said that oftentimes it is desirable to know of things which one does not intend to use.”
Delahaye raised his eyebrows, then nodded, somewhat reluctantly. He opened a notebook, picked up a stick of charcoal, and quickly sketched the herb and its flower on the first blank page. When he had finished, he closed the notebook over the leaves and laid his hand on the cover to flatten it.
“My son,” he said to Toussaint, “I see by your uniform that you are still given to the service of kings.”
Toussaint didn’t answer. His long-jawed black face was almost leadenly impassive. Delahaye had the impression that his sentence had overshot the mark and gone flying out the open door behind his guest, into the yard where the colored youth Toussaint had brought crouched on his heels, chatting idly with the black maidservant. That same mute impassivity was frequent among all those who had been slaves, whether African or Creole, but in this case it could not be assigned to stupidity or incomprehension. In the face of Toussaint’s stillness, Delahaye felt utterly at sea. With some difficulty he kept his own silence.
Presently Toussaint loosened a button on his uniform coat and inserted his hand, as if to produce something from an inside pocket. But when he drew forth the hand, it was empty. From outside the door came the faint twittering cry