Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [258]
“Eccentricity, one might call it,” she said brightly, “but—” All at once she affected to notice, for the first time, the captain standing in the doorway. “My handkerchief, if you please,” she said to him.
Maillart moved toward the middle of the room, flourishing his cloth posy. “Would I relinquish my lady’s favor?” he said teasingly.
“Oh, give it me,” Isabelle said, and reached, but Maillart held the pale drape of cloth just an inch or two above her grasping fingers. She stretched out prettily on tiptoe, but the doctor thought her smile was worn a little thin. He ducked his head, slipped out the door and went up the stairs to his garret.
Half a jug of tepid water was on the washstand. The doctor washed his face and hands and torso, then stood by the round porthole, letting the humid air do what it could to dry him as he peered down at the street. He put on a fresh shirt and went down to the second-floor balcony where Isabelle had been standing. Presently Captain Maillart came out through the double doors to join him.
“Well, who captured the handkerchief in the end?” the doctor said.
Maillart contrived a cough. “That game’s not worth the candle,” he said shortly. The doctor gave him a curious glance, but Maillart was looking the other way down the street.
“Why, here comes our host, I do believe,” said the captain. “This affair must have a certain weight, if he’s attending.”
The doctor leaned out, the iron rail hot against his palms. The burly, bearded figure of Monsieur Cigny was just coming to his door, head lowered and features concealed by his hat brim. Cigny was known for avoiding his wife’s entertainments as, in more halcyon days before the insurrection, he’d turned a blind eye to her amours.
“It is the commissioner, after all,” the doctor said.
“And General Toussaint?”
“I saw him at Bréda, this morning.”
Maillart was looking at him sharply.
“Well,” said the doctor, “I cannot say if he will come.”
Pale dust swirled up at either corner, from the horse and cart and foot traffic of the day’s end. Farther off to the south, the noise of the market at the Place Clugny was a distant, monotonous hum. Now, gratefully, they felt a breeze, swiftly rising till it was truly a gust of wind. The clouds were boiling over from Morne du Cap, and people called urgently to one another as they scurried from the street. Maillart’s hair whipped around his head. The doctor squinted, one eye tearing around a dust particle that had blown up from the street. The sky was bulging over the mountain, slate blue and gray and purple and black, scored here and there with a rake of lightning. Then it opened, and the rain came down.
Indoors, Monsieur Cigny sat by his lamp, intently reading a two-month-old newspaper from France. He grunted a greeting when the other two men came in. The ladies had withdrawn to dress for the evening; an agreeable brown, spicy smell drifted in from the kitchen. The doctor and the captain sat down opposite one another and, with small concentration, began a game of chess. The narrow arched doors had been closed against the rain, which rushed loudly against them. It was close in the room, but the air, though heavy, was growing somewhat cooler.
“Me voilà en bonne républicaine.” Madame Cigny crossed the threshold and dropped into a curtsey, holding the pose for a moment, with a smile fixed on her face as though it were painted on china. Then she stood and turned in a supple circle with her arms stretched out.
“Marvelous,” the doctor said dutifully, while Maillart fluttered his fingers against his palm. The dress was eye-filling: taffeta in French tricolor stripes of red, white and blue, with a full skirt and puffs of white muslin at the sleeves and bosom. Even the buttons had been carefully covered in tricolor fabric, in the manner of wee Republican cockades, to complete the effect of ardent patriotism.
“Ma chère,” said Cigny, glancing up above his reading glasses, “I hope you do not go too far.” He sniffed and lowered his head