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By Root 1264 0

and entertainments, with the officers of Toussaint’s army and the hommes de couleur who were important in the town, with their wives and also many beautiful colored women who did not have any husbands. The old grand blancs who had not been killed came also, and everyone treated Toussaint as if he was their father. He was master of the house then, and of the town and all the north except for Le Môle where the English were. And he gave himself to these parties of pleasure, more freely than he used to do, though it meant only that he might drink two glasses of wine or one of rum while he sat at the table or in the salon, instead of drinking only water as he usually did. Those evenings ended early anyway, and people who wanted to dance or go with the colored women went afterward to some other place, when the lamps and candles had been snuffed out at the Governor’s House, and everything was quiet.

Suzanne Louverture came up from Ennery for a time, to be with Toussaint and keep his house for him, with the youngest son, Saint-Jean. Everyone treated her very nicely, even the grand blancs from before, because she was Toussaint’s wife. But she did not like it very much. She did not know what to say to such people, and she went back to her plantation at Ennery as soon as she was able.

In those days, some said it happened that the old master of Bréda, Bayon de Libertat, came to the House of the Governor and moved to embrace Toussaint, but Toussaint pushed him away and said that he must not act so, for there was a greater distance between them now than before when Toussaint was a slave at Bréda. But I, Riau, I did not see this happen, and I did not really believe it either. I saw Bayon and Toussaint together many times, and they were not like that with one another, so I thought the story was invented by people who were against Toussaint in their secret hearts. Even at Bréda long ago, Bayon had not been so haughty like that when Toussaint was serving him, but instead he and Toussaint were easy with each other then, the same as now, so that it was hard to know even then that one was slave and the other master. But it was true also that Toussaint might have done this thing so that other people would see it and make a story travel which would stop people believing he was sold to the grand blancs, which some did whisper after Sonthonax had gone.

The House of the Governor was in the north end of the town, toward Fort Pinochet, and only a little way from the Customs House and the harbor. On the other side, the roots of the mountains were near. At night when all the noise and talk stopped and the Governor’s House was still and dark, sometimes the drums would begin speaking from the dark round hill above. I, Riau, went to the drums sometimes, though it was not my lakou, but I felt my spirit call me to go. That was a strong place on the round hill, with the church before it where Jesus was killed, and on the other side, against the mountain, a place of the Indian mysteries. In the church that colored son of Père Bonne-chance preached Jesus, but at night he also served as laplace in the hûnfor, and Maman Maig’ was mambo there. Through the eyes and tongue and the large hands of Maman Maig’ the spirit worked to bring to that place on the hill the blanche, Claudine Arnaud.

Sometimes Riau’s own spirit came to ride him at the drumming on that hill, so he could not say afterward what had happened or what the loa had done. Other times though, I stayed near to my head to look through my own eyes and see what happened with that blanche, when the drumming took her and her eyes rolled back and she collapsed into the linked arms of the hounsis. Then Erzulie-gé-Rouge rose up in the place of her body, red eyes afire in the pale drawn face, her hands made claws to tear at her clothes and flesh with anger and sorrow and bitterness for her losses. Or at other times it was Baron who rose, with his one eye bright and greedy on the world of living men, and other eye darkened, to look anba dlo. Many people came to that hûnfor because they had heard about this thing,