Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [271]
When Erzulie-gé-Rouge entered the blanche, she asked many very hard services from the people there, and would not be pleased with any given her, but at other times it looked that Erzulie required of the blanche a service of gentleness. For that, Claudine was always kind and strangely humble. She took pains to be good to children and to teach them things, no matter what children they were, or if she knew them or not. With people who were grown she was quiet and spoke little, and held her eyes down—whether the people were black or colored or white like herself, her manner with them was always the same. The serviteurs had begun to say that she had her skin turned inside out, and that she did not have the spirit of a white person at all, even though Arnaud, who was her husband, was very well known for the cruel things he had done to his slaves, and some people claimed to know that the blanche had done still worse than he before slavery was finished, when a bad spirit was with her, but now that seemed to be forgotten (though there were some who would still have killed Arnaud for what he had done in that other time).
All this looked strange to me sometimes, but I did not think about so very much at all; when Riau went to the ceremonies, the drums carried every question away so that at last there was a harmony no matter what had gone into making it. Those were pleasant weeks in the town also and at Governor’s House, and then Toussaint began planning a movement of his army, to secure the inner part of the country around Mirebalais which we had had to burn down when we left it the last time. As before, there would be some men moving inland along the Artibonite and others would go around the northern way up the valley of Grande Rivière and down through Banica. The doctor was ordered by Toussaint to go the southern way, to Gonaives and Pont d’Ester and east on the river—this made him unhappy since he was still hoping to get to Vallière to find what became of his woman, maybe, but Toussaint himself was going the other way and wanted the doctor with him, for his writing and his doctoring and as a check on Pascal, perhaps, who would also be going with Toussaint this time.
While Toussaint stayed at Governor’s House, the doctor had met some of the other colored women who came without men of their own and who had known Nanon well when she used to live among them at Le Cap, but none of them had any news of her—not since she had gone off to Ennery with the doctor himself. And though these women were beautiful themselves, he did not want them. He stayed by himself all the time, thinking about Nanon. Since everyone thought that Choufleur had gone to the south, maybe he had taken Nanon with him down there, so there was not so much reason to think she was at Vallière anymore. But as I, Riau, was to be sent on the northern route myself, I told the doctor I would look for her if I was able. At that time the army had even got some pay in money, so I could buy some things for Caco and Merbillay and send them with the doctor, who would be stopping at Ennery as that wing of the army moved through.
When Toussaint had gone south to Gonaives, other men went to Dondon with Moyse, and Captain Riau with his men among them. Our way went across the northern plain, and many of the plantations there were back at work, and there were a lot of people working in the cane. Some of our men, though, made mock of the cane workers as the army went past them, shouting that they were only men of the hoe, while we were all soldiers, men of the gun. I, Riau, thought it a bad thing to be saying, and I rode back down the line and made them stop. But afterward I felt bad toward myself that I had done this, and for an hour the men were sulky because their captain had ordered them to silence.
By nightfall this feeling had gone away, and we reached Dondon and camped there, and the next day began marching with