Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [291]
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but—”
“She is uncertain as to your intentions,” Isabelle said. “Or so I infer. That is not all. But perhaps your intentions are not perfectly clear even to yourself. I’d counsel you not to press your case at once, but leave her time. But do come often.” Isabelle smiled, with a half-curtsey. “It always pleases me to see you.”
Following this interview the doctor got his horse and went out herb-gathering along the roads east of Le Cap, hoping the exercise would settle his mind. He did not return to the city gate until dusk, and went directly to the casernes, where he shared Maillart’s billet for the night. The captain inveighed against Nanon’s peculiarity. What does a woman want? he kept saying, as the doctor rolled in his hammock, searching for sleep. And I don’t say such a woman, but any woman at all . . . But the doctor did not want to talk about it.
The next morning he lingered in his hammock, his mood despondent, pretending to sleep till long after Captain Maillart had gone out. At last he rose and half-heartedly began sorting through the plants he had been collecting, using thread to tie up a few bundles for drying. But this project failed to engage him for long. He pulled on his boots and moped through the streets toward Government House.
There his interest was piqued by the sight of Toussaint emerging from the enclosure, on foot, surrounded by several of Hédouville’s entourage. One might almost say he was being harassed by them, for the black general did not look at all pleased. The doctor came within earshot, as Fabre, captain of the little fleet that had brought Hédouville out from France, was gesturing toward the port.
“General,” he said, “it would be my honor, as well as my pleasure, to convey you to France, and in that same vessel in which I carried General Hédouville hither.”
The young officers at his back exchanged ironic smiles, fingering their black collars. Fabre’s tone was mocking, and the doctor thought he detected hints of threat. Supplantation, deportation . . .
“Your ship is not large enough,” Toussaint said darkly, “for a man like me.”
The doctor hid a smile behind his hand, watching the white men’s sour reaction to this rejoinder. That this African should rate himself higher than the representative of the French government . . . The gesture itself was something he must have absorbed from Toussaint. With that thought, he wiped the smile away and put his hand into his coat pocket, touching the shard of mirror.
“But, mon général,” said one of the young men at the rear of the group. “How can you deny yourself the sight of France, the nation which has conferred such benefits on yourself and your people?”
“One day I do intend to go to France,” Toussaint said. He took off his tricorne hat and revealed the yellow kerchief tightly knotted over his head.
The young Frenchmen standing out of his line of view smirked at each other. Ce vieux magot coiffé de linge—the doctor had heard the phrase, from Maillart and others, often enough. He’d also heard that two of the inexperienced officers who’d circulated the witticism had been killed in an ambush near Saint Marc; according to some whispers, Toussaint was behind their deaths.
Toussaint aimed the third corner of his hat at a sapling on the shady side of the street, no more than a green stick, and barely the diameter of his thumb.
“I will go,” he said, “when that tree has grown large enough to build the ship to carry me.”
To this the humorists found no reply at all. Toussaint stepped away from them, replacing his hat back on his head. He seemed to catch sight of the doctor for the first time.
“Ah—come with me, please,” he said. “I want you.”
At the casernes the doctor was set at once to transcribing, from Toussaint’s dictation, a letter redolent with airs of loyalty and submission, which proffered to the Directoire Toussaint’s resignation