Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [354]
“You have made great strides here since my last visit,” the doctor said cheerfully. He glanced sidelong at the woman who keeled the great kettle over the fire.
“We make every effort,” Arnaud said. They took another drink apiece and then they returned in the direction of the mill.
It was the hour of midday repose. Flaville had gone off, with his men, to one of the neighboring plantations. The doctor checked on his mare in the stable, drank a mouthful of water, and found himself a hammock strung in a grove beyond the grand’case.
The shadows were long when he awoke, and he could hear the voices of children singing at Claudine’s little school. He rolled out of the hammock, pulled on his boots, and strolled idly toward the sound. A girl’s voice called out a greeting; he turned, still groggy with his sleep, and saw Fontelle and Paulette under the roof of the kitchen ajoupa, turning a young pig on a spit.
During what remained of the day, he heard the recitation of Claudine’s students, and inspected the infirmary, where all seemed to have gone smoothly since his last call there. Paulette, whose skills he knew, had taken over some of the duties of nursing, but under the gentler regime there was less injury and illness for her to see to. After darkness had fallen, they all gathered in the main room of the grand’case to eat. The assembly was sizable, including Cléo, Fontelle, Moustique and his three sisters; a long puncheon table had been knocked together to provide places for them all. Before falling to, they all joined hands while Moustique muttered a mostly inaudible prayer.
The food was good, and plentiful: rice and beans and fried plantain, a piquant sauce with soft green cashews to complement the pork. There was little conversation. At Fontelle’s glance or the flick of her finger, one or another of her daughters would rise to refill platters or refresh drinks. In former times, the doctor reflected privately, Arnaud would not conceivably have allowed any colored person to sit down at his table—not even Cléo, though she had certainly shared his bed, in the bad old days. Now all of them, even Claudine, seemed entirely at ease in their positions. The doctor’s only discomfort was that he had been sent to interrupt this harmony.
When the meal was done, Claudine and the other women set about cleaning up after it. Arnaud beckoned the doctor outdoors. A bottle glinted in the starlight. The doctor reached for it gladly.
“We are a little rough here, still,” Arnaud said. “Concerning the amenities.”
“Ah, but the rum is good,” the doctor said. “Shall we go up?” He pointed to the path ascending behind the house. Arnaud gave him a startled look.
“Oh, there’s no danger.” The doctor slapped at the back of his neck. “Only, the mosquitoes down here.”
They climbed single file up the trail to the pocket in the cliff which Arnaud had made his last line of defense, and sat down on the rocks, passing the bottle between them at slow intervals. The night was very quiet and clear. Under the starlight in the compound below, the doctor could see the progress made on Moustique’s chapel. The sanctuary was now enclosed by three walls of woven palm leaf, and rows of benches had been placed before it, in the open air. Above, a bright, pale crescent rocked the darker orb of the old moon.
“Toussaint has declared a new distribution,” the doctor said reluctantly.
“Oh?”
“Everything is to go into the government treasury,” the doctor said, “save the quarter share of the cultivators, and the costs of production.”
Arnaud’s jaw clicked shut. “I shall have trouble with my people.”
“It’s for the war,” the doctor said. “The soldiers must be paid . . . sometimes, something.” He stood up and caught water from the spring in his cupped hands and sipped at it, to cut the rum. “You won’t have to deal with it directly.”
Arnaud stared at him. “And why is that?”
“You’ve been conscripted. I’m meant to bring you with me down to Port-au-Prince.”
Arnaud exhaled heavily. As the air went out of him, he slumped forward, elbows digging into