Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [370]
The parrot beat its wings again, and landed on the top of Tocquet’s head. Grimacing, Tocquet disengaged its talons from his long hair, and shifted the bird down onto his shoulder, where it settled and began to preen.
Zabeth came out from the kitchen and set down a platter of fried eggs. Elise, with a resentful glare at the parrot, began to serve.
“Paul,” she called. “Sophie, come—Paul, at least you must eat something before you go.”
But the children had already run down the stairs and were splashing around the border of the pool.
“It is the excitement,” the doctor said, wiping up egg yolk with a piece of cassava. “Of course, I’ll carry something for him.”
“You must,” Elise said. She laid down her spoon, and straightened, poised. “Be careful—both of you.”
“Of course, we take all precautions,” the doctor said. “For the moment there seems to be nothing to fear.”
A splintered sunbeam fell through the tossing fronds of coconut to warm them where they sat around the table. The doctor took more coffee, stirred in sugar. The trickle of water feeding the pool was the same sound he had been hearing through his dream. He yawned, abruptly covering his mouth. Tocquet served the parrot a bit of frizzled egg white from the tines of his fork. Elise glowered at him.
“M’ap prié pou’w,” the parrot said. The round eye glittered.
“As you know, my dear, and have often told me,” Tocquet said, “I need all the prayers I can get.”
“Oh, he is a little green-feathered Tartuffe, your parrot,” Elise snapped, but she was smiling.
With a clink of harness, Bazau and Gros-jean led the doctor’s mare and Tocquet’s gelding into the yard below the pool. Paul and Sophie stopped their play and looked at the horses, suddenly solemn. Behind, a groom held Paul’s donkey, which wore a small saddle of red Spanish leather which Tocquet had obtained during one of his obscure missions over the mountains.
The doctor excused himself and went into the house. He drew on his boots and, with a certain weariness, strapped on his pistols. Trailing the long gun, his saddlebags slung across his shoulder, he crossed the gallery and went down to his mare.
“Take these,” Elise said, holding up the remaining bananas and a whole round of cassava. “For Paul.”
The doctor climbed back to the porch rail to accept the food. The mare jibbed a little at the irregular shape of the banana stalk. The doctor put it into his saddlebag and stroked the mare’s nose, murmuring. Tocquet broke from a long, slow hug with Elise, and trotted down the steps. With an unlit cheroot screwed into his mouth, he swung a leg over his horse. The parrot was still riding on his shoulder.
“Come, Paul,” the doctor called. “We’re going to say good-bye to your cousin.”
Paul stopped his play and straightened, facing Sophie and touching her shoulder. He gave her two kisses, one on each cheek. They were still small enough that embarrassment did not prevent such demonstrations of affection. Paul marched to his donkey, brushing away the groom’s attempt to help him up. With a firm grip on the mane, he mounted on his own, then leaned down to adjust the stirrups on the red saddle.
The doctor ran his finger under the girth that encircled his mare. She jibbed a little, again, as he got on. He stroked her withers absently. Sophie stood solemnly by the pool, a finger laid across her cheek, watching. Zabeth and Elise were at the top of the gallery steps, the black woman a bit more apparently pregnant than the white. Tocquet wheeled his horse in their direction. He touched his fingers to his hat brim, then, less obviously, to his lips.
They rode out, through the thickening coffee groves. Tocquet and Elise and the doctor had more or less abandoned sugarcane at Habitation Thibodet. In these times, when the armies ceaselessly requisitioned both men and nourishment, it was easier to turn a profit on the coffee. They’d put the low ground into yams and beans. Now, now that things were calmer, it might be possible to shift again to sugar.
A party of five, with Gros-jean and Bazau