Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [376]
Zabeth was carrying a new child too. This made Bouquart very proud, and he walked about picking his knees up high, like a warhorse on parade.
Captain Riau stayed in the grand’case, though for one night only. It seemed better to me, when the doctor’s sister invited me. I did not want to refuse her offer, and also that way Guiaou could be the first to greet Merbillay and the children, which would please him. That night I dined with Elise on the gallery—no other guests had come but Riau. I did not know what I would say to her, without the doctor or any of the white officers there. But she spoke to me very naturally and asked questions in a way which made it easy for me to answer, with news of the south and other things she seemed to want to know about. Soon I was speaking as easily to her as to anyone, though I did not pretend to be making love to her when we talked, as Maillart or Vaublanc would sometimes do when they were there.
Afterward I lay in the room where the doctor slept when he was staying at Habitation Thibodet. The bed was fine, with a mattress made of feathers, which was too hot for the weather. We had been riding long that day, and in the evening I was drinking rum, but still my ti bon ange would not leave my body to go into the world of dreams. I lay thinking, I could not stop, I heard the house creak around its pegs, and outside the wind blowing through the long blades of the leaves. There was a crafty knocking at the back of the house, and I heard Zabeth giggling as she went out to be with Bouquart.
Riau must not think of Guiaou with Merbillay, he must divide himself from such a thought, and cover his mind with darkness, though the thought with its pictures would keep trying to push itself in, like a djab, a devil at the door. For Guiaou it must be the same, when he knew Riau was with Merbillay. Still it was better that neither of us had had to kill the other, the way Choufleur had finally had to die, even though the doctor would not kill him when he could have. Guiaou and Riau trusted each other, fighting in a battle or treating the sick. That was good. Also there were two men for the children instead of just one. It was only when we were at Thibodet at the same time that it was hard. Maybe that was only because it did not happen often that way, and that if we could build a lakou together to live there forever, it would go more easily, after a time.
In the morning when I woke, our children came running through the grand’case as if it were their own—Caco and Yoyo, because Marielle was too small for such games. Sophie had made a friend of Caco by way of Paul, and now that Paul was away she wanted these other friends to be with her still more. They ran screaming and laughing through the house, and afterward played by the pool where the doctor had set his floating flowers, while Riau took bread and coffee with Elise. It made me glad to see them, but I said to Elise that I would not return to the grand’case that night, because it was better that I sleep nearer to my men.
Who I slept with then was Merbillay, and the small one Marielle, and I did not think of anything but them. The next night I spent in the other ajoupa, where Bouquart and Bienvenu were staying, except that Bouquart had gone somewhere else with Zabeth. I played the banza there, and sang soft songs with Bienvenu, until it was time for sleeping. So it went for five or six days, a night in one place and a night in the other, and I saw Guiaou only by daylight. Then Toussaint called me to see him at that plantation he had bought for his family nearby, and he told me to