Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [38]
“J’écoute,” Choufleur said.
Maillart willed himself to relax, exhaling consciously, letting his stiff shoulders fall. He thought of Toussaint, not knowing why the image of the black man came to him. Next to the door behind him was a chair and Maillart drew it toward the center of the room, sat down, and crossed his legs.
Choufleur leaned over the desk top toward him. “I remember you, Maillart,” he said. “You were one of those who refused to receive me in the Regiment Le Cap—for this.” He touched the skin on the back of his left hand, below the braid of his uniform cuff. “But I receive you more generously. I remember too that you are a deserter, Maillart. You might be hanged for a royalist—we conduct such executions here.”
Maillart said nothing. The candle flames wavered. Choufleur’s shadow distorted itself across the rear corner of the room.
“Your dispatches,” Choufleur said.
Maillart kept silence. He felt oddly relaxed now, drained of ill temper, of injured pride. The fatigue of his journey was perhaps responsible. He studied Choufleur in the yellow light: he was rather a handsome man. His close-cut reddish hair showed to advantage the elegant African shape of his head. Maillart’s way of observing such details had changed during the time he’d spent in the interior. But the swirl of freckles across Choufleur’s face remained constantly perplexing. Maillart said nothing. There was power in silence. If you held your own stillness, your interlocutor might lose his balance, tumble forward into the hollow space you set before him, and fill it with more words. Maillart had sometimes found himself in such a spot with his black general, blurting out sentences he’d never meant to say.
“Je vous attends,” Choufleur said, but nothing more. Perhaps he was not to be drawn in such way.
“I mean no offense,” Maillart told him. “But my commander’s instructions are very explicit. My messages are for the ears of General Laveaux only. I regret to be unable to oblige you.”
“Your commander.” Choufleur’s eyebrows arched. The freckles swam with the movement of his skin.
“I have come directly from Toussaint Louverture.”
Choufleur laughed—a startling, silvery sound. The laugh was not bitter or mocking but had a tone of amused astonishment. It struck a note of sincerity for which Maillart was completely unprepared. He was moved to smile himself, but suppressed that response.
“The world is a very strange place,” Choufleur said. “Do you not find it so?”
Maillart rose from the chair he’d taken. “Undoubtedly.”
“How the world has changed since last we met! That you should serve under an ignorant slave who was, not long ago, the Comte de Noé’s barefoot coachman. And who does he serve, your Toussaint ‘Louverture’?” Choufleur released the surname with an opprobrious twist. “Who is that old man’s master now?”
Maillart remained silent, wondering if Choufleur really believed that Toussaint still had a master. He let himself be the first to break their stare. Choufleur turned to the soldier who’d remained standing at the door throughout their conversation, and barked out orders that he should lead Maillart and his companions to a billet where they could pass the night.
“But we will take lodgings in the town,” Maillart protested.
“The gate is closed here for the night.” Choufleur’s voice was peremptory as before. He was no longer looking at Maillart; he had taken up the plume of his pen. But as Maillart crossed the threshold, Choufleur did look up, as if to halt him with a glance.
“That plantation, what was it called? Near Ennery, you say?”
“What?” Maillart turned in the doorway, mildly confused.
“Hébert, your doctor, and his woman.” Choufleur was impatient.
His first flash of anger at this prying felt distant from Maillart, heat lightning on the horizon. He looked at Choufleur for a moment without reply. Then: “The matter seems to interest you.”
Choufleur swallowed. “Not particularly.”
Maillart went out. The soldier led him and the others to a single room on the opposite side of the barracks. He unlocked a door and gestured at the dim interior,