Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [386]
By dint of a massive effort of concentration, the doctor had completed his copy. He swiveled on his stool and presented it wordlessly to Toussaint, who spread it on the desk and signed it with his usual triple-dotted flourish. Folding the letter in three, Toussaint applied a wax seal and held it toward Vincent.
“I venture to add this private mission to your public one,” he said. “A letter to my sons. And in this affair as in the other, I trust you absolutely.”
Vincent clicked his heels and bowed. “I shall endeavor to be worthy of your trust.”
With Moustique, Marie-Noelle, and Riau, the doctor walked into the Place Clugny. At first light the square was nearly empty, though a few of the market women had already begun to appear, beginning to furnish their stalls. One tall and stately woman with a basket of soursops balanced on her head, another leading a donkey with panniers of green oranges . . . Marie-Noelle’s little son, called Jean-Baptiste, came trotting along behind the others. The dawn breeze coming from the sea ruffled the leaves of the figuiers planted round the edges of the square.
Moustique stopped, to the left of the central fountain, and handed Jean-Baptiste the gourd of water he had carried from the hunfor.
“Alé,” he said.
The boy looked up at him, quizzical. He had a sweet, milk-chocolate colored face. His stomach protruded slightly under his shirt.
Moustique nodded. The boy moved in a leftward circle, pouring out the water till the gourd was empty and a damp ring in the dust had closed upon itself. He looked up, smiling, dangling the gourd.
“Poukisa n’ap fé konsa?” he said. Why do we do like this?
The doctor felt the quiet of attention of the market women who had continued to drift into the square while the child performed this small ceremony of remembrance. He did not look at them, but he felt their eyes.
“For the spirit of your grandfather,” Moustique said. “He was killed here by the blancs, right on this spot.”
“But my grandfather was a blanc.”
Moustique’s face screwed up, then relaxed and cleared. “It is so,” he said, going down on one knee beside the boy. “Still the other blancs killed him. He was a priest of God, an innocent man, and a martyr.”
“The blood is of the martyrs,” said Jean-Baptiste, in the recitative voice of catechism.
“It is so,” said Moustique, “but water is greater. Greater than either blood or wine.” He touched the child on his head, and stood up.
“Lamou pi fò pasé lahaine,” Jean-Baptiste said.
“Yes,” said Moustique, with some difficulty, as another contortion ran over his face. “Love is stronger than hate.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “he has learned a great deal since he came into your care.” He glanced from Moustique to Marie-Noelle, who stood with her legs set slightly apart, rooted. A beautiful girl, with large clear eyes. She was pregnant again, and it became her.
The doctor lowered his eyes and looked at the ring of water sinking into the dust. Moustique had told him how such an offering of water might raise a spirit from its resting place. And at this moment he did feel the presence of the Père Bonne-chance, a sort of hum between the tendons at the back of his neck. A short, burly, balding man, with a smile that split his bullet head from one ear to the other. He had been a worldly man, excessively so for a priest (though the priests of Saint Domingue were quite an irregular lot). If one judged by his death, which had been slow and gruesome, he had hardly lived up to his name for good luck, and yet in his worldliness he had done, in small, barely noticeable increments, considerable good. In his worldliness, he would certainly have appreciated the woman who had captured his son’s fancy. Lamou pi fò pasé lahaine, indeed.
The moment had passed. Marie-Noelle twitched out a basket from behind her hip and ducked her head, with a smile. Taking Jean-Baptiste by the hand, she went off to do her marketing.
With Riau and Moustique, the doctor went out riding. The mission