Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [59]
“I had taken her for white,” Maillart said.
“For that you might be forgiven. Though if you think more carefully—have you ever seen a white woman move like that?” O’Farrel seemed to sigh in the darkness. “As for her other talents and duties—well, I believe the good Monsieur Monot is incapable, owing to his years.”
Maillart could not see the wink, but felt the major must be winking as he went on, “If you have the luck to taste her sweetness, I can only wish you joy.”
The captain’s room was pleasantly appointed, his bed comfortable enough, the air fresh once he opened the French doors letting on to an iron balcony common to all the bedrooms on the front of the second floor of the house. Along with the cool night air, the braying of the water sellers’ donkeys entered the room—it was said the blacks of the town claimed that the donkeys knew the time and reported on the hours.
Maybe it was the intermittent braying that kept the captain awake, or maybe it was the cascade of images of Isabelle, himself with Isabelle: the spiciness of sexual memory stinging like salt on abraded skin. A quick parting of their clothing here and there, flashes of pale thigh or breast, her deeper, rosier openings. He had known her in her own house in Le Cap, where they had carried on in heat and haste, improvising against the chance of discovery by her husband or the servants or even her other swains. He had never seen her wholly naked—no opportunity for such luxury. But though he was astonished by her boldness, they had never been caught outright. It was perhaps her boldness that protected them—she seemed to have no more conscience than a stoat, and could, five minutes following an act of illicit passion, be coolly pouring coffee for her husband in the parlor . . .
He felt certain she must come to him tonight. He tumbled restlessly in the bed; the donkeys brayed and the hours passed, but she did not come. Nor could he sleep. At last he went out on the balcony, his bare toes curling on the cold iron, but all the other French doors were shut and latched and bolted, except the last pair, slightly ajar. When Maillart delicately coaxed the near door open with a finger, it uttered a hideous rusty squeal, and inside Agathe sat bolt upright in bed, sheet clasped to her breast with one hand that rose and fell dramatically. She stared at him, her full lips parted, but made no sound or sign. With that bone trimming of the moon behind him, Maillart knew he was only a shadow to her, she could not see his face. For a long moment he hesitated on the threshold, but at last he returned to his own room, where he slept fitfully, and woke late in the morning with a heavy head.
Maillart took coffee in the garden (alone, for it seemed that Monsieur Monot had gone out on some errand) and ate an omelet slowly, hoping for a glimpse of Isabelle, who did not appear. In spite of the still, arid heat, he called for his horse and rode to the barracks on the hill, thinking to renew his approach to O’Farrel. He had not yet made it clear to the major just what Toussaint’s presence on the scene might signify—and had their positions been reversed, Maillart knew that he would have had difficulty grasping this point himself.
He sent in his name at the gate of the casernes, and waited under the same wild fig tree as before. The shade was not adequate now against the noonday heat. Beyond the town and the peninsula’s tip, the sea was a flat, turquoise pancake, motionless; there was no wind. After half an hour, when no one had come, Maillart got up and walked in through the gate, fanning himself with his hat. No one challenged him. The British soldiers in the barracks yard seemed disoriented, stunned by the heat. They were not acclimated and many, no doubt, were beginning to fall ill . . . Sweating in their red woollen coats, they stank