Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [102]
In the late afternoon they came marching into Le Cap along the Rue Espagnole. Through the smoke, which was heavy still, the sun spread a hellish light on the river where it uncoiled slowly into the bay. In their departure Christophe’s men had even tried to set fire to the trees lining the avenue on the approach to the city gate. On the Rue Espagnole they encountered a team of Villaret-Joyeuse’s sailors manning a pump, and learned that the admiral had made his landing the day before. The fires had been extinguished or brought under control, but there was no roof nor any shelter left standing anywhere in the town.
Grimly they marched down the slope to the waterfront, where the fresh wind dispersed most of the smoke, and proceeded along the quai. Nothing to see during their descent but cracked fire-blackened walls and foundations. The whole town resembled the crater of a volcano. The admiral’s men had dragged the carcasses of dead animals into the public squares and piled them up in preparation for another burning. Leclerc’s men marched in a sepulchral silence, their boots whispering over the ash. Now and then a man cursed softly when his foot came down on a hot coal.
L’Océan was moored not far from the smoking shell of the Customs House. Leclerc was quick to hail the first man he saw on the deck. When he was told that Pauline had disembarked the day before, the little general’s face seemed to go slightly paler under the film of ash that covered it already—or so Daspir thought, from where he sat his horse. The sailor pointed up the street into the wreckage of the town, and Leclerc and Hardy and their staff set out in that direction.
In two blocks they’d reached the enclosure of the colonial Governor’s residence. The outer wall still stood, and some of the stone archways of the destroyed building. An area under these arches had been swept clean and given a tent-roof made of sailcloth furnished with a couple of cots and Indian hassocks arranged on flagstones recently scrubbed clean of soot. A pot steaming over a small brazier gave off a fresh citrus scent that awakened on Daspir’s tongue the taste of that green orange. Pauline sat crosslegged on a hassock, next to a dark-haired Creole woman to whom Daspir’s eyes were instantly drawn. But everyone else was watching Pauline. She sprang to her feet when she saw Leclerc, and after a nicely balanced pause, rushed up to fling her arms around his neck. A performance—everyone knew that—but it was a spirited one, and Leclerc seemed to appreciate it as much as any of the others standing by.
Fort de Joux, France
October 1802
Toussaint moved with the smoothness of wind or water, or possibly it was the earth that rolled back beneath his planted feet, rushing its features up into his face. With a lifting of his heart, he knew he was again in Saint Domingue: the warmth of the air, heavy before rain; the stirring leaves of the almond trees; somewhere in the background a faint, fruity odor of corruption. A banana grove charged toward him, split to flow around him, the broad flat leaves whipping around his shoulders, skimming over his cheeks. He moved his hands to tighten the reins and check the reckless pace, but there was no horse, no bridle. He was looking up, abashed, into the crown of an enormous mapou tree, the dark green leaves all shivering together, and above a little hawk, the malfini, circling against the crimson sky. The odor he’d noticed was stronger now, and he swept onward, through undergrowth stunted by the shade of larger trees. Within the stone ring of a scorched foundation, there appeared a dump of mango seeds, banana peels, crushed cane stalks with the juice pressed out of them, some chicken bones and scattered feathers. Hence that fruity smell of ripeness, rot, and ferment. A couple of long-eared black pigs rooted through the garbage mound. One of them raised its head to look at him, its eyes red-rimmed, a wet