Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [104]
“I am not an animal,” Toussaint said, concentrating on the crisp isolation of each word. He drew himself up very straight in his chair.
Dormoy blushed and deflated. “No more am I a doctor.” He set the calipers on the table and gave them a wistful look.
“Have you news from the First Consul?” Toussaint said.
Dormoy did not appear to hear him. At the sound of the fort’s bell tolling nine slow rusty strokes, he raised his head toward the grating at the other end of the low vaulted cell from the door. This grate admitted freezing air in good supply, but only a few weak checks of daylight. If Toussaint stood peering through it for long enough, he might eventually see the bootheels of a sentry in the yard. He felt a kind of weakness at this thought.
“If you are not a doctor,” he said, “I am still in need. Can you arrange for a doctor to come?”
“I was a priest once,” Dormoy said, turning his watery smile toward Toussaint. “Once, I was mayor of Dijon. But today I am only a schoolmaster.”
“If you are a priest,” Toussaint said, “have you come to confess me?”
“Oh no!” Dormoy hissed. “You see, I have been—well, I cannot exercise the priestly functions. Today I am only a schoolmaster.”
On the red glow of Toussaint’s closed eyelids appeared the image of that mad blanche, Claudine Arnaud. She had demanded that he confess her, an age ago and an ocean away. How had he answered? It is not easy to enter the spiritual world.
He opened his eyes and stared at Dormoy. The window of clarity which by dint of concentration he had opened in his fever was beginning to collapse around the edges. It could not be that this person had appeared for no reason. There must be a message, or a sign.
“Mon père,” he began. “Father, I—”
“No, no,” Dormoy said, his hands fluttering before him. “It is only, I only—I was one of the Jesuits during my priesthood, and all of my order had the greatest sympathy for the sufferings of the slaves, you see—oh, I was not posted to Saint Domingue! nor to any other such place. You see, I only wanted to look upon the Liberator. See the face of Toussaint L’Ouverture. He who had the audacity to address the First Consul so: To the first of the whites from the first of the blacks.
“I never used any such form of address,” Toussaint said wearily. “It is another of their lies.”
“I only imposed myself as a doctor in coming here,” Dormoy went on, heedlessly. “Perhaps I was wrong, but I meant no harm. I meant only to offer you my congratulations—well, my . . . admiration. My best wishes, as it were.”
Toussaint regarded him. The man was weak. Sometimes a weak vessel was better than a strong one. A weak man was like a chink in a wall which might be enlarged till the whole wall came down. One might inhabit the weak man altogether, subject his poor will entirely to one’s own. But for the moment Toussaint did not have the strength, himself, to set about it.
“It must be dreadful for you here,” Dormoy said. “This climate, the cold, for a man from the tropics . . .”
“The First Consul sends me no word,” Toussaint said. “I have been waiting for my judgment—I do not know how many months.” He paused. “I believe they mean for me to die here.”
He felt a tremble rooting in his spine—the chill succeeding fever: ague. With a tremendous effort he clenched it in. He would not allow his teeth to chatter in the face of this lunatic guest. Though it was the first time he had allowed that last sentence to surface even in his thoughts.
Dormoy plucked from his vest pocket a gold pince-nez which he clipped neatly upon the bridge of his nose. “I am a friend of the sous-préfet of Pontarlier,” he said, pointing a finger at the floor of the cell. “It was so that I was able to arrange my visit.” He broke disconcertingly into a high-pitched giggle. “Not so difficult at all, really!” he said. “It is surprising.” He glanced at Toussaint, over the lenses of the pince-nez.
Toussaint did not respond. He knew next to nothing of Pontarlier or its subprefect. The place was further