Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [124]
All was in equally good order at the mill when she passed that way with her empty buckets. The chief refiner brought her some clear syrup in a white saucer, and she shrugged off her yoke and stuck a finger in to taste it. The stuff was sweet, certainly; she knew little of the process.
“It is good,” she said.
“Yes, Madame,” said the refiner. Then, with a slight frown of concern, “Have you news of Monsieur?”
“No,” said Claudine. She’d had no news of Arnaud for many days. In fact she had scarcely thought of him.
“What news have you?” she said.
The refiner looked at her uncertainly. Claudine gestured at the haze of smoke that hovered on their borders.
“Ah,” he said. “The French have landed soldiers, to make us slaves again. That is what they say.” Then, inexplicably, his glossy black face split into a brilliant smile.
Raising her buckets, Claudine stepped out of the mill and looked down the trail which led to the patch of shrubbery where Arnaud’s distillery was concealed. In the ordinary course of things she did not visit any works except the cane fields, but today she felt the impulse to see over everything and verify that all was well. Yet it was ten years now since she had tasted rum, or any liquor. She’d leave the distillery to itself.
Leaving her buckets at the well, she walked up the slope to the grand’case, her legs rubbery beneath her. Cléo received her on the gallery and pressed to her temples a cool damp cloth, then touched it to the base of her skull and the pulse points on her wrists. The table was laid for the midday meal, Fontelle already seated there. Grilled fish, a plate of rice cooked with chopped carrots, a bowl full of fresh peas. Claudine picked at her food and quizzed Fontelle on her recent doings: she had come down from Le Cap a week ago, to visit her new grandson. She had seen Arnaud at the Cigny house there. A French fleet stood outside the harbor, but Fontelle had left before its mission was made known. She had meant to go on to visit her daughter at Ennery before now, but with all the unrest in the region, she did not know . . .
Claudine assured her she was welcome to remain at Habitation Arnaud for as long as she liked, or needed to. She could tell that Fontelle had responded to her questions before, but she did not seem to object to repeating the answers. Coffee was served, but Claudine declined it. Cléo came with her to the bedroom and helped her to loosen her clothes and let down her hair.
“Why are you kind to me?” Claudine said and thrashed her head against the pillow, the unbound hair spreading out its faded color and the strands of white. Cléo looked at her with a grave reserve, as she always did when this question was put. Then, to Claudine’s surprise, she sat down on a stool beside the bed and took her hand, the one that lacked a finger.
“I was in the camps at Grande Rivière,” she said. “When I left this place, in the time of the first rising.”
“In ninety-one,” Claudine said.
“Yes, in ninety-one.” Cléo stroked the top of her hand absently. “There were many white prisoners there. I took a young blanche to be my servant. Each day I sent her to the river to wash my clothes, scrub them and beat them and dry them on the stones. She had pretty hands when she began, small and fine. They were bleeding the first day. Of course she had never done such work. She’d had a slave to brush her hair and another to put on her shoes. I slapped and beat her for every fault. One would not use a dog so, nor a mule.”
“Yes,” said Claudine, who was familiar with such abuses from her own practice of them in the past. “And then?”
“Biassou took her for his whore,” Cléo said, with a distant smile. “One of the many he took so. Day by day and week by week. Her hands