Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [125]
“What was her name?”
“I have forgotten, if I ever knew,” Cléo said. “But in my heart I called her by your name, Madame.”
Gently she laid Claudine’s hand on the sheet and stood. “You must not torment yourself,” she said. “Rest now.”
When Cléo had shut the door behind her, Claudine got up and knelt at her bedside and pressed her forehead against the mattress.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessèd art thou among women, and blessèd is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death . . .
This time the prayer completed itself without a pang. She stretched out on the bed again. In her mind’s eye, before she slept, she thought she saw the comforting face of the Père Bonne-chance.
The air had changed when she awoke; a breeze was blowing, cool and moist. She got up and dressed herself and pinned up her hair, a little awkwardly. When she met Cléo in the hall, she asked for Fontelle and was told that she had gone down to Moustique’s house to see the baby. Claudine walked in that direction. The burning smell of that morning was much fainter. The breeze came scudding low across the yard and a bank of purple clouds was building to the north.
She found Fontelle seated on a low chair beneath a young lime tree, holding the baby on her lap. Marie-Noelle was sweeping the dooryard with a broom of split palm leaves. Claudine sat down on a cloth spread on the ground by Fontelle’s chair.
“Oh, he is thriving, is he not?” she said.
Fontelle simply smiled down on the baby.
“Do you not think he resembles his grandfather?” Claudine said.
“Oh no,” Fontelle said. “He is very dark.” She shot a glance at Marie-Noelle, who was of the purest African stock.
“But look here.” Claudine reached for the baby, who accepted the change without protest at first. “Look at the nose, and the shape of the eyes . . . I do wish that the Père Bonne-chance could be here to see him.”
“Perhaps he has some way to see him all the same.” Fontelle crossed herself and lowered her head. The baby mewed and kicked against the front of Claudine’s dress. Marie-Noelle propped her broom against the house wall and came to take him up. She knelt on the cloth and undid his swaddling and prodded his soft belly till he gurgled and smiled. As she withdrew her hand, his little penis rose enough to send out a bright jet of urine that arced to the cloth between his legs.
At this the three women shared a laugh, and Marie-Noelle moved him away from the damp spot and began to rub him down. But Claudine was distracted by Etienne and little Dieufait, who came running in a flurry of excitement, calling, “Madame, Madame, come quickly, there is someone at the gate.”
The party escorting the sons of Toussaint Louverture had left Héricourt in good time that morning. As no one had been able to obtain any exact information about the Governor-General’s whereabouts, they were on their way to Ennery, as previously planned. French soldiers had secured the main road, as Leclerc had claimed, though Christophe and the Second Demibrigade had left a wake of ruin in their retreat, and whatever force had opposed Leclerc’s and Hardy’s advance from the Baie d’Acul had left behind another trail of ash.
Arnaud’s heart sank as he rode through it all. He’d seen his own holdings laid to waste before. In ninety-one it had all been burned—not a stick left standing and scarcely one stone still mortared to another. He’d found a scrap of mirror in that bowl of cinders and not been able to know his own face.
Now he rode in tandem with Bertrand Cigny. They did not speak— there was little conversation that morning among anyone in the group. Arnaud and Cigny had never been close. Cigny was generally tight-lipped and irritable. His wife deceived him so prolifically that he found no friends among other men. Yet today Arnaud felt a certain sympathy for him. They would soon be parting ways—Cigny had determined to investigate the state of his