Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [153]
At that, Lacroix accepted the poultice and soon found an improvement. He had never been really completely off his feet, but once he was more mobile, Maillart encouraged him to a program of sea bathing. Here Lacroix’s resistance was stouter at first, for he’d heard tales (true enough probably) of sharks carrying off a few sailors in this harbor. Also he did not know how to swim. But Maillart convinced him that he could see any menace approaching him through the clear blue water much sooner than it would be able to reach him, and that he need stand just a little more than knee deep to get the benefit of the healing salt. Soon Lacroix grew comfortable enough splashing in the shallows, while Maillart took more ambitious swims, finning along on his back and blowing great water spouts like a whale, and letting his arms and legs and chest turn the same brick color as his face.
In this way Major Maillart developed an easy fellowship with his superior out from France. Lacroix was an amiable man, friendly and frank in his manner, though certainly keen witted, and apt with a turn of phrase. He had a brotherly regard for the men in his command. Maillart was impressed by his courage, which carried with it no braggadocio. Lacroix seemed almost indifferent to pain, though not to the point of stupidity.
“Where did you learn this leaf craft?” Lacroix asked him, when it became clear that Maillart’s regime was having a real effect.
“I know little enough of it myself,” Maillart said. “It is all the advice of my friend, Doctor Antoine Hébert.”
“He is a Frenchman, your doctor, then?”
“Yes,” said Maillart. “But he has been ten years in the colony, and learned the arts of a doktè-fey at the hands of Toussaint during that time.”
“Toussaint Louverture!” Lacroix clicked his cup down on the table. They were drinking in the garden of a small tavern at the edge of the Place du Gouvernement.
“Yes,” said Maillart. This story was so long familiar it no longer struck him as extraordinary. “Toussaint has a great skill with leaf medicine, it is said, and I have seen the evidence. He was doctor to the black troops before he rose to command. And in slavery time he was a veterinarian too, when he kept horses for the Comte de Noé.”
“And so, your doctor knows him well.”
“My friend was made prisoner, during the risings on the Northern Plain in ninety-one,” Maillart said, mindful that collaboration might become an issue in the future, despite the reassuring proclamations now being bruited about. “He was held for some weeks, with many other captives, in different camps around Grande Rivière. At that time, Toussaint used his influence, which was not then so great as now, to keep the blacks from slaughtering them all.”
“Ah,” said Lacroix. “But where is he now, your friend the doctor?”
“Would that I knew,” Maillart said. “I left him last at Le Cap, and you know . . .”
“Don’t trouble yourself so much,” Lacroix said. “By all accounts the inhabitants came through with their lives intact, though they have lost much property to the fire.”
“So let us hope.”
Lacroix smiled. “But I think the worst you have to fear is that I have depleted your store of these excellent herbs.” He nudged the packet, which was now quite flat, it was so nearly empty.
Riau, who shared the table, unfolded one corner of the paper and shook out a few leaves to examine them. He crushed one into his palm and raised it to his face and inhaled the fading dusty scent.
“Guérir-trop-vite,” he said. “ Gros piment—I can find these for you, not far off.”
Lacroix’s eyes cut to Riau. “You also learned this art at Toussaint’s knee?”
“Perhaps as much from my friend Hébert,” Maillart said quickly.