Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [180]
He rode the mule down the coffee terraces and pulled to a stop in front of the cane mill. There was commotion on the gallery, first Elise, then Isabelle appearing and then dashing back inside. A tall mulatto woman in a high blue turban came riding around the corner of the mill from the direction of the drive. The doctor recognized Fontelle and raised a hand to her.
“Monsieur le médecin!” Fontelle beamed at him, revealing the crooked teeth in her long jaws. Unhurriedly she dismounted and unstrapped a bulging pannier. “I have brought you mangoes, look.”
Unconsciously the doctor accepted in each hand a small fragrant mango from the crossroads of Ennery. “Where have you come from?” he asked Fontelle.
“Just now from Ennery,” Fontelle said. “This morning from Pilboreau. Yesterday from Plaisance, and the day before, Acul and Habitation Arnaud. There I stayed—”
“Did you pass through the fighting?” the doctor cut in.
“No,” said Fontelle. “But the French soldiers were coming down from Le Cap, they say. I did not see them. Last night we could hear shooting from Pilboreau.”
“The soldiers from Le Cap.”
“No,” said Fontelle. “They say it is other soldiers from Dondon and Marmelade. We did not see them either but we could hear their guns.”
Paulette came galloping down the gallery steps and caught her mother in an embrace that rocked her where she stood. The doctor sucked in a breath, then dashed into the cane mill. In the last few months the small office behind the machinery had become Tocquet’s retreat; he kept cards and a chessboard there, along with the plantation’s neglected ledgers, rum, brandy if it could be found, tobacco. Sometimes he slept there, in an Indian hammock strung from corner to corner of the room, if he were on the outs with Elise, as he seemed frequently to be of late. But this morning the room was empty, air stale with the smell of old tobacco smoke. The doctor turned on his heels, watching motes of the dust he had raised turn in the shaft of sunlight through the shuttered window. The hammock was gone; Tocquet sometimes took it with him when he traveled. In an earlier time Toussaint had used this place for a headquarters, and where was Toussaint now?
The doctor heard Paul’s voice shouting through the shuttered window and he ran outside to see what was the matter. Left unhitched, the mule had wandered toward a gap in the hedges, but Paul had caught the reins and was leading it back.
“Well done,” the doctor called. “Just hold him there.” Elise had reappeared on the gallery and he trotted up the steps to meet her there.
“Have you seen Xavier?” he panted.
“Xavier has abandoned us,” Elise said dourly. “He thought there would be trouble here.”
“Good God,” said the doctor. “You might have mentioned it. When? Where has he gone?” Elise was staring at his hands and he realized he was still holding the mangoes.
“Fontelle brought them.” He waved a mango at Fontelle, still clutched by Paulette in the yard, the donkey snuffling the dust beside them. The skin of the mango he was gesturing with had split in his grip, and now he noticed the juice of it sticky on his palm. A couple of fruit flies hovered over it. The doctor offered the undamaged mango to Elise, and when she shook her head he shrugged and laid it on the table. He wiped the other mango with his loose shirttail and took a bite. The taste of it was sharp and sweet; it was just at the point of perfect ripeness.
“What kind of trouble?” he said, when he had swallowed. “When is he coming back?”
“How should I know?” Elise said bitterly. “He wanted us all to go with him across the Spanish border, but I was certain we would be safer here, so long as Suzanne Louverture remained. And you just stand there, chewing mango!”
The doctor took a final bite and fired the pulpy seed