Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [229]
When I had finished reading, Lamour Dérance took the paper from my hand and held it very near his face, though not for long. He turned his head and called a name and a third man came in and took the paper away. I thought that Lamour Dérance must be sending the paper to someone who could read and be certain that Riau had read out all the words as they were truly written. Then he turned again to me. All the time his hand still stroked the kitten. This reminded me of Halalou and his white cock, so long ago.
“What if the blancs’ paper gives us lies? Gen dwa blan-yo bay menti.”
“How can what they say or do be worse than what Toussaint has given you?” I said. “Now you have to hide from Toussaint all the time, if you don’t want to work on the plantations. And Toussaint would make Dessalines your whipmaster.”
I stopped talking so that Lamour Dérance could consider. I wanted him to have to remember how, when Lamour Dérance rose up with Moyse against Toussaint to take the town of Marigot, Dessalines had come with the Eighth Demibrigade to kill them in the mountains, there above Marigot and Jacmel. Dessalines had killed so many that for a time Lamour Dérance did not have many good fighting men in his band at all, until more ran to him from the plantations on the plain of Léogane. Dessalines had been a hard master over all of the west since Toussaint had ordered that all men who were not in his army must go back to work with the hoe. Dessalines whipped with thorny branches if the work was not done fast and well, and many said his rule was harder than any blanc colon had ever been.
“My son, who has nine years, works in the coffee now, at the command of blancs at Ennery,” I said. “As Riau worked the cane at Bréda.”
The little kitten raised its head and looked at me with dark blue eyes. “I thought you had forgotten Bréda,” said Lamour Dérance. “When now you turn against Toussaint, who became your parrain in that place.”
He did not say the name of Moyse, but still I heard it. I knew that he would lay the weight of my old action on me now, but it did not feel less heavy for my knowing it before. When I looked at the pile of stones it seemed to me that Legba would bring Moyse up through them, to stare at Riau with his one eye. There was nothing to do but face him.
“Moyse turned against Toussaint,” I said, “who was his parrain also.” When I said this, Lamour Dérance folded his arms up tight again and blew a hard breath so that his nostrils flared, holding his mouth shut tight. The kitten curled in the crook of his legs, as if it would go to sleep.
“Moyse could not succeed against Toussaint then,” I said. “Then, Toussaint was too strong for him.” In the eye of my mind I saw Bouquart step out of the ranks and blow out his brains with his own pistol as Toussaint had ordered him to do. Bouquart had gone with Moyse against Toussaint. I gave my head a shake to chase away that picture. “But now Toussaint cannot succeed against the blancs. They are too many and their power too great.” And now what appeared behind my head was the picture of the ships blowing up the forts of Port-au-Prince harbor.
I began to remind Lamour Dérance how Laplume had already gone with the French and how likely it was others would do the same, so that all the south and much of the west and soon more and more of the north would be safe in the hands of the blanc soldiers. After that I could only repeat the words I had said before, but now they felt cold coming off my tongue. The presence of Moyse grew stronger in the pile of stones and I thought how I owed his spirit a service, as I had told Quamba at Ennery, yet all my words put me farther away from doing that service which I owed, and until I had done it nothing else I might do could prosper. Then I felt alone, and cold all over from the inside out, and the words that Riau’s mouth kept making sounded more and more distant, and they had no power of persuasion. If Lamour Dérance was persuaded I