Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [232]
Now all the blancs at Port-au-Prince were happy because they were safe and the town was saved from Dessalines’s torches, and Boudet brought his soldiers back from Saint Marc again not long after. They were all filled up with victory because they thought Toussaint had been beaten hard at Gonaives and Dessalines was running away too, though they had all been much afraid of Dessalines the day before. The truth was that the blancs were not winning yet so much as they said, because though they had taken Gonaives and Saint Marc there was nothing left for them in either of those places but dead bodies charred on the hot coals. Also the blanc commanders were all telling each other lies about how many soldiers they lost in their fights, especially at Ravine à Couleuvre, where Toussaint had killed hundreds more than General Rochambeau confessed. Also they had not succeeded to trap Toussaint at Gonaives and make him prisoner, which had been their plan. Instead Toussaint had gone away into the back country with all his army, to meet Dessalines with all of his.
I saw the face of Captain Paltre grow a sick gray color when he spoke across the card table of what they found when they entered Saint Marc, what Dessalines left there for them to find. Then to encourage himself Paltre took a big drink of new white clairin, carelessly so that he coughed. Let him choke on it, I thought, where I sat in the corner cleaning my pistol, in shadows apart from where the blancs played cards. To encourage himself, Paltre then told a story he claimed he had heard when he was here before with Hédouville, though the story came from an early time, when an English army held Saint Marc and Port-au-Prince and other towns between them on the coast. Then the Count of Bréda had joined the English, hoping they would give him back his lands and slaves again, which they had promised though they could not ever do it. One day the mulâtre Lapointe, who commanded for the English in Arcahaye, offered to buy from the Count his old nigger. When the Count asked what he was talking about, Lapointe said, “Why, your old nigger Toussaint, who calls himself Louverture—I will buy him, general as he is.” As Paltre told the story, Lapointe paid the Count eight hundred gourdesto own Toussaint. Yet though Lapointe and Toussaint both still lived, Lapointe had not yet been able to get control of what he had bought, though Lapointe had now gone over to the French. But this part, Paltre did not say.
All the blanc officers at the card table laughed loud when Paltre had finished telling this story. All had come with the new ships except Maillart, who did not laugh. He was still for a moment, completely still, then he laid down his cards so their faces showed, and picked up some money the cards had won. Of all those blanc officers only Maillart seemed to know that Riau sat in the shadows cleaning his pistol while they played and talked, though his back was turned to me the whole time, and only Maillart seemed to know when I got up from my stool and walked out of the room. I was not wearing my boots when I went out, and my bare feet made no noise.
Two times in those days I had heard the name of Bréda. I was still a very young man when I ran from there to be with the maroons. I was not so much older than my son Caco now. I had scarcely fifteen years. But I did not know my age for certain because the day of my birth was lost in Guinée with my mother and my father there. When I thought of Pierre Louis Diane and the others held prisoner on the ships in the harbor, I felt the cold choking weight of the iron collar on my neck when I was taken from the hold of the ship that brought me out of Guinée to the barracoons outside Le Cap, where I was sold to Bréda. In slavery time at Bréda the blancs all talked before us so, before Riau