Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [256]
Moyse again! He came at Toussaint from all sides. A drum was beating, in the direction of Thibodet, low in the valley. Moyse arose from the very same places where Toussaint liked to cache his own reserves. He flattened his hands on the gallery rail and looked out, believing he felt Moyse’s spirit rising in that drumbeat, in the evening mist and the last calls of the doves under the eaves, and brightening with the stars above the mountains. Possibly the wandering of Moyse’s disembodied soul could be more dangerous than Dessalines’s spirit still acting in its body.
Toussaint was moved to cross himself. At once the idea returned to him, as if from an outside agent—one must order the spiritual thing before the material thing can be ordered. With that, the matter came clear to him, though it wasn’t the flash of Elise’s eye, or the proud toss of her head as her hair came down from the folds of the scarf. Toussaint’s amours with white women had never really touched him in that way; he was moved toward them by curiosity rather than passion (much like his blanche partners, as he knew well enough). In the end, they were political encounters. No, but it was what Elise had said about her brother. And Toussaint had given her a somewhat false answer, for in fact the doctor was in quite a dangerous situation. Toussaint had left him in it because he would certainly be needed where he was—he could make himself quite useful, and at bottom he was willing to serve. The doctor was loyal to Toussaint as few blancs had ever been, but Toussaint could not guarantee his safety now—through no fault of his own, that much was true; without the violence of the Captain-General none of these other blancs would have had anything to fear.
He could not save the doctor now, but there was something he could do. Returning to the table, he lit the lamp, dipped his pen, wrote out a few quick lines, and signed below. He blew on the page and passed it over the flame of the lamp to make certain that the ink was well dry. Guiaou appeared on the gallery just as Toussaint was thinking of sending for him. He folded the paper and beckoned Guiaou within a whisper’s range.
“Do you know that blanche at Thibodet, the woman of Tocquet?”
“Oui, mon général. I have just left her.”
“Can you give her this letter when none of the other blancs will see?”
“But of course, mon général.” Guiaou slipped the paper inside of his shirt.
“Go now, if it is not too late.” Toussaint masked a smile with his hand. “You need not return before morning.” He knew Guiaou had a woman at Thibodet.
“It will be as you say, mon général.”
And Guiaou was gone. Toussaint, content, pushed back his chair. His mind was clear of the nagging thought, and tomorrow’s actions seemed more evident to him now. Also he knew that the old grann was waiting to serve the callaloo.
“Ann manjé,” he said as he turned to Pourcely and Gabart. Let’s eat.
Nanon and Paul were dressed to travel, as Elise was too; the ladies would not linger in déshabillé this morning. The weariness of it!—Elise’s head felt leaden. It was too exhausting to leave Thibodet now, where the house was still intact, the fields still in some sort of order, though there’d been a considerable exodus of able-bodied men from the atelier since the most recent wave of disturbances had begun. Now that they’d been relieved of the French troops quartered on them, they might have enjoyed some days of peace here—but of course that was all a fantasy; Toussaint had said as much himself. There was nothing for it but to go back to Le Cap, and scrape what shelter they might out of those ashes.
She thought of Toussaint, astride