Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [268]
For no reason at all, his heart began to pound, and his palms and temple broke out in a cold, itching sweat. He had these attacks quite often now, though usually at night, when he must turn to his wife’s mute comfort, for Claudine woke by some instinct whenever one of Arnaud’s terrors began. By day it was worse—one could not wait for daylight; there was no term to the terror and nothing to expect. He would have liked to drink more rum, but he knew it would not help. The refiner was still watching him, besides. Over the rush of his blood and the drum of his heartbeat, he heard the creak of wagon wheels, a single wagon coming to a halt in the ruts beyond the crusher and the vats of mash. His cane-cutting crew—such as it was. One of the men unhitched the mule from the wagon and led it to the crusher’s turning pole. Another, whose right arm ended in a stump, began to load cane stalks into the chute, using his left arm to gather the cane from the wagon into the crook of his right elbow.
Arnaud lent his own arms to the task. The wagon driver clucked to the mule, and the reddish iron cylinders of the crusher began slowly to turn. Arnaud kept pulling cane from the wagon, careless of the blade-like leaves that slit his arms, and pushing it into the chute, leaving it to the amputee to guide the stalks into the crusher’s teeth. He could not now recall if the man had lost his hand to a punishment or some cane mill accident—he seemed to bear Arnaud no resentment, either way. In the old days Arnaud would never have put a hand to such work, not if he were the last man standing on his plantation. But now the physical effort pulled his mind out of its screaming spirals. His heartbeat leveled, and his sweat turned honestly warm. Now he could better understand what had moved Claudine to carry water to the field hands, under the noonday sun. Though recently she’d given up this practice, since there was no one in the fields.
At noon, Arnaud helped the refiner seal a head on a filled cask, then dismissed the men for a siesta. He took up his stick and the coutelas, ringing the flat of the blade against the iron rim of the rum keg. There was some reasonable profit there, though nothing like what white sugar would have brought. But soldiering was thirsty work, and the military wagons did come steadily.
Beside the chapel, the school lean-to was empty, the children scattered to some other shade. In the shadows of the open chapel, Moustique stood muttering half audibly, before the altar shelf, which was draped in black. About Moustique’s skinny, stooping shoulders was draped the stole which Claudine had clumsily embroidered for him. He chanted for the soul of Bertrand Cigny. Claudine had set him to this work, thrice daily, for some period of days—a funeral rite without a corpse. It was strange how little the boy resembled his father, the Père Bonne-chance, who had been burly, low to the ground, strong-built as a badger or a little black bear. Père Bonne-chance had once saved Arnaud’s life, inveigling him out of the hands of rebel slaves who certainly would have killed him. Later on, the priest had been executed for collaboration, and nothing Arnaud tried could stop it. Grâce, grâce, la miséricorde . . . If there was any truth to religion, Père Bonne-chance was with the martyrs. Arnaud got no comfort from praying for himself.
Moustique was looking at him now, since Arnaud had drifted to a halt before the chapel. There had always been someone looking at him—no corner of this