Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [29]
Claudine, with the aid of Marie-Noelle and Cléo, had organized a midday meal featuring grilled freshwater fish, with a sauce of hot peppers, tomato, and onion. Toussaint took none of this, but only a piece of bread, a glass of water, and an uncut mango. Arnaud knew or at least suspected that his well-known abstemiousness was rooted in a fear of poison. But Riau and Guiaou ate heartily, and Riau, the more articulate of the pair, was ready enough with his compliments. Then, finally, at the peak of the afternoon’s heat, it was time for the siesta.
The mattress was soggy under her back. Claudine could feel sweat pooling before the padding could absorb it. She could not sleep, could hardly rest, tired as she felt from the night before. The heat was still more smothering than it had been this morning. Toussaint’s arrival partly explained her mood, she thought; it was the thing she had felt coming, but it was not yet complete, and so her restlessness was not assuaged. Through the slats of the jalousies she could hear Cléo’s murmuring voice as she gossiped with one of Toussaint’s men on the porch.
At her side, Arnaud released a snore. Claudine felt a flash of resentment, that he could rest when she could not. But he’d taken a strong measure of rum with his lunch, which was no longer his usual practice. When he lay down, Arnaud had taken her left hand in his and dozed off caressing, with the ball of his thumb, the wrinkled stump of the finger where she’d once worn her wedding ring. He did this often, almost always, but there was nothing erotic in it, and hardly any tenderness; it was more like the superstitious fondling of a fetish. Now she carefully disengaged her hand, slid quietly to the edge of the bed, and stood.
Cléo sat on the edge of a stool, in a pose which showed the graceful line of her back as she bent her attention on Captain Riau, who stood below the porch railing, looking up at her. “Where are you going with Papa Toussaint?” she asked him. Claudine heard a flirtatious lilt in her voice.
“To Santo Domingo,” Riau said. “Across the border, at Ouanaminthe—” It seemed as if he would have continued, but he saw Claudine in the doorway and stopped.
“Bonsoir, Madame,” he said, lowering his head. “Good evening.” His military coat was very correct, despite the suffocating heat—brass buttons all done up in a row. As soon as he’d spoken, he turned away and began striding down the path toward the lower ground. There was room in the grand’case only for Toussaint himself, so Marie-Noelle had found pallets for his men in the compound below.
Cléo turned toward Claudine, her face a mask. That same face with its long oval shape and its smooth olive tone, which Claudine had once hated so desperately. The years between had left some lighter lines around Cléo’s eyes and at the corners of her mouth, but she was still supple, still attractive, though Arnaud no longer went to her bed. In her frustration, Claudine stretched out her hands to her.
“What was that shout in my sleep last night?” she said.
Cléo’s face became a degree more closed.
“M pa konnen,” she said. I don’t know.
Claudine felt a stronger pulse of the old jealous rage. The one face before her became all the faces closed against her, yellow or black, withholding the secrets so vital to her life. In those old days she could not visit her anger directly upon Cléo (Arnaud had protected the housekeeper from that), so she had worked it out on others in her vicinity. She took a step forward with her hands still outstretched.
“Di mwen,” she said. Tell me.
Cléo’s expression broke into an awful sadness.
“Fok w blié sa,” she said, but tenderly. You must forget it. She took Claudine’s two hands in hers and pressed them. Claudine felt her anger fade, her frustration melt into a simpler pain, more pure. It was too hot for an embrace, but she lowered her hot forehead to touch Cléo’s cooler one, then let the colored woman go and walked down the steps.
In the compound below, Claudine drifted