Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [291]
“Shut up, for Christ’s sake,” the doctor said. “Be quiet and help me with these bandages.”
Descourtilz left off his narrative and joined in the work. They had organized a hospital shelter along the north wall of the powder magazine. The area was easiest to protect from the sun, and if Dessalines did blow up the fort, the end for the wounded would at least be quick.
At the opposite end of the fort, most of the garrison clustered around the men who were being tortured. Lamartinière had taken a high tone, at the beginning: “I want to have the satisfaction of destroying, myself, these miserable traitors who’ve served in the ranks of the French, against the liberty of their brothers.” But as he moved into the work, a blood rage transformed him; he ceased to resemble his civilized self. The throng of men blocked the doctor’s view, though if he glanced in the direction of the moaning, he could see the red flickering glow of the fire at the center of the ring. The crowd expanded or contracted, shuddered or rippled, shouting or sighing its appreciation of each fresh extravagance of cruelty. Above it all, the violin whined.
“How do you turn your back on such monstrosity?” Descourtilz finally said.
“It won’t be altered by my looking at it,” the doctor said. The work was finished; he sat on the ground with his back against the rough stone wall of the magazine. A few stars gleamed above the shattered saplings on the hill beyond the wall. He scratched at the edge of his head wound, under the bandage.
“In ninety-one I was prisoner in the camps of Grande Rivière,” he said. “What I saw there is most likely beyond the imagining of anyone here. And I missed being done away with here as narrowly as you, down there in the town . . .” He hesitated. “In the end I think there’s no good facing it. I know it’s there. But I don’t want my mind filled with the images.”
The violin struck a sour note, then limped back into tune. The throng around the torturers sucked up a very deep breath.
“They are all savages,” Descourtilz said bitterly.
“They are a people of extremes,” the doctor said. At that moment he believed that he might rip someone’s heart out himself if the action would win him a drink of rum. He felt that Descourtilz’s assertion was wrong, but it was difficult to articulate his reasons.
“When this festivity is over,” he said, “they’ll be as mild as little children, most of them.”
“Not Dessalines,” said Descourtilz, and paused. “I know what you mean—but isn’t that the most horrible thing of all?”
“No,” said the doctor. “No, I don’t think so.”
Descourtilz merely grunted, then stretched out on his side. A few minutes later, Gaston left off his fiddling. It was finished; the men were drifting away from the embers of the fire. Bienvenu came slinking along the wall toward the doctor’s ajoupa, a little abashed, like a dog that’s done mischief.
“Gegne clairin,” he said, offering a gourd. There’s rum.
The doctor took the gourd with an inexpressible gratitude. After his first gulp he discovered his fingers had got all sticky with blood from brushing Bienvenu’s hand. Quickly he scrubbed them off in the dirt. Bienvenu had gone to sleep instantly, peacefully; he lay on his back and snored. The doctor took another, more contemplative swallow of rum and weighed the gourd in the palm of his hand, guessing it to be half full at least. Carefully he stoppered it and put it out of sight, in the straw bag where he kept his healing herbs.
Though he was exhausted, he could not sleep. Maybe it was the blood smell steaming from Bienvenu that disturbed him. For half an hour he twisted one way or another on his mat. At last he sat up and took one more short sip of rum, then began walking along the wall in the direction of the gate. The stars were now brighter overhead, and he could pick out a few constellations: the Corona Borealis, Hydra, the Crab. By the last coals of the bonfire, Dessalines and Lamartinière sat muttering. The doctor turned his face from them as he passed.