Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [311]
“You might come with us,” Marie-Jeanne told him. “Lamartinière would accept your coming. But I think you will be safer here.”
The doctor considered for a moment. “I’ll stay with our wounded,” he said.
Marie-Jeanne inclined her head.
“If you should make it safely to Le Cap,” the doctor said, “please, if you would, find my wife Nanon and my son Paul, and tell them . . .” He couldn’t think what she ought to tell them. “Say I was well when you left me here and that I will come back to them as quickly as I can.”
“I’ll do it,” said Marie-Jeanne. “Si Dyé vlé.” She opened her arms and the doctor stood to receive her embrace. Drily she kissed him on both cheeks. The bones of her fingers were hard against his spine. It was an odd thing he had noticed lately, how flesh shrank from the fingers first— though Marie-Jeanne’s whole person was now thin as a wraith. The doctor wondered if he’d ever hold Nanon again. Marie-Jeanne released him and walked away down the slope.
The doctor settled his back against the wall. Bienvenu squatted next to him, as was his wont.
“Go on,” the doctor said.
Bienvenu seemed to hear nothing.
“Go,” said the doctor. “The blancs will kill you if they find you here.” He gave Bienvenu a little nudge. Bienvenu got up and collected his weapons.
“Kenbe là,” he said. Hold on. He walked after Marie-Jeanne without looking back.
Around the gateway the men sang softly, no French verses now, but Creole songs to honor their old gods of Africa. The doctor was sure of this, though he could not make out the sense of the words. If God wills, Marie-Jeanne had told him, she would deliver his message. Of course his own chances of survival were probably better than hers at this point. He watched, under the moonlight, as her bones carried the veil of her flesh out through the gate, shoulder to shoulder with her husband, leading that whole throng of walking skeletons.
The musicians seemed palpably unburdened by the departure of the troops. Gaston began to jig in the lacy, gnawed remnants of his boots. He tucked his fiddle under his chin and sawed out country dances.
“Be quiet, can’t you?” the doctor finally snapped. Then, more softly, “You’ll wake the wounded.”
Gaston shot him an injured look, but laid the fiddle down. He went to the vases and, somewhat ostentatiously, dipped himself a gourd of water.
The doctor was digging up his rifle; it seemed that the hour for that had at last arrived. He brushed the dirt from the cloth that had shrouded it and sat with the octagon barrel cool against his hands. All at once firing broke out from the direction of the town, and the doctor jumped up and joined the musicians at the embrasures. Strangely, the muzzle flashes seemed to be located behind the French lines—surely if Lamartinière had made it so far, he would hurry his retreat without seeking an engagement.
As the doctor formed that thought, there was another eruption of musketry, on the near side of the encircling line, a little to the west and closer to the fort. He exchanged a puzzled glance with the violinist.
“What do you make of it?” Gaston said.
“I don’t know,” said the doctor. If there was an effort to relieve the fort, then wouldn’t Lamartinière have stayed inside it? But after all he didn’t really know what meaning had been attached to Dessalines’s ring.
When the firing stopped, he went to his mat and loaded both his pistols and the rifle. After a twenty-minute silence, shooting began on the hill above them, much nearer this time, so close the doctor could hear the curses of men taken by surprise. Eventually the racket ceased. The four musicians stretched out on the ground and soon began to snore.
The doctor sat crosslegged with his weapons arrayed on the mat before him, remembering his parting words to Bienvenu. If he called the Frenchmen blancs, then what had he become himself?