Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [326]
“Sa w gegne?” she said. What’s the matter?
“Mwen pè pou pè mwen,” Paul said. I am afraid for my father. In stating the fear, he ceased to feel it. He understood now that any djab pursuing him would have been forced to stop outside the peristyle.
“Wi, mwen sonje’l.” Maman Maig’ still held his head. Yes, I remember him.
“Ou rinmin li. Li rinmin’w tou,” she told him. You love him. He loves you too.
Paul nodded, his jaw pushing against her fingers. Maman Maig’ released his head.
“L’ap tounen, wi,” she said. “Si Dyé vlé.”
She touched his shoulders lightly and let him go. When Paul turned from her, he saw that Madame Claudine was sitting up cross-legged and looking at him. She did not speak, but her eyes seemed to confirm what Maman Maig’ had said. He will return if God so wills.
As he crossed the peristyle, Paulette smiled at him and offered her hand. Paul took it and for a moment pressed it to his cheek—never mind that he was nearly nine years old. It was Paulette who had recognized him in the streets in the time of his begging, and brought him here for shelter, until Tante Elise had finally come for him.
I will carry water for Maman Maig’, he thought happily. He knew the djab no longer followed him. He had gone out the lower gate of the hûnfor,which the djab had been unable to cross. He would bring Maman Maig’ water from the fountain of Place Montarcher. He knew this gesture would please her, though the children of the lakou got her plenty of water from a nearer source.
The Batterie Circulaire was manned by colored gunners sent there by the General Boyer. Paul knew a couple of these men, and sometimes they would smile and wave to him when he passed below the wall, but none of them were smiling today. They were staring across the water at La Cornélie and muttering gloomily among themselves. A shallop, different from the one that had conveyed Madame Leclerc to shore, was just putting out in the direction of that ship. The shallop was heaped high with cargo and manned by blanc sailors from the fleet, who seemed to be having difficulty in their transit, though the water in the harbor was reasonably calm.
The crowd which had received Madame Leclerc had now dispersed. Paul walked along the empty embarcadère. The tide was in, and where two waves collided in a corner of the sea wall, a column of water erupted with a noise like a cannon. Paul went on with the pleasant taste of salt on his lips and the sting of it on his cheek.
A wagon had stopped on the embarcadère before the Customs House. The wagon was drawn by a single mule, and the driver sat stone still on the box with the reins loose in his hands. A tall woman was standing beside him, shading her eyes to look out at the harbor. At once, Paul felt an interest in her. In her posture was something of the haughtiness of Madame Claudine, but this woman had broader shoulders and stronger bones, and there was a greater air of calm the way she stood, looking fixedly at La Cornélie, though Paul could also feel that she was angry. He moved nearer, his footsteps silenced by the waves beating on the sea wall, until he was standing just below the wagon rail.
The blanc sailors in the shallop were managing their sail in an unusually lubber-like manner, and suddenly the shallop rolled so far that it took in water over the starboard gunwale and seemed like to founder. Some of the cargo looked to have gone overboard in this mishap. A number of other small boats converged, and in this confusion the shallop slowly righted itself.
“Trickery,” the tall woman said. “They are stealing the goods of Madame Rigaud.”
She must have been speaking to the man on the box, but he made no reply. He sat motionless, sighting on La Cornélie through the long ears of the mule. He had a rich brown skin, darker than the woman’s, and a beard trimmed short and square. Paul felt somehow that he knew these people from long ago. It was the same feeling he’d had when he met Maman Maig’ for what he’d assumed was the first time.
As this notion crossed his mind,