Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [33]
Because Toussaint had stated, over dinner, his need for an early departure, the Mass commenced exactly at first light. The hour was painfully early for some, and fewer of the plantation’s inhabitants turned out for it than might have otherwise, but still there was a respectable crowd for Moustique to part when, with a slow and solemn step, he carried the wooden processional cross into the little chapel. Behind him the children of Claudine’s school marched, singing, Wi, wi, wi, nou sé Legliz, Legliz sé nou . . . Claudine took her seat in the front row, next to the yawning Arnaud, irritable with his too-early rising. Yes, yes, yes, the Church is us, we are the Church . . . Toussaint, the guest of honor, sat at Arnaud’s right hand, while Riau and Guiaou shared the opposite bench with Cléo and Marie-Noelle. The other benches were filled with commandeurs and skilled men from the cane mill or distillery and other persons of a similar importance. The bead curtain had been tied up above the eaves, so the whole wall was open to the larger congregation outside, whose members sat cross-legged on the ground as soon as the signal was given.
Claudine paid small attention to the words of Moustique’s sermon; her mind was utterly fixed on the cross. Ah well, she thought, we have our dead . . . As she stared, she perceived that it was the vertical bar of the cross which pierced the membrane between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and allowed the spirits to rise.
Now Moustique was chanting the Sanctus in Latin, his voice high and whining. Above the altar, the dark crucifix ran and blurred before Claudine’s weary eyes, till it became another image. She saw the body of her bossale maid Mouche, who’d been lashed quite near to that very same spot in the days when a dog shed stood on the chapel’s site, and saw again the flash of the razor in her own hand as it slashed out the child Arnaud had planted in Mouche’s womb and let the fetus spill on the dirt of the floor, then cut so viciously at the black girl’s throat that it uncorked her blood like a fountain. And now, as Moustique presented the host, the children sang, “Sé Jezi Kri ki limyè ki klere kè nou tout. Li disparèt fènwa pou’l mete klète . . .”
The chapel was opened to the east, so that when the rising sun cleared the mountains it struck the whole interior with such force that everything before Claudine’s eyes was obliterated in the blaze. But the bread had been torn, the wine consecrated. She groped her way forward and knelt to receive.
It is Jesus Christ who is the light that illuminates all our hearts. He drives out the darkness to put light in its place . . .
A fringe of cloud drifted over the sun, dimming the interior enough for Claudine to see more plainly. Toussaint, hands clasped before him, opened his mouth for the descending Host as meekly as a baby bird. Claudine’s turn followed. Moustique served Arnaud, Riau, and Guiaou and the other two women, then began his second circuit with the chalice made from a carefully trained and hollowed gourd. Claudine held the body of Christ on her tongue. She had confessed her crime many times and to more than one priest, but still the chalice, when raised to her lips, returned to her the salt taste of blood.
4
On the thirty-first day of their voyage, the troopship Jean-Jacques drew within range of La Sirène and lowered a boat which labored slowly toward them over the deep swells. The passenger in the bow was an ensign who carried a letter addressed to Placide and his brother. Admiral Latouche-Treville presented his compliments and desired the sons of Toussaint Louverture to transfer themselves and their effects to the Jean-Jacques.
Within half an hour they had loaded their belongings