Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [364]
Daspir squinted, ignoring what she’d said. He liked the sensation of holding her near him by the force of her own reluctance to break away. His thumb and forefinger enclosed a small, hard gray stone penis, carved in such convincing detail that he let it go as if it had burned him.
“Where the devil did you come by that?”
“A souvenir,” Isabelle said distantly. Mercifully, she’d covered the pendant with her palm. “It does not concern you.”
She dragged a chemise from the tangle of bedclothes and pulled it over her head and shoulders. Daspir admired the lift of her arms and the sharpness of her nipples against the fine silk. The pendants also made a bulge against the fabric, which reminded him of his first hallucinated awakening. He reached for her hip, but she pushed his hand away.
“It’s too late,” she said. “You had better go.”
“Of course,” Daspir said. “Your husband.” Though as he spoke it occurred to him that the man had not appeared in the salon the night before.
Isabelle lifted a glass of water from beside the candle stub and looked at the disturbance of its surface. “That isn’t the question,” she told him. “My husband is dead.”
35
Astride his horse, the doctor could look over the wall that enclosed the courtyard of his sister’s house. From the carpet of ash that had been the garden, some greenery had begun to push itself up: broad leaves of bananes loup-garou, and a feather frond of the yellow cocotier, around which a couple of pale butterflies were floating in the humid air. A scorched limb of a tree that overhung the rear corner of the wall was also budding a few fragilely folded leaves. The house itself did not quite look habitable, though the roof had been retimbered, and stacks of pale rose clay tiles stood ready to be tiled over the new wood. Inside the shell of the building, a saw groaned slowly, then stopped with the sound of a falling plank. Michau stepped out into the courtyard, bare-chested and gleaming with sweat, and smiled up at the doctor, squinting in the afternoon sun.
“Where are the ladies?” the doctor asked him.
“They have been staying with Madame Cigny.” Michau knocked sawdust from his hands. “Here it is not yet ready—but soon.”
“I’ll look for them there, then,” the doctor told him. He touched the brim of his hat and clucked to his horse.
“But now they have gone to La Tortue,” Michau added.
“Oh?” said the doctor. “And for how long?”
Michau shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know.” He wiped at his temples with a scrap of blue cloth. “They have been already gone some days. It was Madame Captain-General who invited them.”
The doctor touched his hat again and turned his horse back into the street. Guizot fell in behind him. Maillart had ridden ahead; already he had turned the corner, doubtless bound for the Cigny house and the same disappointment.
The doctor’s head swirled with fatigue, now that the expectancy that had carried him this far was deflated. He’d felt a little unhinged all day from his queer fainting spell the night before, though the swim at the Baie d’Acul had refreshed him for an hour. All through the day’s ride he’d felt that Moustique was studying him for some reason, but Moustique had detached himself from their group as soon as they entered the gate of Le Cap, and hurried toward Morne Calvaire to look for the women of his family.
He met Maillart coming back along the street, on foot and leading his horse. Behind him the shadow of Zabeth withdrew into a doorway of the Cigny house.
“They’re away,” the major said glumly. “Gone to La Tortue.”
“So I’ve been told,” said the doctor. “Do you know their mission?”
“To gather mushrooms and turtle eggs . . .” Maillart fanned himself with his hat. “I don’t know, really—it is some fancy of la belle Pauline, apparently. But even Xavier is gone—I find that strange.”
“We’ll find ourselves beds here, at least,” said the doctor, clambering stiffly down from the saddle. “If all the rest of them have vacated.”
“I don’t know,” said Maillart, centering his hat back on his head. “I may just