Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [383]
I was very tired from this long day of riding, so my sleep was very deep, and it filled up like a well with a grand songe. In this dream I was Riau no longer, but I was in the spirit of Toussaint, lying in a small stone room as close and narrow as a grave. Toussaint lay like a dead man lies beneath the earth, waiting for the bokor to come to raise his body up to slavery, waiting without light or breath. Through the stone walls I heard the whistling of the siffleur montagne and the part of me that was still Riau knew this sound came from outside the dream, and wanted to move toward it, but the cross of Baron pressed down more heavily on the stone so that the walls closed in more tightly and I could not bend my legs or move my arms or even raise my chest to breathe, but the voice of Toussaint screamed through my lips, Dessalines! Sé Baron pou moin li yé! Dessalines is my Baron! Then out of the shadow of Baron’s cross came the shadow of a long, cloaked figure riding, and hidden in this cloak of darkness was the face of Dessalines, only it was one-eyed now, like Moyse’s face had been—
I sat up shaking and sweating, as if I had taken a fever, though I had not. I thought I might have screamed for the other men in the room to hear, but they were all still breathing quietly with their sleep. In the first blue light of morning, I could see their faces. I saw a mosquito settle on a blood vein on the back of my hand, and moved to crush it, but then I did not. I sent the mosquito away on my breath, thinking it could go to drink the blood of blancs. The only sound was the sound of horses in the yard.
I went out to the gallery then, without waiting to put on my boots. My head was still full of the dream of Dessalines, so at first it seemed to me that Dessalines was there, but instead it was Christophe getting out of the saddle. Then I saw that Sans-Souci had come to stand on the gallery next to me. He had put on his boots and all his uniform to receive Christophe and he was pushing the power that was inside him outward, to make himself seem bigger than his body was.
Christophe drank coffee with Sans-Souci, and gave him orders for the time he would be gone. He was going to see Toussaint at Marmelade, but for what reason he did not say. Sans-Souci said little when he took his orders. The power around him was large and dark. My head was still muddy from the dream, but by the time Christophe finished his coffee I had saddled my horse and joined the other men who were riding with him to Marmelade.
I did not know why my dream should show such a fear that Toussaint had for Dessalines. There was no stronger or fiercer general than Dessalines in all the army, especially since Maurepas had given his head to the blancs. Maybe it was only a false picture that came from the mirror of the dream to my eyes.
We rode into Marmelade with the rain, and as all the men hurried to get into shelter, I came with Christophe and some of the others into the hall of the house where he had made his headquarters on the north side of the square. Christophe took off his hat and his coat to shake the rain from them. He sat down at the table facing Toussaint, who had called for candles to be brought in, because the rain had made it dark. The light inside was watery with the rain, and the rain made a big noise on the roof which covered the words of Christophe and Toussaint, but still I could hear most of what they said.
Christophe took a paper from his shirt, another letter he had got from the Captain-General Leclerc, he said. Toussaint unfolded the paper and held it under the candle’s light, looking down his nose at it. Then he began to read, in a loud voice that rose above the sound of rain: The code is not yet in existence; I am working on it at this moment. The First Consul was unable to draw up a code for a country which he did not know and about which he had received contradictory reports. But I declare to you before the colony,