Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [429]
They caught up with Cyprien a block below the hospital gate. “That yellow bitch,” he began again. “You know she and her paramour had every reason to wish him dead—”
“Oh, be quiet about it,” Guizot said. “They did all they could for him. He died the same as the others do. You could see plain enough for yourself there was nothing to be done.”
Cyprien dropped his head and walked a little faster. In half a block more he muttered, “We ought to have buried him.”
“Who’ll bury us?” said Daspir, without knowing that he would.
“Don’t say that,” Guizot said. “It’s unlucky.”
Cyprien laughed bitterly. “What in this whole damned colony has ever brought good luck?”
“Maybe it was Christophe who cursed him,” Daspir said. It was another image that took him by surprise—the moment at the banquet when Christophe, aggravated by Paltre’s teasing with the wine, had finally threatened to drink blood from his skull . . . And just before that moment Paltre had seemed to be his usual irritable and irritating self. But all the other victims fell ill in the same dramatically sudden way.
“Ah, Christophe will be deported soon enough,” said Guizot. “Along with every other black who’s worn an epaulette.”
“What do you mean?” Daspir said, skidding to a stop in the middle of the street.
“Rochambeau was boasting of it, when he was in drink. All the black generals are to be arrested and shipped off, one by one.”
Daspir considered. Here was the point Maillart had brought to him a day or so before. The other two captains had stopped to wait for him. They were better placed to hear such rumors, he supposed, since they spent their nights carousing while he, Daspir, paid a politer court to Isabelle Cigny. Drink, whore, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. That watchword seemed to work very well on the looser women of the town, professional or not. The shadow of death that lay over all the garrison seemed to have its erotic aroma too. Daspir knew he might have succeeded as well as his friends if he’d chosen to follow them down that road, but somehow, if Isabelle sent him away, he preferred to sleep alone on his plank in the caserne.
“So much the better,” Cyprien said at last. “Let all the black bastards rot on the hulks.”
Daspir fell into step with the others again. He’d realized he was going in the wrong direction—Bel Argent was stabled at the caserne higher on the hill—but he was reluctant to part from the other two just now. Though he couldn’t say he found their company altogether pleasant, the pall of Paltre’s death would weigh more heavily on him once he was alone.
The doctor stayed in the hospital till well after dark and watched the curl of new moon rise above the wall. At sunset Nanon had gone back to the house, to pack and make the children ready for their journey to Ennery. Although he had not planned it so, the doctor found that Paltre’s death released him from his sense of obligation here. He didn’t need to attend all the other deaths that were sure to follow. And Maillart had intimated, though obscurely, that Leclerc would not object to his departure.
Madame Fortier had agreed to manage the hospital in his absence. In this predicament her skills were equal to his own, there being no cure for the yellow fever. Under the moon and a spangle of stars she helped him arrange the corpses by the gate for the cart that would collect them in the morning.
In the few hours since he had expired, Paltre’s flesh had drizzled from him like melted tar. It was often so with the yellow fever—the bodies were half decomposed already by the time the doomed man drew his last breath. The doctor bore Paltre no resentment. Long before today, he’d ceased to be the person who had insulted him and Nanon. Cyprien’s accusation