Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [433]
When Riau walked with Placide home to Descahaux, Guiaou went to the case with Merbillay. He did not lie close beside her then (though the next night it would probably be Guiaou sleeping alone in the camp by Descahaux) but rested alone on a mat in a corner of the clay-packed walls, his head loosely wrapped in a white cotton cloth.
He was content with how the lavé têt had passed, Placide’s head-washing, which Guiaou had wanted to aid and witness for a long time. Yet it puzzled him that Ezili Jé Rouj had chosen to appear. The master of Placide’s head was meant to be Lasirène, Erzulie of the waters. Guiaou understood that better than Placide, whose mind was a little fogged by thoughts the blancs had tried to stuff in his head on the other side of the ocean (though less so than the mind of his brother Isaac). Lasirène was the woman of Agwé, Guiaou’s mêt’ têt, and that was why, from the beginning, there had been a natural harmony between Guiaou and Placide. It was certainly Lasirène who swam beside Placide through all the battles, parting the waters for him to pass through unharmed. Guiaou had wanted to help Lasirène to her rightful seat in Placide’s head, and that was how it had gone in the end, no matter that Ezili Jé Rouj had wanted to interfere.
Guiaou matched his breathing to the breath of the children who slept on Merbillay’s far side, and listened to the slight movement of a mouse in the palm thatch overhead, and to the whistle of a night bird in the trees outside. From the roof-tree, Riau’s banza hung like a big gourd. Guiaou closed his eyes. He had served today, and served to good effect. It was Guiaou who distracted Ezili Jé Rouj and enticed her out of the peristyle, coaxing her with the hollow blue bird’s egg he had been carrying to give to Marielle. Outside, Ezili had snatched the egg and crushed it, but it was worth the sacrifice. She had not spoiled the ceremony, after all.
It worried him a little still, why Ezili Jé Rouj had chosen to intrude. But that was a thought he would let go. Let Lasirène drown it in the waters. Merbillay snuffled in her sleep, turning on her side. Her hand strayed toward him, and Guiaou touched her wrist and caught the thread of her pulse and followed it into sleep.
Next morning there was no sign of a rainbow, but Placide felt as never before how the whole world was held together by a charm. He had slept deep and without thought or dream. All the dream power was outside him now, enforcing the charm, maintaining it as firm and fragile as an eggshell. His mother seemed to feel the radiance that had suffused him; her smile was special as she poured his coffee and spooned in the sugar and set before him four quarters of an orange. Even Saint-Jean abandoned trying to distract Isaac from Ovid, and came to press himself cat-like against Placide, though usually he preferred Isaac, since Isaac would sometimes beguile him with fantastic tales of France.
Inside the house, Toussaint was laughing. “Look at these blancs.” His voice rose cheerfully. “They don’t suspect anything—they think they know everything—but still they have to consult old Toussaint.”
Placide felt warmed by his father’s good humor. For the past few days, Toussaint’s spirits had been occluded, especially since yesterday, when Isaac had returned from Le Cap. There was some hovering cloud of doubt, it seemed; Sylla was still resisting Leclerc in the mountains of Plaisance, as Sans-Souci was resisting at Grande Rivière, and the Captain-General had the idea that Toussaint might be encouraging either or both of these rebellions (and might be encouraged in this idea by Dessalines, so