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By Root 2022 0

main gate, but passed through a tear in the lemon hedges and led my horse along the slopes where the small cases were scattered among the provision grounds. At different times Riau and Guiaou had made the walls of Merbillay’s case more strong with clay, and built the floor up high against the rain. Over the door there was now an open shelter roofed with leaves, and Merbillay was sitting there when I came, with some other women, and Quamba was there too, playing a slow music on a flute made out of a bone. It was late and the people had already eaten and the fire had burned down. I sat on the ground near Merbillay and after a moment she reached to touch my hand, her head still turned in the direction of the flute.

My son Caco I did not see. He would be running in the trees with the other big boys, I thought. Yoyo was sleeping, inside the case, and Marielle, who had only four years, was walking around the edge of the ash circle where the fire had been, yawning and rubbing her eyes with the back of her wrist. When she saw me she came and wrapped her arms around my leg, then climbed up onto my lap and curled herself against my belly. Very soon she was asleep, before Quamba had finished the music he played on the flute. I thought of my banza still hanging from the roof tree inside the case behind me. Sometimes I played such music with Quamba, but tonight the weight of sleeping Marielle held me where I was.

I had been thinking of these children ever since I saw the French blow up the forts at Port-au-Prince, Caco whose father was Riau, and Yoyo whose father was Guiaou, and Marielle who had the two of us for fathers. It was a good time for Riau to come to Ennery, since Guiaou had been sent to Santo Domingo by Toussaint. Guiaou and Riau did not fight any more about Merbillay, but we did not stay in the case with her at the same time either, so this way it was better.

When Quamba had finished his music, he stood and walked away with only a nod to us before leaving. I carried Marielle inside and laid her on the shucks beside her sister. In the darkness of the case I spent some careful time unwinding the cloth which wrapped Merbillay’s head and folding it and laying it carefully down on top of a stool, before I laid my hands onto her shoulders. The sweetness was sharp, as always after a time away. It was the time away that made it so. Afterward I thought again how strange it was that there were many women in the country and many of them beautiful and strong, but for Riau and Guiaou there was only this one.

Then Merbillay slept, but Riau did not. I listened to the two girls breathing in the shucks, and the mice walking on the leaves of the case roof. After a while Caco came in on very quiet feet and crept to lie down on the other side of the case from his sisters. I felt glad then, to be in the same house with all of them together, but still sleep did not come to me. I was thinking how the people at Port-au-Prince had not wanted all they had built there to be torn down again and burned. A lot of them who were blancs had since been killed in the Savane Valembrun, so it did not matter any more what they wanted. Riau did not mind the killing of blancs at all, and when the red magic flowered in his head he killed blancs himself with pleasure. Maybe I did not want the whole country to be torn apart and burned again, but I knew it was going to happen, and not only because of the words which Toussaint had put into my head.

I did not know what it was that I wanted, or which way I should go. Instead of sleep, the sadness of the night before came down on me again. At Bahoruco, as in Guinée, each day unfolded a path before me, one path without any crossroads. Now every step brought Riau to some crossroads and he did not know which way to turn, nor even if he could pass through that kalfou at all.

Then I got up from where I lay. Merbillay shifted into the space I opened, but she did not wake. I went out from under the leaf roof over the door and stretched my back. At the top of a round hill to the east I saw the roof of the hûnfor with the