Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [82]
“It was the singing,” Quamba said. I had not known I had been singing this song out loud.
Ogûn-O, that devil says he is going to eat me, is it true? . . . but there is God, there are all the saints . . .
Then Quamba opened the gate for me, and stood aside for me to pass. It was a small enclosure there on the point of the hill, and the kay mystè was so small a man must bend double to enter it. I sat crosslegged on the ground outside, with my back to the cross of Baron Cimetière and my face toward the open door of the kay mystè.
Ogûn-O... Djab-la di l’ap manjé moin, si sa vré? Sé pa vré, ti-moun you, sé pa vré! sa sé jwet, ti-moun-yo, sa sé blag . . .
I was breathing the night air very deep as I sat there, and keeping my eyes half shut, and after some time it seemed my breath was answered out of the mouths of the govi and canari jars inside the kay mystè, as the wind moved in circles round the hilltop.
Ogûn-O... That devil says he is going to eat me, is it true? It’s not true, my children, it’s not true! that is child’s play, my children, it is a joke . . .
Quamba was waiting. He did not say anything, but followed me out when I rose from the ground. He pulled the gate shut behind us. I did not speak until the gate was fastened.
“M dwé fé pou Moyse youn wete mò nanba dlo,” I told him. I must bring the spirit of Moyse back from beneath the waters.
Quamba nodded, and he said, “I can do that for you when it is time.”
“I must do it myself,” I said to him.
Quamba looked at me then, but his eyes did not hold much surprise. “For that you must take the asson,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “When it is time.” I knew it would be so. Quamba did not say anything more after that, but he took hold of my elbow and my arm with both his hands, as if he thought I would need his touch to guide me on the pathway down the hill.
In the case of Merbillay I slept soundly then, until the morning sun was full. It was the voice of Caco that woke me. Outside the case he was splashing himself with water which the girls had carried and making himself ready to go and work in the coffee. He wanted to see me admire the bigger arms and legs and chest he had got from this work since I had seen him, though he had not yet got all his growth, and this I did. Caco was yet a child, but a man’s work made him proud—he did not hate it. I watched him go into the coffee grove, thinking, at least he is not made to work the cane.
It was not such a good thought to have in my head even so. That devil had taken his teeth out of my neck, but I could still feel him waiting near. I knew I could not stay in this place with Merbillay and the children. Toussaint had his wife and youngest son Saint-Jean on a habitation just next to this one, and I knew he must be thinking of them now, and if he came to see them, he might even come to Thibodet, because he often visited here. Now the blanche Elise was in the grand’case, and she could recognize Riau.
I rode down by Gonaives that day, taking care as I passed the town, but there was no word of any French ships yet in the harbor there. From Gonaives I crossed the Savane Désolée, and then the rice country, and came at last to Saint Marc in the evening. Here Dessalines had built for himself a house as fine and grand as the one Christophe had made at Le Cap, but today the walls were all painted with tar, and men of the Eighth Brigade stood outside with lit torches. In the Place d’Armes and before the church it was the same. The whole town was ready for burning. But there was a lot of commotion in the casernes, where all the soldiers were making ready for a movement.
At last I found Dessalines down at the port, walking back and forth along the embarcadère. He wore his uniform pinned with many medals and draped with sashes and covered with long golden cords. Dessalines had come to his place as general under Toussaint, the same as had Moyse. But there was room in his head for more than Toussaint, and one could not always know what was behind it. He walked