All Souls' Rising (35 page)

After a while we came up across the lower slope of another mountain, where it had been cleared and planted with coffee trees. When we had passed around the curve of the hill, the river was in sight again. The sun was going down behind the mountain we rode on. I watched the trees shifting in the wind on the mountains behind the river, and I thought how Riau might ride away alone, not coming back. I thought of Bahoruco, where Jean-Pic had gone. But even though I had never been to the Bahoruco mountains I knew I could never ride my horse so high.

I pulled the sorrel up again and sat him quietly, leaning a little to stroke his neck. It was foolish to think that he was mine. He was not owned by Jeannot either, or Toussaint, or even the officer I had killed to get him. He was just a sorrel horse, like I was just Riau. Bayon de Libertat had fooled himself to think that he had owned Riau, one time…I felt these things were true that evening, but I soon forgot it all, and it was a long time before I thought of it again.

The sun had gone by the time we came riding back to the camp. I looked for chickens going to roost, but all the chickens were already eaten. Some dogs came out of the camp to bark at me. They were hungry too, but they ran off when I got down from the sorrel horse. I led him to his place again and tethered him, and I stayed there until the stars came out, listening to the horses shift and breathe.

In going back toward our
ajoupa
I went by the place where the whitewoman prisoners were sleeping. While I was going along I saw a man come out of the trees on the other side and walk among the sleepers, all crouched down. He passed between me and the stars and I saw it was Chacha Godard, from Jeannot’s camp. But Chacha did not see me at all. He went crouching among the white-women, and I knew that not all of them were sleeping. They were watching Chacha, not moving anything but their eyes, like hens will watch a cat that walks below the branch where they are perched.

Then Chacha jumped onto one of the whitewomen and stuffed her mouth with a rag or leaves, something, I could not see what. She did not fight him very much, only a little struggle, like wings beating in a bag. Chacha dragged her away into the trees, and I went after him, a few steps back. Under cover of the trees I could not see much. But Chacha was doing the thing to her, of course. They did not make much noise. It was like in our
ajoupa
, except that sometimes if I heard the priest with Fontelle I would want to do the thing myself. But when I heard Chacha it made me think that maybe I would never want to do the thing again.

There was someone else there watching Chacha too. I could not see who it was, but I heard a sound of metal touching metal. Chacha didn’t hear the sound. He finished on the whitewoman and went away, leaving her lying against a tree. I didn’t see what way he went. The whitewoman sat up with her back against the tree, crying in the pale way whitepeople do. Then she got up and limped back to where the other whitewomen were lying. When she came into the starlight I saw that Chacha must have filled her mouth with dirt, because there were mud streaks now running from the corners of her mouth.

The whitewoman went to lie down among the others, where she had been. I heard the metal sound again and I saw the other man step out of the trees not far from where I was still hidden. It was Biassou, and this surprised me, to see him walking alone at night, because Biassou had already the fears of a big chief. The metal sound was coming from the coins taken from the whitemen he had pinned across his chest, to look like a whiteman general. They clicked together when he stepped or changed his weight. Biassou looked toward me, like he could see me even in the dark under the trees. Then he turned and walked away with the coins all clicking and the spurs ringing softly on the heels of his boots.

I followed Biassou until he came to his tent. When he had lifted up his tent flap he looked back at me, still like he saw me, but he went without saying any word. I came nearer the tent flap because he had left it open. The light of a candle began shining inside.

“Come in,” Biassou said. “Riau.”

I was inside when he said my name to me. Biassou waved that I should drop the tent flap. He was sitting with one of the cats curled on his shoulder and the
asson
on his knee. I looked at the baskets where the snakes lived, I could not see them in the baskets but I felt that they were there. Among the
ouangas
strung from the ridgepole were hanging some puffer fish. He must have brought these from some other place because it was far from the sea, where we were at Grande Rivière. The fish had dried blown up with their spines prickling out like soursops. When Biassou began to shake the
asson
, I saw the fish begin to move, like they were again in water, their spiny shadows moving on the tent roof like shadows of a
loup-garou
.

Biassou’s
asson
was a special one, carved and blackened to look like a fish, with eyes and a diamond pattern on its back. There were seeds of the gourd that sounded inside it, along with the beads strung outside the shell. Biassou had a way of moving it that was less like one little gourd of an
asson
than a whole
rada batterie
. But he stopping shaking it for a moment and spoke to me.

“You saw Chacha, the thing he did.”

I said that I had seen Chacha. Biassou began shaking the
asson
again in his special way. I looked at the fish face, the fire-blacked nose. I could feel the sound balanced between my ears.

“Chacha disobeyed the order,” Biassou said. His eyes were in shadow, I saw only a glint. He had grown very fat in this camp. His cheeks were glossy and fat and the buttons of his whiteman soldier tunic had pulled away to show his stomach rolls. I saw that watching Chacha do the thing made Biassou want to do it too, but Biassou had not brought any whitewoman to his tent since Jeannot was killed. No one did the thing to the whitewomen after that. Jean-François and Biassou ordered it so, but it was Toussaint moving them. I looked at Biassou but I could not tell if he felt who it was that moved him.

“If Jean-François knows what Chacha did, then Chacha will be shot,” I said. “Or Biassou can order Chacha shot himself.” It was hard for me to say these things because of the way Biassou was moving the
asson
. My mouth was only half my own. And I felt that Biassou stood between me and Ogûn, like Legba sitting on the gate. If I don’t feed Legba, he will not open the gate to let the great
loa
come through.

“Chacha will die,” Biassou said. “But Chacha will not die of shooting. You will see his
corps-cadavre
walk again, Riau.”

My mouth hung open, but I did not speak. In my head I saw the bones where they lay in Jeannot’s camp, not meaning anything to anyone. Spittle pooled inside the corner of my mouth.

“It’s true, Riau,” Biassou said. “What I say will be.”

“
Ouais
,” I said. “It’s true.” My voice came back to me from a long distance, but Biassou stopped the
asson
and put it aside so suddenly that the silence struck me like a blow.

O
UTSIDE, WALKING AWAY FROM
B
IASSOU’S TENT
, I felt a tearing in my whole body, like I had been torn away too soon from lying with a woman. I spat on the ground, all the water that had gathered in my mouth, but the tearing stayed. At our
ajoupa
they were all sleeping, only Caco woke as I came near. He began crying, so I lifted him from Merbillay’s side and carried him a little away until he would quiet. He kicked at the pouch that hung on my waist, because he had learned that there I kept the watch I had taken from that soldier.

I took it out and let him hold the chain while I wound it for him to hear. Usually I never wound the watch, though I always carried it with me. I did not like to hear it chopping up the time with no one looking at it, the way a book will measure words even when no one reads it. Let the whitemen chop up time.

Then Riau did not think of any time but the one he was living. Now, Riau must say
then
. But to Caco the watch sound was like the crickets in the jungle or water running from the spring into a pool. He did not make much difference between these things, only he liked the watch because it shone. While I sat holding him on my knees, the torn feeling passed away from me, and I began to feel better than I had felt when I first left Biassou’s tent.

Chapter Twenty-Two

D
AMP, NAKED, SWADDLED IN TOWELING
, Arnaud twitched nervously in the wooden chair that had been shifted to the center of the
salle de bains
. The long shears of the barber-surgeon snicked along the back of his hair.

“Be still,” the barber-surgeon said. Arnaud’s breath snagged. Unintentionally, he went rigid. The barber-surgeon was a white man, a piratical-looking fellow, some sawbones absconded from a ship, undoubtedly. Le Cap had always been awash with scurf like that…The inner voice responsible for these observations seemed to reach Arnaud as from the bottom of a well. Exhaling, he twitched again. A scissor point pricked his neck.

Some hours before, just a short time before sundown, he had entered the town riding pillion behind Captain Maillart, in the midst of the excursionary party. Their aspect drew attention, finally a small crowd, children calling up and down the alleys that the soldiers had captured a weird ape in the jungle, hirsute, fanged, strangely pale and fully as big as a man. Arnaud clung to Maillart’s back, turning his face away from the voyeurs. He’d whispered into the captain’s ear that he might find shelter at the house of the
négociant
, Bernard Grandmont, but it was a long journey through the catcallers, across town to the neighborhood near the quay.

This was Grandmont’s house, his
salle de bains
; the
négociant
had summoned the barber. His slaves had drawn a bath for Arnaud, hot water in a copper tub. It had taken three waters and much assiduous scrubbing for the slaves to bring the mud plasters and grime off his hide. Scoured to a sore flush, Arnaud’s skin revealed its intricate patterning of insect bites and superficial scratches. His hair was hopeless, a carpet of burrs and twigs and thorns. Cut it off and wash and comb whatever might remain.

The barber tipped him backward and plunged his head into a basin. Arnaud stiffened; his arms flailed like the legs of an overset beetle. He concentrated and made his muscles still. Soap was stinging one of his eyes, and his feet jerked spasmodically through pools of water on the flagstone floor. From the doorway, Bernard Grandmont covered him with a grave regard.

Something more than a mere acquaintance, Grandmont often had joined Arnaud’s carouses when the planter came to town. Arnaud was fondest of the ladies, while Grandmont, fearful of the pox, preferred cards or dice. But there was sufficient intersection of their tastes. Grandmont, who served as factor for Arnaud’s sugar and other export goods, had always been ready with a loan if his friend’s
amours
put him out of pocket (though indeed, he charged a usurious rate on such accommodations). When Maillart had brought Arnaud to the house, Grandmont had at first tried to chaff him over his tatterdemalion appearance, but soon could see that Arnaud, so far from resenting those japes, did not even appear to understand them.

Behind the chair, the barber stropped his razor. He laid one hand on Arnaud’s shoulder; Arnaud trembled in response. Grandmont shifted his weight against the door frame, crossed one buckled shoe above the other.

“
Doucement
,” he said soberly. “
Doucement, Michel
.”

His tone was that you’d use to calm a restive horse. The razor was chill on Arnaud’s cheekbone. His breath pulled into a bulbous
cul de sac
at the rear of his throat. He could draw it no deeper, it would not reach his lungs. The blade stroked down, sheared off the hair. It was sharp enough it hardly pulled, but Arnaud’s skin still crawled behind its path. With a rough movement, the barber twisted his head back, exposing the stubble on his neck. An odor of tainted meat breathed across Arnaud’s face, and the barber snickered as he spoke.

“Be
very
still,” the barber said. “
Sinon
, I’ll cut your throat.”

A
RNAUD HAD ALWAYS KEPT A CHANGE
or two of clothing at Grandmont’s house, since he often stayed here when visiting Le Cap. In an earlier period, Claudine had sometimes accompanied him here. Was that a faint trace of her scent when Grandmont drew open his closet door?—No, it was impossible.

During his errors through the jungle, Arnaud had lost his plumpness, and the old clothes fit him poorly now, the trousers hanging slackly from his hipbones. By the light of a candle flickering in Grandmont’s bedchamber, he faced the mirror, startling at the sight of his own eyes. His cheeks had lost their convex curve and in the hollows below the bones the barber had missed twin patches of shallow stubble that glistened now in the candlelight.

“Yes, you are quite yourself again,” Grandmont said. “Or if not quite, at least recognizably so. You must have an appetite—for something better than bananas or salt beef. Shall we go out? Or—

“
Mais non
.” Arnaud turned sharply from the mirror. His hands were shaking; he looked down at them in confusion.

Grandmont reached into a corner and presented him with a walking stick. Automatically Arnaud grasped it with both hands. It was dark in color, surprisingly lightweight, and formed in a curious double spiral that ran its full length. He looked up uncertainly at Grandmont as his fingers slipped naturally into the grooves.

“A bull’s pizzle,” Grandmont said. “You must have seen them made so in France.”

Arnaud kept staring.

“Haven’t you always carried a cane?” Grandmont said. “I give it to you—a present. Come, we’ll eat in the kitchen.”

Grandmont’s kitchen was brightly lit, scarcely a shadow in it anywhere, and in fact Arnaud did feel more comfortable there, especially after Grandmont had dismissed his cook. The odor of well-cooked, well-seasoned food excited him, and the first bite brought a painful burst of saliva at the rear of his jaws, but he could not eat as much as he desired; his stomach had shriveled. He pushed aside his plate and sat, sipping the wine that Grandmont had served him, and rolling the spiral cane across his knees. The movement seemed to stop the trembling of his hands.

Grandmont completed his own meal and raised his head to look across the table. He had clear eyes and a straight nose, but his chin was weak and he had more teeth than his small mouth could accommodate; they jostled together and pushed outward to deform his lips, giving his whole face a ratlike aspect. Because he presented his face confidently, with no apparent idea of its ugliness, it had small effect on the people he knew.

“Coffee? Or rum?” Grandmont asked. “There is no brandy to offer you at the moment, I am sorry…”

“Yes, rum,” Arnaud said. Grandmont got up, clearing the plates with his own hands, and brought a bottle and two glasses to the table. He reached into an inner pocket and took out two cheroots and passed one to his guest. Arnaud leaned forward to light his at the candle. He felt an unaccustomed giddiness; it was long since he had smoked.

“Well, you doubtless have your tale to tell.” Grandmont said, exhaling toward the ceiling. “Whenever you are ready.”

Arnaud began to unfold his story. He rolled the cane back and forth over his thighs, kneading them—his old mannerism. As he did so he felt his voice better integrated with himself, and he was surprised and grateful for Grandmont’s subtlety in offering him the cane. The taste of rum and tobacco were sweet familiarities. He reminded himself not to drink too much, and this thought too was proper to Michel Arnaud,
grand blanc
, proprietor, and manager of men. In the telling he was careful to falsify the purpose that had brought him to Ouanaminthe, for Grandmont, so far as he knew, had not not been privy to the Sieur Maltrot’s plot. This caution too belonged to his ancient character. When he told what he had seen of Candi, he was scrupulous to omit the role of Choufleur.

“Ah, Candi, yes…” Grandmont leaned back and blew smoke rings at the ceiling, neatly targeting the second through the dissipating circle of the first. “Perhaps you don’t know that he has become our ally now…”

“
Comment!
” Arnaud lurched forward in his chair.

“Yes, he has been accepted into our militia,” Grandmont said. “As a junior officer. I know it must seem strange to you, but he brought many men, and you know that the situation is desperate now, you know it better than I, I think.”

“Yes, but it’s unthinkable—that monster.” Arnaud snapped, feeling a thrust of his old seigneurial rage.

“Who can say any longer what is possible?” Grandmont said. “But never mind. When things are settled, there’ll be another reckoning. For Candi…among others. I think you understand.”

Arnaud caught his breath, then went on with his tale. He told of the priest and of his rescue, how they had set out together to regain his plantation, the manner in which they’d been forced to part.

“
Et après?
” Grandmont asked.

“I blundered onto the place in the end,” Arnaud said. “Home. There was nothing left of it, nothing at all, all burned to the ground. Ashes and charcoal.” His mind’s eye slipped over the single shed left standing, with its contents. “The slaves all run away—or murdered. And God only knows what happened to my wife—”

“Ah, Claudine!” Grandmont said suddenly. “Of course, forgive me, you could not have known.”

Arnaud grew attentive, bending his ear for notes of artificiality. Grandmont knew something of the estrangement between Claudine and himself.

“She is here in this town, and she is well—she is safely here, at least.”

“How did she come here?” Arnaud said.

“Well may you ask,” said Grandmont. “It is a most extraordinary story.”

B
IDDEN TO DINE
CHEZ
C
IGNY
, Claudine Arnaud found herself seated at a table that included her hostess and her husband, the
philosophe
Maillart, the
négociant
Bourgois with his wife, and some others whose names Claudine had not registered. Of late she had often been summoned to
fêtes
of this kind, and often at the home of perfect strangers. Emilie Lambert, seated directly across the table from her, was the only person here Claudine had known previously, and neither her mother nor her sisters were present. Claudine had not seen the family all together since she had left the Flaville town-house to seek her retreat at the convent of Les Ursulines.

She ate mechanically, timing her forkfuls by those of the other ladies at the table. The food went down, dry and tasteless. Wine evaporated in the glass that had been set at her left hand. She had not moved to touch it. Her fork was pinched in the fingers of her right glove, for she always wore gloves now, even to eat. Her left hand was cuddled on her lap, the empty ring finger of the glove pinned to the palm.

There was conversation, in which Madame Arnaud took the smallest possible part. Monsieur Bourgois and a youth whom Isabelle Cigny addressed as Pascal would pay her occasional compliments. These she deflected, often without so much as a word, only a deprecating flip of her gloved right hand. She scarcely listened to anything that was said, but her eyes took in the state of things beneath the surface of their chatter.

In Monsieur Cigny she recognized an irritable cuckold who most certainly would have preferred to spend his evening elsewhere. It was the reverse of the situation that had obtained between herself and Arnaud; Isabelle Cigny threw it in her husband’s face. Both of the two young men seated right and left of her, Pascal and the junior officer called Henri, had clearly been her lovers at one time, but Claudine sensed that she was bored with them now, that in general she must suffer from
ennui
. Madame Bourgois, some twenty-five years younger than her husband, had only recently come out from France, and was clearly unfamiliar with Creole ways, and altogether too admiring of her friend Isabelle. Monsieur Bourgois for his part seemed oblivious to the dangers inherent in this acquaintance. Emilie Lambert, meanwhile, had her own recent experience of male nature to try to reconcile with all this worldliness.

The plates were cleared, the wine refilled. Madame Cigny got to her feet; her husband, grumbling, followed suit. A little murmur ran round the table. Isabelle Cigny lifted her glass with two hands like a priest raising a chalice.

“Let us do honor to our guest,” she said. “To her great determination—to her beautiful courage. Madame Arnaud!”

The toast was taken—a muted cheer erupted from the gentlemen. As the dinner party resettled itself, Claudine deliberately raised her left hand and laid it next to the right, in the space on the table where her plate had been. She felt how all eyes rolled to the maimed glove.

“You must tell us,” Monsieur Cigny began, in tones of someone whose toe has just been crushed by his wife’s heel, “tell us how you found such resolution.”

“But perhaps the recollection is too painful,” said Isabelle Cigny, with a polished insincerity.

“Oh tell, do tell.” It was a chorus. Claudine was well enough prepared for it. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still croaking when she spoke.

“
C’etait rien
. Any one of you would certainly have done the same.” She pressed her fingertips to the table and raised her palms like a pianist. Several people talking at once denied what she had said. Pascal turned to Emilie Lambert.

“Don’t let her hide behind this modesty,” he said to her. “
You
must tell us how it was.”

Emilie’s eyes were moist in the candlelight.
Ah, child
, Claudine thought, but with little bitterness,
we have both to sing for our supper now
. That was always the way of it; some member of the Lambert survivors would be coerced into attendance, to draw Claudine out, fill in details that she omitted. And tonight the story was unfolded in like manner, a series of coy hesitations; only Claudine understood the deeper reluctance that was masked. Tonight, she let Emilie bear the brunt of it. She felt for the girl, but could not move herself to help her. When obliged to, she put in a word or a correction. The shadow of her crippled hand wavered on the table’s polished wood. She raised her palm a little higher, to see how the empty finger was clipped to the cloth. Formerly Arnaud had been in the custom of chaining up the ankle of a recaptured runaway to an iron collar round his neck, so that the slave must skip about with one leg drawn up behind; this was the punishment that preceded amputation. Emilie had come to the point where the Congo’s band intercepted the wagon.