Gabriel flicked seeds between the slats, distracting the monkey, then motioned to the skull with his knife. “How long has he been dead?”
“At least three centuries! This was an Arawak.”
“An Indian?” Gabriel asked around the pulp in his mouth. “The ones who were here when Columbus landed?”
Étienne nodded. “See how the forehead is sloped? The Arawaks did that on purpose.”
“Whatever for?”
Étienne shrugged. “If the Spanish hadn’t killed them all, maybe we’d know.”
“The Spanish didn’t killallthe Indians,” Narcisse interjected,letting his feet thump to the floor and startling the monkey. It retreated past the slave working the fan. “You think you knoweverything, but you don’t. We had a half-breed right—” Narcisse caught himself, glancing at Marguerite.
Yes, she remembered: on one of Dr. Arthaud’s visits, an entire dinner conversation had been dedicated to whether or not one of their servers had Indian blood—the little whore Marguerite managed to forget about most days, since Matthieu kept his promise and disposed of her.
“I’ve seen Indians in town,” Narcisse amended. “Live ones.”
“Slaves, you mean?” Étienne remained undaunted. “Those aren’t Arawaks. They’re from our colonies in Canada and Louisiana. We brought them here just the same as the Africans.”
Narcisse mumbled something and consoled himself by lighting a cigar.
“The Arawaks were different.” Étienne kept gazing in awe at the skull. “Maybe even better than us. The Spanish tried to enslave them; but the Arawaks were ‘kindly and peaceable men,’ so they didn’t fight back. They only threw themselves off cliffs.”
Marguerite scoffed. Suicide was a sign of merit? The negroes would kill themselves, too, if you didn’t watch them.
Étienne continued as if he and the skull were alone in the world: “There were millions of Arawaks on this island—they called it Hayti—and in a couple of decades, they were extinct. Maybe that’s why God gave us the best part of the island, because of what the Spanish did to the Arawaks. In his pamphlet, Dr. Arthaud says?—”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You and Arthaud and Rousseau and your noble savages. Natural man is not noble, little brother; he is simply savage.”
Étienne launched into some impassioned defense, but Marguerite stopped listening. The boys’ conversations were usually abstract like this, with no bearing on their lives. For all their differences, Marguerite missed Delphine—only a palm avenue and a banana field away, and yet so far, over the rutted roads.
Marguerite returned to Denis’s latest missive. These past two years, every letter brought fresh horrors. The King and his familywere being treated like prisoners—pious, harmless Louis XVI and his innocent children! They were not to blame if their mother was a traitor.
This upstart National Assembly knew no limits. It had abolished not only noble titles but also religious orders and confiscated Church property. It had even granted suffrage to mulattos if their parents had been born free! France was mad, Denis warned. It was not safe. Planters were being attacked in the streets, despised for their wealth. Human heads had been paraded on pikes! This was why their sons remained with them on Saint-Domingue under Matthieu’s tutelage, though Gabriel was nearly twenty.
Meanwhile, the former baron had celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday in perfect health, apart from his gout. Clearly her husband planned to live to one hundred simply out of spite. Marguerite had thought they’d be free of him years ago, that she and Matthieu could quietly, truly marry and legitimate their children before any of them came of age.
May God in his infinite mercy guard you from accidents,Denis had prayed from the beginning.If you take ill,dear sister, and you feel death approaching, you know what you must do: send for a Priest immediately and repent. You must renounce Matthieu, or you will die in a state of mortal sin and be damned.
Marguerite could not stop thinking about their last King. The year she was born, a grave sickness had struck Louis XV. Preparing for death, the King had repented of his mistress and sent her away. He had recovered and lived another thirty years, but that mistress could never share his bed again. No Priest would absolve even a King for the same mistress a second time: the first Confession would be proven insincere. Louis XV soon found himself new strumpets—but what if such a false alarm happened to Matthieu or herself? Even if death were certain, could Marguerite truly repent of her choice? And yet without that Confession…
On the back of her hand, Marguerite felt the familiar stab of a mosquito. She smacked at it but missed.Merde. Perhaps it had been Makandal, she thought wryly. A decade before she and Matthieu arrived on Saint-Domingue, the slave had conspired to poison allthe whites on the island. He’d been caught and burned alive; but Makandal claimed he was immortal, that he would turn into a mosquito to escape the flames and return someday to finish what he’d started.
The bite itched fiercely. Marguerite glared at the littlegriffewho had abandoned the fan and was instead staring uselessly at Étienne’s skull. “Did I tell you to stop?”
The slave jumped and stepped back toward the fan’s cord. Narcisse, however, grabbed his arm. “Your mistress asked you a question,crétin: Did she tell you to stop?” He did not let go, though he knew full well the boy wouldn’t answer. “Why do youneversay anything?” Narcisse demanded. “Do you think you’re better than us? Because your father went to university in Paris? If he was so smart, why didn’t he know the penalty for aiding runaways? It’s his fault you’re here now. You know that, don’t you? Your father put you here. He must really hate you.” Narcisse’s argument made no sense: the boy’s father had forfeited his own freedom, too.
Thegriffedid not protest; he only kept his silence, even when Narcisse pressed the lit end of the cigar to his wrist. The boy squirmed and fat tears dropped from his eyes, but still he did not speak.
“Stop it, Narcisse,” Marguerite ordered, scratching the back of her hand till she drew blood. “I want the fan.”
“I will stop whenhetells me to.”
Fortunately Matthieu’s return from the fields distracted Narcisse and allowed the boy to resume his duty. Étienne ran over to introduce his skull, but it elicited only a murmur of acknowledgement from his father. Marguerite frowned. Last week, Matthieu had been ecstatic about a rock their son had brought him. Now, he kept his eyes downcast and climbed the steps of the gallery as if each were a mountain.
“Is something the matter, Matthieu?”
“Hm?” He looked up like a man awaking from a dream. “Oh. The…crabs are eating the cane roots again.” As if this drought were not enough. He paused at the inner doorway, then turned back. “What would you think, Marguerite, about going to Eaux de Boynes tomorrow?”
