All Souls' Rising (41 page)

In Nanon’s room not much had changed. Maman-Maig’ set down her basket. She spread her fingers on Nanon’s head for a moment as if to weigh her down; in fact the touch did seem to calm her slightly. Then she gripped Nanon’s legs and spread them and peered between; she groped, then grunted something. As she withdrew, Nanon pulled away and screamed. Maman-Maig’ drew a root from her basket and cut a strip of it with a clasp knife and gave it to Nanon to hold between her teeth.

It went on. The doctor stayed stubbornly in the room, though from time to time the women tried to throw him out. He would come forward to hear her curse him, curse all men; when the spasm passed, she would sometimes apologize. Sometimes he sat down to rest, drawing a chair beside the porthole window. New chairs had been brought into the room; there was an extra table now. Across the alley, colors of sundown swirled and faded on the opposite wall. It was dark, then late. The tortoiseshell kitten came out of the basket and chased a ball of lint through shadows of candlelight and under the bed. Doctor Hébert caught it up and brought it to Nanon to look at, touch—for a moment it seemed to distract her from her pain but that was very temporary.

Madame Cigny forced him to go down and sit behind a plate of supper, across the table from her sour, close-lipped husband. Monsieur Cigny was content to eat speechlessly, which was well. The doctor chewed and chewed but could not swallow. Upstairs again, he took a little of the broth that Nanon had been given to keep up her strength—so Maman-Maig’ said. She seemed to choke on it; she pushed the bowl sloppingly away.

There was a lull. Sitting by the dark round of the window, the doctor took out his watch and dangled the chain. The kitten raised up on its hind legs and batted at the links so that they jingled and sparked in the lamplight.

It was past midnight. He went down and out into the street—for air, a few black gulps of the thick humidity. When he returned, the room was once again a box of screams. He was given to understand that the child was trying to be born sideways or backward, that the cord was looped around its neck and that Maman-Maigre’s desperate manipulations were meant to rectify all this. The chicken bone was in her mouth, whistling with her exhalations as she rubbed and worked. Isabelle Cigny drew him aside, and held him by the window. At last Maman-Maig’ looked up with a grin and nodded. She herself had sweated through her head-cloth.

“
Now
you must go,” Madame Cigny snapped at the doctor.

The doctor stared and mutely shook his head. Madame Cigny had moved back to the bedside.

“Damn you, then,” she said. “Be useful, if you refuse to leave. Well, come here and hold this leg.” She beckoned him and showed him how to do it.

Their positions were symmetrical, either side of the bed. One of the doctor’s hands was locked somewhere on Nanon’s thigh and the other supported her foot like a stirrup. At every new contraction both he and Isabelle pulled back as if on a pair of oars. MamanMaig’ knelt between Nanon’s legs like a worshiper, one hand spread across her belly and the other doing something down below.

“
Li prèt
,” said Maman-Maig’ in her low flat tone. “He’s ready.” Nanon raised up, face starkly white, lips closed on a tight, silent line as she was pushing, while the doctor and Isabelle Cigny hauled back on her legs.

“Come on,” said Madame Cigny. “
Allons
—you must concentrate.
Plus fort
.”

Nanon’s head rolled back, and she subsided, whimpering. There was a pause before the coming stroke.

“
Li prèt
,” Maman-Maig’ said again. It went on. Isabelle was leaning into Nanon’s face. “
Allons
,” she called. “
Pousses—plus fort que ça
.” Her face was shining, a blaze of power and light pouring down on Nanon; the doctor was in awe of both. And Nanon slipped back, a thin wail sighing from her as her jaws relaxed.

“
Li prèt
,” said Maman-Maig’.

The contractions came in patterns like sets of waves running in on the beach. Somewhere there was hot water steaming, filling the room with a hot mist. Blood ran out from Nanon’s legs, filling a barber’s basin the brown-skinned maid held underneath her. Everyone was screaming, shouting exhortations. The doctor was probably screaming himself, but mostly he only heard Isabelle, saw her glowing transfigured face as her head leaned near to Nanon’s.

Maintenant pousses plus fort que ça tu peux tu dois plus fort que ça si tu m’aimes pousses maintenant!

“
Têt li désân
,” said Maman-Maig’ with reverence. “The head is coming.”

The doctor turned his own, but could not see. Nanon sobbed out, with relief this time, and Isabelle’s voice was gentler now as she stooped again to stroke back the sweat matted hair from Nanon’s brow.

Allons, pousses, encore une fois
…

What shot out into Maman-Maigre’s hands was at first so alien that the doctor could not even read it. It was purple, slimed with blood, connected by a ropy pulsing vein; it looked like some internal organ, a liver or a spleen.

“
Regardes-moi cette tête
,” said Madame Cigny softly.

Then, upside down, he recognized the face, as Maman-Maig’ scooped off the mucus with her fingers. At once there was a small harsh cry that strengthened as it went. He saw the molded limbs drawn up in that odd rabbity way; the whole body was scarcely the size of the head, it looked, and the head was doubled, enormous. There was a mass of material above the face that made it seem as though the baby were wearing a gigantic conical hat.

Nanon’s hands fluttered weakly over the infant’s back. They had laid it on her breast, and Maman-Maig’ was tying up the cord to cut it. The doctor understood that all was well. Nanon was slipping into sleep. He drew his watch out of his pocket and was amazed to see that more than two hours had passed since Maman-Maig’ first raised her grinning face and announced that it was time.

Now he was hungry, ravenous. He went to the kitchen alone and ate whatever he could find. Madame Cigny had gone to bed, he thought, and Maman-Maig’ was also sleeping somewhere in the house.

He returned upstairs, inattentively brushing crumbs from the corners of his mouth. It could not have been much later, for the brown-skinned maid was still there, tidying the room. Quiet now, with the mother and child asleep, and the signs of the struggle being gradually effaced. Some damp rags hung unnoticed over a chair back. Maman-Maigre’s chicken bone had been set aside on a table where it lay with a mute authority, and there was a basin of blood on the floor.

Blue had begun to show at the porthole window. The maid unlatched the casement and swung it out, to admit a breath of cool predawn air. The doctor felt drifty, cloudlike, though he was not really so very tired. The maid moved through her tasks with the same measured composure that he felt within himself. An hour previous, she must have been screaming with the rest of them. A wave of affection for her passed over him. He asked her name:
Jacqueline
. The syllables were melodious in his ear, and even the blood in the basin had beauty.

She left a lamp burning for him when at last she went out. By its light the doctor saw that the infant had quietly awakened and was looking toward him with its round dark eyes from the basket they’d arranged near Nanon’s bed. He took it up carefully, afraid of a cry that would wake the mother, but the baby stayed quiet. They’d put a conical cotton cap like a sailor’s on its head, but the doctor slipped it off, noticing at once that the skull itself was relaxing to a more ordinary shape. A quantity of rust-colored hair covered the scalp; the doctor stroked its furry softness with the thumb of the hand supporting the head. A warmth and texture like new-risen bread dough. It was a boy. His hands and feet were covered with an ancient wrinkly skin; one hand wrapped around the doctor’s finger. All the while the baby looked at him from great owl eyes as if he’d truly see and know him.

A thin gray rain came up with the dawn, drops beading on the open porthole casement. Before Isabelle Cigny snuffed out the candle, the doctor had not noticed her come in. She crossed the room, her long nightgown trailing on the floor, and peered over his shoulder into the child’s face. The warmth and softness of her breast pressed unconsciously against his arm, but for once he was unembarrassed, as she was unaware.

“What woke you?” he said. “You must be very tired.”

“Ah, there’s nothing like it, is there?” She did not look at him when she said this, but kept her wistful smile turned on the baby. The doctor understood that she meant not children, but the birth itself, in which they were bound together as witnesses. One of her fingers reached out to touch the newborn cheek.

“He’s very white,” the doctor said.

“On the first day it’s always so,” she said. “After that, one sees the color.” She lifted one of the fingers from its tiny grip. “You can see it now, in the base of the nail.”

There was no rancor in her tone, and the doctor did not resent it. On the contrary, he loved her as well as he loved the maid, Jacqueline. Some little while later she must have left the room, but he was no better aware of her going than of her arrival. The rain was tapping on the window and hissing on the street below. Still the child regarded him intently. Already his small face was changing. When the doctor had first seen it emerge, the face had been without a doubt his own grandfather’s. There were still the odd dog-shaped, crumpled ears, a Hébert family trait, but the other features were settling into something that belonged to this one child alone. Not himself, not Nanon, but a mingling—something new. This, the doctor realized, was what all the trouble was about.

A
T THE TRIAL OF
P
ÈRE
B
ONNE-CHANCE
, these charges were upheld: That he had aided the rebellious slave called
Jeannot
in the torture and murder of many white prisoners. That he had deliberately pandered and prostituted helpless white women to many of the rebel black slaves. That from the very beginning he had helped to instigate the insurrection and had inspired the slaves to destroy so much property and take so many lives and overthrow the rule of order in the colony.

None of those who had accused the priest appeared against him in person. The charges were general in their form. A letter which had been found and preserved by someone who’d survived the camp of Jeannot was read out in the court.

J’ai disposé la dame une telle à vous recevoir cette nuit…Vous n’avez jamais eu de telle jouissance, mon cher Biassou, que celle qui vous attend ce soir…La petite de fait la reveche mais apportez de la pitre pour la disposer à souscrire à vos désirs
…
^*12

The signature had been been partly torn away, and what remained of it was scarcely legible. Père Bonne-chance denied that he had written the letter, but without much force. He had little else to say. On the whole he did not appear to take much interest in any of the proceedings.

Doctor Hébert testified haltingly on behalf of Père Bonne-chance, describing his assistance at the field hospital in Jean-François’s camp. The spiritual comfort he’d brought to white prisoners and black rebels alike. The evident sincerity of his religion…

Michel Arnaud followed the doctor’s testimony, disparaging every accusation made against the priest as if it were unworthy to be heard, especially the charge of prior conspiracy. He’d mustered up all his old swagger for the occasion, and for the time it took him to tell his story he succeeded in making the charges seem absurd. His performance had more authority than the doctor’s, though unfortunately he had also been more remote from the scene.

Still, the judgment was never in doubt. Père Bonne-chance had no defenders who’d actually been present in Jeannot’s camp to say that he had
not
done those things he was accused of. In any case, it was plain that he was not what he appeared to be. His numerous progeny proved that he did not keep the priestly vow of chastity. Then too, he was a Jesuit disguised in robes of another order. Had not the Jesuits been expelled because of their too great sympathy for the slaves?—which in itself suggested most strongly that Père Bonne-chance must have conspired with the rebels. Besides, even the doctor could not deny that he’d helped with the composition of their latest, most outrageous demands.

Two days after the sentence was passed, they brought the priest to the Place de Clugny. A large crowd was present for the execution. His children had been kept away, but Fontelle was there, and the priest was permitted a last embrace with her. There was a frank lustfulness in his touch of her, and the crowd mocked them both for it, and threw stones and dead things they had saved for the occasion.

Père Bonne-chance was bound spread-eagled to the wheel and broken. The executioner used a great iron hammer to smash his arms and legs, his ribs and clavicle.
Domine, non sum dignus
, the priest shouted out at the first few strokes. The mob was unnerved by this, and virtually silenced. But after the fifth blow his cries became unintelligible and the mob was released again to jeer and cat-call. When all of his bones had been appropriately shattered, they called for him to be left in that state, for slow death over hours or days as it might be. But the executioner, a kindhearted fellow who was known to carry a pet mouse in his vest pocket even as he did his duty, took out the knife and slit his throat.