Mary bent over. Blood pounded in her head. “Is this the standard treatment for dinner guests?”
None of the women answered. The short woman snapped on a rubber glove, allowed a finger to be covered with translucent gel from a tube and inspected Mary’s genitals and anus with quick professional probes.
“Put your clothes back on please,” she ordered. “Your bladder is tight. After you are dressed, I will take you to the restroom.”
Mary dressed quickly, shivering in her rediscovered anger. The disorientation had passed. She hoped that somehow Yardley would come to regret what she had just suffered.
In the hallway again the short woman led her to a restroom on one side, waited for her to relieve herself and escorted her into a rotunda. Soulavier rejoined her, face composed, hands still, and they stood beneath an enormous chandelier. Mary was no judge of decor but she suspected a French influence: early nineteenth century perhaps. Bluegray walls with white trim. Furniture more fanciful than useful, an atmosphere dominated by the rich and richly oppressive past. Not what she had been led to expect in Yardley’s home; she had visualized more of the hunting lodge or the dark tones of an English study.
“Madame Yardley, née Ermione LaLouche, will meet with us,” Soulavier said. The guards stood ill at ease behind them, the short woman almost at Mary’s elbow. “She is from Jacmel. A true lady of our island.”
There are no ladies or gentlemen on Hispaniola, Mary thought. She came remarkably close to saying it aloud; Soulavier glanced at her with warm slightly hurt eyes as if he had heard. He smiled uncertainly and stiffened.
A painfully thin black woman with high cheekbones and clear staring eyes, at least fifteen centimeters shorter than Mary, entered the rotunda. She wore a long green empire gown and softly, languidly allowed her gloved hand to rest on the upheld arm of a gray haired mulatto in black livery. The mulatto smiled and nodded at Soulavier, the female guards, Mary, all pleasantry and obsequiousness. Madame Yardley hardly seemed aware until she stood directly before them.
“Bonsoir et bienvenus, Monsieur et Mademoiselle,” the gray haired servant said, his voice resonant as if issuing from a profound cavern. “Madame Yardley is here. She will speak to you.”
The woman seemed to come alive, jerking and smiling, focusing on Mary. “Pleasant to meet you,” she said, words thickly accented. “Pardon my English. Hilaire speaks for me.”
The servant nodded with broad enthusiasm. “Please accompany us to the salon. We will take drinks and hors d’oeuvres there. So pleased is Madame to have you as her guests. Follow us, please.”
Hilaire turned Madame Yardley around with a waltzing step and she glanced over her shoulder at Mary, nodding. Mary wondered whether the woman was starving herself to death or if Yardley preferred emaciated women. The Hispaniolan exiles had told Mary that Colonel Sir kept mistresses. Perhaps Madame Yardley was purely ceremonial.
The salon was overwhelmingly elegant, a smothering, mal de tête mix of chinoiserie and African motifs. Another even larger chandelier glittered over an enormous hand-woven Chinese rug, sufficiently worn to be centuries old. A drum as tall as a man—an assotor—stood on a pedestal in one corner. Ebony sculptures of bearded men lined the walls, tall shortlegged figures with narrow heads and swayed backs, gods, devils. A huge brass bowl filled with water and floating flowers stood in the corner diagonal to the assotor.
This elegance countered all she had been told: that Yardley preferred simple quarters and was not ostentatious. The Samedi pins on his guards: did he espouse vodoun as well?
Madame Yardley sat at one end of a soie du chine upholstered couch. Hilaire deftly came around behind her and released her hand, which she then used to lightly pat the space next to her, smiling at Mary.
“Donnez-vous la peine de vous asseoir. Please,” she said, her voice childlike and spooky.
“Madame invites you to sit,” Hilaire said. “Monsieur Soulavier, please take that seat there.” He pointed with a multiply ringed finger at a chair fully five meters across the pastel-azure sea of carpet. Soulavier obeyed. Mary took her assigned position. “Madame Yardley wishes to talk with you both about circumstances on our island.”
What followed was a puppet show conversation of mixed French and broken English from Madame Yardley accompanied by smoothly extrapolated, even psychic English translations from Hilaire. Madame Yardley expressed concern about the difficulties around the island; what did Monsieur Soulavier have to report?
Soulavier told her little more than what he had told Mary, that Dominicans and other groups were expressing dissatisfaction, that troops had been called out to patrol. This seemed to satisfy.
Madame Yardley turned to Mary now. Hilaire, standing behind her with his hands on the back of the couch, followed suit. Was she enjoying the stay? Was she being treated well by all Hispaniolans?
Mary shook her head. “No, Madame,” she replied. “I am being held against my will.”
A tiny candle of concern in Madame’s eyes but no end to the smile, the childlike inquiry.
That will come to an end, we are sure; these difficulties are very upsetting for us all. Would that all could live in harmony. Is Mademoiselle Choy a noiriste perhaps, choosing such a lovely design for herself?
“I meant no disrespect for black people. I simply found this design attractive.”
Hilaire leaned forward, taking a more direct role. “Do you know what noirism is? Madame Yardley wonders whether you in fact support by your choice of design the political movement whereby blacks around the world have found their pride.”
Mary considered that for a moment. “No. I sympathize but my design was purely aesthetic.”
Then perhaps Mademoiselle Choy is a spiritual noiriste, an instinctive supporter, like my husband, Colonel Sir?
Mary conceded that much might be true.
Madame Yardley looked to Soulavier, asked him if perhaps Colonel Sir should adapt a new form, take on color as well as soul. She seemed to be jesting. Soulavier laughed and leaned forward to think about this, head tilted to one side, mocking serious consideration. He shook his head violently, leaned back and laughed again.
Madame Yardley concluded by asking pardon for her appearance. She was fasting, she explained, and would be breaking her fast only this evening. She would be drinking only fruit juices and eating only bread and a little plantain and potato, perhaps some chicken broth. Hilaire held out his hand, Madame Yardley topped it with her own, rose delicately, nodded to Mary and Soulavier.
“Dinner will be served,” Hilaire said. “Follow, please.”
The dining room was over fifteen meters long, its oak parquet floor supporting an immense rectangular table. Chairs lined the walls on all sides, as if the table might be cleared away to allow dancing. The sensual numbing deepened as she sat on the left of Madame Yardley before an elegant antique place setting on a damask tablecloth. Fresh orchids and fruit—Mary recognized mangoes, papaya, guava, star fruit—filled a gold ceramic bowl in the center of the table, with ancillary smaller bowls placed a meter on each side.
Hilaire sat beside and behind his mistress; he would not eat here. Mary wondered when the servant ate or performed any other human functions, if he attended Madame Yardley all the time.
Madame Yardley slowly and painfully made herself comfortable, her face reflecting numerous small complaints before she was composed and prepared to continue. She bowed slightly to Mary as if making her acquaintance for the first time. Her eyes were so large, staring. Starving. Otherworldly. Indeed, Madame Yardley looked around the table with the same fixed smile, regarding each empty chair as if it were occupied by an intimate acquaintance deserving some special acknowledgment.