Mocked in the market, the pawn of peasants?
I am a soldier and love his service,
Dwell in his discipline without desertion.
Hand him the crown in a revised assertion,
Crown him with clemency, not in derision.
I say all this, what is your decision?
FIRST VOICE
Why should a king’s name honour him further?
SOLDIER
You let Dessalines rule and he was despotic,
You are helpless, and numb in the narcotic
Of your superstitions. Only a king can rule;
Give your government dignity. Must it look like a school
Conducted by a foolish master?
SECOND VOICE
Oh, if the crown comfort him, let him have it.
(They cheer.)
SOLDIER
He is born to be king; he will build
A weather only of wealth. Call him.
(Some go off.)
FIRST VOICE
Remember, Dessalines …
SECOND VOICE
How much are you getting
For what you are repeating?
SOLDIER
Oh, shut up.
FIRST VOICE
Remember that power changes the powerful.
Here is your King …
(Re-enter CHRISTOPHE and VASTEY.)
All smiles; like prisoners, they break
The prison of restraint and modesty.
SOLDIER
Speak quickly, fool, or you speak anarchy after this.
They cry for you, Your Majesty; fear made them hesitate
To honour you with your natural estate.
General, you are now King; they are fickle;
Abuse the sickle, opportunity,
In harvest. Look, he cannot speak; leave him.
Let us leave.
(The CROWD goes, bewildered. The SOLDIER hesitates, then is paid. Exiting.)
Goodbye, Your Majesty.
CHRISTOPHE
Poor Brelle.
I think they love me.
VASTEY
That soldier did it; we must fatten him.
He never gives up, he would fight
With a sword’s stub.
CHRISTOPHE
Their love goes further than the corporal.
So, I am King.
VASTEY
Pétion is powerful still in the south,
A king rules this country in the blue north;
This is the richer side of Haiti; look at the hills
Curled in the afternoon like mist.
CHRISTOPHE
On that blue smoking citadel
That hides the sun until its zenith by its height,
I will build a fort
Made out of stone, as befits a soldier,
Magnificent in marble, a king’s comfort.
So high, so bleak,
The sound of the sea will be only a weak wind, or to look
Down on the summer sea, spreading sleep
In wrinkles, will giddy.
VASTEY
At what cost will the general build these things?
Bishoprics oppose the caprices of kings.
CHRISTOPHE
Caprices! Who talks of caprices?
I will exhaust this country into riches. Have you seen
The contagion of blight settling on the limes like apathy
On our stalks? I will build my cathedral in a month,
Then break or build this kingdom.
Look, look up, that hill …
VASTEY
That one, where the gulls achieve halfway,
Then slide back screaming to a muttering sea?
I see; why?
CHRISTOPHE
The air is thin there, the balding rocks
Where the last yellow grass clutch whitening in sun,
And the steep pass below the sea, knocking
Like a madman on the screaming sand,
And the wind howling down the precipices like a lunatic
Searching a letter he never wrote—against these rocks,
Wind, sand, cold, where the sharp cry of gulls beats faintly on the ears,
And in the green grove a milk of doves—what army
Would bend its head against the wind to reach?
We would, there, be safe.
And strong, and pretty.
The smell of roses which the sea wind dispels,
Dispelling also the birds’ voice, the weaker oleander—
Let us build white-pointed citadels,
Crusted with white perfections over
This epilogue of Eden, a prosperous Haiti,
My kingdom where I, a king, rule.
Mine, mine, Vastey! Once a slave,
Then after that Napoleon can envy,
With the Antilles mine, the whole archipelago overturning
Cauldrons of history and violence on their masters’ heads,
The slaves, the kings, the blacks, the brave.
VASTEY
A king only is strong,
A king alone rules long,
And a king’s children.
CHRISTOPHE
I shall build châteaux
That shall obstruct the strongest season,
So high the hawk shall giddy in its gyre
Before it settles on the carved turrets.
My floors shall reflect the face that passes over them,
And foreign trees spread out the shade of government
On emerald lawns; I will hold councils.
I’ll pave a room with golden coins, so rich
The old archbishop will smile indulgently at heaven from
The authenticity of my châteaux.
I will have Arabian horses, yellow-haired serving boys,
And in the night the châteaux will be lit
With lanterns bewildering as fireflies,
Over the lawns at night, like mobile candelabra.
I who was a slave am now a king; after my strength
Not England, Jamaica, or Napoleon
Shall send ships to disgorge invasions, but search for
Trade and quiet. Haiti will flourish,
When I am King.
VASTEY (Yawning.)
It is going to rain.
Let us go in.
It is beginning to get dark.
(Fade-out.)
Scene 2
The throne room in the palace. It is dark, VASTEY and an ATTENDANT enter; there is the sound of church music from an adjacent room.
VASTEY
Strike a light.
Where is this music? Oh, the château chapelle …
Brelle is at prayer. Here it is so dark,
But bowed at his altars in bowers of brightness,
An archbishop praying with shortening wax,
Rehearsing his death by muttering martyrdoms,
Unravelling litanies of murdered saints—
The fool.
That lovely music! Mournful, meditative …
ATTENDANT
Shall I light a candle?
VASTEY
Wait. This music is appropriate to this dark,
Spreading, like silken water, ripples of quiet.
Strike a light? I told you, go on.
ATTENDANT
Yes, sir.
VASTEY
Strange how this glare reflects a dancing
Of my will that will not be stilled.
Light knocks and flickers on the wall …
Are you sure the King’s not here?
ATTENDANT
Yes, sir. I thought it was the archbishop you wanted.
VASTEY
I will get the archbishop …
Is it true the soldiers are shedding
Their duties shyly, like dirty suits?
No, light no more chances; is it true
The few that remain threaten faction?
How much of this rebellion is rumour?
AT
TENDANT
I don’t know, Baron.
VASTEY
I waited for that …
And when will you desert us,
And be pawned to Pétion for his promise of plenty?
What do the people think of the King?
Certainly the priest is better liked?
Speak up, you can only be shot …
ATTENDANT
They like everybody, sir.
We like the King …
VASTEY
Where is the chapel door?
You say the King will not come here?
ATTENDANT
No, sir.
The chapel door is two doors after.
VASTEY
Here are two letters. Can you read?
No? Put these in slyness in the bishop’s vestments
While he is whispering hypocrisies to heaven
With penny candles humble in his eyes,
Turning pages of meditation with dry rustling lips.
He must not know about the letters.
He will take time to pray, more than an hour …
Hide them where you can find them, because you will take
Them back, to show the King.
Lock question on your lips, lackeys do not quarrel;
It will do the priest no harm.
You cannot read?
ATTENDANT
No … no, sir …
VASTEY
Do not be awkward; there are
Several kings who cannot.
When will the King come?
ATTENDANT
I think I hear him …
VASTEY
I know he likes to sprawl, wasting his energy walking in the dark,
Thinking his power far into the dark,
Or is it regret that thrusts him in the dark,
Out of society?
Look, hurry, be quiet, numb to suspicion; and efficient.
I hear a step …
(Exit ATTENDANT. VASTEY lights another candle as CHRISTOPHE enters.)
CHRISTOPHE
That chapelle music—
The architectural arabesque halts, spreads, builds
In vision; when I hear madrigals, requiems,
It is so much like constructing citadels, châteaux,
Or, sometimes, Vastey, in the labyrinth brain,
The theme runs out its threads like—who was it—Theseus,
That book you read me, descending down the spirals of the ear;
Then, listen, a crash, crescendo comes, like urge, like knock of light
Burst from the petal and the bud’s green prison,
Like glare of sun, or like a minotaur;
Then hear it dying, the thread lost, the light broken, the metal leaf
Rusted with time; and who was it—Theseus
Travelling out of light and knowledge like the bone,
Complexions of the skeleton.
My thoughts tease death, Vastey;
I am getting old.
VASTEY
All of us, Henri.
Even Brelle.
CHRISTOPHE
Poor Brelle.
And Sylla—dead, eh?
VASTEY
You ask me often; he was an old man.
CHRISTOPHE
My friend, they say that old men die
Mumbling a syntax of the probable;
Truth breaks, refractory on their days of dark,
Like chips of moon, lavish on their death edge …
VASTEY
He was always talking about the moon, and death,
Also regret …
His own white-haired regret
Was the anatomy that he wore to the grave,
Always regretting what his mad youth did,
A spendthrift general spilling coins of blood
Around the altars of the god of pity.
Surely you are not regretting
Taking Brelle’s advice?
CHRISTOPHE (Flaring briefly.)
No, damn it.
Anyway, he died, broken, grey, and quiet,
White-haired as the moon and stumbling just as lost
Through peace-fleeced colonies of clouds, a foolish, mad old man.
VASTEY
But quiet, safe. Dead.
CHRISTOPHE
Yes, archbishops live.
They whom the gods love die young …
He is at chapel now, isn’t he?
VASTEY
Or perhaps plotting piety with Pétion.
Or receiving letters from the south …
CHRISTOPHE (Anger mounting.)
What insanity are you talking?
You do not like Brelle. Why?
VASTEY
Do you, Your Majesty?
Sixty years of conscience on a mangy martyr
White and superior as his Paris statues?
His obvious love for clear complexions,
His pride in Pétion, his dislike
Of being repeatedly contradicted?
Oh, certainly I like him, equally,
As you or Dessalines.
CHRISTOPHE
Do not mention Dessalines
And I in the same breath.
How do you know?
VASTEY
Search his vestments, he kneels in the chapel,
Break at his pride while he mumbles mercies
To black baboons who wear king’s clothes …
CHRISTOPHE
Whom are you referring to?
VASTEY
That is how
He feels, I have heard him …
CHRISTOPHE
But those letters …
His vestments … It is below me to search …
Pétion?
VASTEY
I have not eaten yet …
CHRISTOPHE
What?
VASTEY
My supper. May I leave?
CHRISTOPHE
Of course, of course … Letters …
As you go, send in a soldier or a servingman.
I will find out …
VASTEY
Yes … You know the postmark of the south,
I need not be here to read it.
(He exits.)
CHRISTOPHE
Archbishop, if this is true,
I will kill you with these hands that have known
To forget vocabulary of blood …
Your life, Brelle, is nothing more
Than candle stubs, or incense dying with a sign in censers,
And you already a tired, weak old fool,
Too keen and political
And overfat with conscience …
You will see how I value lives … then talk to angels
When I draw out a dagger;
Then call your God.
We men are helpless, accident our religion,
Birth, death, and life are accident …
After the mathematics of casualty
We are still children guessing after dark,
Waiting for dim collisions of spectrum-splintered stars;
Birth breaks around the lips, children learning language of error.
Your death, Archbishop, would
Be accident.
Ah, Brelle, our God is no more than a guess,
A hoax of heaven, a nun’s nicety;
Time is the god that breaks us on his knees, learning
Our ruin and repeating epitaphs
Like a dull pupil; it is that one that flings
That moon, a wild white spinning coin in grooves of time;
But death returns as the bright thrown dust falls, and walks
Into the memory, the death, the dark.
(Enter the ATTENDANT.)
Good, you are here.
Do you know the chapel?
Good. Search the archbishop’s clothes, then bring
Me letters, paper. Look well,
And bring it quietly; keep
This business dark.
(The ATTEN
DANT exits.)
The time is full of poison—
Cunning in the cup and lies in the linen;
So this is kingship, vermin among the vows,
Traitors in surplices and swords in tongues …
This rule is only to the violent man.
(Re-enter ATTENDANT with the letters.)
Ah.
They want to plot against my monarch’s love.
Can you read?
ATTENDANT
No, Your Majesty.
CHRISTOPHE
This letter is from the south, isn’t it?
ATTENDANT
The stamp looks so; it has the seal.
CHRISTOPHE (Angrily)
I cannot read it. But what if it is
A trick of Vastey’s?
The archbishop treacherous! Who would believe it?
Send him to me, I’ll find out.
(As the ATTENDANT goes, BRELLE enters.)
Welcome, Your Grace.
I wanted to see you.
BRELLE
You mock the Church that warmed your head with oil.
Your attendant preceded my own intentions;
I wanted to talk with you.
Henri, you must stop these insolences to decency,
Frame a just constitution or face calamity.
Pétion is massing his military in the south,
And generals desert you slyly every dusk;
The peasants have made small active agitations
Which by sheer brutality your forces split,
But you have scattered sparks from the hard anvil,
And the country waits to pull down
Narrow castles, citadels, and make a passage of war.
You drive the peasants without mercy. Do you consider mercy?
Have you no bitter memory to depose
Your cruelty from its holiday at the blood’s bright money?
And now you force your poison to my clergy,
Corrupting with gold, corroding with silver.
God, what a waste of blood, these cathedrals, castles, built;
Bones in the masonry, skulls in the architrave,
Tired masons falling from the chilly turrets.
Henri, you must stop.
I prayed for you,
Only a humble old man.
CHRISTOPHE
Is this what you
Have come here to threaten?
BRELLE
The King’s law is the Church’s care;
And as long as you rule badly
The Church must war against this evil; sadly
I, who am your enemy, am your friend;
You oppose my flock and rape my pastorate
To glut your lusts: I cannot stand for this …
The Haitian Trilogy: Plays Page 5
