The Haitian Trilogy: Plays
Page 19
My friends are dying. As well as pain,
Why should that sharpen and excite desire,
With me the tortured, and you the torturer?
You had me on a wheel, you broke my spirit,
You punished my presumption for loving you,
To feel my blood knotting itself in yours.
Those gasps, those screams, all those explosive spasms
Are mine there on that wheel, and you can smile,
Look at your fingernails, and go back to France,
Leaving my love to rot here in the sun,
Your soft hand melting in my hand like snow
That my own passion melted; you withdrew it,
And my hand, my heart, my life itself is empty.
I am worse than them. They died in vain.
I live in vain. Why did you encourage me?
Were you curious about what kind of beast I was,
What savageries I could invent in bed?
You cannot just smile. I beg you. Answer me.
BARONESS
Shh. Quiet! Your voice. They’re praying for the dead.
As they say, “Consummatum est” We consummated,
But now it’s finished. I love my husband,
He is a mercilessly tolerant man. Civilised.
His civilisation bores me to death, or worse,
Bores me to certain savageries, in sweaty sheets,
But you’re getting tiresome. You’re making
More of a spectacle than the one here. Thank you.
Our two months here have been wonderful. Goodbye.
CALIXTE-BREDA
You will not be returning with us, then,
My dear Baron?… You are quite sure …
We’re going home, Anton.
MATRON
Please stay.
We have other amusements beside this barbarity.
Saint Dominque’s not such a bad place after all.
CALIXTE-BREDA
We appeal to you, sir. You need to see more
To write honestly about us. Wait, Toussaint.
MATRON
We await you, sir.
I’m sure the baroness would happily remain.
BARON
I doubt that very much, madame.
Do you wish to know my last word in this country?
I am leaving it, thank God, for good.
The more I know the men who inhabit it,
The more I congratulate myself on leaving it …
When one is what you planters are,
One is born to own slaves. When one is what
The greater part of these slaves are,
One is born to be a slave. Gentlemen, madame,
In this country, everybody is in his place.
I thank you all. You also, madame.
(He moves off, bowing.)
CALIXTE-BREDA (Tapping the carriage roof.)
Allons, Toussaint. Allons.
Cochon. Anton!
(ANTON kisses the hand of the BARONESS and bows to the BARON. He enters the coach.)
Let us leave quickly, something tells me that tonight
This place is going to explode.
(Later. Exterior. Dusk. The gibbet. The two bodies guarded by SENTRIES.
From CHRISTOPHE’s point of view, in the middle distance, silhouetted in the dusk, there is another BLACK, in soiled clothes, loosely matted hair, his posture casual, almost jocular.
He, too, is watching the scaffold.
DESSALINES. From DESSALINES’s point of view: CHRISTOPHE, in waiter’s uniform, paused in the center of the square.)
DESSALINES (Softly)
Ay! Nègre! Ou c’est un affranchi?
CHRISTOPHE
Pardon?
DESSALINES
Ça? ’Ous pas comprendre creole?
You are a free nigger?
Behold, “A Friend of the Blacks!”
Friend of the Blacks, my arse!
The fucker owned slaves.
But if that’s the way they treat
“Friends of the Blacks” after Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity, of the great
French Republic, what will happen to
The blacks? What will happen to you?
CHRISTOPHE
Yes. I am a free.
(Pause.)
And you?
(CHRISTOPHE moves nearer to the two bodies. There is now a sign above them proclaiming LES AMIS DES NOIRS.)
I cannot read. I know what the sign say.
AMIS DES NOIRS. Friends of the Blacks.
They died for all of us.
(He pauses, turns.)
DESSALINES
For us? Mulattres! Mulattres!
Very smart yellow niggers.
They die for their own self.
What they call you, free nigger?
CHRISTOPHE
Christophe. And you …
(DESSALINES has lost interest in his question. He studies the figures of the martyred men, then spits and strides away, across the square.)
Scene 6
Night. Explosions of fire. Le Cap is burning. Smoke clouds everything. Cinders. CHRISTOPHE, running up rickety back stairs, staggers from a cloud of smoke. He staggers again, turns, screams, blinded by smoke.
CHRISTOPHE
Marie!
Marie-Louise!
(Through clearing patches of the smoke, skeletal pillars. Forms flash behind him, vague. His eyes reddened from the smoke. Utter panic. A CHILD is screaming.)
Marie!
Marie-Louise!
(The smoke obscures his face. The CHILD crying. Fade-out.)
Scene 7
Exterior. A small Catholic cemetery by a fishing village. Coming towards us, CHRISTOPHE, MARIE-LOUISE, a wrapped bundle.
CHRISTOPHE
Throw that thing away.
It is dead.
(MARIE-LOUISE shakes her head stubbornly.)
What use is a priest?
(He stands watching, then steps forward for a better view. He wipes his hand across his dry mouth.)
That’s what niggers get for helping niggers.
MARIE-LOUISE
The child baptise Catholic. I want a priest.
(PRIEST enters.)
PRIEST
Father, now we commit the body of this innocent to the earth from which it came, believing that for all of us there is the resurrection and the life … Dust to dust … ashes to ashes …
Scene 8
Exterior day. A wagon, mule-drawn, laden with belongings, and at the back …
DRIVER
That is all you have, eh?
YETTE
All.
MAN
So, you, too?
(The REFUGEES, a few mulattos among them, and even some whites, numb, dazed. They greet the MAN with luggage. The wagon moves away, YETTE watching.)
YETTE
It was bad? All I save is my clothes.
MAN
Everything. I lose everything.
This is all. I had a shop. I was doing well.
YETTE
All of Le Cap burn down?
MAN (Irritable with exhaustion)
You remember it? You didn’t see it this morning?
Well, nearly half of it burn down, you hear?
From the Auberge de la Couronne all the way
Down to the sea, flat, like a burn canefield.
My hands … What I am going to do with my hands?
(He extends his palms.)
Somebody will have to show me how to plant.
YETTE
I will have to learn, too.
(They look towards the diminishing, rocking wagon.)
You lose everything?
MAN
Who cares what I lose? Who cares?
When a sorrow is so big, when it is war,
Who ever think of anybody else?
Well, well, well, well, well …
(He waits for the fit of despair to pass.)
; Well, well, well, well yes, well yes …
I have to talk to myself. To my feet.
(He talks to his feet.)
Come on. Let’s go. Come on. Come on.
They frightened. They don’t know the road.
They don’t know where to go.
(He squats.)
Smoke, fire, and ashes. Is Sodom and Gomorrah.
All that filth and nastiness they did in there.
YETTE
But, monsieur, why they burnt it, you can say?
MAN
This city was like a woman that start off good,
Then money corrupt her and change her looks.
Once cities get too proud, God will do that.
(He crosses himself.)
Today now, look at you, dirt on your cheeks,
Your laces straggling in mud? So with cities,
So with women. This city, on a Sunday morning,
With its lace balconies, its mansard bonnets,
Its church bells ringing like earrings,
And next thing, it was a whore. If you want facts,
Say the mulatto people get vex and burn it.
The wagon is coming. I’m going on that way.
And you?
YETTE
I have a little piece of land
My auntie left for me. I’ll learn to plant.
(The wagon comes, the MAN mounts it and waves to YETTE. YETTE shoulders her belongings and climbs the hill. The CHORUS enters, carrying a fork, a sack.)
CHORUS (Singing.)
Alors, Yette ’trappait morceau terre,
Et i’ commencait planter,
Eux deux, yeux c’est même couleur,
Terre-a, et jamette shabine,
Et pour lui-même, moi ka chanter
Et pour Christophe, Dessalines …
(Other PEASANTS led by POMPEY join her and cross the stage with forks, sacks, scythes.)
So Yette find a piece of land
Where she teach herself how to plant,
Her skin the same shade as the ground,
And you’ll see why I sing this chant
For her, my rose and my queen
And for Christophe and Dessalines.
(YETTE joins the cane cutters ahead.)
Scene 9
Exterior. Midafternoon. The sound of a man singing in the valley, throughout a hill slope on the mountains. YETTE, alone on a small allotment, bent to the earth, weeding. Uprooting rocks. A hoe on a mound beside her.
YETTE (To the sky)
… Papa … if I could write you, you would laugh now to see your daughter, who you say would be nothing, bending down on the earth … Not in a bed but in the earth, trying to plant something. After Le Cap burn down, where I was doing well—money, I mean—after the French people burn down the hotel where I was working, a man here give me a small parcel of land and I am trying …
(She takes up a gourd of calabash and drinks water, then rests it carefully beside her and resumes her planting and weeding. Durable, determined, teaching herself, but on the tight edge of despair and collapse.)
Scene 10
Exterior. Day. A field. WOMEN from the Calixte-Breda plantation are in a cleared cane piece, gleaning. Part of the field is burnt black, brown, and gold. POMPEY, a section overseer, stands some distance from the gleaning WOMEN, giving them directions. He is carrying a musket.
ANGELLE moves from the group to a private area of the field, in a patch of failed and yellowing corn. She is about to enter it. She screams and staggers back. In the drying corn a tattered black, DESSALINES. His eyes. The WOMEN in the other parts of the field. POMPEY moving towards the screaming ANGELLE.
POMPEY
A snake? It is a snake?
WOMEN
Serpent? Serpent?
(POMPEY running, his musket ready. The gleaning WOMEN draw back.)
POMPEY
Angelle! Angelle!
Restez! C’est un serpent?
(DESSALINES rises from the corn piece. He extends both arms helplessly. POMPEY aims the musket. ANGELLE draws back.)
DESSALINES
Wait …
(He stops. Heat, silence.)
I was just sleeping.
Is not a snake, citizen …
(POMPEY listens.)
I am on my way to the Bois Cayman.
It is over there?
(POMPEY nods, assesses the man. His motley tattered clothes, the scars across his chest. The hunger, the authority.)
I am looking for a nigger they call Boukmann.
Boukmann. You know him?
(POMPEY shakes his head no.)
I am looking for that man, citizen.
That is all.
(He moves past POMPEY, past the staring WOMEN, through the corn. On the small ridge, with its view of Belle Maison, DESSALINES pauses. He indicates the house.)
Nice house. Nice house.
(They watch his moving figure dip and disappear. The WOMEN gather, ANGELLE among them.)
ANGELLE
I think it was a snake.
Look, when I see him so …
(POMPEY returns to the WOMEN.)
POMPEY
Lasse parler. Assez! Mwen dis.
You never see a runaway nigger before?
Don’t worry, the soldiers will get him.
Travail, travail. This damned sun making hot.
Angelle! You hear me?
(He is drawing her into the indigo recesses of the kitchen, among the sacks, when she sees someone and breaks away. POMPEY comes to the arch of the doorway. There is a woman there. YETTE, whose face we can’t distinguish at first because the light of the yard is behind her, waits. Her hair is long but loose. She is firm-bodied, and she enters the kitchen calmly. She carries a basket which she sets down quietly, and dipping a cup into an open-mouthed grain bag, she ladles out cupfuls of corn into her basket. POMPEY studies her.)
Who you are?
And what you doing in here?
(YETTE continuing to ladle out the corn, silent.)
You hear me talking to you?
You know who I am?
(The ladling continues. YETTE sucks her teeth.)
Listen, I am in charge of these provisions here.
Sacre! Answer me, woman!
(POMPEY grabs her arm. YETTE stares at him. She looks down at his gripping hand.)
YETTE
L’agez.
Let go.
Look, mister. I’m not a thief.
(She smashes the cup’s edge against his cheek. POMPEY steps back, then lunges. YETTE whips out a knife.)
Eh-eh.
(Pause. They watch each other, breathing.)
Niggers don’t fuck with me.
(She continues ladling, picks up her basket, goes, then turns at the arch. She extends her arm, turning it in the light from the yard.)
Eh! You see this colour?
Respect it. I not shamed of it.
To you, all niggers, all mulattos is whore.
And I have permission to take some corn.
From Monsieur Calixte himself.
(YETTE exits, moving through the yard among the other huskers and SLAVES, regally. POMPEY, fingering his cut cheekbone, comes to the archway. ANGELLE comes near him.)
ANGELLE
She cut you?
POMPEY
Yes. Who was that yellow bitch?
ANGELLE
They give her piece of land on the hill up there!
She is a mulatresse from Le Cap. A free woman.
She just come in the barracks, it have a month, now.
Her name is Yette. She don’t like black people.
POMPEY
Yette.
Come on, go back to work, come on, come on.
All of you. You, too, Angelle.
(He hurls her back among the HUSKERS.)
You too young to be so blasted hot!
Come on. Faiyants! Today the crop finish,
Tonight is fête!
(He moves among the
WOMEN, slapping, shoving them, but almost absently, his eyes on YETTE’s distant figure.)
Scene 11
Exterior. Night. The yard, a slave barbecue in the back yard of Belle Maison. SLAVE FAMILIES around the barbecue, looking out from their barrack windows. Two DRUMMERS, a FIDDLER, and a casual choir of GIRL SLAVES. Dancing. Sexual, but with self-mocking lechery. Beyond and above them the windows of the mansion. ANGELLE dances, POMPEY moves among the crowd, hot. He dances a sexual parody of waltz. Laughter. He passes TOUSSAINT seated on a chair, a lantern at his feet, a book beside him. POMPEY touches his hat. The mood of the chanting changes into a lament.
POMPEY
Bonsoir, Monsieur Toussaint.
It was a good crop this year, eh.
TOUSSAINT
Bonsoir, Pompey. Yes. One of the best.
POMPEY
’Ous pas kai danser? All you do is read.
Day and night, read …
My head. I wish I could put something in my head.
No education. That is why I am so.
You know. Woman. Good time. That’s why. Dancing.
Is to make the best of this life, right, monsieur?
TOUSSAINT
Look, a new one for you.
(Their point of view: YETTE, overdressed for the simple occasion, comes into the area of the firelight alone. Her clothes, her colour inhibit her. She pauses. They have turned to her. Their faces not hostile but strange. The music dwindles. ANGELLE has stopped dancing. The she goes to YETTE and waits. They talk softly.)
ANGELLE
We glad you come.
YETTE
Merci. I was up on the hill and I hear the
Music and I feel so …
(ANGELLE puts her hand softly across YETTE’s lips.)
ANGELLE
Paix! Shh … Is your people … We is neighbors now, sister.
YETTE
I too stupid to wear these clothes.
But is all I have. You see, I thought …
I thought the dancing was inside the house.
I bring some yams. I plant them myself.
I feel so.
(Pause.)
POMPEY (Touching his face.)
You remember this?
You are the most beautiful thing
That ever pass through here since the last full moon.
(Pause. The others laugh.)
Angelle, that was very nice.
She is a good girl, but she so damn hot.
YETTE
I thought it was you who was hot.