Love, Anger, Madness

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  “He is poor, and she is not rich either. I have money enough for both of them. They will not be in need,” he announced to them.

  Then he went down to the street again.

  “I am a black man,” he shouted, “and I spit in your faces. Dreadful are you who see evil everywhere. You soil every noble feeling with your stifled and bastardly minds. I am certain that God spits on this province as I do, and the day will come when you shall feel the weight of His mighty and avenging hand.”

  Curious onlookers gathered on the veranda and crossed themselves piously. Eight days later, Dr. Audier was woken up in the middle of the night. He only had time to throw on a robe as his servant led him by flickering candlelight to the Granduprés’. Agnès was already coughing up blood, and she died in Georges Soubiran’s arms, holding old Mathurin’s hand.

  Her parents seemed to be in a daze. Sitting by the coffin of their only child, they watched a procession of heads go by that only yesterday had been turned away from them. Then Mathurin rose:

  “We will bury Mademoiselle Grandupré without you,” he shouted. “Let her at least rest in peace.”

  And Mme Grandupré, suddenly feeling her pain, ignored my mother’s outstretched hand.

  I looked at Agnès, so pale and white that I envied her. Her hands were clasped on her chest, and Georges Soubiran was kneeling near the coffin in tears. I wish I died in her place, I told myself. Pursing her lips, my mother then pushed me aside and we left the Grandupré house. I stole away from home and followed the funeral procession up to the cemetery. Standing beside the freshly dug grave, Georges Soubiran recited one of Agnès’s poems and swore that her name would be forever engraved in literature…

  The terrible political news that reached us that evening by way of a few passengers off the British boat prevented my parents from punishing what they called my insubordination. It was July 27, 1915, a dreadful date that would forever destroy my father’s political ambitions, ruin his good health and lead him straight to his grave.

  The next day, we were still in bed when we were startled by Dr. Audier’s voice calling for my father.

  “Clamont! Port-au-Prince is up in arms. The Palais National was attacked and the political prisoners were shot.”

  “Where did you hear this?” asked my father, looking haggard, his hair disheveled.

  “From a student, Justin Rollier. He arrived on horseback last night.”

  Then Laurent arrived, out of breath, to announce that President Sam had been assassinated.

  “They broke into the French embassy where the president had sought refuge. They murdered him. His body was mutilated and dragged in the streets… Ah Clamont, I can’t go on, I really can’t…”

  “What?” screamed my father. “Speak, Laurent, I beg of you.”

  “The Americans!”

  “What? What about the Americans?”

  “Their troops have landed at Bizoton. They are taking every key position in the capital.”

  “Laurent! Come now!” my father said as gently as possible, “have you lost your mind?”

  “Alas! No, Clamont.”

  He didn’t notice Dr. Audier gesturing in protest behind my father’s back. He brought in Justin Rollier, still covered in mud from his long trip on horseback.

  “Tell him, Justin. Tell Monsieur Clamont what you saw with your own eyes.”

  He noticed me at the door of my room in my nightgown and he stuttered in embarrassment. I quickly shut the door, threw on my robe and went down to find Augustine in her quarters.

  “Up already, Mademoiselle Claire?” she exclaimed in astonishment.

  “I’ll have my coffee here.”

  “Yes, Mademoiselle.”

  “Give me some bread and butter, too.”

  “There, Mademoiselle… I’ll see if Mademoiselle Félicia is up now, and then I’ll come back to get a tray for Madame and Sir.”

  I heard a scream and rushed upstairs: my father lay on the ground before Justin Rollier, and Laurent was helping Dr. Audier undress him.

  “By God,” the doctor muttered, “I tried to tell you to keep quiet. To give this kind of news to such an excitable man without preparing him, just madness!”

  “Lord! Lord!” was all Laurent could say.

  My mother ran up in her nightgown and began screaming as well.

  “Stay calm, Madame Clamont,” Dr. Audier said. “He’s just passed out, that’s all. Consider the child you are carrying.”

  And turning to me:

  “Claire, take your mother back to her room and send Augustine here with a basin and some towels.”

  Despite several bleedings, my father died the same day. Six months later, my mother gave birth to a little girl as white as Félicia. She held her out to me and said: “Raise her, my daughter, like your father raised you, and take your sisters under your wing to keep them from sin.” Three years later, she died as well, of an unknown disease that Dr. Audier was inspired to call… lassitude.

  In the meantime, one morning the American Marines arrived on our shores, taking control of the police station, the Customs House, the Public Works and the Sanitation Department. They dismissed some and appointed others. They built a new hospital, dug new gutters and cleaned up the town. All the “little soldiers” disappeared, as did the district commandant and his bicorne hat. They were dismissed for reasons of health and were replaced by others selected by a low-ranking American officer according to their physical build. We also learned that there was to be a new police force. This was an occupation, with all the humiliations and benefits an occupation brings for a poor, undisciplined, indebted people, their strength sapped by all of its internecine struggles. Dr. Audier flatly refused a position as head of the new hospital. M. Bavière and M. Duclan, mayor and prefect respectively, submitted their resignations. All those on the payroll of President Dartiguenave’s government [23] were lumped together by our nationalists and labeled “dirty collaborators.” The years went by. Some died, others were born. The Syrians reinstalled themselves in our town, and little by little we got used to the khaki uniforms worn by the Americans and our policemen. We familiarized ourselves with certain American expressions like “goddamn” or “son of a bitch.” Then there was the uprising: the Marchaterre Massacre, [24] the student strike, and finally, in 1934, the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Students returning from Port-au-Prince told us how they witnessed, with tears in their eyes, the restoration of our flag over the barracks built by Leconte, where it hadn’t flown since 1915… But let’s return to what my life was like during that stretch of time.

  And so one day I suddenly found myself the head of a family with about sixty acres that had been saved by some miracle from my father’s costly ambitions. Right away I faced countless difficulties. I was only nineteen years old and I now regretted that I did not go with my father to the fields more often. However, to imitate him and to prove my competence, twice a week I got up before my sister, whom I left with Augustine, mounted my horse and galloped to Lion Mountain. Papa Cousineau, the voodoo priest, had died a few months before my mother did and his hut was sealed forever. Unlike my father, I was neither feared nor respected. The 540 acres he had sold to pay for his electoral campaign had come into the hands of black peasants who now worked for themselves. With my ridiculous reserve and coldness, I confronted Alcius, Louisor and a few other peasants whom we hired during harvest. I would give orders, squint at processing equipment I knew nothing about, and return home convinced of the futility of my visits. The first year, Louisor brought me a meager sum of money that he assured me came from the sale of the coffee, and I accepted it without protest. The second year, I received a much smaller amount. The price of coffee had gone down, he told me, and I only owned sixty acres. Was he trying to discourage me until I gave up my land to him for a pittance?

  “At that rate,” I remarked, “we’ll soon have nothing to chew on.”

  “Business is bad,” he replied.

  And in the look he gave me I thought I saw bad
faith, verging on hatred.

  I then tried to win them over. I brought clothing for their wives, rum for the men, I went to their homes with candy for the children, cleverly trying to buy their devotion by spoiling them. I learned the hard way that it wasn’t enough, because the next year I got even less money from Louisor.

  It was around then that a German named M. Petrold settled here. He bought up coffee, shipped it on a German vessel and began to grow wealthy. Soon, there was a rumor he was trying to set up his own factory and was eyeing Lion Mountain and wanted to buy it. I went to see Dr. Audier for advice.

  “I’m not getting anything from the farmers anymore and I’m struggling to make ends meet,” I admitted to him.

  “Are you thinking of selling what’s left of Lion Mountain?” he asked me.

  “Yes, if the German gives me a good price. All we have left is about sixty acres, but the factory is worth its weight in gold.”

  “Do you authorize me to speak to Monsieur Petrold on your behalf?”

  “Please do so, Doctor, I need help.”

  To ruin the peasants and get my revenge on them, I set the price for my coffee myself that year and gave preference to M. Petrold.

  “Who fixed the price of their coffee at twelve centimes? Who is the greedy swine pushing us into bankruptcy?” the peasants yelled the next day at M. Petrold’s door.

  Concealed in my room behind the blinds, I could see the peasants raising their fists at my house.

  “You don’t want to sell?” M. Petrold was saying to them. “So go home with your coffee. If Lion Mountain is selling coffee at twelve centimes, why should I pay you more?”

  “Maybe Lion Mountain has a secret way of breeding money,” one peasant shouted, “some big secret that put the Lion and his wife in their grave. But thank God, we’re still kicking, and Lion Mountain will have to answer for this wicked deed.”

  My father’s farmers paid with their lives for my brilliant idea, because about twenty planters armed with machetes descended on our land and slaughtered them. The next day, sitting stiff and straight on my horse, I saw with my own eyes the bloody bodies of our farmers, their wives and children, all hacked to pieces. The killers were caught and the rural administrator brought them to jail. The police, represented by a soft, inexperienced young lieutenant, could not prevent retaliation. No one dared openly attack me, the daughter of a great despotic and merciless landowner, but I was responsible for everything and everyone knew it. I finally received the young lieutenant, who questioned me about my coffee plantation.

  “My farmers were stealing from me. So I sold my coffee to Monsieur Petrold at a price that was too low. That’s all,” I explained, “and they took it out on my farmers.”

  “You are a terrible businesswoman,” he replied. “To avoid such incidents in the future, get some advice before doing anything.”

  I thanked him, and almost in spite of himself he added:

  “It seems as if things will get more complicated. To get revenge, the peasants have sent emissaries to Port-au-Prince. They bought the silence of the rural administrator, and what was initially a matter of private order seems to be taking on terrible proportions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged and left without adding a word.

  Eight days later, a terrible hurricane flattened the coffee, tore the roofs off houses and drowned the cattle. For forty-eight hours, the skies were dark. Heavy black clouds, thick and suffocating, rolled along the horizon. A thin rain mixed with wind lashed the paving stones and by the end of the day began to whistle and scream, swelling the sea and flooding the rivers.

  “Hurricane coming,” people cried from one window to the next.

  Two hours later, all the doors were boarded up. I called for Demosthenes to shut himself in the house with us but he was gone. Augustine, my sisters and I were left to listen to the lamentation of the trees uprooted by the blasts of wind, the whistling of the roofs ripped from their beams that flew past us with a sinister beating of wings. Water invaded the Grand-rue and began to slowly filter out of the storm drains. It rose and soaked the furniture. We could hear awful screaming. The ground shook in protest. Everything moved. We found ourselves on the ground, clutching each other convulsively. The untold damage ruined most of the growers and herders. Many of us were killed, and Father Paul started going around to bless the dead and comfort the orphans. The Daughters of Mary, to whom I belonged, were asked to help, and the day after the cataclysm twelve young women dressed in the colors of the Virgin administered first aid to the wounded. I had no tears left by the time I threw myself upon the bodies of Demosthenes and of my horse, both found in the flooded river.

  “We have been damned by our sins,” Father Paul preached to the small crowd of survivors gathered in the church. “God has punished us. We must repent and do penance. Blood was spilled. What right do we have to make our own justice when God is watching over us?”

  Bodies were piled in the freshly made puddles. They were identified and the municipality inscribed their names on a list. The dead included: Tonton Mathurin, who had, we later learned, left his fortune to Georges Soubiran, who went to study in France; Laurent; Mme Marti; and all those who had in one way or another tried to rescue their possessions from destruction.

  Up there, the mountains greened, resplendent despite the ruins, in spite of death. All of nature seemed to rise up purified from the squalls. At Lion Mountain, the coffee plants lay destroyed and uprooted atop a foot of soil that had been churned up by spindrift. In town, waterlogged goods piled up unrecognizable in the stinking muddy shopwindows. Haitian and Syrian storekeepers alike were crying and wailing. Of course, those hit hardest were the peasants. Homeless and destitute, they came down the mountain to swell the ranks of the beggars. The harsh sun returned after the hurricane and dried out the enormous mounds of garbage choking the streets. Mud turned to dust, a thick, blinding dust that became a whirlwind at the slightest breeze. Typhoid, malaria, and influenza kept everyone in their sickbed. Poor children died every day by the dozen for lack of care. Father Paul continued to draw on our devotion and the Daughters of Mary worked like galley slaves. Eugénie Duclan, Jane Bavière, Dora Soubiran and I helped Mme Camuse, whom Father Paul made president of the Relief Association. Mme Marti, our dressmaker, had died under rather mysterious circumstances. She was found at her home, her neck half-slit. “She tried to save our little dog! She ran in to get our little dog!” her children sobbed. Mme Camuse took them in. Fifty coffins were blessed in a ceremony attended even by the least pious among us. Father Paul’s sermons spared no one. Our bloodstained land had been washed clean by God’s mighty waters, he repeated, and the wind, he hoped, had by the same measure cast out the Evil Spirit. One strange detail troubled me, however: M. Petrold’s house had suffered no damage, and at that moment I began reconsidering God’s ways. Despite the failure of the harvest, M. Petrold bid on our piece of land and bought my factory, my piano and the sixty remaining acres of Lion Mountain. Discouraged, many of the landowners followed my example and sold their fields and went to work for him. I had put my money in the bank, following Dr. Audier’s advice. I calculated that by living frugally, we could hold out for a few years. Life stretched before me flat and hard, without joy or surprise, and I lost hope of ever getting married.

  When the streets were nearly cleared by the prisoners and other volunteers, we received a delegation of doctors and an American commission who arrived by boat from Port-au-Prince. The State Department, without any bitterness, played its philanthropic role, for the Americans had left our country four years ago. I saw Frantz Camuse at his mother’s. He seemed astonished by my self-assurance. His eyes had acquired a kind of acuity, no doubt due to his profession, and he looked at me for a long time.

  “What’s happening to our province?” he asked me. “There is much talk of it in Port-au-Prince as a perpetual source of turmoil.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “The killings, the clan feuds h
ave been brought to the attention of the police. Your district commandant is about to be replaced by another, who, from what I hear, will know how to keep you in line. What happened on your land, Claire?”

  “I no longer have any land,” I answered dryly. “Lion Mountain no longer belongs to the Clamonts.”

  He walked me home, indifferent but friendly. For eight days, he bandaged the wounded and gave as much help as he could. Once I caught him shaking his head before a child whose legs had been shattered by a fallen tree.

  “We are cursed, according to Father Paul,” I whispered.