“Have you warned your mother and your sister, Paul?” the father asked abruptly. “Did you warn them that under no circumstances should they venture beyond the stakes?”
“No,” the son answered tersely.
“Stakes? What stakes?” the mother asked, looking at her husband.
Rose rushed to the door.
“Who put these stakes up on grandfather’s land?” she cried. “What’s happened?”
“Hush!” the father said quietly, “watch the little one. He’ll be so heartbroken when he learns we won’t be able to take him for walks under the trees.”
“When did this happen?” Rose mumbled.
“My God!” the mother moaned.
She got up and went to look outside. When she saw the pieces of wood encircling the house, she closed her eyes, feeling as though a huge crowd was pressing against her, pushing her down an airless hole. She put her hand on her heart and opened her mouth, gasping for breath. Her still-young face became hollow, heavy, suddenly torn apart.
“My God!” she repeated, her eyes searching for the grandfather.
He was standing in a corner, the child in his arms, and she could see his beard trembling. The little invalid, tense and pale, lowered his head.
“What are they talking about, Grandfather?” he asked, as if refusing to understand.
“You heard very well,” Paul answered mercilessly. “They have seized our land.”
“They? They, who?” said the child in an insistently cheerful tone.
“No one knows,” Paul answered. “They wear black uniforms and carry arms. And they have helped themselves to our land. That’s all we know.”
“Is it true, Grandfather?”
“It’s true.”
“I want to see them! I want to see them!”
The grandfather carried the invalid to the door.
And seeing them:
“If I had legs,” he cried, “I would pull up all these stakes.”
“And what if the men in black shot at you,” Paul asked, “what would you do? Huh? What would you do?”
“I would kill them, kill them all.”
He burst into convulsive sobs, tore his shirt with his teeth, tore his hair, while his deformed feet dangled like two broken toys.
“Take him away, Grandfather,” the mother begged.
She leaned her head on the door and could smell the hot sap rising from the coarse trunks and the lighter fragrance of their fruit. The lemon flowers, blown by a sudden breeze, covered the grave of the ancestor under a white blanket, leaving it sheltered in the privacy of this immaculate shroud.
“They will desecrate his grave,” she whispered. “They will dig up his bones.”
She went back to her room and put some order there absentmindedly as if her actions escaped her control. After listening for a moment, she turned the key in the lock; then, throwing herself on the bed, she burst into nervous, jerky laughter that sounded like painful grunts.
CHAPTER TWO
“Teach me to walk,” the child said to the grandfather.
“All right,” said the grandfather.
And he bent down to put him gently on the ground, on his stomach.
“Do you remember the story of the Indian chief who wanted to chase the white man out of his country?”
“Yes,” the child answered.
“How did he approach the enemy without making noise?”
“He crawled.”
“Well then, do as he did.”
And he began to crawl on his chest and elbows across the floor of his room.
“Look, I’m going faster and faster, look, Grandfather.”
“In a few days, you will crawl as well as that Indian chief.”
The old man leaned down and took the child in his arms again. He stood before the window, facing the almond tree whose leaves touched the roof.
“There they are!” the child cried out, and his eyes became so feverish that they fogged up with tears.
Thirty meters away, several men in black uniforms stood guard with fixed bayonets. A golden-feathered bird streaked across the sky like lightning and lit on an oak branch, trilling its sweet song. One of the men reached for his weapon and shot it. The grandfather felt the child shaking.
“Swear to me that you won’t let them stay on our land, Grandfather, swear it.”
“It will be difficult, you know.”
“Swear it.”
“They’ll kill us.”
“Swear it, Grandfather, swear it.”
“I swear to you.”
The sound of their voices was rising with the wind that feebly shook the leaves of the almond tree.
It was eight in the morning and it was time to come down for breakfast. They had already heard the father’s footsteps, the mother’s weary tread, and the galloping of the young people. When they came into the dining room, they found the family sitting at the table and Mélie circling around them. She rushed forward and wanted to take the invalid in her arms but he curtly refused.
“Did you sleep well?” his mother asked him.
“Yes. And I always sleep very well. Don’t I, Grandfather?”
“Dr. Valois thinks you’re big enough that a wheelchair would be useful to you,” his mother added.
“What’s a wheelchair like?”
“It’s like a little car. You steer it and it takes you where you want to go.”
“I think it will be fun.”
He gave the grandfather a surreptitious look.
“But you know, Mama, I believe that I’ll soon be walking by myself.”
The mother lowered her head and bit her lower lip. In the intervening silence two gunshots could be heard.
“They’re killing the songbirds,” the child sighed.
The father grew pale and Paul clenched his fists.
“Have you gone to see that lawyer?” his grandfather asked him.
“I have a meeting with him this morning.”
Taking his hat, the father got up as soon as he said this.
“Come on, let’s go, Rose,” he said.
“Where is she going?” the grandfather asked.
“She’s coming to the lawyer with me.”
“Why?” Paul asked him.
Embarrassed, the father coughed without answering, and the grandfather suddenly scowled and began to tug at his beard.
“I think they’ll show more consideration if Papa is with a lady. That’s all,” Rose said.
She got up and, arching her legs and waist, grabbed her handbag.
“Don’t wiggle your ass too much,” her brother advised, scowling like the grandfather. “It could cost you dearly.”
“If we’re successful, I’ll expect you to speak to me otherwise,” she answered, diving at him and pulling on his hair playfully “Do you know what could happen to you without my ass-wiggling? Rotting here and never discovering what a bench in an overseas university feels like.”
“Settle down,” the grandfather yelled, hitting the table with his fist.
The child immediately imitated him.
The mother closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at her husband for a moment. A slight grimace of disgust disfigured her lips. She lit a cigarette that Rose took from her hands with a smile.
“Come on, Papa, let’s go,” she said.
The mother lit a second cigarette and looked at her husband again.
“You are always right about everything,” she said to him slowly. “You’ve always been right, but this time you better be careful, be very careful.”
She watched them leave without adding another word. Pushing away his chair, Paul got up from the table. He remained standing across from his mother, looking at her for a long time in silence.
“If I was strong like you!” the invalid sighed, staring at him with admiration, “if I was strong like you!…”
The young man spread his legs and leaned over the child.
“What would you do?” he whispered.
And when no answer came:
“What would you do?” he yelled.
And he left, slamming the door.
Although the house was rather isolated because of the land around it (Jacob being their only immediate neighbor on their side of the street), he immediately felt as if he was being watched by the whole neighborhood. He walked quickly without looking around him. “If they think I’m afraid, they’re wrong,” he told himself. And with broad strides, he kept putting more and more distance between him and the house. He reached one street, then another, and walked to the house of his friend Fred Morin, who was on the soccer team with which he had been training for two years. He noticed Mme Morin’s face seemed strained, unusually so. He felt like he was standing before a stranger he was seeing for the first time. She nevertheless invited him to sit and called her son. Fred shook his hand and inquired what was new in a voice that seemed as false as his mother’s. Mme Morin had slowly pulled in the front double doors. A gust of wind opened them slightly and she glanced over anxiously.
“What brings you here?” Fred whispered shyly and, as soon as he had spoken his eyes returned to the door, behind which whispering could be heard.
He got up so clumsily that he knocked over an ashtray. He went to lock the door this time and instead of returning to his seat, he remained standing before Paul, looking round for his mother and grinning so falsely and stupidly that Paul also got up.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he whispered in a choked voice. “They are on our land and you know it. As far as all of you are concerned, we’ve been marked and therefore best avoided.”
“I don’t understand you,” Fred answered in a cynical tone.
They stood facing each other for a second without Fred daring to add another word.
He had come to talk to him about the soccer team, about the next game they were to play against the international players expected the next week, and he had been hoping for a warm welcome to free him from his anxiety.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he simply repeated and opened the door himself.
As soon as he had, he bumped into a crowd of people who had gathered on the porch and who now closed in to have a better look at him in their curiosity.
“That’s him!” was what he heard. “That’s Normil’s son!”
He walked away quickly barely avoiding the cars that seemed to brush past him on purpose and from which unknown heads leaned out. A woman’s voice called to him. He stopped and recognized Dr. Valois’ daughter. He was about to join her when a stream of cars separated them. He waited. When the cars had moved off, she was gone, and in the spot where she had been standing a moment before were three men in black. He couldn’t help being startled and doubled back to a stone bench covered by the shade of the flamboyant trees.
He let himself collapse there.
“They’re multiplying then!” he heard himself say out loud.
He had rested for a few minutes when he heard their boot steps. He shot up like a coiled spring. Wanting to run away, he almost crashed into them before quickly walking backward and withdrawing behind the trees. Thousands of men in black uniforms, black boots and shiny helmets were marching to the sound of fanfare. Preceded by two men bearing banners painted with skulls and weapons, they walked in tight ranks, cheered on by the crowd. A horde of emaciated beggars waved their arms wildly, screaming and cheering.
How long, he thought, how long will I have to see and hear them?
Upon returning home, he was astonished by the hopeful shiver that came over him when his father and sister appeared in the living room.
“What did the lawyer tell you?” the grandfather asked his son without preamble.
“He wasn’t able to see us,” the father answered pathetically.
“So they had no consideration for my sister,” Paul pointed out with a sardonic chuckle.
Rose avoided responding, but she slipped her father a look so strange and mysterious that her brother was unable to interpret it.
The door to the dining room was closed, so the noise from outside was muffled. They ate in silence, slowly, as if forcing themselves, abandoned to a common anguish that each of them inwardly rejected, sensing a heavy invisible presence spying on their every move. Paul called for the maid, who didn’t answer. He got up to get the water pitcher from the pantry and saw her near the stakes serving water to the uniformed men. She was bowing and smiling filling glasses, breaking up ice. He waited for her to return, and, taking the tray from her hands, smashed the glasses on the floor.
“Oh! Monsieur Paul,” she said in dismay.
The noise brought the family to the pantry.
“She let them drink out of our glasses,” he muttered, trembling with rage.
“But,” the father said, casting an anxious glance at the maid, “if they are thirsty and ask for a glass, isn’t it more reasonable to serve them?”
The invalid curled up in the grandfather’s arms as if he were in pain. He stared at his father with immense black eyes that took up most of his face and suddenly brandished his fist in his direction.
“Not in our glasses, Paul is right, not in our glasses.”
“You can go,” Rose yelled at the maid, who was giving them an ugly look.
And when she was gone:
“You’re going to ruin everything,” she continued. “Papa is right, we have to catch them with honey. As for me, I’m letting you know right now that I will make every effort to save this land.”
She walked up to her brother and looked straight in his eyes.
“Don’t you want to get out of here? Didn’t you want to study architecture, or have you forgotten all about that? Would you rather waste your time and your youth, until you end up wearing one of their uniforms? Because from now on, if you want to live in peace, you’ll have to fall in behind them.”
She was pleading with him now.
“I’m begging you, Paul, be patient, let me and Papa take care of this, that’s all we ask, that you let us take care of it…”
She saw him turning his head as if searching for an available target, and then his fist struck the wall of the pantry. The grandfather watched him with unfeigned astonishment, and the invalid cheered him on. Paul took him on his back and galloped with him through the house.
“You’ll make them turn tail, you will,” the child whispered when he stopped, out of breath.
The mother had closed her eyes. Something weighed on her heart and made it beat irregularly, slowly, then quickly. And as she listened to it creaking like a rusty old tool, she said to herself: It can’t take this anymore. One day, it will stop.
“As if this were not enough, my God!” she cried out loud.
Once more, the silence seemed to them so profound, so ominous, that they felt as though they could inhale it together with the air. The birds frolicked on the palm branches and their cheerful chirping seemed to punctuate and underscore the horror. She ran to the window. As soon as she saw the men in their black uniforms, she lifted her handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry. Then, they left the room one by one as if repelled by the tears she had been unable to hold back.
CHAPTER THREE
“Grandfather,” said the invalid, “tell me a story.”
“A long, long time ago,” the grandfather then began, “my father, having left the countryside to go to Port-au-Prince, learned that thieves had been trespassing on his land while he was away. At the time, many men rode horses and my father had a horse called Grand Rouge and he galloped like no horse in this world ever knew how. My father, who was in the cattle business, lived in Cavaillon with Mother, a beautiful and ambitious young peasant girl from Fonds-des-Blancs. He returned home right away, and calling the steward, he asked him: ‘Is it true that thieves came on my land to take my fruit?’ – ‘Yes,’ the steward answered. – ‘What did you do?’ my father went on. – ‘I whipped them and they left faster than they had come.’ – ‘With some of their loot?’ my father asked. – ‘No, sir
, without any loot’ – ‘I travel often,’ my father went on, ‘if my son ever yields to the temptation of picking a single fruit from the neighbor’s garden, I order you to whip him too.’ My father only owned a quarter of this land. A thick gate separated the rest of the property. One day, the steward caught me over the gate, my pockets full of fruit. ‘If you so much as taste one of these fruits, you’ll be a thief and in a whole lot of trouble.’ And he made me turn back, roughly pulled the fruit out of my pockets and threw them back into the neighboring property. The next day, I heard the gallop of my father’s horse and I woke up, breathless with fear. I heard my father call the steward. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked. – ‘Everything’s all right,’ the steward answered. The thieves returned, raiding our land and taking the few fruits that were ours. The steward managed to catch one of them. He tied him to a tree before our very eyes and whipped him until he drew blood. ‘You see how close you came to this,’ he told me afterward. ‘Don’t ever covet the goods of others.’”
The mother got up slowly, put down her needlework, walked over to the old man and spoke into his ear.
“Look at him, Grandfather,” she whispered, “just look at him.”
The child was clenching his fists and grinding his teeth.
“Who will flog those who have taken our land?” he said without paying any attention to the mother. “Is there no longer a steward who can do it?”
“Alas, no!” the grandfather answered.
“Why not?”
“Because there are ups and downs in the life of a people. As the arrow rises, it gives birth to heroes; when it falls, only cowards come into the world. No steward would agree to stand up to those who have taken our land.”
The child was sniffling, and the grandfather guessed he was crying though there were no tears rolling down his cheeks. He told himself that his crippled and sickly grandson was the faint beginning of the next era of heroes and that the arrow had begun its slow ascent only eight years ago. Hundreds more must have come into the world the same time he did, he thought, and with feet and legs as well as a brave soul. A day will come when they will grow up and the birds of prey will have to account for their deeds to every last one of them.
Love, Anger, Madness Page 20
