“I’m feeling sick,” Jacques suddenly says.
His black face has turned ashen.
“He’s sick again,” André says, panicking.
“You probably gave him too much to drink,” Simon declares, “and what’s more, it stinks in here. What’s in the chamber pot?”
“What you generally find in a chamber pot,” I reply.
“Well, it really stinks. Let’s open the doors and tidy up a little.”
“What if they come!” André exclaims fearfully.
“Who?” Simon asks.
“No, don’t open, don’t open anything,” Jacques begs.
And he crawls up to Simon and grabs his feet.
“What’s the matter?” Simon asks.
“He’s afraid,” André answers, “and so am I. René’s the only brave one. He even made Jacques drink the syrup.”
“What is he talking about?” Simon asks me.
“He’s reproaching me for not having respected the syrup left as an offering to the loas”
“What rubbish! My poor André! You who’ve read so many books!”
“What do books have to do with the gods of black folk?”
He shivers, his teeth chattering.
“So, are we going to open these doors or not?”
“No, no,” Jacques implores.
He clasps both of Simon’s feet, lifts his head and collapses.
“For the love of God!” Simon cries out. “Now he’s passed out.”
He picks up Jacques and slowly rolls him on his back.
“He needs air. Let’s get some fresh air in the house while he’s out of it.”
“No,” André begs in turn, “I’m cold. Jacques hasn’t lost consciousness. He’s sleeping. I know him. He’s my brother, isn’t he?”
“Ah, well then, deal with this yourself. What are the three of you plotting? No politics for us, that was our vow and we should respect it… Lordy! Either you look like a bunch of conspirators or I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
He grabs the bottle of clairin and sucks down several gulps one after the other.
“Brrr… I saw them disembark. They’re inspecting the area. Would you believe me if I told you that it’s not worth getting your knickers in a twist?”
“So why are they here?” André asks.
“To occupy themselves. Fuck them, I say.”
“They probably won’t go after whites,” I say.
“Fuck them, I say,” Simon repeats.
“Shh!” André hisses.
“What’s the point of burying oneself alive? If they’ve decided to fuck with us, they’ll fuck with us.”
“Not if they think we don’t exist,” I say.
“Chickens!” Simon explodes.
“No, careful,” says André. “You can’t be too careful with them.”
“Well then,” Simon cuts in, “enough about them… I wrote a poem, a masterpiece. About Haiti the beautiful, the pure and warm, about its drums and black women, its body and soul. I’ve fallen in love with this island. In love, love, you hear me?”
“Shh!…” says André.
“Haiti, Haiti!” Simon hums, paying André no mind. “I’ll never set foot in France again and if they have another rotten war, I won’t wear the uniform a second time to help them win.”
“A uniform!” I say. “What was that like?”
“I was eighteen years old in 1940. They took me from my mother and sent me to the front. They froze my toes, messed up my legs, split open my head till I was cracked. They can have their next rotten war without me. Me, I’m just a poet! A neglected poet. I have no desire to kill or to be killed. I want to drink, I want to write, and I want to make love with the women of Haiti.”
“Leave my country alone,” I say to him.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“You don’t love it.”
“I tell you I do love it.”
“If you loved it, you would help us deliver it from the devils.”
“What devils?”
“You see! You haven’t even noticed. What have you been doing all this time?”
“I just told you. I wrote a masterpiece about Haiti.”
“Leave my country alone, since you don’t even realize it’s in danger. Have you really seen nothing, heard nothing?”
“Yes, of course. When I saw this wretched detachment arrive from Port-au-Prince, I told myself, ‘Something’s up.’ But even though they patrol the streets armed to the teeth, they don’t seem to go after anyone.”
“We’re not speaking the same language,” I said to him. “I’m talking to you about the devils and you start talking about something else.”
“Why are you trembling all of a sudden?”
“Me, trembling! Now you’re completely crazy, my poor Simon! It’s just that I thought of you as a brother but instead discover you’re a white man living in a black country.”
“Don’t start on this absurd issue of skin color and race. I am your brother, heart and soul. You know that.”
“So, have you seen the devils, yes or no?”
“Wait. Let me think about it over a drink. Brr… Bugger me, now I’m just about drunk. Damn Haitian tafia!… I did think I heard a strange noise the other night. It was dark and Germaine was lying next to me. I heard a crackle of sparks. I got up and opened the door. A rain of stars was falling from the sky onto the roof of the house. Real fireworks, something fantastic, my friend, something that only a poet’s trained eye could catch. I’d been drinking a bit so I thought it was a hallucination. I went back to bed and the next day, I got sick. A horse fever with diarrhea and the shakes. Germaine mentioned the devils that morning, I remember now. She had locked me up, accusing Old Tulia of giving me the evil eye. Me, I kept writing despite the fever, I didn’t care. ‘This neighborhood is full of devils,’ she insisted, ‘I know what’s wrong with you.’ She always knew what was wrong with me and she always took good care of me. I spent the day swallowing her herbal teas and soups. ‘Something bad is in the air,’ she kept saying. But I kept writing, paying no attention to her or anyone else. You know how you get when a poem is plaguing you?”
“They’ve been here for days!” André sighs.
“Who?” Simon asks.
“The devils.”
“Yes… the devils,” Simon acquiesces, conciliatory.
“Isn’t it because of them that you ran all the way here?” I said to him.
“Yes, now that you mention it, why did I run?” Simon replies. “I must have been scared without knowing it.”
“You always know it when you’re afraid,” André says.
His teeth chatter.
“So you’ve seen them?” Simon asks.
“Who?”
“The devils?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“They have horns and tails?”
“No. Boots, weapons, helmets.”
“Apart from that they’re naked?”
“No, they’re wearing uniforms.”
“My God!” he says. “It all reminds me of the horrors I saw at the front. I was just a kid and my mother was crying and my teeth were chattering like André’s, and each time I heard a bomb go off I would pass out. But I would get up, run like everyone else, shoot at the enemy with my eyes closed, and throw myself on the ground with my hands over my ears. I had shrapnel in my skull and they thought I was dead. I spent eight days under the snow. But I’m a tough bastard and only lost four of my toes.”
“We’re familiar with you and your toes,” said André.
“You were really lucky” I told him.
“Lucky!”
“Because you didn’t die.”
“Yes, but my mother, she died of it. When I left the hospital where I had been taken, I looked for her everywhere. I roused our whole neighborhood and they locked me up in an asylum. But I wasn’t crazy, I kept telling them. One day, the head doctor came to see me because I was giving the orderlies a hard time, making a d
evil of a racket. He said: ‘What do you want, son?’ And I ripped the pen and paper from his hands. ‘From now on, you will give him what he needs to write,’ he told the orderlies. ‘I think I’ve figured out how we can get him to behave.’ But one day I had enough and ran away. I hid out nearby and then jumped on a passing truck. ‘So, pal,’ the driver told me, ‘cutting school, are we?’ I gave him such a wild look that he kept quiet. I went straight to a publisher and left him my poems. More than a hundred. Everything I had written in the asylum. I begged, slept outside on public benches. I was cold. I was hungry. But I patiently awaited wealth and glory. This time the publisher greeted me laughing.
“‘Good sir, this is the tale of a madman you’ve got here… The public will have no use for your ravings… ’ But all I had done was to faithfully record what I lived through during their rotten war.”
“Vulgarians love to talk about what’s realistic and what’s not,” I said, “as if it’s so easy to tell true from false.”
“I feel sick,” André whispers.
“No. One is enough. Bugger me!” Simon protests. “Have a little courage. We’ll be able to get out of here soon. We’ll go to the shore, to Saindor’s…”
“He’s dead,” I say.
“Dead!” Simon cries out.
“They killed him,” André says.
“When?”
“Didn’t you see his body in the street? Right in front of the door.”
“When did this happen?”
“A few days ago.”
“Bugger me! If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were crazy.”
“Unfortunately we are,” I reply.
“You’re making me fucking nauseous with your devil stories,” Simon screams. “I’m already drunk as a skunk, and you’re fucking making me nauseous with your devil stories!”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” André sighs. “They’re going to hear him.”
“Shit! I’m drunk as a skunk! When I’m drunk, there’s nothing to do, you know, I have to scream.”
And he screams.
“The devils will hear you,” André whispers in a weak voice.
“Let them come,” Simon roars.
This is no call for rebellion
Just a poor drunk white man with his full white moon in the air
Like so… staggering about [59]
he recites with sweeping gestures, getting his arms tangled in the barricade.
“Don’t know if you noticed,” he says, suddenly calm again, “but I just butchered Prévert.”
“In two places,” André answers.
“What is he doing against the wall?” Simon asks André.
“He’s spying on Cécile,” André answers.
“Clever man!” Simon exclaims. “She’s beautiful, eh? She inspired one of my poems. Listen:
Young goddess of bronze and amber
Black woman of sun, adorned in tender grace.”
“Leave Cécile out of it,” I say.
“Jealous?”
“Leave her alone. That’s all. Sleep.”
They both yawn and Simon stretches, touching the ceiling. They lie down on the ground and yawn again. Finally I’ll be alone! I am waiting for them to start snoring before returning to my post. Cécile’s light is on. There are figures coming and going behind the curtains. Young goddess of bronze and amber, as Simon said. She’s mine. He’s wasting his time. I hated him during that moment when I heard him speak of her beauty.
Nothing must distract me from my goal. I know they’ll come back. I need silence and solitude. I won’t open up to Simon anymore. He wouldn’t understand. He’s made me waste enough time. My battle plan is perfect. I am ready for the great offensive. They’ll be back, I can feel it. They must be there, lying low somewhere waiting for a signal, some order coming from I don’t know where but which they will know how to interpret. A few lights tremble in the distance and the vague silhouette of the Grand-rue emerges as an extension of these lights. Grand-rue, dear to my heart, lined with beautiful multistory houses crowned with hat-shaped gables! Tall houses with wraparound balconies and white brick verandas! Grand-rue’s business district, and high-society Grand-rue where my love lives. I have kept the stone that was wrapped with her billet-doux, as a charm. I press the stone against my lips while watching for her behind her window. The guys are sleeping and snoring. I can think a little now. I like neither the color of the sky, nor this split lip smiling between the clouds trying to pass for the moon. The air smells of hypocrisy and treason. There are no more dead in front of the church since Father Angelo buried them, but there will be others tomorrow, alas! If we remain barricaded in our houses there will be fresh ones each time God makes the sun rise, until the complete annihilation of the town. Am I the only one to conceive of a battle plan? How can we join forces? How can we establish contact with others who like me are organizing the Resistance? Simon fought his war. He may curse it now, but he’s done it and he can live at peace with himself. What’s going on right now is none of his business. I’ve hurt him, insulted him for nothing. He’s right to feel detached from it. I will ask for his forgiveness. The grave responsibility that falls to me, and which I will proudly assume with courage, weighs heavily on my shoulders. I can always daydream, happily wallow in the past, spy on Cécile’s graceful and comforting silhouette, but I can’t escape from the noose slowly tightening round my neck. I will never sleep another night even if I were to live a hundred years. Am I hungry? I’ve gotten used to sleeplessness and hunger. Everything leaves me indifferent, except struggle and love. For one follows from the other. I will have Cécile’s love if I defeat the devils. The corpse shrinks day by day, hour by hour. The worms are finishing their work. No one to remove it from sight. Father Angelo himself has forgotten to inspect this alley. Our back alley where only the near-beggars live! My shack! Flattened at the feet of Grand-rue’s tall houses! My shack crawling like an earthworm beneath Cécile’s flowered balcony! My darling black mother, you earned it with the sweat of your brow and it means something to me. Had you told me: eat and drink, I would have eaten and drunk. I’ve lost my good angel since your death, since the mysterious disappearance of my evil-eye bead, since I starved the loas with which you entrusted me in my apathy, since I stopped kneeling before the crucifix, since I stopped prostrating myself before the holy tabernacle! I tried in vain to remain the trusting and pious child I had been. I kept my fists closed tight around my treasures. One day, I looked in my hands and they were empty. Whose fault, Mama? After your death, life jumped on my back and rode me like a horse. I galloped under the whip through deserted fields, through merciless cities, panting, sweating, feet bruised, nostrils dilated. The commandant raised his bludgeon and beat me. He raised his feet and trampled me. He spit in my face, called me a mulatto bastard, me, your son. He is black like you, my black mother, but he took me for the real thing, an eighteen-karat mulatto, as they call them around here, one of those beautiful, pretentious men, their heads covered with smooth hair and filled with prejudice. Is it for my chicken-shit color that they persecute me? Is it because of this rotten coconut color that I can’t go left or right? Simon says one has to forget this absurd issue of skin color and race. If that’s right, then why did the commandant call me a mulatto bastard? Setting aside the question of color, since as far as whites are concerned I’m a black man, why did the commandant think calling me a mulatto would be an insult? Do I call him black? This label, for it is used as a label, singles me out, makes me feel uneasy in my own skin, like a transplanted animal that’s forgotten its native country. Are the devils also versed in discrimination? Against whom do they bear a grudge? Did they attack us only to side with some of us against the others? Or are they trying once and for all to drown that old quarrel in a general bloodbath? No matter how diabolical, their intervention would then have a salutary result. In that case, why did they spare Jacques? Why did they spare Simon? Representatives of the two extremes of which I am a product. I am cunning. I’m a clever man,
as Simon says. And André and Jacques will be my shields in case of extreme emergency. I will keep them near me with jealous care. I’m not that desperate. I will take action without committing suicide. Now I’ve caught the thread of my thought firmly. There, standing before the wall, my eye to the hole, I understand that neither food nor sleep is necessary for a man to behave like a man…
“It smells like a prison around here,” Simon wakes up and exclaims.
“Maybe it’s the chamber pot,” André answers, rubbing his eyes.
“Prison! It was so filthy!” Simon says again. “I would rather deal with an army of devils than go back there.”
“Don’t talk about them,” André advises quietly.
“About whom?”
“The devils,” André answers.
“But where are they? Your devils. You haven’t told me yet.”
“Don’t joke about them,” I caution him.
“We’re old friends, aren’t we, René? I’m not used to holding back anything from you. So! These devils of yours, me, I don’t believe in them. I’m an atheist, don’t forget that. And an atheist accepts neither the idea of God nor the devil.”
“This is not the best time for blasphemy,” André whimpers. “We’re already in debt to the loas since René touched the syrup, so don’t force God to turn from us as well.”
He traces a large cross on his chest and sniffles.
“I am not trying to hurt anyone,” Simon says. “To each his convictions. But that syrup, if you would permit me, I’ll lap it up in front of you without leaving a drop.”
“Don’t touch it,” André yells.
“Pass me the bottle of clairin and calm down. I will drink it only if you permit me to do so. And, one way or another, you will. Me, I don’t know how to live without eating and I’ll be hungry soon enough.”
“You’re drinking all the clairin” André protests.
“Say what you will, but this is the good life,” says Simon, lying down on the floor. “Even if it stinks, this is the good life. Too bad it smells a bit like jail. The bastards! They almost had our hides! Things like that could make you go crazy. Do you remember how they woke us up with kicks one day and told us we were going to be executed? And that other time when they amused themselves by slapping us and making us crawl naked on all fours like dogs. No doubt about it, they persecute poets here. Even French poets. They have no regard for foreign nationals. It’s our ambassadors’ fault; they land on this island like Robinson Crusoe… Do you remember what the commandant said to me when I protested and threatened to invoke my flag? He said, ‘Shut your dirty trap, white trash, or I’ll make you swallow your teeth along with your tongue.’ No respect for me, a French citizen marooned here of my own accord, who boasts and sings Haiti’s praises in poems that may be published one day throughout the four corners of the world… As a matter of fact, we never did recover from the commandant’s blows. But probably the most vicious were the ones who were helping him. Never seen anything more diabolical than the expression on their faces!”
Love, Anger, Madness Page 37
