by Maryse Conde
“To give you a better idea, remember what happened forty years after the abolition of slavery. Society was still reeling, and you were witness to all sorts of horrors. Virtually nobody had profited from emancipation. It had ruined most of the white Creoles. As for the former slaves, none of the promises made them had been kept. No schooling, no work, just poverty. The indentured Indian workers who had replaced them were a dead loss. As for the Chinese, they were worse. They systematically bled the island dry with their robberies, their rapes, and their banditry. They had raided a munitions depot at Fort Saint-Charles and, armed and masked, would hold up and rob carriages, attack the great houses and homes of the rich. There was a thriving traffic in newborns. The black and mulatto women were fed up with letting their men have a belly for free. Those babies that were not left in orphanages were sold. Or else they were kidnapped, and for a small fortune the evildoers would perform human sacrifices for those who wanted to succeed in business or politics. Sheep, fowl, and black bulls from Puerto Rico were no longer enough. It had to be babies. Babies, and nothing but babies, and more babies. For instance, everyone knew where Madeska, the mischief maker who made the fortune of the most powerful politicians, got his money from. Oh, it was a dreadful time. You were ashamed to be a Guadeloupean.
“My eyes had never seen anything so hideous as this baby with her throat slashed. I set to work. The operation lasted seven hours. I had to reconnect the severed arteries, veins, nerves, and tendons. For that I used the sharpest needle and the softest catgut. Then I sutured the flesh. I grafted a strip of skin taken from her thigh onto the jagged suture that twisted around her neck. I was sweating profusely. My heart was thumping, but my hands were steady. I needed blood to irrigate my work. I transfused the blood from two chickens that I sent Ofusan to fetch as fast as she could. The whole time I felt that here I was at last emulating my hero Victor Frankenstein, and it spurred me on. I too was equal to the Creator, and when the child began to sneeze and cry I was overcome with pride. What I didn’t predict was that Ofusan, to whom I confided the baby for motherly care, became obsessed with her. In her solitude she looked upon the child as a gift from the Good Lord to console her for her barren womb. She begged me to adopt her. How could I refuse her? So we adopted her. Registered her officially as our daughter on September 24, the feast day of Saint Thècle, under the name of Celanire Jeanne Pinceau.”
“You said Celanire Pinceau?”
“That’s right, Celanire Pinceau. Celanire was my mother’s name, whose memory Ofusan wanted to honor. Not that Mother treated her very well. Behind her back she called her ‘tar girl.’ May God bless her soul!
“In the meantime my friend Dieudonné instructed Mangouste to go and interrogate Madeska, who knew a thing or two about children in the region with their throats slashed. Mangouste stumbled into a house of despair. Madeska had just fled, abandoning women and children. Every day now for years he had gone for a dip in the sea at the same spot. He would lay his clothes under the same almond tree. Since he couldn’t swim, he never went very far. That very morning, much to their surprise, the fishermen had seen him hoist his fat body and potbelly into a fishing boat and row frantically in the direction of Montserrat. What was he running away from? That was anyone’s guess.
“All these signs hinted to us, Dieudonné and me, that Celanire had not been sent by the Good Lord, but by Beelzebub himself. As for me, I was wondering how we were going to get rid of her, especially as I had brought her back to this world. Unless murder was committed, there didn’t seem to be an answer. And there was my wife going into raptures over her, embroidering baby clothes, decorating her bedroom, gurgling silly names, and looking so much younger. I didn’t dare tell her what I suspected.
“I have to say that Celanire was a beautiful baby. The older she got, the more beautiful she became. She was so lovely that once they tried to steal her. One day the nursemaid was walking her along the seafront when a young girl came up and begged her to let her cuddle the divine little angel in her arms, which she naively accepted. The young girl then ran off and almost got away. People said that Celanire looked like me, only darker, since it is always said children take after their adopted parents. Like Frankenstein, I soon came to loathe the creature I had created. Don’t ask me why. I took a dislike to everything about her. Above all, I couldn’t bear to look at her obscene scar, purplish as an infibulated labium, which was a constant reminder of what I had done! I asked Ofusan to hide it, and she got into the habit of tying silk or velvet ribbons around the child’s neck. The terrible thing was that despite this aversion, which I had trouble hiding, Celanire took a special liking to me. Her chuckles and gurgles were directed at me, something that Ofusan suffered agony over. Because, oddly enough, the child never showed her any affection. This gave Ofusan the opportunity to invent another excuse to torture herself. If nobody loved her, it was because the ancestors, her maman and her papa, had put a curse on her. She had to make peace with them again and ask their forgiveness. She subsequently concluded she had to return to her mountain home. The way of life there was less corrupt. She could bring her daughter up in a healthier environment. I have to confess that I exploded on hearing this litany of insanities. One morning, when I couldn’t take it any longer, I told her in no uncertain terms that if she wanted to go back to her boon-docks, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. And above all to take her Celanire with her! I could do without her even more. Stung to the quick, she decided to leave the next morning. Okay, I said, just like that. Good-bye, farewell, and good riddance!
“The following day I lost her.
“The next morning she went to the market to inform her own people she was returning home when a dog, a huge Cuban hound, like those used to hunt down the maroons in olden times, black, as big as a calf and strong as an ox, leaped on her, clawed her face, and sunk its teeth into her neck. She died on the spot while the hound, its chops dripping with blood, vanished before anyone could make a move. It’s this second crime I am paying for today. The cur is me. I killed Ofusan as clearly as if I had been the one commanding it to sink its jaws into her throat. And the saint got her revenge, because I found myself lumbered with this child I couldn’t stand and who was to be my downfall. If I had had any sense, I would have left her at the Saint-Jean-
Bosco orphanage. Or else with a scalpel I would have undone my surgical masterpiece and sent her back to the hell she deserved. I couldn’t, because of Ofusan. In memoriam.
“My friend Dieudonné Pylône began to get suspicious. That dog, that Cuban hound, had nothing to do with the scrawny, mangy pack of stray dogs that roamed the market. None of the sellers or customers had ever seen it scavenging the garbage. Where did it come from? Was it really an animal? Wasn’t it rather an evil spirit? I was unable to help him solve the mystery.
“Ten years went by. My friends urged me to remarry. In their opinion, I couldn’t raise a young girl all on my own. Many a young wench made eyes at me, for without boasting, I was still a handsome man. A full head of curly hair, a good set of teeth. But I wasn’t interested. At the age of thirty-three I had finished with sex. Women of the night or well-bred young girls, it was all the same to me: nothing interested me any longer. I kept clear of making medical experiments. I immersed myself in politics. With no success, as I’ve already told you. That scumbag Agénor de Fouques-Timbert beat me twice. Even so I made a name for myself electioneering against assimilation, which all the other parties at the time were hankering after.
“Looking for someone to take care of Celanire, both as a nursemaid and a bodyguard, for that crazy woman was still prowling around her, I hired a certain Melody. Knowing myself as I did, I hadn’t hired her because of her references; she didn’t have any. It was because she was so ugly and cross-eyed that even the devil couldn’t have made me make love to her. That woman, in whom I confided everything, became so devoted to me that I ended up treating her like a close member of the family until that day when she dealt me the coup de gr ^ ace.
; “In 1894 Celanire was ten years old. Still just as pretty and, as they kept telling me, just like me but blacker! She was a child with a most pleasant nature. Happy, cheerful, and amusing, inventing all sorts of stories. Not scatterbrained, however, extremely intelligent. Top of her class. At home she would pester me with questions I couldn’t answer: ‘Why don’t girls get more schooling and why are they considered inferior to boys? Why do men cheat on their women? Why do they beat them? Why are there so many illegitimate and unwanted children with no maman or papa?’ Contrary to the custom at the time, I told her outright she was an adopted child whom I had operated on to save her from dying. Sometimes I caught her looking at her monstrous scar in front of the mirror. Her eyes would brim with tears, as if she were wondering who her real parents might be. She had got it into her head that they must have given her away because they were too poor to raise her, and this afflicted her deeply. She swore that when she was older she would do everything to find them and build them a palace for their old age. In fact, she was beyond reproach. For most families, she would have been their pride and joy. But my feelings toward her hadn’t changed. It was something beyond my control; I couldn’t stand her. She had the loathsome habit of constantly calling me ‘darling little Papa,’ pestering me with her little treats, entering my surgery without knocking with cups of hot chocolate and slices of marble cake, kissing me on the neck, and rubbing herself up against me like a cat. Every evening, when she was tucked up in bed, I had to read her a story and end it with a kiss, and this was a pretext for all kinds of unbearable cuddling and fondling on her part. Precocious as she was, she had her first period early that year. And she would chatter about it right in the middle of a meal in front of the guests, as if it were our little secret. ‘Darling little Papa, I’ve got the curse…I can’t go swimming today!…Darling little Papa, I’ve got stomachache, you know why?…Darling little Papa…’
“I was livid. From one day to the next, a boil as big as the knob on a cane swelled up on her groin. I had no other choice but to examine her, and she openly offered herself to me. You think I’m lying? I swear I’m not. Too many loose women have swooned in front of me for me not to know their little game, and this child was doing it to perfection. It happened one morning in her room. I was wondering whether to lance her boil when she began to roll her eyes, wriggle, uncover her budding guava breasts, and guide my hand into the most inappropriate places. In response to my protests, she moaned: ‘Darling little Papa, take me. I love you so much!’
“Disgusted, I dealt her two slaps; I had never laid hands on her till that day, and rushed down to my surgery. My patients commented on how I looked. I felt sicker than they did. What was I going to do with Celanire? How could I get rid of her? At lunchtime, she didn’t come down. Melody, whom I always believed to be on my side, announced she had a fever. At dinner, same thing. At night, I couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed and turned. I could hear her moving about over my head and talking to Melody. Suddenly I was frightened, like a homeless person who knows the hurricane is heading straight for him. I was right, because two days later the police came to handcuff me in my surgery in front of my flabbergasted patients. Dieudonné Pylône preferred to resign rather than be mixed up with this masquerade.
“Me, Dr. Jean Pinceau, I was accused of sexually abusing Celanire, my adopted daughter. Melody, my faithful Melody, was a witness for the prosecution. Alarmed by the child’s behavior of crying for no reason and losing her appetite, she described how she had plied Celanire with questions. After weeks of her insisting, the child ended up telling her the truth. Encouraged by Melody, Celanire finally went and revealed everything to the police. When I heard Melody churn out all that nonsense, I got the impression I was dreaming. Worst of all, the jury believed every word of it!
“My trial lasted over a year. I became a cause célèbre, the subject of conversation of every bourgeois and country yokel, every white, black, and mulatto. If you read the papers from Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Guiana for the year 1894, I made front-page news. Few of the columnists called me a common pedophile. Instead, they reported my career record: brilliant student in France, successful medical experiments, an antidrug crusade, and unmatched devotion to my patients. Ah! Dieudonné was a loyal friend during these tough times!
“Because of me, he left the police force, became the head of my defense committee, and had petition upon petition circulated. But it wasn’t easy for him. Because of the color of my skin! As a mulatto, I’m too light-skinned. The masses would have mobilized for a black. Nobody felt like defending a guy whose class is traditionally an ally of the white Creoles. Dieudonné adamantly repeated that I was not being sentenced for rape, which was a ridiculous accusation for anyone in his right senses. Who was this Melody whose testimony was so damning? A real mystery. Before she worked for me, no decent family had hired her. Nobody on Grande-Terre or Basse-Terre had ever set eyes on her. What I was paying for, Dieudonné asserted, was my nationalistic stand. During the last electoral campaign I had openly canvassed for the end of French tutelage. Poor guy, he did what he could. He had no idea that at meetings the presence and encouragements of a cheering crowd has the effect of a rum punch, and you say anything that comes into your head. At heart, I’ve always been a bourgeois, a small-time bourgeois.
“My family didn’t want her, as you can imagine; they were scared of her. So the court entrusted Celanire to the sisters of Saint-Joseph-de-Cluny, who sent her to the Sisters of Charity in Paris for her education.
“After I was sentenced, I was transferred to Grande-Terre. From Grande-Anse a prison cart took me to Petit-Bourg, where, shackled hand and foot, I embarked on the sailboat linking the town with La Pointe. Along the Lardenoy wharf Dieudonné had managed to muster a few demonstrators shouting ‘Free Pinceau!’ But most people had come out of curiosity to gaze at the likes of a future convict. There were a good many high-society ladies under their lace parasols who looked me up and down. The jail at La Pointe was the most revolting place you could imagine. Obviously it was nothing compared to what we saw in the penal colony, but believe me, it wasn’t a pretty sight. It was the first circle of hell. This is the last. The prisoners were piled in eight or ten to a cell, where in the dark the mosquitoes had the feast of their lives. Once a day the guards gave them a ration of green bananas. Once a month they were lined up in the yard, given a piece of rough soap, and hosed down. The rest of the time they fought as best they could not only with the mosquitoes, but also with the rats attracted by all this filth. No need to tell you that with so much diarrhea, the holes for doing your business were filled to overflowing. I can’t begin to describe the stench! Oddly enough, in the high-security area we were slightly better off—only four individuals to a cell. I found myself with a Chinese guy who had hacked a woman to pieces, a black who had raped his sixty-year-old mother before slitting her open, and an Indian who had sent his father’s head flying with one swipe of a cutlass. In the evening all these poor devils wept like little children. All shouted they were innocent and gave their own version of their story. They then sodomized each other by way of consolation. Nobody could escape it. I even ended up rather liking it.
“On Christmas Day, 1895, I sailed on the Biskra for Guiana in a raging sea. All around me my traveling companions were vomiting left, right, and center. Although I had never been known for aggressive or disruptive behavior, they locked me up in a blazing hot cell, one they reserved for violent prisoners, right above the boilers. Throughout the entire voyage I was unable to stand upright, which explains why to this very day I walk hunched over, bent in two. On arrival they began by thrashing me, considering it arrogant on my part to ask to be transferred to the camp at Saint-Louis to treat the lepers. They didn’t understand I felt like a leper myself. Birds of a feather flock together.”
“So you haven’t heard from Celanire since she was a child? You’ve no idea what became of her once she left Guadeloupe?”
“No. The last time I saw her was at the courthouse in Gr
ande-Anse with Melody, when her mouth uttered those outrageous things which everyone took to be gospel truth. Even I was troubled by what she said. I began to wonder whether my sex, which has always had a mind of its own, had not won the better of me. Perhaps unknowingly I had gone up to her room and committed the horrors she accused me of. After all, how could an innocent mind invent such terrible things? Where would she have got such ideas? What Satan had put them in her head? Then I regained my senses. I was innocent. Celanire must be twenty-four or twenty-five by now. I imagine she is capable of driving the most serious, the most virtuous, guy out of his mind. I am positive she continues her mischief making, and I tell myself I am somewhat to blame. If I could have loved her, if, when Ofusan died, I had been there for her, treated her like my daughter, it might have curbed her wicked instincts. At the end of the day, perhaps all she needed was a little love from me.”
“Unfortunately,” murmured Hakim, “you couldn’t be closer to the truth. I have met her, your Celanire. Far, far from here. In Bingerville, in deepest Africa. It’s her, it’s the same person you’re describing, there’s no mistake about it. Her beauty you’ve described so vividly, her black-black skin, her long, oiled hair, the terrible scar around her neck, especially that scar. You can’t forget that scar once you’ve seen it. It haunts you. It must be terrible for her not to be able to get rid of it. It’s funny, Celanire talked about you all the time in the most affectionate terms. ‘Darling little Papa’ here and ‘darling little Papa’ there. She claimed you were dead, and she had never managed to get over it. She also described her island of Guadeloupe, which, in her eyes, was the most perfect place on earth. She swore she would return there one day to clear up some unfinished business. I dread to think what exactly, since she wreaks evil wherever she goes. I know for sure, without being able to prove it, that she is the cause of my suffering. It’s her and nobody else who has brought down misfortune on my head. Tonight, my friend, I’ll tell you my story, and you can judge for yourself.”
