by Maryse Conde
Guadeloupe
1906-1909
1
In early June 1906, the inhabitants of Guadeloupe were as stunned, flabbergasted, and topsy-turvy as if on the morning after a hurricane they had emerged onto their verandas to discover the extent of the disaster—not a leaf to be seen, not a tree with branches, the land brown and scorched by the brine carried by the rain. Some of them couldn’t believe their eyes and had to put on their spectacles twice. But the news was well and truly there, spread across page 3 of the most widely read daily, Le Nouvelliste.
SOCIAL CALENDAR
The new governor of the colony, Monsieur Thomas de Brabant, arrived yesterday from Marseilles on board the SS Elseneur. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, the young Ludivine. May we remind our readers that Madame, née Celanire Pinceau, is a native of our small island, from Grande-Anse to be exact. She left in her tenth year under dramatic circumstances that few Guadeloupeans have forgotten. Interviewed on her arrival, she simply expressed her joy at setting foot once again on a land of which she had vague childhood memories.
A murmur went up across the island. Incredible, but true! Celanire, Celanire was back! What could possibly bring her back to her native land? Didn’t she know what her compatriots were like? Didn’t she realize they would be quick to dig up the cadaver of a rape that had made such a scandal at the time, and gorge themselves again and again on its stinking carcass? Although she had become the wife of the governor, both she and her husband would find themselves sullied. Unless she had come back to put the finishing touches to all the evil she had already committed? In any case, this return was a bad omen. Nevertheless, nobody was more troubled than the police commissioner of the Arbre-Foudroyé district in Basse-Terre. It was as if the news had dragged him out of a deep sleep.
Unable to work, Matthieu Dorliss stood up and went over to the window. He wasn’t looking at the garden. He wasn’t looking at the square either, with its mango trees loaded with fruit, or the church, with its miniature replica of the grotto at Lourdes, complete with miraculous waters. He was reliving the past. They used to call him Mangouste. When he was the tenacious, idealistic, lanky sixteen-year-old assistant to Dieudonné Pylône. When Dr. Jean Pinceau, the first physician of color from Guadeloupe, who was more than a brother to his boss, had been sentenced ignominiously to serve ten years as a convict. Unable to prevent the sentence, Dieudonné had resigned from his job and reconverted to trading tropical hardwood. There was absolutely no doubt that his feeling of helplessness had hastened his premature death a few years earlier. Matthieu recalled the promise he had made to him on his deathbed, a promise he had never been able to keep—to find out Celanire’s identity and clear the name of a just man.
Racked with emotion, he went out.
In Basse-Terre the deepwater harbor had still not been developed due to the negligence of the Conseil Général, and the ships remained anchored offshore, surrounded by a flotilla of small craft. Matthieu strode on, oblivious to the tremulous greetings of people who recognized him and the authority he represented.
It had been ten years since he had last been involved in this murky affair. He had received an anonymous letter. As a rule the police do not pay much attention to anonymous letters. They know it is a favorite tool of cowards, malicious minds, and madmen! But in this case the writer claimed what Dieudonné Pylône had always suspected, i.e., that Pisket had sold her belly to Madeska at the request of Agénor de Fouques-Timbert. The white Creole, who wanted to get into politics, had sacrificed the infant at the beginning of September 1884. But if that were true, in a manner of speaking it merely deepened the mystery of Celanire, who was very much alive, despite her patched-up neck. What belly had she come out of? Unless…unless Pisket’s daughter and Celanire, saved from death at the last minute by Dr. Pinceau, were one and the same person. Here the brazenness of his thoughts made Matthieu gasp.
When he arrived home in the Redoute neighborhood, a servant woman handed him an invitation: Governor Thomas de Brabant and his wife requested the pleasure of his company at a reception. Celanire was not wasting any time!
In the eyes of those who saw them for the first time, Thomas de Brabant and Celanire made a surprising couple. As a rule, husband and wife are expected to be well matched. It is even said that after living together for a certain time, they begin to look alike. But Thomas had aged prematurely; his paunch was squeezed into the brocaded poplin of his governor’s uniform, his bald head hidden under his flat cap, and he was constantly dabbing his oozing red eyes. Celanire was at the peak of her charm. But let us not jump to the hasty conclusion that because they were ill-assorted they did not get along together. They expressed their adoration for each other at every moment. They fondled each other, held each other’s hand, and whispered in each other’s ear. To the great surprise of those who had not seen her for fifteen years, Celanire had changed very little. Grown hardly any taller, she had maintained the figure of a young girl—hardly any fatter either. Her cheeks were still velvety from childhood, and her eyes kept their juvenile sparkle. Her admirers compared them to stars, diamonds, carbuncles, and other clichés. The fact remains, however, that it was difficult to sustain the look in those gleaming eyes of hers.
That evening she had boldly revived the Directoire fashion, and her breasts hovered on the edge of her bodice like two birds eagerly awaiting flight. The inevitable ribbon wound tightly around her neck was held in place by an amethyst clasp of the same color. Following in her wake was a young girl of about ten, tall for her age, with a solemn face as white as the broderie anglaise of her dress, and very black hair tied with a bow on her neck. The reader will have recognized Ludivine. Celanire devoured her with kisses, squeezed her hand, called her “my darling little pet” at the slightest opportunity, and seemed in every respect to be the affectionate stepmother, which was especially embarrassing, as the girl looked perfectly exasperated by this billing and cooing.
There was a crowd of guests. All the colony’s officialdom; white Creoles, yellowed and wrinkled as parchment; mulattos, waved and brilliantined, done up in their Sunday best; blacks puffing up their chests out of timidity at finding themselves in such a place; old people who had lived through the events of the past; young fellows who knew of them only through hearsay—all had been in a hurry to come and examine Celanire at close quarters. They were surprised to find her in such good spirits, so natural, and not at all ashamed of past events. The evening had a piquancy about it that was usually lacking in receptions of this kind. This could no doubt be ascribed to the extraordinary charm of the hostess, but also to some amazing innovations. First of all the buffet: neat little rum punches, codfish and tannia fritters, crab patés and spicy black pudding. But above all the band—the cabaret sort, not the type of official receptions. A saxophone, a guitar, and a singer churning out beguines. Even the people who deep down considered such music vulgar couldn’t help humming the familiar songs, and this brightened up the atmosphere considerably.
Matthieu had come with his wife, Amarante. Three years earlier he had married this sixteen-year-
old Wayana beauty in the hope of shaking up conventions. The Wayanas had been forced off the slopes of the Soufrière volcano and made to settle along the seashore. They were ordered to send their children to school to recite “Our ancestors the Gauls” like everyone else. But nothing had changed, and they continued to be despised and labeled nèg mawon. An exception was made for Amarante because she possessed a voice powerful enough to split a rock, an organ with a remarkable range and sweetness. In actual fact, few people had ever heard her, for in her modesty she only sang for a privileged few. Matthieu and his wife had come to the governor’s reception for different reasons. Bracing himself once again, Matthieu had not forgotten he had promised to avenge poor Jean Pinceau. As for Amarante, she was bursting with curiosity. The story of Ofusan, little Celanire’s adopted mother, who for the love of a mulatto from the flatlands had turned her back on her people’s traditions, had be
come a legend among the Wayanas. The Wayanas attributed the arrival of the baby in her life to her sudden death. For them there was no doubt the infant harbored an evil spirit! Amarante therefore stared at Celanire with amazement. She was not expecting so much juvenile charm and seduction. She was almost prepared to believe it was the Good Lord Himself who had sent her to lighten our darkness. A feeling she had never felt before crept into her and set her heart pounding while, spellbound, she couldn’t keep her eyes off Celanire. Matthieu was oblivious to this, relying on the reactions of his nose. Literally. Ever since he was small, he only had to open wide his nostrils and sniff hard for smells to tell him the hidden truth. At the age of four, he had discovered a thief among the guests at a wedding who had tricked his way in. Amarante poked fun at him and claimed he sniffed even in his sleep, even while making love. He was gazing around the room when among the ocean of black, white, and cream-colored faces, the features of Agénor de Fouques-Timbert, president of the Conseil Général for almost twenty years, emerged. Despite old age, which was creeping up on him—he was over sixty—despite debauchery and depravity, Agénor remained a handsome man. As wiry as a guava tree. Not an ounce of fat. Not one white hair. A corn-colored beard and mop of hair, and patches of blue sky in lieu of two eyes. He had scandalized the most broad-minded by burying the mother of his eight boys at eleven in the morning and setting up house with a Chinese whore, young enough to be his daughter, at three in the afternoon the same day. Agénor stared at Celanire with a look that aroused the curiosity of an already intrigued Matthieu. As if, among all those present, Agénor was the only one to know who she was. How could he prove that she was well and truly the survivor of his sacrifice, Matthieu frantically pondered?
There were a number of leads in this affair that had never been followed up. They had never interrogated Madeska’s wives, now destitute, who would surely reveal all his secrets in exchange for something to eat, nor questioned his children. His eldest son, Zuléfi, used to follow him everywhere. Even though he was a kid, he must have seen something! Why, for instance, did he give up the family tradition of mischief making and become a traveling preacher, living off the charity of his followers? Matthieu swore he would go and get a closer look. He took hold of Amarante’s arm and, surprisingly enough, still unforewarned by his nose of her infatuation for Celanire, went out onto the veranda.
The Governor’s Palace was set on an elevation halfway between the ocean and La Soufrière. As dusk fell, mist rolled up from the sea while the vapors and humidity of the massive volcano behind lay heavy as a clamp. In other words, the evenings were freezing. It was an ungainly wooden edifice all on one level, similar to a plantation great house with a steep sloping roof and clapboard walls. Plans for it to be replaced by a building of reinforced concrete, more fitting for its function, were constantly toyed with by the administration. Yet still no decision had been made, and the governors complained of the discomfort for themselves and their families. They would have to wait for many long years and for the architect Ali Tur before things changed. In fact, at the time, the principal merits of the place were its gardens, a dozen acres of outstanding beauty where the rarest of tropical trees grew. Lit by flares, a podium had been erected in the very middle of the lawn. A dozen drummers dressed in white short-sleeved shirts conspicuous against the darkness of the night were seated in a semicircle behind their instruments. The guests, already disconcerted by the beguines, wondered if they were going to start beating the gwo-ka drums. They could not believe their ears when Celanire, who had leaped onto the podium, began praising the merits of cultural traditions, of which the gwo-ka drum was the poto-mitan, in an eloquent, articulate speech. Why be ashamed of it? Why be ashamed of Kréyol, our Patwa mother tongue? The guests liked her singsong accent, which was so Guadeloupean, but not what she was saying. Kréyol, a language, whatever next? However, if they had learned how to listen, they would have noticed that Celanire’s words were empty of meaning or emotion. She paid no attention to what she was saying. She had climbed up to where she stood to be seen by everyone, to thumb her nose at her guests and mock them:
“You came to get a good look? Well, take a good look. Look at me. Take a long, hard look. I’m going to drive you to distraction. I’m going to shake Guadeloupe to the core.”
When she had finished speaking, the guests exchanged scandalized looks. They would remember Governor de Brabant’s first reception for a long time to come! Only Thomas clapped in hearty approval. His face, drained by laudanum, beamed in beatitude like a parent attending a school play in which his child has the star role. His Buddha-like countenance, however, hid an agile mind. He considered his wife to be a kind of artist or poet who operated in the realm of fiction. Anything could be true, as anything could be false, in what she said. Above all, he made no attempt to distinguish fact from fiction in what she did. In Bingerville she had amused herself playing topsy-turvy with people out of sheer fun. She had returned to Guadeloupe for far more serious reasons—to find her real parents, to discover those who had abandoned her. Wasn’t that only natural? Thomas was prepared to swear that Celanire was the best of wives. She was cheerful, full of good humor. You were never bored in her company. She adored Ludivine. He liked to think that she was fond of him in her own way. Since laudanum had purged him of any carnal desire, the frenzy of their early years had passed, and he was content with their virtually platonic relationship.
In the meantime, Amarante stared at the dark curtain of trees beyond the illuminated podium. Darkness had locked the palace in its grip and would not let go for some time. Not until throngs of seabirds, messengers of dawn, had begun to flock across the sky. Darling little Celanire, darling little Celanire. That evening she had been revealed to her, and her beauty struck her like the flash of a frigate bird. Svelte yet strong. Good-humored but serene. Knowing what she wanted in life and determined to get it. The glow in her eyes betrayed the passion burning deep down. Was it so that they could meet that fate had brought Celanire back to Guadeloupe?
2
Three months after her arrival Celanire opened an academy of music, Au Gai Rossignol, in an old building in the Carmel district. Polite society began by disapproving. In fact, besides the violin, piano, and recorder, students were taught the seven rhythms of the ka drum; besides the “Hallelujah Chorus” in Handel’s Messiah or the barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann, students were trained to sing Creole melodies such as “Doudou, Ban Mwen Lanmou.” Then snobbery got the upper hand. In next to no time the bourgeoisie elbowed their way in under the low entrance to enroll their offspring. After a few weeks Celanire was on first-name terms with a good many of these bourgeois mamans who compensate for the absence and cheating ways of their husbands by fussing inordinately over their progeny. It wasn’t long, we have to say, before these ladies had other things to think about besides their kids. They rediscovered their youth and began to get a life for themselves. Off they went again to dances, cotillions, and banquets. At carnival time they organized a procession of floats. They formed an association under the recent law of 1901 and named it Lucioles. Henceforth, in addition to the picnics, excursions to the sea, the river, and other amusements, there was a whirl of cultural afternoons, evenings, and retreats. They read short stories, they recited poetry, they performed short plays. Members of the Lucioles association even went so far as to create a publishing house. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, it never published anything more than some illustrated calendars and Fulgurances, a collection of poems by Elissa de Kerdoré, now out of print. Today there is every indication that Celanire opened Au Gai Rossignol solely as a means to draw closer to Amarante, whom she had noticed during the reception at the Governor’s Palace.
Amarante was not an easy conquest. Her Wayana education had made her virtuous, preoccupied with the concerns of her fellow men. In the Redoute neighborhood where she had lived since her marriage, there was no counting the number of poor children who called her Godmother and on New Year’s Day lined up on her doorstep f
or their present. Noon and night her maid would take food to the bedridden, abandoned by their families. Amarante never forgot she descended from a dynasty of feisty women. Her ancestor, Sankofa, leading a battalion of Maroons hiding out on the slopes of Les Mamelles, had pelted the French soldiers climbing up for the attack with a rain of flaming branches. She also wore herself out every day walking to a one-class school for Indian children at Monplaisir. Celanire sent her one of those flowery letters she was so good at and offered her an exorbitant wage so that she could devote herself to her favorite pastimes of music and singing. Up till then Amarante had tenderly cherished her papa, her maman, her brothers and sisters, and respected the husband they had chosen for her.
Suddenly, she discovered passion, turmoil, desire, and the burning need for another person. In her distress, she read the letter out to Matthieu. She was counting on his nose to sense something suspicious in this offer, to prevent her from accepting it and thus save her from herself. Unfortunately, Matthieu saw here an opportunity to get closer to the mysterious Celanire and begged Amarante not to refuse. Some people make their own bed of misfortune.
So Amarante left her little Indians and the school at Monplaisir. From that day on her life was transformed. Accustomed to a husband preoccupied with himself, she now spent her days with an attentive, considerate, and thoughtful person. Celanire’s company was a delight not only because of her good-heartedness and intelligence but also because of her good humor and vivacity. At the Gai Rossignol the hours flew by like minutes. No sooner had classes begun than the bell for recreation would ring. Celanire communicated to Amarante her love for classical music, especially Vivaldi, and in their mezzo-soprano voices they sang together the Lauda Jerusalem. When they didn’t have classes, they strolled together in the governor’s gardens and lunched têteà-tête on the veranda before retiring for a siesta and savoring even greater moments of delight. The only blot on this idyll, Amarante noticed, was that Celanire did not miss Ofusan, her adopted mother. Not only was there no treasured memory of Ofusan kissing her or leaning over her cradle, but Celanire seemed to harbor a grudge against her. Amarante decided she would right matters. But every time she broached the name of the deceased, Celanire would hurriedly change the subject. If she insisted, she sensed her companion’s irritation. What could have opposed mother and child during their short life together? It was unfair; only “darling little Papa” got Celanire’s attention. She embellished him with all sorts of virtues, and it was hard to believe that this highly educated, highly trained doctor, noble crusader against drugs, and nationalist politician, had taken advantage of her like the first uncouth nèg kann to come along.
