Victoire

by Maryse Conde

  Zip, zap, wabap

  Ma bel, ô, ma bel

  LET’S FOLLOW HER little silhouette, rigged out in her unprepossessing clothes, tripping over her bare feet. She wore her first pair of shoes when she was almost sixteen, a present Thérèse brought back from Havana.

  The road from La Treille runs down from a rocky hill, then, on reaching level ground, joins the one from Grand Bourg at a crossroads marked by mango trees and a twisted calabash tree. It then veers to the left and enters the town center. If you continue straight on you come to the town hall, the masterwork of Sylvain Tarpinius, a student of Ali Tur, and the smell of iodine grips you by the throat. Victoire emerged onto the seafront with its fully rigged sailboats lined up along the wharf. Perhaps influenced by Oraison’s fantastic tales, she distrusted this blue expanse. Moreover, she would cross it with great caution only three times throughout her entire life. Nobody knows what lies beneath the ocean, now calm, now churned with waves. However, she liked the sea breeze and its refreshing smell of benzoin. She sat huddled at the end of the jetty, her head turned toward Dominica, sitting dog-shaped on the blue of the horizon.

  Then she retraced her footsteps as far as the Jovials’ house. Soon, she would be down on both knees washing and scrubbing the brick red flagstones on the sidewalk. When she came in, Danila, who was sipping her coffee as sweet as honey, didn’t even trouble to greet her with a “Bonjou! Ou bien dònmi?” Taking some money from her blouse, she groused:

  “Sé lanbi yo vlé manjé jodi-là, oui!”

  Victoire obeyed and flew off.

  Her trip to the market was her daily escape, her little moment of liberty in the tyranny of her hardworking days. Nobody on her back. She was particularly fond of lingering in front of the meat booths and never tired of watching the butchers in their leather aprons slicing the carcasses with their meat cleavers—wham!—handling the scale pans with their bloodied hands and throwing, kind fellows, liver scraps to the dogs who stuck their tongues out at passersby. It was a pleasure to rediscover in Eloges Saint-John Perse’s same fascination for these brutal scenes:

  “ . . . and Negroes, porters of skinned animals, kneel at the tile counters of the Model Butcher Shops, discharging a burden of bones and groans,

  And in the center of the market of bronze, high exasperated abode where fishes hang and that can be heard singing in its sheet of tin, a hairless man in yellow cotton cloth gives a shout: I am God! And other voices: he is mad!”*

  In the kitchen, Danila assigned Victoire only the thankless jobs, such as beating the conch meat, extracting the crabmeat, scaling the fish with a pointed knife, plucking the fowl, skimming the soup, cutting and chopping chives and shallots, pressing the lemons, and, at a pinch, cooking the Creole rice. But by dint of spying on Danila, like a slave who, scared of being punished, learns to read in hiding, Victoire learned her first lessons, perfecting herself in secret.

  THREE

  Caldonia received no warning of her death in one of those dreams she professed to know the key to.

  The day she passed away was marked by none of those signs, none of those omens people recall emotionally much later. Nobody could say:

  “That morning the wind blew so hard the zinc sheeting on the roof flew off. Soared right over the trees!”

  Or else:

  “At five in the afternoon the sun turned into a ball of fire and set the dead stump of the guava tree ablaze. Whoosh!”

  No, it was a Thursday like any other. Cool, because we were in Advent, on the eve of Christmas. The flame trees had bartered their scarlet blossom for a robe of rustling maroon pods.

  At the age of fifty-five, Caldonia was fit as a fiddle. Not a thread of white in her picky hair. Merely a hint of stiffness in her right knee, an early sign of arthritis that plagues our family. As usual, she got up at four in the morning and became engrossed in interpreting her dreams. Nothing serious could be noted and she went about waking up the family, leaving Victoire for last as usual. Victoire no longer dreaded the cold water and washed herself on her own, voluptuously baring her delicate, white adolescent body, so different from the mannish build of the other women in her tribe. Her breasts were scarcely visible. A thick tuft, lighter than her hair, barred her pubis. Caldonia did her hair, endeavoring with grips, barrettes, and pins to get control of this great mass dripping with oil. While raking her hair with the comb, Caldonia warned her against men. She talked a lot about them, these men, ever since Victoire had seen her blood a year earlier. She told her about their unfathomable wickedness. Their irrepressible treachery. Their fundamental irresponsibility. What she didn’t have to put up with, with Oraison! At the age of sixty, hadn’t he just given a belly to a young girl from Buckingham who thumbed her nose at her, right in the middle of church?

  Victoire walked down to the town, did her tour of the jetty, and set off for work. Then on Danila’s orders she went to the market, where she bought four pounds of pork. Shortly before lunch, while the sweet-smelling ragout was simmering on its bed of chives and bayrum leaves, Chrysostome rushed into the Jovials. He was stammering that Caldonia had dropped the banana she had been eating and collapsed. By the time he had dragged her onto her bed and looked for her poban of asafetida at the bottom of the chest of drawers where she kept her remedies, her heart had stopped beating.

  The last straw for the inhabitants of La Treille, who were already ill-disposed toward Victoire, was her behavior regarding this unspeakable tragedy. In our islands death is a spectacle. Grief is not supposed to be mute. It must be accompanied by a ruckus of tears, cries, wails, reproaches, and imprecations against the Good Lord. Some people roll on the ground in despair. Others threaten to commit an irreparable deed. Every eye is swollen and red.

  La Treille was nothing but lamentations. People who had never been exactly fond of the somewhat brusque and discourteous Caldonia, who had scarcely given her the time of day, were sobbing their hearts out as if they had lost a loved one. Whereas Félix, Chrysostome, and Lourdes manifested their grief as was customary, Victoire remained standing, dry-eyed. Paralyzed, she did not approach the bed where the deceased lay. Beside the bed Oraison lay prostrate, moaning and enumerating the merits of his companion. Oh no, this was by no means the day for making whoopee. But that didn’t prevent him several weeks later from moving in with Isadora Quidal, to whom he gave six more children. At the age of eighty, he apparently fornicated like a young colt.

  The undertakers didn’t immediately seal the coffin and waited for those coming from Goyave, who had been notified by cablegram from the post office that opened in Grand Bourg at the end of 1880. At six in the morning, the day after his mother’s death, Elie stepped off the sailboat Plaît à Dieu, totally stunned, for he had adored Caldonia. She hadn’t exactly returned the favor, since according to her, he looked too much like Oraison and gave her bad memories.

  “What is death?” Victoire kept asking.

  There was nobody to answer her.

  “Yesterday she kissed me. Today she’s gone. Where did she go?”

  Under the three o’clock sun, the funeral cortege set off. The choirboys sang in their high-pitched voices: “I believe in thee, my Lord.” The priest, a fair-haired young man newly arrived from Cahors, stumbled in the searing heat, like Jesus on the road to Calvary.

  After the funeral, they went back to La Treille to empty what was left of the Père Labat rum in the demijohns and patch up memories of the deceased. It only took one demijohn for them to metamorphose her into a first-class clairvoyant with her heart on her sleeve. Hadn’t she elucidated hundreds and hundreds of dreams for the distressed? Hadn’t she, one Lent, taken in a wounded dog who was dragging herself along on three legs, whom everyone took for a neighbor transformed by magic and shouted “Shoo!” at? Above all, hadn’t she showered with affection this “worthless dreg,” this hard-hearted Victoire who hadn’t shed a tear over Caldonia’s dead body?

  All in all, it was a wonderful wake. When the inhabitants of La Treille split up at dawn, th
e men emptying their bursting bladders against the trees and bawling “Faro dans les bois,” they had the conviction of having accomplished that duty owed to each and every one of us at the end of our lives.

  FROM THAT DAY on Victoire slept in town at the Jovials.

  A mattress stuffed with vetiver was thrown down in the attic. As a result, she practically never went back to La Treille, where, except for Lourdes, nobody regretted her absence. From time to time Lourdes called in to inquire about her health and reel off tittle-tattle of very little interest. Who had given a belly to whom. Who had left whom for whom. Who had beaten whom. Who had dropped dead. Who had been born. And born with a caul, that one, a genuine net tight over his forehead. And consequently, capable of deciphering what the future held.

  On Sundays, after mass, when Victoire could have enjoyed a little rest, Fulgence entertained his guests. All whom Guadeloupe counted in the way of socialist politicians braved the stretch of water to sit at his table. These receptions were a constant subject of discord with Gaëtane, whose Christian austerity was shocked by all this opulence. During their forty years of life together, it wasn’t their only bone of contention, mind you. As a loyal follower of Légitimus, Fulgence liked to think of himself as a free thinker, member of the Sons of Voltaire Society, whereas Gaëtane was a religious nut, if you’ll pardon the expression. These meals lasted virtually all day. In his shirtsleeves, Fulgence uncorked bottle after bottle of Saint-Emilion, Château Lafite, Château Margaux, while in champagne he had a particular liking for Ruinart. As for Gaëtane, her confessor allowed her just one glass of curaçao from Holland. Danila and Victoire would fly from the kitchen to the dining room, trays loaded with black pudding, whelks, stuffed clams, crab pâtés, conch vols-au-vent, and avocado salads. Not forgetting the entrées: bébélé, colombo, calalou, fish court bouillon, and other delights of Creole cuisine.

  The banquet on Sunday, January 1, 1889, reached unheard-of heights. They made it into a feast fit for a king, as the saying goes.

  The prodigal daughter, Thérèse Jovial, had finished her piano studies at last, and after six years in Cuba had returned home to live with her parents.

  Let us sketch a portrait of Thérèse Jovial. Supple and sweet as a sugar cane stalk, she was extremely well proportioned, with a wasp waist that her father likened to a Tanagra figurine. She had an impish nose, a pair of languid eyes, and cheeks covered in elegant freckles. There was but one dark side to this engaging portrait. Her color. Yes, her color. Thick black. Tar black. Irremediable. She inherited it, this blackness, from Fulgence, since Gaëtane was very light skinned. As a result, those who were jealous of her nicknamed her Kongo. Or even more vulgarly, bonda à chodiè. This feature might explain why at the age of twenty-six she was still unmarried. Of course, the skeptics will retort that in those days black skin guaranteed legitimacy and, consequently, success with the masses. But politics is not aesthetics. For the young girl her color constituted a handicap. In Havana, the guitarist Eduardo Sandoval would have loved to play a duet with her for the rest of his life. Alas, he belonged to a bunch of mulattoes and his family put a holà to it.

  The spoiled ways of an only child were tempered by an extreme grace. Thérèse spoke French with a lisp, which had a certain charm to it. Her Spanish was faultless. Like her Creole. Imitating her father, she wasn’t ashamed to speak it or at times make it rhyme. In short, once again it was a shame no suitor came to claim this treasure.

  Thérèse had stepped off the sailboat in Grand Bourg shortly after Christmas Day with three trunks of Spanish leather stuffed as usual with presents: an embroidered shawl for her mother, a Panama hat for her father, and a pair of lovely red pumps for Victoire. Victoire had never worn shoes in her life. Up till then, she had walked barefoot along the stony paths. Her soles were rough and cracked. Her nails gray and sharp like clam filings. Her toes pointing like the eyes of a crab. Nevertheless, she managed to slip on her red pumps. Maché kochi. Maché kan memn. Thérèse, who was enamored of harmony, was saddened by Victoire’s wardrobe, two smocks made of jute. She had tailored for her two maid’s aprons, made of black serge and edged in white, three loose-fitting golle dresses, as well as a Creole matador costume in dark green and mauve satin with an apple-colored headtie for high mass. Nobody could understand why Thérèse showered these acts of kindness on Victoire, who became no more affable with time. What a contrast! One slender and dressed in the latest fashion with a moleskin hat. The other looking no more than thirteen at the age of sixteen; a sloppily tied madras headscarf cut low across her forehead level with her pale eyes. She never smiled and walked woodenly, like a carnival bwa bwa.

  Apart from these sartorial modifications, Thérèse’s arrival changed little with regard to Victoire’s condition at the Jovials. Each of them kept to the place assigned by destiny. There was no familiarity between godmother and godchild. Under her frigid appearance, Victoire must have been devoted to Thérèse as if she were the Blessed Sacrament herself. And Thérèse let herself be worshipped with a smug indifference. I have no knowledge of any conversation or exchange of words between them on any subject whatsoever.

  As for me, there is one thing I find hurtful. Thérèse, who boasted she was a militant feminist and who had read Mary Wollstonecraft in the Spanish translation, never thought of teaching her protégée to read and write. If she had, she would have removed her from the obscurantism in which Victoire lived all her life. She would have opened the doors to another future for her. We can even imagine that her entire existence would have changed. It was not for want of opportunities, however. At the time, the Brothers of Ploërmel dispensed free evening classes for adults. In short, relations between the two girls were extremely limited. Victoire was responsible for bringing up the breakfast tray at nine o’clock on the dot, since Thérèse was graced with the adolescent faculty of sleeping late. If she had been left to her own devices, she would have slept until noon, something that is unchristian. Victoire would bring the sweet, fragrant coffee from Cuba that Thérèse was fond of. Papayas, guavas, and Bourbon oranges cooling on crushed ice. She would come up to the bed and whisper timidly:

  “Ninnainne, lévé.”

  Thérèse would stretch catlike in her light brown colonial medallion bed made of locust wood, sit up amid the tangle of fine linen sheets, smile, and dismiss Victoire with the wave of her hand. And that’s as far as it went.

  Unlike La Pointe or Saint-Pierre in Martinique, Grand Bourg could boast of neither a theater nor a concert hall. Every Tuesday, Fulgence, Gaëtane, and their friends, who made up the embryo of a local bourgeoisie, gathered in the living room to listen to Thérèse. For them she would play just a few simple pieces: a little Chopin, sometimes some Liszt, not too virtuoso, or else The Carnival of Venice and The Siege of Saragossa. Victoire, instead of serving the guests the bowls of coconut sorbet and homemade cookies, braved the furious looks of Danila and had the nerve to go and sit behind a potted palm and listen in ecstasy to the flow of music.

  The high point of these private concerts was when Thérèse played the Cantos Flamencos, anonymous gypsy ballads she had adapted for the piano.

  FOUR

  On January 1, 1889, when thirty-four loyal Légitimus followers sat down to lunch, Fulgence introduced his protégé, the new elementary school teacher at Les Basses. Dernier Argilius, the youngest and last son of a poor farm laborer’s family from Saint-Louis, bore his name, since his parents wanted the Good Lord to know that finally they had had enough. After fourteen children, and four who had died, they no longer wanted His heavenly gifts. Dernier was one of the first holders of the colonial diploma and a member of the Republican Youth Committee. It was rumored he was a former Légitimus party militant, a zambo. After the elections he had apparently been seen patrolling the streets and brandishing a stick, threatening people with light skins. There is a photo of him in a book by Jean-Pierre Sainton, a Guadeloupean historian. The requisite very black skin, a head of thick, frizzy hair curling over a domed forehead, a determi
ned look, a broad nose, clearly drawn lips, and dressed in a tight-fitting frock coat. His expression is arrogant and mocking. On bel nèg! as the saying goes. Women devoured him with their eyes, lingering surreptitiously over the treasure that fitted tightly in his impeccable woolen trousers.

  He wrote editorials in Légitimus’s broadsheets. I discovered one: “We are hungry, we are thirsty, we are barefoot, we have no work; we have no home, we survive thanks to the grace of God. Our families are impoverished. Our women have lost their beauty, bruised under the heel of destitution.”

  My reason for reproducing this piece of grandiloquent prose at the risk of boring my reader is because I would like to ask a question that I deem important. Dernier Argilius has gone down in history like Jean-Hégésippe Légitimus as an ardent defender of the illiterate oppressed Negroes emerging from the belly of slavery. When he died tragically in 1899, the entire island went into mourning. Ever since then, theses, monographs, and biographies have been written on the subject of this role model and martyr. My question, then, is what is an exemplary man? Is it only his writings, his public speeches, and his gesticulations that count? What weight does his personal life and private behavior carry? Dernier Argilius took advantage of I don’t know how many women, wrecked the life of at least one of them, and engendered I don’t know how many bastards who grew up without a father. Doesn’t that count?