(LECLERC descends the ship’s side.)
LECLERC
Oh, I’m sure of that. Now,
After this, you will be confined to your cabin.
Take a long, last look at those mountains, General.
TOUSSAINT
Haiti, adieu.
(LECLERC climbs onto the pier. The ship moves out of the harbour. Music. Fade-out.)
Scene 8
Belle Maison. Interior. Night. The quarters. YETTE goes to the earthen oven and prepares supper. Her back turned to POMPEY, entering. He embraces her, wearily, from habit.
POMPEY
Ça raide. Is hard. All the men going.
They tired of the earth. The last one, Félix,
Leave today, to join the army.
YETTE
Which one?
POMPEY
You know Félix.
How you mean “which one”?
He always watching you.
YETTE
Which army?
(She comes to the crude table with the pot.)
POMPEY
How I know which army? It have so many.
Maybe Christophe, maybe Dessalines, maybe
Pétion, maybe even Leclerc. Or with your
People, the mulattos, Royer and Pétion.
YETTE
My people. So is my people again?
POMPEY (Touching her hand.)
Pardon, but I tired. The mule is sick.
(He begins eating.)
They say that Dessalines, and some say even
Christophe, hunting down our people, all the
Blacks, under the orders of General Leclerc.
YETTE
You must wear that nasty cloth?
If you want a serviette when you eating, tell me
And I will wash one. But I can’t bear to see it.
I hate when you wipe your mouth on your sleeve.
(POMPEY, hurt, stops eating. His eyes flicker with the old fear of her restlessness.)
POMPEY
All right. You see me, hein? Making pose.
I thought you would like it. For manners.
You know, like the aristocrats.
(A silence. Night outside. The insects, and the wind.)
You not going to eat, then?
(YETTE moves away to the oven. She pauses there, her back to him.)
Yette?
Qui ça?
(Silence. The night. The wind.)
Tell me.
I can take it.
YETTE
Yes. You so strong. So nice. So good.
Is I who am nothing.
No. Don’t come by me.
(POMPEY sits back down. He looks into his bowl. He swallows dryly, his head down.)
I want the strength.
(She turns.)
Ti-moune …
(She turns away again.)
All this, all this, is only sadness for me, Pompey.
Since I was a girl I know this war. Here is,
Well, different. Is pretty, true. Is really, really pretty …
(POMPEY silently, expressionlessly, weeping.)
I know you crying, but I must still talk. I see you in the field there, you alone, planting, you and the damn mule, and I know how much you love the earth. And I wish I could love you like you love the earth. But in the war, when I was with the soldiers, even the white soldiers, even when I used to feel so shame, I know I was not for this country life. Maybe because I have their blood in me. French blood. Maybe I want all that. My life is Le Cap. But sometimes I does just feel, at my age, like an old black woman up in the mountains with my teeth going, my body getting dry, and nothing to do but cook white yam and a piece of saltfish for you. You understand what I am saying?…
(YETTE turns to POMPEY. He has turned sideways in his chair, to avoid her pity.)
POMPEY
I understand. You asking to go.
You are too fine for all of this. Is true.
YETTE
I suppose so. I don’t know. To go again.
I didn’t know I could say it.
POMPEY
They say there is nothing in Le Cap now,
Since General Christophe burn it. But
There is what you want. Not that?
YETTE
Look, I am weak?
POMPEY
What you asking me, woman?
YETTE
If I am weak?
POMPEY
Ask yourself that. Ask God that. Not me.
You cannot expect me to say that.
YETTE
They give you this big house
And you will not live in it. Look at us.
Look at it. Up there, empty. Look how we live,
Eat. It is yours. You frightened to go in it.
You bring me back here. To live how I used to.
Look at your clothes. There are clothes in that house.
POMPEY
What you doing to me, woman?
What kind of man you making out of me?
YETTE
Don’t beg me, then, Ti-moune. Tell me.
Give me an order like a soldier. Tell me to go!
You was never a soldier. Try. Like a soldier to his whore.
Order me stay and I will stay. Otherwise, otherwise,
Oh God, what will happen to me?
(She is at his knees, sobbing.)
POMPEY
Stay.
(Pause.)
Stay. Not for me. But because
There is nothing else. Now let me eat.
And from now on, we will live.
(YETTE rises, wipes her face. She shakes her head.)
We will live the way you want to. Clothes, lace.
Servants, if you want servants. You deserve it.
YETTE
It was not for that …
POMPEY
Maybe. But that is where we will live, anyway.
Over there. When I finish in the earth,
I will come into the big house, a different
Man. Not to please you. But it will be Pompey, le Bourgeois;
Pompey, the man of property. It will be amusing, for
A while. Here. Money. Go into Le Cap and buy some clothes.
YETTE
That is not what I want, Ti-moune.
(She sits opposite him.)
I was just tired.
POMPEY
Nevertheless, we will do that.
YETTE
Moi aimais-ou Ti-moune.
I love you for yourself, Pompey.
POMPEY
Yes.
(He resumes eating.)
As usual, this is good.
(YETTE watches him, and shakes her head slowly with a pitying admiration. Fade-out.)
Scene 9
France. Interior. A room in Napoleon’s palace. NAPOLEON seated before a fireplace and an AIDE.
AIDE
Are you too tired, Excellency?
NAPOLEON
Read the next one. And after that, enough.
Who is it from?
AIDE (Reading.)
Toussaint L’Ouverture. From the prison in the Jura Mountains.
NAPOLEON
I know where it is. I put him there.
AIDE (Reading.)
I have had the misfortune to incur your anger; but as to fidelity and probity, I am strong in my conscience, and I have to say with truth that among all the servants of the State none is more honest than I. I was one of your soldiers and the first servant of the Republic in San Domingo. I am today wretched, ruined, dishonoured, a victim of my own services. Let your sensibility be touched at my position … (Interior. Snow falling. A cell in the Jura Mountains. A TURNKEY enters a cell. He goes to TOUSSAINT, starved, hollow, shrunken, asleep, and shakes him. The body does not move.)
… Be touched at my position, you are too great in feeling and too just not to pronounce on my destiny … Signed Toussaint L’Ouverture …
There is a doctor he
re. He wants to see you.
(The DOCTOR enters.)
DOCTOR
I had to examine the body to confirm it.
He looked as shrivelled as a marmoset.
(He goes to a window.)
All the snows of the Jura didn’t whiten him.
His hair was the grey of soiled snow. Blizzards
Whiten out memory, pines disappear,
And men walking through clouds
Are faint as angels. When I found him
He was as black and cold as the bars
Of his cell. He was coiled like a child.
They might have given him an extra blanket.
It’s snowing hard there now. It’s the season,
But there’s no blizzard that can obliterate him.
The wind keeps scattering those torn-up treaties
We made with him, all in the name of peace.
There’s no peace deeper than a winter peace.
A cold, white peace. They’ll bury him up there.
In Haiti, two jackals fight for his carcass.
The autopsy is there, a white report
With its black characters. Am I dismissed?
NAPOLEON
Yes.
(The DOCTOR exits.)
Are there any more letters?
(Fade-out.)
Scene 10
Haiti. Exterior. POMPEY in the field, with a few other WORKERS.
POMPEY
This earth getting too dry.
We need some rain.
(A conch shell. Then bells. A PEASANT, shouting from far off, runs onto the field.)
PEASANT
We have a king, Monsieur Pompey! You hear the bells?
Long live the Emperor Jean Jacques the First.
POMPEY
Stop this foolishness.
Why Dessalines must be King?
PEASANT
Because Toussaint is dead.
They hold him.
YETTE
Bon Dieu. Bon Dieu.
Haïti fini. Haiti is finished.
Haiti is finished. Look, the sun dark.
PEASANT
All you didn’t know? Pompey, Monsieur Pompey?
POMPEY
Where is the rain now? Where is Moise?
You remember the night of the cane fires we was dancing?
Then the rain fall and we went inside and shelter?
Where is Biassou, the one-handed general? And
Where are the days that the earth smell of rain,
And the horses that bowed their necks to his hand?
Where is all that? From now on,
Water will taste different. Grass smell different.
And this, the Haitian earth, different.
We cannot do no more work today. Go home.
Fold up your hopes to show them to your children.
Because after him, now come
The angry kings.
God help us men.
Scene 11
Cap Haitien, 1805. Interior, the cathedral. The altar. ARCHBISHOP BRELLE kneeling. A CHOIR. Behind BRELLE, as he bows, the also kneeling figure of DESSALINES. Dimly, farther, in the dark pews, below the soaring arches, in full regalia, the GENERALS, CHRISTOPHE. BRELLE reaches for the jewel-encrusted crown. The music soars, he moves solemnly towards DESSALINES. From the squares and the military emplacements outside the cathedral, cannon thunder. DESSALINES, crowned, with sceptre, acknowledging homage from the GENERALS. He accepts the homage, more fear in its extravagance of gesture than homage, and abruptly, but grinning, indicates …
DESSALINES
Assez. C’est bien assez, merci.
Merci, merci, merci …
(DESSALINES indicates that he would like to move on. The emperor moves, the entourage begins to move. Near the emperor is another black GENERAL.)
GENERAL
And now that we have a black emperor, Your Majesty,
We expect, of course, a black nobility.
(DESSALINES stops. The entourage stops.)
DESSALINES
A black nobility? Moi seul, je suis noble!
I alone am noble! Christophe! I appoint you …
(Then he progresses, laughing. The entourage progresses.)
Secretary of Agriculture. You will prepare
A tour of my kingdom. The states, the houses …
We have to make our people go back to the earth!
Now tell the wild boar that I killed on the beach,
When my arse was exposed to the wind, go on;
Find his carcass where the flies sang their hymns
And tell him you saw me. The Emperor Dessalines.
That I alone am noble! Remember that! Moi seul!
(He exits, acknowledging cheers, mounts to the balcony, others following.)
Scene 12
Interior. Night. The ballroom at Belle Maison. Hundreds of candles, banners. Liveried ATTENDANTS. MUSICIANS in an alcove on a level overlooking the ballroom floor. A flag, with a portrait of the Emperor Jean Jacques Dessalines. Trumpets, applause. DESSALINES enters with his GENERALS, BRELLE, and court. YETTE, POMPEY waiting on the stairs.
DESSALINES
So. This is the house where Toussaint was a coachman. Did you know that, Henri? This is the house. Well, we will show you tonight! You hear me, house? Tonight! I’ll make your old arse rattle! (POMPEY and YETTE descend the stairs.) Our host, Citizen Pompey! I present my wife, the Empress; my daughter, Celimène, coming behind her; Monseigneur Corneille Brelle—as you see, citizen, we still respect the Church. The bishop crown me Emperor seven weeks before Bonaparte was crowned at Notre Dame. My Minister of Agriculture, Citizen General Henri Christophe, his secretary Baron Citizen Pompey, Valentin Vastey. Vastey. You see. Look at this council, every colour is here, and these are?
POMPEY
My wife … Yette …
(DESSALINES lasciviously holds on to her hand.)
DESSALINES
Enchanté. Ravissante. We dance: I have brought my musicians.
Eux aimaient toute ça, bien, eh, Christophe?
I say, they like all this, eh?
A little colour. This black majesty!
What music should I dance to, Archbishop?
I will show your grace my grace! Ha! What?
BRELLE
You know, when it’s harvest time for the canes,
Your people have a mock war. They split in factions,
This one adores the rose, this one the daisy
They call La Marguerite. With wooden swords, with feathers
Plucked from the canes in arrow, they sing
These tender battle hymns; they march, they die.
I wish this war was what they did, that our corpses
Were slain for flowers. What a perfume
Would saturate the Haitian earth instead.
To faint from sweetness at the smell of peace.
(A La Comette dance. The DANCERS waltz and freeze, waltz and freeze. VASTEY and CHRISTOPHE watching DESSALINES and YETTE dancing. POMPEY leans against a wall.)
CHRISTOPHE
Call him Jacques the jacko, jackass, anything but an emperor!
What kind of emperor is this, Vastey? Listen, you see how he
Divides the estates among his ex-soldiers? By his nose. This
Is a government by that nigger’s nostrils, his mud-foot veterans
Bring him scraps of paper deeds, forgeries, they are the deeds
With smoke, and this medalled jackass who cannot read sniffs
And then pronounces on their merit. A nose rules us, friend.
A nose is my Emperor. I make policy. I must look after his
Agriculture, and he does that!
He wants Haiti to be black, so he does this by bleeding it white.
VASTEY
The revolution made him what he is, General.
CHRISTOPHE
Don’t call me general. I am in agriculture.
But I have learnt one thing from it.
(P
ause.)
That pig should be butchered.
Tell him I’m tired and I’ve gone to bed.
(He exits, climbing the stairs.)
Scene 13
Interior. The MUSICIANS weary, playing. Hours later. Other guests asleep. The royal family absent. DESSALINES and YETTE still dancing. DESSALINES barefooted. POMPEY stirs, wants to move towards DESSALINES. DESSALINES notices. He stops dancing. The music stops. He strides, totters over to POMPEY.
DESSALINES
You want to sleep, citizen?
Go to bed. Your Emperor’s permission.
Go to bed. The cock is crowing.
Go!
(He pushes him out. POMPEY moves. YETTE stands alone, sweaty, dishevelled.)
Your wife will be all right.
Your Emperor’s assurance.
(To YETTE)
You will be all right, yes?
(YETTE nods wearily. To POMPEY)
Music! Music! You are not married, not true?
(POMPEY shakes his head no. DESSALINES claps his hands.)
Then tomorrow, first thing, I will marry you.
Not me! But the archbishop! A white archbishop!
(He returns to YETTE, dances.)
A real archbishop, citizen. And white.
And a real emperor. Now go to sleep.
You will need all your little strength tomorrow night.
(POMPEY withdraws. To YETTE)
And tonight, my honey-colour negresse,
Tonight you and I will make a prince,
A little present for your husband.
Maybe twins. What is wrong?
I understand. You are tired.
Come. Come with me. Assez?
(The music stops. He claps his hands, indicating they should all leave. The remnants of guests who still have the strength go off. Some cross the fields, meeting the dawn.)
Come to the balcony to see your kingdom.
Smell the air. Morning.
Morning in Haiti. What is your
Name again, mulatresse?
YETTE
Yette, Your Majesty.
DESSALINES
Come to the balcony to smell the morning, Yette.
(They move out to the balcony.)
Your Majesty.
(Laughs.)
Suppose …
Suppose I let you call me Jacques?
(The balcony. Morning. Fresh. Stirring. YETTE exhausted but lovely. The cool wind.)
I mean to say what is that for us, Your Majesty!
The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth Page 23
