Windward Heights

by Maryse Conde

  Outside, the drums beat in mourning.

  The biggest one, the height of a man, rumbled, while the little ones wailed like tiny infants abandoned by their mama.

  Razyé was standing as rigid as a candle in a corner of the yard. Unlike the men and women around him, his face showed no grief, because deep inside he was furious and exasperated, as if Melchior’s death had played a trick on him. Now he would never realize his childhood dream; he would never communicate with the dead. He would never have access to the secrets of the invisible world, and he would never refashion the world to his liking. In his irritation a muscle throbbed along his cheek, adding to the macabre nature of his features. Nevertheless, he had made up his mind. Protected by the spirits or not, he was going to leave. He was going to return to Guadeloupe. The time for revenge had come. And what’s more, he sensed that Cuba was going to live through even more dangerous times. That morning, when he had gone to the port to book a passage, he had seen the Maine, a huge battleship flying the American flag anchored alongside the Castillo del Morro and blocking the roadstead. Blond, pink-cheeked sailors climbed up and down the accommodation ladders while officers dressed in white gazed at the town through binoculars. What was America up to now?

  Meanwhile the doors of the funeral chamber were opening, and carrying the heavy, unvarnished wooden coffin on their shoulders, the nine santeros crossed the yard. The procession formed behind them and the wailing intensified, for the moment of separation was near. Seeing the birds dressed in black perched on the terraced roofs and hearing their croaks, people knew that they were the spirits in disguise come to accompany the deceased. Razyé joined the procession and stared at the coffin with his narrow eyes, whose lids lowered like the slats of shutters. He envied the dead man. How many times had he wished it was all over for him too and his mouth and eyes were closed under six feet of earth in an abandoned graveyard, where Guinea grass grew haphazardly along the paths and here and there pushed up the flagstones; Flowers thirsting for water withered among the crosses and the dusty pearl embellishments. The photos of the dead yellowed and crumbled to dust in their frames.

  Why did he continue to walk along the road of the living?

  The girl who meant more to him than life itself had turned her back on him. Her cries of protest had never stopped echoing throughout his life: “I could never, never marry Razyé. It would be too degrading. It would be like starting to live all over again like our ancestors, the savages in Africa!”On hearing these terrible words he stood stunned. Then he had fled the house. For days and nights he had run like a madman, oblivious to where he was going. The sun rose and set in his company. The rain soaked him. The clearing skies dried him. Then one morning he found himself in La Pointe, facing an ocean of indifference. Tall, burly men were loading a ship. He had mingled with them and at nightfall crept aboard. When they discovered him it was too late. The green hue of the shore propped against the horizon was like a mirage. The churches and palaces of Havana were silhouetted in a halo of light. They kicked him off the boat, but he had escaped jail by signing up with the army to fight the rebels.

  Soon the procession left the courtyard and, cutting across the fields, headed for the church of San Eusebio; for however much a babalawo he might be, Melchior was nevertheless a staunch Catholic. The procession resembled a sinister snake as it coiled gloomily under the dying sun.

  Leaving the Campo Santo, Razyé paid a visit to his mistress, Doña Stéfania Fonséca, widowed at the age of twenty-four by a rich planter. In polite society she passed for inconsolable because she had refused all types of men on account of Razyé. They kept their liaison secret for fear of slander, and twice she had had an abortion to douse any scandal.

  In the little peony drawing room, so called because of the design on the wallpaper, she was in tears. This was unusual, for knowing him as well as she did, she generally hid her feelings under her mask of painted porcelain, except for their moments of pleasure together.

  “I hear you’re leaving for Guadeloupe. What are you going to do on that tiny speck of an island where they don’t even speak Spanish? You told me yourself that the hearts of people over there are harder than flint and never watered by compassion.”

  Razyé stood erect against the velvet curtains of the windows carefully closed against prying neighbors.

  “You wouldn’t understand!” he retorted contemptuously. “People of your color have no passion in their veins. They don’t know what it’s like to burn with fire at the thought of a person breathing, eating and sleeping with another on the opposite side of the ocean.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Doña Stéfania murmured. “You think I can’t understand. When it comes to feelings, whites and blacks are one and the same. There’s no difference between their trials and tribulations. All humans dream of being reunited in Heaven with those they have lost.”

  Razyé was no longer listening. All he could hear was his own voice and the chaos of his inner self.

  “I must take my revenge. On the man who took the woman I loved and the man who made me unworthy of her love. My plan is all worked out. I’ve toiled three years in Cuba to have enough money to put it into effect. I’ll bring the second man to his knees and if I have to kill the first with both hands, I will.”

  “If you leave,” Doña Stefania said in an even quieter tone, “I shall not stay in Havana. I’ll go home to Spain. Besides, José Martí has died for nothing. Soon Cuba will be a colony of America. Her soldiers are already in the port, awaiting the moment to hurl themselves upon us!”

  THE CROSSING

  3

  Nelly Raboteur’s Tale

  The Veracruz had been at sea for two whole days. No sight of land. Not even a speck of an isle with its ring of coral and coconut palms. Everywhere you looked there was nothing but a great expanse of water that changed color with the moods of the sun; sometimes a sparkling turquoise green, sometimes grey, sometimes as black as soot. At times shoals of flying fish flashed through the air, dressed in their gleaming jerkins, and whales spouted furious jets of water. Apart from that, nothing. Nothing but water. Water.

  In order to pass the time the men played at quoits on the deck or drew deeply on their Havana cigars in the smoking­ room. As for the women, with their faces half-hidden by their fans of woven raffia, their sole subject of conversation was the presence, albeit discreet, of a dark-skinned negro in first class. He had come aboard when they had called in at Havana and avoided any contact with the other passengers, his eyes never wandering, eating all alone at his table and returning to his cabin once his travelling companions were fast asleep. But his very reserve was offensive. They would have liked him to dare a smile, to attempt to shake hands, for the pleasure of putting him in the place his color deserved. Yet, deep down, the ladies on board fell victim to that inexplicable, mysterious attraction white women feel for the black male. They were forced to admit that such an indifference combined with an acquired arrogance in an elegantly tailored coat, that strong torso under a frilled shirt and those firm curves under the fine serge of his trousers, quickened their pulse. How charming this inscrutable face would be if lit up by a smile! But Razyé—for it was indeed our hero—passed haughtily by. In the morning he would draw up a deck chair next to the lifeboats and gaze at the infinity of the sea. In the evening, under one of the lamps in the smoking room, he frowned over a book in French, Victor Hugo’s Bug-Jargal.

  It was so depressing!

  Everything changed when they docked in Martinique.

  At Fort de France the passengers who were continuing on to Guadeloupe had to disembark and take a passage on board the Kalenda, a steamship of smaller tonnage, anchored at the other end of the wharf. All this took place amidst the din of the coalwomen’s shovels, the clamor of porters, the shouts of the market women who never missed a chance to sell their coconuts or cane juice, the cries of infants and the rush of latecomers. Razyé collided with
a stout, handsome, middle-aged woman, dressed like a da, a nursemaid from a respectable family, in a flowery, loose-fitting dress over a lace petticoat that stopped short above a pair of mauve velvet slippers embroidered with silver flowers.

  “Monsieur Razyé!” she cried. “Is it really you? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  Razyé did not say a word, and she hurriedly added:

  “Don’t you remember? Nelly Raboteur!”

  Razyé raised his hat, grumbled an answer and quickly dis­appeared. This short interlude had not gone unnoticed, and Mademoiselle de La Cossardiére, who more than the others perhaps had spied on our mysterious traveller, walked over to the da. Nelly needed no further invitation, and while the sun continued its games with the sea, she began her story.

  Our life is traced out for us long before we are born. Depending on the cradle that rocks us, we are given the gift of wealth or poverty, life’s happiness or life’s wickedness. I was born into a poor family in Morne-Caillou, a few miles from Anse-Bertrand, in the most desolate part of Guadeloupe. We were seventeen children around the table, and we seldom ate meat. So when I was sixteen I was only too happy when the priest, Monsieur le cure Poissaudeau, found a place for me working for Hubert Gagneur.

  Hubert Gagneur was a tallow-colored mulatto who had inherited from his white Creole father his pretentiousness and l’Engoulvent, an overseer’s house almost in ruins at Grand-Fonds-les-Mangles, situated on the Windward Heights. It was called l’Engoulvent because the winds seemed to rush in from the horizon, sweeping over the limestone bluffs, the columnar cactus and the heath. You could tell the force of the wind by the way the bent trees grew, stunted and shrivelled like old folk. When there was a hurricane or simply a storm or tropical depression, it was as if hundreds of wild horses had been let loose in a howling stampede. The sea came over from La Désirade, swelled up and flooded the Heights. The closest plantation, the great house of Belles-Feuilles, the estate of a rich white Creole family, the Linsseuils, was situated about twenty miles distant on the edge of the sugarcane fields. Except for the postman who grumblingly had to drive his horse that way, nobody ever visited l’Engoulvent. Hubert Gagneur had a bad reputation. He did not believe in the Good Lord and lived like a miscreant. He had recently lost his wife, whom he had treated badly, and lived alone with his two children, a boy and a girl, Justin and Catherine, Cathy as everyone called her. The boy was somewhat sad and taciturn, with a fair skin, fair enough for him to earn a place for himself in white folks’ company through sheer hard work. As for Cathy, she was the color of hot syrup left to cool in the open air, with black hair like threads of night and green eyes. You couldn’t help but love her. Yet the day after I arrived at l’Engoulvent I realized she was the true daughter of her papa. At the age of six she respected nothing and nobody. She was bossy, headstrong, always ready to answer back, and artful. And what’s more, she was convinced she was the most beautiful creature on earth. Always admiring herself in the mirror, imitating the ladies in polite society by pinning up her hair. I told her: “Mademoiselle Cathy, beauty won’t get you nowhere! If you want to find a husband who will get you out of here, that’s not the way to go about it.”

  By way of reply she made the most terrible faces, and I myself was ashamed at what a little person like her, no bigger than a guava twig, made me feel.

  One morning Hubert Gagneur saddled his horse to ride to La Pointe. He went there about once every two months to attend the meetings of an association that did its best to defend the interests of the small sugarcane planters. The abolition of slavery hadn’t changed anything at all, you know. It was still the rich white planters who laid down the law and the blacks who lived from hand to mouth. People said that Hubert Gagneur took advantage of his visits to La Pointe to have his fling with Amélie, a vivacious capresse who lived on the Mome-à-Cayes and who had been his mistress as long as people could remember.

  Since the children clung to his legs and prevented him from leaving, he said to them: “Behave yourselves. What shall I bring you back? You may choose what you like.”

  They hesitated. Then Justin chose a fiddle. Once his papa had taken him to La Pointe and he had seen a violin in the shop window of the Luthier de Crémone and had become infatuated with the instrument. He managed all on his own to play tunes he composed himself. Cathy chose a whip. Not surprisingly. At her age, she would gallop under the sun like a real girl of the islands. Hubert Gagneur could not have got further than Petit-Canal when a hurricane blew up. Throughout the week there had been no ominous signs except for an unusually calm sea and the shameless blooms on the cactus, swollen with blood-tinged lips. Shortly before midnight it seemed the house was about to lie down and die, while groans issued from every crack. The wind burst open the doors we had done our best to nail down. The rain lashed the wooden boards and gushed in everywhere.

  I set about looking after the children.

  When I went up to her room, Cathy was standing in front of a wide open window. Her nightgown ballooned around her like the sail of a boat out at sea, and it looked as though she was about to take flight. Where to? I wondered.

  “Cathy!” I cried. “Are you mad? Close that window at once!”

  Do you think she obeyed me? She calmly went back and lay down in her soaked bed, and I was the one who had to struggle with the shutters, the wind and the rain. The hurricane fought with us all night long. In the morning the wind dropped all of a sudden and the fine weather returned with its peace and quiet. Blue everywhere. The sky had cast off its old grey, leaden clothes. Not a fleece of a cloud over the sea. All that remained to remind us of what had happened was the mud and the piles of leaves and broken branches that had been swept over the paved yard by some unknown force. With shovels, buckets and brushes, Carmélien, the handyman, and a few freed slaves—the so-called new citizens, but still as pitiful and working in the fields for two slices of breadfruit—started to clean up all that muck. I had my hands full in the house.

  The day after, around noon, Hubert Gagneur turned up.

  He surprised us for we were not expecting him home so soon. When he left like that for La Pointe we would go weeks without seeing him. He had been frightened for his family on account of the hurricane, he said, and had turned back as soon as he could. The whole of Grande-Terre had been devastated, he told us. Three-quarters of the houses in Petit-Canal and Anse-Bertrand had collapsed like cowpats. He had heard that in Le Moule all that remained were heaps of corrugated iron and wooden planks. To tell the truth, I was hardly listening. I was looking at what he was clutching between his knees: a dirty, repulsive, seven- or eight-year-old boy, completely naked, with a well-developed sex, believe me; a little black boy or Indian half-caste. His skin was black, and his tangled curly hair reached down his back.

  Hubert Gagneur noticed my curiosity.

  “I found him among the razyé—on the heath—and he bit my hand like a mongoose. It must have been the evil spirits hidden in the wind of the hurricane that brought him our way.”

  He handed me the horrible creature.

  “Take him. Wash him, dress him. Try to make him look like a Christian.”

  “Where will he sleep?” I asked. “There’s already not enough room in the house.”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let him sleep with Cathy. I’m sure she’ll adore him.”

  “What shall we call him?” I persisted.

  Hubert Gagneur climbed down from his horse and burst out laughing.

  “How about Razyé!”

  At that moment Justin and Cathy ran out of the house and threw themselves on their papa.

  “Look what I’ve brought you,” he said jokingly. “Isn’t this better than all the fiddles and whips in the world?”

  And that’s how Razyé entered l’Engoulvent, on a day of wind, terror and rain.

  You shouldn’t play with the hearts of children.

  Justi
n had always thought himself to be the little master of the house. He worshipped his papa like the holy sacrament. It was as if he had transferred to him all the feelings he had had for his maman, who died so young. He copied his every move. Since Hubert Gagneur only spoke Creole and swore like a field nigger, he imitated him. I told him:

  “That’s not how you’ll get into polite society. They’ll take you for an uncouth, uneducated savage.”

  From one day to the next Justin had to share his place with a ragamuffin, come from goodness knows where, for Razyé had found a special place in the heart of Hubert Gagneur. The master treated him like a plaything. He taught him the words to the most obscene biguines. He split his sides with laughter at the sight of him shaking his behind and thrusting forward his sex as he danced. He encouraged him to masquerade as a carnival mas’ à congo or a mas’ à goudron. He had him imitate animal sounds: squeal like a pig, bray like a donkey, cackle like a hen that’s just laid an egg, and moo like a cow. Unlike her brother, Cathy began to worship Razyé. All day long the two of them would romp and gallop on horseback across the limestone heights that surrounded l’Engoulvent. They caught bush rats they roasted on an open fire. They dived into the sea and fished with their hands for the crayfish that hid among the holes in the cliffs. I never understood why their favorite place to play was the little graveyard where rested Irminette Boisgris, Hubert’s wife, a fatherless mulatto like himself; Joséphine, his black mother, so mouth-watering that a white Creole could not wait for her to reach sixteen to taste her delights; Félicité and Emmanuel, his sister and brother, twins laid to rest by typhoid fever at the age of four; and Julien and Eloise, his grandparents, a deserving couple who never got over the calamity that befell their only daughter. They cavorted and climbed over the graves, sat down among the wreaths of pearls and leaned their heads against the cool tombstones as if they were trying to listen to the secrets of those disappeared under the earth. In the evening, sitting in the paved yard, Razyé beat the gwo-ka like a true drummer and Cathy danced like a field girl. Then, aching all over, they would climb up to their room and sleep in each other’s arms. When I went to wake them I looked at their bodies tangled up in the sheets and said to myself nothing good could come out of such a friendship. I would have liked to tell Hubert Gagneur what I thought, but I was afraid to.