by Maryse Conde
Yet life did not always have the bitter taste it has today. I can remember the time when my brothers were alive. It’s since they died that my papa drowns himself in rum and Maman has become a different person. She has become a woman dressed in black for every season and her hair is pulled back into a chignon so tight that the skin on her forehead is wrinkled. I know what would make her young again. Having another three babies. This time I’ll do it for her. But with whom? With the boys from Papaye? Black or Indian, they’re all the same. Deep in my thoughts I forget he’s right beside me until I hear him speak.
“You know, at our house it wasn’t very merry either. People claimed my papa was rich—as rich as Croesus. Yet nobody at home ever saw the color of his money. We had nothing. Not even a candle to see by or a piece of soap to wash with. All we had to eat were tubers with meat or saltfish, like the poorest of niggers. Every day I wore the same clothes to school. The boys nicknamed me ‘My one and only.’ I never heard my papa say one kind word to my maman. He treated her like a maid. Even worse. When I was old enough to understand certain things I wondered what he did with her at night. He must have done something since she was pregnant all the time. In the evenings he would bring women into the house . . .”
I interrupt him.
“And that’s the man you’re so full of admiration for?”
He thinks for a moment and then declares: “Yes, I do admire him. It’s people who made him what he is, a girl he loved who rejected him because he was too black and didn’t have a cent to his name, preferring a rich white Creole.”
I rather agree with the girl, I thought, but didn’t dare tell him what I felt. He goes silent, looks me straight in the eye and murmurs: “Can you keep a secret?”
What sort of secret? He is whispering so low that I have to lean over to hear what he says.
“I believe the rich white Creole who took his girl was my Uncle Aymeric.”
What sort of cock-and-bull story was this? I burst out laughing.
“You’re making it up! You don’t know what you’re saying! Your uncle is married to a Mademoiselle Le Dentu, everyone knows that. The Le Dentus have an estate not far away in Matouba.”
“That’s his second wife,” he whispers. “The one I saw at Belles-Feuilles. But what about his first?”
I shall remember that day as long as I live, for that’s when it all began. That Thursday in March, a Thursday like any other. I was expecting to be bored, like I am all the time. The sun was just as hot and the Soufriere just as jagged, silhouetted against the sky. The wind sang the same old song in the trees, like a carnival beat that returns year after year, so familiar that you don’t hear it anymore.
The stories about his family didn’t interest me. But I took pity on him. He looked so old, stretched out on his chaise longue under his woollen blanket.
I wasn’t going to waste my time interrogating Maman, she wouldn’t tell me anything even if she did know the name of Monsieur Aymeric’s first wife. For her, white Creoles’ business is the Good Lord’s business. It’s sacred. So in the late afternoon I went to see papa in the vegetable garden behind the coffee trees. At this hour, he was sober, standing with his hands on his hips, breathing in the cool air. When he saw me he quickly hacked at the weeds with his cutlass as if he were busy working. From where we were, we could see the blue of the sea through a gap in the tangle of green.
“Bapu?” I asked.
I call him that. It’s our little game.
“I heard that Monsieur Aymeric was married before, a first time. Do you know if it’s true?”
He looked at me, feigning to be angry. His cheeks and chin are covered with a tangled grey beard. But his hair remains as black as ink, carefully greased and brushed back.
“What’s it got to do with you? Since when do children pry into grown-up affairs?”
Then he began to laugh, as if he remembered something.
“She was one hell of a Miss! Perhaps if I’d have tried I’d have got lucky! The number of men she took in! A real baker’s oven!”
“What was her name?” I asked.
He couldn’t remember her name at all, and I realized he knew nothing about this first wife, merely repeating the nonsense he had heard from the mouths of bad talkers. People are like that. No use wasting my time! I turned back toward the house. Abélard the hunter was standing near the kitchen, holding up the birds he had just killed in the forest and Maman was bargaining.
“How much do you want for your thrushes? I want to make a pâte.”
She goes to so much trouble now, considering that ever since my brothers died she’s done nothing but boil up salt meat, Congo peas and tubers in water. But I’ve noticed that neither Justin-Marie nor his uncle touch her cooking and the plates come back cold. I entered the warm smell of the kitchen, usually cold and cheerless, and as I went over to the kitchen range as if to look inside the cooking pot, I asked: “What are you cooking tonight?”
She bustled about importantly.
“Poor wretch! He’s not eating anything!”
And there you go! All she needed was a boy in the house to give her back a taste for life, something I was never able to do! I’m only a girl, and my feelings for her don’t count. I went out scuffing the soles of my sandals over the kitchen tiles, something she hates, but she didn’t even notice, so busy chopping up herbs and shallots. Near the jasmine hedge Abélard was putting his birds back in his game bag. The blood dribbled around his cigar-like fingers and he dried them on the grass. It made me think of the massacre of the innocents. I hope all hunters go to hell. Abélard winked at me and murmured: “When are they going to marry you off? If you continue the way you are, one of these days I’ll do it for you.”
I knew he was just talking. He has watched me grow up and wouldn’t harm a hair on my head. Besides, people say his real gun, the one between his legs, can’t fire. That’s why he’s got no wife. He lives all alone in an ajoupa in the depths of the forest. I went up there once with my brothers and we ate roasted bush rat.
He delved into the pocket of his old drill konoko and showed me a few coins.
“Come on. I’ll buy you a comet of roasted peanuts.”
Maman doesn’t like me to leave the estate, except to go to school, because she says the people in the village are an uneducated lot. According to her, they’re only interested in one thing: putting a bun in my oven. At that instant I felt like disobeying her. So I clutched Abélard’s hand and we crossed the garden. Once past the gate we found ourselves on the road that cut through the flesh of the trees like a wound. I sneaked a glance to see whether Justin-Marie was in the yard. But he had already gone inside. At this hour a chill descends from the mountain and the air is too damp for him. His uncle was probably sitting at the head of his bed reading him passages from Salammbô, the book he hates so much. He must be listening to him in boredom, prisoner of his sickness, incapable of shouting what he really thinks: “Stop, stop! Go away! You’re boring me to death!”
Abélard and I walked down to the village. Darkness was hanging over us, about to fall. For the moment it was still hesitating and hovering, spreading its great wings above the mountain. But at any moment it would swoop down upon us. In the cabins, the oil lamps and tallow candles were about to be lit and the forest would flicker with a thousand flecks of light from the fireflies. In the village, already empty and ready for night, the snow cone sellers were leaving the only stretch of street, ringing their bells. The women were already laying out their piles of peanuts behind the smoke of their oil lamps. They were spreading sheets of newspaper on the pavement to protect their behinds from the damp.
I ate my peanuts. Then, taking advantage of the last rays of sun, I went and knocked on Astrélise’s door. Knowing how strict Maman was, she was surprised to see me. Astrélise is my best friend at school. I could say my only friend. Yet she’s not an Indian. She’s of African desce
nt. She boasts that the ancestor of her maman’s family was Nago and could read the future from oil-palm kernels. She also boasts that her papa’s grandfather ran away and hid in the Deux Mamelles mountains, that General Richepance could never catch him, despite all his massacres, and that he sailed away to Haiti alive and well in a hollowed-out tree trunk with a whole gang of Maroons. It really is the first time I’ve heard someone get satisfaction from such a lineage. The blackest individuals boast of having white parents. But Astrélise is no ordinary individual. Nor is her family. Her papa, her maman and her brothers walk tall and proud. Of course, the people in Papaye can’t stand them. They call them nég-Kongo and pour tar in front of their door.
“Have you ever heard the name Razyé?” I asked.
She laughed.
“Of course! Who hasn’t? Are you interested in politics now?”
Then without further explanation she dragged me into the yard behind the cabin. It was filled with people. One of her brothers was beating the gwoka; another accompanied him on the ti-bwa, and still another on the harmonica. In the flicker of the chaltounés the entire family was dancing, from the infants learning to walk to those on the edge of the grave. Bonne-maman, as everyone calls her, who is almost a hundred and two and hasn’t one whole tooth to her mouth, was holding the edges of her golle dress and jumping in the air like a goat. After a while I felt my whole body burning. It started with my hands and I couldn’t stop clapping. Then a shiver went through my thighs and my knees started knocking. When the beat reached my feet I couldn’t control myself any longer and I entered into the dance. I could not control myself, but I was ashamed. I wanted to silence all those around me who clapped and shouted: “Now we’ve seen everything! Mi Zindien ka dansé léwoz!”
It seemed to last as disturbingly long as those dreams when you do all sorts of forbidden things. Finally the music stopped, and I fell into the arms of Florimond, Astrélise’s elder brother, the one who is always pleased to see me. He took advantage of the situation to kiss me on the neck.
I rejoined Astrélise while basins of food started to go the rounds. Blood pudding. Rice and beans. Breadfruit stew with salt pork. Tripe and plantains. Astrélise and I shared the same kwi, and while I was filling my belly, I thought of Justin-Marie. What would he have thought of these people around me? Would he have said they were real because they drank rum and beat the gwoka? Because they sang and danced, uninhibitedly shaking their bondas? Is that what it is to be real? Did he mean the white man’s ways are an obstacle to being real? In that case I don’t want their “reality.” Oh no, I don’t! Yet this “reality” was hidden somewhere inside me, ready to come out without asking my permission.
Sometimes my heart is too big for my breast. I can feel it beating and beating, and perching on the edge of my mouth. How it would like to fly away. Leave this speck of land manhandled by all sorts of devils, volcanoes, hurricanes, fires and earthquakes. I wish I could close my eyes, go to sleep and wake up in another country in another color. Not mine, that’s a curse and a shroud.
Alas, I know all too well they are nothing but dreams in my head, and I’ll never be anything else. When I got home my maman was standing at the gate, watching for me with a worried look.
“What are you doing roaming around at this hour?” she cried. “What do you think you’re doing, eh?”
I didn’t even take the trouble to answer her and watched her close the gate like a prison door. And the great house, too, made me think of a jail. Shutters closed, louvres lowered, not a sound or a light filtered through. The whole night long, lying on my straw mattress, I dreamed that Justin-Marie was holding me in his arms and was taking me away. Far away.
6
Back To Earth
Aymeric read over again the letter he had just received.
My dearest,
God has sent us another ordeal. He did not want us to have our little Angele and called her to Him the day after she was born. You cannot be with us for the wake. But we shall wait for you to lay her to rest. Be brave, my dear, as I am trying to be myself.
Your affectionate,
Marie
It was an annoying disruption, but he felt no real emotion. It wasn’t the first time that he and Marie had laid a baby to rest. Over these twelve years together they must have lost three or four infants carried off by worms, fever, pernicious anaemia or some other childhood sickness. Though Marie seemed so distressed each time that one wondered whether it wouldn’t be her turn next to be laid to rest, Aymeric, however, grew hardened. His sojourn at Papaye had turned him into another man, younger and now indifferent to life’s tribulations. Gone were his preoccupations with his family, the firing of his cane fields, the factory, his unpaid workers and his urgent debts. What’s more, he had almost stopped torturing himself over the loss of Cathy whom he had constantly mourned. He was too busy watching Justin-Marie convalesce. The boy slept better at night. His temperature was down. He ate more and had gained a little weight. Although he coughed just as much, there was never any blood at the corner of his lips. Recently, well wrapped up, he had been taking a daily walk under the trees in the park without a stumble. Doctor Sacripant, who came up from Saint-Claude twice a week, declared one should never lose hope with young people. The best, he repeated, was yet to come. While reluctant to leave at this stage, Aymeric was too much a man of duty to think of ignoring his wife’s call and he quickly made plans. If he set off immediately he could reach Capesterre before nightfall. There he could stay on the Bois-Baril plantation with his cousins, the Saint-Esprit, and change horses.
He got up and walked over to the window. In the garden he caught sight of Sanjita’s black back, like a giant spider flattened against the greenery. She was walking up and down in her graceless way, cutting roses and wisteria blooms. The watchful presence of this woman hovering around Justin-Marie at every hour of the day exasperated him, for he was jealous enough to want his patient all to himself. A vague sense of anguish gripped him. If he left, what would happen behind his back? Then he came to his senses. What was he afraid of? Sanjita was simply yearning for motherhood.
He called her over, and when she was up close he examined her angular face with its tapering, elusive eyes below her hair that was tightly brushed back.
“I have to go away for a few days,” he explained brusquely. “I’m counting on you to take great care of Justin-Marie.” She did not betray her real feelings.
“Yes, of course,” she merely said submissively. “You can count on me, master.”
And yet Aymeric could have sworn he saw a flicker of contentment around her mouth. While Apu got the carriage ready, he entered the room where Justin-Marie, sprawled in the middle of his bed, was sulkily contemplating his breakfast, although Sanjita had put all her goodwill into it, even going so far as to arrange for him three different colored fruit juices. He sat down next to Justin-Marie and felt him shrink away—just as Cathy used to do when she furtively refused his embraces. What had he done to antagonize both of them? He noticed Justin-Marie’s impatience when he read to him, his boredom on hearing him talk and his weariness at constantly having him by his side. Sometimes, he knew full well Justin-Marie pretended to sleep to escape his company, as Cathy used to do. Nevertheless he could not help hugging his shoulders, distressed at feeling his bones through his skin, and then announced the bad news he had just received. Justin-Marie squirmed free and stared at him wide-eyed.
“Does that mean you will have to leave for Belles-Feuilles?”
In response to this unconcealed joy, Aymeric could not help asking him bitterly: “What do you think you’ll do when I’m not here?”
Justin-Marie burst into forced laughter, and without further ado, Aymeric walked out of the room.
The countryside around Papaye is as resonant as a guitar. The hollows in the earth, the gullies and the deep woods reverberate with echoes that merge in the air like music. The twitter of the car
ouge birds mingles with the rustle of banana leaves tickled by the wind and the hoarse braying of the donkeys hitched to the mountain slopes by their four hoofs. In the distance, the sea never winks. With eyelids wide open it glares at the volcano. Sometimes a cloud bursts and soaks the mass of greenery, but never for long. A burning sun quickly reappears through the shroud of mist and everything is dry again.
Aymeric made a detour through Basse-Terre to check the axle on one of his wheels. The capital city was very different from La Pointe. As different as the nonchalant wife of a planter is from the valiant woman working in the cane fields. She sprawls around her bay, her back to the volcano, staring at the ocean through louvred shutters like a coquette sheltering behind her fan. Even at this hour her streets were almost deserted. Market women were walking down the slopes, their knees bent under their load of vegetables balanced on their heads; while uniformly light-skinned children, their hair slicked down with water, were making their way to school, hand in hand with their mabos. The wheelwright’s shop was located in the Carmel district, in the shadow of the cathedral’s grey stones. Aymeric remained standing on the pavement while two apprentices busied themselves around the carriage. After a while he went up to the man standing at the street corner selling La Vérité, the newspaper owned by the mulattos that he never read. Headlines jostled each other on the front page. Another strike for more wages by the workers at the Grande-Anse factory on Marie-Galante had spread to Guadeloupe. The strikers had again taken the planters hostage and, tired of such outlandish behavior, the governor had appointed a former magistrate known for his uprightness to conduct an enquiry. All this had been decided without once thinking of informing him, as if his peers had already forgotten him. Aymeric felt sad and exhausted.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon when he came in sight of the vertical trunks of the royal palms bordering the allée Dumanoir. He then set off along the path leading to Bois- Baril. The sun swayed low in the sky. Low-lying and squat, the plantation house was not much to look at. Its iron roof had been messily patched up, and the façade could have done with a coat of paint. Yet its owners, the Saint-Esprit, had not lost a cent since the day slavery was abolished. On the contrary. People even said they had managed to increase their profits, thanks to smuggling. They succeeded in hiding most of their rum production from the authorities, and their white rum flowed to the shopkeepers in Basse-Terre in forty- and fifty-liter copper drums, duty free. Jean de Saint-Esprit was a lout. He had a wife, Alicia, born a de Linsseuil. But everyone knew he hadn’t touched her for years and gave child upon child to a black woman from Grands-Fonds-Cacao. He removed his bakoua hat, which stuck to his straw-colored hair with sweat, in order to embrace Aymeric.
