by Maryse Conde
“Our condolences! We learned of the sad news. Alicia left yesterday for Belles-Feuilles.”
Then he added, “It’s not as if it were your only child.”
Aymeric sat down on the veranda in a rickety wooden chair and murmured, despite himself: “No, I’ve got six others.”
He was unable to think of his dead child. All he could think of was Justin-Marie. What was he doing at this moment? On whose arm was he leaning to cross the park? Had he managed to eat something? He had just remembered that Sanjita and Apu had a daughter the same age as Justin-Marie. Once, returning unexpectedly from a ride, he had caught her deep in conversation with Justin-Marie. Who knows if she won’t go prowling around him again? Trying to get control of himself, he asked his cousin: “What’s this story about a commission of enquiry I read about in the paper?”
But Jean shrugged his shoulders and answered laconically,
“A load of nonsense.”
Darkness found them drinking one glass of rum after another while the crickets sizzled against the glass of the lamp on the veranda. Jean, more than half drunk, was now ready to talk his head off. He ranted on about the white planters from Martinique who, in his opinion, took advantage of the misfortunes of those in Guadeloupe to buy up their land for next to nothing. He carried on about the colonial authorities who, under the pretext of helping the landowners in difficulty, in fact stripped them of their assets. He then slipped into his own secrets.
“The only white you see in me is the color of my skin. I eat like a nigger; I swig my rum like a nigger; I swear and I fight like a nigger; as for fucking, I fuck like a nigger, and that’s why Alicia can’t stand me. For her, love’s all quadrilles and waltzes with a violin.”
It was not the first time Aymeric had heard such boasting in the mouth of a white planter. On the contrary, it was a never-ending topic of conversation. He had always found such inane behavior pathetic. Yet that evening it aroused in him a strange feeling of anger mixed with suffering. Is that all women were? Flesh for taking one’s pleasure? Tenderness, respect and constant attention, didn’t that mean anything to them? If he had mounted her as roughly as Razyé, he would have won Cathy over. At the same time something told him it was not as simple as that. Illogically, his bitterness spread to Justin-Marie. He had done everything for him, and it had been to no good. Once more he had been duped. Around two in the morning he left Jean to sleep off his rum and went up to his room on the second floor. As he walked along the corridor his eyes, blurred with sleep and alcohol, thought they could make out a white form skipping and backing away from him, as elusive as smoke. Cathy? Shortly after her death he thought he saw and heard her everywhere. In the shape of a cloud stretched across the sky. In the icy-cold water of the gully running over the rocks. In the sunlight. In the wind. And then one day she disappeared, and all his prayers had not brought her back. Was it she who had come back that night? It was surely only to mock him.
What was she trying to tell him?
7
Barbaric Nuptials
Justin-Marie stared at her, his eyes shining with malice, and hissed: “Your name’s not Satyavati. It’s Etiennise. I heard your papa call you yesterday evening. Another lie, you lie all the time.”
Hurt, she could think of nothing to say. What lies was he accusing her of? She had told him the story of Shashi, her grandfather, to amuse him. She herself didn’t believe a word. Anymore than she believed in the tales of Rabbit and Zamba or Ti-Jean. As for her name . . . Our misfortune is to go through life with the names our parents chose for us, inappropriate names that we have to drag with us right to the very end. Etiennise sighed. She attributed Justin-Marie’s cantankerousness to his condition and did her best not to hold a grudge against him.
Poor wretch! She knew he was seriously ill. Yet, until then, she hadn’t realized the infinite extent of his weakness. His nostrils often became pinched, as if he were about to suffocate. Several times he had been gripped by interminable coughing fits and she had seen the handkerchief he pressed to his lips grow purple. Could it be blood? The day before, against her recommendations, he got it into his head to climb down into the gully. Going down had been easy enough, apart from a few slips on the roots. Once at the bottom he joked and laughed with the exuberance of a child grown up in town who suddenly discovers the countryside.
He struggled onto a big rock and dipped his hands into the icy water, sharp as a razor blade. He had even tried to lift up the crayfish traps the boys hid under the leaves of the wild lily. But climbing back up, what martyrdom! She had to hold him up and almost drag him along the path, gasping for breath, bent double, whimpering and cussing as he was so good at doing. Several times he had stopped to catch his breath, and each time she thought he was going to have a fit. The next morning he was unable to stand, and they had to lay him out on his chaise longue all bundled up like a parcel. He hadn’t been able to swallow a thing all day and left his tray virtually untouched. In spite of all that, those few days were filled with happiness. The Good Lord works in mysterious ways! Hardly had Aymeric turned his back than a fit of malaria nailed Sanjita to her bed. The attack came quite unexpectedly. One evening she lay down as on the day before and the day before that, her hair smoothed with bay rum, encased in her long, brushed cotton nightgown after three Our Father’s and three Hail Marys, chanted head down in front of a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The next day she couldn’t get up. Her head spun. Shivering, her teeth chattering, she lay in her sheets soaked with a sickly sweat. Since Apu was still snoring, Etiennise gave her two spoonfuls of calomel, then ran to the village to ask for help from Dorisca who, when she was not besotted with rum, was unsurpassed in the kitchen.
For Justin-Marie and Etiennise there was now no longer any need to hide. As soon as the chore of school was over, Etiennise would throw off her school satchel and join Justin-Marie who was soaking up the last rays of the sun in the yard. As soon as he saw her he asked: “Let me see your books. Tell me all about it. What did you study today? Didn’t you have geography class? It was my favorite. And French composition. I always had the best marks and Monsieur Taranne, our teacher, read out my homework in front of the class.”
She made a face, for she did not feel like talking about school and lingering over the memories of a place that was as gloomy as a prison. The one-classroom school that had just opened in Papaye was the last building outside the village, a square of corrugated iron sitting glumly in the middle of a field of cassava and pumpkins that the older students weeded on their afternoons outside. The school mistress, a skinny, sharp-tongued mulatto woman, had a look of boredom about her. Since she never asked Etiennise any questions, sitting at the back next to Astrélise, the girl whiled away her time dreaming or playing noughts and crosses. In the playground having nothing better to do, she watched the boys fight over a ball, like all the other girls, secretly contemplating the promising bulge of their male members under their drill konokos. What was there to say about all that? Consequently, annoyed at her silence, Justin-Marie refused to speak to her and began to sulk. He would sulk for any old reason. Just like he complained about everything. About the chill from the mountain. About the heady smell of the roses and the jasmine. About the treacherous rays of the sun. About too much sugar in the lemonade. About too much grease in the soup.
Sometimes he asked for the newspaper and she had to sneak into the kitchen to fetch the paper Dorisca had used to wrap the fish or the meat. He would smooth it out feverishly and only return to a good mood if he read accounts of Legitimus, Jean-Hilaire Endomius or Razyé in particular—stories that bored her to death. He would read things out to her.
“Listen to this, listen to this! A strike at Les Mineurs factory. The strikers beat up the mayor and two town councilmen. And what about this! More cane fields have gone up in smoke at Beauport.”
As her expression betrayed her feelings, he began to insult her.
“You girl
s, one wonders what you’ve got in your head instead of a brain. Caca, liquid caca, and that’s all!”
In spite of this she did not tire of his company. All day long she waited for the moment when she would join him again. He seemed to her a most singular person. He was different from everyone else she had known and kneaded from rarer stuff. As in the fairy tale, the words that came out of the mouth of other humans were vipers and toads compared to his precious emeralds, rubies and carbuncles.
Suddenly, as was often the case, his mood seemed to change. He became angelic. Two dimples hollowed his cheeks. He nestled his head against her shoulder and murmured in his winning tone: “Why don’t you come and join me after dinner? I’m afraid, all alone in this big house.”
She could not help caressing his hair that his sickness made slightly damp.
“All alone?” she remarked. “Doesn’t Dorisca sleep in one of the rooms in the attic?”
He made a face, like a malicious little child, and murmured: “That’s what she wants you to think. In actual fact, as soon as I’m in bed she runs as fast as she can to meet an admirer or drink her rum, who knows. Come! You can tell me some stories. Stories about the country your parents’ ancestors came from.”
Etiennise hesitated. At the same time she was ashamed of being so timid. What was she afraid of? If she went up to his room at night, nobody would know. Sanjita drank cup after cup of worm-bush tea and was shivering and sweating badly under three woollen blankets. As soon as Apu had swallowed his root vegetables and saltfish for dinner, he set off for the rum shop. He would only head back home around three or four in the morning. She lowered her voice so that Dorisca arriving with the tea-tray could not hear.
“First, say you’re sorry for having called me a liar.”
By way of an answer he burst out laughing, which made Dorisca jump.
If she had not wreaked havoc on herself, as was now the case, Dorisca would have been a handsome woman. People said she began to drown herself in rum the day the man she treated like the holy of holies in the hope he would end up slipping a ring on her finger left for La Désirade, after having stolen all her gold from her wicker basket. The police caught up with him in mid-crossing. But from that moment on, life for her had lost all its salt and spice, so much so that she decided to shorten it with doses of delirium tremens. Her reputation as a cook was legendary, but because of her fits and ensuing absences she could never keep her job. She placed in front of Justin-Marie a tray decorated with a lace placemat on which stood a dish of granadilla water-ice and a slice of marble cake. His only thanks was a groan.
“Water ice? It’s too cold for me.”
Accustomed to his whining, she walked off. She had no time for spoilt children, the never-content sort. As for taking offense at Etiennise’s presence, that wasn’t her business. The Lord is great. She did not have a daughter. She had only herself to worry about!
Etiennise laid her hand on Sanjita’s burning, lifeless forehead. Sanjita moved her head from left to right, but did not wake up. Reassured, Etiennise tiptoed out of the room. But once she pushed open the door of the house, she almost went back inside so indiscreet was the night.
Not a cloud. A circle of orange-colored moon, that looked as if it had been drawn by a compass, gleamed in the sky and drenched in light the rosebushes, the jasmine hedge, the clumps of white rayo, the silhouette of the great house and the tall trees that danced around it. The earth seemed to be covered with a similar orange-colored fabric, as luxurious as a long-pile carpet, unrolled as far as the eye could see. This nocturnal light, almost as harsh as day’s, but curiously artificial, gave Nature an evil, threatening appearance. You expected the great house to open its mouth and swallow everything up, the branches of the trees to change into whips and the rosebushes to grow giant thorns like crab claws.
Etiennise plucked up courage and crossed the lawn, but could not help running when her feet sank in as if it were wax. The terrifying silence wailed to infinity. She knew the jar where they hid the kitchen key, and she had no trouble slipping inside the house. Once inside, however, she got another scare. The big hurricane lamp they left burning at night drew twisted shapes on the walls and floor, and she thought she was surrounded by a throng of sinister, toothless hags like carnival masks. Once again she began to run, the floorboards squeaking like mice under her feet. When she knocked on Justin-Marie’s door she was out of breath. On opening it, she stood dumbfounded. He was waiting for her on his bed, propped up by a pile of pillows. The entire room was illuminated by the glow of candles. They were everywhere: in candelabras, in flower pots, in vases, in glasses and even in a porcelain chamber pot. All this glow was reflected in the mirrors that were glazed by an opaque yellow veil. So her first reaction was that she had stumbled into a funeral chamber and was about to attend a wake, as if Justin-Marie was already dead. She was almost expecting to hear the drone of the women mourners, chanting mechanically the words from the Holy Bible. Then she noticed he had carefully brushed his hair and was wearing in her honor a white cotton nightshirt with a wide ruffle. Dressed the way he was, under the canopy of this four-poster bed drifting like a raft in the middle of the ocean, he looked more than ever like a giant doll painted red and white, whose face was half attractive, half repulsive, maybe male, maybe female, or both. He smiled at her and by way of invitation tapped the bed beside him.
“Come sit next to me.”
She hesitated. He shrugged his shoulders and asked in annoyance: “What are you afraid of? Did you come all this way just to show off?”
He was right. She obeyed, sidled awkwardly over to him and perched herself stiffly on the edge of the bed. That evening he didn’t smell of sickness, sweat or sour milk as he often did. He must have drenched himself in bay rum or eau de Cologne in the hope of smelling like a bunch of flowers. He grabbed her wrist. She had never noticed before how big and strong his hands were at the end of his slender wrists. He drew her near to him, and at such close quarters she could make out the blotches on his skin. She could also smell his mouthwash that not only attracted her but also repulsed her somewhat.
“Have you ever kissed a boy?” he whispered. “On the mouth?”
What a question! It had happened a number of times. At school behind the shack that sheltered the latrines. And at the village fête, behind the booths made of woven coconut fronds. She had also kissed Florimond, Astrélise’s brother, who was always glad to see her. She had even let him slip his hand inside her knickers. But she shook her head, because she knew that’s what he wanted to hear.
“Do you want us to try?” he whispered.
She hesitated again. But before she could word an answer, in the negative or affirmative, he had brutally grabbed her face, turning it toward him, almost scratching her chin, and had glued his mouth to hers. She wanted to push him away. He clasped her tighter. Then everything happened very quickly. So quickly, that years later, at the end of her adult life, she could never reconstruct exactly what had happened that night, despite torturing her imagination day after day, constantly patching fleeting images together in anguish and remorse, and asking herself questions over and over again. At one point she found herself underneath him, suffocating under the frail and resolute weight of his body. With a firm hand he forced her legs open. She had the vision of a perfectly robust male member in erection that filled her with panic. And all the time he was panting and groaning.
The more she struggled, the more violent he became.
Then what did she do exactly? Did she hammer his chest with her fists? Did she scar him with her nails? Did she clutch him by the throat like a villain in a back alley? Did she hug him closer and closer in all her fear and revolt? Whatever the case, he suddenly withdrew and collapsed limp beside her on the embroidered pillowcases. Silence. A gurgle. Then the blood rose up to his colorless mouth. First it bubbled out in a reddish foam. Then in a frothy stream. His eyelids fluttered like two wings of a w
ood pigeon. His eyes closed.
In her life Dorisca had had to deal with a number of complicated situations. White Creoles, respectable negroes, as proper as they come, and even priests who had passed on in the arms of their mistresses. But situations like this one, never! The room was lit up as bright as day. Candles burning everywhere and their wax dripping in thick puddles over the furniture. Bunches of flowers withered by the heat.
Etiennise dishevelled, screaming uncontrollably and as pale as the color of her skin allowed. Justin-Marie, his eyes closed and his chest covered in blood, like the sheets and pillow-cases under his head. She wasted no time asking questions that nobody would ever answer. Besides, she had a good idea what had happened. Did those two sly ones think she didn’t know what they were up to? Always interrupting their private whispering whenever she approached. She glanced at Justin-Marie and did not need the services of a doctor to come to a conclusion. No need to call on death, she was already well on the way.
She walked over to Etiennise who, thank goodness, had stopped screaming, but stood standing like a zombie, and shook her like a sweet plum tree in season.
