by Maryse Conde
At this moment a little hand gently pushed open the door and Cassandre entered. It was as if she had sensed her mother’s grief, for without a word she ran toward her and buried her face in her lap. Irmine nestled her face against her soft, sweet-smelling body. Within a few weeks, Cassandre had been transformed. Like the other children she had exchanged the drab, shapeless clothes in which Razyé’s miserliness had encased her for the most expensive attire. Over a honeycomb embroidered blouse she wore a blue silk velvet pinafore dotted with tiny bunches of pink flowers. The pinafore flared slightly above the knee, revealing her plump legs squeezed into immaculately white stockings, also embroidered with pink flowers. She was shod in patent-leather shoes with a buckle. She looked like one of those porcelain dolls little girls are given at Christmas. Not a trace of the Bambara ancestress in this one. With her light skin, so much lighter than the other children, and her hair carefully smoothed with brilliantine, everyone could easily forget she was not what she seemed. So the nuns at the Saint-Joseph de Cluny boarding school, usually so finicky, adored her. Last 15 August, during the procession of the Virgin of Massabielle, she had been given the supreme honor of appearing as a white-robed angel, hands joined and muslin wings wide open on her back.
What never ceased to enchant Irmine was how every day she was struck by her daughter’s growing resemblance to Aymeric, the beloved brother, in spite of everything the saint, the martyr, the master that everyone still mourned, the late heavenly cherub. Cassandre had his azure-colored eyes, his delicately curled lips and, despite her young age, his serious, considerate expression. When she spoke, it was with the same sanctimonious tone of voice. Irmine could already see the time when her lovely face and her bank account would be coveted by the sons of the most aristocratic families on the island. They would fight over her and she would cast a look of disdain. Then she would walk to the altar wrapped in yards and yards of white tulle, and those who had spoken ill of her papa and jeered at her maman would be punished.
The little girl, who knew her powers over Irmine, caressed her cheek and asked tenderly: “Why are you crying, Marnita?”
She had invented this pretty Spanish-sounding word all on her own, for she hadn’t yet started learning this language at school. Irmine hesitated.
“I’m thinking about your big brother,” she said simply. “Have you forgotten him? He used to love you so much.”
Cassandre shook her head violently.
“Last night I saw him in a dream,” she declared in a soothing voice.
She often announced dreams in order to comfort her maman. But unlike her illustrious precursor, the scenes she described were always joyful and happy: sarabands of pink clouds at sunset, farandoles of girls in brocaded bodices and concerts of crickets tuning up like violinists in the fading dusk. All this playfulness made everyone laugh. Irmine jumped.
“In a dream? And what was he doing?”
Cassandre put on a mysterious air.
“He looked happy. He was living in a big house with a garden all around it.”
Part Four
Roseau
1
Life in Roseau
The wind was shaking the shirt-tails of the sea in all directions and the waves were surging back toward the houses in Roseau.
First-Born set down on the sand the cases of codfish from Newfoundland whose weight was digging into his shoulder, and breathed in the peppery smell of the wind. For weeks he had knocked on every door—from the warehouses, trading companies and stores to the churches and prisons. He had applied to be driver on the Cabot Lodge plantation, coachman for a family of white Creoles and bodyguard for a politician. Everywhere he had been refused and the only job he could find was unloading the ships from every corner of the earth, their bellies filled with drums of lard, demijohns of wine, jars of olive oil and bolts and bolts of calico cloth and silks. At the end of the week he took his place in a line of wretches and received enough rice and beans to fill his stomach. Cathy too had looked for work. She had been refused for other reasons. She was too pretty, too clean, too obviously well-educated. Where did she come from with a face like that? So she learned to weave baskets that she tried to sell in the market like the other women. They lived in one bare, dirty room above Simmons Bros. All day long, when she was not at St. Mary’s, she could hear the rumble of handcarts and the employees swearing on the ground floor. At first, the inhabitants of Roseau, spying on Cathy and First-Born, took them for brother and sister they looked so much alike. But when Cathy’s belly began to swell in such an unmistakable way, they realized they had been wrong.
Cathy never complained and never said one word louder than the next. But the harsh life she lived scored two vertical lines at the corners of her mouth and traced around her eyes two dark circles. Her legs no longer carried her. Only her belly grew round in her emaciated body. For First-Born, watching her lose her youth in solitude and poverty was the cross he bore every day the Good Lord made. Hundreds of times he had made up his mind to return to Guadeloupe. The more he thought about it, the more he told himself that Razyé could not be that much of a monster. If he saw him with a wife on his arm, surely he would forgive him the sins of his youth. He rejected such an idea, however, because he had never had the courage to confess to Cathy who he was. One day, when she was describing the final moments of her beloved papa for the hundredth time, her eyes brimming with tears, she suddenly shouted: “You know who is responsible for his death? Razyé! It’s Razyé who killed him!”
Thereupon she told him a story that he knew already, but from a different point of view. But he hadn’t dreamed of contradicting her on the grounds that you don’t get mixed up in people’s personal affairs. Hadn’t it been whispered, long ago, that Aymeric had stolen Razyé’s woman in a dishonest way? A man whose woman has been stolen is perfectly entitled to take his revenge in every way possible and who could blame him under such circumstances. He had been too terrified by the hatred that had transformed Cathy. She was unrecognizable. It was as if she had turned into a witch. Her cheeks turned the color of burning coals, her eyes flashed and her mouth twisted around the words that were falling over each other. It was some time before she got control of herself. Good Lord, what would she do if she found out that he was Razyé’s son? She would probably kill him, for there was a hidden violence in her that sometimes surfaced. So he said nothing. Neither that day nor the following. But as time went by, his silence slowly strangled him. He could no longer bear the identity he had fabricated for himself that had started out in fun: the illegitimate orphan of a mother whose father, one of the merchants along the wharf, had never wanted anything to do with him. He burned with the longing to rid himself of these effects and recover his true identity.
Perhaps because of this inner tension, his love for Cathy diminished considerably. She weighed him down like a burden. Her body no longer aroused impatience, anguish or surges of passion. He forced himself to make love to her and each time he had the sacrilegious feeling of embracing a second self, curiously transformed into a woman. He came to look upon her as a sister—cherished perhaps in the bottom of his heart, but humdrum, boring, even painful to bear.
He picked up the cases of Newfoundland cod and balanced them again on his shoulder. Then, digging the soles of his feet in the sand, he set off for the Sherbett store.
Mr. Sherbett was born in Roseau, but his family came from Liverpool. After having made their money from sugarcane, they had recently sold their plantations at a profit and gone into trade. Mr. Sherbett, who owned two of the biggest warehouses in town, was smoking a Cuban cigar. The size of his bank account could be measured from the quality of the English cloth he was dressed in and his huge pocket watch. He motioned to First-Born to come closer, wrinkled his nose at the smell and said in Creole: “I want to do my stock-taking this weekend. I pay a shilling a day.”
First-Born looked at the greasy hair and the white-skinned face that was pink
and shiny from the heat. It was men like this that his father had humiliated, ruined and forced into exile. And what was he doing? Bowing in front of them, saying “Yes Sir!” accepting their money. What a downfall! He felt filled with a sudden rage and thought of calling the other laborers to his aid. Like a ringleader he would shout the order to break open the cases they were carrying, wreck the place, sprinkle the floor with kerosene and, as they used to do in the cane fields, burn the warehouse. The flames would glow red and Mr. Sherbett would flee like a frightened cockroach. Instead of which, he merely said: “A pas asé!” (not enough).
A little surprised, but knowing he would find dozens of other volunteers, Mr. Sherbett shrugged his shoulders.
“As you like.”
Then he calmly went back to studying his registers. Mad as hell, First-Born walked out onto the pavement. The streets of Roseau, in every traveller’s opinion the smartest town in the Caribbean, crisscrossed at right angles between the trunks of the matalpas and jacarandas. The blue, green and pink façades of the tall houses interlocked together like some gigantic pieces of a child’s puzzle. The green of the lawns in the parks, the brilliance of the flowers in the public gardens, the fashionable crowd, the elegant tilburies and the sharp clip of the horses struck the eye everywhere it looked. Usually, this sight delighted First-Born, who had suffered so much from the filth of Saint-Louis. But that day, he could only think of his shame. A coward! That’s what he was. How much longer was he going to remain in servitude? Slavery had been abolished for over half a century. Back home, ebony-skinned politicians spoke out for the black man whereas he was subjected to the tyranny of a white man. He walked as far as the wharf and stopped in front of the Elizabeth Regina, the somewhat shabby-looking steamship that once a month sailed from Roseau to La Pointe.
It was a day of departure. On deck, sailors busied themselves importantly. Loaded with trunks, wicker baskets and all kinds of bundles, passengers were hurrying up the gangway. Relatives and friends were exchanging kisses or already crying for those leaving. Temptation seized him: all he had to do was slip into the crowd, bide his time hidden in the hold and secretly climb off at La Pointe. He would return home. He would hug his brothers and sisters whom he sorely missed, especially little Cassandre. He would dry Irmine’s eyes.
“Maman, I know I’ve made you cry. It’s over now. Your son has returned.”
At night, in the bed that he had outgrown, he would sleep the lost sleep of his childhood.
He quickly elbowed his way up the rope gangway when the thought of Cathy stopped him in his tracks. And what would become of her when he was gone? And with a belly as well? He hesitated, turned back, started up again and once again came to a stop.
Wasn’t this the end he had often dreamed of? The thought of this soon-to-be-born child he had not wanted was torture to him. He had first of all hoped that Cathy would never reach the end of her nine months, so convinced was he that by perpetuating life they were transgressing a very ancient and formidable order. Alas! Male or female, the egg had clung on. Now that the time of delivery was approaching, he had nightmares of Cathy’s thighs spread open in a stream of blood over a little monstrous being—born with a caul, club-footed, goitrous, crippled and Mongol. He would wake up perspiring and watch her sleeping beside him, bathed in sweat, her head resting on her arm like a wounded child. As they dried, her tears left traces down her cheeks. Out of despair, he showered her with kisses. She would then wake up in turn and look at him with her sad eyes, the same enquiring eyes as his. What had they done to deserve such a life? What crime were they paying for? What nemesis was pursuing them?
No! He couldn’t abandon her. They were bound until death. And perhaps beyond.
He was hurrying back down the gangway as quickly as he had gone up when a hand touched him on the shoulder. A mulatto woman, dressed to the nines and bedecked with jewels, flashed her green eyes at him and ordered: “Hey, you there, carry my luggage!”
A Man Friday! A porter! That’s all he was now!
For Cathy, her pregnancy was the last drop in an ocean of misfortune. During the first weeks she had prayed so hard that she had imagined her fruit would rot and drop of its own accord. But the Good Lord hears only what He wants to. Days had dragged on into months and her calvary had continued. What was this child she was carrying? As savage and violent as an Arab horse, kicking the sides of her womb with its hoofs, prancing as far as her stomach, preventing her from drinking, eating, sitting or lying down.
Seeing her rags hang loosely around her, seeing her spit bile into the storm channels, the women in the market told her it must be a girl. Only daughters take to hating their mothers. They cannot tolerate being kept prisoner for months and months in their womb, and fight tooth and nail to break open their jail. To tame her they suggested she take all kinds of herb teas, worm-bush tea, goat-weed and koklaya. Touching the mountain of truth, Ada, who had taken her under her wing, shook her head, perplexed.
“All I know is that your blood and your husband’s blood are not in agreement. Why? Don’t ask me because I don’t know. The spirit’s not saying.”
In the end the prisoner had become more docile. Gradually, Cathy’s breasts, arms and hollow cheeks gathered flesh again and she could sleep a few hours every night. Something told her she would not survive childbirth, something she had told no one, least of all First-Born. There was no room on this earth for both her and her child. The story that had already played itself out would repeat itself, and she would begin her migration at the very moment her child took its first breath. Strangely, even shockingly, she felt no grief for the unfortunate little baby she had created who would remain motherless here below. She could only think of herself. She would cease to be an orphan. With heart beating like a slave who sees the coast of Guinea on the horizon, she imagined the reunion with her mother. She would not reproach the woman who had never bothered about her. Too happy to be reunited with her, she would throw herself into her arms. She would have her fill of all the kisses she had been storing up since childhood. She would discover the smell of her skin and hair. Then suddenly she realized how naive she was. There would be nothing to smell but the smell of a corpse.
The market stood in the centre of town. All the produce of this patch of land blessed by the Good Lord was piled up here—clusters of plantains, root vegetables, tomatoes, okra and garden eggs. There were also heaps of fruit, from pomegranates, canary-yellow bananas and guavas to seedless pink grapefruit. Cathy stood up. It had been a good day. She had sold all her baskets to the very last one, and her purse was bursting with shillings. She stopped in front of the fishwives and haggled for a pink sea-bream on a banana leaf. The paltriness of her occupations frightened her. Cook. Eat to fill up her belly as best she could. Sleep. Cook and eat again. The time when she taught at school, prepared her lessons and tried to give men’s hearts to those little country bumpkins had the flimsiness of a dream. It seemed that all she was left with now were coarse, mechanical thoughts. When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw that she had begun to look like the other women sitting around her in the market—dishevelled, soon to be toothless, rigged out in rags, her face severe and expressionless.
It was probably for these reasons that First-Born could no longer put up with her company and, rather than spend his evenings alone with her, preferred to waste his time at The Last Resort, the bar at the corner of the street where he didn’t even drink rum; in bed he turned his back on her, and couldn’t even look her in the eyes when he spoke to her. Admittedly she no longer desired him either. The smell of strong tobacco on his lips and any close contact with his body disgusted her. What is love? A bonfire of fluttering leaves that you light in the evening and in the morning is nothing more than a heap of ashes. That’s it; that’s it exactly. A catch, a zatrap. That’s it; that’s it exactly. You go to bed with a burning heart. You get up with both feet as cold as an old bag of bones. Only the departed remain handsome an
d desired forever.
She shuffled up the High Street. Steamships from neighbouring ports must have docked for their crews were running in all directions. The street was filled with a foreign-looking crowd that strolled, window shopped and stood to admire the monuments: the cathedral, the governor’s palace, the courthouse and the brand new square block of Lloyds Bank with its liveried porter greeting customers. He was a former boxer, who in his days of glory they called Battling Joe. All these people were in a festive mood while her own heart was in mourning! Romaine was merciless and was ferociously taking her revenge. She was constantly reminded of the face of the servant girl she had sent to her death with her son, and caught herself pleading with her as if she were in front of a jury. She hadn’t been a bad mistress all the time. She had taught her to read and write. She had guided the strokes of her Sergeant Major quill over the lines of her exercise book. She had doted on little Déodat. For the religious holiday on 15 August she had dressed him from head to toe in velvet and silk. She had him drink cod-liver oil, thinking he looked sickly. It wasn’t her intention to unleash the storm. A storm is sent by the hand of God. Were there no extenuating circumstances?
While taking the air in front of St.Mary’s, Father Bishop, who was keeping an eye on his parishioners, waved to her sanctimoniously. She didn’t like these English priests whom she thought most inferior to those of her childhood, even though they were Catholic. Their noses were as red as their ears and they had no scruples switching from the altar to the gaming dens and the cockpits. If the cockfight was not over in time they shamelessly held up mass. Yet in Roseau the church had been her refuge against solitude and many times Father Bishop had dried her tears. Out of respect she was about to climb up toward him when she was bent double with a searing pain. Then came another on the heels of the first. She made a quick calculation. She was not expecting to give birth before Christmas; that was a good four weeks away. But a third pain tore through her, so violent she doubled over and lost her breath. She went back down the steps and dragged herself as best she could toward Ada’s house, where she knew she would find help. Since living in Roseau, unable to rely on First-Born, Cathy had learned to rely on the kindness of strangers, and Ada, with her tall, gawky body, her calloused hands and fishwife’s smell, had become her maman. When the time came, she would take her to the hospice run by the Sisters of the Visitation. To keep her strength up she would bring her chicken noodle soup or vegetable broth, for the hospice did not feed its patients. As she was about to cross the street swirling with carriages, another pain seared through her. She thought she would collapse there and then among the feet of the indifferent passersby and the bright yellow dung of the horses.
