Hadriana in All My Dreams

by René Depestre

  Most often, the petit bon ange thief waits for the false death of his prey to pull the soul he has decided to bottle up out of the living body, using magnetic forces. Thus deprived of its petit bon ange, the presumed-dead person is able to speak, to move, to feed itself, and to work. It is limited to a strictly salt-free diet, as salt is known for its antidemonic properties. The zombie’s sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, barely altered, function at a slower pace from then on. No longer having a will of its own, the man, woman, or child becomes nothing more than a “come-come,” as docile as a mule, totally dependent on the witch doctor, without being, however, what you might otherwise take for a schizophrenic in a state of hysterical catatonia . . .

  7

  After taking me through the basic steps of the zombification process, Uncle Féfé reached for a book on one of the shelves in his library.

  “Here. Before I go any further, read Article 246 of the Haitian Criminal Code.”

  I read aloud: “Also considered attempted murder, by poisoning, is the use of substances that, without causing death, produce a state of lethargy more or less prolonged, no matter how these substances have been deployed and what ensues from their deployment. If, as a result of the state of lethargy induced, the victim is buried, the crime will be considered that of murder.”

  My uncle then brought up two famous cases of zombiism that had once made headlines throughout the country. I had heard Scylla Syllabaire narrate the first story more than once during his evening storytelling sessions in the town square. It was a “classic” of zombie mythology. Told by my uncle, however, it took on a quasi-autobiographical flavor. In effect, Uncle Féfé had personally witnessed the event, on Gonâve Island. It had to do with the same man who had set William Seabrook on the path that led him to publish The Magic Island in 1929; this was the serial novel (a best seller in the US) that had made zombies popular in Hollywood during the period between the two World Wars. It was the story of Lil’ Joseph, a zombifier. Scylla had told us about him in a tale he called “The Fugitives of Devil’s Hill.”

  One morning in January 1918, Lil’ Joseph and his wife Faith, of the Colombier region, showed up at the HASCO sugar factory leading a party of ragged peasants, all of whom were raring to do some serious cutting on the plantations of the American company. As they were being hired, these men—their expressions dull and their eyes vacant—proved incapable of stating their names. Lil’ Joseph had to do it for them. They all came from a small area known as Devil’s Hill, an isolated hamlet on the Haitian-Dominican border. It was the first time these workers had ever come down to the plains and been exposed to the noise, the commotion, and the fumes of a modern factory. But Lil’ Joseph and his companion assured the foremen that his workers would be exceptionally productive.

  Witnesses to the scene realized they were dealing with a zombified workforce—a bunch of poor wretches who had been taken one night from their “final” resting place and made to slave away in the service of a cruel master. Over the course of two weeks, driven by Lil’ Joseph’s lively whip, they showed themselves to be champion cane-cutters—each cutting three times more than the season’s best worker. For twelve straight hours, aside from a brief pause for lunch, it was like they were performing a spectacular ballet—the way they rhythmically advanced from one field to the next, mowing down everything in their path as if hypnotized, under the unforgiving tropical sun. At night, they gathered in their barracks to dig into the abundant food prepared for them by Faith: bland corn porridge, boiled plantains, and black beans seasoned only with garlic and pepper (so as to avoid the vivifying and subversive effects of salt).

  Everything was going fine right up until the end of February. One Sunday, his pockets overflowing with cash, Lil’ Joseph left for Port-au-Prince to spend some time enjoying the exhilarating parades of the carnival season. He left his team of ragged fieldworkers with Faith, who was perfectly used to watching over them. Early in the afternoon, finding that particular Sunday a little too slow for her liking, Faith had the brilliant idea of bringing her enchanted band of workers for a walk around the neighboring village of Missions Crossing. Upon arriving, she simply parked her little group in the shade. Adrift outside of time, the zombies had no need to kill it, the way Faith was doing, nibbling (ironically) on various salted candies as she people-watched. All of a sudden, one of the vendors at the market where Faith was strolling about cried out: “Pistachio bars! Ten cents a bag!” They were salted nuts covered in cane sugar. These are sugar candies, so they’ll be the perfect treat for my trusty associates from beyond the grave, thought Faith. She bought a few bags and distributed them among the zombies. Indeed, they seemed to quite enjoy sucking and chewing on the candies. After just a few moments, however, they all stood up and took off directly for their native Devil’s Hill. Once there, they were immediately recognized by their friends and families as the father, brother, fiancé, first cousin, or old friend that had been buried years earlier. Completely indifferent to the confusion they were leaving in their wake, the zombies headed to the tiny rural cemetery where, in the blink of an eye, each dug a new grave and buried himself once and for all . . .

  8

  After the story of Lil’ Joseph’s crew, my uncle moved on to the “Gisèle K. Affair,” an incident in which he had been personally involved. He was twenty at the time, and had just begun his advanced studies at Port-au-Prince Law School. Gisèle K., a gorgeous sixteen-year-old girl, came from a family of wealthy exporters, part of the capital’s high society. On October 4, 1908, a Sunday afternoon, the young girl suffered an embolism and died on the spot. She was buried the next day with particularly moving pomp and circumstance. But then, eight months later, students from the Sisters of Wisdom School were taking a walk out in the countryside and saw their deceased companion in the courtyard of a remote farm. Dressed in rags, barefoot, but just as beautiful as before her death, she was training a pack of ferocious dogs with the aid of a whip. Upon hearing the news, the girl’s parents immediately exhumed the coffin, only to find it entirely filled with coconuts just beginning to rot.

  Thanks to the lead provided by the schoolgirls, the police were able to bring the girl back to her home in Verna Woods right away. But her mental state was quite grim. She was sent to Philadelphia, where the eminent American psychiatrists who had taken charge of her care managed to completely restore her health within a year. Once cured, she resolved (with the full support of her loved ones) never to set foot in Haiti again. In April 1911 (after having played herself alongside Mack Sennett in the very first silent burlesque horror film based on the adventures of a zombie), she left the United States for Paris. The following year, she entered a convent under the name of Sister Lazara of the Christ Child. The last people in Haiti had heard, she had become the Mother Superior of a Carmelite convent in Puy-de-Dôme, not too far from the village of Saint-Gervais-d’Auvergne.

  As it turns out, on the Saturday before her false death, my uncle Féfé had expertly deflowered her, after dancing with her until dawn at the ball given by the famous Bellevue Circle Social Club. Their lovemaking in the club’s garden had been such a spectacular event that thirty years later, despite the mystical sequel to the drama that had first separated them, every year they exchanged New Year’s wishes still ripe with the caresses of that long-ago night.

  Uncle Féfé took out a stamped envelope from his pocket. “This is her last letter,” he explained. “It’s dated December 24, 1937. I recieved it a week ago. I was planning to read it to Hadriana’s parents this morning. You now know why I changed my mind. But here is the most tangible proof of the phenomenon of false death in Haiti. Go ahead and read it . . .”

  Saint-Gervais-d’Auvergne

  December 24, 1937

  Mr. Ferdinand Paradizot

  Jacmel, Haiti

  My darling Féfé,

  For once I’ll take the lead in our traditional exchange of well wishes. The reason for my impatience is quite simple: 1938 marks the thirtieth anni
versary of my first “death.” On October 5, 1908, you were, without a doubt, one of the three or four truly inconsolable people following my casket in that impressive convoy leading to the Port-au-Prince cemetery. I can still recall the intensity of your grief, Féfé. I hear your young voice breaking with passion as you stood over my false corpse.

  “I love you, Gise. I’ll be grateful all my life for what happened between us last night in the garden of the Bellevue Circle Social Club.”

  You are often in my prayers. In a few hours, between midnight and the sun rising over the snow, I’ll call up the memory of our loving farewell as I listen to the joyful Christmas hymns. On the horizon of our village, that antichrist of Berchtesgaden makes the noise of a hundred thousand devils. His Roman accomplice, for his part, has had the nerve to demand the Holy Father’s blessing on the packs of armed young men who’ve been set loose on our defenseless brethren in Abyssinia.

  The news coming from Spain is no better: in hundreds of Spanish villages, nuns are raped in the convents, the militia conduct bloody witches’ Sabbaths, interrupting church ceremonies to murder priests and burn down their churches. In all of this, there remains one thing that tortures my poor mulatto soul: for the sake of Catholic Spain, God could have done better than to leave the country in the secular hands of this General Franco and his Moors, “who fear neither God nor man,” and are more or less supported by the swastika and that joke of a leader. The Lord’s plans are impenetrable. By the blood that runs in my veins, so help me God, that’s the truth, Féfé!

  Last month, a three-line paragraph in The Cross reported a gruesome massacre of Haitian peasants by one General Léonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Will you be sure to tell me anything you know about this in your response? This winter, there’s a veritable Siberian wind blowing around the stable in Bethlehem. Another reason to keep the spirit of the Divine Child burning in this our (joyful despite it all?) valley of tears.

  I’ll never forget the year of the final ball of my first life. And so, how is he—my valiant knight of Saturday, October 3, 1908? What a talent you had at twenty years old for “slaying”—through rapture—the romantic, trusting, and, above all, overjoyed young girl I became in your arms, there in the Good Lord’s garden!

  Always be an upstanding and generous judge, Féfé. May Jesus grant you and your family a happy and healthy 1938. Much love to you.

  Your faithful zombie,

  Sister Lazara of the Christ Child

  (Gise, in your memories)

  Second Movement

  Chapter Five

  Hadriana-Ache

  1

  About thirty years after Hadriana Siloé’s “evaporation,” travelers who ventured out to the town of her birth all came back with the exact same impression: Jacmel had fallen into a state of total decay; Jacmel was nothing but a town adrift. Indeed, everything seemed to prove André Siloé right: the Good Lord had never really taken up residence in our little village. Time, hope, doubt, reason, compassion, tenderness, and even the will to live had all evaporated from Jacmel along with the beauty of his daughter. The place seemed doomed to a dark fate, knocked about by successive trials, and subject, in equally devastating proportion, to those well-known and perpetually unsatisfied troublemakers—desolation and ruin. The Great Fire, hurricanes, droughts, yaws, malaria, the State, erosion, Homo Papadocus—all of these had us caught up in the back-and-forth of some sort of inescapable osmosis. Not one of the witnesses I managed to dig up during my wanderings as a Jacmelian exile had any recollection of the fact that, up until the night of January 29, 1938, the town had been keeping pace more or less harmoniously with the rhythms of a charmed and promising existence, well-attuned to the exuberant free will of each individual.

  One afternoon in 1972, in the Latin Quarter, I came upon an article in Le Monde that had a different tone than those I had gotten used to seeing over the previous decades. No doubt about it, this was the first in at least a quarter of a century to look beyond those clichéd images of a little city wasting away from loneliness, and to see the enterprising port—lively, prosperous, sparkling with civility—that Jacmel had been at the end of my teenage years, the time of Hadriana Siloé, during those beautiful and sensual days that came before the “thin sheet of rainwater evaporating in the heat of the sun.” Here it is, titled “Letter from Jacmel”—that piece I read one afternoon under the sun-dappled trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.

  2

  Letter from Jacmel[1]

  Situated in the southern part of the island, on the Caribbean coast, facing Venezuela, Jacmel is the village the farthest away from Port-au-Prince by sea. By land, less than fifty miles separate the two cities. Traveling from one city to the other is the ideal way to discover Haiti—the most beautiful, the most sensual, and the most authentic of all the Caribbean islands. But there is no real road to speak of connecting Port-au-Prince to this little provincial town, once considered the most modern of the island and famous for being, along with the more western town of Jérémie, the village of poets. It is also known for having welcomed, one after the other, two exiled libertadores: Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar. It is even said that Miranda sketched the first Venezuelan flag while docked amongst the coral reefs of Jacmel’s windswept harbor. Beyond the fifteen miles recently paved by a French company, there is only a stony dirt and clay road, riddled with potholes, which serves either as path, trail, or water slide, depending on the topography at any given spot. In the dry season it is not too much of a problem, at most three or four hours on foot. But during the rainy season it can take fifteen to twenty hours to cross a hundred or so of the many creeks, often swollen to rapids—if the trip is even manageable at all.

  Very few cars ever risk it: a few Jeeps, the odd Volkswagen, and “tap-taps”—one of those half-tank/half-truck vehicles that are Haiti’s makeshift form of public transportation—decked out in bright rainbow colors, and sporting equally colorful names: By the Grace of God, Mary the Beautiful, The Renewed Immaculate Conception, Trust in God . . . Men, women, and children pile up inside, on benches pressed together back-to-front and side-to-side. On the roof, toward the back, and attached to the floor are where you find the animals. Fighting cocks add their war cries to the dizzyingly cacophonous grunting of black pigs of all sizes, tied up, heads bouncing about in the void. “Tap-taps” get stuck many, many times during the trip. When this happens, everyone gets out, rests a bit, stretches, hums a little perhaps. Without any particular urgency, everyone eventually starts pushing and pulling until the vehicle is freed from the muck.

  The landscape is intensely tropical. At spots, fierce and untamed, it seems to have been barely touched by man. A confusion of trees, plants, and flowers present the great richness of Haiti’s flora: silk-cotton trees, laurel trees, mango trees, sapodillas, tuberoses, orchids, amaranths, oleander bushes, and lilacs. The landscape changes from one hill to the next. Peasants cultivate coffee in their lakous—groupings of wood-frame huts held together with dried mud and lime and packed into tree-branch trellises, in which large extended families live without any basic comforts. Just outside the hut—a pig, a couple of chickens, sometimes a goat, and three stones for a grate to cover the fire. There are a few naked children, with their jet-black eyes, who have never even heard of school. If it is harvest time, the men are in the fields; otherwise they are just there at the entrance to the hut, or lounging in a hammock under the yellow gaze of the dogs.

  The women are the heads of the family. They cook, do the laundry, raise the children, and “keep the books.” A few times a week, they head to the nearest market, which has been in the same place for generations—at the crossroads of several valleys. They go to sell or barter the things they have grown in their gardens: avocados, mangos, guava, okra, cassava, magic seeds . . . Wearing simple, light-colored cotton dresses that stop just above the knee, their hair fixed in dozens of tiny little braids and covered with a scarf knotted at the nape of the neck, each balances an enormous load of merch
andise on her head. They go either alone or in groups—their gait elegant, their legs long and taut, always barefoot.

  Tireless, silent, pipe in mouth, they walk along single file, discreetly moving to the side in the unusual event of a car passing by. Whenever they need a rest, they crouch down to sit on their heels, legs spread open.

  Once the last creek has been crossed, you have arrived in the plain of Jacmel. Already you see the ocean. The land is more fertile. It is a well-known region for growing coffee, which was, it should be noted, along with cotton, the foundation of the island’s wealth. In 1895, 25,000 bags of coffee left Jacmel’s port headed for Europe; not to mention the cotton, the orange peels for Cointreau production, the goat skins. Back then, Jacmel was an enchanting, flowery, bright, and civilized place—French in its tastes, Creole in its ways, and politically liberal. The town was built facing the sea, and the houses, sculpted of pink wood like those in a Charles Addams drawing, stood side by side next to the shops overflowing with goods. Until about 1880, the port in Jacmel was the first and only port on the island regularly serviced by a steamship line.

  It was also from Jacmel that travelers from all over Haiti would leave for Europe on the luxurious cruise ships of the Royal Malle line, which could travel to Southampton in just thirteen days, a record for the period. And then also, Jacmel could boast of being one of the rare Haitian towns to have a high school. Founded in 1864, it still exists today, on its original campus. It was also the first town on the island equipped with a power plant and telephone service.