Waiting for the Waters to Rise

by Maryse Conde

  Estrella arrived here early last week. She handed out prizes to the schoolchildren: prizes for class attendance, prizes for poetry and painting. Some people claim that the two of them do a lot of good, by helping young people and the poor. It’s a posture. All it needs is for them to seize power to reveal the carnivores they actually are. Like the rest. Like all the rest.

  -

  WHEN BABAKAR TOOK leave of Roro, he bumped into Movar, who was waiting for him in a frenzy in the lobby.

  Movar grabbed him by the arm. “Kouté! Estrella sé pa bon moun.”

  To prevent Movar launching into a long explanation of why Estrella was no good, Babakar shook himself free and said firmly, “We can’t go back now. I’ve given everything up to come here. And, ever since, I’ve moved Heaven and Earth to find Estrella.”

  Deep down he couldn’t help feeling bitter. Movar asked in one breath what would happen if Estrella harmed Anaïs.

  “What harm?”

  He was unable to reply. Babakar then said in a deceptively offhand tone of voice, “We have to be vigilant.”

  He spent a decidedly sad afternoon, after eating a bad continental lunch, in the Alexandra’s restaurant. Whatever he might have thought, Roro’s story was cause for concern. He refused to join the group around the pool. Dressed in a yellow swimsuit, Anaïs was splashing noisily in the arms of Jahira. Fouad and the driver had apparently made up and were holding a diving competition. What would he say to Estrella when they came face-to-face? He realized deep down that he had never intended to give Anaïs away. So, what was the meaning of this visit? He wondered, while there was still time, whether he wouldn’t do better to run away with Anaïs. With a troubled mind he went to lie down on a chaise longue and fell asleep, warmed by the sun. When he woke up, the sun had gone down and the pool was deserted except for a group of foreign journalists clutching their glasses of mojitos. Babakar went and knocked in vain on his friends’ bedroom doors but they had all vanished. With a heavy heart he followed Roro Meiji to the Palace of Quisqueya.

  Although unfinished, the edifice cut a fine figure. With its cabled columns and grandiose perron, it looked nothing like the Sans-Souci Palace, built by the megalomaniac King Christophe in the North. The Palace of Quisqueya was built rather on the model of a Louisiana plantation home, like those that can still be found as museums in the Southern United States. On the facade was inscribed the word Sérénité. Yet despite this reassuring name, it was surrounded by a thick wall of barbed wire while the usual mob of armed, ragged youngsters guarded the gates. On recognizing Roro Meiji, they lowered their guns and, smiling good-naturedly, let them both in. Despite the late hour, the gardeners were still working; weeding, watering, hoeing, and harrowing; endeavoring to transform the red stony ground into flower beds and lawns. A soldier preceded them into the palace. The walls were covered with all kinds of paintings like in a museum of naive art: canvases by Philomé Obin, Castera Bazile, André Pierre, and Hector Hyppolite. Babakar stopped short in front of a canvas signed by Robert Saint-Brice—a name he saw now for the first time—titled Erzili zié rouj. The painting represented a woman dressed in red, the same red as her eyes, the same red as the snakes that slithered around her head. He couldn’t take his eyes off the portrait, which generated a feeling of fascination mixed with horror.

  “You like seeing me as Erzili zié rouj?” a female voice suddenly asked behind his back. “The painter is totally unknown. But for me, he’s a genius.”

  Babakar didn’t know enough art to give an opinion. He turned round and was heart-struck by what he saw.

  “Unfortunately,” Estrella continued, pretending not to notice the effect she had caused, “the painter went mad and committed suicide.”

  “He probably fell in love with you,” Roro said, “and couldn’t bear your rebuffs.”

  Thereupon he kissed Estrella greedily.

  Estrella was small. As small as Thécla. As slight and fragile as Azélia. Already under her spell, Babakar recalled the delicious feeling of guardian angel that the two women fostered in him. Was Estrella lovelier than Reinette, whom she didn’t resemble at all? He couldn’t say. She was very different. Just as Reinette had seduced him with a kind of puckish insolence, so Estrella seemed to bring out tender and dreamy feelings. She cast a hazy, nostalgic look at him which made him melt.

  “Roro told me over the phone,” she said in an indefinable tone of voice, as if all this annoyed her, “that you have news of my young sister who has vanished, God knows where. It seems she’s dead,” she continued offhandedly, or as if this was nothing new to her, “and that you have taken care of her child. A girl? A boy? What is it?”

  “A girl,” Babakar replied.

  “Let’s go into the small living room,” Estrella suggested abruptly. “It’ll be more comfortable for a chat.”

  They followed her along a maze of corridors, where a multitude of laborers were working, into a circular room furnished with perfect taste. Numerous photos of the same woman, corpulent and afflicted with a triple chin, were pinned up just about everywhere.

  “It’s Henri Christophe’s mother,” Estrella murmured piously. “She’s a saint.”

  On one of the walls, there was a very different portrait of a tubby little guy, dressed in a heavy fur mantle with a train, whose features seemed familiar to Babakar.

  “It’s Bokassa,” Estrella scoffed. “Christophe adores him.”

  Babakar could thus put a name to the debonair face of this megalomaniac, husband to seventeen wives and father of thirty-five children, who had tripped up a president of the French Republic. Although we are all free to choose whom we like, Hassan was so much better as a role model.

  “There was a time,” Estrella continued, “when Christophe admired François Duvalier. It’s true that our president for life with his jet-black complexion, his large tortoiseshell glasses, and his double-breasted suits cut a fine figure. Not surprising he was mistaken for Baron Samedi! But deep down he was nothing more than a lackluster nigger who, like a good Haitian father, handed down his power to his son.”

  They settled down into black leather armchairs. Babakar felt petrified by this new sensation of exhilaration and fear that enveloped him. It was then that two people entered carrying a large tray loaded with glasses and drinks. Babakar recognized Captain Dalembert with a shiver of displeasure. He had exchanged his military uniform for an elegant beige twill suit and appeared completely at home and very pleased with himself. He was accompanied by a middle-aged woman, Tonine, who needed no introduction: very black, angular, with huge shiny eyes which fastened onto you, delved into you, and searched you over and over again with their fiery gaze. Her straightened hair snaked around her head like Medusa’s. Dressed all in white, she looked like an American nurse with her thick stockings and sensible shoes. She kissed Roro affectionately and declared, while fixing her eyes on Babakar, “For you, there’s an excellent Bacardi from Cuba.”

  “Oh, woe is me!” Roro exclaimed. “The Cubans are no better at making rum than they are at revolutions.”

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  Pleased with the effect he had produced, Roro continued, “I won’t stay, it’s better if I leave you on your own. You have some important matters to discuss.”

  “He’s my companion’s little brother,” Estrella said, putting her arms fondly around Dalembert’s shoulders.

  Dalembert was as handsome as his ancestor Henri Christophe I, who was the darling of the ladies and had no less than three hundred and sixty mistresses at his court. He would get rid of them by giving them titles.

  “We’ve met,” Babakar replied coldly while Dalembert laughed jubilantly.

  “I told you,” he said to Babakar, “I’m sorry for what happened and I trust it wasn’t too painful for you. I was only doing my duty. Unfortunately, war in white gloves has not yet been invented.”

  Babakar didn’t say a wor
d. After having filled their glasses, Dalembert withdrew arm in arm with Roro who, making a face, downed a full glass of Cuban rum.

  When the three of them found themselves alone, Estrella turned to Tonine and said, “Monsieur has brought us news of Reinette.”

  “Reinette!” exclaimed Tonine, hurriedly crossing herself and shooting her carbuncle eyes at Babakar.

  “Yes, I knew her well,” Babakar began, ill at ease. “We lived in the same village, La Trenelle. I was her doctor and delivered her baby.”

  Estrella raised her hand sternly to interrupt him. “Let me be the first to speak,” she ordered. “There are one or two things you should know in order to understand the situation. Perhaps once you have heard what I have to say, you’ll no longer want to talk about Reinette. Tonine knows everything. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “My dear, I think it’s best if I leave!” Tonine hurriedly exclaimed, holding out a calloused hand to Babakar.

  Estrella sank deeper into the cushions of her armchair and began her story.

  -

  ESTRELLA’S STORY

  Reinette and I, we never really liked each other. People think that parents and sisters are naturally and instinctively affectionate. It’s absolutely not true. It’s one of those enduring myths about maternal or filial love. I distrusted her the moment I set eyes on her, when Tonine took me by the hand and said, “Come and kiss your little sister.”

  I was just five years old. She was lying in her cradle, which had been mine, all puny and pitiful. Yet she had already started to weave her malice. Reinette had caused my mother to lose a lot of blood and we feared for Maman’s life as she lay drained on her pillows. When I kissed Maman, she didn’t recognize me. After Reinette was born, the peaceful coexistence that we had between mother and daughter began to deteriorate. My father was the personal physician to Jean-Claude, a first cousin of his, the son of a brother of Jean-Claude’s mother, Simone Ovide, who was very good to us. She was the one who gave us our servant, Tonine, a cousin of François Duvalier, Simone’s husband. People bad-mouthed a lot of nonsense about Tonine. They whispered she was a “guédé,” a deadly ghoul. They were afraid of her because she was related to Duvalier, but above all, because she was so black. People are scared of blackness. Whatever the case, I don’t know what Reinette and I would have done without her.

  Oddly enough, Papa wasn’t at all interested in his job, although he went about it very conscientiously. In fact, he invented a cure for yaws, that terrible disease which made life such a headache for his uncle François and was so difficult to eradicate. All that counted for him was his poetry. Only his poetry. He hosted a weekly television program called The Poets’ Corner. I used to watch it, too young to understand it, but fascinated by the music of his words and the elegance of his gestures. I worshiped my papa. Relations between the two cousins worsened from one day to the next. Malicious gossip began to spread that Jean-Claude had said “Jean is an odd sort of fellow. He cures you with his medicine and kills you with his poetry.”

  Papa took offense and kept his distance. Gone were the tea parties and games at the presidential palace where Tonine used to take us, when I wore triple-flounced, polka-dot mousseline dresses. As for Maman, she no longer led the Saint-Jean des Lumières choir that sang high mass on Sundays. My aunt, Simone Ovide, whom I only knew as a frail old woman, weakened by a massive pulmonary embolism, said she missed us greatly and asked Tonine regularly for news of us.

  The worst was still to come. Suddenly, our fellow countrymen, usually so gentle and fraternal, turned violent and furious, as if they had gone crazy and been mounted by an evil loa. They revolted against Jean-Claude and hounded him out of the country like a good-for-nothing. Then they hunted out his friends wherever they could be found. They killed them savagely, even the innocent, like my poor papa. They stoned my papa to death. It was too much for Maman, already weakened as I said since the birth of Reinette, and she died several days later. Tonine was beyond reproach in her devotion and loyalty. She was not related to our uncle François and was merely a poor country girl who had been taken in as a servant. She kept us hidden and locked away in our house, and raised us as best she could.

  When I look back, these years were perhaps the best of my life. As Sartre said: Hell is other people. I was protected from the wickedness of the living. I was untouchable as if I had taken refuge in the safety of my mother’s womb. Every day was identical. After the opaque and stifling night, the hummingbirds darting from one hibiscus to another, from one Cayenne rose to another, signaled the dawn. During the day we kept the shutters and heavy doors closed. Although I recognized every sound that came from outside, I had forgotten the burning sensation of the sun on the skin, the caress of the wind, and the warmth of the rain I could hear tapping on the corrugated iron of the roof. I would settle down on a windowsill with my books and Barbie dolls, but with eyes closed I would imagine a world in which every child would be entitled to her parents and her family. For a child, parents are devoid of guilt: they are to be cherished, that’s all. There was a time when I watched Japanese cartoons on the television for entertainment. I liked their violence, as gratuitous as life’s. Unfortunately, our Sony TV broke down and Tonine never repaired it. Was it from negligence or lack of money? I resorted to books. There were cases of them up in the attic. Reinette didn’t stay as calm as me. Far from it. She howled, she yelled and screamed blue murder. She filled Tonine’s head with her lamentations and demands: “I want to get out of here, do you hear me?”

  “Why can’t I go outside, you nasty person?”

  “I want to play with other children since Estrella won’t play with me.”

  “Estrella’s always sulking and whining.”

  “I want to go to the movies! Why don’t we ever go to the movies?”

  Even though I was her favorite, Tonine was very maternal and very patient with Reinette. She tried her best to explain the situation to her. Reinette didn’t understand. When she was ten, she began her constant questioning: “What had Papa done? He was evil—is that why they killed him?”

  If I had my say, I would have crushed her head as if it were one of those horrible cockroaches that clog the kitchen sink of an evening.

  I don’t know exactly how many years we spent locked up. At least four or five. Suddenly, one evening, Tonine hugged us both and, in tears, said, “We are going to go out and celebrate as well.”

  “Celebrate what?” Reinette yelled.

  “A president has just been democratically elected,” Tonine replied. “Everyone swears he is unlike any of the others and he will make Haiti great again. I don’t believe a word. He’ll change once he’s in power. But let’s wait and see.”

  We therefore stepped outside for the first time in years. My head spun as if I had drunk some wine. All the windows of the houses were draped with flags. People were crowding onto the balconies. We walked until we came to a vast square, the Champs de Mars. It was packed. In the middle a violently illuminated platform had been erected. I was stunned by the loud music and the noise of the exploding firecrackers, and dazed by the fireworks that zigzagged across the sky. Some people were dancing, others singing. I was not of the same mind. I was scared, scared to death. I had never been so scared in my life. These men and women, weren’t they going to hurl themselves on me, eat me up and stone me like they stoned my papa? I can’t remember how long this bacchanal lasted. I squeezed my icy hand into Tonine’s. Suddenly, the square fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. A frail little man appeared on the platform. His eyes were hidden behind an enormous pair of glasses. After a wave of the hand, he began to speak in Creole. I couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying because Tonine never spoke to us in Creole, only French-French. Everyone else understood what he was saying. Every time he paused the crowd roared with approval. Ecstatic voices chanted what must have been his name, or rather his nickname. And he went on speaking for ho
urs.

  Around midnight, Tonine put an end to my agony and said we should go home, despite Reinette’s grousing and protesting, “I want to stay!”

  From that evening on, our life changed radically. We opened doors and windows. Reinette went to school. How I would have liked to have gone as well. But we didn’t have enough money. We lived off an allowance, which Duvalier had apparently allocated to Tonine. When we were too hard up, she would sell some of Maman’s jewelry. Schools in Haiti are expensive. Tonine couldn’t manage to pay the school fees, canteen, uniforms, manuals, and exercise books for the two of us. I was the elder, so I was sacrificed for Reinette’s sake. We very soon realized that such a sacrifice served no purpose. Reinette didn’t like school: at least not that type of school, run by the Sisters where you pray and worship the Good Lord. She was undisciplined, insolent, and always complaining bitterly. If the Sisters hadn’t taken pity on a child without a father or mother, they would have expelled her a long time ago. In fact, the only thing that interested Reinette was delving into our parents’ past. She spent her time in the attic rummaging through trunks that hadn’t been opened for years. She found letters, newspapers, photographs, and all sorts of old documents. She leafed through them feverishly and took down notes like a police officer.

  “I have to understand!” she would repeat. “Was Papa a profiteer? An assassin? Or a bastard?”

  Understand what? What was the point? Isn’t love enough?

  In the meantime, the country went from bad to worse again. A coup d’état overthrew the elected president. Nobody would have been surprised if it hadn’t been followed by a reign of terror, real terror, the likes of which had never been seen before. Every day, people were arrested by the hundreds, imprisoned, and executed for no reason. It was then that Tonine, who had always been so devout, abandoned the Catholic Church and joined an American sect, The Church of the Seventh Day Congregation. She took me with her.