‘But it’s paganism,’ Mrs Smith persisted.
‘The right therapy for Haitians. The American Marines tried to destroy Voodoo. The Jesuits tried. But the celebrations go on yet when a man can be found rich enough to pay the priest and the tax. I wouldn’t advise you to go.’
‘She’s not easily frightened,’ Mr Smith replied. ‘You should have seen her in Nashville.’
‘I don’t question her courage, but there are features that for a vegetarian . . .’
Mrs Smith asked sternly, ‘Are you a Communist, Doctor Magiot?’
It was a question I had wanted to ask many times and I wondered how he would answer.
‘I believe, madame, in the future of Communism.’
‘I asked if you were a Communist.’
‘My dear,’ Mr Smith said, ‘we have no right . . .’ He tried to distract her. ‘Let me give you a little more Yeastrel.’
‘To be a Communist here, madame, is illegal. But since American aid stopped we have been allowed to study Communism. Communist propaganda is forbidden, but the works of Marx and Lenin are not – a fine distinction. So I may say I believe in the future of Communism; that is a philosophical outlook.’
I had drunk too much. I said, ‘As young Philipot believes in the future of the Bren gun.’
Doctor Magiot said, ‘You cannot stop martyrs. You can only try to reduce their number. If I had known a Christian in the days of Nero I would have tried to save him from the lions. I would have said, “Go on living with your belief, don’t die with it.”’
‘Surely very timid advice, doctor,’ Mrs Smith said.
‘I cannot agree, Mrs Smith. In the western hemisphere, in Haiti and elsewhere, we live under the shadow of your great and prosperous country. Much courage and patience is needed to keep one’s head. I admire the Cubans, but I wish I could believe in their heads – and in their final victory.’
CHAPTER 2
I
I HAD not told them at dinner that a rich man had been found and a Voodoo ceremony was to take place that night somewhere on the mountains above Kenscoff. It was Joseph’s secret and he had only confided in me because he needed a lift in my car. If I had refused I am sure he would have tried to drag his damaged limb the whole way. The hour was past midnight; we drove some twelve kilometres and when we left the car on the road behind Kenscoff we could hear the drums beating very gently like a labouring pulse. It was as though the hot night lay there out of breath. Ahead was a thatched hut open to the winds, a flicker of candles, a splash of white.
This was the first and the last ceremony I was to see. During the two years of prosperity, I had watched, as a matter of duty, the Voodoo dances performed for tourists. To me who had been born a Catholic they seemed as distasteful as the ceremony of the Eucharist would have seemed performed as a ballet on Broadway. I only went now because I owed it to Joseph, and it is not the Voodoo ceremony I remember with most vividness but the face of Philipot, on the opposite side of the tonnelle, paler and younger than the negro faces around him; with his eyes closed, he listened to the drums which were beaten softly, clandestinely, insistently, by a choir of girls in white. Between us stood the pole of the temple, stuck up, like an aerial, to catch the passage of the gods. A whip hung there in memory of yesterday’s slavery, and, a new legal requirement, a cabinet-photograph of Papa Doc, a reminder of today’s. I remembered how young Philipot had said to me in reply to my accusation, ‘The gods of Dahomey may be what we need.’ Governments had failed him, I had failed him, Jones had failed him – he had no Bren gun; he was here, listening to the drums, waiting, for strenght, for courage, for a decision. On the earth-floor, around a small brazier, a design had been drawn in ashes, the summons to a god. Was it a summons to Legba, the gay seducer of women, to sweet Erzulie, the virgin of purity and love, to Ogoun Ferraille, the patron of warriors, or to Baron Samedi in his black clothes and his black Tonton glasses, hungry for the dead? The priest knew, and perhaps the man who paid for the ceremony, and I suppose the initiates could read the hieroglyphics of ash.
The ceremony went on for hours before the climax; it was the face of Philipot that kept me awake through the chanting and the drum-beats. Among the prayers were little oases of familiarity, ‘Libera nos a malo’, ‘Agnus dei’, holy banners swayed past inscribed to the saints, ‘Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie’. Once I looked at the dial of my watch and saw in pale phosphorescence the hands approaching three.
The priest came in from his inner room swinging a censer, but the censer which he swung in our faces was a trussed cock – the small stupid eyes peered into my eyes and the banner of St Lucy swayed after it. When he had completed the circle of the tonnelle the houngan put the head of the cock in his mouth and crunched it cleanly off; the wings continued to flap while the head lay on the dirt-floor like part of a broken toy. Then he bent down and squeezed the neck like a tube of tooth-paste and added the rusty colour of blood to the ash-grey patterns on the floor. When I looked to see how the delicate Philipot was accepting the religion of his people, I saw he was no longer there. I would have gone too, but I was tied to Joseph and Joseph was tied to the ceremony in the hut.
The drummers became more reckless as the night advanced. They no longer tried to muffle the beats. Something was happening in the inner room where the banners were stacked around an altar, and where a cross stood below a poker-work prayer, and presently a procession emerged. They were carrying what I thought at first was a corpse wrapped in a white sheet for burial – the head was covered and a black arm dangled free. The priest knelt beside the fire and blew the embers up into flames. They laid the corpse beside him, and he took the free arm and held it in the flames. As the body flinched I realized it was alive. Perhaps the neophyte screamed – I couldn’t hear because of the drums and the chanting women, but I could smell the burning of the skin. The body was carried out and another took its place, and then another. The heat of the flames beat on my face as the night wind blew through the hut. The last body was surely a child’s – it was less than three feet long, and on this occasion the houngan held the hand a few inches above the flame – he was not a cruel man. When I looked again across the tonnelle Philipot was back in his place, and I remembered that one arm which had been held in the flames appeared as light as a mulatto’s. I told myself it could not possibly have been Philipot’s. Philipot’s poems had been published in an elegant limited edition, bound in vellum. He had been educated like myself by the Jesuits; he had attended the Sorbonne; I remembered how he had quoted the lines of Baudelaire to me at the swimmingpool. If Philipot was one of the initiates what a triumph that would represent for Papa Doc as he dragged his country down. The flames lit the photograph nailed on the pillar, the heavy spectacles, the eyes staring at the ground as though at a body ready for dissection. Once he had been a country doctor struggling successfully against typhoid; he had been a founder of the Ethnological Society. With my Jesuit training I could quote Latin as well as the houngan who was now praying for gods of Dahomey to arrive. ‘Corruptio optimi . . .’
It wasn’t sweet Erzulie who came to us that night, although for a moment her spirit seemed to enter the hut and touch a woman who sat near Philipot, for she rose and put her hands over her face and swayed gently this way, gently that. The priest went to her and tore away her hands. She had an expression of great sweetness in the candlelight, but the houngan would have none of her. Erzulie was not wanted. We had not assembled tonight to meet the goddess of love. He put his hands on her shoulders and thrust her back on her bench. He had scarcely time to turn before Joseph was in the ring.
Joseph moved in a circle, the pupils of his eyes turned up so high that I saw only the whites, his hands held out as though he were begging. He lurched upon his wounded hip and seemed on the point of falling. The people around me leant forward with grave attention as though they were watching for some sign to prove that the god was really there. The drums were silent: the singing stopped: only the houngan spoke in some langu
age older than Creole, perhaps older than Latin, and Joseph paused and listened, staring up the wooden pillar, past the whip and Papa Doc’s face, into the thatch where a rat moved, crackling the straw.
Then the houngan went to Joseph. He carried a red scarf, and he flung it across Joseph’s shoulders. Ogoun Ferraille had been recognized. Someone came forward with a machete and clamped it in Joseph’s wooden hand as though he were a statue waiting completion.
The statue began to move. It slowly raised an arm, then swung the machete in a wide arc so that everyone ducked for fear it would fly across the tonnelle. Joseph began to run, the machete flashing and cutting; those in the front row scrambled back, so that for a moment there was panic. Joseph was no longer Joseph. His face ran with sweat, his eyes looked blind or drunk as he stabbed and swung, and where was his injury now? He ran without a stumble. Once he paused and seized a bottle which had been abandoned on the dirt-floor when the people fled. He drank a long draught and then ran on.
I saw Philipot isolated on his bench: all those around him had fallen back. He leant forward watching Joseph, and Joseph ran across the floor towards him, swinging the machete. He took Philipot’s hair in his hand, and I thought he was going to strike him down with the machete. Then he forced Philipot’s head back and poured the spirit down his throat. Philipot’s mouth belched liquid like a drain-pipe. The bottle fell between them, Joseph revolved twice on the floor and fell. The drums beat, the girls chanted, Ogoun Ferraille had come and gone.
Philipot was one of the three men who helped carry Joseph into the room behind the tonnelle, but as for me I’d had enough. I went out into the hot night and drew a long breath of air, which smelt of wood-fire and rain. I told myself that I hadn’t left the Jesuits to be the victim of an African god. The holy banners moved in the tonnelle, the interminable repetitions went on, I returned to my car, where I sat waiting for Joseph to come back. If he could move so agilely in the hut, he could find his way without my help. After a while the rain came. I closed the windows and sat in stifling heat, while the rain fell like an extinguisher over the tonnelle. The noise of the rain silenced the drums, and I felt as lonely as a man in a strange hotel after a friend’s funeral. I kept a flask of whisky in the car against emergencies and I took a pull from it, and presently I saw the mourners going by, grey shapes in the black rain.
Nobody stopped at the car: they divided and flowed past on either side. Once I thought I heard an engine start – Philipot must have brought his car, but the rain hid it. I should never have gone to this funeral, I should never have come to this country, I was a stranger. My mother had taken a black lover, she had been involved, but somewhere years ago I had forgotten how to be involved in anything. Somehow somewhere I had lost completely the capacity to be concerned. Once I looked out and thought I saw Philipot beckoning to me through the glass. It was an illusion.
Presently when Joseph had not appeared I started the car and drove home alone. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning and too late to sleep, so that I was wide-awake at six when the Tontons Macoute drove up to the verandah steps and shouted to me to come down.
II
Captain Concasseur was the leader of the party and he held me at gun-point on the verandah while his men searched the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. I could hear the bang of cupboards and doors and the screech of smashed glass. ‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.
He lay on a wicker chaise longue with the gun in his lap pointing at me and at the hard upright chair on which I sat. The sun had not yet risen, but he wore his dark glasses all the same. I wondered whether he could see clearly enough to shoot, but I preferred to take no risks. He made no reply to my question. Why should he? The sky reddened over his shoulder and the palm trees turned black and distinct. I was sitting on a straight dining-room chair and the mosquitoes bit my ankles.
‘Or is it someone you’re looking for? We have no refugees here. Your men are making enough noise to wake the dead. And I have guests,’ I added with reasonable pride.
Captain Concasseur changed the position of his gun as he changed the position of his legs – perhaps he suffered from rheumatism. The gun had been pointing at my stomach; now it pointed at my chest. He yawned, his head went back, and I thought he had fallen asleep, but I couldn’t see his eyes through his dark glasses. I made a slight movement to rise and he spoke immediately, ‘Asseyez-vous.’
‘I’m stiff. I want to stretch.’ The gun was now pointing at my head. I said, ‘What are you and Jones up to?’ It was a rhetorical question, and I was surprised when he answered.
‘What do you know about Colonel Jones?’
‘Very little,’ I said. I noticed that Jones had risen in rank.
Then came an extra loud crash from the kitchen, and I wondered whether they were dismantling the range. Captain Concasseur said, ‘Philipot was here.’ I kept silent, not knowing whether he meant the dead uncle or the live nephew. He said, ‘Before coming here he went to see Colonel Jones. What did he want with Colonel Jones?’
‘I know nothing. Haven’t you asked Jones? He’s a friend of yours.’
‘We use white men when we have to. We don’t trust them. Where is Joseph?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why isn’t he here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You drove out with him last night.’
‘Yes.’
‘You returned alone.’
‘Yes.’
‘You had a rendezvous with the rebels.’
‘You’re talking nonsense. Nonsense.’
‘I could shoot you very easily. It would be a pleasure for me. You would have been resisting arrest.’
‘I don’t doubt it. You must have had plenty of practice.’
I was frightened, but I was even more frightened of showing my fear – that would unleash him. Like a savage dog he was safer while he barked.
‘Why would you have arrested me?’ I asked. ‘The embassy would want to know that.’
‘At four o’clock this morning a police station was attacked. One man was killed.’
‘A policeman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
He said, ‘Do not pretend that you have courage. You’re very frightened. Look at your hand.’ (I had wiped it once or twice against my pyjama trousers to get rid of the moisture.)
I gave a bad imitation of a laugh. ‘The night’s hot. My conscience is quite clear. I was in bed by four o’clock. What happened to the other policemen? I suppose they ran away.’
‘Yes. We shall deal with them in due course. They left their arms behind, when they ran away. That was a bad mistake.’
The Tontons Macoute came streaming out of the kitchen-quarters. It was odd to be surrounded by men in sun-glasses in the murk of the early dawn. Captain Concasseur made a sign to one of them and he hit me on the mouth cutting my lip. ‘Resisting arrest,’ Captain Concasseur said. ‘There has to be a struggle. Then, if we are polite, we will show your body to the chargé. What is his name? I forget names easily.’
I could feel my nerve going. Courage even in the brave sleeps before breakfast and I was never brave. I found it needed an effort to stay upright in my chair, for I had a horrible desire to fling myself at Captain Concasseur’s feet. I knew the move would be fatal. One didn’t think twice about shooting trash.
‘I will tell you what happened,’ Captain Concasseur said. ‘The policeman on duty was strangled. He was probably asleep. A man with a limp took his gun, a métis took his revolver, they kicked open the door where the others were sleeping . . .’
‘And they let them get away?’
‘They would have shot my men. Sometimes they spare the police.’
‘There must be a lot of men with limps in Port-au-Prince.’
‘Then where is Joseph? He should be sleeping here. Someone recognized Philipot, and he is not at his home. When did you last see him? Where?’
He signalled to the same man. This time the man ki
cked me hard on the shin, while another snatched the chair from under me, so that I found myself where I didn’t wish to be, at Captain Concasseur’s feet. His shoes were a horrible red-brown. I knew that I had to get upright again or I would be finished, but my leg hurt me and I wasn’t sure I could stand. I was in an absurd position sitting there on the floor as though at an informal party. Everyone was waiting for me to do my turn. Perhaps when I stood up they would kick me down again. That might be their idea of a party joke. I remembered Joseph’s broken hip. It was safer to stay where I was. But I stood up. My right leg gave a shoot of pain. I leant back for support against the balustrade of the verandah. Captain Concasseur changed the position of his gun to cover me, but without any haste. He had an attitude of great comfort in the chaise longue. Indeed he looked as though he owned the place. Perhaps that was his intention.
I said, ‘What were you saying? Oh yes . . . I went last night with Joseph to a Voodoo ceremony. Philipot was there. But we didn’t speak. I left before it was over.’
‘Why?’
‘I was disgusted.’
‘You were disgusted by the religion of the Haitian people?’
‘Every man to his taste.’
The men in sun-glasses came a little nearer. The glasses were turned towards Captain Concasseur. If only I could have seen one pair of eyes and the expression . . . I was daunted by the anonymity. Captain Concasseur said, ‘You are so frightened of me that you have pissed in your pantalon.’ I realized that what he said was true. I could feel the wet and the warmth. I was dripping humiliatingly on the boards. He had got what he wanted, and I would have done better to have stayed on the floor at his feet.
‘Hit him again,’ Captain Concasseur told the man.
‘Dégoûtant,’ a voice said, ‘tout à fait dégoûtant.’
The Comedians Page 20