Love, Anger, Madness

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  “Monsieur Long gave me two bottles of whiskey,” Jean Luze announces. “I’ll invite him to the party.”

  “Fine,” nods Félicia.

  “What about the commandant?” Annette asks.

  “No,” I protest forcefully.

  “Oh! You know,” she says coldly, “we are no longer living in the days of our dear parents. Prejudice is out of fashion.”

  “This has nothing to do with prejudice,” I reply.

  “We should still have him over once in a while,” prudent Félicia adds cautiously. “What good would it do to turn him against us?”

  “Everyone receives him,” Annette insists, “even Madame Camuse. If he sours on us, what then?”

  “Do you have something against him, Claire?” asks Félicia. “Of course what happened to Dora is most appalling. But she has always been heedless…”

  “He’s not a bad guy, you know,” says Annette. “He has his orders. He can’t ignore them. In any case, he’s a handsome soldier. He’s a wonderful dancer and always brings gifts for the ladies. Just the other day, he brought back a magnificent necklace to Corrine Laplanche from Port-au-Prince.”

  “Well, it’s normal for someone like Corrine Laplanche to accept his presents, but not you,” Félicia retorted.

  “Why?”

  “Because your name is Annette Clamont.”

  “That’s rubbish,” Annette cried. “Corrine Laplanche is better educated than all the Clamont sisters put together. The only difference is that her parents don’t belong to good society, as you so often like to say, that’s all. And anyway, her mother, Élina Jean-François, was a classmate of Claire’s… Isn’t that right, Claire?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I won’t bother asking why you didn’t befriend her,” she added. “Well, me, I choose the people I like wherever I happen to meet them, without giving any thought to their table manners. The only thing I ask of them is that they have qualities that I don’t have and can’t help but admire.”

  My sentiments precisely. Did I put those words in her mouth?

  “That’s very good, Annette,” Jean Luze offers approvingly, looking at her with interest. “You are not as harebrained as you like to seem. You should read more, for your own good…”

  “I am only twenty-two! I have plenty of time. I don’t mind fumbling around before finding myself.”

  “Believe me, you can fumble around just as well while educating yourself,” Jean Luze answered. “But it’s Claire’s birthday and not yours. Let her choose her guests herself.”

  “So there won’t be anyone,” Annette concluded with despair.

  “There will be us,” I replied calmly.

  “And Monsieur Long,” said Annette.

  “And Monsieur Long.”

  Jean Luze caught up with me by the bedroom door.

  “You hate him, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “The commandant.”

  “I don’t like people I don’t know.”

  “What about me, you must like me since you know me, right? Do you like me, Claire?”

  “Of course I do. Aren’t you my brother-in-law?”

  “That’s not a good enough reason.”

  He laughed, leaning a hand on the wall.

  “A piece of advice: don’t make a show of your antipathy for Calédu,” he said to me. “You could pay dearly for it. I am new here but I have already understood a few things. In the middle of the twentieth century your little town is going through what France went through during the time of Louis XVI. It would be amusing if it were not tragic. Play along and keep your head down with the commandant and his people. Don’t make a show of your antipathy as Dora Soubiran did. That kind of attitude is pointless and can’t end well…”

  I left him abruptly and went in my room. Who does he take me for? I, who tremble with fright at the slightest noise, I, who avoid suspects to the point that I won’t see Dora, I, who won’t exchange words or looks with these armed men, and here he thinks me capable of braving that hangman Calédu. The fool! I am a coward and I know it. My cozy bourgeois upbringing is like a tattoo on my skin. Is he that blind? How dare he confuse a lover’s loathing, a lover’s outrage, for something else, that’s what I can’t forgive!

  I saw Dora passing by. She hobbles along with legs spread apart like a maimed animal. What have they done to her? What awful torments has she endured that for a month now she has been unable to walk normally? Dr. Audier looks after her but he keeps his mouth shut. I saw him leave her house recently, head down, a frown on his brow.

  “And our neighbor?” Jean Luze asked him.

  He stared at him without answering, lips contorted.

  He is brave enough for looking after a victim, Dr. Audier must tell himself. The reign of terror has broken his spirit. The politician, the great champion of freedom and the rights of man that he was when my father was alive, is dead in him. He even smiles when he shakes Calédu’s hand. He is old and experienced. He smiles at the prefect. He smiles at the mayor. Despite his hatred for our former occupiers, he smiles at M. Long. M. Long, who buys anything that grows at low prices and who lives around here, has cleverly found shelter under the wings of the authorities in order to better suck our blood. And these black imbeciles seem flattered by the white man’s self-serving friendship. His house is protected with a wire fence, his water filtered, his food disinfected. He’s not taking any chances with microbes and mosquitoes. Malaria and typhoid will not get the better of him. Since the authorities only have one thing on their minds-to get rich by any means necessary, to humiliate those who once humiliated them and crush the arrogant bourgeois-M. Long exploits this desire, nodding and applauding: Marvelous! Go ahead! God save Haiti!

  Today is Sunday. I put on my long-sleeved dress and my black hat and went to mass. I followed the ceremony without participating, eyes on my prayer book and rosary in hand. My mind was elsewhere. Where are they? What are they doing? I was saying to myself. Jean Luze and Annette were still in bed when I left. I imagined them eating together. I could hear Annette’s laughter. I imagined Jean Luze’s eyes on her. On my knees, as the priest raised the wafer, I tried in vain to chase such thoughts away. It did not escape me that for some time now I’d been faking piety. I had lost my faith when I saw the children’s bodies piled high before my eyes after the last hurricane. Many of the oldest and meanest had been spared. Why? was the first unanswered question that gave me the courage to make my point. How many of these women kneeling to receive the body and blood of our Lord had never helped their fellow man? I asked myself that Sunday. All those around me were great sinners-usurers, exploiters, sadists, corrupters of virtue. I had known them from tender childhood. Not a soul you could praise to the skies. Not one who spared either Jane Bavière, or Agnès Grandupré, who died of consumption thanks to them, not one among them who failed to condemn the only just man among us, an old man named Tonton Mathurin, before whom my father learned to tremble.

  They look so angelic in church! What were they thinking as they grimaced through their prayers? Were they trying to cheat God Himself, our overly tolerant God who calls all lost sheep to His bosom?

  ***

  It was probably about seven in the evening.

  I was on the landing and about to go downstairs when I looked up and caught Annette and Jean Luze exchanging glances. Annette took his hand first and pushed him into her bedroom. I pretended to go downstairs only to double back and put my ear to the door and my eye to the keyhole: they were still dressed and Jean Luze, his hands on her shoulders, stone-faced, unrecognizable, appeared to be fighting temptation. He threw her on the bed. Her skirt was tucked up, and he looked at her with a kind of hateful and appreciative curiosity. She moaned and brutally pulled him against her, eyes closed, nails biting into his back.

  I suddenly stood up, overcome by some sort of prudishness, but I stayed a moment behind the door, heart racing, cheeks flushed. Then, agitated and dizzy from waves of feelings crashing togeth
er in me, I ran and threw myself flat on my stomach in bed. I left this position only when I heard Félicia calling me. I washed my face in a frenzy and went to her. She wanted some soup and she asked where her husband was.

  “He is in the living room,” I answered calmly.

  “And what is he doing?”

  “He’s reading.”

  “Ask him to come give me a kiss. He’s always afraid to wake me.”

  To gain time, I suggested that she freshen up a little.

  When I left her room a few minutes later, I found Jean Luze in the living room where he was indeed reading. No doubt he was trying to seem calm, quite prudently. He stood up and chose a record, the same one as always. But in his distracted state he made a mistake and the second movement of Beethoven’s Concerto no. 5 rose in a flutter, discreet, melodious, before rushing headlong into an incredibly violent chord.

  He gave me an infinitely sweet look.

  “You like this concerto too, don’t you? You come in each time I play it. The first movement is just as beautiful but I made a mistake… Ah! I couldn’t live without music… I think I’ve brought a record player with me my whole life. I was hardly twenty when I gave up everything else and bought one for the first time. My parents had just died and I was trying to scrape together a living…”

  Just then, Annette appeared. I searched her face, looking for traces of victory that I could enjoy. She lit up a cigarette with quivering hands and threw Jean Luze a sidelong glance devoid of the misty-eyed gratitude I thought I would find there. He stared at her like an enemy. Their attitude surprised and disappointed me. I was willing to live this love through Annette only if she could measure up to it. It was essential that she outdo herself. Had she profaned this act that was so important in my eyes? What did she say, how did she react? What happened between them? Could it be that their embrace came to nothing? That would be too devastating.

  M. Long is a fat, puffy, congested man. It’s my birthday today, and we are literally being cooked alive, and M. Long looks like a boiled lobster. Jean Luze seats his boss and offers him some whiskey.

  The cake is on the table, crowned with eighteen candles. Annette’s idea, naturally. They kiss me and offer me their gifts and all sing “Happy Birthday to You.” I got a sewing kit from Jean Luze, a box of handkerchiefs from Annette and from Félicia a gold medallion.

  “I decorate you,” she said, pinning the medal to my blouse.

  “Come now, give us a smile.”

  Jean Luze held my chin and looked into my eyes. I’m afraid he’ll hear the disordered beating of my heart. He is tall and I barely reach his shoulder. I would like him to lean and take me in his arms to carry me very far away. Such is the incurable romantic that slumbers in all old maids!

  We offer some cake to Augustine, the maid. The house is festive.

  “Put on a record, Jean,” Annette proposes. “The screaming just ruins everything.”

  The screams waft from the jail. Horrible, unsexed droning.

  “Calédu is having a bit of fun,” M. Long exclaims with a jowl-shaking chortle. (His accent adds a childish note to his cruel remark.)

  “A peculiar way to have fun, don’t you think?” Jean Luze asks him with a strange, almost hostile, smile.

  “Oh, you know, I say to each his own. And anyway, you would have to be insane to try to change anything around here.”

  He holds out his glass to Jean Luze, who fills it with another shot of whiskey.

  Annette flutters around them. She pours on the charm even for this hideous American. She’s turning into a nymphomaniac.

  “As I told you recently, Monsieur Luze,” M. Long continues, “the coffee harvest has been so bad that for the last three years we have had to fall back on timber. I’m waiting for an answer from the company. If we don’t export wood, we’ll have no choice but to close up shop. The timber stock in the mountains and even in the towns is just extraordinary! This island is amazing: the sea, the mountains, the trees! Yes it’s a pity, a real pity they are so poor and unlucky.”

  “What will happen to the peasants and their small plots if they agree to deforestation? The rain will wash away the soil,” notes Jean Luze.

  “Oh well, that, my dear friend, is their business. They can either agree to sell their wood or we can leave. We are not asking for a gift, not at all…”

  I can’t fully follow the conversation. The screams make it hard to pay attention. I prick up my ears. I feel obliged to listen for the faintest whimper. I am almost certain that it is a child crying. I am developing a trained ear. A final outburst ends on a hoarse note, so painful that I stand up with my hands over my ears.

  “The cries upset you that much?” M. Long asks me.

  “Not at all.”

  Jean Luze hands me a glass.

  “Drink,” he says.

  The glass shakes in my hand.

  M. Long speaks of his country, so rich, so beautiful, so well organized, it seems. What has he come looking for in this hole, if not wealth? What if not to fleece the sheep that we are?

  After M. Long’s departure, Félicia goes to her room. Jean Luze lingers in the living room listening to Beethoven. Standing in the dark, Annette is watching him. I stay up with them for as long as possible. I’m on to them: they have a rendezvous tonight. I close the doors and wait. The house seems asleep. I hear the careful patter of their steps, the creaking of the door to Annette’s room as it opens. I imagine them naked, kissing, taking each other again and again. I get in bed, naked as well, ablaze with desire. I am with them, between them. No, I am alone with Jean Luze. Amazing how love cancels out all other feelings. I would hear screaming from the jail and pay it no heed. I am Annette. I’m sixteen years younger. I hear nothing, and then a terrible cry and the sound of a body falling. It would be inconvenient to witness any kind of drama. I stay still, waiting for things settle. Annette’s door is ajar and Félicia is lying on the floor. Jean Luze, appropriately dressed, is leaning over his wife, while Annette, in a dressing gown, pale as a corpse, looks at me. I know nothing. I understand nothing. Isn’t fainting normal for pregnant women?

  “Go get Dr. Audier,” I say to Jean Luze.

  He quickly carries her into their room and runs off.

  I hear his steps creaking on the stairs and it’s now my turn to lean over Félicia.

  “My God, what’s happened to her?” Annette exclaims, hands on her heart.

  She can’t play innocent. Acting is not her strong suit. She didn’t want these complications. She’s nervous, and she’s nervous that she’s nervous.

  I avoid answering. I am busy rubbing Félicia’s hands.

  “Leave the room, Annette.” That’s all I say.

  Félicia and I are alone. I rub some alcohol on her cheeks, slap her and call her name. She comes to and starts sobbing.

  “Claire! Claire!”

  Oh no, I don’t want to hear anything. I’ll take care of her as always, but I don’t want to hear her secrets. Spare this poor old maid!

  “Claire! Claire!”

  “Keep quiet. You will just make things worse and you will lose the child.”

  Jean Luze returns with Dr. Audier. She hides her face in her hands and bursts into fresh sobs. After examining her, Audier gives her a shot and prescribes a few days’ bed rest.

  “You better not leave her side,” he advises Jean Luze in a low voice. “She’s had a terrible shock.”

  He is full of repentance. He kisses her and whispers something in her ear.

  I am still there, watching every move.

  “Nothing happened, I swear, nothing,” he repeats, now in a louder voice.

  Does she believe him? She touches his face slowly, full of tenderness, as if she has already forgotten everything. What confidence she has in him!

  “There’s no hemorrhaging, that’s good!” the doctor declares. “Just simple fainting!”

  I see him out and then return to Félicia’s side. The injection has put her to sleep.

  I tu
rn to Jean Luze with the most sincere expression I can muster and ask:

  “How did this happen?”

  He looks at me casually.

  “I have no idea. I was in the living room and I heard her scream…”

  Oh, what good liars we are, both of us!

  He did not go to work this morning. The door to their room is closed and Augustine has brought them breakfast in bed. Annette seems more nervous than last night. She paces up and down, eyes on their door. Why has he shut himself up with Félicia? What is he going to promise? The door opens in the afternoon and Jean Luze emerges, somber and so distant that it would take superhuman courage to approach him. Annette nevertheless calls out to him, and he looks at her with intentionally unconcealed antipathy. I hide in order to hear their conversation.

  “It’s over, Annette,” he says, “I hope you’ve understood this. Félicia’s life and the baby’s life depend on your behavior. You have to control yourself.”

  “But I can’t, I just can’t…”

  “Let’s not overdo it, shall we.”

  His tone is cutting.

  “I love you.”

  “Quiet.”

  “Living like this with you but not with you, and to keep quiet? That’s too much.”

  “In that case, Félicia and I will leave. I got married to have a home, children, to be done with being a man-about-town. I don’t want problems, understand? I don’t want trouble.”