Love, Anger, Madness

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  Félicia innocently took my hand.

  “Why is Claire black, Mama?” she asked.

  “But she is not black,” my mother answered, lowering her eyes.

  I abruptly pulled my hand away.

  “The sun burned her a little,” my mother added. “It’s a pretty brown.”

  “No, she’s black and we’re white.”

  “Enough, Félicia,” my father yelled.

  Félicia cried and my mother took her in her arms as I ran up to my room. I spent a long time alone there looking at myself in the mirror of my dressing table.

  “Why? Why? Why?” I sobbed while banging my fists on the mirror.

  And I began to loathe the forebear whose black blood had slyly flowed into my veins after so many generations.

  The days that followed were torture. Long family discussions that included Mme Bavière and Mme Soubiran had given me such a complex that I no longer dared look into the blond pink face of Frantz Camuse. I obeyed my mother and wore the new dresses she had made me try on while raving about their “flattering” color. I played the Chopin waltzes that my piano teacher Mlle Verduré had taught me, served drinks and cake to our friends, but my heart was heavy. “Never will he love me, never,” I kept saying to myself. I could see Dora and Eugénie circling around Frantz, clucking like turkeys. I felt the weight of his gaze upon me. But I was too young to realize the sincere interest I had aroused in him.

  One evening, he came around without his mother and asked me to walk him to the gate.

  “I am leaving for Port-au-Prince next week,” he said. “I would like to write to you.”

  “No, don’t ever write to me,” I answered.

  “Why?”

  I began trembling so badly that he looked at me with astonishment. He grabbed my hand and I jumped as if he had stung me. The contrast between our joined hands had overwhelmed me. I shoved him so hard that he exclaimed:

  “Do I disgust you that much?”

  “Don’t mock me,” I shouted. “I’m warning you, don’t mock me.”

  I made a run for my room and watched him from behind my window blinds. Tears of rage and bitterness ran down my cheeks, and when my mother came into my room, I cried out:

  “Why am I black? Why?”

  “Your father will make a rich heiress of you.”

  “I don’t want anyone to marry me for my money. I will never get married, never.”

  “Claire!”

  The next day, my father left for Port-au-Prince, accompanied by Laurent. I had seen my mother hand him a bag of money and I heard her cry and reproach him for wasting everything we had to satisfy his vain political passions.

  “You are ruining your children, Henri,” she was saying. “You have already sold almost two hundred acres. You have to stop.”

  “Let me try my luck one last time,” my father answered. “Over a thousand men are with me. The best families in Port-au-Prince have called for me, all I need to do is to earn the people’s trust and I will win it with this…” (He pointed to the bag of money.) “I will be gone for some time. Have Demosthenes go to the fields with Claire. Let them make sure we aren’t being duped by the peasants. Adieu, my wife. Perhaps you will soon be the First Lady.”

  Demosthenes went to Lion Mountain by himself because I refused to go.

  “Think how angry your father will be, Claire,” my mother repeated to me. “Think how angry.”

  But I stood my ground.

  Well before my father’s return, we learned that Tancrède Auguste [20] had been elected. Father returned from the capital looking old, demoralized and nearly ruined. He was welcomed by his diehard supporters, who ranted against the new president, whom they called incompetent.

  In less than two years, the country saw four other heads of state come and go well before their terms were up, due to the unremitting anarchy, poverty, killings, and the constant uprisings by the Cacos [21] of the North. The insurrections completely drained state funds. The political climate in our province as well suggested that the country was rolling through one disaster after another on its way into an abyss. The government of Vilbrun Guillaume Sam [22] was cornered and appealed to the Americans for financial assistance. That day I saw my father’s faction give in to their anger, roaming the streets, drawing crowds. They seemed to have gone mad.

  “Incompetent!” my father yelled. “All of them, incompetent! They are leading us straight to our ruin. You will soon see Americans in charge of all our institutions. They are waiting for the right moment to jump at our throats. They want to run our financial affairs. They will get control of customs. They’ll throw a noose around our necks. If we keep fighting and spilling our blood in fratricidal struggles, we’ll see an army of American soldiers land on our soil. Haitians don’t know what they need. The only man who can save them from this disaster, they will never choose him, they will never put him in power.”

  “Long live Clamont!” the crowd cried out. “Long live Henri Clamont!” He was carried off in triumph this time, and my mother, despite her tears, had to give him another bag of money, which he distributed to a group of strangers who were asking for an audience and who called him the future president. More and more optimistic, he neglected his plantations. His fixation with power gnawed away at him. He was always leaving for Port-au-Prince, by boat and on horseback, each time returning more disappointed and visibly older.

  “We have only a few hundred acres left,” my mother complained. “We are nearly ruined! What will become of our children?”

  “Oh, my wife!” my father vituperated, “give me your support instead of your recriminations. Do you think that all those who have assumed the presidency just crossed their arms and put their feet up before their election?”

  “But you will never be elected president,” my mother tried to reason with him.

  “Enough!” my father ordered. “I will take you to Port-au-Prince just so you can witness my popularity with your own eyes. I bask in praise there, and my speeches are applauded with such force that I choke up with emotion. They don’t want brawlers and rebels anymore, they will choose an honest tiller of the soil like me to save the country from disaster. We are weighed down by debt. After I presented my plan for economic independence the audience carried me away in triumph. My wife, are you listening? In triumph I was carried away, and not by a band of flea-bitten bums but by men of culture who represent the cream of Port-au-Prince, the only sensible, capable and representative class of people.”

  He noticed me, came toward me and said:

  “Even though you refused to help me, you will choose the man of your dreams, I promise you that.”

  He twirled his mustache, stuck out his chest and left.

  “Down with Clamont!” we heard.

  “Who dared say that?” my father roared.

  Tonton Mathurin, dressed in his old houpland and beret, stepped out of the bushes where he was lying in wait.

  “Me,” he shouted. “Clamont, you are nothing but a pitiful ignoramus, a pretentious and narrow-minded mulatto. The degree in agronomy you picked up in Paris would impress only an imbecile like yourself. A phony! You are nothing but a phony and I swear no man with any sense will back you. We have seen four incompetent men come to power, and that’s enough. That era is past before it even began.”

  “Mathurin,” my father barked. “How dare you speak? You, the immoral one, shunned by society…”

  “What society are you talking about, Clamont? The one made up of stubborn people like you who boast of being white and who close their doors in the faces of worthy black men? Have you forgotten your grandmother, Clamont, the black woman whose loas you still serve?”

  “I have forgotten her in fact,” my father replied, pale with wrath.

  “There is your eldest daughter to refresh your memory. I thank God for arranging things so well.”

  A crowd gathered. Some listened smiling to Mathurin’s words, others like Laurent and Dr. Audier pulled my father by the sleeve to drag h
im home.

  “He’s just a crazy old man,” Laurent whispered to him.

  Hidden behind their blinds, the ones who dared not show themselves tried not to miss any of the spectacle. I saw their glowing eyes, heard their cruel muffled laughter, comments, judgments, against which my father could scarcely defend himself. My fear of him died that day. I had seen him blush before my eyes, shaken and beating a retreat. A vague premonition alerted me to the falseness of our situation, and I was surprised to find myself agreeing with Tonton Mathurin deep inside.

  The next day, six masked men broke into Mathurin’s house and took him away. He came back three hours later, his clothes torn, his face bloody: he had been dragged into the woods and horribly beaten. He found my father, walked up to him and spat in his face.

  “Coward!” he yelled. “You are not yet sitting in the presidential chair and you are already abusing your powers, you hypocrite. Look, all of you, I have spit in your candidate’s face.”

  My father ran home, took down his rifle and fired at Mathurin, whom he fortunately missed. There was a rush to disarm him, and to calm him down and settle his bad blood my mother gave him two spoonfuls of castor oil that he swallowed without raising an eyebrow.

  That evening, I thought for a long time before falling asleep… I remembered Mathurin’s insults, and realized that we had not once invited to our house the parents of Alcine Joseph and Élina Jean-François, two very smart black girls my friends and I knew at school. And the word prejudice became heavy with meaning for me…

  A few days later, a French boat in our harbor supplied our merchants: glassware, lingerie, wines, liqueurs, clothes, jewelry graced the display windows, and my mother, spending our last reserves on my father’s advice, bought some linen and a new piece of crystal she was planning to exhibit at her next party. Three linen blouses embroidered with lace and ribbons were added to my trousseau, and the night before the party my mother spread on my bed a frilly white silk dress, black leather slippers and a beaded velvet purse. We had sent out many invitations and my father, who was to leave for Port-au-Prince on the French boat in three days, invited the officers on board that he knew. Dora’s twenty-year-old cousin Georges, a pianist and a talented poet, was to play contredanses and waltzes.

  The coffee harvest was at hand. My father paid a quick visit to the farmers and came back happy to report that there would soon be sacks full of coffee and then of money.

  “I rule like a lion king over my land,” he said laughing. “The peasants are afraid of my ‘voodoo spells’ and they never steal from me.”

  Was he a good enough actor to play at voodoo to keep his naïve farmers in check? I couldn’t answer that question.

  It was July 3, 1915. A choking heat fell on the town. There was no breeze that morning to dry the sweat off the brows of our “little soldiers” pacing up and down the streets with rifles on their shoulders. Political discussions were rife and the news that arrived with students who disembarked from the French boat alarmed the patriots. According to them, representatives from the State Department had cornered President Sam and were negotiating a contract that would give them control over customs.

  “If President Sam agrees to this contract with the United States, then all is lost,” Dr. Audier prophesied. “France and Germany will demand an equal share. Clamont is right, they will have the skin off our backs. It’s time he be put in charge.”

  My father, despite his many disappointments, sacrificed two more bags of money in vain. A rumor went round that he was conspiring against the government, and one evening Augustine came to tell him that a man was asking to see him.

  “What’s his name?” my father asked.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Is he well dressed?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is he a beggar?”

  “No, sir, but he is dark-skinned.”

  Leaving Dr. Audier, M. Camuse, Laurent and my friends’ fathers in the living room, my father went down. He opened the door to the dining room and found himself in the presence of a black man of great physical stature, neatly dressed, with a straw hat that he quickly took off his head.

  “I am Horelle Jean-François,” the man said to him in French. “Your oldest daughter knew my Élina at the school of the Holy Sisters.”

  “I had no idea,” my father replied.

  “Monsieur Clamont, be careful,” the man continued. “You have been denounced as a conspirator and the district commandant is keeping an eye on you. I came to warn you because I am also a supporter of yours.”

  “Thank you, Jean-François,” my father answered. “I will take precautions.”

  “I will bring you many followers. We must stand up against American interference in the nation’s private affairs.”

  Élina was standing behind her father. I saw him reach out and grope for her.

  “I am blind,” he explained.

  “Ah,” my father grunted. “Would you like a chair?”

  “No, Monsieur Clamont, thank you, I have to go. I’ll come back another time.”

  “Jean-François,” my father then said, “if it’s all right, I would like to meet with you and your friends at Lion Mountain.”

  “That’s fine, Monsieur Clamont, then I will come back here without them. Only my daughter will come with me.”

  “No, no, don’t trouble yourself, I know your house, I will come to you myself.”

  “That’s fine, Monsieur.”

  He closed the door and then, noticing me:

  “You, I always find you on my heels,” he said to me, as if he were ashamed of himself. “Is it true you knew this girl at the Sisters’?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Did she finish school?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Very well, very well, go inside and help your mother. There’s a lot to do today. Our guests will be here at eight.”

  Indeed at that time the ship’s officers arrived in dress uniform. The table was adorned with food and wine, taking on the elaborate and well-appointed look of a Roman feast. The new glassware spread out on the ecru lace tablecloth began to fill with champagne and wine. Georges Soubiran sat at the piano and launched into a waltz by Chopin, and couples began to dance. Frilly dresses whirling in the lamplight! Hairdos embellished with pearls and diamonds! Bare necks almost as white as the pearls arrayed on them. Busts delicately pressing against taffeta ribbons that fell in butterfly wings down the back! Black pants, frock coats and audaciously twisted mustaches! Masculine hair, blond and black, gleaming with fragrant pomade! Elegant movements of the hands and feet! Clever cunning glances! Arched waists and elegant bows! And the flowing champagne helped me and my friends overcome our shyness. The trembling fingers we rested delicately on the arms of our dancing partners betrayed us, and I remember my teeth chattering in front of the handsome French officer who bowed before me.

  “You are very original, Mademoiselle,” he said, taking me in his arms.

  I lowered my head and didn’t respond.

  “Could it be because the atmosphere of this Haitian salon this evening reminds me of Paris that I find you so alluring? Only you possess that warm color that island people have. You must believe me when I say that, for us, you are like a black goddess come down from her throne to welcome us lowly mortals.”

  The compliment, too nicely turned, rang false in my ears.

  I thought he was making fun of me. I let go of his hand and ran away.

  At the beginning of the ball, I had already noticed myself in the mirror, in my white dress, standing between Dora, Eugénie and Jane, and felt I looked like a fly in a bowl of milk. I was surrounded by respect and flattery owing only to my social position. Who would dare shun the daughter of a white-mulatto like Henri Clamont, owner of the best house on Grand-rue and six hundred acres of coffee, as though she were no better than Élina Jean-François or Alcine Joseph? I felt out of place among the French crewmen, our European store owners and the handpicked mulattoes. My mother found
me in bed in my ball gown, weeping, head buried in my pillow.

  “What now, Claire?”

  “I feel sick, Mama.”

  “In that case, get undressed. I’ll tell the guests you had to be excused.”

  A quarter of an hour later I was in my nightgown and had slipped under the sheets when I saw Dora come in.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing, I just don’t feel well.”

  “That handsome officer is asking for you. He told your father that you were the prettiest black girl he had ever seen. You know, Claire, these foreigners are stupid. If your skin is a little tanned, they think you’re black.”

  “Leave me alone. I’m tired.”

  “Frantz Camuse just arrived. He returned by boat. Try to get up.”

  “No, leave me alone, Dora, I’m begging you.”

  “Madame Camuse told me: ‘Go get Claire, she is no more sick than I am, and Frantz will be disappointed not to see her.’”

  “No, I really am sick. Go tell Madame Camuse and let me be.”

  When she left, I quietly jumped off my bed and cracked open the door. They seemed to have forgotten about me. Smiling his cruel feline smile, my father waltzed with Mlle Verduré, who was virtually swooning. His black hair was parted along a line that seemed glued to his skull, and his white face looked swollen. My eyes sought out my mother. Limp, fat, and white, she was sitting between Mme Duclan and Mme Audier, who inspired petty comparisons with an ugly doll Félicia had. Eugénie was waltzing with Frantz, and Dora and Jane with two French officers. I closed the door and went back to bed. The music prevented me from sleeping until the guests left. Georges Soubiran, Dora’s poor relation who was tolerated out of compassion, was harnessed to the piano and played nonstop until two in the morning.

  ***

  Agnès Grandupré grew up under quarantine. She was erased from our lives, and I sometimes forgot she even existed. I caught a glimpse of her only at mass, where her arrival always provoked whispers and distraction. Gaunt, her feverish eyes glued to her prayer book, she held herself straight, chin proudly held high; her reserve was moving. It had been long since she had stopped visiting old Mathurin and she led a dignified and modest life. But society, spiteful and querulous, always seeking sacrificial victims, never forgave her. Her parents themselves had fueled the scandal by punishing her so spectacularly, for fear people would say they weren’t raising her right. “That nasty little Grandupré girl next door,” Mme Duclan called her. And even Mlle Verduré, whom I had once caught kissing my father at the piano and who was unmarried at thirty-five, would raise her eyes to heaven and cry out: “And she dares hold her head high!” This young woman’s tragic face seemed to conceal something other than vice. One day Georges Soubiran recited poems of such infinite sadness and refinement, and then admitted they were by Agnès. He was an orphan. Dora’s parents, with whom he lived, accused him of having spoken to Agnès and ordered him to break up with her. He packed his bags and left in response. Mathurin took him in. This time the scandal went too far and became the talk of the town. Agnès and Georges were in love and met at Mathurin’s for several days. The Granduprés almost beat their daughter to death and locked her inside the house. Tonton Mathurin stood in the middle of the street hurling insults at the “idiots and provincial bourgeois,” barged into the Grandupré house and went up to Agnès’s room. She was in bed, burning with fever. He knelt at her bedside and spoke to her softly. Then he got up and asked the flummoxed Granduprés for Agnès’s hand on behalf of Georges Soubiran.