Love, Anger, Madness

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  He was unable to fall asleep. His wife had her back turned to him and lay there like a corpse. But he was also sure she was awake. He leaned over her and noticed that her eyes were indeed open.

  “You’re not asleep?”

  She immediately changed her position and he saw she was crying.

  “What’s the matter, Laura?”

  She shrugged and huddled up in a corner of the bed.

  “And you have to wake me up on top of it,” she reproached him dryly.

  He mumbled something that she did not understand, so she pulled up the sheets to cover herself and pretended to sleep.

  They both stayed that way, motionless, back-to-back. That’s all she could think to say to me, he thought bitterly. The brute! Nothing can bother him, he’s already sleeping, she was telling herself at the same time. They had both finally plunged into a deep sleep when a terrible noise from the yard woke them. They rushed together to the window to witness an onslaught: a truck and two motorcycles driven by men in black uniform parked under the oaks; about twenty men stepped out of the truck while the two on the motorcycles started them again and roared full speed across the property. Skirting the stakes, they entered the yard and stopped. Ten men, their weapons displayed across their shirts, walked up to the veranda and knocked on the door to the living room, which Mélie opened wide for them. The father saw his wife clasping her hands, disheveled, disfigured by fear. Lifting up the mattress, he slid the money beneath it and threw on his clothes as quickly as he could. From the stairs, he looked at the others.

  “I’ll go down by myself,” he said firmly.

  “Open up in the name of the law,” they heard.

  “Yes, coming,” the father answered and went down.

  He took the stamped papers handed to him and quickly ran his eyes over them without understanding a thing. The weapon that one of them had pulled from his belt to point to his temple-telling him “Sign here!”-left no room for discussion. He looked for a pen, was given one by the same man and signed. After which, the maid, opening the living room door again, said goodbye to them with a big devious smile and watched them walk away before closing it. In the blink of an eye the family was downstairs.

  “What did they want?” the grandfather asked.

  “To make me sign some papers.”

  “What papers?”

  Louis Normil shrugged.

  “They didn’t give me time to read them.”

  “But, Papa!” Rose exclaimed.

  The grandfather put down the invalid on a chair and walked over to face his son in silence.

  “I did what was best, Father, believe me.”

  “Hell and damnation!” the grandfather yelled.

  “Shut the door, Paul!” the father ordered.

  “Hell and damnation,” the grandfather repeated in the same tone. “So then you tremble at the sight of them?”

  “And who doesn’t tremble at the sight of them?” Louis Normil replied calmly.

  “I don’t!” the grandfather yelled again. “Do you know what you just did? You have just signed papers recognizing that we were never the rightful owners of this land, that’s what you’ve done.” He was fuming with such rage that his goatee was wet from the spray of his words. The father looked at the others and said:

  “With or without signed papers, the power is in their hands, Father, and you know this as well as I do. I did what was best, I swear…”

  He stopped talking, felt around in his pocket and added:

  “Now all that matters is not to waste any more time; I am going to that lawyer’s.”

  “To waste your time completely,” Paul blurted out sarcastically.

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  He was caught unawares by the blood frothing in his veins. His ears were hot but he mastered himself and went upstairs to get the money.

  Outside, he calmed himself and his features once again returned to their nice, calm, masklike stillness. He ran into two of his colleagues, who started whispering once they caught sight of him, and he waved to them without getting a response. It wasn’t yet eight and the lawyer’s doors were still closed. He walked past them, not wanting to seem impatient, and came back fifteen minutes later to find the guard opening them. The latter didn’t seem to recognize him. He wanted to follow the guard inside, but the trembling old man who had left the room when his patience had run out last time now jumped in front of him and, pushing him aside, sneaked in first. A bit out of breath, the old man rushed to a chair and was about to sit down when he saw the guard and changed his mind. So he remained standing, all sheepish, hat pressed against his stomach. Five other clients arrived and got behind him into a tight queue, nose to nape. “You’d think they were in a penitentiary,” thought Louis Normil, who had settled himself comfortably into a chair. He thought these people were clients who couldn’t pay the lawyer in any way besides flattery and he felt the money in his pocket with satisfaction. So he was more than a little shocked when he saw the toothless old man pulling out his wallet and taking out a twenty-dollar bill, which he slipped the guard with a conniving wink. The peephole opened and an eye slithered into its frame. As if awaiting this signal, the guard opened the door and had the old man go in. The others executed a sharp ballet step forward that brought them closer to the guard.

  “Settle down,” he told them with a look of disapproval, like a schoolmaster talking to his students.

  “But they pushed me,” the first one whispered humbly.

  The old man’s visit didn’t last ten minutes. He reappeared, fidgeting and trembling more than ever.

  “An arm and a leg!” he was heard mumbling. “Costing me an arm and a leg!”

  Seeing the guard motion to another client to go in ahead of him, Louis Normil understood that the exact time of his appointment had no significance and that he would again just waste his morning waiting if he remained glued to his chair. So he went to line up behind the other four clients, having firmly decided not to give up his place to anyone. Two hours later, he was finally able to get into the lawyer’s office.

  For a long time, the latter looked at him in silence, without even moving, as if he wanted his immobility to prove to Louis Normil the futility of his endeavor.

  “Really now, sir,” he said in a nasal voice, “what do you want from me?”

  Louis Normil took the money out of his pocket and patted it between his palms:

  “To bring you this,” he said. “Didn’t you ask me for five hundred dollars?”

  “What right have you to present yourself without an appointment?” the lawyer yelled.

  “But,” Louis Normil stammered, disconcerted.

  “There is no but,” the lawyer continued. “I remember making an appointment with your daughter, not with you. Take this money back with you.”

  Louis Normil felt his father’s anger rising in him. The shock was what saved him. He instinctively tilted his head to take his leave of the lawyer and made for the exit. He thought he caught a glint of mockery in the guard’s eyes, but he paid him no mind and went to work. It was about eleven and, to excuse his absence, he pretended he had been unwell and had to go see his doctor. The two employees he had run into earlier exchanged a quick look and smiled sardonically. The atmosphere of the office was heavy, smothered in layers of unbearable silence worsened by the sudden arrival of the director.

  He was a reddish, paunchy mulatto who carried himself like a Jesuit and spoke to his employees in an insufferably soft voice. His myopic eyes, encircled by glasses, rested unforgivingly on Louis Normil.

  “Late again, Normil,” he said, discomfited, as if he wanted the other employees as witnesses. “Is it your health that is the source of the problem?”

  “Precisely,” Louis Normil uttered, his tone a bit forced. “I wanted to see you to apologize. I am currently being treated by my doctor.”

  “In that case, why not take a few days off! We’ll find you a substitute. How long will your treatment last? A month? Two m
onths? You mustn’t neglect your health, take as much time as you need.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Louis Normil answered, convinced that they wanted to get rid of him discreetly. “I am grateful for this, but fortunately I should be done with my doctor by tomorrow.”

  The director coughed and left quickly as if he had made a sudden decision.

  Louis Normil again felt the five hundred dollars in his inside pocket and tried to occupy his mind with work. Papers were piling up on his desk. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t manage to focus and absentmindedly tried to look busy under the scrutiny of a neighboring coworker. “If I lose my job,” he kept repeating to himself, “if I lose my job.” And these words caused him such despair he began to shake and sweat.

  “Are you all right?” the employee staring at him asked.

  “Yes, yes,” he answered and continued shuffling papers around, pretending to be busy.

  At the end of the workday, he went home and found the family sitting at the dinner table. No one asked him anything this time, but Rose tried to make eye contact and he shook his head with discouragement. He got up before the others did and went up to his room to put the money back under the mattress. Actually, why not in the armoire? he wondered. But he left it there, finding that hiding place more reassuring than any other. He washed his face, changed his jacket, and decided right there and then to go see his mistress, driven by the humiliation of owing her money and the need to dispel the awful misunderstanding that had dimmed their last evening together. She’ll advise me, women have amazing ideas, he said to himself to conceal the real reason for his impatience. I’ll tell her all about that bastard sending back the money and insisting on seeing Rose again. On the landing, he bumped into Rose, who was going upstairs.

  “So, Papa?”

  “He refused to take the money,” he admitted.

  “Don’t you think I’m big enough to take care of myself?”

  “Don’t get involved in this.”

  “Papa!”

  “Don’t get involved in this,” he repeated and rushed downstairs without looking at her.

  She slowly opened the door to the bedroom, lifted the mattress, took the money and slipped it in her bag.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next day, for the Feast of Saint Peter, there was a street fair on Place de Pétionville. Small colorful lamps decorated the trees beneath which the church ladies had set up their stands. An orchestra played a lusty merengue [32] by the lawn where a few couples were already dancing. Vendors with trays of goods on their heads hawked their wares to passersby but ran off and set up on the sidewalks after they were chased away by the monks for whose benefit this feast was held. The gendarmes kept at bay a horde of beggars haunting the vicinity. Once in a while the beggars would elude the watchful eye of the police and scamper to show off their scrofula or their maimed limbs and plead for alms.

  When a fanfare sounded, cutting off the orchestra, the crowd was suddenly silent and listened attentively. Men in uniform emerged like an immense black wave, rushing right into the square. Upon seeing them, the beggars yelped with joy breaking free of the police, who no longer dared interfere, they crowded round to cheer on the men.

  “Long live the Blackshirts!” they cried.

  A voice ordered: “Halt! At ease!” and they broke ranks. Arrogant, chests bulging, hands on their weapons, a few of them with their arms draped imposingly around young girls. The atmosphere changed, as if everyone were suddenly whipped by a mad whirlwind: the church ladies, who a moment ago had been fanning themselves quietly at their counters, were standing and laughing nervously as they dug into bags of confetti; girls went into electrified contortions on the dance floor; their partners resembled robots gone wild, mechanically crashing to the ground with every blast of the saxophone. The frenzy ended with the sound of bullets. Shots were fired in the direction of a man with his hands up. His path was blocked. The men in uniform caught him and dragged him to a tree where they tied him up.

  “Let me go,” begged the man. “I haven’t done anything, I only said I was hungry. Let me go.”

  “What right do you have to be hungry? Are you trying to foment rebellion?”

  “Music!” another voice ordered the orchestra.

  And as the musicians attacked a new merengue, the men took aim and riddled him with bullets.

  No one in the anxious crowd dared move another muscle. A fanfare sounded and smothered the orchestra once more; the flag rose, the boots regrouped. The monks untied the man’s body and placed it atop a pile of others in a truck driven by an undertaker in a black uniform. The monks motioned wildly as they returned, trying to restore the peaceful and cheerful atmosphere that had been decidedly broken by the arrival of the men in uniform.

  “The fair’s not over, the fair’s not over,” they shouted, rolling up their robes and striding briskly around the square.

  Paul squeezed Anna Valois’ hand tightly. He felt her trembling.

  “You want to go?”

  “Yes.”

  He led her away, but a few steps later, they bumped into Fred Morin, who raised his glass and said: “Let’s party! Let’s drink to happiness!” They were immediately surrounded by a group of young people.

  “Let’s go, Paul,” Anna begged.

  “Why? What’s the matter? The party’s just started,” Fred exclaimed.

  He seemed drunk and the fun-loving smile flickering on his lips could not erase the expression of fear dilating his eyes.

  Paul took Anna’s hand to leave with her but the circle of young men blocked his path.

  “You’re not about to ditch your friends,” a player on his team protested. “You’ve abandoned us and here we are glad to be with you.”

  There was nothing natural about their words and gestures. They looked like bad actors suddenly pushed onstage and asked to perform a difficult role.

  Involuntarily, they kept turning their heads in the same direction. Paul followed their gaze. He was startled to see Rose talking to a man in a black uniform sitting in the backseat of a car, the driver impossible to make out save for a patch of hair. The man in uniform leaned over, opened the door and Rose got in next to him as the car took off. Paul wanted to run after it, but his teammates blocked his path a second time.

  “Leave me alone,” he yelled.

  “Don’t do anything crazy,” the youngest on the team, who was only sixteen, advised him.

  His hand fell on Paul’s shoulder and his nails slowly dug into his flesh.

  “Don’t tell us you didn’t know,” Fred Morin said to him, forcing an increasingly false smile.

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “All right,” said another. “If you don’t feel like talking about it, that’s your business. But let’s set up our next practice. You’re our best player and we want to keep you.”

  “Just like that, huh!” Paul answered, staring at them angrily. “I’d give anything to know why you’ve changed your mind. Eight days ago, I got the distinct feeling I was somewhat undesirable. Is it because my sister got into that car… you think that…”

  “Lucky man,” Fred Morin said to him as he wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

  He freed himself with a shrug and looked at Anna. She lowered her head. So then, she agreed with them. Or did she avert her eyes to spare his feelings? He fought off the desire to lay into them with blows and curses. He looked again at Anna and took off running. For a long time, he walked aimlessly through the city and only went home at nightfall. He found everyone in the living room except for Rose. He didn’t utter a word, but when she came back an hour later, he got up to meet her:

  “Harlot!” he spat in her face. “I saw you!”

  She turned to him with a face that was serene, almost wooden.

  “You saw me, did you, so what? Is that how you thank me for trying so hard to save this land despite being afraid?”

  And she started playing out the scene.

  “He says to me, ‘Get in, Mademoisel
le, so glad I ran into you, I’ll take you to the lawyer myself. He’s an old nutcase who gets strange ideas in his head, refused to take the money from your father, I know, because he wanted to see you again. He lost a daughter your age and you remind him of her.’ So he really did give me a ride to the lawyer’s, who promised that everything would be settled by next month. From now on, we can consider the case resolved. No, really, they’ve been very polite, very respectful, and I swear they are a lot less frightening up close than from afar.”

  “You smell bad,” the invalid said suddenly.

  “Me!” she said, taken aback, arms wrapped around her own waist, legs drawn together as if soldered shut.

  “You don’t smell like yourself, you smell bad, go away, go away.”

  “You be quiet!” Paul said to the invalid through clenched jaws.

  “I’ll be quiet if I want to. And if I could stand on two feet, I would flog her.”