I recall the east-facing paving stone in front of the house that often stayed cool into the afternoon. I was lying on my stomach on this cold paving stone, topless. Fignolé was at my side. Our bodies had been covered with a mixture of starch and kleren, an infallible remedy against heat bumps. But the heat always ended up getting the better of us. Fignolé had his head on my chest and we were both dozing – a moment I wish had never ended. I awoke abruptly and watched him sleeping. And I guarded him for two whole hours against all the dangers of the world that could arrive in succession to threaten him: floods, the injustice of adults, illnesses, cyclones, dog bites and whatever else.
You alone, Fignolé, have the power to take the place of my whole childhood. You alone were able to extinguish before time the pleasures of my childhood. And feelings of astonishment and amazement, terror and pride would rise up in me all at once to see you when you were smaller, weaker and soon to become wilder. An extraordinary love was to grow between us. A sacred union.
And then, little by little, I stopped seeing life as a group of clear lines beneath a big sun. I turned resolutely towards death to see it charging right at Fignolé. Right at me. At full speed like a huge dumper truck. And then, reaching an age of reason, I began to doubt the kindness of a God who could launch such a meteor at defenceless beings. I now thought it a matter of urgency, before this meteor struck us at full force, to classify everything in the world into the things which were important and those which were not. The important things included Fignolé, my brother, my son, my gift. And there was me.
Three years before Fignolé was born, Mother slapped away the man whom I see rarely, whose mistress she had been for a while and who is none other than my father. She courageously sought to support us in life, the three of us – Angélique, herself and me. She mended clothes, prepared pots of jam and made several return journeys to the Dominican Republic to sell cheap trinkets. A few dollars from Uncle Thémosthène, who had moved to Little Haiti, Miami, made it easier to make ends meet at the end of the month. And then one evening, against all expectations, Onil Hermantin, a man who, from time to time, had offered her consolation against the tribulations of ordinary life, asked her to marry him. To the great surprise of everyone, she accepted. She let down her guard before a man who was offering her a roof over her head and a ring on her finger. She was mistaken. But tell me, what woman, however strong she may be, would not want to be consoled once in her life? Tell me. This arrangement did not last long enough to leave its mark on her, but enough to sicken her like the smell of rotten fruit. A few months after the birth of Fignolé, Mother recovered her status of free woman with a relief she did not try to conceal. Mother had a husband and many lovers, but no man ever possessed her. None of them was her lord or master. They hardly shared their fleeting relief. They did not teach her much but a few techniques in bed. Gave her nothing but a few dollars. Mother is not one to buy the peace of a home by selling her soul.
She left the house, taking with her a little money, enough to keep herself for barely four days, the two bags containing our clothes, her three children and inside herself the certainty that she was coming out on top. Aunt Sylvanie helped us to move into a single room, damp and dark, at the end of a seedy passage. We three children all slept on a mattress on the floor behind a curtain cut from coarse cloth. It may have been only a room, but Mother wanted wherever she lived to be her own; she would not be accountable to anyone. At that time, when Mother offered food to the loas it was often Erzulie Fréda, Erzulie the beautiful, Erzulie the tender, who would possess her. After demanding all, the spirit would leave her lascivious and reassured.
One day, between moon and sun, when we had not eaten all day, a shadow appeared behind the drawn curtain. I let out a cry of fright. I was at that age where I still believed in creatures lying dormant in the legends or awaiting us in our dreams. Holding her nightshirt over her breasts, Mother placed her lips on my brow and whispered that one of them had come to visit us. I soon believed them capable of a thousand wonders as we ate better during the days following their furtive visits.
Without having to dress in revealing clothes, without swinging her hips, sometimes without having to make the slightest gesture, Mother could attract men. She was surrounded by a perfume of eroticism, of which she herself was not aware. She exuded sex like other women exude boredom. There were lovers who, some days, would listen to her talking before delighting her body. I always saw her make these men feel as if they were unique, and they believed her. And the light she radiated held them fast without them being able to do much to get free. Once under her spell, they were caught. There was no-one like her for drawing out the simplest words and giving them music, mellowness or resonance. I never heard a woman ask a man ‘Will you have a coffee or a finger of rum?’ with such sweetness. Mother had no idea of this sweetness that flowed from the depths of her wide eyes, from her voice of caves and expansive distances that constantly exhorted them to follow, from her violet, flower-like lips. She had no idea of the subtle invitation of her ample hips. However often I have delved into the metal box and taken out the yellowing, ageing photo that has fixed her at twenty-five, I still have not found the key to this mystery… Right now I suspect Maître Fortuné is ready to lay his cheek against her breasts and to kiss the hem of her dress.
Madame Thomas, the first customer, arrives around eleven o’clock, an hour after the shop opened. I hate Madame Thomas. A woman with an extravagant hairdo dyed in tawny shades, with outrageous make-up, having applied every artifice. Madame Thomas belongs to the nouveau riche set who give the city a flashy gaiety in total contrast to the hordes of destitutes who are still in the process of encircling it.
‘Joyeuse, bring me Madame Herbruch’s new stock to look at.’
‘Of course,’ I reply with a smile that doubtless does little to conceal my irritation.
Madame Thomas inspects the whole of the dress section, the accessories and the shelf of shoes. As usual she turns the shop upside down. I read in her eyes what her lips do not say: ‘You can sulk and curse silently all you like, my girl; I don’t care. I could buy the shop and you with it.’
But Madame Thomas is mistaken. She can’t buy everything. This fine edifice of Madame Herbruch’s conceals some major faults. Madame Thomas herself is worried. If I’ve understood correctly, her young gigolo by the name of James, fifteen years her junior, decided to drop her a week ago. The advice of Madame Herbruch no longer makes any difference. I assume that young James prefers to satisfy himself, alone and whenever the fancy takes him, beneath the eyes of God, rather than awake a dead soul. Fignolé always made clear his aversion for her starchy type, and for that other type, imbued with arrogance, the privileged of any age. Fignolé told me on one of his talkative days that something was there turning the world against us and all those like us. That life was an absurd lottery where those who won have everything and those who lost, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Madame Thomas, for the moment, is visibly savouring her gains.
‘You’re right, Fignolé, the world is divided between the dogs and those who hit them on their muzzles. Joyeuse does not want to hit anyone, Fignolé, but has sworn not to be on the side of the dogs.’
I grit my teeth, hold my tongue firmly and think of my pay at the end of the month. A salary that doesn’t bring in much. A salary without fanfare but that I can’t turn my nose up at. And I dream of the day when I, too, can go to a luxury shop and, forgetting everything, have the shelves emptied for me one by one by an ill-tempered assistant. Actually, I don’t dream. I hone my weapons. I sharpen my fangs. I have this force in me which knows how to confront the pain, reduce sorrow to silence. I care nothing for changing the world. I want to howl with the wolves.
NINETEEN
The skin of the wounded young man has taken on that greyish hue that is so familiar to me, and that foretells no good. The blood is not irrigating the arteries and the veins very well. And his moans are getting louder and louder. As he moans, a kind of foam comes fr
om his mouth. The auxiliary fails to notice and I wipe the corners of his mouth with a little square of cloth given to me by his mother. The moment when I lift his head and move the cloth towards his lips, he loses control and shouts right out. I call the duty doctor as a matter of urgency.
The injured boy’s mother is shaken by convulsions. It takes two assistant nurses to get her under control and lead her out for a moment. The moans of the youth then become louder than before. They no longer come from his throat, but are scraped out from deep in his belly, shorn of that last modesty to which he has been clinging. He cries without holding back at all. The sobs and moans of a young man of eighteen are more terrible than the Apocalypse. But the Apocalypse has already happened so many times on this ward, so many times in this city, on this island. And so many times the world has continued on its way, impassive.
The young patient finally collapses, taking on the glassy-eyed, lost expression of the dying. At the first question of the doctor, the young patient nevertheless shows him his left side. When the doctor bends gently over him to examine it, feeling with his fingers, the young man moans like a suffering beast. The doctor then takes an ampoule from the tray held by the auxiliary and gives him an injection, to stop the pain and the cries. During the preceding days, as the injection wore off he began to suffer and cried out again.This afternoon he is numb from suffering. Above all, he is afraid of dying. Between two groans, incomprehensible words emerge from his mouth, distorted by pain. His forehead is damp. Cold. Death will not be long. It is a question of minutes, of seconds.
It is hard to imagine the sun outside. Perhaps it is to reassure himself of its presence that the dying young man turns his head towards the only window of this ward from where you can see the sky. I look with him at this sky that he is without doubt seeing for the last time. It is desperately blue, pure as it often is in this season. The youth turns back to the other side of his bed. The side where his mother is. His eyelids gradually grow heavy and the gap between his moans increases until they die down, fading to a round of silence. I watch his sleep attentively, keeping a vigilant eye on him until his last breath. Until a death that comes without delay.
I use a cloth to bind the jaw of the young man who has just died, and place his hands together on his stomach. ‘Until when will I still be driven by this undiminished desire to rub shoulders with death without batting an eyelid? Until when?’ Every day I come up against it. Every day it brings me to sit on the edge of my own tomb. And every day I wake up in the same ignorance. However often I face the death of others, my own remains alien to me. I tell myself simply that a normal being could not leave the vicinity of their own tomb every day like I do, with all these scars and blemishes inside their own soul, and believe themselves unscathed. Impossible!
Passing close by the strong, silent man this afternoon, I would like him to reach out an arm and stop me. I would like him to squeeze my hand tightly, passing on all the warmth his words evade. I would like him to say something, anything. I would even be able to bear his words dying in his throat, if only his expression would tell me he finds me strong and feminine. And for the first time since that afternoon on the shore, I feel a great emptiness deep down inside.
‘What am I supposed to do with this body that suddenly feels so heavy, too heavy for me to bear alone?’ I repeat to myself over and over again.
I pass through the hospital barrier almost at a run, my head as full as a jug. I breathe in the air on the street; it has never seemed so soothing. I undo another button on my blouse the better to fill my lungs with it.
TWENTY
Once Madame Thomas has left, I call the mysterious phone number again. Still in vain. I wait for a sign, watch for an apparition. Perhaps I am thinking about Fignolé more than I should. The tears rise from my heart to my eyes. I grasp onto my grey stone. The more hours that pass, the further away I am from a happy ending. Images take me over. All the same – black and terrible.
It is precisely half-past three. Time stands still, the hours fixed at mid-afternoon. Mother’s words over the phone are hardly reassuring. On her return from Aunt Sylvanie’s she kept the front door of the house ajar. Mother caught Wiston by surprise, obviously on guard as he slowed his pace to peer through the half-open door, and saved him some unnecessary contortions, as she put it: ‘Wiston, there’s no need to get a stiff neck; I’m here and Fignolé hasn’t come home.’ He gave a start and hurried away.
Mother’s health has been getting worse for several weeks. Her knee troubles her mercilessly. Her dizzy spells happen more often and her ankles are swollen. She is worried about Fignolé but dares not say it. She attributes her complaints to the fact that Dambala, her master and her god, is not happy with her and feels neglected. Last year, because she had spent her money on Fignolé, Mother did not offer Dambala a ceremony worthy of his rank. And so she imagines he has remembered her, making her reel, her head heavier than a gourd full of water. When I told her I could do without gods who would take revenge on us poor creatures, she said, ‘Hold your peace, my daughter, be quiet.You don’t know what you’re saying.You may not see God, Joyeuse, but the loas, you feel them right there in your body. They speak to you, they make you dance, get you money. They lay their hands on you, silence your cares, give you love, wipe away your tears. And when you’re tired of waiting, you can make them face up to their responsibilities towards you and threaten them, saying things like: “Dambala, if I don’t get this money within a month…”.With them there is no cloud without a silver lining. No sin without forgiveness. No pain without healing. In this life of tribulation, of darkness and torment, the loas are your only morning dew, your only river of fresh water, your only window open to the sky.’
Unlike Angélique, Mother never expects anything of anyone. She responds to misfortune one step at a time, sometimes encircling it and embracing it. Angélique’s life is a fruit of which she has eaten the best part without even noticing, without even tasting the juice. Those who get close to her sense in her a lukewarm indulgence that never leads to a deep, lasting relationship. Somewhere inside her she is marked with that sign that singles out the losers and ends up isolating them irreparably from the rest of humanity. Angélique has died that slow death that is the province of reprobates. Angélique has waited without getting that which she has been waiting for. Like many women, Angélique hoped for everything and, when it never came, lost it at a single stroke. Waiting for what you cannot have and realising too late that you will never have it makes for a life led in a narrow grind of sadness, the life of the defeated. Mother is exhausted but not defeated: ‘Exhaustion bends your spine but defeat is ugly.’ From the day when I first understood that something made the world turn against me and all those like me, I chose to become precisely the opposite of defeated, the opposite of exhausted.
I was not afraid when I arrived at the Sisters’ up town. They would not admit to their school a little girl born out of wedlock, those whose intake was limited to the daughters of the middle classes, those from the good districts. A little bastard who had usurped the name of my Uncle Antoine, I broke my way into this world that was not mine. I was therefore already a substantial step ahead of the others. I already knew a whole world of things that they would never know. I knew want and deprivation. I knew absence, that of a father. And I had a foot in their universe. Of life, of death, I already had my personal view, fixed, one that had nothing to do with any catechism. The world I had grown up in until then was full of mistrust, treachery and danger. But I have not learned fear. I have not become cautious. The Sisters believed me gifted because I progressed through the levels year on year. I was not gifted, but curious, keen to understand how far those who had written the history of the world would go; those who, in their history, wanted me to be the worm they could crush beneath their heels. School did not give me the explanations I was expecting to all these questions; I found my responses to this mistrust, this treachery, this danger, by myself. To the extent that I don’t remember crying as I rea
d about the sufferings of Cosette. Nor did I feel any compassion for Cinderella, and later on, the watery misadventures of Manuel and Anaïs left me above all with a feeling of the greatest perplexity. As the years went by some girls saw my deficiencies as a kind of strangeness. They were wrong. They were wrong but I never told them. I never told them that all these deficiencies, all these deprivations, these dangers and these ruses had forged my capacity to survive, to live without love. Perhaps it was that love could have conquered me, and so I have always mistrusted love.
My boss arrives at two on the dot in her son Mike’s luxury car. Mike has two main qualities. He has inherited from his father a Nordic physique in a land of Negroes who don’t like themselves and a fortune in the midst of desolation that is too great to be fully counted. But Mike has already surpassed his father in cleverness. Since secondary school he has learned to cheat like his father, and since his misdeeds have now increased in scope and intensity, he has reached his late twenties with a small fortune that even his father can only dream about.
I am not well-placed to judge anyone, but the more the Herbruchs – father and son – steal, the more they accumulate and the more they whisper prayers into the ear of God, every Sunday and in full view of all. Monsieur Herbruch’s negotiating skills have led him to come to terms even with the anger of God. Like his father, Mike will be the kind of man with a narrow imagination whose intelligence is limited to matters of business and who will do a lot of wrong, the kind of wrongs that are denounced every day on the radio and in certain papers that still believe in the power of the written or spoken word. I don’t.
Colour of Dawn Page 8