Colour of Dawn

by Yanick Lahens

  Madame Herbruch’s parents experienced a change in fortunes.When a lack of money began to spread its smell of rottenness through the house they married my boss to Frantz Herbruch, that ungainly, conceited, soulless man. However, a few weeks later, Madame Herbruch, née Bérénice Pétillon, ended up finding him as handsome as Croesus. All the better for the fact that Frantz Herbruch turned out to be an undemanding lover who soon ceased to seek either a child or his own pleasure between her thighs.To remind each other of their own existence, from time to time they attack one another with bombshells of truths hatched from the lies of banal married life. Blood does not flow, but the effect is more or less the same.

  Madame Herbruch has never found out that one afternoon of heavy rain, Monsieur Herbruch wanted to accompany me to the tap-tap station. Despite the rain I could hear his thoughts like the ticking of a clock and was hardly taken by surprise when, stopping the car, he placed one hand on my left breast and the other up my skirt. No doubt he was hoping to take me back to have a bit of fun in some bachelor pad and add me to his list of victims. I had known the appetites of men for a long time. Another before him, a respectable gentleman and a friend of Uncle Antoine, had already played the car trick on me. Staring directly into the eyes of Monsieur Herbruch, I reached down and impassively removed each of his hands before opening the car door and disappearing into the downpour. Ever since he has avoided my eye, but dare not have me sacked. Rest assured, Monsieur Herbruch, Joyeuse Méracin has other fish to fry.

  I do not want to tell Madame Herbruch of my worries about Fignolé. I simply complete the day’s accounts and ask her permission to leave early. In any case she knows I’m not there for ever, that I’ll be leaving her before long as I turn my fate around. She knows. We’re quits.

  The first thing she does is to pick up the phone and fill her friends’ ears with gossip picked up the previous day. And your daughter? My son-in-law? My jewels? My pennies? A cackling of society hens with lukewarm excesses. Women hardened by money and characterless destinies. Frustration, vanity and pretension succeed one another in a bland, horrified, hopeless saraband. There is something depressing about these overfull but lacking lives.

  After a long list of kidnappings, deaths and money stolen from the state coffers, a well-known journalist announces on the radio in a trembling voice that this island is home to an empire of evil. Unable to control herself, Madame Herbruch calls up two of her friends to comment on this news and consider departing for Miami. All her customers, all her friends want to flee to Miami. It has always been a good time to flee from this country, but who could really do it? I imagine Miami as a new Garden of Eden, the refuge for all those who have escaped an earthquake, leaving behind them the dead and the wounded.

  When she wants me to rally to her cause I give her my wholehearted agreement. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically – she understands from my expression that I do not share her enthusiasm. That I am one of the dead and the wounded she would not hesitate to abandon. She understands that I am lying to her. My expressions have always betrayed me. From the start I have always reacted instinctively to things and to people. As I grew I did it as a matter of defiance. And then, deep inside, I came to know that the elation and pleasure of the conquerors will end up suffering a great fall as a result of always wanting more. That by always wanting more they have now reached a point of despair that they don’t even realise themselves, a point of deep-down certainty that the kindness and gentleness of the defeated could at any moment turn and drive them, the conquerors, into a place of fear. The conquerors know this, and so do the defeated. And because of it we, both defeated and conquerors, are today equal in our despair.

  I don’t know what conclusion my boss draws as she looks at me, but she does not say a word. From the depths of her gilded cavern she seems to be calling for help. Her face is twisted into a grimace that she has invented on the spot, intended for me alone. Recovering possession of herself, Madame Herbruch applies her fuchsia-coloured lipstick, powders her face and leaves, hardly bothering to say goodbye to me. I savour the temporary pleasure of this brief victory. For the moment it’s all I have. And I’m happy with it.

  TWENTY-ONE

  In the tap-tap we are pressed together thigh against thigh, flank against flank, forced despite ourselves into a malodorous, grudging embrace. People are talking nineteen to the dozen and this wild jaunt is soon transformed into a theatrical performance. They all have something to say about their prowess, their exploits, their cunning and that male or female wisdom that allows them to see further than ordinary mortals. How could anyone see that far and not have made their escape from this galley? I ask you. But none of us, myself included, has the courage to ask these comedians to be quiet, to call to mind the only subject that would make us come out with our truths like a decayed tooth pulled once and for all. Because another conversation, a silent one, is weaving its way among us – in the shadow of our guts, the redness of our blood, the obscurity of our bones.

  We know full well what is being hatched by our flesh torn by suffering, our black-nailed hands, our gashed heels, our threadbare clothes, our gap-toothed gums, the sweat that sticks to our skin.We know. And so we continue the conversation elsewhere, in the intimacy of kerosene lamps whose glow makes our faces seem as if devoured by rats. When our shadows dance against the rough walls of our houses we will raise the subject of the secret evil that has been advancing over two centuries. Later, later, once we are within our own walls.

  The time for stifled voices is back. Le temps de se parler par signes. The time of unbearable absences. Here we are, all three of us, caught between fear and anger. Hope and despair. We do not yet know that our first hardships are still within an inch of our happiness. We do not yet know that the waiting could kill with stealth.

  When a man with a thick bull’s neck and a T-shirt with the image of the leader of the Démunis gets into the taptap and sits down, the lively conversation seems to be inflamed. The more it becomes inflamed, the more it loses all savour, while the other, the silent one, comes to life, flares up in our chests. We want to jump onto the neck of this man, to shout out our exhaustion and to tear off his T-shirt. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. But we are weak. Some more weak than others. We are indignant, we stifle our shouts. But we are weak.

  The events of the previous day, those of the morning, have shaken up our hearts a little more. Fearing as we pass the young, cruel faces of these children who already have death at their fingertips, we hurry on despite ourselves. Death has already filled their eyes so many times that they destroy to assure themselves of their own existence. Destroy or themselves be destroyed. Frighten or be frightened. Fear has become the most subtle vigilance, an implacable sovereign. The radios do not tell of it all. It is impossible for them to tell of everything. Death travels more quickly than the news, bulletins and the latest reports.

  Who will ever know that a sixteen-year-old, graced with one of those nicknames from Hell, A-bullet-to-thehead, one day begged Aunt Sylvanie for help? Who will ever know? His emotion was such that his lips were trembling and words were pouring from his mouth as if he wanted to clear them out, like a poison that was scorching his tongue and his insides. When Aunt Sylvanie asked him what he wanted from her, he replied that he wanted to be able to sleep in peace. He could no longer shut his eyes at night, since he had severed with a machete the hands and legs of a youth in his neighbourhood who was trying to run away, before pushing him, alive, into the flames of his burning house. Since he had planted his member inside Marie-Laure, the daughter of the head of the only school there. Marie-Laure started out fighting like a young bird caught in a trap. She cried out, her head knocking against a wall at every thrust of the hips, then finally passed out when the third of the gang members, sated, gave a final grunt and left her for dead. Throughout this account, A-bullet-to-the-head was talking jerkily, gasping for breath. His chest was moving up and down as if he were winded, and he begged Aunt Sylvanie to surround him with the pro
tection of the Invisibles because from that moment he was afraid – despite the interventions of a healer, a boko who had demanded a frizzle chicken, three grey tortoises and a black candle. Despite the blessed image he carried in his right trouser pocket, the one in his left and the one in his shirt pocket one to ensure that he does not miss his victims, another to make sure he gets paid on his return and the third to keep him from ever getting caught. At first he had been well stoked up, by the dope, the journalists of the Prophet President’s radio and the authorities who were bigger than him.

  ‘In the end the dope possesses you. Your guardian angel abandons you, leaving you alone on the vast plain of life, driven away.’ He paused for a moment, heaving a great sigh before continuing, gazing into the distance, his hands calmly resting on his thighs. ‘You can’t resist the oppressive voices of the radios, nor the furious voices of the authorities. It’s impossible to resist lectures like that!!!’

  Her lips pressed together tightly, face impassive beneath her scarf, Aunt Sylvanie did not try to interrupt him once.

  ‘At first you’re more afraid of blood than of those they send you to kill,’ he said. ‘Then you’re even more afraid of the anger of the authorities than of the blood and then after that you’re no longer afraid of anything at all… Until the day when death catches up with a few like me and takes away our sleep.’

  Cars overtake us at speed, some of them with sirens blaring, guns poking from their windows. We all, the driver included, take up positions that ensure we do not meet the eyes of the passengers in these vehicles that paint a new face on an old disaster with which we are all too familiar. One day, someone in this city must have given a signal for disorder and ever since then there has been no respite. No safety catch. The order of time, of space has not returned since. And today this city continues its inexorable progress into horror.

  Our tap-tap is stopped by four youths in rags who are soon joined by quite a horde swarming around the vehicle. Without a moment’s hesitation they attach themselves to the bonnet and the doors, dancing and yelling out their excitement. Their faces covered with bruises, their feet and calves with cuts. They twist, remove and smash everything in their reach, man-made objects, public or private property, bodies and souls. And this afternoon they are armed to the teeth.

  Two of them take aim at us, each with a gun he can hardly hold in his hands. They are barely twelve, thirteen, fourteen years of age.Young adults who have only just arrived on the scene are carrying automatic weapons and cartridge belts on their thin shoulders. They have scarves wound around their heads and wear shades, no doubt stolen, that swallow up their faces, with secondhand jackets and T-shirts that are too big for their frail bodies: Nike, Puma, Adidas. The man with the bull’s neck wearing the T-shirt with the image of the leader of the Démunis exchanges a sign of recognition with them. They twist their hands and wrists and give out a resounding ‘Yo’, a kind of war cry of complicity. My vision becomes blurred. My ears are ringing. I am overcome by dizziness.The youths have surrounded the taptap and are threatening us with their guns while the younger kids calmly strip us of everything that comes to their hands. I hold out my purse and my earrings. I would have held out anything. And then things happen quickly, very quickly.

  The driver takes off at speed, happy to be alive. As we are. The silence that follows is filled with shame and anger. Other tap-taps surge into the alleyways in an icy panic. All that can be heard is the sound of engines. The exhaust gas burns our eyes. I crouch down into my seat until I can no longer be seen from the street. Next to me on my right there is an elderly man whose lips are still trembling, mumbling out disjointed words in a low voice, while to my left are two building workers, who will no doubt have handed over their tools and their day’s pay, and behind me a young university student who has clearly not yet read the book that will give him the key to what he has just experienced, an explanation to show him the way. I can’t help thinking of a song I heard the other day:

  I have no work, I don’t need it.

  I was born to steal your money.

  I was born to kill you.

  Nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing. No-one will believe any more in the miracles of the rains or the blossoming of the trees. No-one.We are heading towards the night, in the silence of stone, the muteness of tombs.

  Eyes half-closed, I want to be silent to swallow my shame. Any further and we would all have soiled our underwear. Myself included. And we would have sat in our filth without flinching. We have lost all self-respect. But you can get used to anything, even losing your selfrespect.

  I am becoming a woman who doubts. This evening, I will kneel on the ground at the foot of my bed and I will humbly ask God to forgive my lack of faith in the work of the men of this place, as His ways are so mysterious. Eyes closed, head nodding, I silently murmur a hymn and cannot stop myself from asking God to help me, humble creature that I am, never to doubt.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Whatever catastrophes the radios foretell, I do my best to distance myself from their predictions, to deny their effect on my life. Once Madame Herbruch has left I choose a station that plays nothing but music to forget by, and lose myself in a zouk to ward off all these prophecies. And I think long and hard about my next chance to go dancing with Lolo. The next chance to find myself face to face with Luckson like on that first evening when, without telling me he desired me, without him knowing how much I wanted him, we finally tasted each other’s lips, savoured one another’s skin.

  It was at the Groove Night Club, a crowded disco between a smelly ravine and a makeshift school. Lolo had persuaded me without much difficulty to go with her that evening. Fignolé’s band, who were starting to make a name for themselves, were playing there for the first time. A few young people were jostling one another by the entrance. I remember how happy I was to see my younger brother’s budding success. And for a few months now there had been Ismona, dawn and dusk, rain and shine. I rushed to his side to congratulate and encourage him. And although he hugged me with incredible tenderness, I felt he was as absent as ever. Fignolé was visibly elsewhere. He had crossed the borders of the world beyond which ghosts come to find us. He had left us to float on his cloud. But that night the cloud was on fire. Fignolé’s eyes were glowing like a city in flames, and Fignolé was not a man to recoil from a fire he had lit himself. No way! There’s nothing for it, Fignolé’s hooked, I told myself. And to be hooked is to be a touch below the condition of being mortal. It is to be chased from Paradise a second time.Yet Fignolé has created a quarantine, I don’t know by what miracle, and succeeded in preserving a clear spirit, one of sanity amidst the confusion, the abandonment, the great tropical disorder. I feel it at the same time as I am gripped by the certainty that life will crush him. Soon. Very soon. Because life kills pure hearts first of all. This certainty made itself felt so strongly that I was submerged in that strange anxiety that sometimes catches drunkards unawares and settles right in the middle of their happiness.

  I had never seen Fignolé with such an expression, never. And I was scared. I went hot, cold, then hot again. There was no longer a drop of blood in my veins, nothing but hot, liquid fear. This fear could have devoured me from the inside if I had not suddenly shaken it off and sent it away. I devoured it first. I inoculated myself with all the arrogance of my youth. One by one, I treated the bites of anxiety. I slowly filed down the sharp claws of fear. I slowly breathed in an incredible force to hold me steady. To hold me on my feet, on my high heels. And I danced through the night, danced to exhaustion.

  Lolo had arranged with Paulo to get us one of the tables right next to the band. We had hardly sat down there where the first males came round on their inevitable prowl. With the intention, who knows, of stealing from Lolo and me a bit of our flesh in a night that looked set to be long and turbulent.That’s how men are. And Jean-Baptiste was one of those who is not content simply to prowl. He followed my every step. He was hunting me down. Whatever I did I was observed, spied
on, tracked. Lolo immediately suggested I had a drink.

  ‘I’m just not getting you tonight. You need a drink, otherwise you’ll never be on the same plane as us.’

  The drink fizzed in my throat and made me cough slightly, reawakening the fleeting shadow I’d felt. Then cheerfulness took hold little by little. I could once again raise my eyes and face all those stares. Especially that of Luckson. Luckson, who was carried along by the night. Standing in silence, exuding strength. I was enraptured by his presence. I sensed eyes on me, calling me. Eyes for which I was prepared to be damned on the spot.

  The band played as the curtain was raised. We danced to the sounds of Fignolé’s compositions and covers of Bob Marley, Shaba, Alpha Blondy. Fignolé played like never before, as if he were playing for the final time in his life. As if it were his last will and testament. And I was once again gripped by the beauty and gentleness of his latest composition. Music and lyrics in which the spirit can roam, elated and wondering. A gathering-place for all the ancient forces, all the age-old powers. Fignolé wanted them to come and take him over, move through him, submerge him and drag us all in his wake. I felt the little grey stone inside me slowly melt into indulgence and elation. We danced in an extraordinary joy and excitement. The music moved me, carried me away, made me reel, while the boys tried to grab me by the waist each time I got close, closer. We were a little crowd come together there who, for the space of an evening, refused to think of the hardships of the moment, and closed the doors on the shadows outside.

  After the band’s set a DJ excelled himself and literally set the room on fire with the music of Janesta.