The death of Fignolé is no longer something that is likely to happen. It has happened. This evening my wait, my anxiety, has ended. I am surprised to be almost relieved by this idea. Even with a great hole in my chest, I am relieved. Even though he is alone in his mystery and I am here in this thick fog with which his death had surrounded me. We will no longer stop him dying. We have not been able to find the words to persuade him to live.
Neighbours drawn out of their houses by our cries are arriving in a procession and gathering around the gallery and the back yard. We fill the night with a heartrending clamour. Willio and Jean-Baptiste, detained in the police station, will learn the news during the night or tomorrow morning. The house is full to bursting. Lolo holds Joyeuse in her arms and rocks her gently. Other neighbours continue to arrive with mournful, heavy steps, crossing the face of the night to celebrate death, eternal and forever encircling the city, as if this city were in a different time, an age from before the world began. As if this place were an idea born from Genesis.
Mother is rocking her upper body backwards and forwards after screaming as if her guts were being drawn out of her. She has begun a strange chant that emerges from the base of her throat, her lips sealed. Our neighbours, come to contribute their sobs and cries, follow her in this commotion of sounds and strangled cries.
I have to change my clothes. Boss Dieuseul and Maître Fortuné do not want me to go alone to reclaim my brother’s body from the authorities; they want to go with me. God alone knows what the beast is capable of! Joyeuse rakes through the bottoms of drawers to scrape up enough to buy a bottle of rum from Madame Jacques. Of course Madame Jacques refuses the money and offers the bottle, the giblets, the watercress and the plantains for the broth. Lolo wants to take charge of all the next day’s meals. Joyeuse has also thought of the tisane of ginger and cinnamon that the women will sip until dawn. Boss Dieuseul has set up the domino table by the entrance to the house himself. Once they have reached the necessary state of intoxication, the men will reminisce about Fignolé’s extravagances, his life in the face of death. In this sadness that eats us up inside. In the glow of the kerosene lamps which shed great shadows across our faces as if they have been half gnawed away by rats.
I move in a desert like Jesus and all my personal temptations merge into one: I want to cry out to God that I do not believe he exists. Instead of this I close my eyes and my mouth on my blasphemy. I hear myself saying in the voice of a stranger: ‘My God, let Your will be done!’
THIRTY
It is Fignolé’s eyes that I will remember. The eyes of childhood sunshine.Then the eyes of the night.Traced by shadows, deep as a cavern. Looking at him you could hardly hold yourself steady on the lip of that abyss.What did you burn in your joints, Fignolé? I sought in vain to find the sun to light up your eyes. To intoxicate your ghosts. To thwart all those disturbing snares that had been set for you. I want to move through the grass and the pebbles to raise your eyes. Fignolé, you are a will-o’-the-wisp who will always appear dancing in my dreams. Perhaps we have to be born twice to live a little, only for a little. The first time by tearing the flesh, the second time by wounding the heart. See me, alone, with this heart you have left me with. Nothing but love for you, my little dead brother.
You appeared out of the night, a stubborn child of an earth that knows how to close its eyes to its crimes, so as to shut out the tumultuous world that hurt your ears so. To no longer be aware of ancient resentments, yesterday’s distress, the bayahondes of fear. Were you singing your last reggae composition as you watched death advance?
I imagine you tearing along, your head full of dreams, insisting on a future, your head bent forward like a young bull. Did you ask to be beaten till they drew blood, beaten to a pulp? What images played out behind your eyelids? What corner of the moon lit you up for the last time? I wish so much that I had been able to sit by your prone body, holding you tight in my arms. Placing my hand on the wound to your heart. Stitching it back together with my fingers. Your thirst my thirst. Feeling against my neck your laboured breathing, your dying breaths. And crying against you, my only one.
Ti Louze is sitting on a step at the entrance to the house. A little heap of hardship lost on that step. Tears come to her eyes. She misses Fignolé and knows that she no longer has a single hope between these walls. Gabriel, sitting by her side, cries in silence. I am worried about Angélique. She is trembling so hard that I believe her bones are rattling together inside her body. Mother has proved to be stronger than I would have believed her to be. And the neighbours have all rushed over to us. And we are together, united like never before as we share our meals of mourning, our drinks to make us forget the pain. And we tighten our belts to keep the vengeance inside. Vengeance that bends our backs, rocks our bodies, makes our eyes gleam; unbearable.
Mother let out a cry like something torn from the throat of a wolf. Like a call to murder. And it was the other mistress, Erzulie Dantor, she of the red eyes from too much crying, eyes bulging with anger, who made her shout out, beat her chest and tear her clothes. Once Erzulie was appeased, Mother allowed herself to be restrained like a captive beast.We tied a scarf around her head and encircled her waist with a big cloth, so that her grief would bed down and run its course like a child carried inside her. At first light tomorrow, Angélique will inform Father André. Our Father André. I will go and visit Aunt Sylvanie, to make sure she will help Mother prepare the Boule Zin ceremony. Mother herself will fill the gourds of water at the foot of the poto-mitan. Ridden by the spirits, she and Mother will stagger with rolling eyes, turn on their heels, collapse, dislocated like marionettes or silent as silk. Dressed all in white, ason in her hand, Mother will invite the divinities and the dead to leave their watery domain for words of foam, seaweed and salt.
The spirits and the dead speak to the living through the voice of those they possess, and Fignolé will confide his secret in us. And as she burns his guitar, his favourite T-shirt and his notebook at the feet of the Invisibles of the water, Mother will murmur to him: ‘My son, you have given me everything, weariness, sweetness and desperation.’
Angélique, Mother and I have still not had time this evening to try and understand. To dig deeper. To stick the pieces of the story back together, the story of the end of our Fignolé. It will be between the three of us, alone, unwitnessed.
Fignolé, I miss you, I miss you like an amputated limb, like a stillborn child. Nothing can fill the space in which you moved, walked, sighed, spoke and cried out your pain to the world. Nothing can fill it. Nothing can replace your hand in my hair, your arm around my shoulders. Your voice that would tell me, ‘Little sister, how I love you.’
I have collapsed by Mother’s side but I have not closed my eyes on the night. The image of the revolver has risen up to haunt me from a deep, terrifying abyss. It is the only image that can drive out that of Fignolé. The only one. Sweat soaks my back as if I were affected by a raging fever. My nightshirt sticks to my skin. I doze for about ten minutes to give respite to my gritted teeth, my knotted throat, as if I had swallowed a fistful of shells. The skin of my legs is crawling. I rise from the bed, carefully so as not to wake Mother. But Mother is lying in the darkness, motionless, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. She seems like a statue beneath the sheets. I cover my shoulders with her old shawl and go out into the backyard.
My throat is tight with those fragments of shells that let nothing past. No sobs, no anger, no cries. An underlying strangeness, dry and cold. And deeper, in the hollow of my chest, my grey stone is becoming sharp, hard, brittle. In the night I had the feeling that it was hardening into a malicious presence. And this morning, for the first time, I taste hatred – a sublime feeling that warms my body like rum. I measure the depth of the evil and the infinite variety of its consequences: jubilation, euphoria and an indescribable sense of superiority that it gives when crowned with success.
The last act of my old life will be to send away Ti Louze without anyone knowing. I wil
l put her in the care of the Sisters’ orphanage, or somewhere else – far away from here, in any case. I owe it to Fignolé. The first act of my new life will be to leave Luckson after having waited for him so eagerly. I will do it without remorse. In the end, remorse is a misplaced vanity. Lolo is right.
I think of the other one. The traitor. The tight-fitting dress I will wear on that day. My high heels. The carmine red with which I will outline my lips, and the thing I will hide in my bag. I think of that traitor lying on my belly and breathing for the last time. I can already hear the shot. I can feel the lukewarm blood on my hands. I can see his eyes, disproportionately big, staring amazed at death.
I would have liked to be able to keep hold of all the first hours of my life. But it is too late. It has all already happened. Everything has already tipped towards death.
I hear Angélique waking. The night is cracking on all sides. Dawn is already here.
By way of an epilogue
In the shadow cast by the moon on the carcases of cars and the cracked walls of the houses, Fignolé runs, gasping for breath. His left eyelid is so swollen that it hides his eye and makes him unrecognisable. He cannot stop panting and his T-shirt is soaked in sweat. Blood running from a cut on his forehead, just above his good eye, blurs his vision. It is impossible for him to see where he is putting his feet. So from time to time he stumbles, picks himself up and continues, running harder. Two incisors in his upper jaw are loose and he can’t stop himself from running the tip of his tongue again and again over the gaps in the gum. He remembers the blow dealt by his enemy. He thought for a moment that he would pass out.The confrontation had been vicious. His attacker, surprised, isolated, had not expected such determination from the young runaway. He provoked his attacker, taking him by surprise from behind. In the fight that followed he ended up grabbing his attacker’s gun and shooting him down. Fignolé is not alone in this headlong flight. Ismona and Vanel are with him and have hidden behind an abandoned garage wall at the end of a tangle of muddy passageways in this neighbourhood at the end of the world.
Fignolé runs beneath the moon, broken in two, his hands holding his right side. Women, men, old folk and children, crowded behind windows and rickety doors, watch with bated breath. They have put out all lights and candles so as not to attract attention, to ensure that, later on, looking dry-eyed into the distance, they can reply to the men in uniform and their accomplices with submachine guns that they saw nothing, heard nothing. As for Fignolé, he keeps running, expecting nothing, nothing more… He reels, picks himself up and falls again, involuntary moans escaping from his chest. Winded, he wants to be able to stop so he can breathe properly. Gather his wits. But he thinks his ribs are fractured, so breathing deeply would cause him greater suffering. And the rest of his attackers are on his heels in their untiring pursuit. Holding his agonised ribs, he runs, endures, and keeps running…
The moon disappears behind opaque clouds. Dogs howl in the sudden darkness. Nothing is heard between the howls but the footsteps of the young runaway hurtling on his way, piercing the silence of the night. Lying low in their hovels, the people listen to the voice of death. A dreadful foreboding twists and turns the guts of the women, who wrap their arms around their bellies to stop themselves crying. Dreams have deserted the stupefied eyes of the children. The men rub their chins over and over, deep in thought, or clear their throats to put a bold face on things.
And when the moon reappears to bathe carcases, hovels and trash once again in its light, a passage between the shabby houses disgorges two men. They move towards him, the first in a police uniform and the second in a beige shirt and jeans. As they hear from their hiding place the voice of the second shouting out an order to the man in uniform, Vanel and Ismona are doubtful at first, but there is no denying the evidence of their ears: it really is Jean-Baptiste. Ismona sticks her head out just at the moment when Jean-Baptiste steps back to indicate the direction in which Fignolé has run. Vanel reacts quickly. Pulling Ismona closer to him, he places his right hand firmly on her lips and grips her neck with his left hand to stop her from breaking into sobs and betraying their presence. Ismona trembles as if ridden by one of our wild spirits. You know, one of those spirits who help people survive the cruelty of men.
From a distance Fignolé calls out the name of Jean-Baptiste, insulting him. The man in uniform beside Jean-Baptiste extends his arm, takes aim and squeezes the trigger. The bullet hits the young runaway in his left thigh. Screaming with pain, he still has the strength to drag his leg for a few metres. Standing now in the white light of the moon, the man shoots a second time. This time Fignolé, breathless, is hit full in the face. The explosion propels him beyond pain. His head seems to be thrust into the ether. He staggers backwards from the violence of the impact. His legs are raised from the ground and he collapses on his back, his eyes and skin torn away.
Stretched out on the ground, his face is nothing more than a pulp of blood mixed with a whitish substance oozing from his skull. The blood forms a viscous puddle around his left ear. Only the heavy dreadlocks and the curve of his beard indicate the place where his face used to be. A corpse set down between grass and stone, Fignolé is a giant dead bird.
Time has stopped, the length and breadth of this distanced earth, wild in its night. Way beyond the crazily shaking treetops. Beyond the phantasmagorical flight of the clouds. As far as the furthest boundaries of all the lands that Fignolé will never see. Never.
From their new hiding-place, in a narrow passage between two houses, they can no longer see their friend. The echo of the explosion rebounded from the rock into Vanel and Ismona’s heads. Ismona bites into Vanel’s hand and hangs onto him to stop herself falling. Wracked with sobs, Vanel rocks her gently in his arms. An excess of fear causes Vanel’s bowels and bladder to release in a single action and he feels himself soiling his trousers. The shame of it! Petrified, distraught, he and Ismona can do nothing for now but listen to the shockwave that echoes, echoes endlessly, blending with the howling of the dogs in the night. The certainty of the death of their friend resonates in their chests and they feel inside the full force of the violence and their turn so close at hand, so close…
The white, milky light of the moon continues, impassive, to enshroud the world.
Glossary
Agoué: A water god in the vodou religion. A kind of Haitian Neptune who rules over the sea, its fauna and flora, and the boats which sail on it.Those who live from the sea’s resources are also subject to him.
Ason: A small gourd filled with small bones, decorated with the colours of the loas and used by the officiant in vodou ceremonies.
Bayahondes: Thickets.
Blancs: The generic Creole term for any foreigner, regardless of the colour of their skin. Since the recent United Nations interventions, the African soldiers and experts have also been called blancs.
Boko: A term derived from the Fon word bokomo, which means a vodou priest but which, unlike the houngan, has a negative connotation.
Borlette: From the Spanish borleta. A very popular lottery.
Boule Zin: A ceremony during which a deceased person’s spiritual powers are passed on.
Cachiman: A fruit with pips and white flesh.
Chadèque: Grapefruit.
Compas: Traditional urban music from Haiti played in four-four time.
Dambala: A serpent god who is often represented on murals with his spouse Aida Wèdo.
Démunis: The name of a political party. The name literally means The Destitutes.
Erzulie Dantor: An aspect of Erzulie who symbolises endurance and strength, unlike Fréda, who is coquettish.
Erzulie Fréda: A divinity of love, beautiful, coquettish, sensual and extravagant. She is often compared to Aphrodite.
Galipote: A sorcerer, wolf man.
Gayé pay: A fashionable popular dance performed during the carnival.
Gourde: Haitian currency.
Grimelle: A black woman with very light skin and frizzy hair.
Laloz: A fashionable popular dance performed during the carnival.
Lambi: A marine conch, the flesh of which is valued for its flavour and its alleged aphrodisiac qualities. It is also used as a horn in the peasant community. During the war of independence it was used to call together the insurgents.
Loa: A divinity in the vodou religion, a collection of beliefs and rites of African origin which, closely amalgamated with Catholic practices, form the religion practised by the majority of the rural peasants and urban proletariat in Haiti.
Madame Sarah: The name of a very noisy bird which was initially applied to peasant women who came to sell their wares in town and which is now extended to those who trade between Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean.
Mapou: A sacred tree, home of spirits, with a wide trunk and deep roots, with a similar function to that of the baobab in Africa.
Merengue: Traditional urban music inspired by Caribbean and Latin American rhythms.
Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours: The virgin patron saint of Haiti.
Ogou: A vodou divinity representing fire and combat, a warrior god who is also the blacksmith god in Benin.
Poto-mitan: The central pillar of the vodou peristyle.
Ridden: To be possessed by a vodou spirit, a loa.
Rigoise: A whip made of ox nerves.
Tap-tap: A mode of public transport.
Trese ruban: A dance, inspired by Indian traditions, involving a number of people who hold long ribbons of different colours attached to a central wooden pole and dance around the pole weaving the ribbons as they go.
The quotation on page 102 translates as “The time to talk in signs”, a line by the Haitian poet Anthony Phelps.
Colour of Dawn Page 12