by Maryse Conde
That particular year, the month of September was midwife to a number of hurricanes. Thank goodness, they spared Guadeloupe and spread their desolation elsewhere. One of them, however, wreaked havoc on Montserrat. Sometimes heaven is unrelenting: a few months earlier the tiny island had been two-thirds destroyed by the eruption of its volcano, Chances Peak. The population, terrified by this second blow fate had dealt them and thinking themselves cursed, took to the sea in makeshift boats. Those who did not sink to the bottom of the ocean were washed up along the windward shore of Guadeloupe. The distress of these poor wretches was such that the governor, Thomas de Brabant, ordered the military to erect tents along the seafront and urged every Guadeloupean who could to help these brothers in their misfortune. Regretfully, however, although the seafront became a popular stroll for the bourgeois, who noised their sorrow in front of the tents, gifts in kind like cash were rare—so rare that Celanire decided on her own initiative to organize a collection and sail to Montserrat with the booty: barrels of fresh water, sacks of rice and French flour, and cases of saltfish and smoked herring. At that time it was quite an expedition getting to an English island. So Thomas chartered an old schooner called (don’t laugh) the Intrépide for his wife, Amarante, and the domestics accompanying them. For three days the Intrépide, with timbers cracking, pitched and heaved and rolled with the swell of the waves. With the exception of Celanire, standing bolt upright in the prow, breathing in the air, all the other passengers were as sick as dogs. Finally, one morning, the island loomed up over the horizon, and presented a harrowing sight. The flames from the volcano had first of all scorched the earth, then the pouring rain had loosened the crater, burying hundreds of individuals. For days the moans of the dying had cast a pall over the island. Human arms and legs, corpses of rotting animals, patches of tin roofs, and uprooted trees emerged from tar-colored ponds and craters of mud. Packs of mangy dogs, herds of hogs, and worse still an army of rats driven frantic by the flood following the hurricane, roamed all over the place. In Plymouth, the capital, every shack had been blown away, and only the ruins of Fort Barrington remained.
About a hundred ragged victims of the disaster, all that remained of a population of over a thousand, were assembled on the shore and hurled themselves onto the victuals. It required the firm hand of Celanire to restore law and order. Then the newcomers settled into the few remaining houses in the village of Sotheby. Celanire was welcomed by a certain Melody, whose roof had miraculously survived these natural calamities. Melody greeted her enthusiastically like a beloved long-lost friend and served up a callaloo soup thick with spinach and ham bones. Amarante, exhausted by the journey, withdrew to the bedroom, got into bed, and fell fast asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
When she awoke, she was still alone in bed. The moon was smiling through the louvered shutters as if to say she had nothing to do with the evil forces of the elements. Gilded clouds gamboled around her. The cool night air was fragrant with the scent of gardenia. Where could Celanire be? Amarante got up and took a few steps in the dark. The hovel was divided in two by a printed calico curtain. In what served as a dining room, around the glow of a hurricane lamp, Celanire was still conversing with Melody. Amarante had been too tired to take a good look at Melody on arrival and was only now getting her first glimpse. As black as the bottom of a calabash blackened from the cooking fire. Cross-eyed. A mole embossed on her cheek as big as a birthmark. Teeth as pointed as a warthog’s. She was gazing at Celanire in adoration, clutching her hands, and smiling at her in raptures with those formidable teeth. As for Celanire, she never stopped talking, as usual. Finally the two women stood up. Melody grabbed the lamp, and preceding Celanire, stepped out into the night.
Amarante went back to bed, unable to fall asleep. Where were Celanire and Melody going at this hour of the night? From where did they know each other? The darkness and strangeness of the place made her feel even more frightened. She recalled what the Wayanas used to whisper. Celanire was the child of evil spirits and spread misfortune to those around her. She was worse than a soukouyan, an old hag in league with the devil who preys on victims until the light of day and gorges herself on fresh blood. The hours passed. Gradually insects and buffalo frogs grew silent. The sky turned white. The roosters began to crow. The dogs began to bark. The commotion of the day, so different from that of the night, started up again. Despite the warm air, Amarante shivered under her sheets. Finally, around six in the morning, the door creaked open, and Celanire came and slipped into bed. As soon as she felt her beloved up against her, all her imaginings seemed unworthy of a person endowed with common sense. Celanire had an answer for everything. Melody? She had been her nursemaid when she was a child, and you couldn’t wish for anyone more affectionate and warmhearted, despite her looks. She hadn’t seen her since she was ten, although she knew she lived on Montserrat. What a joy to embrace her at last! They had gone out intending to conceal the victuals from thieving hands. What a mortifying sight had met their eyes! There were signs of a cholera outbreak. Some of the storm survivors had taken refuge in trees, others in the mangrove. The latter had survived by drinking brackish water and swallowing oysters buried deep beneath the roots of the mangrove trees. The adults had made it through, but they had had to bury the children, and the mothers’ despair was unbearable. There were miracles, though. They had discovered a ten-month-old baby playing quite contentedly in a puddle. He had no doubt been dragged for miles by the mud from the volcano. Nobody knew where his parents were, and for him, the tragedy had turned into a game. Ah, sometimes the Good Lord doesn’t know what He’s doing. How were they going to treat the diarrhea, the cholera, and malaria?
On waking Melody had prepared a breakfast that contrasted shamefully with the surrounding misery: soft-boiled eggs, creamy vanilla chocolate, fruit, and toasted dannikits. Celanire’s appetite always seemed phenomenal to Amarante. That particular morning, she excelled herself and devoured enough to feed an entire family. The looks Melody gave Amarante as she fussed around Celanire made her feel so uncomfortable, she choked. Finally Celanire began organizing the rescue operation. For almost a week they had to climb up and down dizzying cliff faces under a scorching sun, cross arid savannas, and stumble along the edge of gaping precipices. Everywhere lay rotting corpses in various states of decomposition for which they had to dig graves.
The day of departure arrived, and the Intrépide returned the way it had come. They passed boats of fishermen casting their nets, oblivious to the perils of the ocean. The old schooner increased its speed over the quietened waters, and at the end of the second day the shacks of Guadeloupe came into sight, some of them clinging to the green blanket of the volcano like children clutching their mother’s apron strings. As they neared the wharf, they saw a crowd had gathered: Thomas de Brabant, the governor, the mayor of Basse-Terre with his tricolor sash, His Grace, Bishop Chabot of Guadeloupe, in his purple robe, a group of schoolchildren dressed in white, including Ludivine, supervisors done up to the nines, and the members of the Lucioles association in their silks and jewelry. They couldn’t help but notice the flowing mane of curls of Elissa de Kerdoré. Everyone applauded when Celanire set foot on dry land as fresh in her blue polka-dot dress and matching kerchief around her neck as if she had just come back from a picnic. There were speeches and more speeches. A little girl presented Celanire with a bouquet of canna lilies, roses, and anthuriums. Then Thomas pinned to his wife’s breast the medal of the Ordre National du Mérite Social. While he hugged her to him, applause broke out once again.
For Ludivine, all this seemed nothing more than a masquerade. She did not know why her stepmother had risked her life going to sea. But she had no doubt whatsoever that Celanire couldn’t care less about the trials and tribulations of the population on Montserrat. Going from the expression on her face, the gleam in her eyes, and the trembling on her lips, she guessed that Celanire was getting enormous fun out of all these ceremonies in her honor. Ludivine knew her father was blind regardi
ng anything to do with his wife. Were the rest as blind? Every single one of them? What was the point of having eyes if they couldn’t see? Ludivine was convinced Celanire was responsible for her mother’s death, but she did not believe in African superstitions. She had her own logical explanation. Not content with being Thomas’s mistress, Celanire dreamed of marrying him. So she had bribed the houseboys to mix into Charlotte’s favorite drinks, from her morning fruit juice to her evening cup of chocolate, those herbs that slowly but surely secrete a mind-debilitating substance. And one day the poor woman, completely off her head, left her home far, far behind, lost in a flesh-eating forest like Tom Thumb without a pebble or a bread crumb to find her way home. Ludivine almost burst into tears in front of everybody, just thinking of her poor maman. The older she got, the more her love for her mother and the desire to avenge her grew. But she was crushed by a feeling of helplessness. She swallowed back her tears as best she could. The ceremony was over, and turning their backs to the sea, the pupils set off back to town.
Stupid Amarante standing there, gazing at Celanire in adoration! When Celanire had finished with her, there would be nothing left for her to do but sink into a watery shroud like the widow Desrussie.
3
The heat of the day was over. It was still barely daylight. Clouds of fireflies already streaked through the air. You sensed that night was in a hurry to stuff into its bag of mourning the green of the cane fields, the deep blue of the sea, and the gray of the sky. The crater of the volcano had already disappeared in the dark, and its slopes were cloaked in mist.
Agénor de Fouques-Timbert hated the place he was going to—the Bois-Debout Great House at La Regrettée, abandoned for over thirty years. Unfortunately it was always there that Mavundo, his trusted mischief maker from Santo Domingo, arranged to meet him. He whipped Colibri, who restlessly snorted the air. The horse lumbered down the slope of the Morne du Calvaire, quickened its pace across a series of savannas, and stopped abruptly as soon as they came in sight of the Great House. An alley of royal palms, a hollow facade like a trompel’oeil, and the remains of the washhouse walls—that was all that was left of one of the most magnificent mansions in the region. After having carried away the furniture, the rugs, and the family portraits, thieves had gone to work on the bricks and roof tiles, leaving not one stone standing. On the other hand, they hadn’t touched the slave shacks, and their dingy quarters stood intact at the foot of the Great House buildings like a mangy herd. Their doors gaped open onto mounds of beaten earth once used as beds or tables, as well as the wretched shelves still fixed to the wall. Once separated, the two graveyards now merged into each other: the masters’, with its arrogant marble tombs and wreaths and crosses of pearl, the slaves’, where under the nettles and sensitive plants, the only signs of a tomb were the white bones of conch shells. The two chapels had also fallen into ruin, overrun by the creeping leaf of life. Agénor was suffocating in the stifling atmosphere. Even after so many years the place still recalled the groans and lamentations of those long buried, the tears they had shed, and their unanswered pleas and prayers. The smell of this suffering humanity seemed to cling to the branches of the trees.
Colibri had come to a standstill, frightened by all these ghosts looming around him, and only when Agénor whipped him on did the horse reluctantly amble off again.
Mavundo was waiting for him in the old slave chapel. He was a puny, reptilian, red-skinned individual who outwardly appeared perfectly ordinary but inwardly concealed an immense cunning. He commanded a multitude of dwarves hidden in the wind and scattered to the four corners of the globe. Thanks to them, he could see and hear everything. He had studied with the great Rwaha of Ethiopia and lived seven years under his wing in Addis Ababa. Agénor understood from the expression on his face that he was about to announce something terrible. He was right. Mavundo had just learned from one of his dwarves that Madeska had died on Montserrat, where he had been living as a recluse outside Plymouth. His death could be attributed neither to the volcanic eruption nor to the hurricane. The dwarf had found his body, his belly slit open with his guts oozing out, in the very middle of the mangrove swamp. The racoons had made such a good job of mauling his face and neck that his new wife, a young girl from Montserrat, had trouble identifying him. At the end of the day, therefore, the spirits had finally caught up with him. After all these seemingly peaceful years, they were now embarked on the road to war.
In fact Agénor had been expecting this news for the past twenty-five years and accepted it with resignation, almost with relief. When he had decided to go into politics some years earlier, his father-in-law, who had always considered him a despicable fortune hunter, had shrugged his shoulders in disbelief. He wasn’t the only one. The whole of Basse-Terre scoffed at the idea. Too many people saw him as a poor-white country bookie, barely capable of growing sugarcane. So he swore to himself he would surprise them. He got the idea of asking Madeska for a human sacrifice as the best way to win the support of the invisible spirits. The mischief maker’s family had been close to his from time immemorial despite the difference in color. Madeska couldn’t possibly turn him down. As a wise precaution, they had come to an agreement. He was never to meet the belly donor, a certain Pisket. Madeska, who was on intimate terms with her best friend, a certain Madone, took the matter in hand. The deal between the mischief maker and the bòbò had cost him a fortune. What’s more, in order to carry out the rites that had to be performed every week of the pregnancy up to the final sacrifice, Madeska wanted the girl to be entirely under his control. They had had to find lodgings close by and open a laundry in her name so as not to arouse suspicion. Madeska had just informed him that the birth had gone according to plan and the sacrifice would take place that very night, when suddenly, badabim, badaboom, in rolls misfortune blacker than the ass of a Congo! As a rule Madeska left the sacrificed newborn deep in the woods, haunted only by raging wild animals. This time, goodness knows what got into his head to set the newborn down right in the middle of the Calvaire crossroads. Not surprising that wretched police commissioner Dieudonné Pylône stumbled onto it and that meddling Dr. Pinceau got the idea of patching things up! What happened when a sacrifice was misappropriated? Agénor had prudently waited a few days before going down to ask Madeska for details. Alas, when he had finally made up his mind, the bird had flown! The mischief maker had split. Sobbing their hearts out, his wives added that they hadn’t a cent to their name and had fifteen children to feed. Worried out of his mind, Agénor had gone to consult a well-known Nago soothsayer who read the grains of sand on the shore. He hadn’t minced his words. Darling little Celanire had become a darling little devil. Dr. Pinceau had done exactly what he should not have done. He had brought her back to life! Moreover, he would pay dearly for his foolishness and would be one of her prime victims. In fact, snatched from death, the baby would become even more formidable. You see, what is difficult for a spirit, good or bad, is to be reincarnated. Thanks to her docile little body, the evil spirits, starting with Ogokpi, the superdemon, would be able to parade freely among humans. Right up to her death, they would use her to commit any crime that caught their fancy and any mischief that came into their heads. Furthermore, convinced they had been swindled, they would savagely take their revenge on all those who had participated in the aborted sacrifice. Madeska thought he could save his skin by crossing the ocean. A waste of time—the spirits would catch up with him whenever they wanted, wherever he was. Likewise, they would hunt down every single one of those who had been involved in the affair, one by one.
Confronted with these dire predictions, Agénor had spent half his fortune protecting himself. His head bursting, he sometimes wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to give up. Lie down and sleep. Lie down and die. Be reunited with the mother of his children. Once again the fools had got it all wrong. That cross-eyed hunchback, who had become a laughingstock, was the only woman he had loved with all his heart. Before sinking into the void, she had given him a smile th
at meant “Don’t take too long! Remember, I’ll be waiting for you.”
He knew that one day his learned assembly of mischief makers, sorcerers, magicians, soothsayers, houngans, mambos, obeah men, kimbwazé, marabouts, and dibias would be of no use and he would die in torment. When he had set eyes on Celanire again at the Governor’s Palace and met her gaze, he knew his time was finally up. How odd! After all these years, he had recognized her. Twenty-five years earlier he had been unable to contain himself. He who never set foot inside a church, he had gone over to the cathedral of Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul at the hour of mass to get a closer look at darling little Celanire, the miraculous baby who was the talk of Grande-Anse. Standing on the steps, Ofusan was cradling her in her arms, showing her off like the Holy Sacrament, and everyone kowtowed in front of her. The infant, only a few weeks old, was dressed ostentatiously in silks, satins, and lace, the way mothers proudly deck out their offspring. A large lace bow frothed around her neck. When he leaned over her, with the pretense of a smile, the baby looked up. Then she eyed him scornfully with her unrelenting gaze, as if to say, “So there you are. Yes, I’m still alive, no thanks to you. I’m in no hurry to settle our business, I’m going to take my time.”