Kannjawou

by Lyonel Trouillot

  YESTERDAY, THE LITTLE PROFESSOR ARRIVED EARLY IN THE EVENING. Joëlle was waiting for him in front of the Center. The day after our walk, I had seen her looking radiant. Over the course of the next few days, her face darkened. She was always being escorted by a member of Wodné’s gang. They had held long meetings, mobilized the students, pestered the children, and held forth in front of Joëlle, dictating to her the words she had to say: Look. It comes down to a question of life and death. The little professor could never set foot on Burial Street again. For him, she was only a fantasy. For Wodné, she was life itself. He threatened again to kill himself if she didn’t put an end to this ridiculous episode. Wodné was her street, her world. Her commitment. Her truth. And so she couldn’t see the little professor anymore. She dragged her feet but gave in. “They might say I’m a coward. They can say whatever they want. He gives an order, I carry it out. That’s how it is. Never come here again.”

  THE LITTLE PROFESSOR DOESN’T COME TO BURIAL STREET ANYMORE. I go to visit him at his house. The children wrote him letters in clumsy handwriting. Sophonie and Joëlle had a heated discussion. Wodné is avoiding Popol and me. He claims that Joëlle invented the whole poisonous story. “A fighter doesn’t commit suicide.” Because she had been ashamed of her betrayal. I know why Popol had smashed his face. It was because of Marcelle, a girl who had lived on our street and had sort of been a part of our group. Her boyfriend at the time thought that she had a lover and had told on her to her mother, who had given her a memorable beating. “Only whores can put their fingers in more than one pie.” The idea for the accusation had come from Wodné. “When the cause is right, the ends justify the means.” What was a right cause? The little professor didn’t come back. He, too, had once thought that all means were justifiable. The right causes? Marcelle fled them, or found other ones. She doesn’t live in the neighborhood anymore, though she sometimes visits her mother, who doesn’t have anyone to raise a hand to anymore and regrets her past violence. Only Sophonie knows where Marcelle lives today and sees her from time to time. Her ex-boyfriend, one of Wodné’s disciples, never mentions her name. As though Marcelle had never existed. Popol was enraged. Marcelle had tried to become friends with other groups of kids. But she had been shamed. And Wodné persisted, wanting to stand his ground in front of the others: all means are justifiable. Popol had punched him. In the name of the gang of five, and our childhood dreams. In the name of our old promise to never bring the authorities into any of our quarrels. A friend doesn’t call the police on his best friend. In the name of the cities they used to imagine in their heads: Wodné wanted them strong, with clear outlines, while Popol would add space for flowers. In the name of Joëlle and Sophonie, whom they’d promised to love. Just as they were. As you should love. In the name of the joie de vivre and the sense of connection that had made the gang of five ready, invincible. In the name of the children of Burial Street, who have nothing. Or almost nothing. And to whom we have to give everything. So that they can conquer all. In the name of the old ideal of fashioning a country. Flowers and trees, colors in the windows. In the name of the humiliation we’d felt together when foreign troops had arrived and walked all around our neighborhood, shouting, Something must be done. In the name of the immense kannjawou we’d dreamed of. When there won’t be any more armored vehicles parked in our streets. No more soldiers in strange uniforms parading our streets. When there will no longer be a bar for you, a school for you, a street for you, a school for him, a street for him. When no expert will come to dictate our futures as though our lives were spelling mistakes. Yes, my brother, hit him, smash his face in. In the name of all of this. In the name of the novel about our lives that we could write better.

  I DON’T KNOW HOW TO THROW A PUNCH. Popol had wanted to teach me when we were little and saving up money to buy ourselves self-defense manuals. “To prepare ourselves.” I’m not naturally gifted at smashing other people’s faces in. Not because of pacifism or a determination to see only good in others. Just because I don’t have that kind of active power in me. I guess I love words too much, placing a confidence in them that they don’t deserve. Not so different from Anselme than I think. Anselme, who’s waiting for his kannjawou from the bed he never leaves. Every man who’s ever dreamed writes his own diary of a madman during his dream. I’m stopping mine here. Just as I decide to close my notebook, the children in the street laugh. Halefort is currently the star of the show. He had an emergency. Yesterday afternoon his kid arrived from a neighborhood even worse than our own. With a face of despair. Of several days’ worth of hunger. Sick and in tears. Even a grave robber can find himself embarrassed to have a son who hangs onto his legs and cries that he’s hungry. In the evening Halefort stole a coffin. Alone. Without accomplices to keep watch or a vehicle to stash it in. The old way: carrying it on top of his head. He waited until midnight to come out, but a police trooper caught him by surprise in the street. The Occupation soldiers sometimes tip off the police. But it’s no match for superstition. The police signaled to him to stop. He continued on his way. The vehicle pulled up in front of him. He turned around and continued on his way, his coffin on his head. Two officers got out and tried to interrogate him. Where are you going with that coffin? Halefort responded with a nasally voice, empty stare, and stiff body that he didn’t like the cemetery where he had been buried and was going to find another tomb for himself. The police quickly got back inside their vehicle. You don’t arrest zombies. And it’s unlucky to cross paths with a zombie. I love children’s laughs. I’m twenty-four years old and I’m old. I don’t laugh as much as I used to. Us members of the old gang of five laugh very little now. Who are we? Zombies or grave robbers? Promise or failure? It’s not good to be afraid. Isn’t it, Joëlle? On my sidewalk curb, underneath Mam Jeanne’s balcony, I watch night fall, sad and filthy, on Burial Street.

  1.For words followed by an asterisk, see the glossary on p. (?).

  II

  THE MONTHS PASSED. Things and people continued to slide along, some into truth, some into falseness. I’m beginning to write again in this journal, which is going nowhere. Sometimes life only moves inside of words. And when everything is going wrong, you should record it all. Writing is my way of moving my ass. Mam Jeanne tells me that I should keep writing everything down. “You have to record what’s happening now. One day you won’t be there anymore. The present will have become the past. And it will die out if no one has written down what was and what wasn’t.” So here is what was and what wasn’t. What is. And what’s waiting for its time to be over.

  More and more funeral processions are marching down Burial Street. Mam Jeanne says that death has begun to chase the living faster. And that they—weary from a war they cannot win—are letting themselves be caught without much resistance, and lie obediently in their coffins. The funeral processions are growing in number. But they move forward sluggishly and more sparsely, one quantity canceling out the other. Maybe it’s because, whether the dead person was old or had just been born, their friends had already died before them. Or because those friends are refusing to walk up and down the entrance to the great cemetery multiple times per month, preferring instead to stay at home and drink tea and liquor and remember their dead on their own, because the ceremony has now been repeated so many times that it’s lost its meaning. There are so many dead that soon they will have to fight each other in order to find a spot in the great cemetery. Only Monsieur Pierre, the old retired accountant, persists in marching with everyone, coming now twice a week to accompany dead people he hadn’t known to their graves. He always wears the same suit and the same hat. When he dies, burials won’t be the same anymore. Monsieur Pierre has become an important part of the ensemble, kind of like the proof that someone has really died and that people are paying their respects. Sharp tongues say that it’s not because of his humanism, nor is it a sign of empathy. They say it’s a mania of a crazy person who takes himself for a genius, who spends his time crunching numbers with dead people, his prese
nce at the cemetery serving no purpose other than to confirm his hypotheses. I know that there are people who always bet on the worst. I know some of those people. But when he joins processions, the old accountant will lay his hand on a boy’s head or let it be taken by a little girl who seems to have been forgotten by the other marchers. A hand that for a long time was poking around in other people’s financials and is now trembling with age can change its function. It can become—despite all the calluses and rough patches—as gentle as fresh water, and soothe a child’s pain, if only for a moment. The little professor likes to believe that we are what we do with our hands. The old accountant uses his worn-out hand to soothe children’s pain. So it’s no matter if he’s doing calculations. Everyone calculates and measures. Except those who play to lose. Who don’t calculate anything. Who just let things happen. Everyone calculates. And I don’t trust the words of people who distance themselves from other people. Oftentimes people talk without any knowledge, their eyes filled with self-interest. Maybe when Monsieur Pierre was an accountant he had kept corrupt officials in check, and they had spread the rumor about his obsession as revenge. Oftentimes reputations are made from what is false. I saw Wodné at work. And his gang. One of them is missing today. Victor, his most loyal lieutenant, had taken a position as a translator for the Occupation forces. There’s a scholarship for those who specialize in interpretation. Marcia, his girlfriend, had called a meeting. She denounced him as a traitor to the movement. It’s almost surely because she suspects him of going out with a foreign translator. This is indeed the case. The couple came to Kannjawou one night. At first, Victor had wanted to hide from Sophonie. But his companion wouldn’t stop asking him, in English, “What’s wrong, sweeeeetie? This place is wonderful.” And he finally gave in. Dancing with his sweeeeetie. Rock. Kompa. You can’t spend your whole life watching funerals and giving your time to organizations that are trying to change a world that doesn’t want to change. And simultaneous interpretation is good. From one body to another. From one mouth to another. Yes, sweeeeetie. They left the bar, already kissing. The next morning, very early, Victor went to see Sophonie on Burial Street to ask her to pretend she hadn’t seen anything. The meeting that Marcia had called for lasted a long time. Wodné and the others ignored the abandoned woman’s tears, arguing that the militant thinks only in general terms, and one particular case is of no interest to him. They defended Victor, claiming that the “revolution” will need specialists. No one believed them. In any case, their meetings are attracting fewer and fewer people. They can no longer fill the meeting room at the Cultural Center. More and more, they are beginning to resemble cult leaders, who predict the worst and vow to burn you at the stake if you aren’t a member of their church. Some of the girls had suggested a large meeting with students from other departments in the university. About their specific problems. No, says Wodné’s gang. Only humanities departments. Joëlle was their spokesperson. Why bother exchanging ideas with people studying medicine or architecture? They don’t have anything to say. It’s difficult for me to see her like this. Hard. Standing next to these children of terror, who spare nothing and no one. They’re frightening. Even for the professors. It reeks of cults and the Gulag. Terror in the service of a lie. As for Victor, he’s fleeing the neighborhood. Deception is too easy to see in his position. The children are good readers and give him military salutes, saying, “Give me five cents, Corporal Conzé.” It was Mam Jeanne who taught them about Conzé, who had betrayed the Resistance during the first Occupation. His victory: Charlemagne Péralte was crucified by the Marines, and the photo of him nailed to the door was distributed throughout the country by helicopter. She also taught them about the young people who would dive into the dirty water of the sea, hoping to find dimes and quarters there from the ships that had arrived at the docks. “At least they weren’t lying. They were going to look for those five cents themselves, at risk of drowning. While these lovely shit-talkers know only how to point fingers at other people and to hold out their paws. To betray and to beg.” She hasn’t yet poured cat piss onto Victor’s head, but she will. Monsieur Pierre doesn’t do any harm to anybody by following funeral processions. All things considered, I still prefer an old, slow walker to a gang of false prophets who create misfortune like other people create guitars, kites, or sailboats. In the little professor’s library there’s a collection of poetry titled I Don’t Forgive Misfortune.2 I haven’t read it. So I don’t know if the verses are good and the themes interesting. I like the title’s anger. I am nothing. Or almost nothing. As Mam Jeanne says over and over again, when you live on a street that ends with dead people, you’re well situated to know that the day when the sun rises without you is near. And that our absence won’t change anything in the grand scheme of things. The main thing is to fill this almost-nothing up with the right amount of something. Today, to fill up the nothing, I don’t forgive misfortune. I don’t forgive those who work for the creators of misfortune. Where they come from. Who they are. I envy the lunatic who stands in the middle of the street and spits on everyone who passes him. I envy Mam Jeanne and her bowl of cat piss. Sometimes I am ashamed of never having broken anyone’s jaw, of never even having thrown a stone. Mam Jeanne says that the only part of religion you should pay mind to is: never kill. All the rest is nonsense. “Loving your neighbor as yourself seems good in theory, but it’s not very realistic. It would be nice if we could just not kill.” There are all sorts of assassins in the streets. You can kill a country by signing the wrong treaty. You can kill a man by stealing his right to love. If all the nothings in the world arrested someone, the assassins wouldn’t be doing as well. A nothing plus a nothing does equal something. Yet it’s not the assassins who serve time. Halefort has been in the national prison, a few streets away from our own, twice. The neighborhood children arranged to bring him fresh bread, water, and candy. He smiles when he talks about that time. He was never fed so well as when he was in prison. Thanks to the children. But they didn’t bring anything to Jean, who had shut his wife up in a room to keep other men from looking at her. She couldn’t even go out onto the balcony to watch the dead pass by. And for two years, no living person could set eyes on her. Other than her assassin. Jean spent only two months in prison. The public prosecutor couldn’t prove that there had been gross negligence, not even violence or confinement. The good police commissioner abandoned the investigation and Jean returned home. But one night when he was passing in front of Mam Jeanne’s house she tipped a dose of cat piss onto his head. And the children never brought him anything while he was in prison. Nor afterwards, when he returned to settle back into the scene of the crime. Sometimes I look at Joëlle and I imagine that she’ll end up like that one day. Shut in. In Wodné’s shadow. Is it painful for me to think about this? I don’t know. Maybe I feel more nostalgia than true pain. A little as though she were already dead. And as though no one had yet come to pillage her tomb. As though she’s forgiven me. On Burial Street, we’re so close to the dead that we know they’ll forgive us for being less harsh towards those who rob their tombs than towards those who, with their words or with their fists, condemn the living to death.

  THE OLD BOOKBINDER CLOSED HIS SHOP. Ever since the little professor stopped visiting our street, there hasn’t been anyone to bring him any work. In the evenings he plays cards with his buddy the shoemaker. Joseph and Jasmin. Since the bookbinder doesn’t see much anymore, the cobbler always wins. But I don’t think either one of them cares in the slightest about who wins and who loses. They drink a lot and have trouble standing up after the last round. They recruited Hans and Vladimir to accompany them to their respective beds. But the clever little imps sometimes put them into the same bed. When Joseph and Jasmin wake up, they chew the kids out. Why did you put me to bed here? You dirty old men! It’s a game between them. Maybe one day we’ll find Joseph and Jasmin interlaced in death. Hans and Vladimir call them the “ghosts.” When they pass by me when I’m sitting on my sidewalk curb, they say, “We’re goi
ng to take care of the ghosts.” But it’s not mean-spirited. It’s a way of looking forward, of assuring the two old men that they will remain in the street’s memory forever, now that they’ve each got one foot over the threshold of death. Of inscribing them in a time span much longer than the few months or few years that they’ve got left to live. Because a ghost never dies.

  JULIO IS NO LONGER GOING OUT WITH THE YOUNG OFFICER WITH LONG HAIR. The handsome officers with long hair don’t stay long in the same position, or in the same place. And one day they end up losing their hair. He’s currently going out with a higher-ranking bald officer who must have had hair at one point. Julio seems less happy than before. When he was with the young officer with long hair, who was only at his second job, he could believe that he had been the one to choose him. And Julian loved to be with him, just as we all love our freedom. But everyone knows that the bald and high-ranking officer, who’s at his seventh job, is the only free one out of the two of them. When he wants sex, he goes in search of Julio. Whether it’s day or night. Bosses have flexible schedules. Julio no longer hurries to climb up into the white-painted Occupation vehicle when it stops at the end of the street. He walks towards it slowly, like he’s walking towards a terrible fate.

  We all seem to be slipping into a terrible fate. In the mornings, Joseph and Jasmin listen to the news together. Since Jasmin is nearly deaf, they put the volume up as high as it will go, and we all hear what we already know. That this representative from this international organization has said that things are getting better, that the country is doing well. Or that that contingent from that country has been replaced by another contingent from a different country. That another body of some teenager has been found not far from a military base. That, like always, the investigators suspect it’s a suicide. That the electoral process is working well under the approving control of the Occupation forces. That the faculty at the state university has begun another strike. The loudmouth who practices in front of his mirror sometimes comes on the radio to talk about “scientific thought.” It must be because the comedians have had trouble finding jokes that make people laugh. Or because there’s a shortage of loud voices. They have to make up for the deficit, so they open their doors to clowns and usurpers.