Simidor imagines himself as Santik Du on a crusade, making signs with his big cross: get rid of your superstitions, destroy your dolls of wax, get rid of your lwas, throw away your rituals and your damned souls in the morning ashes; throw away, brothers and sisters, the rogations of your gods and those holy pictures you worship. Throw away your stinking blue marks and pustules, the lacerations on your faces, the gashes on your bellies. The scent of the ylang-ylang tree, mixed with the smell of sulfur, will cure you, along with invocations of three-leaves, three-roots, three-drops of your tinctures. The dragons move forward a lot faster on the water, opening their mouths of fire once more, smashing up pirogues. They tread forward on the rough sea, flames tearing into the horizon. Time and again the stars turn off at the same moment as the kerosene lamps. The mountains swallow up the stars and the angry wind rises. The tree branches play lago, hide-and-seek, in a macabre clatter, the endless moaning of the dead. Windows turn into kites. Tin roofs fly from house to house. The waves come knocking madly on every door. The candelabra, lilac, and hibiscus fences are on their knees; the coconut trees creak and come crashing down with sharp noises.
Simidor imagines himself crossing the waters. He stretches out his hand as a sign of respect for Agwe, the god of the sea. He invokes Ogoun, the god of war.
Ogoun, he sings, we inhabit an isolated, pristine, gentle island with vegetation that escapes human comprehension. Rare species with names of flowers and trees that nobody knew existed. Before the blue hill, you could rest here in peace. There was nobody and nothing to bug you, no longing. We had named this place Ozanana, the new Promised Land. We sang the songs of the hills. Happiness was avoiding the anger of the gods. But what unites us now is the catastrophe of the blue hill, sings Simidor. Ozanana, the word must be repeated over and over again. For isn’t it true that only words exist, and only words give shape and flesh to the universe?
Lying there dying from the blue fog that is killing everyone, Simidor wishes he could tell his compatriots to pay attention, for the last days seem to be coming nearer. Write down the spectacle of the last hour, he would say, record all the details. Chain all the demons that are inside of you and outside of you! Describe everything you feel. We will at least have the elegance to bear witness. Our words will have served as breviaries for the castaways if any of them survive. If you see a black lamb astray, do not kill it; show it the way to the caves that the gods tell us were our first homes. Show it the way to the trees that the gods tell us were our first places of worship. If you see a horse of fire being whipped, a big black horse, gallop with it and hold its bridle. If you spot a glorious knight, beg him to give up his armor, his wine, his wheat, and his crown. If, God forbid, you happen to touch the dying lamb with seven horns, the horse with golden eyes, or the knight with the shark head, the sun and the moon will come down over your head and their fire will burn you. Then you will know thunder, typhoons, volcanoes, earthquakes like you have never imagined.
In his mind, Simidor starts to play a barbaric opera, a funereal song that pierces the air with all the wrenching cries of those dying around him. The agony of the earth is beginning today. The roosters are singing their last cock-a-doodle-do before passing away under the demented clouds. The trumpets are sounding for the most beautiful women, the bravest men, the gentlest children. The trumpets bore through your ears, drill into your insides, and make your hair rise straight up on your head. That’s when the beast with the thousand horns appears. It sets up its gigantic legs on the clouds, trampling down whatever is still on earth: limbs, faces, and human traces. The music swells in Simidor’s head. The trumpets shiver, play a staccato that makes the stars fall. The sun, which feeds the belly of the garden, is fading. On that very day, what is said is done. The sun rolls over the river and dies abruptly of a stroke. Latibonit o! Even the sun cannot protect itself against death now. The sun is dying. Tell me, my friends, tell me, my comrades, how should I bury the sun?
Down, down, tongues of the men of this country! Simidor’s delirium shouts. The beast with a thousand horns has overtaken me. Is that really his goddamned mouth of fire? Is it the Apocalypse? The coffin is swaying over the crowd like a tongue. The army has risen from the waters. The stench of blood and mud on the faces of the dying. The images loop by, immense, worse than in the nightmares of the darkest days. What can we do with these dragons? Why this fire, taking the shape of a huge rainbow? Why are these myths merging in my head?
Simidor rubs his eyes, turns to the other side of the bed and switches on the light for the last time. Is it day or night? The alarm clock says 4:53 p.m.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
MADISON SMARTT BELL is the author of twelve novels and two story collections. In 2002, his novel Doctor Sleep was adapted as a film, Close Your Eyes. Bell’s eighth novel, All Souls’ Rising, the first volume in his Haitian Revolution trilogy, was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography appeared in 2007. Since 1984 he has taught at Goucher College, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires. He lives in Baltimore.
MARIE LILY CERAT is an educator and writer, and cofounder of the group Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees. Cerat has published a West African folktale in 1997; a commentary for NPR as part of the 2001 Conference on Racism in South Africa; and two essays in the Ten Speed Press book Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti. She is a contributor to Haiti Liberté and at work on a novel, In the Light of Shooting Stars.
LOUIS-PHILIPPE DALEMBERT is a novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist born in Port-au-Prince. His books have been awarded the Villa Médicis and Casa de las Américas prizes, and he has been honored with grants from DAAD in Germany and UNESCO-Aschberg in Israel. Since his departure from Haiti in 1986, Dalembert has lived in many cities, including Paris, Rome, Port-au-Prince again, Jerusalem, and Florence. He now lives in Berlin.