To everyone’s surprise, Victoire recovered.
On the eighteenth day of her illness, sitting next to her on the mattress of her kabann, Dr. Nesty took her hand, reassuring her she would live, but whispering that now that she was sixteen she would never see her blood again or have any more children. I think I can guess what Victoire felt. In our societies, even today, to be a mother is the only true vocation of a woman. Sterility means nothing less than dragging around a useless body, deprived of its essential virtue. Papaya tree that bears no papayas. Mango tree that gives no mangoes. Cucumber without seeds. A hollow husk.
Victoire’s pain and disappointment no doubt surged back toward her heart, which became a burning niche for Jeanne, the daughter whom the Good Lord in His mysterious ways decided would be the one and only. She never managed, however, to translate into acts the devouring passion she felt for her beautiful baby. None of those cannibal caresses like those of certain mothers who eat up their children with kisses. None of those absurd pet names. None of those intimate little games. Constantly busying herself around her baby, she remained silent as if shackled from inside. Her hands darted around with sharp, precise gestures, as cutting as machetes.
There were moments of gentleness even so.
She would make Jeanne delicious little dishes and was overjoyed at her appetite. When Jeanne wriggled and whimpered like any child trying to get to sleep, she would take the music box, turn the handle, and softly sing along while the little girl was lulled to sleep with the song from Carmen:
L’amour est un oiseau rebelle
THERE REMAINED, HOWEVER, one final station of her calvary.
These were incredible times. So that there should be no mistake, the priests baptized on Sundays those infants born into the holy sacrament of marriage who slept blissfully in fine lace blouses. On Saturdays, it was the turn of the infants born in sin. These represented 95 percent of all the births. On Saturdays, lines of newborns, some of them choking from the heat, wailing in the arms of their godmothers, stretched as far as the street. But Saturday could not be the day for Victoire. Her sin was neither venal nor mortal. It was extraordinary. Her daughter was Satan in person. Father Amallyas, the priest at Grand Bourg, was a friend of Gaëtane’s and her confessor: purely for form’s sake, since the good soul had nothing on her conscience, except perhaps her liking for curaçao from Holland. He was also a friend of the mayor’s. He would stuff himself at Sunday lunch at the Jovials and turn a deaf ear to Fulgence’s speeches inspired by Voltaire. He thus refused to baptize Jeanne and in a confidential note dated May 10, 1890, he urged the priests at Saint-Louis and Capesterre to do the same.
Such unchristian behavior offended Rochelle Dulieu-Beaufort. How could a priest condemn an innocent child to eternal damnation? She turned once again to her friend the priest at Saint-Louis and begged him to ignore this shameful directive. Jeanne, dressed in a gauze robe and wearing a bonnet worn by the last of the Dulieu-Beauforts’ ten children, was baptized in the chapel at Maule. Anne-Marie and her younger brother Etienne acted as godmother and godfather.
There were no guests, not even Lourdes. No chodo custard, no cake. A drop of aniseed-flavored lemonade. With a pound of flour from France, Victoire made fritters and waffles. After the ceremony was over Anne-Marie, for once all smiles, improvised on her viola Souvenir des Antilles, a selection of Creole melodies composed by M. Gottschalk, the well-known pianist who, the previous year, had won fame during his tour of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Such an act of cruelty aimed at her child was probably the last straw. It prompted Victoire to make a major decision: leave La Treille and Marie-Galante.
It is likely that Anne-Marie also gave her the idea, since she had moved to La Pointe following her marriage. Without her, under Rochelle Dulieu-Beaufort’s iron rule, Maule and Marie-Galante were nothing better than a prison.
Informed of the plan, Lourdes clapped her hands and offered to accompany Victoire. Oh yes! Leave! What had they to lose? A ramshackle cabin. Marie-Galante was going from bad to worse. We could even say she was dying. There was less and less work. The sugar factories were in decline. Let’s take Elie as an example. Exile had made him into a success story. Turning his back on the whims of fishing, he had found a job in a factory at Goyave specializing in the processing of ramie. There was only one point on which aunt and niece were in disagreement: Lourdes insisted on doing the rounds at La Treille to present her farewells. To go off in secret, without saying a word, would be nothing other than self-mutilation. Some of the inhabitants remembered her mother, Caldonia, and had witnessed her birth, tenth in line. Some had attended her christening. Others her first communion. Consequently, she would appropriate their memories in order to alleviate her uprooting. Victoire fiercely refused to hear of such a proposition. Never, never would she step into the homes of people who had humiliated her and hated her ever since she was a little girl. She could never forget their sarcastic remarks and the names of Ti-Sapoti and Volan they gave her. When she was lying sick at death’s door, how many of them had troubled to pay her a visit, say a prayer or a Hail Mary?
The only person she visited to explain why she was leaving was Rochelle Dulieu-Beaufort. It was then that Rochelle’s mean and cantankerous character got the upper hand and she heaped insults on her.
“What! Who will cook for me now?”
So that was how Victoire rewarded her for all the kindness she had shown her and her bastard child? She was truly a wretch, a dreg from hell who was hated by everyone on Marie-Galante.
I CAN SEE them on that morning of June 1890 as they leave their native land.
Victoire has wrapped Jeanne in a white baby’s cape and is hugging her close. The infant, who is hot under all this wool, is constantly fidgeting. She manages to wriggle free and pokes out her head, observing her surroundings with curiosity.
People on the jetty are guessing the weight of the wicker basket that Lourdes is carrying. Are they leaving for good, these shameless hussies, these dames-gabrielle? Let them take their loose living elsewhere so that young girls from good families can marry at church with veil and crown!
With not enough money for the steamship that leaves Grand Bourg every Wednesday for La Pointe, the trio settles down at the front of the schooner Arc-en-Ciel. The stern is reserved for merchandise, animals, piglets, chickens, and goats. Rocked by the breeze and the movement of the waves, Jeanne soon falls asleep. Lourdes bites into a danikite doughnut.
What was Victoire thinking during the never-ending crossing? Did she realize she was seeing Marie-Galante for the very last time? The odds are that she was oblivious to the splendid panorama: the islands of Les Saintes playing dice on the velvet of the ocean, the colored ridges of the Soufrière volcano, and the gauzelike scarves of clouds. Her only thoughts were for Caldonia and the days spent with her. Did she regret turning her back on this flat island where lay the graves of her mother and grandmother?
As a precaution against seasickness she had brought along some lemons. Her tense fist became sticky from squeezing the slices as she unconsciously forgot to put them in her mouth.
Since the wind was brisk, they arrived early midafternoon at the entrance to the harbor at La Pointe through a difficult narrow passage where the isles of Cochon, Pitre, and Montroux drift
toward the headland at Jarry. At that time, one side of the Place de la Victoire, devoid of wharfs, came to rest on a quiet beach while the other three sides were lined by the trees of liberty, the sandbox trees planted by M. Victor Hughes. In the neighboring streets, cases and bundles of merchandise were piled up in front of the stores amid heaps of packing straw and canvas. True to their habits, a crowd of loudmouthed and ragged dockers stared at the young girls. Lourdes was offended by the catcalls and lewd invitations, whereas Victoire kept walking, head lowered, hugging her child to her heart.