“In the end they discovered that here too was nothing but a place of barbarity. All that is left is Europe. Situated at the center of the world, Europe is the heir and apex of classical civilization. Ever since the fifteenth century, since the Renaissance, it has constantly generated a torrent of fertilizing ideas. We have witnessed a genuine passion for knowledge and the greatest expansion of the arts ever seen. In the eyes of its philosophers, there is nothing more admirable than Man.”
Jeanne swallowed all that hook, line, and sinker, and M. Roumegoux marveled at her intelligence.
“You could go far. Pity you’re so black!” he sighed, caressing what Boniface Jr. in one of his bad days had christened with the name of a cactus commonly found on La Désirade and known for its spines: “Englishman’s head.”
On May 12, 1898, a daughter by the name of Valérie-Anne was born at the home of the Walbergs. I have no idea how Boniface strayed into the bed of Anne-Marie, since the only words that passed between them were on the subject of the household accounts. Was he drunk that night, because sometimes he did drink to excess the aged Martinican rum Crassoul de Médoul, and went in the wrong door? We shall never know. Anne-Marie’s unwanted pregnancy was terrible. She lay bedridden from beginning to end. Vertigo. Nausea. Vomiting. Both legs swollen like tree trunks. What’s more, the infant had the misfortune of inheriting the freckles and red hair of an Irish ancestor.
“Good Lord, she’s so ugly!” exclaimed her mother, pushing her away when the midwife tried to lay her on her breast. “Nine months of torture to give birth to that!”
We are told that a newborn hears these words, and all through her life never forgets them as well as the person who pronounced them.
In order to hide her red hair, they called upon the services of a dressmaker, who fashioned lawn and linen bonnets resembling the headdress of the women in Saint-Barth. Henceforth, there was someone more mocked and forlorn than Jeanne, who now had somebody to console. For a time Valérie-Anne snuggled up under her wing. Then she snuggled under Victoire’s when the latter, finding herself removed from her daughter, felt as forsaken as Valérie-Anne.
Sometimes the ill-treated take their revenge. Still a teenager, Valérie-Anne married the son of a rich banana planter from the region of Saint-Claude who was rolling in money. At the end of her life it was rumored that her jewel box weighed forty pounds. She bore five sons, one of whom became a monk.
As an adult, she would never go near my mother. Both of them hated each other.
EIGHT
One evening in April, shortly after sunset, the sky was ablaze with a glow through the persiennes.
“Yet another fire,” said Boniface, coming out onto the balcony in his pajamas without bothering to slip on his dressing gown. “Fortunately we have nothing to fear, since the wind isn’t blowing in our direction.”
He calmly went back to bed, where Victoire, rolled up in a ball, was waiting for him. They made love two or three times as they usually did each night.
The next morning La Pointe awoke amid the sound and the fury. Surging in from the outlying districts, the maléré had invaded the center of town. Groups of ragged individuals were gathering at the crossroads and filling the sidewalks, sobbing and moaning noisily.
The event was major.
At the age of thirty-eight Dernier Argilius had just perished in the fire that had broken out the night before at the offices of the newspaper Le Peuple. Apart from the rue Henri IV, the rue Barbès, the rue Sadi-Carnot, and a good part of the rue Schoelcher had been destroyed. If Jean-Hégésippe Légitimus had not been at the National Assembly in Paris, where he was a representative, they would have been mourning the assassination of two leaders, since the people’s anger had been aroused by the fact that this fire had been set on purpose by the white Creole factory owners. Under the pretext of political instability, their objective was to call the United States of America to the rescue and turn Guadeloupe into another Cuba or Puerto Rico. For the maléré, oblivious of the vicissitudes of sugar, enemy number one was M. Ernest Souques, owner of the Darboussier and Bellevue factories, and shareholder in the companies at Port-Louis and Sainte-Anne. In fact, it wouldn’t have taken much for them to accuse him of striking the match himself.
Victoire heard the news from the milk seller who came by every day at six thirty on the dot, balancing her tray of bottles on her head. As usual, she did not show any emotion and took in the news without blinking. Then, untying her apron, she went upstairs to dress. In the bedroom she held her head between both hands: when she was sixteen this man who had just perished had initiated her into sex. He had been neither tender nor affectionate. He would possess her brutally without a word, withdraw as soon as it was over, light a horrible Brazilian cigar, and, completely naked, bury himself in the newspaper. Sometimes, he would write an article. His Sergent-Major pen, dipped in mauve ink, scratched over the paper. He would look up only when the door creaked and she left to go.
“See you tomorrow!” he growled roughly.
It was an order, an assessment of his power.
“Silplètadyé!” God willing!” she murmured.
Nevertheless, she had taken pleasure in his arms and conceived. For the first and last time. As a sign of mourning she chose a black golle dress with white polka dots and a mauve headtie.
Passing the bedroom door of Anne-Marie, who was writing to Rochelle or Etienne, Victoire was tempted to inform her of Dernier’s death. But she guessed the caustic remarks she would make:
“One bastard less! The world will be better off without him. For goodness’ sake, you’re not going to shed tears over him!”
So she merely murmured through the wooden door:
“Mwen kale. I’m off.”
It’s always a surprise that the weather is beautiful when the heart is hurting or in distress. Outside, the sun was shining yellow in a blue sky washed of clouds. Gathering pollen from roses in the gardens and hibiscus in the hedgerows, the hummingbirds outdid one another with their trills. The western neighborhood of the town was a heap of smoldering, charred planks and corrugated iron. Since the rue Henri IV was nothing more than ashes and rubble, Dernier’s remains had been carried to one of his aunts, on the rue des Abymes. A sizable crowd was cluttering up the sidewalk, since he had been the darling of those who distrusted Légitimus. Wasn’t the latter colluding with the enemy, the white Creole factory owners? In actual fact, their fears were not unfounded. A few years later, Légitimus was to sit down at the same table as Ernest Souques to sign the Capital-Work agreement, considered by historians, except for Jean-Pierre Sainton, as treason.
People looked Victoire up and down. Where did this mulatto woman spring from? Who was she wearing mourning for? What was she after? A whiplash from a zambo? There were quite a few among the mourners. But given her determined look, they drew back and let her in.