My dear mother,
My dear godmother,
Dear Monsieur Walberg,
I am very well except for a cough that starts especially in the evening because the air that blows down from the mountain is cool, almost cold. I had to buy two woolens chez Rivier. Yesterday the nuns took us to mass for the month of Mary at the Carmel church. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and not a soul in the streets. Every house had its shutters lowered. Apparently that’s how they live in Basse-Terre: behind closed shutters.
With love and affection.
ALL THE WHILE dreading the long school holidays, Victoire drew the little strength she possessed in the hope they would reunite her with her daughter. Alas! In June a letter informed her that Jeanne would not take her holidays until September. She had been chosen by the nuns to teach remedial French classes in July and August, an honor of distinction for a first-year pupil and a tribute to her intelligence.
In her chagrin, Victoire transferred her little treats onto Valérie-Anne. She was in dire need of them, the poor girl, for she was growing up skinny and red-haired, her brother’s punching bag, ignored by mother and father alike. The affection that bonded Victoire to Valérie-Anne must have outraged Jeanne and aroused in her a blind jealousy. On the subject of Valérie-Anne, Jeanne, who was always restrained in her words, lost all proportion and could go on for hours:
“A real bitch. Ever since the cradle. A flirt into the bargain. A nymphomaniac, I bet. She was always jealous of me, trying to appropriate what belonged to me. She would walk into my room without knocking and take my things.”
She accused her of all the sins of Israel. Her former protégée, according to her, had transformed herself into a rival.
Around the end of the year, Boniface bought an automobile, an event worth noting. Up till then he had been terrified of the first internal combustion engines. And then he had a craze for horses and mounted himself a handsome chestnut, an American Thoroughbred, which he raced occasionally at Dugazon. But one has to keep up with the times. He decided on a gleaming six-cylinder Cleveland, which he struggled to learn to drive, whose headlamps were as round as a pair of wide-open eyes. You should have seen him: the type of goggles that Charles Lindbergh later wore perched on his nose and wrapped in a flowing muffler as seen in Once Upon a Time in the West. This purchase of an automobile was followed by another one, the acquisition of a change-of-air house in Vernou in the hills of La Lézarde.
The place was becoming fashionable and was soon to be the favorite spot of the bourgeois classes from La Pointe. A deputy governor of the colony, who in a single day had seen four of his eight children carried off by a fever, had built a house there for the months of July to October, when the climate in town was so deleterious. The idea of a change-of-air house in Vernou was odd at the time because for those who lived on Grande Terre, the actual island of Guadeloupe, as it was called, appeared to be a sinister back of beyond. Few of the inhabitants of La Pointe had ever ventured as far as Basse-Terre, capital of the island as decreed by the colonial authorities. As for the river Salée, it could now be crossed without mishap. After years of I don’t know how many drownings and accidents, a pontoon bridge called the Union Bridge had replaced the former Gabarre Bridge.
The Walbergs’ change-of-air house was magnificent. It stood out from the rest by one remarkable detaiclass="underline" an outside spiral metal staircase. The house was situated to the left of the present Route de la Traversée, next to the small factory called Vernou Jalousy. Once Boniface Sr. had been buried, to prevent it from falling into the hands of her son, Anne-Marie sold it to her cousins the Desmarais, who in turn sold it to a mulatto magistrate. Today it is almost a ruin, squatted for years by a colony of reddened-lock Rastas who grow ganja in the immense garden where once flourished orchids, trumpet flowers, and the proud canna lily.
Boniface drove Anne-Marie, Victoire, and Valérie-Anne there in early July. It was a genuine expedition. The servants left the day before by diligence. As early as five o’clock in the morning they loaded the car with trunks of linen and hampers brimming with victuals. Victoire held the provisions on her lap. At that time the roads were narrow ribbons made slippery by the slightest rain. Once they had left Petit Bourg, under Boniface’s inexperienced hands the Cleveland slid, skidded, and jolted, getting bogged down along the winding track that crossed the forest.
To the right and left the ebony, silk cotton, gum and manjack trees, every variety of mahogany and acoma, parasitized by hundreds of creepers, epiphytes, and wild pineapples, jostled one another amid a riot of light to dark green. From the undergrowth came the harsh caws of the numerous parrots that used to be a common sight on the island, and the trills of the hummingbirds. Sheets of boiling or icy water fell from invisible heights with a deafening roar and splashed onto the track, making it even more impracticable.
Anne-Marie was snoring. She had not appreciated the purchase of this change-of-air house. Not only because she made a point of honor to disapprove of all of Boniface’s decisions, but above all, as we have already said, because she loathed the countryside. For her, it was all mosquitoes, mabouya geckos, and crazy ants. Victoire, on the other hand, somewhat to her surprise, took a liking to Vernou; it was as if you had been transported to another planet, so different from the implacable glare of Marie-Galante. All day long, a metallic gray sky sat low on this mass of green. The rain never tired of falling. Not the raging, torrential rain like the frequent thundershowers in La Pointe. But a penetrating drizzle. A rain that never let up.
After lunch, while Anne-Marie was taking her siesta, Victoire would leave for a walk with Valérie-Anne. They would delve under the canopy of trees, winding along twisting paths through the forest and the giant tree ferns. The child was a good walker. They often walked as far as the chapel at Fontarabie. The modest wooden edifice would loom up as white as a ghost between the mossy trunks. Victoire and Valérie-Anne never met anyone there. Yet the invisible supplicants who had preceded them had lit candles and piled bunches of heliconia, lobster claw, and torch ginger flowers at the feet of the plaster saints. Sometimes, when it wasn’t raining too hard, Victoire would take Valérie-Anne to swim in the pool at Prise d’Eau that was crossed by a rudimentary bridge. Oxen came down to drink there. Neighboring kids came to splash around. Women filled buckets they perched on their heads and men fished for crayfish. The individuals of both sexes, even the children, looked like scarecrows: in rags, a muddy skin, riddled with scurvy and kwashiorkor. While the little girl plunged into the icy water in panties and blouse, Victoire took off her shoes and dabbled her feet. She too would have liked to go for a swim. But the thought of baring her white body seemed shockingly indecent to her. So she sat there thinking of Jeanne, torturing herself over and over. She had wanted a better life for her daughter than one of abject poverty. She had wanted to give her a future and help her climb the social ladder. She now blamed herself for lacking audacity. There was the example of this woman nicknamed Mama Accra who was making a small fortune selling very ordinary cod fritters to sailors and dock workers. She was the talk of La Pointe.