Que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
Et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle
S’il lui convient de refuser.
There was a storm of applause. A genuine ovation. Yet it was nothing but pure hypocrisy. Most of the guests knew the cards had been dealt wrongly, that Victoire in no way deserved such praise. However, more than Auguste’s lying hyperboles, it was the musical interlude that gave great displeasure. Was Jeanne Boucolon — it was surely her idea — in her right mind? To have Georges Bizet’s opera played for her mother, her illiterate and uneducated mother! Why not Johann Sebastian Bach? Who was she trying to delude? Everyone knew Jeanne. She always thought she was the cat’s whiskers. But this time, she had crossed the line.
Shortly after midnight, a car drove the couple to the rue de Condé. The rue de Condé is situated on the other side of the Place de la Victoire, and until the emergence of a black bourgeoisie, it defined the limits of the town’s habitable perimeter. In this emerging neighborhood Auguste owned a modest one-story house with a balcony and attic — nothing like the one he had built on the rue Alexandre Isaac shortly before I was born. He had lived there for ten years with his first wife, now deceased. The new couple settled in amid the debris of a first love.
At last, Auguste could savor Jeanne’s body, which he had lusted after so desperately. There was no griotte to hang out the wrappers stained with blood. But she was a virgin, that’s for sure. I don’t know what my mother thought of her wedding night or any of the following nights. What I do know is that I never heard her broach the subject of sex — which is unusual, even exceptional in our islands — without some measure of disgust.
One week later, it was Boniface’s turn at the wheel of his Cleveland to take Victoire to the rue de Condé. He loaded onto his shoulder like a porter the trunk containing her old clothes. In this quiet neighborhood the intrusion of the Cleveland produced the same effect as in Le Moule: people came out on their balconies or on their doorsteps to contemplate this high-powered car. They had much to be amazed about. What was this white Creole doing at the Boucolons? Who was this mulatto woman with him? Jeanne’s mother? She looked like a woman from Les Saintes. Did she come from Terre-de-Haut? From that moment on, the gossip began to rage.
The unfortunate Boniface had put time to his advantage. Night after night, he attempted to prove to Victoire the sanctity of their relations. Since she listened to him without saying a word, he did not know whether he had convinced her. In despair he was prepared to talk to Jeanne himself. He was not asking for much. Just so they would let him see his Victoire from time to time. But confronted with Jeanne’s impenetrable and contemptuous expression, he realized she would not listen to reason. So he kept silent and stumbled out of the house.
Jeanne had prepared for her mother the best room in the house: on the second floor, opening onto a balcony, since she did not want to relegate her to the attic under the roof like a servant. In order to climb into the four-poster bed à boules, you had to use a small pair of steps. The highlight of the furnishing was without doubt an oval cheval glass, surmounted by a decorative motif on an ornate frame, which gave a full-length reflection. The emotion and gratitude that such munificence could have caused Victoire was largely tempered by the conversation that followed. Jeanne calmly reiterated what she had already said in Le Moule. In the world she was entering, her association with a white Creole was unacceptable. Intolerable. No more commerce of the flesh or anything else. No mixing with company that might invite malicious gossip. Just as Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion, so the mother and mother-in-law of a Grand Nègre should be unassailable. The white Creoles were our enemies. They had subjugated and whipped their slaves for generations. They had only one desire at heart: humiliate the blacks by every means possible and reduce them to the level of animals.
Even if it had been said in Japanese, the effect of this short speech would have been the same. Victoire was incapable of understanding it. She did not know the meaning of the words “class” or “exploiters.” In her eyes, the Walbergs were not enemies: neither Anne-Marie nor Boniface. She didn’t dare say they were her friends. To use an out-of-date term that would have made Jeanne’s blood boil, they had always behaved like good masters.
I admit I have difficulty accepting the fact that Victoire relinquished Boniface so easily — her companion for twenty years who had given her pleasure, who had forgiven her infidelity, who had looked after her child, and who in a manner of speaking considered Victoire his only reason for living. I refuse, however, to accept the theory generally acknowledged by the inhabitants of La Pointe that since Victoire could get nothing more out of Boniface, she shamelessly turned her back on him. I believe that once again the fear instilled by her daughter got the upper hand. She could not envisage for one moment standing up to her at the risk of displeasing her. There is no doubt whatsoever the thought of Boniface tormented her, denying her sleep. I can see her at night with her eyes wide open in the dark, tossing and turning in her bed, thinking of her partner. I can imagine her in the midst of her daily routine suddenly gripped by his memory and obliged to stop for fear of bursting into tears.
Boniface never came back to the rue de Condé and Jeanne could claim that his relations with her mother were now over and done with. At Christmas and New Year’s he faithfully sent Victoire expensive presents, one of which was one of the first radio sets of the time.
I find it surprising that Jeanne never intervened likewise in the relations between her mother and Anne-Marie. She probably dreaded Anne-Marie, knowing her to be a loudmouth, capable of making terrible scenes. The fact remains, however, that Victoire and Anne-Marie continued to meet every day on the Place de la Victoire. To my knowledge, Boniface respected Jeanne’s instructions and never came to join them.
LIFE, THEREFORE, was organized without Boniface.
On the rue de Condé everything revolved around Jeanne’s teaching. She would get up at four in the morning, leaving Auguste lounging in bed. At that time, I don’t know why, she had given up daily mass, something she was to take up again only after Victoire died. She gave the final touches to her lessons and finished correcting the homework. Then she did an hour’s gymnastics in order to lose weight. Abdominals especially. Or else, dressed in one of her husband’s old pair of shorts, she would run as far as the harbor. Showing off her legs at her age was a bold step and the churchgoers coming home from first mass looked at her reproachfully. Her reputation for being odd started to be without precedent. Everything she did caused a sensation. What was this idea of running to lose weight? A woman should be proud to show off her curves, a sign that she is being spoiled at home.
Back at the rue de Condé, she would shower — Auguste’s running water was his pride and joy — dress, and rig herself out with jewels. She would down a huge bowl of coffee, without sugar, prepared by Victoire, who had been up since dawn. We should say in passing that this coffee without sugar was another oddity on an island with such a sweet tooth. Then she left for school. It was seven o’clock, the sun had begun to open wide its eyes, and Auguste was scarcely out of bed. She was keen to arrive at school ahead of time so that she could write on the blackboard in her fine, well-rounded writing the math problems or questions of grammar.
Since there was no lacking in household staff, two servants and a mabo for Auguste’s two boys, Victoire found herself in the same situation as in Le Moule: she had nothing to do all day. This time, she took the bull by the horns and tried hard to invent things to do for herself. She supervised the housework, tracing the dust over the furniture with her finger. When the servants came back from market, she inspected their baskets, weighing again the pork for casserole on an old pair of Roberval scales and checking every cent of the expenses. In the afternoon, she would mend clothes, sew buttons on shirts, and darn socks, things that Jeanne, brought up by the Walbergs as a young lady, was incapable of doing. Then she made sure the washing was well starched and ironed, ruthless about creases in Auguste’s shirt cuffs and collars. Very soon the servants began to loathe Victoire, who was always on their backs. She was the cause of a stream of girls being taken on a trial basis, hired, then dismissed, all uttering the same complaints as they turned in their aprons: the mistress thought she was God’s gift to mankind, but the mother was worse: a real shrew.