With Victoire by her side she jogged as far as the Jardin d’Essai that had just been created in Les Abymes, a conglomeration that today is virtually an extension of Point-à-Pitre, but at that time was rustic and wooded. They would bend down together to smell the perfume from the beds of strange flowers: the milkweed asclepiad from Curacao, the aloe, and the Erythrina, commonly known as cockspur, because of its brilliant cherry-red flowers. However, it was a little too long and tiring for Jeanne, who preferred to walk up the rue Victor Hughes and slowly climb the hillock where the general hospital and the Massabielle church stand today. The top of the hill was overrun by a stunted wood and a savanna of thornbushes. The place was fairly disreputable, where homeless lovers met. You could see them wildly embracing each other in the bushes. From up there you had a wonderful view over to the coast of Basse-Terre and the phosphorescent plateau of the sea, the infinite ambiguous ocean encircling two islands that had marked Victoire’s life: Marie-Galante, land of her birth, and Martinique, land of her lost love. Life is nothing but a series of decisions that always prove to be unsatisfactory. Although she never called into question her decision to leave Martinique, ashamed of having nurtured the idea of abandoning her daughter, she sometimes regretted Marie-Galante and the life she thought fit to turn her back on. She began idealizing it like in a Creole novel. When all is said and done, what had she gained by following Anne-Marie’s suggestions and settling down with a family of white Creoles in La Pointe? Neither she nor Jeanne had gone hungry. And that’s about it. But the poor child bore scars that no surgery could repair.
When the first gas lamps began to dot La Pointe with light, mother and daughter would retrace their steps back to the rue de Condé arm in arm. Thanks to the treatment prescribed by Dr. Mélas, Jeanne had no trouble giving birth. In a few hours, the child came into this world on July 7, 1911. A boy. Fairly ugly. One wondered where he got his drooping lower lip and flat nose from. Joking as usual, his father maintained that a man has no need for beauty. Given the size of his appendage, he could swear that he would know how to please the ladies. Jeanne was not amused. She did not like dirty stories and was visibly vexed at having given birth to this ungainly infant.
As for Victoire, she was in seventh heaven. She saw none of the imperfections that were so obvious to the outsider. That boy was her daughter’s, therefore the most perfect and adorable son in the world. At night she would slip into his room to spy on his breathing. During the day, she would take him in her arms as soon as Jeanne had her back turned, for Jeanne, full of modern ideas, ardent reader of the Catholic journal J’élève mon enfant, was of the opinion that babies should be given a strict routine, a bottle of milk every three hours, alternating with a bottle of apple juice or filtered water, and never be taken out of their cradle for the slightest reason. In short, Victoire was so happy that one day she persuaded the mabo nursemaid on the quiet to take the baby to Anne-Marie on the Place de la Victoire. Unfortunately, Anne-Marie did not like babies. Her nostrils were tickled by their disagreeable smell.
“They smell of shit and Jean-Marie Farina cologne,” she claimed. “A horrible mixture.”
Deep down, she found the baby a little too black and puny in his sumptuous smocked blouse, but out of fear of hurting her, she said nothing to Victoire.
Ever since the departure of Jeanne Repentir, Victoire and Anne-Marie had been left to themselves. They listened to the municipal concerts together. Since Anne-Marie, who never stopped eating grilled peanuts, was suffering from the first signs of obesity, she believed that walking round the square several times would be a way of fighting it. Soon out of breath, she would sit down on a bench facing the harbor, admiring the serenity of the pink and gray sky. They would listen to the cathedral bells and part around seven thirty.
THE BIRTH OF their first son and the christening as sumptuous as a wedding that followed — there were as many as three hundred guests — consolidated the entrance of Jeanne and Auguste into the club of Grands Nègres. I don’t know why, they became one of the most highly regarded couples in La Pointe. I say I don’t know why because I must confess I have difficulty understanding the reasons for this preeminence. They did not excel in any particular field or show any specific talent. The Grands Nègres established a cultural association, Alizés, which published a somewhat pretentious rag called Trait d’Union. I cannot see my father’s signature anywhere. My mother has signed two rather uninteresting articles written with very little imagination. One defends the need for a democratic and secular education — her pet subject. The other is an obituary of one of her colleagues who died giving birth at the age of twenty-five. Apart from that, they never expressed a political opinion and never took part in any major cause. Perhaps it was simply because of appearances. They formed a handsome couple. Both tall, slender, and satisfied with themselves.
For the christening lunch Jeanne called on a Lebanese caterer, a certain Maalouf, who initiated the bourgeoisie, tired of Creole cooking, into the delights of the Middle East: tabbouleh, hummus, and boned duck stuffed with olives. Just as for her wedding, she refused to treat her mother like a servant and burden her with a responsibility that probably would have been too heavy for her. Once again, however, her intentions were misunderstood. Victoire felt excluded, although she carried her grandson to the baptismal font. The newborn was wrapped in a blouse of batiste and Valenciennes lace, several meters long. A fluted frill bonnet hugged his little lackluster face. The godparents were of course two carefully selected Grands Nègres. What mattered were appearances. On every birthday they ritually gave their godchild a small wad of crackling brand-new banknotes. Nothing more. No sign of affection. No special consideration.
Auguste Jr. had the bad idea to be born nine months, almost to the day, before Jean, Jeanne’s second son, who was as splendid as a star, his mother would proudly repeat. Auguste Jr. was first of all his father’s favorite, but dropped out of favor when he showed no inclination for physical activities and too much liking for unreadable books: Auguste, who had done brilliantly in sports at school, dreamed of a volleyball or football champion for a son. The family legend goes that at age twelve Auguste Jr. would sit on the balcony reading Tacitus and Pliny the Elder in the original. His bedside book was Descartes’ Discours de la Méthode, from which he could recite entire pages. He had an exceptionally successful university career. The first Guadeloupean to pass the high-level agrégation exam. The first black teacher in a prestigious Parisian lycée. Unfortunately, he was never a rebel like his contemporary Aimé Césaire, who, moreover, knew him. Although he courted the muse, his literary talents were lacking and he spent his days, childless and anonymous, among his pink and blonde wife’s Pomeranian dogs in the suburb of Asnières.
Thank goodness for Auguste! He was the only one of us who remembered or thought he remembered Victoire. For all of us, this strange-colored grandmother was half imaginary. A spirit. A ghost. Floating in the mist of time long, long ago. At most an enigmatic photo placed on top of a piano. He remembered the contours of a face as white and gentle as the moon that leaned over his cradle. He claimed that in accordance with the horrible custom of the time, they made him kiss her on her deathbed. He was barely four, but he still shivered as he recalled his terror when he saw the person he adored transformed into a cadaverous object. She never left his side. When he reached the age of piano lessons with M. Démon, the mulatto, who taught all of us our scales, her hand guided his tortured fingers over the ivory and ebony keys. Later on, like Victoire, he adored opera.