When Valerie-Anne had tenderly placed her head on Victoire’s shoulder and begged her to take charge of the wedding banquet, Victoire hadn’t dared tell her the truth. How could she confess she was henceforth incapable of cooking? Now that she had her back to the wall, in order to create an illusion, she had surrounded herself with a regiment of dark-skinned coolies with oily hair and red dots in the middle of their foreheads who could barely understand Creole since they came from Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. We should mention in passing that because of this Indian domesticity, the du Veuzits proclaimed they had never enslaved any blacks and had nothing to do with slavery. This did not prevent Jean-René, one of Valérie-Anne’s sons and president of the banana planters’ union, from being assassinated in 1995 by his plantation workers, who had had enough of him. Victoire was back again amid the smell of browned pork crackling, stuffed fowl, braised lamb, chives, garlic, and spices. But she neither created nor invented anything new. All she did was reel off old recipes to these docile flunkies, more used to throwing together curried colombos than perfecting culinary feats — like a novelist who shamelessly uses over again the tricks of the trade in her best-sellers. She looked at her hands and the chagrin at having lost her gift weighed her down. Moreover, this wedding constantly reminded her of another: Philimond’s. That time too they had carelessly amused themselves in the shadow of a volcano that had taken offense. In its cruelty it had destroyed their society from top to bottom.
When they went to sit down, the maids of honor passed out white rectangular cartons with gold lettering that Anne-Marie, true to character, had had printed. But this time she did not communicate the menu to the press, as if she knew that Victoire’s role was a fabrication. In the secret of their hearts, all those who sat down at table were disappointed. Victoire was not in one of her good days, you could sense it. They didn’t hold it against her, however. What writer produces one masterpiece after another?
Around five o’clock the wedding couple left for Trois Rivières, where the boat for Terre-de-Haut, an island in Les Saintes, was waiting for them. There they would spend their honeymoon, for Maximilien, although he had been to Venice and Rio de Janeiro, considered the Saintes one of the marvels of the world. Except for a few fishermen, descendants of Bretons, as blond as corn, the island was virtually uninhabited: beaches of white sand, the sea. In other words, paradise on earth! As Valérie-Anne was throwing her arms around Victoire’s neck, her “true maman” as she liked to call her, and showering her with kisses, she noticed that her cheeks were soaked with tears.
“You’re crying,” she exclaimed. “But why?”
Victoire was incapable of saying why.
My theory is that beginning with that stay at La Regrettée, Victoire was convinced there was nothing left for her on this earth, where her life had lost both meaning and usefulness, and she turned to face death.
AT THE RISK of irritating Jeanne, Victoire had to stay behind another week at La Regrettée. It’s true it wasn’t her fault. She had caught cold and could not leave on the appointed day.
They were strange, the times she spent in the deserted drying house. Only Jérémie stayed behind with her and faithfully brought her grogs and herb teas. He talked to her untiringly of the importance of labor unions and strikes. Thus began an odd friendship. Later on when Victoire was bedridden, Jérémie found his way to the rue de Condé. He would sit down in her bedroom, ignoring Jeanne’s snooty expression and suspicious looks since she took him for a nobody — which he wasn’t. Jérémie Cabriou, that was his full name, founded a few years later the first unified union of workers in Guadeloupe, of Marxist allegiance. He was also the first to give his political speeches in Creole, something Légitimus and his people, I think, were incapable of doing. To my knowledge he was the only person who offered to teach Victoire how to read and write. But she brushed him aside.
“An ja two vyé à pwézan!”
“Too old!” he protested. “You must be joking!”
He had no idea that something had died in her.
At night the drying house at La Regrettée was left to the racket of the wind. It made a hell of a row, rushing through the corridors, banging doors and windows, mewing as it burst into the dormitory and playing leapfrog over the single beds. Victoire was unable to get to sleep. Her mind, haunted by the fever, relived and dramatized all the quarrels with her daughter, hearing once again all the remarks she had made to her in anger or impatience. Instead of treating them as a banal result of that inevitable conflict of generations that every parent goes through, she loaded them with a formidable meaning.
She believed she understood why her presence on the rue de Condé was causing a growing embarrassment. The more Auguste and Jeanne felt at ease in the circle of Grands Nègres, the more she reminded them of an embarrassing past.
One dream in particular had a lasting impression on her, she who unlike Caldonia never paid any attention to them. She was following Alexandre along a narrow path, uneasy and stumbling over hidden roots. Suddenly he stopped. They found themselves on a plateau, flat as a platform, at the top of La Soufrière. Or was it the Montagne Pelée? Lost amid the smell of sulfur and lightning. In front of them the ocean.
“Don’t be long,” Alexandre said. “I’ll be waiting for you. It’s been too long already.”
Then he threw himself like a swimmer into the void. She woke up panting. All around her the cavern of the night resounded with the din of insects and the vociferations of frogs.
Yes, what was she still doing on this earth?
Death, if you call her, is always ready to answer “present,” that’s a fact. She heard Victoire’s voice.
Victoire’s fever went down, however, and her cough improved under the combined effects of Jérémie’s grogs and herb teas, perhaps, and she returned to La Pointe.
Major changes were in the works on the rue de Condé. In October Auguste left his job as principal of the school for boys on the rue Henri IV. The effect of this was first of all a lot of additional work that he hadn’t foreseen. Instead of having an easy time of it, taking his time to walk to his office, going out at ten o’clock for a cane juice at La Palmeraie while joking with the owner, M. Carabin, and nonchalantly presiding over the staff meetings and prize giving, Auguste locked himself up the entire day in a stuffy building on the rue Gambetta and often worked late into the night. Since dividends were still limited, there were no more lavish receptions awash in fine wines. Once a week, the directors of the Caisse Coopérative des Prêts squeezed into the living room, which they filled with thick smoke. When midnight caught up with them, heads lowered over their calculations, they snacked on codfish sandwiches and beer bought from the local corner store.
On Thursday afternoons, however, Jeanne started to receive her friends.
This initiative was much criticized. It was seen to be proof of her megalomania exacerbated by her husband’s improved status. She showed off. She played the role of wife of a bank director, a role that the modest Caisse Coopérative des Prêts had difficulty filling. What nobody knew in fact was that she was merely obeying Auguste, who blamed her for being too solitary, too secretive, and encouraged her to become a socialite. My mother obeyed, but she never had any friends. She was too hypersensitive, touchy, hurt, tormented, and offended by teasing or a joke that was perhaps in bad taste but quite harmless. She took offense at the slightest remark and harbored resentment over trivialities. Her bruised and wounded soul never healed.