Zuléfi had often imagined this moment when he would be able to get this weight off his chest and confess.
“Who put you onto me? You must have been surprised that I, the child of a mischief maker, raised amid vice and magic, suddenly took refuge in the Good Lord. You want to know why?
“Because one day the scales fell from my eyes like Saul on the road to Damascus. The stench of my sins and those of my father grabbed my nostrils. I can’t tell you which smelled the worst. All I know are those that wake me up in the middle of the night. I, Zuléfi, committed the mother of atrocities — I performed human sacrifices. It’s no use telling me I was still a little boy. I was twelve. I understood perfectly well what I was doing. And to be honest with you, I had already dabbled in the waters of women. My father’s ancestor landed here in 1640. He came from the kingdom of Abomey. He was a Yavogou from a noble family and one of the court’s highest dignitaries. The Yavogous are not merely princes. They can see and talk with the spirits, like I’m talking to you at this very minute. The invisible world holds no secrets from them. That’s why they alone perform the supreme sacrifice — the human sacrifice. When it comes to the annual celebrations and royal funerals, they are the ones who decide how many widows, slaves, virgins, and albinos must be sacrificed. On the death of a member of the royal family, they decide who must follow them to the grave. Once the sacrifices are over, as guardians of the spirit world, they knead the earth around the shrines with fresh blood. You can imagine that, coming from a tradition like that, my father wasn’t going to break his back under the sun cutting sugarcane. He used his powers to turn the heads of the Fouques-Timbert family. Fair’s fair. He helped them become the most powerful family of planters. In exchange, he and his family were virtually free.
“Like his father and father’s father before him, Madeska had inherited the lithalam, the name for the sacrificial knife made from a bull’s horn, so sharp that as soon as its tip touches the flesh, it slits the skin in two. Blood was its staple diet. From the age of seven I attended every one of my father’s sacrifices. Fowl, sheep, goats, bulls, humans — I didn’t miss a single one. But my favorites were the newly born. Every time I was fascinated by the incredible sight. My father would pray out loud, kneel down, then do what he had to do. With one stroke of the lithalam—it should never need two — he sliced the neck of the infant, no bigger than a quail’s. The blood gushed out in great spurts; at first bright red, then slowing to a black trickle. Finally, the baby uttered a muffled gurgle. Its eyes clouded over with a gray film and slowly faded into oblivion. For a long, long time afterward its body shook with violent convulsions. It was as if there were frogs hidden under its skin who were all trying to escape the agonized little body at the same time.
“When it was over, my father would grab the soul as it wandered around in a daze and shove it into a jar, which he stored in a shed behind our house, in case a reincarnation proved necessary. At the age of ten, I became my father’s official assistant. My job was deadly serious. The ceremony always began in the secret of midnight. My father would hand me the lithalam in its leather sheath. Reciting the prayers, I would draw it out and hand it to my father. Once the sacrifice had been performed, I would ceremoniously wash the blade dripping with blood, coat it with sacred unguents, and return it to its sheath. Then just before dawn I would carry the bleeding victim, still warm, wrapped in seven pieces of cloth and squeezed into a goatskin, to its final resting place. This would traditionally be the clearing at Malendure, way up in the depths of the forest near the Dead Tree Falls. There I laid it on a pile of earth with its head facing the rising sun. At its feet I set down the sacrificial food of smoked herring and ground corn cooked with no salt; I made a circle of ceremonial objects such as candles, nails, and a crucifix and recited the farewell prayer. Then I left without ever looking back. If I did, my two eyes would have been gouged out by the spirits come to feast on the victim’s body.
“That night a baby girl had gone under the lithalam. Everything had gone as planned. Just before sunrise I was about to set off for the clearing at Malendure with my bag when Virgilius came to fetch me. Virgilius was my best friend, the son of another mischief maker, somewhat less expert than my father. He had been looking for me since the day before. His cousin had been taken to hospital with a pleurisy. We could borrow his boat and take off for the island of Antigua. We’d been longing to go to Antigua for ages! I wanted nothing better, but what was I to do with my wretched load? It would take me almost a whole day to walk to Malendure and back. Then Virgilius had an idea. His father didn’t go to all that trouble, not him. He dropped his sacrifices off at the Calvaire crossroads, where he left his magic baths. I hesitated; then the longing to set off to sea got the better of me. I let him be my guide. When we arrived at the Calvaire crossroads, the sky was barely turning white. We hurriedly laid the baby on a mound of grass, set down the sacrificial food, scattered the nails, pieces of iron, and red rags, and rushed off as quickly as we could. We launched the boat into the water. The sun caught up with us around eight in the morning. I shall never forget the color of the sea at that hour. Green like the back of an iguana. We threw out our nets and drew them back in loaded with all sorts of fish — wrasse, largemouth bass, and porgies. We hauled in crayfish. When we returned to Grande-Anse the following night, the place was abuzz with talk about darling little Celanire, the baby girl found at the Calvaire crossroads by Officer Dieudonné Pylône. Miracle of miracles, Dr. Jean Pinceau, they said, had spent the entire day sewing her together again. A crowd had gathered in front of his door. My heart missed a beat. Terrified, I ran home. Maman and her cowives were in tears. Refusing to eat or drink, my father had locked himself in his prayer hut. He let me in. ‘You didn’t take her to Malendure, did you?’ he quietly asked. ‘You set her down at the Calvaire crossroads, didn’t you?’ All I could do was nod. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I’m a doomed man. Ogokpi, the great demon, has broken his pact with me. He’s convinced I tried to trick him and rob him of what I promised him. My only chance of escape is to cross the ocean.’ I fell to my knees. My head felt as if it were about to burst. ‘Can I go with you?’ I begged him. He shook his head. The next morning he set off in the direction of Montserrat without troubling to say farewell to anyone. Not even to my mother, whom he loved more than any of his wives. I cried my heart out.
“At noon I went and stood in front of Dr. Pinceau’s door in the hope of catching a glimpse of this darling little Celanire. I stood there with the vague hope that, after all, it might be some other infant. I spent the entire day standing in the sun. But all in vain. Out of fear of infection for the baby, the doctor’s surgery was closed and nobody went in or out. In fact it was only several weeks later, on the day of her christening, that I saw darling little Celanire with my own two eyes. No doubt about it. In her yards of lace, English embroidery, velvet and silk ribbons, blouse, smock, and bonnet, it was the very same infant I had left naked, covered in blood, throat slashed, on a bed of guinea grass. Due to my thoughtlessness I had brought misfortune on all those I loved most in this world.