Colour of Dawn Page 5

  This city has taught me one lesson, only one: never to give up on yourself. Never to let a single sentiment soften your spirit. In place of my heart a lump of hard, crude matter has settled inside my chest, right between my breasts. I recognise my little grey stone. And I breathe heavily as I know with certainty that it will remain firmly fixed in place. On this island, in this city, you have to be a stone. I am a stone.

  Wedged into this tap-tap I allow myself to be gradually invaded by Lolo’s chatter as she sits beside me. All the time showing off her fingers with cherry-red fingernails, she has been boasting to me for a full five minutes, and for the nth time, of the talents of a manicurist who has recently been taken on in the beauty salon where she works and who has unrivalled skills in the application of Chinese acrylic nails. And, placing her fingers right in front of my eyes as the incontrovertible evidence, she adds, ‘You should allow yourself this little luxury. Go on, I’ll get you credit, you won’t regret it.’

  My laconic reply clearly doesn’t please her. She shrugs, a little vexed.

  Lolo has the latest mobile phone clamped to her ear. I’m dying to borrow it from her to dial this mysterious telephone number. But I change my mind. You never know. Lolo talks a lot. Too much. In any case, even now she is already giggling with her new lover, ‘her old man’ as she calls him. Sixty if he’s a day and afraid – afraid of growing old. A man who wants to prove his virility in her velvety youth, in the elixir of her twenty years.

  ‘Well, he pays for everything,’ Lolo has told me on numerous occasions, giving me a list of all the things she believes she’s entitled to: a trip to Miami, a hair extension à la Naomi Campbell (‘Honestly, Joyeuse, these hair extensions are never in the colours you need for those great long tresses like the whites have’), cards for her mobile phone and, of course, clothes – if it’s clothes you want, here you are. She confided to me that after her first trip to Miami she would come back so as not to arouse suspicion, but on the second she would disappear into the orange groves of Florida.

  ‘You know full well that misery and I just don’t get on. I’m not like all those people we’re surrounded by who wait for God, Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours, Saint Theresa, Agoué, their boss, the government or the revolution to come to their aid. No-one’s going to come and save us, Joyeuse, no-one. So the old man won’t see Lolo for dust.’

  A month ago, out of curiosity, I asked her, ‘Your old man, in what way is he old?’

  She replied, concentrating hard, as if trying to find the words to describe an expedition to a far-off land, the Antarctic or the North Pole: ‘Old like something that’s foreign to me, Joyeuse, how can I tell you…? Something I don’t know. Old like the snow, cold like the winter.’

  Of course, that day we must have talked about Poupette, who took off two years ago with a French aid worker before our dumbfounded, admiring eyes. She returned a few months ago, rolling her r’s, talking with a French accent, dressed like a celebrity and took up residence, if you please, in a hotel up there in the swanky district of Pétion-Ville. Lolo, too, never lost hope of landing a similar rare bird to put a ring on her finger.

  ‘The old man is just the first step on my ladder, Joyeuse.’

  And Lolo filled my ears with the things we had all heard as whispered secrets from our mothers, who in turn had heard it from their grandmothers, back as far as the ancestors on their pallets in huts and in the holds of ships.That wherever the imploring master hoped to find an anchoring place for his anguish, somewhere to quench his man’s thirst, in the calm bellies of the negresses, their turbulent hips and that moist, hot place between their thighs, they would be able to leave the interminable path of the defeated.

  John was no exception. I sensed his collapse as man and conqueror in his fascinated hands, his enquiring tongue, his avid mouth, his impatient sex. He could have cried from it. He called me ‘My little charcoal-haired sorceress’. For a long time after his attentions ceased to move me, I continued to allow him to touch me, to explore again and again that black cave inside me. I wanted both to learn the lessons of the flesh and to understand this man, his legacy of conquests and my own strength as one of the defeated. A homecoming like this troubled me.Yes, ‘troubled’ is the right word. I hadn’t yet felt with enough certainty my grey stone in the middle of my chest. I wasn’t yet clear-headed enough. Not tough enough, either. I’m still not. Still not… And as if she has read my mind, Lolo has no hesitation in dealing me one of those deadly blows she is so good at: ‘The love of mathematics has only ever led to a scholarship to go away and study in France or the United States. And what then? You’re wasting your time with Luckson, Joyeuse.’

  Perhaps she’s right? Perhaps I haven’t yet totally rejected the complex background of the defeated, whose history is locked up in this black sea that surrounds our island like a tomb?

  Lolo’s conversation with her old man this morning revolves around lovers’ trysts, sugary thank-yous and a new request for money. A bargaining to which I am only half paying attention when a heavy thump against the door, on the driver’s side, makes me turn. The thump is followed immediately by the noise of a breaking window pane. A few passengers shout out and protect their faces. I curl up like a snail against the front seat while a strange, deafening rumble comes up from the street. We fear, with good reason, an ambush like the ones that have been taking place for a few weeks now in every corner of the city. The driver stamps on the accelerator and shoots off. Lolo has not let go of her mobile and tells her old man in the minutest detail the misadventure we are in the middle of experiencing. I know her well enough to be sure that she has found here the perfect excuse to raise the stakes later on when she sees him. Later on… That’s Lolo all over.

  The first emotional moments over, the driver slips in a music cassette. His intention is to prevent any comments by the passengers on the incident we have just experienced, and also to lead us, dancing, to the shores of forgetfulness. The voice of star singer Djakout Mizik ends up getting the better of that fear that for so long has thrown its huge black veil over our city. We lift up the veil, and for a brief time light once again bathes the world. And the things of this world appear to return to their proper place. We allow ourselves to be led by this electrified compas sound which tells us in a rhythmic language not to worry, that money is easy, that life is good and that Djakout Mizik has found the recipe for happiness.

  ELEVEN

  We gave John the love he wanted. In our own way. Deep down, we were delighted by this man, Fignolé’s find. The real spoils of war. And on his second visit Mother took him by the hand and stood him in front of the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Here, she touched him two or three times in succession on his beard and his hair to ensure that he made the connection between this Christ hung on the wall and himself. Mother knows how to do it, I can assure you. She knows how to use her charm to maintain her world. He burst out laughing, revealing his white, neat teeth, and kissed Mother on her cheek. He must have found her charming and exotic.

  John arrived ten years ago with a contingent of American soldiers during the second occupation of an island where there has since been no-one but subjects returning with their tails between their legs or losers leaving on their knees. Subjects and losers passing one another in a joint humiliation.What could they do, a race whose bosses, too, had at that point been conquered and humiliated, but themselves become part of that daily, banal disaster? Who on this island would not like to get the better of a foreigner, whether a pastor, aid worker or humanitarian? Previously, there had only been the white Blancs; now we have the black Blancs. The Blancs have brought us unhappiness with one hand and promises of happiness with the other. Who, if they are normal, would not want some of this extravagant thing known as happiness that you see gleaming in the distance? Always in the distance. And it was in order to prove to us that this happiness was within reach that John shared some of our meagre meals, paid for Mother’s prescriptions and during a really lean period even agreed to se
ttle up for the funeral of a cousin who didn’t actually exist. We pocketed the money in silence. He guessed at the subterfuge but played the game to appease his guilty conscience at being the messenger of the gods. More than anything else on earth he wanted Joyeuse. And the first black Republic got women down on their knees for a few dollars, a meal, some squares of chocolate. John looked at Joyeuse, he looked at her and was barely able to restrain himself from sinking his teeth into this morsel of sweet flesh and devouring her before our eyes. And Joyeuse sensed this. Joyeuse was already so different from me. Full-figured, curvaceous. So sure of herself. So shameless and so sexual. Yes, the word is out. That’s what Joyeuse is. Sexual. With all the connotations that go with it, and everything you can guess from it. She fired John up from head to toe like a torch. As young as she was when John came into our lives, her body still uncertain, Joyeuse already knew about the power of that thing she was well aware she carried between her thighs. Every time John visited she would take great care, watched by his mesmerised eyes, to wrap herself up, to build an impenetrable wall of silence or to laugh out loud, all out of breath from running. John was flattered by the agitation he caused in Joyeuse, this young, tantalising Black, this little fairy with a thousand magic spells, with eyes that shone like embers, with her enchanting backside. As for me, I was watching for the moment when John would weaken or bite. I could imagine the film, tinged with coffee, sugar cane and honey, that John was playing in his head, himself a novice among novices, he who, back in his white America, had never gone near anyone like Joyeuse except on a bus or at the checkout of a shop. John had an obstinate, stubborn taste for this forbidden fruit and would salivate at the slightest glimpse of her. And I, Angélique Méracin, I said nothing, as ever.

  Joyeuse feigned innocence that afternoon when I arrived home earlier than usual from the hospital and caught them by surprise, alone in the house. Mother had gone to Aunt Sylvanie’s and was not due back until the following day. Fignolé must have been yet again at one of those high-school meetings learning how to remake Haiti and the world. Entering through the gate, I noticed John’s bag on the porch. I was not wicked enough to open the living-room door even though I had a key. Out of a sense of modesty on their behalf, I went down the narrow passage to the backyard, where I intentionally made a loud noise rattling the large plastic bowl that held the pans and plates. Joyeuse opened the door onto the backyard a few minutes later and with all the boldness I’d always known she had in her, said to me, leaning against the door frame: ‘John’s here. He’s helping me with my English homework.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, with the same straight face as hers.

  But she couldn’t care less whether or not I believed her. Joyeuse had already understood that music which spins men around, and had set herself to playing it with talent. Even now I don’t know whether it was a matter of caution on John’s part or calculation on Joyeuse’s that saved us from raising a little mulatto bastard. I just don’t know.

  During these early visits, bent over his notebook, John had drunk in our every word and religiously taken notes. Our lives were summarised in hastily-scribbled letters, and would seem a world away to people force-fed with words and images. People who would suffer yet another shock and who would be quick to chase us from their hearts because we were no longer bearable – enough, enough!

  I didn’t particularly like this constant attention to our slightest movement. I got the impression that we were like those urine or blood samples that specialists examine in hospital laboratories for microbes, to confirm or tackle infections. He believed that there was some great complicity between him and me, simply because I cared for the sick and the poor in the only public hospital in the city. In fact I was only there because I hadn’t found anything else to do and there were five mouths to feed at home. I only ever dreamt of being elsewhere, that place John had been born into, thousands of kilometres from that shabby hospital on this cursed island. And to make himself love us even more, John imagined us even poorer than we were, and thought of me as someone even more devoted than I was in reality. That was the wonderful film that John and many like him, born beneath benign skies in fine neighbourhoods, play in their heads. Every day, all the time. Mother and I were not fooled, but played along with it, each for our own reasons. But Joyeuse and Fignolé both played a role in John’s film, even though they didn’t realise it. And at the time it was better like that.

  The years passed by. And as always, the euphoria of the first hopes had faded in the face of a world where everyone knew their place in the general hardship. In the eternal postponement of the seasons. With no tomorrows. As for John, he found reasons and scapegoats in all the excesses of the leader of the Démunis, full explanations for all the evils of our island. Today, Fignolé is up against John, up against those at whose side he risked his life for a dream he has left behind since the Démunis party, following the return of its leader, its prophet, has become ten times richer than all the parties of the Rich. Since too much blood has flowed. This blood has dragged Fignolé further into its night. And he sways in anger before that barbarism that wears the face of the Law. An anger from which he will not emerge unharmed. I can feel it.

  I carry on with my morning shift. We have fewer resources each day. I’m not really sure what to say to the woman I’m standing in front of, whose back is peeling, the flies buzzing round her in a crazy saraband. She has not been able to move unaided for several weeks now. Several weeks during which the auxiliaries, whose heart is no longer in the job, have been overtaken by events.

  TWELVE

  Packed into the tap-tap, a veritable disco on wheels, we finally make our way, half deaf, to the city centre. We are deceiving ourselves with this here-and-now, but we are happy with it. We are travelling behind a celebratory front, a carnival of pain, waiting for Port-au-Prince to swallow us up whole once again. The danger is there, lurking in the shadows. We thumb our noses at it. The day mocks us mercilessly, the blue of the sky looks down coquettishly on us. We reflect it all back, and more. We are out to lead life on, to grab from it more than it wants to give. We are out to get the measure of the sun.

  My rage has melted away somewhat. But the anxiety is still there, fixing me with a great menacing stare. I don’t want this snivelling distress. My tongue, my ears, my eyes, the palms of my hands – all have such a taste for life. I’ll find out in the end where Fignolé spent the night. Perhaps he wanted to have Ismona all to himself, to find the taste of sand and stars in a city that has for so long renounced its enchantments, its magic.

  As I turn all these questions over and over, I remember that morning when Fignolé asked me for money. I had just been paid and I gave in. The next day he came home with a packet under his arm. The colour of the paper this packet was wrapped in, its shape, the whole thing suddenly comes back to me. The questions take a crazy turn and end up racing away. They threaten to suffocate me. I breathe deeply three times in succession, wedged right into my seat, and I avoid their snares one by one. Anything is better than all these questions, even the wait for Luckson. The wait seems so trivial in the face of calamity, but it is mine. I allow the images, the smells and the light to awake in me another morning, hints of a morning so secret, so unexpected, so overwhelming in the deepest part of me.These images, these smells and this light from elsewhere are those of absence, of deprivation.

  Of a man.

  A man alone.

  An ordinary man.

  A man, the hope of my days. The desire of my nights. A man who is eating away my life. A man crouching in the languid space between my hips. A man whose absence descends sweetly down to the tops of my thighs.

  A man who hasn’t achieved anything special. Who hasn’t discovered any unknown land. A man who will not be giving his name to any street, any square. Who is still alive, who breathes somewhere in this city, and who may have forgotten me. Whom I should already have forgotten. This light comes from deep inside his eyes. These smells are those of his hand right next to my f
ace and the blood on that hand.

  This light and these smells have not left me since that day when we had all been woken, like today, by volleys of shots and with the same resignation, the same ordinaryday anger beneath our breasts. Lolo, my friend, my accomplice, had joined me a few minutes before. She and I were waiting for the stream of cars and tap-taps to stop at the traffic lights at the bottom of John Brown Avenue, one of the rare sets of lights that were still working. Two youths in uniform, running full pelt, hurled abuse against the Démunis and the party’s leader. A shiver ran through the crowd. Lolo and I exchanged looks and immediately feigned indifference. Good sense was paramount. However, I followed the young lads with my eyes, with blissful admiration, while all around me I saw that faces were closing up. The crowd speeded up visibly. Once at the other side of the road, Lolo and I ran until we were out of breath. Other voices, more and more of them, louder and louder, joined those of the students. Shots rang out. And a henchman, lying in wait in a passage, fired several shots to create panic and confusion. A roar of pain and rage rose up on all sides. Street vendors hurriedly packed up their junk, caught up in an indescribable hubbub. Stalls were crushed, others abandoned. Among the rebels, the police and the armed gangs it was impossible to tell who was spilling out of the nearby streets. Wails, cries, shouts were rising from the crowd. With a determination I didn’t know I had, I elbowed myself a route through this flood of people spilling out onto the pavements. A moment later, Lolo grabbed hold of my blouse. And the crowd swept me along with her to the door of a clinic on Rue Capois.The shots were gaining in intensity. I stumbled against a body and stopped myself from falling by clinging on to a telegraph pole. A student, mortally wounded, stared at me, eyes rolling. The man who had killed him was standing right in front of me. In rags, wild to the core, he was hardly sixteen years old: with no past, with no future, with no relatives, nature stripped bare, a bloody wound rubbed raw. He stared at me unblinking with an icy irony. It was a great effort to stop myself from throwing up my breakfast. Three women rushed down a passageway, bumping into me as they passed. I felt a heavy panic take me over. I turned and had lost sight of Lolo. A hand seized me by the collar and pulled me through a gateway. And I clearly heard a man’s voice.