is just between us, I can lower myself to make certain concessions, but not that far. People who come from nothing. Upstarts made rich by trickery! They are without manners, they looked the other way when the Cercle was pillaged, our Cercle founded by my poor husband, that once opened its doors only to the cream of society! They have turned it into their barracks and as we speak their filthy muddy feet soil our carpets and their armed rear ends are wedged in our armchairs!… Oh! I never thought you’d suggest such a thing, Claire.”
She’s literally suffocating.
“And yet you receive the commandant in your home,” I said to her.
She cast a worried glance at the door and lowered her voice:
“I never invited him,” she confided, “he came on his own. They are shockingly shameless.”
She is wearing a long-sleeved gray dress that falls to her boots. She takes a few small steps, clutches the cameo dangling on her chest at the end of a long chain, raises her head toward the French ancestor who stares back at her sternly and, changing the subject, says:
“I’d rather not do the display at all!”
She tidies her bun of white hair, pinning it atop her pretty and distinguished face, and changes the subject:
“I have heard from Frantz,” she informs me. “There’s a chance he will come visit me soon. I am sorry he didn’t marry you, believe me, because I’m somewhat afraid of this foreigner. Even though I have traveled, it’s surprising how provincial I am still. I’m at home only in my element… He seemed to find you charming, and that you were, my girl, that you were.”
She talks about me as if I were dead.
“Do you know my son is becoming a leading expert in the medical profession? And with his marriage to Mademoiselle Dechantre, he won’t have any trouble establishing himself in France.”
She struts, straightens her shawl and hands me a photo:
“Look how pretty she is,” she tells me.
She is indeed pretty, and much younger than I.
“So how are things at home with Felicia’s husband?” She adds, “I find him a bit… distant… a bit… strange…”
“Jean Luze is a perfect husband,” I answer dryly.
“Take it easy! So quick to get your knickers in a knot when it comes to him! In any case, he will give Felicia beautiful children… I think of your parents… This match would have made them so happy. I hope Annette will also make a match worthy of the name she carries.”
And passing as usual from one thought to another:
“Any news from poor Dora Soubiran?” she asks point-blank. “Seems like they maimed her. Have you seen her? I’m still waiting for things to settle down. Eugenie Duclan has seen her. In secret, but she did see her. She has nothing left down there… It must have been awful. She told Eugenie she saw her own flesh fly as Caledu whipped her, lying on her back, legs spread open, held down by four prisoners, four filthy beggars to whom he then offered her… I’m seventy-five years old. I have seen revolutionaries walk into this town, bandits; I’ve witnessed bloody battles, lived through civil war, but never, you hear me, never have I felt as evil and foul a curse hovering over this town as I feel it today…”
From the house next door, a plaintive voice swells, then cries out with effort. I prick up my ears to listen.
“It’s Jacques Marti,” she tells me, abruptly interrupting herself. “He’s been quite delirious since yesterday.”
“Hot, so hot, I’m burning up,” the voice intones. “God has opened the gates of hell upon us. Flames pour from the sky and Satan is among us. Beware! oh my brothers…”
“Shh… Be quiet,” whispers another voice. “People will hear you.”
The madman cries out.
“I see Satan, I see him, there he is, right there in front of me, spitting fire. So hot! I’m burning!”
“Bah!” Mme Camuse sighs, adjusting the shawl around her thin shoulders, “he’s hot, I’m cold. It’s a matter of age and temperament. Poor Joel! He’s been trying to calm him since yesterday but it’s no use. It’s hard to have to take care of a madman at his age.”
She stares at the door, suddenly afraid:
“I hope Jacques’ words won’t be misconstrued,” she whispers to me.
She shivers and wraps her arms around her chest.
A dull, rhythmic thumping resounds from above.
“They’re cutting down the trees,” says Mme Camuse again. “Listen to the sound of the axes.”
“Bam, bam, bam!” screams the madman. “Satan is knocking at the town gate. Bam, bam, bam!…”
“Shh…” Joel says to his brother.
I leave Mme Camuse. In the street, I run into Caledu. He greets me but I pass without turning my head, haughty, contemptuous, pretending not to see him. Nothing escapes me, though: not the beggars clinging to him, nor their pleas, nor the kicks he gives them to make them let go, nor their reproachful faces, the hatred in the eyes of one decrepit old man shivering feverishly by the gutter.
I feel like getting a new dress. I feel like being beautiful for the Feast of the Virgin. Such things can happen to women my age, too, even to old maids. I will have Jane Baviere, our neighbor on the left, make it. It’s time I helped her-number one, out of bravado, and, number two, to annoy Felicia. I can imagine the exchange:
“You, Claire, are condoning vice,” she will tell me in a shrill and exasperating tone. “Just why did you pick her of all people? An unwed mother!”
You would think maturity has no part in our mental evolution. Jane Baviere was once a friend, and I have decided to reestablish our old ties. I have abandoned her long enough. I believe I have offered sufficient applause for our proper bourgeois nonsense. I am rising up against it now. There is nothing else to do. Is it because I think that she, too, has had her share of bad luck? No matter, when I am with her, I can relax. I am not yet able to confide in her, but what she has confided about herself, with a spontaneity I envy, is a most meaningful lesson about life. She is as serene as Felicia, just as happy. And I had thought that anxiety, suspicion, and bitterness were the wages of scandal.
“Criminal!” Eugenie Duclan once yelled at her. “You have murdered your mother and father.”
Her son is grown up and already ten.
“And Jane?” Mme Camuse asks again without pity. “Still living in sin, is she?”
I wish I had Jane Baviere’s courage. A kid would bring some purpose to my life. A kid would offer solace for everything. At least, that’s what I think. After all, if I reached this goal, wouldn’t I be disappointed? Is that really what I most aspire to? Aren’t I fooling myself by gnawing on my own unhappiness, on this idea that I’m a failure? I’m too afraid of scandal to try it. I’m afraid of others and this fear is the guarantee of my so-called honesty. I prefer to indulge in artificial joys. I nurse a doll in secret. I play mommy, at my age. I try to fill my existence with this effigy that smells of glue. I convince myself that I love her and sprinkle her with cologne and powder to better fool myself. I bought her a little bottle. Ah! The ploys I invented to avoid Annette’s suspicions! She sold me the doll herself, at the Syrian’s, and the toy bottle too.
“Who is it for?” she asked me.
“For a goddaughter in Port-au-Prince. You don’t know her.”
“Who will deliver it?”
“Someone.”
I’m no chatterbox. She contents herself with my monosyllabic answers and keeps quiet.
Shut in my room, I hold Caroline tight. I am sometimes tempted to breastfeed her. How I wish milk would flow from my breast! I make her lie next to me and caress her dead black hair. I want her to be demanding, I want her to need me. Only small children can really need help and affection. That’s why we are moved by those who resemble them. I wonder if Jean Luze is capable of crying.
He takes his seat at the table again and looks at Annette with indifference. She’s lost her charm and has become forlorn, when she was always so cheerful. She shows her despondence, it’s awkward. In the evening, Felicia makes an appearance on her husband’s arm.
“Good evening, Annette,” she says, simply.
“Good evening, Felicia.”
There is no doubt about it. She possesses an uncommon moral force that briefly arouses my admiration.
