Gleaming with sweat, M. Trudor prances among the ladies, happy to play the pasha in his luxury villa. He gives Jean Luze a tour of the house, waving his finger in the air.
“You are an intellectual, one can sense that. Come, I will show you something you will appreciate.”
He takes him to the library to let him admire his books. One gets the feeling that they are sitting there for show. Perhaps they have never been opened.
After they leave, I take a look around the library: it’s actually a very good one. I gaze for a moment at the nude body of Salammbô [25] embraced by a colorful snake on a morocco leather cover; I quickly scan a few familiar titles suddenly made less appealing in their pompous finery, and then sneak away to mingle with the others outside.
During dinner, the girl from Port-au-Prince turns to Jean Luze. They go around the buffet together chatting. She offers to guide him; there she is, picking out dishes he points to with his finger. I look for Félicia. She is cradling Jean-Claude and sipping a cool drink.
They say people are always disappointing the more you get to know them. Is it because I hope to be disappointed that I watch Jean Luze’s every move? Everything I have seen of him has only increased my admiration. Even his harshness toward Annette is justified in my eyes. Repression has given me the nose of a good hunting dog. I can smell the squirming of others’ thoughts merely by dilating my nostrils. Despite reassuring appearances, my nose tells me things aren’t going well for Félicia.
She who is generally so confident now seems to give off something nervous and unstable. She always remakes others in her own image. Even after the scene she witnessed with her own eyes, she still somehow sees Jean Luze as a man without weaknesses, a man Annette provoked in vain. In the same way, she also refuses to admit that Jean-Claude has worn her out. He must be the best baby in the world for he is her son. Despite the sleepless nights, she insists that he only cries when he’s hungry. I shudder to see her being so stubborn as to banish the thought that he could get sick.
More nonexistent than ever, I continue to keep my vigil. I am so dull that I have become colorless. In any case, that’s the only way to escape being bad-mouthed. At least they have left me alone. Even Father Paul gives me communion without confession, as it were. He could cite me as an example in his sermons. Does he really believe in purity? I would call purity a total ignorance of the torments of the flesh or else the triumph of the will over them. If this victory can, according to religion, save the soul, how can one explain the sexual stirrings of a woman who has lived in eternal chastity.
I can hardly imagine my life outside this house. It shelters all the sad memories of my childhood and my youth. Running away might heal me of my passion. But the thought of leaving makes me sick. As shabby as it is, this province is the apple of my eye. Could I really break all my habits if Jean Luze were to take me with him? Am I nursing impossible hopes? Aren’t the friendship and admiration he has for me strengthening these hopes? Nevertheless, mysterious as he may be, have I not put my finger on his weakness? After all, he almost gave in to Annette. In fact, he did give in to her completely and lied to Félicia.
He’s grown friendly with Joël Marti. They talk about music and literature. I am astonished to see him so animated. He gets all worked up during these conversations and is full of exuberance.
“But no, no, you’re wrong, Chopin is still a poet, a melancholy poet, a musician for neurotics; Beethoven personifies courage in suffering, the struggle against misfortune. His infirmity enriched him instead of diminishing him. His behavior should be an example for us. All of his compositions are hymns to life. Listen…”
He plays Chopin’s Concerto no. 1 for a minute and then Beethoven’s Concerto no. 5.
“Compare them,” he adds.
“Well, my old phonograph doesn’t have the same sound. It’s a very old machine, you know.”
Jean Luze laughs, he is happy. He needed friends! I bring them glasses, ice and what is left of the whiskey M. Long brought.
“No, Claire, some rum, Joël prefers rum and lately so do I,” Jean Luze tells me.
He leans over Joël.
“You are only twenty years old,” he tells him, “and you live in an outdated world. I will guide you. What authors do you like? It’s amazing to discover someone like you in a place like this, someone so curious, educated, enthusiastic and sensitive.”
“A lot of those arrested by Calédu were like me, hungry for more education. There were many of us here writing poetry, interested in music and literature. Our meetings were forbidden. We protested and they hunted us down. Some have disappeared and others have fled. I would like to leave too but, sadly, I am too poor.”
His shaking hand reaches for the rum bottle, and he helps himself. Later in the day, I see him staggering home.
Jean Luze has no idea how easily these misunderstood poets can get drunk.
Maybe this vice of theirs brings them a false sense of transcendence.
I’m being unfair. They are right to seek distraction from their suffering, to drown their unhappiness in a sea of alcohol, because their future is as dark as an abyss…
Jean Luze now feels compelled to restrict Joël’s drinking. He even preaches to him about it.
“Take it easy, Joël, easy,” he said to him today, taking the rum bottle from his hands. “It’s a slippery slope.”
Joël, already drunk, doesn’t take it well.
“Oh no, absolutely no lectures please or I’ll drink elsewhere.”
He becomes abusive and Jean Luze calms him.
“I only want what’s right for you, you know.”
“I know, I know. But what bothers me about our friendship is that you will never understand…”
“Never understand what? That you want to get piss-drunk. No, I’ll never get that. I understood your despair better when you were trying to console yourself with poetry. All of you seem to think you have a monopoly on suffering. Nothing can better drag a nation into moral and intellectual bankruptcy than believing its misery is special.”
“And what do you know about misery?” Joël screams.
“I know what I know!”
“Do you know who my brother was? Do you know what he meant to me? When my parents died, he took care of me like a father. He was intelligent, honest. They drove him insane. It’s their fault, you hear me, their fault! And I too will go insane one day…”
“Oh, enough of that!” Jean Luze lashes out in a voice so forceful that the boy is startled. “Are you also going to throw yourself headfirst into the trap they’ve set for you? You want it to be your turn to serve as their target?”
Joël looks away.
“What’s the use, they’re going to get us all,” he mutters in a mournful and desperate voice. “We’re caught in the teeth of the gear and the only solution is flight or despair.”
“No, you have to fight.”
“With our bare fists?”
“You have to hope,” Jean Luze replies more gently. “Those who sow hatred will reap it one day. Those who beat and torture are only cogs in an already weak system. Behind their hatred lie other hatreds. You have to hold it together and wait for your moment.”
Joël listens to him passionately.
Oh, imagine following him in pursuit of some impossible dream! Yes, he’s an idealist. But how rejuvenating it is to hope wildly and even dream about building a new and better world.