Félicia is recovering very slowly from the exhaustion of that awful trip and I myself feel rather bruised from the lurching and the weight of my sister and her son lying on top of me. Jean Luze is right. I have sacrificed too much. I am going to think about myself a little more and make a final decision about my future. My glance is more evasive than usual. I am afraid someone will see my disordered thoughts. I take care not to reveal anything. Am I going to wear this stifling mask until the end of my life?
We’re home again! It wasn’t hard to leave behind those petty memories back in my hotel room and at the hospital. Our little town has been shaken by the disappearance of Jane and her child. What’s happened to them? Nobody knows. I curse that trip to Port-au-Prince. If I had been here, things would have happened otherwise. This is the last time Calédu attacks one of my friends. What will happen to Jane and her child? Some people say they saw them passing through around midnight escorted by the armed beggars. Joël and Jean Luze whisper mysteriously to each other and seem to hide something from me. Are they working together to get rid of Calédu? Was Jane helping them? And the men who were seen going into her house, were they Joël and his friends? Three questions I am as yet unable to answer. But I am sure of one thing: the commandant only arrested Jane so that I might throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy. I would rather see Jane and her son die. I would rather die myself.
I’m listening to the screams. Are they coming from Jane and her child? I clench my fists and gnash my teeth. A kind of mysterious tremor stirs the town like the hushed sound of a wing slowly gliding over our heads. This shudder that courses through me cannot be merely personal, I know this now. Like me, all of them must be secretly working to free themselves from the constricting fear. I am not alone. All of them are here around me, and we suffer together, minds fixed on our impending deliverance.
Félicia is spoiling herself. The fate of Jane and her son scarcely seems to move her, since she has taken shelter so completely in Jean Luze’s love. She has everything and I have nothing. I don’t think I envy her, however. Envy is not enough to explain the dreadful hatred I feel for her. This woman is my enemy. She has placed herself in my way, she has blocked my horizons, she has thwarted my destiny, stolen my happiness as Annette did seven years ago. But this time I have decided to defend myself. With Félicia gone, I am sure Jean Luze would be mine more than he is now hers. I would destroy in him the very memory of the past. When you overestimate yourself, you are lying to yourself out of loyalty. All because you are aware you’re being duped. You draw strength and courage from your false idea of yourself. What terrible disappointment awaits me behind this veil of lies? Could I gather the shattered bits of my old self? I live the life of an unsung lover. I believe I am more ardent than Messalina, more seasoned than Cleopatra, more romantic than Emma Bovary. [26] And I want Jean Luze to prove it to me. I am approaching narcissism. My abnormality repels me. I see it as a defect.
Tonight I will bring him to my room and confess my love. He must reveal me to myself.
I couldn’t take the first step. Twenty times I left my room to go to him, all in vain. I could never do it. Making advances is beyond me.
Being alone scares me right now. Here I am, like a poisoned rat [27] in the house. Jean Luze is now in the habit of going out alone with his son. He goes and sits in our little town square and stays there a long while, holding him. Now I have hours of free time. I even avoid going to the kitchen. Nothing matters except this bitterness consuming me, simmering on a low flame. It’s dangerous. The thought of the crime haunts me. It alternates strangely with the outrage that engulfs me when I think of Jane and her son.
I’ve been spending too much time stroking the dagger Jean Luze gave me. In monstrous daydreams, I see myself plunging it into Félicia’s breast without hesitation.
Today, Jean Luze filled his wife’s room with flowers. They don’t need me anymore and unconsciously make me feel it. Here they are, all three of them in their own little world. The Luze family no longer wants an interloper around.
“We have imposed upon you far too much,” Jean Luze told me. “You should take it easy now.”
Félicia looks good thin. She looks like a child with that ribbon in her hair. There really is something disarming about her, both childish and serious. I caught her crying the other day, head buried in Jean Luze’s shoulder.
What is it that’s bothering her? Is she afraid for him? It’s true that he’s become too involved, that he opens his heart too much to his friends. They came back last night and stayed up until eleven, whispering in the living room. Now Jean Luze is infected. He’s become as much an armchair politician as we are. He, too, had better watch out that his words are not repeated lest Calédu take offense! Pierrilus never leaves Jane’s door. Could I be mistaken? I believe I saw Joël and Jean Luze speaking to him through the picket fence.
I have too much free time and my imagination wanders out of bounds. I explore every nook and cranny of my mind. What a terrible swarm of shapeless larvae! When the larvae become thoughts, they are born monstrous. My head is bursting. I am looking for a thousand pretexts to sneak into their quarters. I seek suffering. It alone can wrest me from this act I have not yet dared to commit. And yet I am in something close to a paroxysm of suffering. Can it get any worse without crushing me?
“Go to your godmother for a minute,” Félicia says, handing me her son.
I carry him under the trees, my eyes fixed and mortified, refusing to kiss him, surprised at my hostility toward him. I struggle against terrible temptation, but I feel like I am moving under the whip into the incandescent flames of a diabolical world. I am prey to insomnia again. I feel lost, as if stranded in the center of the earth. I toss in bed, blood rushing to my temples, throat dry. My life goes by as uselessly as ever. The thankless chores of an old maid disgust me. Supporting roles are no longer enough for me. The taste of victory has left its mark on me. I have held happiness. I know every line in its face. I cry rolled up in a ball. I feel tiny, shriveled up by pain. I cling to the crime as if it were a buoy. It alone can save me. I struggle, but it has me in its claws. I know I will yield in the end; I am caught in a spiral, committed body and soul in a merciless contest. I mask the struggle. I am like an animal on a leash with its head turned away from the route it must follow.
There is a knock at my door and Jean Luze comes in.
“Don’t stay in the dark,” he tells me. “It will make you more depressed. I realize that you are worried about Jane and her son. I realize this…”
I turn on the light without responding.
“You know, Claire, I have made a decision,” he continues. “We are leaving soon and I’m taking Joël with me. I haven’t been able to do much for all of you until now, unfortunately. But I will at least save this young man by getting him out of here. What about you, do you want to come with us? I mean it.”
“No, thank you,” I answer.
He nervously dug his fingers through his hair and lit a cigarette:
“You really don’t want to?”
“No, thank you,” I repeated.
“I am sorry to hear that, Claire. We’ll think of you often and your godson will learn to love you from afar. I’m really sorry you don’t want to come along…”
To hear that conventional little sentence in his mouth! Anger, resentment, outrage, rumble within me. He gives my arm a friendly squeeze and leaves.