“Why?” the invalid asked, looking into his eyes. “Why was it so important for your father to leave the countryside and acquire this land?”
The grandfather lowered his head without answering.
“Was he ambitious?” the child asked insistently. “He must’ve liked this nice neighborhood, didn’t he? You recently told me that your mother was ambitious too. Does God love ambitious people?…”
“Listen to the end of the story,” the grandfather interrupted a bit impatiently… “Where was I? Ah! Yes, I remember. My mother was expecting a second child…”
“What was your mother like, Grandfather?”
“A bit like you. You know, all the girls of Fonds-des-Blancs are more or less light-skinned. Look at your father, he’s different from me. Haitians are so mixed that there are all kinds. And that’s what makes us a very beautiful people. But let’s go back to our story… One evening, my father came back just in time to hear my mother’s cries of pain and watch her die, the child still clinging to her insides. I was your age then. He called me to him and told me: ‘Well, death seems to be knocking on our door. If something was to happen to me, I want to be buried here, on one of the plots of land I acquired by the sweat of my brow. If your children or the children of your children are in need, I give you permission to divide them up and sell them. But swear to me that, as long as you live, you will not sell the piece of land that covers my bones…’ And I can still remember how I made that oath in tears.”
“So you are now bound by two oaths,” the child said to him. “We have to act as quickly as possible. When will we start going to his grave to summon him?”
“Soon, once you have learned to crawl perfectly. Because I won’t be able to carry you. I’ll be carrying an ax and a knife. The same weapons my father used to get rid of the man who had sold him these lands and then thought he could take them back just because he was wealthy and powerful.”
“So he killed him?”
“Yes. To protect what was his.”
“They didn’t go after him?”
“No. Because God keeps an eye on the wicked, and sooner or later they must pay for the wickedness they do. Listen: when the rich and powerful wallow in lawlessness, they think they can smother the voice of justice and they forget the ever-watchful eyes of God. The judges had been bribed by the crook. They were all going to split up the plots of land. But my father, brave and intelligent, killed the crook and took the land titles to an honest lawyer who had him acquitted by threatening to expose the scandal.”
“So you don’t have those papers anymore?”
“I do,” the grandfather answered.
“Give them to a good lawyer like your father did.”
“Times have changed, my child, and the voice of justice has been quiet for a long time. Judges don’t fear scandal and advocates for good causes no longer dare raise their voices.”
“They are afraid?” asked the child.
“They are afraid,” the grandfather replied. “Wherever violence and crime rule, everyone is afraid, even the executioners and the criminals.”
“I want to fight for justice and for peace. Do you think that, even without feet, one can still fight, Grandfather?”
“Haven’t I promised you that you will die a hero one day,” the grandfather answered…
… That evening the father went out. He had returned right after his office closed and told his wife he was going out and would be back after dark. She had watched him furtively as he got dressed, eaten up by jealousy, curiosity and worry. From whom was he going to borrow five hundred dollars? Who was he going to seduce with that cologne? Was the woman who had stolen him from her that rich? What she felt was not exactly jealousy. No, this rather lukewarm reaction was more like a vaguely loving scorn. After all, she was the one who had sprinkled fragrance on the handkerchief she handed to him.
He got out of the car after a half-hour ride and paid the driver. These dates were costing him a pretty penny, but how could he complain? It was already night and one could barely make out the house at the end of the path lined with boxwood. The bitter perfume of the white flowers he picked on his way stirred his blood and he quickened his step. She opened her arms to welcome him and he held her tight.
“Each time you come, I’m always up, waiting,” she said, “as though I knew you were coming.”
He lifted her and carried her to the living room sofa, cluttered with colorful pillows he had seen her embroider with her beautiful expert hands. The Japanese kimono she was wearing traced her narrow hips. He leaned in and kissed her voraciously.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered.
Revived, seductive, charming, Louis Normil underwent a transformation.
“Look,” she said, freeing herself, and ran to the armoire, opening it to take out a beaded dress that sparkled in the lamplight.
“I made it myself,” she said proudly. “Would you like me to wear it for our little supper tonight?”
“Yes,” he murmured.
She undressed in front of him and slipped her sun-kissed skin into a dress that made her look like an Oriental princess.
An old black woman, who had been in her service since she was a child, came in to announce dinner. They went into the living room, where a princely table had been set. At the end of the meal, she lifted her glass, saying:
“I drink to our love.”
Beneath her many guises she played any role she liked, trusting in no one. Condemning marriage as a dull and revolting institution, she congratulated herself for having managed to resist the temptations of bourgeois life, and in this handsome grife, so self-effacing and impoverished, she saw the flickering shade of Armand Duval. [31] She nevertheless snuggled up tamely into this affair and avoided displaying herself in the company of her lover, supposedly for his wife’s sake. Since even the wealthy may come to feel insecure, she suspected that her gentlemen callers lusted after her fortune more than her beauty. Orphaned very young, she had been raised by her old maid, who had learned to look away and keep her mouth shut, for since her early youth she had been drawn to mature and even graying men in whom she sought the paternal affection she had been weaned from too early. Her father, a government minister in all the past regimes, who had the wisdom to amass a tidy fortune during his political career, had died when she was only ten.
“You are my father, my lover, and my friend at the same time,” she had once said to Louis Normil. “That is a lot to discover in a single man.”
Once they were in bed, having had their fill of love, he tried in vain to bring up the topic of money. Finally giving up hope, he used a back door.
“Have you learned what happened to us?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“Some men in uniform have set up camp on our land.”
She gave a start as if stung.
“When? Why? What have you done or said to make this come upon you? Your children? Who have they been seeing? That kind of curse doesn’t just fall from the sky out of nowhere…”
He had the painful feeling that she was more frightened than saddened by their misfortune. She lit a cigarette with trembling hands.
“Have you taken any steps? Do you know anyone powerful enough to help you?” she added with forced calm.
“Yes, a lawyer. He has demanded five hundred dollars and I don’t have it.”
“Why didn’t you just say so, darling!” she said with relief. “Wait.”