“Leave the trunk open,” André said.
He has been scratching the enormous scar, disfiguring his forehead enough to draw blood.
“Dr. Prémature didn’t sew you up properly,” I told him.
“You think so?”
“Well, long live the good Dr. Chanel! Unfortunately, he’s dead.”
“Maybe it’s the heat. Give me some clairin to clean it.”
I give him the clairin and search my pocket for the stone.
“The letter! It’s disappeared.”
“The rats must have eaten it.”
I lowered my head, perplexed, turning the stone between my fingers again and again.
“Why did the rats eat it? Why?”
“Because you’re just unlucky, that’s all. Come on! It’ll be all right. I’ll stand by you. We’ve been friends from childhood. We scribbled our first verses together. I’ll stand by you.”
As I light the fire, he kneels before the crucifix and slowly recites the Pater Noster. I set the water to boil and slowly pour coffee into the bag.
“No point making coffee,” André tells me. “I could never drink it black.”
“Take some syrup from the dishes.”
“Don’t tempt me, don’t ever tempt me,” he suddenly yells.
His own voice frightens him so much that he throws himself to his knees, grabs the jug and sprinkles the trunk and the dishes with a ritual gesture.
“I may be thirsty,” he tells me, “but so are the loas.”
He takes a drink and holds out the jug to me.
Sitting, hands crossed on lifted knees, he chants a voodoo song in a plaintive voice. He swings back and forth to the rhythm of the song, and little by little his eyes close. He slides onto his back and falls asleep. I stay near him, lying on the floor, waiting up like a guard dog. Oh, how I’d like to sleep! To sleep!
Commandant Cravache, what are you doing at this hour? Leave the prisoners alone, and come out and confront the devils. Commandant Cravache, face the devils! You who twice beat us up for public drunkenness and incitement when we recited Massillon Coicou’s “L’Alarme” in unison. [52] Oh! Oh! Oh!…
Do you hear the cry that resounded: To arms!
Horror still! Blood still! Tears still! These mournful echoes, it is not the cannon
Of Crête-à-Pierrot that thunders its fury
To defend or avenge the rights of the Country…
Oh! Oh! Oh! He doesn’t seem to like Massillon Coicou much, our Commandant Cravache. He grabbed me by the collar, kicked my backside twice, and, calling me crazy, hit me over the head with his coco-macaque
“Brotherhood of mad poets,” he called us.
And he also hit André, Jacques and Simon. Over the head. Always over the head. He has a bit of nasal twang, Commandant Cravache, and seems to me-as Simon put it-just a tad effeminate. He strikes and stares at his victim with a funny expression. He strikes and after each blow leans in to sniff the blood. He strikes and caresses the gaping wounds with an almost religious gesture. The good Dr. Chanel sewed back my ear and my left temple, but he’s dead, the good Dr. Chanel. In the meantime, I would like to know what they are waiting for to clean up the town. Club in his fist, revolver on his hip, rifle on his shoulder, why doesn’t he confront the devils, fucking Commandant Cravache! I am going to lodge a complaint against Commandant Cravache, who is responsible for the security of this district and who has evaded his responsibility. Unless they’re in cahoots, the devils and him. People in uniform always have each other’s backs. If that’s true, then we are lost, utterly lost. Because he will recognize me disguised in the ranks of the devils and will finger me and the devils will murder me and I will die like an animal and my body will join the others on the pavement. And that I don’t want. God chose me to liberate the town. Am I going to shrink from this undertaking? My skull hurts. Bones are cracking in my head. It starts in the nape, right below the occiput, and pulls at my temple. My ears are ringing. “You’re burned out!” the good Dr. Chanel would diagnose. It’s true that my head has been working nonstop. And then, this disappointment. I have the stone in my hand. I bring it to my lips. Cécile! Cécile! Your black eyes! Your black hair! Your plum-brown skin! There’s a jazz session in my stomach: cymbals, drums, bamboo trumpets, trombones, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, maracas, all mingled in an uproar. Am I hungry? It seems to me that I will never be able to be hungry or sleepy. I am slipping in and out of consciousness. And when I move my head, I hear bones cracking inside.
“You drink too much,” good Dr. Chanel used to say. “You’ll drown your talent in alcohol.”
Another ignoramus-after all, Baudelaire drank and Villon drank before him and Rimbaud drank too. [53] The taste of it returns as I keep thinking about it, and I look for the bottle near André, who’s snoring away, just to get a mouthful, no more than a mouthful.
I feel sure someone just knocked cautiously on the door. I wake up André. He opens his red eyes and fish mouth.
“Someone knocked,” I say.
“Don’t open it,” he begs.
“Wait!”
I run to the wall but can’t see a thing through the hole. It’s dark as the devil’s lair.
“You must have been dreaming,” André whispers.
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
This time we both distinctly hear three little knocks. A voice whispers:
“René! René!”
“It’s Jacques! He’s not dead,” I say to André, shaking him. We clear the door and Jacques comes in.
“Oh!” he cries, seeing André, “I was sure I’d find you here.”
“Oh, little buddy! My little buddy! I thought you were dead,” André says, hugging him.
“Dead! Me! And why?”
“The devils!”
“What devils!”
“Why, the ones escorting you. René saw you going with them. You seemed so proud, so brave! You were reciting your poems and you were walking among them paying them no mind.”
“That’s right. I remember now. They said to me… You know what they said to me: Jacques, you’re a genius. We’ll leave you alone because you’re a genius.’”
He straightens his back and grabs the bottle of clairin.
“You pranksters! You guys are hiding out so you could drink without me.”
“We’re hiding because of the devils, you know that. We’re no geniuses, so they might kill us.”
“Anyway, I don’t want to see them again,” he says. “They’re awful, horrible…”
He shudders.
“Sit down,” I say to him.
“He looks so tired,” André says to me.
“Yes, he is as skinny as we are.”
“I’ve forgotten to eat,” Jacques admits.
“Alas, there’s nothing here.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“You didn’t see Simon?” André asks.
“The devils may have murdered him,” I say.
“I left him two days ago, no three… Ah, I don’t remember.”
“Let him be,” André tells me, “he seems exhausted.”
“Did you see the corpse?” I ask him.
“What corpse?”
“The one in the street, in front of the door.”
[52] Massillon Coicou’s “L’Alerme” in unison: Haitian poet (1867-1908) executed by President Pierre Nord Alexis. The poem refers to the siege of the fort of Crête-à-Pierrot (1802), a major battle of the Haitian Revolution in which Dessalines’ 1,300 men were surrounded by Leclerc’s 18,000 French colonial troops; the rebels ultimately broke through enemy lines and escaped the fortress largely intact
[53] Baudelaire… Rimbaud drank too: Charles Baudelaire (1821-67), French Symbolist poet associated with decadence, author of