“Yes, that’s a dog.”
“But no, that’s Saindor, the one who runs the place by the sea.”
“It was dark,” he says. “I thought it was a dog.”
“The devils killed him right in front of René,” André says.
“And the other bodies? Did you see them?”
“Where?”
“By the church.”
“Yes. Piles. Hundreds of bodies. I saw them, I saw them…”
All of a sudden he starts to shriek, and I throw myself on top of him to keep his mouth shut. I put all my weight against his back, my left arm around his chest and my right hand muzzling him to the point of smothering him.
“Are you trying to draw them here?”
André was trembling so much that he staggered when he got up and would’ve fallen if he hadn’t held on to the table.
“Give him some clairin” I say to André.
“No,” he replied, “alcohol excites him. Let him go. You’re choking him. Let him go,” he cried violently. “Come, little brother, you have nothing to fear. Look, the barricade is solid and no one can come in if we don’t open that door.”
I free him. He gasps.
“It’s your fault,” he tells us, “scaring me with all your talk of devils. You know very well that I’m a bundle of nerves.”
“My mother told me she saw one,” André says. “She was going to early mass and she got the time wrong. Some sort of naked giant blocked her path, telling her: ‘Beware if you know who I am.’ She passed out on the road to church and that’s where she was found at dawn.”
“The devils are in uniform,” I say to him.
“There are all kinds of devils,” André replies. “I dreamed about one. He was white with red horns and tail. He was gesticulating in a funny way and threatening me with his pitchfork. After class, I told Brother Justinien about my dream and he said to me:
“‘Do you have a voodoo shrine at home?’
“‘Yes,’ I said to him.
“‘Destroy it,’ he advised me, ‘or the devils will take hold of you.’
“I went eight days without being able to sleep. My mother was already dead and it was to me, as the oldest, that she had entrusted her loas. I wasn’t doing anything wrong by giving them food and drink even if Jacques and I were hungry. And it seemed to me that Brother Justinien didn’t understand anything since he was French.”
“There you go!” Jacques protests. “So you want to hear me scream again.”
“Don’t scream, I’m begging you, you’re going to sit down in that corner like a good boy and keep quiet. There you are, some paper and a pencil, write us a nice poem.”
“That’s it, I’ll write a poem about the devils. Unfortunately, I didn’t look at them. I did see a horde of strange people in the street who cheered as I went by but I couldn’t tell whether or not they were devils. I should have thought to take a good look when one of them called me a genius.”
“Write about something else,” I recommend paternally “forget the devils. You’re safe here.”
He sniffs around, glances around for a chair, and seeing that they are barricading the door, sits on the floor and, eyes raised, absorbs himself in the composition of a poem.
André and I should be careful not to show our terror in his presence. He is frail and sickly. He had a nervous breakdown when he was fifteen and his mother, beating herself up for neglecting the loas, paid a houngan to treat him. She ruined herself. She died of consumption. She spit up every last drop of blood in her body. And the houngan was there by her bedside to accuse her mercilessly of treason and indifference toward the loas.
This recollection makes me uneasy.
What’s the use of religion if it oppresses instead of consoling? If it offers despair instead of relief? If it takes away instead of preserving? André is kneeling in prayer. Where does his mysticism come from? I saw my mother serving her loas constantly and I coldly received the sacred legacy from her hands. I pray to the loas and invoke them with the conviction of an actor in a play.
“Hamming it up!” Simon once said to me, “you’re no more a believer than I am. You can’t reinvent yourself. We are both impervious to the notion of religion.”
He’s wrong. I love Jesus, not as wonder-worker, not as Son of the Holy Spirit, but as man, because he preached love and compassion. Is that incompatible with religion? André prays. He prays furiously But something tells me that I am closer to God than he is. God is tired of prayers. God is tired of recriminations. God is tired of requests. God is tired of our resignation. Who knows if He didn’t open the gates of our town to the devils in order to make us come out of ourselves. The Grand-rue and its smugness! Mme Fanfreluche and her jewels! Mme Fanfreluche and her high heels, making her entrance at high mass, haughty and disdainful. Magistral’s widow and her daughter Cécile! Cécile! Cécile! As far as you’re concerned, I give you the benefit of the doubt. You received my poem with laughter, but in the depths of your eyes there was something like sunshine. And those who have a little sunshine deep inside them can’t be completely lost. I hold onto an imperishable memory of you. It was on Christmas Eve, at Brother Justinien’s. The tree was shining with multicolored lights. We sang “Silent Night” and “O Christmas Tree.” Brother Justinien said:
“Everyone take one little bundle. They’re from Father Christmas.”
We rushed at the bundles. I undid mine and was appalled: there were just a dozen marbles, but you, you were holding a beautiful pocketknife that I had so often admired at Mme Fanfreluche’s store. You looked at me and said:
“Take the knife too. I’m a girl. I don’t need a knife.”
And I took it. I was twelve and you ten…
Would you love me if I were famous? Would you love me if I defeated the devils?
André keeps praying and Jacques keeps writing. Peace be upon my poor head. I say peace be upon this poor head split by migraine. André may be convinced that the devils have not yet pushed in this door thanks to his prayers. But I know very well that its pathetic appearance is what protects us. Never will the devils guess that here lives someone whose mind is ceaselessly at work contemplating their ruin. My poverty is my protection because a discreet and humble beggar has a better chance to pass unnoticed than a cheerful-looking rich man.
My eye pasted to the hole, I let my gaze wander outside. It goes from the corpse now teeming with worms to the corpses stacked in front of the church. I am gliding like the birds between splendor and squalor. I see part of the horizon where a sliver of sky and sea meet as though only for my sake. From evening to morning, I see them change according to the slow and indefatigable course of the sun. Its distilled heat now marks noon. A shadow moves behind Cécile’s window and I see Mme Magistral. She’s looking at my house and seems to be talking to someone I can’t make out. I can see this so clearly that I am afraid someone from outside might see my glowing eyes. All the same, I remain there, my eyes glued to that window where perhaps Cécile is also standing. What is her mother doing? Has she caught on to our game? The window opens wide and Cécile appears in a blue nightgown, her long black hair flowing over her shoulders. Close the window, careless girl! Even if you are worried about me, close it or the devils will see you! It’s over. She’s vanished. The window is closed…
“I’m hungry,” André says.
“Me too,” Jacques says.
“Unfortunately, there’s no sugar for the coffee,” I reply.
“Give me the bottle of clairin” André says.
He drinks and spits. I drink too but don’t spit.
“Give Jacques the jug,” I say to André.
Jacques takes it and drinks.
“I want to drink clairin too,” he says.