— And so, are you against marriage?
— I’m against living together, legal unions, and common-law arrangements.
— So what solution do you propose?
— Women must fight. Participate. Her autonomy mustn’t be a gift. But a conquest. Only her active presence can change her situation. Neither laws nor decrees are going to earn her real emancipation. Only her participation in the liberation of oppressed classes, of trampled-down races, can truly lead to her rehabilitation. She’s got to give up all the self-pity and facile romanticism. She’s got to stop begging. Put her shoulder to the wheel. And take what’s owed to her. Not be satisfied with her status as spoil of war shared between men. A trophy for the victors. At the very least, give revolt a try. Not with moaning and supplications. She must assert herself to the world based on her own merit. Not by ruse or low blows. Strike head-on. Not from behind.
— Okay. You say that women must participate. For that, she’ll have to stand beside men.
— Yes, beside men. Everywhere. In the most dangerous places. In the resistance movements. In the trenches. Coming close to death. Living it, not suffering it. Standing, by our side. Before lying horizontal on some bed. And all that depends entirely on her. We do not refuse her participation in those ways. On the contrary, we welcome it.
— All that outside of marriage?
— Outside all affective liaisons. Outside any household. Otherwise, it becomes a tomb in the end. We men must learn also to see women in a different light, less unhealthy, less perverse.
— In the end, you condemn love …
— No. I’m far-sighted. I issue a warning. Besides, in our current context, love — that marvelous sentiment, that vertigo that brings two beings together — only exists as long as those beings don’t live under the same roof. As long as they haven’t become materially intertwined. It’s neither the man nor the woman’s fault. It’s the whole society’s responsibility. On slippery ground like ours, the furniture to change, the wardrobe to update, the car and its mechanical problems, sicknesses, medications, jewelry, perfumes, and even the spice rack — all that leads to the strangulation and, ultimately, to the death of even the most powerful love.
— In that case, Paulin, you won’t have children?
— The way things are right now, I wouldn’t want to have any. I plan to remain available, for the time being. Children are a bunch of fruit hanging on beautiful flowering branches, yes, but too often they hold back the fervor of the tree. Whereas I intend to do with my life as I see fit. Too often, children amount to a long tail that hinders all movement. That keeps you from stepping over the fire. That makes you too cautious. The spouse, the good family man is a sort of mole who retreats into his den, where he thinks he can find safety for himself and his loved ones … False security! The hearth would be a constraint for me. A sort of underground tunnel. Whereas wide-open spaces attract me irresistibly. Have you never noticed with what ridiculous eagerness married men abandon the company of their friends for fear of encroaching on the hour or so reserved for the little wife?
— Really, Paulin, you wouldn’t like to be married someday?
— I’ve often thought about it. And it repulses me, the pitiful little puppy dog trapped in the bond of marriage.
— Raynand, tell us what you think of your friend Paulin’s ideas. Why don’t you say a thing or two on the subject …
Raynand carefully fills his glass to the brim, takes his time emptying it, then responds calmly.
— To be afraid of marriage is a form of cowardice. I’m not denying the difficulty of domestic life, with a wife and kids, not one bit. On the contrary … But I see, despite that, important reasons to fight for such things. The life of a family man is made up of everyday heroism. Who doesn’t recognize the valor it takes for a man to feed his children, to clothe them, to watch over his companion, to concern himself with her happiness, to give meaning to her life?
— Exactly, responds Paulin confidently. That’s what I fear the most. Under no circumstances would I want to exhaust my own strength in fruitless battles. Not to mention all the petty conjugal disputes. A bit of warfare between lovers, as Sartre might say. There are so many problems to solve that I wouldn’t want to dissipate my reserves of energy — out of affective lack or unforgivable weakness — on a woman who wouldn’t understand my sacrifices. I loathe wastefulness. Moreover, as I’ve made clear here, in the best of circumstances, marriage consecrates the triumph of selfishness in the illusory happiness of a closed circle. Removed from others and their suffering.
— You’re a cynic, Paulin. The selfish one is you, who refuses to share your life, retorts Raynand angrily. Yes, you’re the selfish one. You’re afraid. Because you’re not sure of yourself.
— Well, who isn’t afraid? Who is sure of himself? Please, introduce me to this heroic being, this rare species of animal.
— I still love Solange. I’d marry her in a second, if she wanted that.
— Go after her, then. Marry her. Share your life with her. That’s all up to you, if you’re so sure of yourself.
— As far as this is concerned, Paulin, we’ll never agree. We don’t have the same history. Our experiences are different.
— Do you really want to brag about that, dear man? responds Paulin ironically.
Nonchalantly, Raynand rises from his seat. He downs another shot. Clasps his friends’ hands. Gives Paulin’s shoulder a friendly slap.
— All right, Paulin. I’m headed out. I’ll come by your place tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be there for sure.
— Okay, I’ll be waiting for you. I hardly ever go out. I write. I’m preparing a great work.
Raynand goes out into the sun as it tips its fiery boiler into the bay. Above the din of the Croix-des-Bossales market, sailboats rest at anchor in the harbor. Butterflies perched on an immense gray platform. Ah, the silvery mirror that is the blue sea of the islands on a summer afternoon.
— How many times did you tell me you’d come back! Every day I watch the trees gather up their shadowy skirts, propped up on their crooked legs. Every night I’ve counted the hours till the cock’s crow, till the stridulations of the crickets. But you never came back, Jastrame.
She lowered the flame of the lamp and lit a candle that she’d affixed using a bit of wax melted on the little oak table. She undid the white handkerchief that held back her long hair, the color of cane syrup. Stretched out on a mat woven out of dried leaves from the trunk of a banana tree, I pretended to sleep. She couldn’t know that I’d heard her, that I’d been watching her. Enlarged, deformed against the earthen wall, her shadow offered a pitifully disheveled image of unrequited love. She uncorked a flat bottle, spilled three healthy measures of spirits at the foot of her bed.
— You never came back, Jastrame. Can it be that you’ve abandoned me for the rest of my days? Lord, why have you burdened me with this test too great for my strength and my morale? I suffered so much during my youth that I thought misery would have been forever banished from my existence. Lord Jesus! Mother Mary, my mistress! Why leave yet another vulnerable place in my brutalized heart?
Head bowed, she begins to weep. Until she’s been worn out. Exhausted. To my eyes she’d become the very picture of suffering — weeping, naked, slumped on the armrest of the night. I stopped watching her. And I began to cry under my sheet. I cried all night long.
Grandmother, seventy years old at the time, never again saw Jastrame, her lover, her companion in old age. Alone in an impoverished province, cut off from her people, only seeing her grandson during the summer months, she died of despair. When we learned of her death, by telegram, the entire household burst into tears. During the two days spent in funeral preparations, I stayed clear of all the others, with their yapping like rabid dogs … Their cries bothered me. I didn’t shed a single tear. They called me cynical, an ungrateful little beast incapable of affection. I didn’t defend myself at all. I alone knew how much Grandmother had suffered in her solitude, because I had cried alongside her, without her knowing it, at the very moment where she needed — more than ever — to hear a human voice. Abandoned in her provincial hole, she’d spent her final days awaiting a touch, a word, a smile, a cry. Hoping for someone, a Jastrame, anyone. She died with only love’s painful shadow to keep her company, tragic portrait of solitude projected on an earthen wall. That, I alone knew.