Raynand begins walking very early in the morning. The last star is swallowed up. The road menders sweep the streets, clean the gutters, wash out the sewers, gather up the detritus in metallic wheelbarrows. All this, in his presence. Every day. Every morning.
Peeking over the flakes of white clouds, the sun immediately opens its heavy lids after a long sleep. It tears off the paralysis of the night. The trees quiver. Raynand perceives the slightest palpitations of the landscape and participates in all the stirrings of the day. Each time he’d imagine that something strange was going to happen; that the earth would capsize … That the balance would tip once and for all … That the planet would topple over … That the houses would collapse … That all beings and things would fly away, scattered — sucked up by the headwinds … His detached head would become a black moon … His dispersed limbs would light up, like so many incandescent cigars … Each time he left his house, he’d imagine that an extraordinary explosion would make the whole world blow up. But nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Nothing came along to change the order of things. The days followed one another monotonously. Raynand seems condemned to repeat the same gestures, to hit his head against the stone walls and harshness of daily disappointments. Illusions. Dissatisfactions. What’s more, he still hopes to be able to grab hold of that nodal point out of which all movement unfolds. That’s the secret. The real discovery he’s after. To seize movement by the throat. And to create the event!
From morning on, he walks without stopping. His sole and apparent freedom: walking. Although he often considers his meanderings to be nothing but a sham. A sort of open prison. A boxing in without motivation. An absurd environment. Because he can do nothing other than walk. He has no choice. He’s needed nowhere. He passes unnoticed. The world functions well enough without him. He’s nothing more than an appendix, like his brother, dead three years ago, struck down by a bullet at point-blank range. He was trying to cross the border to find work as a cane cutter in the Dominican Republic. The sentinel had cried, “Halt!” And off went the gunshot that had made no change to the course of history. Nor to the flow of rivers. The sun continued to rise in the East, to set in the West. Nothing had changed. Except that the next day, he’d had the overwhelming certainty of his brother’s death. Fallen stone dead near the border. A bit of warm blood trickling from his mouth, a scarlet snake boldly emerging from its inconvenient hiding place. And then, the tears of an old mother. The bothersome words of people from the neighborhood, who, with a melancholy air, said, “Poor devil” when they heard the news. Nothing more than an appendix sliced off. Nothing more than a crushed ant. Nothing more than an earthworm torn to pieces.
Raynand walks all day long. Sometimes all night. He barely eats. A sort of ache, a rope sling made up of the tough strings of suffering, devours his entrails. Grains of sand roll about in his dry throat. Thousands of leeches drink his blood. Little by little, the pain in his stomach is joined by a strange army with spears that drill into his navel and pierce through his entire body. An invasion of open jaws. Masses of hooked teeth. He’s reduced to a body of pain in motion. He no longer has any consciousness of the streets. So it is that one afternoon, at six o’clock, he runs into his friend Paulin and invites him to dinner, a dish of grilled pork and rice. At the little bar, Eugene’s Place. South end of Sylvio Cator Stadium.
— You’re not doing anything, Raynand.
— Absolutely nothing. For months now, I’ve got neither tobacco nor pipe. Neither dust nor smoke.
— For me, there isn’t much going on either. But I’m getting by.
— What have you been doing, Paulin?
— I give private lessons to the children of this businessman over by Carrefour-Feuilles. That brings in about a hundred dollars a month. It isn’t much. But I make do with that.
— Where I’m at right now, I’d make do with a quarter of that. And I’ve been looking. I’ve walked everywhere. Like a mad dog. I haven’t found anything.
— Tell me, Raynand. If I remember correctly, you’re from the Montrouis area?
— From Délugé, to be precise. But I have some relatives living in Montrouis. Farmers …
— Would you be able to make a little trip to the region?
— Why are you asking, Paulin?
— I’ll let you know in a bit. For the time being, just answer me. I just want to help you out.
— How so? I don’t see the connection.
— Do they grow groundnuts in the region?
— What are groundnuts?
— They’re what we call pistachios around here.
— Paulin, you aren’t about to ask me to sell grilled pistachios to get back on my feet.
— No. I just want to know if they grow pistachios in the region.
— You can find them on the neighboring mountains and in the hills around there. I remember seeing fields of pistachios the last time I was in Montrouis. In that scorched and rocky dirt. That was about seven years ago now. I think the pods germinate in the soil, which then has to be scratched and dug through when it’s time for the harvest.
— Well, then. You’ll be doing some scratching and digging, Raynand. You’re going to root around in your head to make something come out.
— I don’t understand — I don’t get it, responds Raynand, eyes bulging.
— Just listen. The other day, the businessman whose kids I give lessons to was talking about a pretty interesting project, right in front of me. An American industrialist has come to the country to make an important deal. Apparently, he’s already made contact with certain officials with an eye to pistachio farming.
— To what end?
— They’re used to make oil and soap.
— Is it really a sure thing, Paulin? Because it’ll take time to put together a soap or an oil factory. Setting up the business, the scrap iron, the installation of the machines. I’d have to wait too long.
— Not at all. The factory is already in place somewhere in the Caribbean. In Puerto Rico, I believe. A boat would come pick up the pistachios here in Haiti. The processing would happen over there.
— How much is this rich industrialist set to pay us for a sack of pistachios?
— I don’t know yet. At the very least, it should be enough to get you back on your feet. I’m going to put you in contact with my friend, the businessman. He’s in direct communication with the American. He won’t say no, I’m sure of it. You, for your part, you’ll sort out a warehouse.
— I’m up for it. I’ll wait for the response. Then I’ll make my way to Montrouis.
— It’ll work, Raynand. You’ll see.
— I hope so, with all my heart, Paulin. In any case, I thank you … Wait a second, Paulin. And the title of your novel?
— Haven’t yet figured it out, Raynand. But it’ll come to me on its own. In fact, you’d be doing me an immense favor if you’d suggest a title for me.
Raynand has been in Montrouis for the past week. From the moment of his arrival, he’d made arrangements with Verdieu Belhomme to procure a certain amount of pistachios, about the equivalent of a hundred bags.