Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [113]
Anyway, nothing has changed. They are still on our land. Is the Gorilla as powerful as he is said to be? Or is he fooling Rose? Maybe from the beginning his goal was to help himself, with the lawyer’s help, to the land and to the girl. How do I know he didn’t always have his eye on my sister! I will kill him and then I will die. My mind is made up. Convincing myself of this fills me with a sense of dignity. These thoughts cleanse me, they cleanse all of us. Corruption stops at our door, at least as long as I’m alive, the vengeance I nurture inside gives me comfort, keeps me from resigning myself to our degradation. It doesn’t matter if it takes me months to carry it out. A long line of hotheads, my mother once said to me. And it’s true. All of us brooding with God’s holy fury, and Grandfather doesn’t know it. We are all alike. Cast from the same mold, and Grandfather doesn’t know it. Or is he pretending he doesn’t know it in order to justify his preference for Claude? He doesn’t like my mother: she doesn’t fly off the handle enough. He only believes in external appearances and refuses to see through the thick veil of propriety. What about Rose’s propriety! I’ve called her a whore a hundred times to myself. They’ve killed her. She no longer turns on the radio. She’s forgotten her old habits. No more dancing, no more laughter, no more dramatic outbursts as smoke screens so she can be left alone to do as she pleases like anyone else.
On the other side of the stakes, their black uniforms draw my eyes like a magnet. Drenched in sweat, dripping, bent by the sun, rifles on their shoulders. Are they happy? Are they fulfilled by the weight of a weapon on their shoulder? Wearing a uniform would put an end to our torment. No, I couldn’t. It would burn my body. And what if the point of all their tricks was to force me into their ranks, do I have the right to refuse and sacrifice my family? They spy on me and they can feel my hatred. They’ll go all the way until I kneel and beg for mercy and applaud their crimes. And that I could never do. I belong to a small unarmed opposition group. Does Rose think she will get somewhere by giving herself to the Gorilla? Tell me, little sister. I’ll summon the strength to listen to you without exploding. What have they done to you? Don’t be afraid that I’ll roar like a lion. I will keep my mouth shut, taking every precaution before I kill him. They’ll never know where the shot came from.
Dr. Valois comes by too often lately. Does he know my mother is in love with him? He brought Claude’s wheelchair and is teaching him to use it. He put the child’s thin hands on the wheels, looked him in the eye and said: “Go on, push!” And Claude pushed, bursting into laughter. Still, it must be hard on the old floorboards of the living room. Anna was smiling, sweet, affable, serene. Too late. She rushed to Claude when he almost fell clumsily trying to go faster. Concern? Flattery? Rose wasn’t there. They haven’t uttered her name. I saw Anna’s questioning eyes catch mine, and I turned away. My mother’s clothes and hair were elegant but she still looked like she was dying. Grandfather hardly opened his mouth and pulled on his beard intermittently with thinly suppressed rage. He smells something is up. Does he perceive things even more deeply than I do? Is that why he’s so intolerant, because he can see more than