Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [116]
Palm shadows move and rustle beneath my feet! I walk over them with heavy steps, leaving my house far behind, leaving the others behind. Cutting myself off from everything! Forgetting my parents, imagining no one in the world will shed tears over me. Rose, skin and bones. My mother and her dim, suffering eyes! My father’s shoulders sagging with shame! A heavy thing, shame. Harder to bear than a ton of scrap iron. Coward! You threw your daughter to the wolves.
I sat on a bench nestled under the trees, on the edge of that little square where I like to loaf, and opened my textbook. It must have been eleven in the morning. A group of kids coming back from school filled the square, running, chasing each other, carefree. Immersed in their play, they paid me no mind. It made me miss childhood. Memories rose up, disappeared and reappeared. Grandfather said: “Not one sheep left in the country but the birds of prey are everywhere.” Did the little one understand that? He searched the sky for the heavy black wings of the malfinis circling above the oak trees, their beaks aimed at the ground. It’s true that it’s been a long time since we’ve eaten lamb. Will I kill him? Could I? Or just kill myself, that would certainly be easier. You’re born either a killer or a suicide. I tread upon tree shadows looking for my elusive self. Lazy. The self that likes books, the self that wants to be an architect. There are choices. Everything is here. But first, take out one of them, just one. Watch his blood spread like a red sheet over his black uniform! And after that, live my life. A lie. That won’t be enough. I’ll stagnate like the water in this stinking ditch, green, no strength to move, never realizing myself. Despair is like an itch; you satisfy it for a moment and then it returns. A useless gesture! I think too much. I’ll end up going soft, sinking into a refusal to act. Tell me what they’ve done to you, Rose, and I’m sure I’ll find the strength. But you won’t talk. You’ll take your secret to the grave, your mouth sealed with dirt. Full of spite, I trample the tree shadows. I can’t stand their serene indifference, their imperturbable mechanical movement. I’ve returned to the bench where I was sitting before. A blind man held out his hand to me and I closed my eyes, pretending to sleep under the slanting ray of sunlight hitting me full in the face. What’s the point of giving alms to one invalid when ten thousand others go hungry. I’ll walk through our front door and present myself in uniform, weapon on my belt. And Grandfather will cry, “Get out of here this instant, you bird of prey!” I’ll present myself in uniform, weapon at my side, and my mother will clutch at her heart in shock and horror. I’ll say to Rose: “Sell the land and leave.” She will shriek: “Why have you done this? Why have you done this?” A complete waste. Her sacrifice would have been a complete waste. Unless maybe she enjoys it? Dirty whore! No, she’s skin and bones, I don’t want to point the finger at her. What man hasn’t wanted her? It’s a brother’s job to look after his sister. “You’re from another era,” Fred Morin once said to me. I had a dollar in my pocket. In broad daylight, I went to some dive and paid a woman. She was afraid of me and kept her eyes closed, saying: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” I left her to wander aimlessly through the streets. I saw cars rushing past and beggars running after them. They were almost throwing themselves under the wheels, holding out their hands, stinking and emaciated. A car for every man in uniform, that comes to thousands. I too will have one, and ride around with my women and my family. I returned to the bench in the square and opened my book again. I have to study, I must. I heard the shots and I hid behind a tree as if I were guilty. The fugitive ran past me, then saw me and stopped.