Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [117]
“Sit down and wipe your face.”
“I don’t have a handkerchief,” he said to me.
Taking mine from my pocket to give it to him, I felt the point of the knife pricking my chest. Not far from us, we heard the sound of the boots, and he instinctively drew near me.
“What did you do?” I asked him.
“What do you think I could have possibly done to deserve execution,” he replied. “Don’t you know they kill for the sheer pleasure of it?”
I handed him my textbook. “Keep your head down. Read quietly.”
He did what I said. The sound of boots faded and we could hear the whistle blow for the squadron to regroup.
“Thank you,” he said to me as he gently slumped back. Then, resting his head on the back of the bench:
“I’m falling asleep, I’m falling asleep,” he said again.
And he quickly closed his eyes.
Why did I stay behind to keep a lookout as he slept? Lunch had come and gone by the time I returned home. I had left the stranger asleep, and the next day I learned that a student had been executed on a bench in the middle of a public square. That day, Fred Morin came by and I refused to see him. I locked myself in my room, afraid I’d come unhinged if anyone spoke to me. I felt as if I had lost a friend. I was in mourning. Horrible pain, part remorse, part rebellion, gripped my heart. Why? Why? I kept asking myself. Why had they murdered him? Why? Why? What was he guilty of? Did he refuse to offer his sister? Rose! My very own sister! Defiled! If I want to kill the Gorilla, I have to face facts. As for Grandfather, he’s filled with silent hatred toward her, as though she were the enemy. I fear the day he’ll ask to be served in his room in order not to share his meals with us. Skin and bones. So gaunt. I’ll kill him, I can feel it …
I wanted to see Anna again before doing anything. I have a pretty good idea what will happen to me, so I might as well feel a bit of joy before I go. It was seven in the evening and she was alone in the living room. She looked at me and began to sob.
“Are you angry at me, Paul?” she said to me. “What did I ever do to you?”
She tried to take my hands but I pulled back.
“Well, speak, say something!” she shouted.
I couldn’t. I tried to take her in my arms, but I was held back by something stronger than myself. A long line of hotheads. Never trusting anyone. My mother is right.
She mumbled:
“I don’t know why you’re like this. I don’t. I love you and I don’t know why you’re putting me through this. Is that fair? Or is it that you don’t love me anymore?”
I left and could hear her crying:
“Paul! Paul!”
I’ll return to her house with a weapon on my belt and that’s the day I’ll know the truth. I’ll know why she and her father act like there are no men in black on our land. I’ll go all out, even if it means losing her, or death. I prefer losing her and dying on top of it than to have to doubt her …
My mother’s getting drunk. I saw her staggering upstairs. She looked at me with her dying eyes and then began to laugh miserably. A bloody throat clearing itself of crushed glass. A great open mouth rattling in agony. She’s going to cough up her heart. Rose, who was coming in just then, ran past us and shut her door behind her. My mother pointed at her, bent in two by the awful laughter that contorted her mouth. Then she suddenly fell silent, went to the window on the landing and leaned over as if she were about to fall. I looked past her: a shadow was slowly moving through the yard, accompanied by a completely white crawling, jumping thing. The shadow bent down to the ground and then stood up with the thing in its arms and walked over to the stakes. I heard my mother laugh. She wasn’t the one laughing, someone else was laughing in her. She turned around and