Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [118]
“You might as well come in and close the door,” she whispered.
She remained on her knees on the floor, and I looked at her profile, not daring to move. Gaunt and beautiful, eyes swollen with tears.
“You’ll get to leave, I promise you that much.”
I grabbed her and struck her in the face.
“I never asked you to help me.”
“You have to get out of here, you have to.”
“I don’t want you to worry about me, you hear me?”
She threw herself on the bed and curled up under the sheets with her back to me.
“It’s not that much trouble, believe me,” she said again.
When I heard these words I left her and went to my room, sat at my desk staring into the darkness. And the sweat from my forehead drenched my eyes and burned like tears.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The lawyer had me come in right away and was very considerate. That’s because I was with the uniformed man I had met in his office, toward whom he had seemed so respectful and attentive. The lawyer reached for the five hundred dollars, but the uniformed man gave him such a savage look that he very quickly dropped the money on a corner of his desk as though he’d made a mistake.
“We have a deal?” said the man in uniform.
“We have a deal,” the lawyer replied.
Then he turned to me:
“You may begin by taking off your clothes,” he ordered me as if he were requesting a simple secretarial task.
After that, he left the room and closed the door. The lawyer had spoken to me beforehand and I knew what to expect. I began taking off my clothes and once I was half-naked, the man in the uniform pulled me sharply by the arm to drag me behind the screen.
“You’re not going to struggle, you’re not going to cry out,” he instructed me. “Because if you do, you’ll be sorry.”
He pounced on me with his long hirsute hands, tearing off whatever garments I had left.
“Lie down,” he said, “lie down, spread your legs and put your arms out like a cross.”
I refused to obey, so he threw me on the sofa.
“You’re going to ruin everything,” he hissed, “if you resist, I won’t be able to do anything. You have to do what I say, without hesitation, otherwise it’s no go, you understand? I can only be a man with pretty saint’s faces like yours, a defeated martyr with a pretty little face. Do what I say, do it or get out of here. But remember that no one else will ever be able to do anything for you and you will lose your land. On the other hand, if you are cooperative and do what I ask, then I promise, I swear to you on all that is most holy to me that you will have my protection and will have restitution of your property.”
As he was talking, he slowly opened my legs and splayed out my arms in a cross. He leaned over me for a moment, moaning slowly, his breath short, oppressed. He stared at me like this for some time, and then I saw his horrible hand approach my body and touch it ever so lightly with a kind of unbearable, sick curiosity.
“That’s it, don’t move, stay like that.”
Leaning over me, he caressed me, sniffing me like an animal, and a little later, popped the buttons off his uniform and stood naked before me.
“You’re a virgin, right? You didn’t lie to me, did you? This is going to hurt, hurt a lot, but I don’t want to hear a word, got it? Not one word.”
He was dripping with sweat and I felt defiled.
He rammed himself into me in one rough terrible thrust, and immediately groaned with pleasure. I bit my fist in pain and disgust. He got back up.
“You have the prettiest martyr’s face I have ever had. I have a feeling I’m going to like you. If you let me have it my way, we’re going