Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [13]
“They are getting their heads bashed on top of it,” Jean Luze mutters through clenched teeth.
He has already learned to be cautious.
The beggar raises his arm to scratch his head and reveals a gun, secured to his waist by a rope.
It’s one of Commandant Calédu’s spies. The police chief is known to be a sadist. He loves to whip women, and once in a while he has them arrested just like that, one or two at a time for his pleasure.
With my own eyes I have seen Dora Soubiran, my childhood friend and our neighbor, walk out of jail after being accused of sedition. She is a completely harmless zealot who insists—perversely or not—that God is her only supreme leader. Calédu loves to be feared and to be shown that he is feared. Especially when the one in question is Dora Soubiran, scion of the late César Soubiran, former director of the lycée, schooled in Paris, former parliamentarian, who served as an ambassador in previous administrations. Dora Soubiran looks down her nose at him. She refuses to understand the march of history, its twists and reversals. So one evening, he came to get her himself. She followed him down the street, saying her rosary as people lay low in the dark behind their half-opened shutters. She came back two days later, haggard and unrecognizable, followed by the taunts of the beggars roaring with laughter to see her walk with open legs like a cripple. We hear her sob at night. No one dares rescue her. She’s a suspect. One of those who has been marked by Calédu, a man chosen expressly by the police to tame this little town famous for its arrogance and prejudices.
In three days it will be my birthday and they want to throw me a party. I don’t care for it. I have no interest in being on display. I’ll still make a cake, so no one will say that I’m a cheapskate … “A chocolate cake,” Annette adds with a comically avid expression, “just like you know how to make.” Yes, but where will I find the chocolate? Well, she’s going to have to make do with what’s on the table. She is brimming with life. She must be temptation itself for Jean Luze. He eyes her greedily, unwittingly. With every subtle movement, her long legs trace riveting arabesques. His courage and will are wearing thin. Félicia has not left her room in two days. They must feel as if they’re alone, more uninhibited. Is Annette really going to overcome Jean Luze’s resistance? He often gives her these long looks that make me tremble. Maybe I’m getting more out of all that he gives her. I’m getting more than she is. What a miracle!
“Monsieur Long gave me two bottles of whiskey,” Jean Luze announces. “I’ll invite him to the party.”
“Fine,” nods Félicia.
“What about the commandant?” Annette asks.
“No,” I protest forcefully.
“Oh! You know,” she says coldly, “we are no longer living in the days of our dear parents. Prejudice is out of fashion.”
“This has nothing to do with prejudice,” I reply.
“We should still have him over once in a while,” prudent Félicia adds cautiously. “What good would it do to turn him against us?”
“Everyone receives him,” Annette insists, “even Madame Camuse. If he sours on us, what then?”
“Do you have something against him, Claire?” asks Félicia. “Of course what happened to Dora is most appalling. But she has always been heedless …”
“He’s not a bad guy, you know,” says Annette. “He has his orders. He can’t ignore them. In any case, he’s a handsome soldier. He’s a wonderful dancer and always brings gifts for the ladies. Just the other day, he brought back a magnificent necklace to Corrine Laplanche from Port-au-Prince.”
“Well, it’s normal for someone like Corrine Laplanche to accept his presents, but not you,” Félicia retorted.
“Why?”
“Because your name is Annette Clamont.”
“That’s rubbish,” Annette cried. “Corrine Laplanche is better educated than all the Clamont sisters put together. The only difference is that her parents don’t belong to good society, as you so often like to say, that’s all. And anyway, her mother, Élina Jean-François, was a classmate of Claire’s … Isn’t that right, Claire?