Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [147]
But in reality that’s nothing. There’s worse. The crippled beggars dug into the mountains somewhere, with neither food nor water, nor voodoo drums nor dancing, nor clairin nor tafia.12 They’re extraordinary, Haiti’s blacks. Even when they’ve been reduced to their last extremity they cling to life like a cherished possession. The moment the devils leave town and someone beats the drum and distributes tafia, you will see them come down, thinner than living skeletons, whirling, drunk, lopsided, possessed, resurrected, transformed. Cocobés,13 famine-crazed, flea-ridden, they ward off danger as best they can: with visits to the voracious houngans14 who extort every last coin they’ve harvested in the course of a long day of going up and down begging, with prayers to every saint in heaven, with simples15 and charms to protect them from evil spirits. Now go and try to get them to come out of the woods where they’ve hidden. The devils are there to settle their devil business; no one will get mixed up with this and pay for all the broken eggs. The beggars were the first to vanish from circulation. The devils would be clever indeed if they ever managed to smoke them out.
André, beside me, has a pitiful expression. He’s just discovered the marassas dishes and knows why the bottle of syrup is empty. But he doesn’t dare say anything. He too has his own loas and will not judge me. He is a mystic who lives in communion with a whole mass of things he sees in his dreams and even in broad day, their meaning depending on how he interprets each symbol. For now, despite his hunger, he cautiously keeps quiet in the presence of the gods of Guinea because it is said that they are greedy when it comes to offerings and libations.
“Why all this?” he asks me. “You don’t even believe in it. You have always boasted of being tough, one of those who turn neither to prayer nor to loas. Without faith what can this accomplish? Why did you lay Christ down on the floor? What do you expect from him, you who don’t believe in miracles?”
His pure and beautiful face makes me forget the ugliness of the devils. And also, he heals me from my fear.
“Put the Christ back where your mother left it and put the dishes back in the trunk. It’s bad luck to invoke God and the loas without believing in them. I drank religion with my mother’s milk. I grew up with a shrine of saints and loas in our bedroom. The fear of displeasing them is rooted in me. None of this could ever be uprooted by books. You play tough, but me, I remain humbly prostrate before their power.”
“I’m afraid as well …”
“Fear is not enough.”
“God welcomes lost sheep back into the fold.”
“The loas are the gods of the blacks of Africa. God is universal. The loas are taking revenge because the blacks were deserted and enslaved and persecuted, and so voodoo will someday rally them together. But you are not a black man.”
“Am I a white man?”
“No. You’re not a white man either.”
“If you have no idea who I am, leave me alone and listen. The gods are here to teach us to depend on our own strength. The God who created me will give me the courage to defeat the devils. God has done His godly duty by putting us on this earth. He expects us to raise ourselves up to Him through sheer will. You’re right, I panicked for a minute. I am going to put the Christ back in its place and the dishes in the trunk.”
He’s afraid. He’s struggling between the horror of seeing me mock these pious relics in his presence and the desire to keep them within reach so he can take comfort from them once in a while.
“I won’t stop you from praying anymore,” I promise him.
“Who could stop me from praying?” he replies.
The sound of footsteps interrupts us. No, it’s something else. We throw ourselves against the wall. A few small,