Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [151]
“‘Do you have a voodoo shrine at home?’
“‘Yes,’ I said to him.
“‘Destroy it,’ he advised me, ‘or the devils will take hold of you.’
“I went eight days without being able to sleep. My mother was already dead and it was to me, as the oldest, that she had entrusted her loas. I wasn’t doing anything wrong by giving them food and drink even if Jacques and I were hungry. And it seemed to me that Brother Justinien didn’t understand anything since he was French.”
“There you go!” Jacques protests. “So you want to hear me scream again.”
“Don’t scream, I’m begging you, you’re going to sit down in that corner like a good boy and keep quiet. There you are, some paper and a pencil, write us a nice poem.”
“That’s it, I’ll write a poem about the devils. Unfortunately, I didn’t look at them. I did see a horde of strange people in the street who cheered as I went by but I couldn’t tell whether or not they were devils. I should have thought to take a good look when one of them called me a genius.”
“Write about something else,” I recommend paternally “forget the devils. You’re safe here.”
He sniffs around, glances around for a chair, and seeing that they are barricading the door, sits on the floor and, eyes raised, absorbs himself in the composition of a poem.
André and I should be careful not to show our terror in his presence. He is frail and sickly. He had a nervous breakdown when he was fifteen and his mother, beating herself up for neglecting the loas, paid a houngan to treat him. She ruined herself. She died of consumption. She spit up every last drop of blood in her body. And the houngan was there by her bedside to accuse her mercilessly of treason and indifference toward the loas.
This recollection makes me uneasy.
What’s the use of religion if it oppresses instead of consoling? If it offers despair instead of relief? If it takes away instead of preserving? André is kneeling in prayer. Where does his mysticism come from? I saw my mother serving her loas constantly and I coldly received the sacred legacy from her hands. I pray to the loas and invoke them with the conviction of an actor in a play.
“Hamming it up!” Simon once said to me, “you’re no more a believer than I am. You can’t reinvent yourself. We are both impervious to the notion of religion.”
He’s wrong. I love Jesus, not as wonder-worker, not as Son of the Holy Spirit, but as man, because he preached love and compassion. Is that incompatible with religion? André prays. He prays furiously But something tells me that I am closer to God than he is. God is tired of prayers. God is tired of recriminations. God is tired of requests. God is tired of our resignation. Who knows if He didn’t open the gates of our town to the devils in order to make us come out of ourselves. The Grand-rue and its smugness! Mme Fanfreluche and her jewels! Mme Fanfreluche and her high heels, making her entrance at high mass, haughty and disdainful. Magistral’s widow and her daughter Cécile! Cécile! Cécile! As far as you’re concerned, I give you the benefit of the doubt. You received my poem with laughter, but in the depths of your eyes there was something like sunshine. And those who have a little sunshine deep inside them can’t be completely lost. I hold onto an imperishable memory of you. It was on Christmas Eve, at Brother Justinien’s. The tree was shining with multicolored lights. We sang “Silent Night” and “O Christmas Tree.” Brother Justinien said:
“Everyone take one little bundle. They’re from Father Christmas.”
We rushed at the bundles. I undid mine and was appalled: there were just a dozen marbles, but you, you were holding a beautiful pocketknife that I had so often admired at Mme Fanfreluche’s store. You looked at me and said:
“Take the knife too. I’m a girl. I don’t need a knife.”
And I took it. I was twelve and you ten …
Would you love me if I were famous? Would you love me if I defeated the devils?
André keeps praying and Jacques keeps writing. Peace