a reminder of what awaits me. I don’t dare unplug the hole. Dong … dong … dong … The bell keeps tolling in its mournful reverberation. Could that be Father Angelo burying the dead under the very noses of the devils? Bravo, Father Angelo! There’s a real man under that cassock of yours. I immediately get up. Now I am resolved. I am going to leave and rouse the town. As cowardly as they may be, they will have to come out of their lairs to listen to me. I am waiting for Jacques and André to fall asleep to open the door. Perhaps I’ll die. But no matter! First I will alert Commandant Cravache. He’ll have to prove his courage, justify his epaulettes and medals, and outdo himself, for fear of an official report. I will also notify the mayor, that fat bastard who does nothing but fuck Laurette, the prostitute on rue des Saints. Like it or not, he’ll also answer the call and for once work to save our town, along with the prefect and Dr. Prémature, who carry weapons as well. They seem harmless and absolutely hopeless next to the devils. All the same, I am secretly convinced that, once the fight begins, the devils will find in them the most terrible of adversaries. Unless, of course, they panic and run first. You never know what to expect from these monkeys. In any case, it falls to me to set an example, to make them come out of their torpor. I will have weapons of my own. Molotov cocktails that I will light but not throw at the devils. Who knows how they will react to fire? I am going to try to communicate with Cécile before throwing myself into this adventure—a dangerous one, I have no illusions about that. Though in my weakened state I’ve been rambling, frolicking in the past, I still feel that I am in possession of all my faculties. My black mother didn’t nurse me for two years for nothing. I am filled with no less courage and fervor than Samson leading his Israelite brethren. From the beginning, I’ve known that once my plan was ripe I would not back out. Only a Haitian, however well intentioned and determined, is unable to consider death without thinking for days about what could have been, what should have been and what will never be. A hairsbreadth away from death, I will dream of a final spasm on top of a juicy black woman’s soft round belly. I will close my eyes with Cécile’s braids flowing over my face. And death will be nothing but a game for me. I think of her black eyes, her black hair, her plum-brown skin, as I rip open my mother’s old pillow for cotton.
“What are you doing?” André asks me.
“Nothing. Sleep, sleep.”
Jacques snores quietly on his side, head in his poems.
I am watching André out of the corner of my eye. As soon as I catch him closing his eyes, I rummage in the trunk and find six empty bottles. I squat and start stuffing them with cotton, my back turned to my friends. I wet the cotton with alcohol and stick the matchbox in my pocket. That’s it! I’m ready. Where is the army of devils right now? That’s what I am trying to find out as I look outside through the hole. The bells toll. Dong! Dong! Dong! And nothing else save a terrible humming, as if thousands of insects were flying around me. But there’s not a single insect. Not even a mosquito. Nothing. Maybe it’s just the screaming silence that a human ear can make out only when everything is quiet. In any case something mysterious is happening in the room: two stars fly out of my eyes dancing and then flee through the keyhole. I run to the door and see two eyes staring at me from outside. Someone is there, I’m sure of it. Putting a finger to my lips, I wake up André:
“There is someone behind the door,” I say to him.
He quietly leaps onto his knees and clasps his trembling hands together.
“Don’t move,” he says to me.
There is a knock at the door.
Jacques wakes up and I put a hand over his mouth.
“The devils?” he whispers to me.
“Hush! Quiet!” André tells him.
And he pulls Jacques toward him and puts an arm around his neck.
We stay there like that, all three of us mute, pouring sweat. I hear bullets whistling, brushing against the roof of the house.