Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [28]
These last few days, I have seen Annette lie in wait for him in vain, at the top of the stairs, in the living room, by the door of her room. He has managed to foil her schemes without even noticing them. She does not know what else she can come up with to seduce him. Yesterday, she came out of her bedroom in a bathing suit she made herself and, under the pretext that she was unable to close the bra, she placed herself in Jean Luze’s capable hands. She met with a friendly tap on the shoulder and the following words:
“There you go!” was the entire outcome.
I hated him at that moment. I felt as if all this trouble was for nothing.
He is more elusive than ever. His attitude is outrageous by its very excess of correctness. You had me once, but I won’t fall back in your nets, he wants Annette to understand. This is neither a game nor flirtation on his part. In one fell swoop, he has swept memory clean. What is desire, then, if it cannot be rekindled once it’s been satisfied? How would I handle being pushed away? Was life trying to spare me until now by keeping me away from these kinds of disappointing realities? Am I provoking it by desperately throwing myself into an adventure with no exit? My feelings for this man have taken so much space in my life that I can’t free myself from them. Nothing seems to move him. It could make a woman lose her mind. Annette had Bob kiss her right before his eyes to provoke him. He gazed at them with sweet indolence, like an angel, which was worse than a slap in the face.
Bravo for Father Paul! Bravo for Eugénie Duclan! It rained yesterday. A torrential deluge that lasted four hours. The weather hasn’t improved since. Fat dirty gray clouds hang like rags in the sky. We wade through the mud puddles like pigs. The potholed streets have become ponds. The indifferent ship loads the wood piled high on the pier. Business on that end is booming. M. Long, red as a rooster, manages the operation himself. The peasants have faces like whipped dogs. They sulk and hold out their hands for their payment as they look away into the distance at the devastated hillside. Huge white patches have spread on the mountain like leprosy. Immense rocks stick out of its sides like gravestones. They stand there, dressed in union blues, barefoot, their halforts10 across their shoulders, faces twisted with displeasure.
“Our land is finished,” one of them says. “We cut down too many trees.”
“I said don’t do it! Don’t do it!” cries another. “We should have created a coalition and refused all offers. But black hill folk11 never stick together. They are weak with the white men and the bourgeois. Here comes the rain again and our land is finished. The American is getting rich and the others with him. They are all against us.”
The mayor and the prefect accompany M. Long to the office, a small building with the following inscription: LONG & CO., EXPORT CORP. This is where Jean Luze spends long days bent over paperwork. He knows all of their secrets. Senior accountant, such is his title, and he keeps track of the numbers, his handsome face bent over their books.
No one suspects him. He’s a white man. And a white man can only side with M. Long. He hears them talking. And he learns a great deal from the time spent with them.
I watch for Jean Luze from my windows. It is four and he should be returning from work. I’m holding the paper knife he gave me yesterday, saying:
“You spoil me, so I’ll spoil you too. No, it’s true, you’re a grand girl. Look at this, it’s from Mexico. It’s a dagger. One of the best. Something to remember me by.”
“Are you leaving?”
“One never knows! …”
He’s not happy. How can we possibly hold on to him? If he leaves, what will become of me? How do we change things here? For the first time in my life, I shall redouble my efforts toward the common cause. I will transform this place into the piece of paradise he has yearned for.
I’m playing my last card. Tonight is the ball in honor of Annette’s birthday, which was three days ago. For this, I have overcome my repugnance and made the most awful concession.