Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [73]
“Are you so unhappy with your lot?” he asked me.
“Why do you ask me that?”
“You look a little desperate sometimes …”
“Me!”
“Yes, you. And now you’ve fallen into the habit of sacrificing yourself, and people take advantage. It’s not fair …”
I bristle at his pity and interrupt him.
“All of that doesn’t matter.”
“But of course it does.”
He put his hands on my shoulders in a friendly and affectionate way.
“You have a hard time accepting things, Claire,” he went on, “and you live in a state of perpetual revolt. You’ll end up miserable all your life, like me. I’d like to help.”
“You! …”
The word came out of my mouth like a scream.
He dragged a few puffs from his cigarette without looking at me.
“You are like me,” he added, “I see it more and more every day. I happen to know the reason for those lines in your forehead. You have to forget Calédu, you must calm your sense of outrage. Do you know what happens to people like us? Do you know what they can expect?”
And in a halting voice, as if he was pulling the words out of himself, he said:
“I was only eighteen when I went to fight against the Germans. My father died the year before and I left my mother and sister back home. We were poor; they needed me. I only had one desire: to kill Germans and avenge us. I left and was dispatched to the trenches, into the thick of the fighting. A cold rage kept me going and I slaughtered Germans at point-blank range. I kept track of how many in a notebook, and in four years I killed about fifty. I was gravely wounded and sent to the hospital clutching my own guts, dying. Back home, I learned that my sister and my mother were both dead, and I found work far away from my country, seeking in vain to forget and to heal my soul. I had done what everyone calls my duty, but to this day I am still convinced that the war robbed me of my mother and my sister, who both died of anguish and poverty …”
“There won’t be another war,” I said.
“So I guess you don’t keep up with what’s going on in the world, my dear Claire!” he replied. “If my country ever fights Germany again I know that I will give up my wife and son. Nothing could stop me from leaving, nothing.”
He remained quiet for a while, then, throwing his cigarette out the window, he seemed to make a visible effort to control his emotions.
“Well, let’s set aside that wretched conversation and take care of this little cherub. As they say so well here, God is good, and there will be no war.”
He tried to feed Jean-Claude. Two little hands greedily closed around his.
“My little guy! My little guy!” he said, happy.
They belong so much to me that I feel like crying with joy No one will ever take them from me.
Sentiment rules the world. Cynics swear otherwise until one day it finally catches them. We are all in search of that “grain of sand” that will reconcile us with ourselves. Even those who are jaded end up dragging their boredom all over the world in the same hope. I have even forgotten about Calédu and his people. Jean-Claude and his father are healing me. I have recklessly broken the dikes. I’ve cupped a hand over my own “grain of sand.” I have transferred to these two beings all the love that was in my heart. Hatred has left me. I keep out everything that could distract me from this wonderful feeling.
Yesterday while Annette was there, Jean Luze needed a book in order to discuss it at greater length with Joël Marti. He looked for it in the library to no avail and called me over to ask about it.
“I can’t find that History of Religions I left here.”
“That book is in my room,” I felt obliged to admit.
“In your room?” he said, surprised. “Are you reading it?”
“I’m rereading it.”
He looked at me skeptically.
“No.”
“You’re surprised I read—do you think I’m an idiot?”
My tone was so bitter for once that he looked at me as if he didn’t know me.
“Here’s your book,” I said, giving it to him.