Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [83]
The stakes planted thirty meters from the house plainly separated it from the land—encircled it, in other words. Now the porch was the only means of egress. The grandfather thought he could see a whole host of dark silhouettes under the oaks and he nervously searched his pockets for his glasses. But there was nothing moving save the leafy branches of the trees on their hundred-year-old trunks. The freshly whitewashed grave of the ancestor stood out under the green of the lemon trees he had planted himself. Being a stubborn and superstitious peasant, he had demanded to be buried in that spot, swearing to look after his lands in death as well as he had while he was alive. And his son, who was only twenty then, could do nothing but obey.
“I will get him out of his grave,” the grandfather whispered. “I will get him out of his grave.” And angrily he began to pull on his wiry goatee.
Across the street, in a newer-looking house with stone walls and picture windows, he saw his friend Jacob, a Syrian who got rich quick selling American fabric. At dawn he had already caught him watching from behind the shutters, and he chased away an unpleasant thought that had been running through his mind from the moment he stepped on the porch. He guessed he was being watched by many eyes and he feigned indifference, walking around as casually as he did every morning, trying not to look at the houses next door. He returned to the dining room where his son’s wife, a light-skinned mulatto woman, had in the meantime come down and was eating. He sat down across from her in silence, crossed himself and mumbled a prayer.
“Claude isn’t up?” she asked him.
At that very moment, a sulky young voice called for help. The grandfather, pushing away his chair, went up the stairs and returned carrying a scrawny eight-year-old child with a pale yellow face and two immense, burning black eyes. A young woman, putting the last touches to her outfit, followed them. The grandfather had the child sit while the young woman served herself café au lait and drank it standing. She was a brunette with long thick hair that curled up around her head and fell back in a ponytail on the nape of her neck. Her dark skin gleamed gold in parts of her face, especially the cheeks, which made it seem like discreet makeup.
“Sit down, Rose,” her mother said.
Paul was watching her lap up the melted sugar in her cup and thought she looked like a pretty cat with its face deep in a dish.
She’s thin and fetching. Only a black woman can manage to be both thin and fetching: must have something to do with the shape of her rear end, he told himself. And he remembered how she had slapped his rich and smug friend Fred for having tried to kiss her. Thin, fetching without knowing it, but serious. Probably not an easy girl, he thought again. And he looked away from her, not without a feeling of pride.
“In the name of the Father, the Son,” the grandfather began again for the child. “Let us pray that God spares us and let us ask Him to inspire us so we may defeat the evil within us and around us.”
And as he spoke, his gaze rested on his daughter-in-law, who visibly avoided it.
“Eat, Claude,” she said to the child.
Breaking off some bread, she gave him some.
“Let me be, Mama, I’m not a baby anymore,” he protested impatiently.
And he smiled at the grandfather who treated him like a man.
“You promised me a story,” he said to him.
“Have I ever been untrue to my word?” the grandfather asked him.
The boy spilled a little coffee on himself, and the mother quickly wiped his mouth.
“Be careful, sweetie.”
“I am not a girl, only girls are called sweetie,” he retorted without mercy.
“Fine. From now on I will only call you Claude.”
“Yes, Claude, that’s our name, grandfather’s and mine.” He gestured to the old man, who took him in his arms as he rose.
“Let’s go