Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [92]
“Teach your daughter to fear God,” he advised sententiously “even if you don’t fear Him yourself. That’s my advice to you.”
He hadn’t meant to complete his thought out loud and had spoken almost despite himself. He saw her shrug and reply:
“For what could God reproach her?”
“You think she’s so innocent?”
“Yes,” she answered with dignity, “I think she is.”
“God willing, you’re right,” the grandfather replied simply. “God willing, you’re right.”
CHAPTER SIX
… That afternoon, the grandfather had the maid bring the invalid to church. Once he found a seat, he took him on his knees and sent Mélie back to wait on the porch. From his pulpit, the Haitian priest delivered a sermon that displeased him because he spoke of obedience and acceptance not of the laws of heaven but of what passed for law in the kingdom of this world.
“We must learn to submit,” the priest was saying. “We must learn to resign ourselves, for nothing happens on earth without God’s will.”
A few people turned to stare at the grandfather. And for a moment he had the unpleasant feeling that the sermon was directed at him. “Should I, too,” he felt like shouting, “Should I, too, resign myself to having my father’s grave profaned and his bones dug up?” He knew the priest would reply: “Yes, if such be God’s will.” And therefore he had gone astray, for rebellion and vengeance swelled within him. Jesus chased the thieves from the Temple with a whip, and my father imitated him. Was he wrong? he wondered. No, and even when he stuck a knife in the back of that incorrigible thief who had managed to bribe the judges and get the law on his side, he was right that time too. After all, since when did a man, a real man, allow what is his to be taken away against his will? And the grandfather wanted to spit in the faces of all these curs, beginning with his own son. He left the church irate, the invalid in his arms. If the Church was on the side of the thieves, he might as well pray at home from now on. And God would in the end understand that the Church had sunk into corruption.
Jacob called out to him just as he was opening his house gate. He would not have stopped but the heavy silence that followed the sound of his name made him turn his head to make sure he had heard right. Jacob was standing in a doorway and gesticulating like an old puppet. The grandfather wondered what this mute commotion was all about. He entrusted the invalid to the maid and went to his neighbor’s. Mme Saint-Hilare craned her head, her features contorted by the effort. She saw Jacob’s door open and the men embrace.
“I’ve been waving to you for the past five days. My old friend, my dear old friend!”
“Yes,” the grandfather replied, “but five days ago you would have come over when you wanted to talk to me.”
“Alas, I haven’t been well. My sciatica. I can barely walk.”
And indeed, he was dragging himself about wearing horrible dust-green slippers on his feet.
“I wanted to send a note with the maid but she refused to take it to your house.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the … the men who set themselves up on your land. She claims that one of her brothers was executed by them.”
Only then did the grandfather realize that his friend sounded as though he had lost his voice. That was especially striking, for Jacob had a stentorian voice that he had never been able to control. Often during their endless card games the grandfather would scold him because he frightened the nervous invalid and sometimes startled him awake during his nap.
“The neighborhood is stunned,” Jacob continued. “The Demarquis don’t dare step outside, and Madame Saint-Hilare has been ill, suffering from shock. In any case, thank God you are all in one piece … Dear friend, I just wanted to give you a piece of advice: play dead, forget about the land. Life is more precious than property. If you are not too afraid to venture out this evening, come by for a card game. I’ll leave my door open. No one will see, no one will know.”
The grandfather thanked him, repressing the urge to insult him. Just