Victoire (17 page)

Such a situation is comparable to that of a writer who, due to circumstances beyond her control, is kept from her computer. What torture! How does she fight that terrible feeling of uselessness that assails her?

At eleven thirty Jeanne would return home from school, perspiring despite the parasol she held over her head, for Le Moule is a stifling town. Hot waves of feverish gusts would blow in from the ocean. Mother and daughter, without a word, would lunch off a salad. Jeanne would leave for school again. At first, during her
absence, Victoire did not get out of the house and stayed cooped up in the cramped interior. Then around four in the afternoon she got into the habit of walking as far as the ocean, the Atlantic on this side of Guadeloupe, raging, boiling, and roaring. It was bordered by a promenade, a sort of
malecòn
, planted with thatch palms. Little towns, like little countries, don’t like strangers, those who come from God knows where. They sniff them with distrust, for danger lurks in the folds of their clothes. The inhabitants of Le Moule would watch Victoire. “The new schoolmistress’s mother” boded no good. She would walk, machinelike, absorbed in her thoughts. Sometimes she would sit on a bench, savoring the sea breeze. Jeanne finished school at five in the afternoon. She would return home, her parasol under her arm, preceded by a pupil proud to be carrying the exercise books. In the light of an oil lamp she sat engrossed in her corrections, while Victoire remained outside on a bench. Women selling grilled peanuts and
topinambos
set up shop not far from her on the sidewalk, but did not engage in conversation with the stranger. The night gradually closed in around her motionless figure, the racket of the insects grew louder, and the great voice of the ocean intensified into a howling roar.

I interviewed Léonie X, who has lived all her life in the anchorage district and as a child used to see Victoire. “She scared me,” she confided in me. “All alone in the dark. Maman convinced me she was
gagé,
had made a pact with the devil to leave her skin on the side of the road and turn herself into a dog. Sometimes she lit a pipe and it glowed like a big eye.”

One Sunday in December, an event somewhat out of the ordinary came to trouble the morning routine. The sound of a Cleveland automobile roaring past the church, in front of which the faithful out of high mass were still chattering, drew a crowd of neighbors. Boniface, with aviator goggles and muffler, stepped out of the car while the neighbors in their curiosity rushed out onto their doorsteps. He shyly planted his lips on Victoire’s forehead and asked how she was.

“Sa ou fè?”

“An bien mèsi.”

He had brought a gift: a gramophone, a highly sophisticated English make that had cost him a fortune, together with a box of records. Since he had been guided by whatever took his fancy, his choice was somewhat disparate. It included beguines, Christmas carols, and patriotic hymns such as “The Song of Departure.” Nevertheless, he had not forgotten Anne-Marie’s favorite work, Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, or an assortment of opera excerpts. Thus, failing her cooking, Victoire rediscovered the joy of music and the melodies from
Carmen:

L’amour est enfant de Bohême
Il n’a jamais jamais connu de loi

Boniface’s visit lasted exactly thirty minutes. As soon as he had downed a glass of
shrubb
prepared by Victoire since it was Christmas, he asked to be excused because of the long drive back to La Pointe. In actual fact it was too painful for him to be near his beloved Victoire and not take her in his arms. Above all, it was especially difficult to put up with Jeanne’s gaze as she sat in a corner stiff as a poker: a mixture of disapproval, contempt, and anger. Confronted with such a look, everything that had bound him to Victoire for so many years became dirty, sordid, and guilt-ridden. As I have already said, relations between Jeanne and Boniface had considerably deteriorated well before her departure for Versailles. Once the best of friends, on the rue de Nassau they no longer spoke to each other; Jeanne would merely offer her forehead for a kiss each morning before stiffly taking her place at the breakfast table. There had never been a declaration of war between them, but a chill that prevented any communication.

Boniface’s visit was the cause of the first quarrel between Jeanne and Victoire. Quarrel, moreover, is not the right word. It implies a sharp exchange of words, even insults. In the case in point, it was
rather a monologue on the part of Jeanne, who, without ever raising her voice, expressed her irritation with Victoire sitting mute and withdrawn. The reasons for her anger could be summed up by her concern about what the neighbors would say. What will the neighbors think, seeing this white Creole sweep into their house as if he owned it? How could they think of them as respectable women?

In fact this first “quarrel,” which was to be followed by a few others for the same reason, set a pattern. Victoire never opened her mouth or defended herself. Each time, she remained mute, as if petrified by her daughter’s words. Like many children, Jeanne was possessive and therefore unfair. She could not allow Victoire to have feelings of affection for anyone but herself. Certainly not for Anne-Marie, and even less for Boniface. Although Jeanne was never attached to the socialist ideas of the time and seemed to me totally apolitical, in her eyes these white Creoles had merely exploited Victoire. Mainly she tensed up thinking of Boniface, who had shamefully abused her body. She sincerely hoped that no pleasure or emotion had come out of their embraces. She could not understand how Victoire could like living on the rue de Nassau and consider it home, where absolutely nothing belonged to her, not even the Regency room that housed her miserable personal effects in a wooden trunk, not even the bed she slept on. She could not understand either why she had never tried out anything else besides being a servant at the Jovials or the Walbergs, or imagined another setting for her life.

Boniface never came back to Le Moule, although he constantly sent Victoire presents by the driver of the charabanc that soon replaced the diligence. Presents as ill-assorted as his choice of music: an alarm clock concealed in a Swiss chalet, a coffee grinder, some lavender water, and, most surprising of all, a dozen Cholet cloth tea towels.

T
HIRTEEN
 

Le Moule had no cultural life to speak of. The only events that brought a little distraction were the religious festivals of Easter, the Feast of the Assumption, and Christmas. In such a monotonous existence, the round of visits to the club of Grands Nègres constituted an essential element.

Lest we forget, her job as an elementary school teacher, one of the first black elementary school teachers, invested Jeanne with a heavy responsibility. Despite her young age, she was now enrolled in the embryo of the bourgeoisie. She therefore had to form alliances with the members of this prestigious club.

The round of visits was made on Sundays.

On those afternoons, Jeanne dressed to the nines, dabbed herself with perfume, then fastened around her neck the gold choker she had bought with her first wages since everyone was sized up by her collection of jewelry. She then slipped on her silk stockings and patent leather pumps. A little mascara around the eyebrows, a little lipstick, and some rouge on her cheeks. Then, flanked by her mother, who had put on her best
golle
dress, she turned the key in the door, opened her parasol, and set off. A list of personalities was engraved in her head, for she couldn’t afford to forget anybody, otherwise
she would have made formidable enemies for herself: Monsieur So-and-So, first black physician; Monsieur So-and-So, first black pharmacist; Monsieur W——, first lawyer; Monsieur X——, first magistrate; Monsieur Y——, first customs inspector; Monsieur Z——, first court bailiff, et cetera, et cetera, while most of the batch comprised the first black elementary school teachers.

In immaculate drawing rooms smelling of wax polish, not a grain of dust on the Honduras mahogany furniture, while guests savored the coconut sorbet to the grate of the ice cream maker operated by a servant in the yard, the conversation would turn to politics. Jean-Hégésippe Légitimus was no longer the sole leader. The quarrel was raging around Achille René-Boisneuf, his sworn enemy whose wit was legendary. Hadn’t this hotheaded polemist called Légitimus a “ghost” because of his chronic absenteeism at the National Assembly in Paris as well as at the Conseil Général in Guadeloupe? Some people were accusing him of being a traitor, who had denounced the “politics of race,” and never failed to include a dutiful speech on serving the Race like a priest serving God, and the example that should be given to their unfortunate brothers still plunged in the hell of ignorance.

The most formidable of the Grands Nègres in Le Moule were without doubt M. and Mme. Outremont Faustin, who lived in a charming upstairs-downstairs house on the square in front of the church. The house has miraculously resisted the onslaught of the demolition workers and still exists not far from the multimedia library. Outremont, a dermatologist with a degree from Toulouse University, was married to Emma Boisfer, who taught music at the Catholic school for girls, La Voie Droite. Emma did not gain her reputation because of her fourth certificate of merit for singing, but because of her brother Sylandre. Sylandre had studied at the National School of France Overseas and numbered among the colonial governors from the Antilles since he had been appointed to Oubangui-Chari. Numerous photos showed him in full uniform parading among scarred but smiling Africans. The Faustins were
a handsome couple. Monsieur Faustin, built massively like Paul Robeson, also sang with a bass voice. Madame Faustin was slender and graceful. Jogging enthusiasts before jogging became fashionable, they covered several miles before dawn every morning. The first time Jeanne introduced herself, her heart was pounding wildly, since it was a well-known fact they were scathing in their comments and made and broke reputations. Like every other examination, however, she passed this one with flying colors. The Faustins never stopped singing her praises: a little cold perhaps, but remarkable from every point of view. As for the mother, however, their verdict was irrevocable: she was impossible.

I have to admit that Victoire in fact was a problem.

Sitting on the edge of her Hepplewhite chair, she didn’t say a word throughout all the conversations because she was incapable of handling French, that weapon without which all the doors of civilization remain closed. At the time, however, thanks to lessons by Valérie-Anne, she managed to memorize a few phrases:

“I’m very well, thank you.”

“And how about you?”

“God willing.”

“May it please God.”

Unfortunately, she was not gifted. She would overdo the pronunciation with the most comical of effects. Sometimes, she would quite simply muddle everything up. For example, to the question “How are you, Madame Quidal?” she would invariably reply “God willing,” despite the exasperated reprimands of Jeanne, who would lecture her like a child before they went out.

Soon, at the initiative of the Faustins or at least with their collusion, the Grands Nègres of Le Moule nicknamed her Madame Godwilling. But matters did not rest there. A neighbor reported the shocking visit by Boniface Walberg and a blaze of gossip began, kindled by the wind of maliciousness. Hadn’t she been his mistress? But her daughter was too black, much too black to be his child. Who was the father? As a result, they dug up the past in Marie-Galante
to discover that under her hypocritically pious air, Victoire had been a first-rate
bòbò
and a man-eater. Before Boniface Walberg, she had been the mistress of a Dulieu-Beaufort who, after he had finished with her, passed her on to his cousin. Not surprising there was such a pig swill! Mulatto women were known to have the hots. Oddly, nobody thought of Dernier Argilius, since the hero was above all suspicion. This mockery and malicious gossip got back to the ears of Jeanne and Victoire. We don’t know what the mother thought, always impassive and walled in silence. It is quite likely that she was not too affected since she was used to being excluded. But I know that the daughter was divided between distress and helpless rage.

It would have been easy enough to stop frequenting such a collection of snobs and bad-mouthers. But Jeanne was incapable of doing such a thing. For her this was Desirada, the promised island for the sailors of Christopher Columbus, reached after days of misadventures. For better or for worse she had to carve out a place for herself. So Sunday after Sunday she started all over again her stations of the cross.

It was then, for once, that God himself intervened.

The priest in Le Moule knew Reverend Father Moulinet from the church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul in La Pointe. The latter knew all about Victoire’s culinary gifts, which on Sundays he had often been invited to sample. He told his colleague of the treasure that Le Moule had in its breast. The priest in Le Moule concocted the idea therefore of asking Victoire to cook for his soup kitchen. A modest edifice built of corrugated iron and wooden planks, answering to the wonderful name of the Open Door, served a hundred or so meals every day to the
maléré
of Le Moule. Victoire did not accept the proposition without the approval of Jeanne, who hesitated for a long time. In the case in point, however, cooking amounted to honoring God, and she ended up approving.