brought up, once again, the cities bombed by the American Air Force, the bloody debacle of the leaders: Charlemagne Péralte assassinated, tied up naked to a wooden door and displayed in a public square; and Benoît Batraville, killed some months later. The volume rose. Some of them, like the judge, spoke of their sense of honor, pounding their chests as they went on, of an unbounded love for their homeland. Some of the others, like the chief of police and Anastase Mésidor, vaunted the benefits of this civilizing presence that was finally going to put an end to the fratricidal fights of the savages we were. “Yes, all, we are savages!” In saying the word “savage,” Anastase noticed Bonal standing in front of the store and beckoned him with his finger, with an insistence that didn’t reassure the latter. Albert Frétillon had acquiesced to all of these opinions. Absolutely. The future and prosperity of his business depended on this total absence of opinion, on this conviction that had been planted in him, that we the peasants would never grow up.
Bonal took off his old straw hat and flashed them his biggest smile. He even let himself, as usual, be lulled to the point of vertigo by the subjunctive imperfects and Latin words of these gentlemen—a feeling he’d felt since leaving the notary’s study—and he felt a strange premonition that confirmed this finger pointed at him. Then, addressing this unease, he decided to drown it in the clairin he was dreaming of since the sale of the lands. A real clairin.
At the first sip, just outside of Baudelet, Bonal naturally remembered the offering to make to Legba,* to open the door to family divinities, the offering to Agwé,* so that the ocean would keep feeding them for a long time, and to Zaka,* so that the jardins would be more generous. The earth already seemed lighter to him, suggesting that the sun at its zenith had made a clean world, clear, emptied. He went hurriedly toward the bush, in the direction of Anse Bleue.
Bonal disappeared that same day. Without Zaka, without Agwé, without Legba. Those among us who didn’t want to stand up to the powerful said that drunkenness was the cause of his inexplicable disappearance. Some swore having seen a group of men, riding donkeys, who had, without a doubt, taken Bonal’s money and, then, his life. Others recalled the presence of a goat that stood on the edge of the road and spoke clearly, showing two golden teeth. Some swore they had seen an old woman who, after moving with the light step of young girl, must have disappeared in the gorge at the bottom of the ravine. The whole affair unfolding before the indifferent eyes of two Marines, each with an imposing gun slung over his shoulder.
And each of us added a little more, added a little more…
Trying to clear up all suspicion, Anastase Mésidor sent a messenger by horse to meet Dieula Clémestal, the mother of Bonal’s four children: Orvil, Philogène, Nélius, and Ilménèse. But the anger had already shut Dieula’s jaw shut to the point that she didn’t say a word. Not a single word the whole time the messenger stood before her at the entrance to her hut, awkwardly fidgeting with the hat in his hands.
“Your honor, Madame Bonal! It’s Anastase Mésidor who sends me to tell to you…”
In response, Dieula slowly lit her pipe. Very slowly. Exhaling strongly three times in a row without ever raising her head. Then she spat so loudly and so forcefully that the man left immediately. He did not even dare to turn around before disappearing on his horse at the end of the path.
This scene, as Orvil, Olmène’s father, would often have to repeat later, left him with the first strong and indelible impression of what he was and what this messenger represented. Of who was big and who was not. Who was strong and who was weak. Of the hunter and the prey. Of who charges and who is trampled. Orvil Clémestal was just twelve years old. He and his younger sister Ilménèse hid in the folds of his mother’s skirt.
That night, Bonal appeared to Dieula in a dream—“Like I see you here,” she told her children and all of us. And Bonal had told her everything. Absolutely everything: the sale of the lands, the hidden paths to Baudelet, the finger pointed at him, buying the clairin, and, on the road, a sharp pain in his back. Inflicted by the point of a cutlass. And then nothing. Nothing more.
The next day, with Orvil, her oldest son, she went at dawn, without the slightest hesitation, to the exact place where Bonal’s body was found: at the bottom of a ravine, in the middle of the brambles and bayahondes. Bonal’s pockets were empty and a cloud of flies was swirling around his body, which was starting to swell. We were stunned, shocked, but not the least bit surprised. Dieula only reminded us of the power of dreams, the strength and the solidity of the threads that tied us to the Invisibles. We cried out our pain, and then we silenced ourselves. Returning to our placidity. To our place. To our peasant silence.
Bonal’s service had no drums. No wailing. Tears were swallowed. No cries pulled up from the insides of women. No open reminiscing on the life of the deceased. Just the moaning and murmuring among the jerky sway of bodies back and forth. The priests, gendarmes, and Marines knew nothing of it. A lugubrious and sad service whose only sound was the asson,* the prayers, the grief, the songs cornered between throat and mouth. Despite the three sacred words murmured into Bonal’s ear and all of Dieula’s skill, the celebrated mambo,* the deceased didn’t designate anyone among us to welcome his met-tet* and look after our heritage and our blood. The désounin* had failed, and Bonal left carrying his Spirits with him. Those who led him, led his house and protected the lakou.* And we were not sure that he had heard all of our messages to our Dead, to our lwas* and all our Invisibles. So we all were afraid for the protection and life of the lakou.* We were afraid for each one of us.
Once Bonal was buried not far from his house, Dieula called all her Invisibles for a whole day and night. All of them. Her gods and her Spirits. Her Invisibles from the paternal side and those from her maternal side. The brave, the magnetic, the wise, the compassionate, the powerful Ogou Kolokosso, Marinette Pyé-Chèch, Grann Batala Méji, Bossou Trois Cornes, Ti-Jean Pétro, Erzuli Dantò, and all the others…
Two days later, her low chair at the door to her hut, Dieula started to sing a strange psalm that seemed to come from afar. Not from her insides but from further away. From the very heart of the earth.
And it climbed up her legs, into her organs. And from her throat it came out like a thread through a needle until it went beyond the heavens. Not one of us dared to bother her, out of fear of breaking this thread. She sang without ever stopping:
Yo ban mwen kou a
Kou a fè mwen mal o!
M ap paré tann yo
They hit me
The blows hurt me very badly!
I wait for them at the bend
And then, slowly, Dieula got up, put on a rough blue cotton dress, tied a red handkerchief around her head and another around her waist, where she buried an enameled goblet, half of a small empty calabash, and a bag holding her pipe and a little tobacco. She summoned Orvil, her older son, and told him what she had to do and that she would return soon. We saw her disappear on the other side of the Peletier Morne. Without a cent, without bread, without water, she walked in the thickets, the bayahondes, and the bushes, begging for food and shelter, to do penance and plead to her divinities to respond.
Dieula returned the afternoon of the eve of the storm, beneath a wall of menacing clouds. She did not want to be carried away by the powerful current of the Mayonne River, she told us. The penance had lasted a whole month. As proof, her feet were badly beat up and pain radiated from her lower back. Seeing her return, we cried out, wept, and danced. We had all been waiting—at once confident and worried. Dieula was exhausted, but her eyes were clear like the sky after rain. As though in all the time we hadn’t seen her, her eyes had been soaked in light. Or fire.
